BY the end of August 1915, particulars of the coming offensive against La Bassée were beginning to leak through the young staff officers. The French civilians knew about it; and so, naturally, did the Germans. Every night now new batteries and lorry-trains of shells came rumbling up the Béthune-La Bassée road. Other signs of movement included sapping forward at Vermelles and Cambrin, where the lines lay too far apart for a quick rush across, and the joining up of the sap-heads to make a new front line. Also, orders for evacuation of hospitals; the appearance of cavalry and New Army divisions; issue of new types of weapons. Then Royal Engineer officers supervised the digging of pits at intervals along the front line. They were sworn not to reveal what these were for, but we knew that it would be gas-cylinders. Ladders for climbing quickly out of the trenches were brought up by the lorry-load and dumped at Cambrin village. As early as September 3rd I had a bet with Robertson that our division would attack from the Cambrin-Cuinchy line. When I went home on leave six days later, the sense of impending events had become so strong that I almost hated to go.
Leave came round for officers about every six or eight months in ordinary times; heavy casualties shortened the period, general offensives cut leave altogether. Only one officer in France ever refused to go on leave when his turn came – Cross of the Fifty-second Light Infantry (the Second Battalion of the Oxford and Bucks Light Infantry, which insisted on its original style as jealously as we kept our c in Welch). Cross is alleged to have refused leave on the following grounds: ‘My father fought with the regiment in the South African War, and had no leave; my grandfather fought in the Crimea with the regiment, and had no leave. I do not regard it in the regimental tradition to take home-leave when on active service.’ Cross, a professional survivor, was commanding the battalion in 1917 when I last heard of him.
London seemed unreally itself. Despite the number of uniforms in the streets, the general indifference to, and ignorance about, the war surprised me. Enlistment remained voluntary. The universal catch-word was ‘Business as usual’. My family were living in London now at the house formerly occupied by my uncle Robert von Ranke, the German Consul-General. He had been forced to leave in a hurry on August 4th, 1914, and my mother undertook to look after the house for him while the war lasted. So when Edward Marsh rang me up from the Prime Minister’s office at Downing Street to arrange a meal, someone intervened and cut him off – the telephone of the German Consul-General’s sister was, of course, closely watched by the anti-espionage section of Scotland Yard. The Zeppelin scare had just begun. Some friends of the family came in one night, and began telling me of the Zeppelin air-raids, of bombs dropped only three streets off.
‘Well, do you know,’ I said, ‘the other day I was asleep in a house and in the early morning a bomb dropped next door and killed three soldiers who were billeted there, a woman, and a child.’
‘Good gracious,’ they cried, ‘what did you do then?’
‘It was at a place called Beuvry, about four miles behind the trenches,’ I explained, ‘and I was tired out, so I went to sleep again.’ ‘Oh,’ they said, ‘but that happened in France!’ and the look of interest faded from their faces as though I had taken them in with a stupid catch. ‘Yes,’ I agreed, ‘and it was only an aeroplane that dropped the bomb.’
I went up to Harlech for the rest of my leave, and walked about on the hills in an old shirt and a pair of shorts. When I got back to France, ‘The Actor’, a regular officer in ‘A’ Company, asked me: ‘Had a good time on leave?’
‘Yes.’
‘Go to many dances?’
‘Not one.’
‘What shows did you go to?’
‘I didn’t go to any shows.’
‘Hunt?’
‘No.’
‘Slept with any nice girls?’
‘No, I didn’t. Sorry to disappoint you.’
‘What the hell did you do, then?’
‘Oh, I just walked about on some hills.’
‘Good God,’ he said, ‘chaps like you don’t deserve leave!’
On September 19th we relieved the Middlesex Regiment at Cambrin, and were told that these would be the trenches from which we attacked. The preliminary bombardment had already started, a week in advance. As I led my platoon into the line, I recognized with some disgust the same machine-gun shelter where I had seen the suicide on my first night in trenches. It seemed ominous. This was by far the heaviest bombardment from our own guns we had yet seen. The trenches shook properly, and a great cloud of drifting shell-smoke obscured the German lines. Shells went over our heads in a steady stream; we had to shout to make our neighbours hear. Dying down a little at night, the racket began again every morning at dawn, a little louder each time. ‘Damn it,’ we said, ‘there can’t be a living soul left in those trenches.’ But still it went on. The Germans retaliated, though not very vigorously. Most of their heavy artillery had been withdrawn from this sector, we were told, and sent across to the Russian front. More casualties came from our own shorts and blow-backs than from German shells. Much of the ammunition that our batteries were using came from the United States and contained a high percentage of duds; the driving bands were always coming off. We had fifty casualties in the ranks and three officer casualties, including Buzz Off-badly wounded in the head. This happened before steel helmets were issued; we would not have lost nearly so many with those. I got two insignificant wounds on the hand, which I took as a favourable omen.
