Authors: Jon E. Lewis
One day we turned about; other parties joined us, and we were told we were now advancing. We hardly believed it until we came upon dead Germans. That put new life in us. Advancing! Hurrah! Our part was very small up to the Aisne. We crossed the Marne without a scrap, and never met with opposition until we reached the heights the other side of that now famous river.
Some of our brigade were not so fortunate, and lost heavily from shell-fire while crossing. Our position on the Aisne was not so bad. We dug in on top of the ridge beyond the river. We were 1,100 yards from the enemy; and every four days we retired to a vast, evil-smelling cave, where we got hot meals and remained for two days. Most of our casualties were caused when fetching water and rations from the village below.
The battalion was made up with reserve men and the weather continued fine. The trenches on our left were not so fortunate, as they were attacked nearly every night, this causing us to stand to all night. After a few weeks of this we were relieved by French troops.
By forced marches and a train journey, we reached St. Omer. One night there, and we boarded French motorvans. We soon found ourselves scrapping after we had disembarked at a small village. The enemy had dashed down and seized the next village, Meteren, and our first task was to drive them out. The place was held by a rearguard of machine-gunners, and could have been encircled and captured, but we were ordered to take it by bayonet. We took it at a terrible cost, but found no enemy to bayonet. What few machine-gunners were there had done their work well and fled in time. Then through Bailleul and Armentières, which the enemy abandoned without a fight.
We were the first British troops in Armentières. As we marched through, the civilians went frantic with delight. The Germans had been there for a week, and had committed the usual excesses of troops flushed with victory. The Highlanders in our brigade caused much amusement, the female part of the population shrieking with laughter at the dress of the ‘Mademoiselle Soldats.’ Bread, beer, and tobacco were showered on us, and garlands of flowers hung on our necks and bayonets. However, a few hours only were our portion there, which we spent in a large flax factory wrecked by the enemy during their short stay.
Off again past a large lunatic asylum, on which shells were falling, the shrieks of the inmates sounding hideous. These poor devils were released, and some wandered into the firing line, and no doubt thought they had reached the infernal regions. The enemy took up a strong position at Houplines, where, after several minor attacks to straighten the line, we dug in, and then commenced the dreary trench warfare.
I have not enlarged on the hardships of war up to now, as, being, all healthy men and constantly on the move, we had not noticed them much. Settling down to inactive trench life, we soon discovered what a miserable state we were in. Most of the original men had left their spare kit and overcoats at Le Cateau, as we had received orders thereto attack in fighting kit. We were in the front line at Houplines twenty-nine days at one stretch. I for one had neither shirt nor overcoat. My shirt had been discarded at the Aisne, being alive with vermin. Beards were common, and our toilet generally consisted of rubbing our beards to clear them of dried mud. Our trenches were generally enlarged dry ditches, where we dug in when our advance was stopped. Sandbags were very scarce, and when it rained the sides of the ditches fell in. However, at Houplines we were better off than the majority of British troops at that time. It was a fairly quiet position and rations came up regularly and plentifully.
Fetching rations was our worst job, as the enemy’s powerful searchlights played along the roads leading to the trenches each night. There were always plenty of volunteers, however, for this job, as they had first go at the rum, cigarettes, etc.
At the back of our trench was a large farmhouse. It had been shelled to pieces, but it proved a Godsend to us, as we discovered the wine cellar intact. Dozens of bottles of good wine were conveyed to the trench. The one officer in the trench (not popular enough to be told of our find) must have been struck with the cheery light-heartedness of the men at this period. We were at last relieved and proceeded to a large brewery at Nieppe, where four days’ rest, a bath, and clean underclothing made new men of us. This was our first good wash since leaving England. I had not worn a shirt for six weeks. Whilst bathing (in large mash tubs), our khaki was fumigated. This seemed to send the lice to sleep for a couple of days, then they woke up and attacked with renewed vigour.
A draft of returned wounded men joined us and we left Nieppe to take up a position in front of Ploegsteert Wood. We spent the winter there doing good work, barbed wiring, and strengthening the position. The First Battle of Ypres was raging on our left. Four days front line, four reserve, and four in billets, until in April 1915 we were pitched into that awful hell, Ypres, when the battalion was wiped out time after time.
