Authors: Margaret Dickinson
‘It’s so cold and wet,’ Charlie grumbled. ‘I don’t think my feet have been dry for a week.’
‘We’d best have a look at you, old chap. Don’t want you getting this thing they call trench foot.’
Theo led the way into a dugout as four huge rats scurried out, disturbed by their arrival. Used to the creatures on the farms, the three young men were not fazed by them, though Bertie remarked,
‘They’re big buggers, aren’t they? Can’t say I like the idea of one running over my face when I’m asleep.’
Theo gave a wry laugh. ‘One blighter ran over mine only last night. Got his back feet in my mouth. I felt like giving him a bite, but I knew his retaliation would be far worse, so I let
him go. Get the brazier going, Bertie. Let’s have something hot. But mind the smoke doesn’t give us away. Now, Charlie, let’s look at those feet of yours.’
It wasn’t long before the ‘Chums’ suffered their first casualty when a private was wounded and suddenly the whole excursion became very serious, made more so
at the end of the month when the first fatalities occurred.
Now the cousins knew they were really at war.
Theo and Charlie both kept their letters to their families light and jovial, even when the snow came and it was hard to write with stiff fingers, sitting in a freezing dugout
and listening to the bullets whistling overhead, but Bertie wrote home with the truth, telling Nancy and Emmot about the casualties, the comrades they’d already lost and the dreadfully cold
conditions, yet always ending with the words.
‘But don’t worry about us. We’re still together and watching out for each other . . .’
They became used to the ever-changing routine; so many days in the trenches and then so many days behind the lines when they could go to the nearest town, spend time in cafés or at some
kind of entertainment if any was available, or even just flirt with the local girls. Theo and Charlie went frequently to one particular café where the two pretty waitresses had caught their
eye.
‘You go,’ Bertie urged them. ‘I’ll stay here and write to Emmot.’
It was the only time the three cousins were ever apart for long.
I haven’t a clue where we are, but Theo (who knows everything) says we’re near the River Somme and there’s a feeling that something big’s
afoot
, Bertie wrote to Emmot, wondering if his words would ever reach her past the censor, but he wrote them anyway.
You know what I mean. It’s like when Aunt Annabel planned
that party on the last night. We’d guessed something was up because of all the whispering and the piles of food being hidden in the pantry. Well, it’s like that, but we reckon
this is going to be a very different kind of party. Ammunition to blow the enemy sky high is being carried up to the front trenches. It’s rumoured there’s going to be a big push
to divert the enemy’s attention from the French at Verdun. They’ve had an awful time. So it looks like it’s our turn now. If we could only move forward instead of just being
stuck in the same place for months on end.
During the last days of June, the allies began a huge barrage against the enemy with weapons of all descriptions. On duty in the front line, Theo, Charlie and Bertie stood shoulder to shoulder
watching the gunfire and shelling landing on the enemy’s trenches.
‘It seems such a shame,’ Theo remarked. ‘No Man’s Land looks so pretty sometimes, when the sun shines on the fields of green grass dotted with white and yellow wild
flowers and a shower of scarlet poppies. And now we’re blowing it all to Kingdom Come.’
Bertie chuckled. ‘He’s getting poetic now. Just watch he doesn’t go over the top to pick flowers.’
‘Do you think it’s ever going to stop?’ Charlie asked. It was the first time the three cousins had been on duty in the front line and it was nothing like they’d imagined,
not even in their worst nightmares.
On their arrival, they’d spent some days in the support trenches, ferrying supplies and getting used to the tedious life. They had to ‘stand to’ at dawn for an hour and then it
was breakfast, which might be only a slice of bread and a cup of weak tea. But now, something seemed to be happening. The allied artillery barrage had begun two days’ earlier on 24 June in an
attempt to obliterate the German front lines and so open up a way for a massive assault.
‘I don’t know,’ Theo muttered grimly. ‘I reckon they must be able to hear this back in England.’
‘Oh, I hope not. Mam’ll go spare if she does,’ Bertie murmured. Their patriotic fervour was being eroded by the minute by the incessant gunfire and the nervous tension that
permeated the trenches.
‘It’s the waiting that’s the worst, isn’t it?’ Theo said. ‘If only we could get going.’ He glanced up and down the short run of the trench where the
three of them were standing on the fire step, their rifles at the ready, their steel helmets in place.