On the morning of the 23rd, Thomas came back from battalion headquarters carrying a notebook and six maps, one for each of us company officers. ‘Listen,’ he said, ‘and copy out all this skite on the back of your maps. You’ll have to explain it to your platoons this afternoon. Tomorrow morning we go back to dump our blankets, packs, and greatcoats in Béthune. The next day, that’s Saturday the 25th, we attack.’ This being the first definitive news we had been given, we looked up half startled, half relieved. I still have the map, and these are the orders as I copied them down:
FIRST OBJECTIVE – Les Briques Farm – The big house plainly visible to our front, surrounded by trees. To get this it is necessary to cross three lines of enemy trenches. The first is three hundred yards distant, the second four hundred, and the third about six hundred. We then cross two railways. Behind the second railway line is a German trench called the Brick Trench. Then comes the Farm, a strong place with moat and cellars and a kitchen garden strongly staked and wired.
SECOND OBJECTIVE – The Town of Auchy – This is also plainly visible from our trenches. It is four hundred yards beyond the Farm and defended by a first line of trench half way across, and a second line immediately in front of the town. When we have occupied the first line our direction is half-right, with the left of the battalion directed on Tall Chimney.
THIRD OBJECTIVE – Village of Haisnes – Conspicuous by high-spired church. Our eventual line will be taken up on the railway behind this village, where we will dig in and await reinforcements.
When Thomas had reached this point, The Actor’s shoulders were shaking with laughter.
‘What’s up?’ asked Thomas irritably.
The Actor giggled: ‘Who in God’s name is responsible for this little effort?’
‘Don’t know,’ Thomas said. ‘Probably Paul the Pimp, or someone like that.’ (Paul the Pimp was a captain on the divisional staff, young, inexperienced, and much disliked. He ‘wore red tabs upon his chest And even on his undervest.’) ‘Between the six of us, but you youngsters must be careful not to let the men know, this is what they call a “subsidiary attack”. There will be no troops in support. We’ve just got to go over and keep the enemy busy while the folk on our right do the real work. You notice that the bombardment is much heavier over there. They’ve knocked the Hohenzollern Redoubt to bits. Personally, I don’t give a damn either way. We’ll get killed whatever happens.’
We all laughed.
‘All right, laugh now, but by God, on Saturday we’ve got to carry out this funny scheme.’ I had never heard Thomas so talkative before.
‘Sorry,’ The Actor apologized, ‘carry on with the dictation.’
Thomas went on:
The attack will be preceded by forty minutes’ discharge of the accessory,* which will clear the path for a thousand yards, so that the two railway lines will be occupied without difficulty. Our advance will follow closely behind the accessory. Behind us are three fresh divisions and the Cavalry Corps. It is expected we shall have no difficulty in breaking through. All men will parade with their platoons; pioneers, servants, etc., to be warned. All platoons to be properly told off under N.C.O.S. Every N.C.O. is to know exactly what is expected of him, and when to take over command in case of casualties. Men who lose touch must join up with the nearest company or regiment and push on. Owing to the strength of the accessory, men should be warned against remaining too long in captured trenches where the accessory is likely to collect, but to keep to the open and above all to push on. It is important that if smoke-helmets have to be pulled down they must be tucked in under the shirt.
The Actor interrupted again. ‘Tell me, Thomas, do you believe in this funny accessory?’
Thomas said: ‘It’s damnable. It’s not soldiering to use stuff like that, even though the Germans did start it. It’s dirty, and it’ll bring us bad luck. We’re sure to bungle it. Take those new gas-companies – sorry, excuse me this once, I mean accessory-companies – their very look makes me tremble. Chemistry-dons from London University, a few lads straight from school, one or two N.C.O.S of the old-soldier type, trained together for three weeks, then given a job as responsible as this. Of course they’ll bungle it. How could they do anything else? But let’s be merry. I’m going on again:
Men of company: what they are to carry:
Two hundred rounds of ammunition (bomb-throwers fifty, and signallers one hundred and fifty rounds).
Heavy tools carried in sling by the strongest men.
Waterproof sheet in belt.
Sandbag in right tunic-pocket.
Field dressing and iodine.
Emergency ration, including biscuit.
One tube-helmet, to be worn when we advance, rolled up on the head. It must be quite secure and the top part turned down. If possible each man will be provided with an elastic band.
One smoke helmet, old pattern, to be carried for preference behind the back where it is least likely to be damaged by stray bullets, etc.
Wire-cutters, as many as possible, by wiring party and others; hedging gloves by wire party.
Platoon screens, for artillery observation, to be carried by a man in each platoon who is not carrying a tool.
Packs, capes, greatcoats, blankets will be dumped, not carried.
No one is to carry sketches of our position or anything to be likely of service to the enemy.
That’s all. I believe we’re going over first with the Middlesex in support. If we get through the German wire I’ll be satisfied. Our guns don’t seem to be cutting it. Perhaps they’re putting that off until the intense bombardment. Any questions?’
That afternoon I repeated the whole rigmarole to the platoon, and told them of the inevitable success attending our assault. They seemed to believe it. All except Sergeant Townsend. ‘Do you say, sir, that we have three divisions and the Cavalry Corps behind us?’ he asked.
‘Yes,’ I answered.
