A Marine at Gallipoli on the Western Front Page 24

  Our adjutant gave me instructions to take the men of 2nd Marines to our Company HQ somewhere in the front line. He said we were to be relieved any time now; in fact some of the relieving troops were already making their way up the line ahead. I set off again, very nearly on my hands and knees and soon struck a communication trench, more like a young canal though than a trench. The going in that trench was worse than anything I had ever experienced before and progress was a terrible struggle. We soon came across parties of the relieving troops, absolutely stuck fast in the mud and many of them making no effort whatever to get out of it. ‘What division are you, Mate?’ I asked one poor devil. ‘Sixty-second,’ he said. That was the division that had earned the nickname of John Bull’s Division; and this was its first trip out from England. What a breaking in. One of its other members told me they had been three days making their way up the line from Englebelmer. Some were crying out of sheer despair at their inability to move. Others were just sitting in the mud cursing.

  Found the company at last in the front line, sadly depleted and nearly dead with exhaustion from the mud and effects of the attack they had made. ‘Have you seen anything of a relief, Harry?’ Billy asked me when I saw him. ‘I’ve seen it Billy, but don’t set hopes on it, they’ll want relieving before they get up here.’ I set about making a canteen of tea as soon as I settled down with my own platoon. None of the men had had anything hot to drink for four days and had lived on nothing but dried bully and biscuits with water to drink. Fires for cooking were out of the question, wood was practically nonexistent, and so were Tommy cookers, but I had taken a few candles up in my haversack and one of those broken in two, wrapped in a piece of 4x2 and put in a cigarette tin was just sufficient to get a canteen of water on the sing. That was good enough to mash tea when one wanted it as badly as I was.

  As dawn had broken by the time I had finished, I set to and shaved and washed in the remains of the tea and felt heaps better. Poor old Charlie Hamilton had got his ticket at last. To get through the nine months of hell fire on Gallipoli without a scratch, then all these last months in France. Billy told me how he had died; quite a peaceful end for the old boy. He had laid back on the trench for a sleep, with the mud for a bed and a shell had burst killing him as he lay asleep. Billy was walking round the trenches and came across him and thought him asleep. Charlie had gone though, and with a smile on his fine face. Billy cried like a kid when he told me. It had only happened on the day before I got up, but I couldn’t get to see him as Billy had helped to bury him. He had taken his things from his pockets and said that he would write to Charlie’s wife when he got down the line. Another of the old boys gone, another real pal, and there’s a bonny little chap in Portsmouth will never see his dad again.

  And what in Hell’s the reason for it all and what good can possibly come from all this rotten sacrifice and bloodshed? The hundreds of splendid men and lads I’ve seen killed in this war and the hundreds of thousands killed that I haven’t seen. What have they gone for? It makes you curse war when you come to think about it and curse the men, too, who made the war and who no doubt get out of it scot free. It’s a blessing, really, that we get hardened both in body and mind and that we lose all sentiment and feeling, otherwise we should go stark staring mad. It’s not that way, though, it’s just a shrug and a brief moment of regret at still another good pal gone west. ‘Poor old Charlie,’ and then we have to carry on. No time to dwell on it, we might have to go any time. And who cares a damn when the time should come? I am certain that when a man has reached such a state of abject misery and exhaustion as some of the lads around me, death must seem a merciful relief and an easy way out of it all.

  Apart from the relief when one is killed, one is placed amongst the immortals amongst the glorious dead heroes, all who died for a cause, while the ones who struggle on through the lot will earn for themselves nothing but the name of fool.

  I managed to get through that day, the 21st, safely, although the Bosch strafed us pretty badly in spasms and his snipers had a fair command of sections of the line. The company had a few casualties during the day and several men had to go back suffering from exhaustion. The news that a sufficient number of 62nd Division had managed to crawl up the line to effect a relief was greeted joyfully and a few smiles were seen on the gaunt, haggard faces of some of the men. Nightfall came and with it some very tired mud-caked and fed-up men from Yorkshire who would relieve us. Our 190 Brigade was to go forward and clear the enemy rearguards out of his positions at Miraumont and Gommecourt, while we were recuperating at Englebelmer.