‘You know what this is supposed to do, don’t you?’
‘Hopefully kill all the enemy before we get the order to go over the top?’ Charlie ventured.
‘Well, that as well, but no, they’re hoping to breach a gap in the enemy line so that the cavalry can push through.’
‘But what about their artillery, to say nothing of tanks? Have they got tanks?’ Bertie said. ‘Horses against tanks doesn’t sound like a very sensible idea.’
‘Is anything about this war “sensible”?’ was Theo’s only reply, to which neither of the other two had an answer.
Half an hour later they were told to stand down but the bombardment continued hour after hour.
‘I’ll be deaf after this,’ Theo muttered as he led the way down into the nearest dugout. ‘Now, what are we going to have for dinner, chaps? A nice piece of rump steak
from Percy Hammond’s shop? Or – I know, what about bully beef and biscuits for a change?’
‘Why not?’ Charlie muttered. ‘Is there any water left?’
‘Not a drop,’ Bertie said cheerfully. ‘It’ll be boiled water from the nearest shell hole again.’
‘Haven’t they brought supplies yet?
‘Doesn’t look like it,’ Charlie said, scratching his chest.
‘Have you got lice again, old chap?’
‘They won’t let me alone.’
‘Come on, off with your kit.’
Charlie stood like some little schoolboy whilst Theo and Bertie stripped him.
‘God, he’s alive with the little blighters,’ Theo said. ‘Let’s just chuck his shirt. I’ve got another one somewhere he can have.’
‘Surely no one over there can withstand that,’ Bertie said, as they stood side by side on the fire step once more. It was 1 July and they’d already been awake
since four-thirty. After breakfast an hour later they’d moved forward and there they’d waited until, at almost seven-thirty, a huge mine, buried by the Royal Engineers under the German
trenches, was detonated, shaking the ground and blowing tons of earth skywards. Two minutes later, the artillery barrage from the allied lines, which had gone on for days, stopped. Fear gripped
every waiting soldier’s stomach. It was not cowardice – these volunteers were the bravest of the brave. They’d enlisted in a wave of patriotic fervour to save their country,
prepared to do whatever it took to rout the enemy, but not one of them could have foreseen the carnage or the horror they would have to endure as they stood at the gates of hell on that
summer’s morning. Weighed down with over seventy pounds of equipment – entrenching tools, gas helmets, wire cutters, ammunition, bombs, water bottles, field dressings –
they’d been ordered to advance at a steady pace to gain, it was hoped, at least two miles of ground on that first day.
The whistle blew, the order came and men climbed the ladders and launched themselves over the parapet and began to climb the hill towards the Germans, who had the advantage of occupying the
villages of La Boiselle and Ovillers on the higher ground. Earlier patrols had reported that the enemy’s positions had been obliterated. Surely, no resistance could – or would –
be offered.
But something had gone disastrously wrong. As the first line, which included the three cousins, appeared over the top of the parapet, they faced heavy machine-gun fire. They walked on, but
soldier after soldier fell to the ground. Another line advanced and then another and another, but the slaughter went on.
‘Run, Bertie, run!’ Theo shouted and grabbed hold of Charlie, pulling him into a shell hole. Bertie tumbled in a moment later, panting and disorientated, but astonishingly, he was
laughing. ‘You told me to run once before, Theo. Remember?’
‘So I did, old chap. But I reckon these Germans are even more fearsome than my mother, don’t you?’
‘Guess the artillery assault didn’t work then,’ Charlie muttered. ‘Now what do we do?’
Cautiously, Theo poked his head above the side of the shell hole only to hear the ping of a bullet hitting his helmet.
‘For God’s sake, Theo, stay down.’
Machine-gun fire went on all around them. Another soldier fell into the crater, slithering down the side to lie in the bottom, eyes staring, blood pouring from his chest. The three cousins
stared at him and then at each other. He was beyond help. Another rolled in, but he was still alive.
‘I’m hit, I’m hit. Oh, Mother, I’m hit.’
The shelling and the gunfire went on relentlessly and now, added to the deafening noise, was the sound of wounded and dying men screaming in agony, lying in No Man’s Land where not even
the most courageous stretcher bearer could reach them. As dusk fell, the three cousins shed some of their equipment and, dragging the wounded man with them, began to crawl back towards their own
trenches. Every so often they lay perfectly still, as snipers’ bullets hit the ground round them.