‘Well, excuse me, sir, I’m thinking it’s only those chaps on the right that’ll get reinforcements. If we get half a platoon of Mons Angels,* that’s about all we will get.’
‘Sergeant Townsend,’ I said, ‘you’re a well-known pessimist. This is going to be a really good show.’
We spent the night repairing damaged trenches.
When morning came we were relieved by the Middlesex, and marched back to Béthune, where we dumped our spare kit at the Montmorency Barracks. The battalion officers messed together in a château near by. This billet was claimed at the same time by the staff of a New Army division, due to take part in the fighting next day. The argument ended amicably with the division and battalion messing together. It was, someone pointed out, like a brutal caricature of The Last Supper in duplicate. In the middle of the long table sat the two pseudo-Christs, our colonel and the divisional general. Everybody was drinking a lot; the subalterns, allowed whisky for a treat, grew rowdy. They raised their glasses with: ‘Cheerio, we will be messing together tomorrow night in La Bassée!’ Only the company commanders were looking worried. I remember ‘C’ Company commander especially, Captain A. L. Samson, biting his thumb and refusing to join in the excitement. I think it was Childe-Freeman of ‘B’ Company who said that night: ‘The last time the regiment visited these parts we were under decent leadership. Old Marlborough had more sense than to attack the La Bassée lines; he masked them and went around.’
The G.S.O.I of the New Army division, a staff-colonel, knew the adjutant well. They had played polo together in India. I happened to be sitting opposite them. The G.S.O.I said, rather drunkenly: ‘Charley, see that silly old woman over there? Calls himself General Commanding! Doesn’t know where he is; doesn’t know where his division is; can’t even read a map properly. He’s marched the poor sods off their feet and left his supplies behind, God knows how far back. They’ve had to use their iron rations and what they could pick up in the villages. And tomorrow he’s going to fight a battle. Doesn’t know anything about battles; the men have never been in trenches before, and tomorrow’s going to be a glorious balls-up, and the day after tomorrow he’ll be sent home.’ Then he ended, quite seriously: ‘Really, Charley, it’s just like that, no exaggeration. You mark my words!’
That night we marched back again to Cambrin. The men were singing. Being mostly from the Midlands, they sang comic songs rather than Welsh hymns: Slippery Sam, When we’ve Wound up the Watch on the Rhine, and I do like a S’nice S’mince Pie, to concertina accompaniment. The tune of S’nice & mince Pie ran in my head all next day, and for the week following I could not get rid of it. The Second Welsh would never have sung a song like When we’ve Wound up the Watch on the Rhine. Their only songs about the war were defeatist:
I want to go home,
I want to go home.
The coal-box and shrapnel they whistle and roar,
I don’t want to go to the trenches no more,
I want to go over the sea
Where the Kayser can’t shoot bombs at me.
Oh, I
Don’t want to die,
I want to go home.
There were several more verses in the same strain. Hewitt, the Welsh machine-gun officer, had written one in a more offensive spirit:
I want to go home,
I want to go home.
One day at Givenchy the week before last
The Allmands attacked and they nearly got past.
They pushed their way up to the Keep,
Through our maxim-gun sights we did peep,
Oh, my!
They let out a cry,
They never got home.
But the men would not sing it, though they all admired Hewitt.
The Béthune-La Bassée road was choked with troops, guns, and transport, and we had to march miles north out of our way to circle round to Cambrin. Even so, we were held up two or three times by massed cavalry. Everything radiated confusion. A casualty clearing-station had been planted astride one of the principal cross-roads, and was already being shelled. By the time we reached Cambrin, the battalion had marched about twenty miles that day. Then we heard that the Middlesex would go over first, with us in support; and to their left the Second Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, with the Cameronians in support. The young Royal Welch officers complained loudly at our not being given the honour of leading the attack. As the senior regiment, they protested, we were entitled to the ‘Right of the Line’. An hour or so past midnight we moved into trench sidings just in front of the village. Half a mile of communication trench, known as ‘Maison Rouge Alley’, separated us from the firing line. At half-past five the gas would be discharged. We were cold, tired, sick, and not at all in the mood for a battle, but tried to snatch an hour or two of sleep squatting in the trench It had been raining for some time.
A grey, watery dawn broke at last behind the German lines; the bombardment, surprisingly slack all night, brisked up a little. ‘Why the devil don’t they send them over quicker?’ The Actor complained. ‘This isn’t my idea of a bombardment. We’re getting nothing opposite us. What little there seems to be, is going into the Hohenzollern.’
‘Shell shortage. Expected it,’ was Thomas’s laconic reply.
We were told afterwards that on the 23rd a German aeroplane had bombed the Army Reserve shell-dump and sent it up. The bombardment on the 24th, and on the day of the battle itself, compared very poorly with that of the previous days. Thomas looked strained and ill. ‘It’s time they were sending that damned accessory off. I wonder what’s doing.’
The events of the next few minutes are difficult for me now to sort out. I found it more difficult still at the time. All we heard back there in the sidings was a distant cheer, confused crackle of rifle fire, yells, heavy shelling on our front line, more shouts and yells, and a continuous rattle of machine-guns. After a few minutes, lightly wounded men of the Middlesex came stumbling down Maison Rouge Alley to the dressing-station. I stood at the junction of the siding and the Alley.