  We left the line at 1.00am on 22 February and struggled back to Englebelmer as best we could. When we reached the road at St Pierre Divion we found our cooks and kitchens there and were served with hot tea and a good tot of rum. It helped us well on our way and we hardly troubled about the state of the roads, which in places were nothing but rivers, in places knee deep in water and mud. Just imagine the splash when a lorry loaded with 8-inch shells went lumbering past. Who cared? Were we not being relieved, going back for a rest, where we should have our buttons and badges clean and perhaps start saluting and turning by numbers and once more go through the thrilling exercise of loading by numbers. What a life! From one hell to another. We dribbled back to our billets at Englebelmer just anyhow and in any order, and on being told off to our particular ruin we dropped down like logs.

  It was 7.00am when I arrived and by 9.30 I was told off to take charge of a scavenging party to clean up some billets that 62nd Division had left, collect all the refuse and burn it in an incinerator. Some idiot threw a Mills bomb or a dud shell in and the thing went off when we were all stood around. It blew the incinerator to blazes and covered us all with scalding hot jam, Maconochie’s etc., but hurt no one.

  I thought that after that little episode we had done enough cleaning up for other people and that it was high time we started on ourselves. Personally, I was in a shocking state of filth and some of the men were far worse. Kelly Clayton, for instance, even when sleeping like a log, was one continual move and so was his opposite number George Hedley. I’ll bet it’s impossible to find two lousier men in the whole of the British Army. I paraded my men in front of Company Sergeant Major Chapman who had just rejoined us from England. ‘All right, Corporal,’ he said, ‘Dismiss your men and tell them to get themselves cleaned up.’ We spent all the day on the job but made very little impression on the dirt.

  Saturday we spent in a similar manner with the exception of a speech to the officers, NCOs and men of the two marine battalions by the commander of the corps to which we were attached. He didn’t say much, but what he did say came right from the bottom of his heart, and I think I am right in saying that every man present felt himself very proud indeed to belong to the Royal Marines and to be a part of the Royal Naval Division. The old man made us feel like real soldiers, veterans in fact, and said that the results of our attack would be far more important than many people would imagine. The Bosch was already going back; how far, nobody knew as yet, but he thought he’d go back a long way.

  Sunday came and fairly late in the morning we got news through that 190 Brigade had occupied Miraumont without firing a shot and with no loss of men. Our dear Company Sergeant Major Chapman and Company Quartermaster Sergeant Jerry Dunn celebrated the occasion by drinking most of the company’s issue of rum and were caught by Colonel Hutchinson, who happened to be looking for our captain. Both were put under arrest, but didn’t care; they were too drunk. Poor old Jerry Dunn was insensible and didn’t know he was under arrest; Chapman was only partly aware of it.

  Orders round on 26 February to pack up and stand by to move. Which way, up or down? That was what interested us most. The Bosch was getting out of it as quick as the rotten state of the country would permit him and we quite expected the order to chase him.

  The next day he was reported to have gone back as far as the line running through le Transloy and Loupart. Our 190 Brigade was relieved then by IV Corps and we joyfu
lly commenced our march back for another rest.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  February 1917 – A Change of Scenery

  Our last day in the godforsaken village of Englebelmer was 27 February 1917. A sure sign that the Bosch had evacuated: three females were seen poking about in the village looking for a few signs of their homes. Poor devils! What a job.

  We made a short march on the Wednesday to the village of Bouzincourt. Only a short march, but the terrible state of the roads made it seem ten times as far as it was. Found it not much better than the place we had left, but there were a few signs of civilisation about: several French people knocking about, and two or three of the inevitable estaminets where we could get rid of our francs. I had drawn forty francs on the Monday and they were burning me. Billy, Bob Bayliss and I made a fairly high night of it. We each stood a bottle of champagne and felt very little worse for it.