‘We should have waited a while longer, until it was really dark,’ Bertie muttered.
‘There’s another crater up ahead. We’ll wait there a while,’ Theo suggested, as the moaning of their companion brought another hail of bullets, but thoughts of leaving
their wounded comrade never entered their heads. They waited again, and not until the early hours of the following morning did they make it back to the trench, falling in with relief, still
dragging the casualty after them.
‘Let’s get him to the dressing station,’ Bertie said. ‘You both all right?’
‘Careful,’ Charlie said, straining his eyes through the darkness. ‘There’re men still sleeping. Mind where you tread.’
Theo bent and shook the shoulders of one or two men lying on the duckboards at the bottom of the trench. ‘Charlie, old chap,’ he said softly. ‘They’re dead.’
‘What! All of them?’
In the pale light of the July dawn, they searched among the bodies until they found one or two only just alive. Between them, they made several trips back and forth to the dressing station. When
at last they could find no one else who could be helped they retreated into the dugout, white-faced and with dark rings of utter exhaustion around their eyes.
‘Let’s get some sleep if we can. There’ll be more of the same tomorrow – I mean, today – I’ve no doubt,’ Theo said.
The three cousins didn’t know it but that day had been the start of a big offensive that would become famously known as ‘The Battle of the Somme’. It was miraculous that all
three of them had survived those first disastrous hours. As they tried to sleep, Theo said to Charlie, ‘Rumour has it that the 2nd Lincolns are here somewhere. Your father’s with them,
isn’t he?’
‘I really don’t know, but I don’t expect I’ll suddenly find myself in the same shell hole with him,’ Charlie said, half asleep already.
But strange coincidences happen in war and late that same night, as the three young men huddled together in the dugout, they could hear voices outside and Charlie heard his name called
softly.
‘Here,’ he answered. ‘In here.’
A dark shadow crouched at the entrance and then crawled in. ‘Don’t stand up, chaps,’ a voice said, ‘I’m here unofficially. In fact, I’m probably being very
unprofessional, but I am off duty for the moment and I doubt anyone’s going to argue with me anyway.’
As the man straightened up, Charlie gasped and Theo murmured, ‘Well, I never.’
Bertie just stared at Major James Lyndon.
‘We’re very near you. Just to the north outside the village of Ovillers. We’ve driven deeply into the enemy lines. How about you?’
‘Much the same, sir,’ Theo said. Both Charlie and Bertie were tongue-tied. ‘We’ve advanced – so they’re telling us – but we’ve suffered terrible
casualties.’
In the poor light, James’s face was grim. ‘Yes, we have too. That’s why –’ He hesitated and bit his lip. It was hard for the soldier in him to show emotion of any
kind. ‘I wanted to know that you were all safe.’ He glanced round at the three ashen faces. They were exhausted and drained of feeling. There was a long pause before he touched Charlie
lightly on the shoulder and said gruffly, ‘I’d better be going before I’m missed. Take care of yourselves – and each other. All of you.’
And then, as quickly as he had come, he was gone, crawling out of the dugout and disappearing along the trench, keeping his head low as he found his way through the darkness back to his own
position.
After several moments’ silence, Charlie murmured, ‘Did that just happen?’
‘I think it did,’ Theo said and yawned. ‘But I’m so tired, so very tired, I might have dreamed it all.’
And with that, Theo was asleep on the cold, hard floor of the dugout leaving Charlie kneeling at the entrance trying to catch a last glimpse of his father.
The battles of the Somme would rage backwards and forwards for months and would claim thousands of young lives on both sides. When the long lists of the casualties suffered by
the 10th Battalion Lincolnshire Regiment – the ‘Grimsby Chums’ – began to appear in the town’s newspapers, the community realized sadly that they had lost a generation
of fine young men and all for the capture of about five miles of ground. But somehow, the Lyndon boys had survived. They had stayed close, watching out for each other and fighting courageously
together.
Charlie and his father did not meet again, but in October, word came down the line that Major James Lyndon had been killed on the twenty-third of that month in an assault on the enemy to the
east of Les Boeufs and Gueudecourt, when the 2nd Lincolnshire were said to have been ‘almost wiped out’.