‘What’s happened? What’s happened?’ I asked.
‘Bloody balls-up,’ was the most detailed answer I could get.
Among the wounded were a number of men yellow-faced and choking, their buttons tarnished green – gas cases. Then came the badly wounded. Maison Rouge Alley being narrow, the stretchers had difficulty in getting down. The Germans started shelling it with five-point-nines.
Thomas went back to battalion headquarters through the shelling to ask for orders. It was the same place that I had visited on my first night in the trenches. This cluster of dug-outs in the reserve line showed very plainly from the air as battalion headquarters, and should never have been occupied during a battle. Just before Thomas arrived, the Germans put five shells into it. The adjutant jumped one way, the colonel another, the R.S.M. a third. One shell went into the signals dug-out, killed some signallers, and destroyed the telephone. The colonel, slightly cut on the hand, joined the stream of wounded and was carried back as far as the Base with it. The adjutant took command.
Meanwhile ‘A’ Company had been waiting in the siding for the rum to arrive; the tradition of every attack being a double tot of rum beforehand. All the other companies got theirs. The Actor began cursing: ‘Where the bloody hell’s that storeman gone?’ We fixed bayonets in readiness to go up and attack as soon as Captain Thomas returned with orders. Hundreds of wounded streamed by. At last Thomas’s orderly appeared. ‘Captain’s orders, sir: “A” Company to move up to the front line.’ At that moment the storeman arrived, without rifle or equipment, hugging the rum-bottle, red-faced and retching. He staggered up to The Actor and said: ‘There you are, sir!’, then fell on his face in the thick mud of a sump-pit at the junction of the trench and the siding. The stopper of the bottle flew out and what remained of the three gallons bubbled on the ground. The Actor made no reply. This was a crime that deserved the death penalty. He put one foot on the storeman’s neck, the other in the small of his back, and trod him into the mud. Then he gave the order ‘Company forward!’ The company advanced with a clatter of steel, and that was the last I ever heard of the storeman.
It seems that at half past four an R.E. captain commanding the gas-company in the front line phoned through to divisional headquarters: ‘Dead calm. Impossible discharge accessory.’ The answer he got was: ‘Accessory to be discharged at all costs.’ Thomas had not overestimated the gas-company’s efficiency. The spanners for unscrewing the cocks of the cylinders proved, with two or three exceptions, to be misfits. The gas-men rushed about shouting for the loan of an adjustable spanner. They managed to discharge one or two cylinders; the gas went whistling out, formed a thick cloud a few yards off in No Man’s Land, and then gradually spread back into our trenches. The Germans, who had been expecting gas, immediately put on their gas-helmets: semi-rigid ones, better than ours. Bundles of oily cotton-waste were strewn along the German parapet and set alight as a barrier to the gas. Then their batteries opened on our lines. The confusion in the front trench must have been horrible; direct hits broke several of the gas-cylinders, the trench filled with gas, the gas-company stampeded.
No orders could come through because the shell in the signals dugout at battalion headquarters had cut communication not only between companies and battalion, but between battalion and division. The officers in the front trench had to decide on immediate action; so two companies of the Middlesex, instead of waiting for the intense bombardment which would follow the advertised forty minutes of gas, charged at once and got as far as the German wire – which our artillery had not yet cut. So far it had been treated only with shrapnel, which had no effect on it; the barbed-wire needed high-explosive, and plenty of it. The Germans shot the Middlesex men down. One platoon is said to have found a gap and got into the German trench. But there were no survivors of the platoon to confirm this. The Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders went over, also, on the Middlesex left; but two companies, instead of charging at once, rushed back out of the gas-filled assault trench to the support line, and attacked from there. It will be recalled that the trench system had been pushed forward nearer the enemy in preparation for the battle. These companies were therefore attacking from the old front line, but the barbed-wire entanglements protecting it had not been removed, so that the Highlanders got caught and machine-gunned between their own assault and support lines. The other two companies were equally unsuccessful. When the attack started, the German N.C.O.s had jumped up on the parapet to encourage their men. These were Jäger, famous for their musketry.
The survivors of the two leading Middlesex companies now lay in shell-craters close to the German wire, sniping and making the Germans keep their heads down. They had bombs to throw, but these were nearly all of a new type issued for the battle. The fuses were lighted on the match-box principle, and the rain had made them useless. The other two companies of the Middlesex soon followed in support. Machine-gun fire stopped them half-way. Only one German machine-gun remained in action, the others having been knocked out by rifle or trench-mortar fire. Why the single gun survived is a story in itself.