I lasted until Arras 1917, the only real victory I saw, when I received a longed-for Blighty one and got discharged.
Private R. G. Hill. Went to France on August 22nd, 1914, with the 1st Battalion Royal Warwickshire Regt., in the 10th Brigade of the 4th Division. Except for a few days in hospital in 1915, he served with this battalion until April 11th, 1917, when he was wounded in the face, and was discharged medically unfit in March 1918. In Action at Le Cateau, Marne, Aisne, Meteren (a little-known, but gallant fight), Armentières, Ploegsteert, Ypres (1915), the Somme, and Arras (1917)
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I bade farewell to my right leg, and to my career as a soldier, outside a trench at Gheluvelt, near Ypres, on October 29th, 1914. In the First Battle of Ypres the British were outnumbered by seven to one. On the previous evening we took over trenches – not deep or elaborate ones – from an English regiment. I cannot say which regiment we relieved. Our sergeant on entering the trench heard the last man, as he was doing a hurried exit, say, ‘So long, Jock – not ‘arf a nice place, Jack Johnson all bleeding day.’
On that night there was no sleep, as we had to dig and dig to improve the trench, and were being fired at all night. At 5 a.m. a group of us were standing in the open – everything had turned peaceful – admiring our now almost perfect trench when hell seemed let loose. All the guns in Flanders seemed to have suddenly concentrated on our particular sector of the British front. When the artillery fire subsided, Germans sprang from everywhere and attacked us. My platoon held fast; we lost some good comrades. Then we were ordered to evacuate the trench, and assist to hold a trench on the flank where the fighting was fiercest. I was a sergeant, and was told to take and hold a certain part of the trench where the occupants had just been driven out. On rushing the trench, and leaping into it, 1 found that the dead were lying three deep in it. After taking bearings, I told the men to keep under cover and detailed one man, Ginger Bain, as ‘look out.’ After what seemed ages Ginger excitedly asked, ‘How strong is the German army?’ I replied, ‘Seven million.’ ‘Well,’ said Ginger, ‘here is the whole bloody lot of them making for us.’
We were driven from the trench, and those of us who were unscathed joined Lieutenant Brook, who had come up with cooks, transport men, and men who had been wounded but could still use a rifle. Lieutenant Brook was (outwardly) quite unperturbed, walking about the firing line issuing orders as if on the barrack square. I had served under him for nine years, and seeing him such a target for the enemy riflemen, I asked him to lie down as I felt if he was hit his loss at that particular time would be disastrous. He told me we must retake the trench I had been, driven from, and to pick twenty men to do so. All the men were alike to me – men I had known for years – so I told ten men on my right and ten on my left to get ready to rush the trench. We succeeded in this. No artist or poet can depict a trench after fighting in its stark hellishness.
If we could not be driven out of the trench, it seemed certain that we would be blown out of it. Shells kept landing near enough in front of or behind the trench to shake us almost out of it. Many got killed by rifle-fire, Ginger Bain being the first, then Big Bruce whom I boxed in a competition before going to France. I passed a message to Lieutenant Brook, informing him our numbers were so reduced that if attacked we could not hold the trench, and received back word that he had just been killed. (The V.C. was posthumously awarded him.) A message was then sent to me to retire and join a platoon entrenched near us. I gave instructions to the few men (eight I think) to retire along the communication trench, and I would join them at the head of it, and lead them to our new position. I slipped over the rear of the trench, to cut across and meet the lads as they emerged from the communication trench, but had only gone about six yards when I received what in the regiment was called the ‘dull thud.’ I thought I had been violently knocked on the head, but, feeling I was not running properly, I looked down and discovered that my right foot was missing. Somehow, I stood watching men running along the communication trench. My power of speech had left me, so I could speak to none of them, then I swooned into the trench. No one had seen me being wounded, but one of the men, ‘Pipe’ Adams, on missing me, returned to look for me.
On seeing me lying quite helpless, he prepared to lift and carry me out of the trench. I told him I was too heavy: that it was too dangerous, and that in time our regiment would retake all the ground lost, when I would be safe. When I think of the War comradeship, of unaffected and unknown bravery, I think of ‘Pipe’ Adams (killed later) telling me, ‘Christ, Jerry [my nickname], I could not leave you here.’ However, confident that our people would return, I persuaded him to go. I then put a field dressing and a shirt from my pack over my stump and lay down to wait further developments. In this trench there would be about sixty badly wounded British soldiers (mostly Gordons) of all ranks. The soldier nearest me was a sergeant of the Grenadiers who was severely wounded in both arms and both legs. I noticed a watch quite close to me; on looking at it I found the time was 9 a.m.