  I had been acting platoon sergeant for the last week, but Jim Hearne joined us up again that day from hospital and took charge. Once more that extra chevron slides into the background, although Jim Hearne said it wouldn’t be long before I got it. We stayed at Bouzincourt until 4 March, just trying to get clean. Baths were rigged up and the division had now its own laundry with fumigator complete. I suggested to Kelly and Hedley that I could very likely get them a good square number on the fumigator staff, but they both declined my offer. We did our best, Billy and I, to get the two dirty dogs clean, but it was an impossible task. They must have been lousy in civil life and I’m certain that Kelly is one of those people who breed lice in their skin.

  Our next move was to Acheaux, the old railhead for the Ancre. There we entrained for Candas, thirty-five men with all their gear stowed in a cattle truck. We arrived at our new destination about 11.00am and, after the usual mess up with billets, got stowed away. All our platoon were shoved in a big barn in the centre of the village.

  The next day saw us well on our way towards our rest. Up at 6.30am and marched down to the railway sidings where we put in eight hours a day making sandbag walls in some ammunition sheds, all of which were full of shells of all calibres.

  Our dear CSM and Jerry Dunn had their court martial but the luck of the Devil seems to stick to Chapman. He got off scot free, and Jerry Dunn was severely reprimanded and lost three years’ seniority. That was that. Chapman came back to the company with more arrogance and bombast than ever before.

  The fatigues carried on with unbroken monotony every day until the 19th, with just one day off for a bath. There was a gang of German prisoners working on the sidings, too, and I’m certain they were treated with far more consideration than we were. Their hours were less, their work was less strenuous, and I guess their food was better. We had the nights to ourselves, though, and could get into the village for a drink when funds permitted. The Royal Flying Corps (RFC) had a centre at Candas and a fine concert party that gave some jolly good entertainments in the YMCA hut there.

  Our work had been monotonous and hard, but we were considerably better off than some units of the division. They had been finding working parties for the Canadian railway engineers who were extending the line up the Ancre valley in readiness for another push at the Bosch when the weather permitted. Others had been making new roads and re-making old ones, all under practically continuous shellfire.

  A short march to Gezaincourt on 20 March where we joined up with our battalion. Next day fourteen kilometres to Atainville, a village consisting of about three houses. There we got in line with the rest of the division and were ready for anywhere, or anything. On 22 March we marched sixteen kilometres to Beavois where we stood easy for the next day.

  A fresh general had taken over from General Shute. I think the old Shute had changed his opinion about the RND, about its fighting capabilities in any event, and I expect he would get a corps now. Major General Lawrie was now in charge, but we knew nothing about him. Time and circumstances would tell and so long as he didn’t try to make the division all 63rd instead of RND I didn’t see why he shouldn’t get on.

  We appeared to do our marches with a lighter step and a lighter heart now that we had left the terrible valley of the Ancre, where everything had the touch of death and desolation on it. The Royal Marine Band from Deal was at our head and a march of twenty-six kilometres to Coucy a la Tour on the 24th was like a pleasant stroll. Boots cleaned, buttons and badges sparkling, we looked like barrack-square soldiers again. Stayed at that place two days and managed to get rid of all our surplus francs and began pestering our company officers for more.

  Moved again on the 26th through pleasant country, through the half-battered town of Béthune to a small village three kilometres beyond. The 29th saw the end of our marching, at all events for a time, and we settled in fairly pleasant billets at Sailly Labourse, a decent village amongst the slag heaps of the Lens district.

  The trenches are only a short distance ahead and this fact made itself apparent after tea when quite a number of heavy shells went screaming overhead to burst amongst the workings of a pithead lying behind the village.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  March 1917 – Standing by for the Arras Push

  It was 30 March and we were hard at it drilling: squad, section, platoon and company varieties just to get a little discipline into the troops. The air was blue with curses. ‘Just imagine,’ the men say, ‘two years of fighting and then they make us slope our so and so arms by so and so numbers. Why the Hell don’t they get on with the war?’ I expect it’s necessary, as necessary as it is to make the troops grouse. A contented lot of soldiers, if such could be found, would accomplish little in a hard scrap. They’ve got to grouse and, my God, they do. We got news around that we were in reserve for a new big push at Arras and Vimy to come off at any time and we are the flying division – to be ready to reinforce any part of the Army front.