It starts with the privilege granted British colonial governors and high-commissioners of nominating one or two officers from their countries for attachment in wartime to the regular Army. Under this scheme, the officers began as full lieutenants. The Captain-General of Jamaica (if that is his correct style) nominated the eighteen-year-old son of a rich planter, who went straight from Kingston to the First Middlesex. He was good-hearted enough, but of little use as an officer, having never been out of the island in his life or, except for a short service with the West India militia, seen any soldiering. His company commander took a fatherly interest in ‘Young Jamaica’, and tried to teach him his duties. This company commander was known as ‘The Boy’. He had twenty years’ service with the Middlesex, and the unusual boast of having held every rank from ‘boy’ to captain in the same company. His father, I believe, had been the regimental sergeant-major. But ‘Jamaica’, as a full lieutenant, ranked senior to the other experienced subalterns in the company, who were only second-lieutenants.
The Middlesex colonel decided to shift Jamaica off on some course of extra-regimental appointment at the earliest opportunity. Somewhere about May or June, when instructed to supply an officer for the brigade trench-mortar company, he had sent Jamaica. Trench-mortars being then both dangerous and ineffective, the appointment seemed suitable. At the same time, the Royal Welch had also been asked to detail an officer, and the colonel selected Tiley, an ex-planter from Malaya, and what is called a ‘fine natural soldier’. Tiley had been chosen because, when attached to us from a Lancashire regiment, he showed his resentment at the manner of his welcome somewhat too plainly. But, by September, mortars had improved in design and become an important infantry arm; so Jamaica, being senior to Tiley, held the responsible position of brigade mortar officer.
When the Middlesex charged, The Boy fell mortally wounded as he climbed over the parapet. He tumbled back and began crawling down the trench to the stretcher-bearers’ dug-out, past Jamaica’s trench-mortar emplacement. Jamaica had lost his gun-team, and was boldly serving the trench-mortars himself. On seeing The Boy, however, he deserted his post and ran off to fetch a stretcher-party. Tiley, meanwhile, on the other flank opposite Mine Point, had knocked out all the machine-guns within range. He went on until his mortar burst. Only one machine-gun in the Pope’s Nose, a small salient facing Jamaica, remained active.
At this point the Royal Welch Fusiliers came up Maison Rouge Alley. The Germans were shelling it with five-nines (called ‘Jack Johnsons’ because of their black smoke) and lachrymatory shells. This caused a continual scramble backwards and forwards, to cries of: ‘Come on!’ ‘Get back you bastards!’ ‘Gas turning on us!’ ‘Keep your heads, you men!’ ‘Back like hell, boys!’ ‘Whose orders?’ ‘What’s happening?’ ‘Gas!’ ‘Back!’ ‘Come on!’ ‘Gas!’ ‘Back!’ Wounded men and stretcher-bearers kept trying to squeeze past. We were alternately putting on and taking off our gas-helmets, which made things worse. In many places the trench had caved in, obliging us to scramble over the top. Childe-Freeman reached the front line with only fifty men of ‘B’ Company; the rest had lost their way in some abandoned trenches half-way up.
The adjutant met him in the support line. ‘Ready to go over, Freeman?’ he asked.
Freeman had to admit that he had lost most of his company. He felt this disgrace keenly; it was the first time that he had commanded a company in battle. Deciding to go over with his fifty men in support of the Middlesex, he blew his whistle and the company charged. They were stopped by machine-gun fire before they had got through our own entanglements. Freeman himself died – oddly enough, of heart-failure – as he stood on the parapet.
A few minutes later, Captain Samson, with ‘C’ Company and the remainder of ‘B’, reached our front line. Finding the gas-cylinders still whistling and the trench full of dying men, he decided to go over too – he could not have it said that the Royal Welch had let down the Middlesex. A strong, comradely feeling bound the Middlesex and the Royal Welch, intensified by the accident that the other three battalions in the brigade were Scottish, and that our Scottish brigadier was, unjustly no doubt, accused of favouring them. Our adjutant voiced the extreme non-Scottish view ‘The Jocks are all the same; both the trousered kind and the bare-arsed kind: they’re dirty in trenches, they skite too much, and they charge like hell – both ways.’ The First Middlesex, who were the original ‘Diehards’, had more than once, with the Royal Welch, considered themselves let down by the Jocks. So Samson charged with ‘C’ and the remainder of ‘B Company.
One of ‘C’ officers told me later what happened. It had been agreed to advance by platoon rushes with supporting fire. When his platoon had gone about twenty yards, he signalled them to lie down and open covering fire. The din was tremendous. He saw the platoon on his left flopping down too, so he whistled the advance again. Nobody seemed to hear. He jumped up from his shell-hole, waved, and signalled ‘Forward!’
Nobody stirred.
He shouted: ‘You bloody cowards, are you leaving me to go on alone?’
His platoon-sergeant, groaning with a broken shoulder, gasped ‘Not cowards, sir. Willing enough. But they’re all f—ing dead.’ The Pope’s Nose machine-gun, traversing, had caught them as they rose to the whistle.
‘A’ Company, too, had become separated by the shelling. I was with the leading platoon. The Surrey-man got a touch of gas and went coughing back. The Actor accused him of scrimshanking. This I thought unfair; the Surrey-man looked properly sick. I don’t know what happened to him, but I heard that the gas-poisoning was not serious and that he managed, a few months later, to get back to his own regiment in France. I found myself with The Actor in a narrow communication trench between the front and support lines. This trench had not been built wide enough for a stretcher to pass the bends. We came on The Boy lying on his stretcher, wounded in the lungs and stomach. Jamaica was standing over him in tears, blubbering: ‘Poor old Boy, poor old Boy, he’s going to die; I’m sure he is. He’s the only one who treated me decently.’