I must have dropped into a kind of stupor, and I woke suddenly with the noise of great shouting. I thought it was our fellows returned to their old position, imagined I heard voices I knew, also that of my company officer, Captain Burnett, shouting, ‘Where are you, Sergeant Bell?’ I tried to rise, failed, but kept shouting, ‘Here I am, in this trench, sir.’ Judge my surprise when two German infantrymen jumped into the trench. One of them got quite excited, raised his rifle, levelled at and within a yard of me, but the other knocked his mate’s rifle up and asked me when and where I was wounded. I asked them to try and do something for the wounded Grenadier, but they seemed in great haste as they jumped out of the trench. It was then twelve noon. So ended one morning in Flanders.
I pass over the afternoon with its incessant artillery fire, and the long night. There were periods of heavy gun fire, periods of silence, periods when all the wounded – those still alive – were shouting for stretcher bearers, praying for death, moaning noisily and quietly with pain. Strange the thoughts that pass through one under such circumstances. I thought of a great-grandfather of mine who fought in the Peninsular War, and was badly wounded at the Battle of Waterloo. Then I would think of a picture I once saw of a trench during the Balkan War. I had considered the picture was overdrawn, and now I knew that it was not horrible enough for the real thing.
The Germans had taken a lot of ground, were busily consolidating their new position, and all morning (the 30th) groups of them and individuals kept looking into the trench.
Two German officers slowly and quietly walked along the trench, and when they saw me still alive they appeared greatly surprised. Each of them spoke to me in English, enquiring how long I had been lying there. They informed me that there were fifty-seven of my comrades dead in the trench, and that I was one of three still alive. One of them promised to send someone to pick me up, but I had doubts about him doing so. However, about an hour later, four German private soldiers arrived, bringing a waterproof sheet to carry me off.
They gave me a drink of cold coffee, and when I pointed out the Grenadier, one of them went back into the trench and gave the Grenadier a drink and made him comfortable before rejoining us. One of the Germans could speak English, and in his deep-spoken voice said, ‘Ah! Scotlander, you lucky man. Get out of this damned war. It last long time. What we fight for? Ah! German Army and English Navy, both damned nuisance.’ They carried me with great care to a barn about half a mile away that was being used as a dressing station. All the way from the trench to the barn I saw British dead, mostly Highlanders – Black Watch, Camerons, and Gordons – and as they lay there in their uniforms, I thought how young and lonely they looked.
My arrival at the barn caused a mild sensation, all the soldiers on duty near and in the ‘barn coming to the door to see me being carried in. ‘Scotlander!’ ‘Sarjant!’ ‘Nae Helmet!’ (I was bareheaded) being remarks made to me. The officer in charge of the barn excitedly asked me, ‘Knives and revolvers you got?’ Replying, with a smile, in the negative, he gave me a cigarette and told some men to lift me and lay me on top of some straw. I asked for a drink and was given more cold coffee. I looked at a wristlet watch the man who gave me the drink was wearing, it was then 1 p.m., so another morning in Flanders had gone.
Sergeant J. F. Bell, 2nd Gordon Highlanders. Proceeded with 7th Division to Zeebrugge, took part in the fighting round Ypres in October 1914. Wounded and taken prisoner of war, October 29th, 1914. Leg amputated (below knee). Exchanged with disabled prisoner of war, February 1915. Discharged April 1st, 1915. Re-enlisted and commissioned as T. Officer in Labour Corps, 1917, and served till the Armistice
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August 1914 found me turned forty, engaged in an engineering business, and a Captain of Territorial Infantry. I expected the War, but I did not expect it so soon. The Territorial Force was nominally for Home service only, our training was inadequate, and our armament obsolete. Yet we were more than half-way to being soldiers, and understood the position too well to hold back. Why did the twelve Territorial Divisions volunteer immediately for foreign service? The motive was quite simple: the Germans were in Belgium, their presence there threatened England, and no one suggested any other way of getting them out except by force.