  Good Friday, 6 April, I saw my name in Battalion Orders. I was appointed lance sergeant and made bona fide corporal from Portsmouth, so that means no more dipping. On two hours’ notice to stand by to move on the 9th.

  The new push came off on the 10th with varying success and part of the division went into the line: 1 RM and the Ansons at Angres on the outskirts of Lens, the divisional artillery with the Canadians at Vimy, where they did splendid work. A patrol of 1 RM were first to notice the retirement of the Bosch from the Angres and Lievin sector. Colonel Cartwright took the battalion forward and took possession of the evacuated German positions on the night of the 13th/14th. Both 189 and 190 Brigades went into the line in front of Gavrelle on the night of the 14th/15th and got within striking distance of the Bosch. Here they advanced their line in broad daylight and in full view of the Bosch and paid for their jolly dearly. We moved on the 11th, but only to the village of Ourton through Bruary. The weather was vile – snow, sleet and cold, piercing winds.

  We left Ourton on the 14th and marched thirty kilometres along one of the main Arras roads to Ecouvrie, a village just behind Arras. It was a hard march, the pace was fast when we could get along, but the road was so choked with traffic that at times we were stood at the roadside for hours. We all finished up more or less on our knees, and were glad enough to take advantage of the cold comfort of the leaky huts. The next morning we were out in the village on fatigues, doing scavenging work, cleaning roads, not sweeping them, but removing a coating of about six inches of filthy mud. There was a pioneer battalion in the village but they appeared to be doing anything but work. We weren’t allowed out of camp except on fatigues and there was no chance of a drink.

  On the 20th two of our companies went up the line, but only on a road-mending job. They came back a few less than they went up and said things were in an awful state up the line. Friday night and all day Saturday there was a heavy strafe on the line but the only exciting part of the scrap we saw was one of our aeroplanes making a dart at one of Jerry’s observation balloons and bringing it down in flames.

  We marched off about 3.30pm on the Sunday, 22 April. Sunday ag
ain, always Sunday, when anything big comes off – and made our way to the onetime village of Rochincourt, now hardly recognisable as such, apart from a heap or two of stones where formerly a church and houses had stood. Our temporary resting place was in the old German lines of trenches in front of the village, but even these had been battered out of all semblance of trenches. Every few hundred yards there was a huge mine crater and the sight of these gave one a queer sensation at the pit of the stomach. The havoc that the explosion of one of these mines must have caused must have been enormous. Whole companies of men must have simply disappeared from the face of the earth forever. Men laughing and joking together one second and the next, blown to shreds and mixed up with the churned-up earth of the crater.

  Back at St Catherine’s and in the military cemeteries of Arras there are huge crosses erected with whole strings of names of officers and men. ‘Erected in memory of the following officers and other ranks who were killed in a mine explosion. RIP.’ One consolation about it was the fact that there were more and bigger mines in Jerry’s lives than in ours. Why the hell weren’t we back in the days of Waterloo or Agincourt where fighting was fighting and not wholesale slaughter and wanton murder, where one had the sight of one’s enemies and were assured that you would meet him on your own level. Not have him burrowing through the muck fifty feet below you or throwing half a ton of high explosive at you from a distance of five miles or so away.

  After hanging about in the shell-shattered no man’s land of Rochincourt for a few hours we were eventually stowed away in some of German dugouts about midnight. Jerry kept lobbing 5.9s over, but more to catch the traffic on the Arras-Gavrelle road just on our right. Sleep for me was practically out of the question and I was out on top with the first streaks of dawn. I was in time to see the opening of the barrage by our artillery for the attack on Oppy, Gavrelle and Moncy.