The Actor, finding that we could not get by, said to Jamaica: ‘Take that poor sod out of the way, will you? I’ve got to get my company up. Put him into a dug-out, or somewhere.’
Jamaica made no answer; he seemed paralysed by the horror of the occasion and kept repeating: ‘Poor old Boy, poor old Boy!’
‘Look here,’ said The Actor, ‘if you can’t shift him into a dug-out we’ll have to lift him on top of the trench. He can’t live now, and we’re late getting up.’
‘No, no,’ Jamaica shouted wildly.
The Actor lost his temper and shook Jamaica roughly by the shoulders. ‘You’re the bloodv trench-mortar wallah, aren’t you?’ he shouted.
Jamaica nodded miserably.
‘Well, your battery is a hundred yards from here. Why the hell aren’t you using your gas-pipes to some purpose? Buzz off back to them!’ And he kicked him down the trench. Then he called over his shoulder: ‘Sergeant Rose and Corporal Jennings! Lift this stretcher up across the top of the trench. We’ve got to pass.’
Jamaica leaned against a traverse. ‘I do think you’re the most heartless beast I’ve ever met,’ he said weakly.
We went up to the corpse-strewn front line. The captain of the gas-company, who was keeping his head and wore a special oxygen respirator, had by now turned off the gas-cocks. Vermorel-sprayers had cleared out most of the gas, but we were still warned to wear our masks. We climbed up and crouched on the fire-step, where the gas was not so thick – gas, being heavy stuff, kept low. Then Thomas brought up the remainder of ‘A’ Company and, with ‘D’, we waited for the whistle to follow the other two companies over. Fortunately at this moment the adjutant appeared. He was now left in command of the battalion, and told Thomas that he didn’t care a damn about orders; he was going to cut his losses and not send ‘A’ and ‘D’ over to their deaths until he got definite orders from brigade. He had sent a runner back, and we must wait.
Meanwhile, the intense bombardment that was to follow the forty minutes’ discharge of gas began. It concentrated on the German front trench and wire. A good many shells fell short, and we had further casualties from them. In No Man’s Land, the survivors of the Middlesex and of our ‘B’ and ‘C’ Companies suffered heavily.
My mouth was dry, my eyes out of focus, and my legs quaking under me. I found a water-bottle full of rum and drank about half a pint; it quieted me, and my head remained clear. Samson lay groaning about twenty yards beyond the front trench. Several attempts were made to rescue him. He had been very badly hit. Three men got killed in these attempts; two officers and two men, wounded. In the end his own orderly managed to crawl out to him. Samson waved him back, saying that he was riddled through and not worth rescuing; he sent his apologies to the company for making such a noise.
We waited a couple of hours for the order to charge. The men were silent and depressed; only Sergeant Townsend was making feeble, bitter jokes about the good old British Army muddling through, and how he thanked God we still had a Navy. I shared the rest of my rum with him, and he cheered up a little. Finally a runner arrived with a message that the attack had been postponed.
Rumours came down the trench of a disaster similar to our own in the brick-stack sector, where the Fifth Brigade had gone over; and again at Givenchy, where men of the Sixth Brigade at the Duck’s Bill salient had fought their way into the enemy trenches, but been repulsed, their supply of bombs failing. It was said, however, that things were better on the right, where there had been a slight wind to take the gas over. According to one rumour, the First, Seventh, and Forty-seventh Divisions had broken through.
My memory of that day is hazy. We spent it getting the wounded down to the dressing-station, spraying the trenches and dug-outs to get rid of the gas, and clearing away the earth where trenches were blocked. The trenches stank with a gas-blood-lyddite-latrine smell. Late in the afternoon we watched through our field-glasses the advance of reserves under heavy shell-fire towards Loos and Hill 70; it looked like a real break-through. They were troops of the New Army division, whose staff we had messed with the night before. Immediately to the right of us we had the Highland Division, whose exploits on that day Ian Hay has celebrated in The First Hundred Thousand; I suppose that we were ‘the flat caps on the left’ who ‘let down’ his comrades-in-arms.
At dusk, we all went out to get in the wounded, leaving only sentries in the line. The first dead body I came upon was Samson’s, hit in seventeen places. I found that he had forced his knuckles into his mouth to stop himself crying out and attracting any more men to their death. Major Swainson, the second-in-command of the Middlesex, came crawling in from the German wire. He seemed to be wounded in lungs, stomach, and one leg. Choate, a Middlesex second-lieutenant, came back unhurt; together we bandaged Swainson and got him into the trench and on a stretcher. He begged me to loosen his belt; I cut it with a bowie-knife I had bought at Béthune for use during the battle. He said: ‘I’m about done for.’* We spent all that night getting in the wounded of the Royal Welch, the Middlesex, and those Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders who had attacked from the front trench. The Germans behaved generously. I do not remember hearing a shot fired that night, though we kept on until it was nearly dawn and we could see plainly; then they fired a few warning shots, and we gave it up. By this time we had recovered all the wounded, and most of the Royal Welch dead. I was surprised at some of the attitudes in which the dead stiffened – bandaging friends’ wounds, crawling, cutting wire. The Argyll and Sutherland had seven hundred casualties, including fourteen officers killed out of the sixteen who went over; the Middlesex, five hundred and fifty casualties, including eleven officers killed.
Two other Middlesex officers besides Choate came back unwounded; their names were Henry and Hill, recently commissioned second-lieutenants, who had been lying out in shell-holes all day under the rain, sniping and being sniped at. Henry, according to Hill, had dragged five wounded men into a shell-hole and thrown up a sort of parapet with his hands and the bowie-knife which he carried. Hill had his platoon-sergeant beside him, screaming with a stomach wound, begging for morphia; he was done for, so Hill gave him five pellets. We always carried morphia for emergencies like that.
Choate, Henry, and Hill, returning to the trenches with a few stragglers, reported at the Middlesex headquarters. Hill told me the story. The colonel and the adjutant were sitting down to a meat pie when he and Henry arrived. Henry said: ‘Come to report, sir. Ourselves and about ninety men of all companies. Mr Choate is back, unwounded, too.’
They looked up dully. ‘So you’ve survived, have you?’ the colonel said. ‘Well, all the rest are dead. I suppose Mr Choate had better command what’s left of “A” Company: the bombing officer will command what’s left of “B” [the bombing officer had not gone over, but remained with headquarters]; Mr Henry goes to “C” Company. Mr Hill to “D”. The Royal Welch are holding the front line. We are here in support. Let me know where to find you if you’re needed. Good night.’
Not having been offered a piece of meat pie or a drink of whisky, they saluted and went miserably out.
The adjutant called them back. ‘Mr Hill! Mr Henry!’
‘Sir?’
Hill said that he expected a change of mind as to the propriety with which hospitality could be offered by a regular colonel and adjutant to temporary second-lieutenants in distress. But it was only: ‘Mr Hill, Mr Henry, I saw some men in the trench just now with their shoulder-straps unbuttoned and their equipment fastened anyhow. See that this does not occur in future. That’s all.’
Henry heard the colonel from his bunk complaining that he had only two blankets and that it was a deucedly cold night.
Choate, in peacetime a journalist, arrived a few minutes later; the others had told him of their reception. After he had saluted and reported that Major Swainson, hitherto thought killed, was wounded on the way down to the dressing-station, he boldly leaned over the table, cut a large piece of meat pie and began eating it. This caused such a surprise that no further conversation took place. Choate finished his meat pie and drank a glass of whisky; saluted, and joined the others.
Meanwhile, I took command of what remained of ‘B’ Company. Only six company officers survived in the Royal Welch. Next morning we were only five. Thomas was killed by a sniper while despondently watching through field-glasses the return of the New Army troops on the right. Pushed blindly into the gap made by the advance of the Seventh and Forty-seventh Divisions on the previous afternoon, they did not know where they were or what they were supposed to do. Their ration supply broke down, so they flocked back, not in panic, but stupidly, like a crowd returning from a cup final, with shrapnel bursting above them. We could scarcely believe our eyes, it was so odd.
Thomas need not have been killed; but everything had gone so wrong that he seemed not to care one way or the other. The Actor took command of ‘A’ Company. We lumped ‘A’ and ‘B’ Companies together after a couple of days, for the sake of relieving each other on night watch and getting some sleep. I agreed to take the first watch, waking him up at midnight. When the time came, I shook him, shouted in his ear, poured water over him, banged his head against the side of the bed. Finally I threw him on the floor. I was desperate for a lie-down myself, but he had attained a depth of sleep from which nothing could rouse him; so I heaved him back on the bunk, and had to finish the night without relief. Even ‘Stand-to!’ failed to wake him. In the end I got him out of bed at nine o’clock in the morning, and he was furious with me for not having called him at midnight.
We had spent the day after the attack carrying the dead down for burial and cleaning the trench up as best we could. That night the Middlesex held the line, while the Royal Welch carried all the unbroken gas-cylinders along to a position on the left flank of the brigade, where they were to be used on the following night, September 27th. This was worse than carrying the dead; the cylinders were cast-iron, heavy and hateful. The men cursed and sulked. Only the officers knew of the proposed attack; the men must not be told until just beforehand. I felt like screaming. Rain was still pouring down, harder than ever. We knew definitely, this time, that ours would be only a diversion to help troops on our right make the real attack.
The scheme was the same as before: at 4 p.m. gas would be discharged for forty minutes, and after a quarter of an hour’s bombardment we should attack. I broke the news to the men about three o’clock. They took it well. The relations of officers and men, and of senior and junior officers, had been very different in the excitement of battle. There had been no insubordination, but a greater freedom of speech, as though we were all drunk together. I found myself calling the adjutant ‘Charley’ on one occasion; he appeared not to mind in the least. For the next ten days my relations with my men were like those I had in the Welsh Regiment; later, discipline reasserted itself, and it was only occasionally that I found them intimate.
At 4 p.m. then, the gas went off again with a strong wind; the gas-men had brought enough spanners this time. The Germans stayed absolutely silent. Flares went up from the reserve lines, and it looked as though all the men in the front trench were dead. The brigadier decided not to take too much for granted; after the bombardment he sent out a Cameronian officer and twenty-five men as a feeling-patrol. The patrol reached the German wire; there came a burst of machine-gun and rifle fire, and only two wounded men regained the trench.
We waited on the fire-step from four to nine o’clock, with fixed bayonets, for the order to go over. My mind was a blank, except for the recurrence of S’nice S’mince S’pie, S’nice S’mince S’pie… I don’t like ham, lamb or jam, and I don’t like roley-poley…
The men laughed at my singing. The acting C.S.M. said: ‘It’s murder, sir.’
‘Of course it’s murder, you bloody fool,’ I agreed. ‘But there’s nothing else for it, is there?’ It was still raining. But when I sees a s’nice s’mince s’pie, I asks for a helping twice…
At nine o’clock brigade called off the attack; we were told to hold ourselves in readiness to go over at dawn.
No order came at dawn, and no more attacks were promised us after this. From the morning of September 24th to the night of October 3rd, I had in all eight hours of sleep. I kept myself awake and alive by drinking about a bottle of whisky a day. I had never drunk it before, and have seldom drunk it since; it certainly helped me then. We had no blankets, greatcoats, or waterproof sheets, nor any time or material to build new shelters. The rain poured down. Every night we went out to fetch in the dead of the other battalions. The Germans continued indulgent and we had few casualties. After the first day or two the corpses swelled and stank. I vomited more than once while superintending the carrying. Those we could not get in from the German wire continued to swell until the wall of the stomach collapsed, either naturally or when punctured by a bullet; a disgusting smell would float across. The colour of the dead faces changed from white to yellow-grey, to red, to purple, to green, to black, to slimy.
On the morning of the 27th a cry arose from No Man’s Land. A wounded soldier of the Middlesex had recovered consciousness after two days. He lay close to the German wire. Our men heard it and looked at each other. We had a tender-hearted lance-corporal named Baxter. He was the man to boil up a special dixie for the sentries of his section when they came off duty. As soon as he heard the wounded Middlesex man, he ran along the trench calling for a volunteer to help fetch him in. Of course, no one would go; it was death to put one’s head over the parapet. When he came running to ask me I excused myself as being the only officer in the company. I would come out with him at dusk, I said – not now. So he went alone. He jumped quickly over the parapet, then strolled across No Man’s Land, waving a handkerchief; the Germans fired to frighten him, but since he persisted they let him come up close. Baxter continued towards them and, when he got to the Middlesex man, stopped and pointed to show the Germans what he was at. Then he dressed the man’s wounds, gave him a drink of rum and some biscuit that he had with him, and promised to be back again at nightfall. He did come back, with a stretcher-party, and the man eventually recovered. I recommended Baxter for the Victoria Cross, being the only officer who had witnessed the action, but the authorities thought it worth no more than a Distinguished Conduct Medal.
The Actor and I had decided to get in touch with the battalion on our right. It was the Tenth Highland Light Infantry. I went down their trench some time in the morning of the 26th and walked nearly a quarter of a mile without seeing either a sentry or an officer. There were dead men, sleeping men, wounded men, gassed men, all lying anyhow. The trench had been used as a latrine. Finally I met a Royal Engineer officer who said: ‘If the Boche knew what an easy job he had, he’d just walk over and take this trench.’
So I reported to The Actor that we might find our flank in the air at any moment. We converted the communication trench which made the boundary between the two battalions into a fire-trench facing right; and mounted a machine-gun to put up a barrage in case the Highlanders ran. On the night of the 27th they mistook some of our men, who were out in No Man’s Land getting in the dead, for the enemy, and began firing wildly. The Germans retaliated. Our men caught the infection, but were at once ordered to cease fire. ‘Cease fire!’ went along the trench until it reached the H.L.I., who misheard it as ‘Retire!’ A panic seized them and they went rushing away, fortunately down the trench, instead of over the top. They were stopped by Sergeant McDonald of the Fifth Scottish Rifles, a pretty reliable territorial battalion now in support to ourselves and the Middlesex. He chased them back at the point of the bayonet; and was decorated for this feat.
On October 3rd we were relieved by a composite battalion consisting of about a hundred men of the Second Warwickshire Regiment and about seventy Royal Welch Fusiliers – all that was left of our own First Battalion. Hanmer Jones and Frank Jones-Bateman had both been wounded. Frank had his thigh broken with a rifle bullet while stripping the equipment off a wounded man in No Man’s Land; the cartridges in the man’s pouches had been set on fire by a shot and were exploding.* We went back to Sailly la Bourse for a couple of days, where the colonel rejoined us with his bandaged hand; and then farther back to Annezin, a little village near Béthune, where I lodged in a two-roomed cottage with a withered old woman called Adelphine Heu.