Forgotten Voices of the Somme (26 page)

Private William Holmes

12th Battalion, London Regiment

The
estaminets
were wonderful. The British have never had them. They would be beautifully warm, and they had different things that I've never seen in British restaurants. They had coloured lights and artificial flowers. The whole atmosphere was good. It was such a wonderful change from what we'd been through. The serving girls at the counter would be gaily dressed, and there'd always be music, sometimes a small band, and you could sing the popular songs of the day. The food was so good. I remember one of the delicacies was frogs – and they were quite enjoyable. We used to drink wine – they wouldn't stick to just tea, and the wines were so cheap.

Sergeant Frederick Goodman

1st London Field Ambulance, Royal Army Medical Corps

We used to frequent a little
estaminet
, run by a little French lady, a very pleasant woman, who could find cakes and what have you. We used to go in there and buy whatever was going. One day, a shell came over, right bang on to the
estaminet
. She was very badly hurt, and we brought her into our dressing station, but it was apparent that she wouldn't live. As she died, she said, '
C'est la guerre, monsieur
.'

Private Frank Turner

Army Cyclist Corps

One night, we found an
estaminet
with a piano. It was a fair size, and there were four or five soldiers having a quiet drink. We asked the madame if we could play the piano. '
Mais oui, monsieur!
' So I started. In no time the place was bursting at the seams with troops. It was a wonderful experience. There were all these drinks lined up on the piano for me – in all colours of the rainbow – but I didn't drink half of them. I wasn't used to it. Eventually, the madame got the wind up and she called the redcaps, who chucked us all out. And then someone handed me a concertina – I don't know where it came from – and I can knock a tune out. One old soldier was holding my right arm, another was holding my left arm, and we passed through the artillery lines. It was a quiet night; there was no firing going on, and chaps were coming out of the artillery dugout, yelling, 'What the –'s going on?' We didn't get nicked, but I couldn't look at a thing the next morning.

Private Fred Dixon

10th Battalion, Royal West Surrey Regiment

In one
estaminet
, a very kind old French lady was dispensing coffee from a jug and two girls in their late teens were dispensing pills which they assured us would give us additional power in our amorous exploits.
Colonel Hayley-Bell
was our colonel at the time. He was the grandfather of the actress Hayley
Mills, and he
was greedy. He took two.

Corporal George Ashurst

1st Battalion, Lancashire Fusiliers

We were drinking
vin blanc
in the
estaminet
, and it was absolutely crowded. There were five
women
in there, and it was five francs to go up the stairs and

into the bedrooms with them. One night, the padre walked in. The stairs leading up to bedrooms were full; there was a man on every step, waiting his turn to go in with a woman. I was sat at a table with my friend Tom, when the padre came in. He dressed us all down. 'Have none of you any mothers? Have none of you any sisters?' I didn't fancy the prostitutes at all. They were so common. Tom said, 'Are you going up there?' 'No,' I said, 'not with them
things
!' They were all sorts of ages. Fellows could probably tell you what it was like going in; the first thing she does is grab your five franc note. Put it there! And then she unfastens your flies, and has a feel, and
squeezes
it, to feel if anything's wrong with you. And then she throws her cloak off, and she's on the bed. Ready for you. And when she's finished, she has the kettle boiling with some herbs in it, to give you a bit of a swill. For safety's sake. There was an old Frenchman upstairs, bossing the place, and he was shoving the men into the rooms, when they were empty, and shoving the men away, who'd been in. I didn't go for it – not with that lot. But most of the troops did. The stairs were lined with men.

Anonymous

I went to a knocking shop. They were great big women, most of them, and they were all sitting round a big table, waiting for opening time. When I came in, 'Ah! The blue-eyed garçon! Ici!' I was so embarrassed by the time I got to the bedroom, I couldn't get a stand at all. I was – what do you call it? – impotent. It was the first time I'd had
that sort
of woman. We'd heard all these tales of disease, and I was a bit apprehensive. But I went once or twice afterwards, and it was all right. She'd be wearing a thin kimono, to give you the feeling, straight away, and she fleeced you for about ten francs. I picked the youngest one every time, and it was all very quick. In and out.

Private Albert Day

1/4th Battalion, Gloucestershire Regiment

We would look for girls, but if you were a private you'd have no chance. The sergeants and the good-looking NCOs – they naturally pinched the girls.

Private William Holmes

12th Battalion, London Regiment

We were always chatting the French women up. The French girls knew how to make the best of themselves. More than my own sisters. Our girls never had

that '
petite
' business, and they never put all that colour on their faces, the way the French girls did. It was an art with them. Virtually every girl you met was beautiful. They wouldn't be above putting flowers in their hair.

Anonymous

I made up my mind to make the best of the war, and enjoy it. I used to take my washing to a girl behind the lines, and I used to do it when she was leaning over the ironing board, ironing. My first time had been at sixteen or seventeen, at Whitley Bay, lying on the sands, and the tide swept over us, but my first French girl was when we stopped at a station. There were some girls there, and they were very pretty. I was talking to one, and we started doing it on the platform. It wasn't much of a platform – more of a grass verge. The best one was the last one. I was billeted with her family – unofficially – and her grandfather ran the power station. She used to bring me coffee every morning, and get into bed with me. The grandfather never knew. He was a nice chap; I was sorry to do it – from that point of view. But she was very, very nice.

Private Thomas McIndoe

12th Battalion, Middle
sex
Regiment

When we arrived in France a memo was issued by Lord Kitchener. It said that in recent months quite a number of the Expeditionary Force had rendered themselves unfit for duty through negligence in contracting
venereal disease
. This must stop forthwith as the
War Office
takes a very poor view of this in view of the number that's been rendered unfit for duty.

Anonymous

I went to bed with one woman, and she was so fat I couldn't find anywhere to go.

The Fight Goes On

Why did I survive? I have thought about it over and over again.

In the wake of the bloody first day, British attention became focused on consolidating the gains that had been made to the south. Haig underlinedto Joffre his plan to launch a major attack on
Longueval
. Joffre initiallyargued that the British should concentrate on attacking at Thiepvaland Pozières, where British troops had just been so badly mauled. After a heated discussion, Joffre – for once – backed down.

JULY 2 – JULY 14

On July 2, Fricourt – which had been abandoned by the Germans – was taken. Five days later, attacks were mounted on the villages of Ovillers and
Contalmaison
, and on
Mametz Wood
. These attacks were intended to consolidate the left flank in advance of the major thrust. In an assault on Ovillers, the 8th and 9th Battalions,
Royal Fusiliers
, together with the
7th Battalion, Royal Sussex Regiment
, took the first three lines of German trenches. The
16th Battalion Welch Regiment
was torn apart by machinegun fire in its failed attack on Mametz on July 9. The wood was taken five days later, but only after the deaths of almost four thousand officers and men. On July 9, the 17th Battalion, Manchester Regiment took part in an attack on
Trônes Wood
, in order to consolidate the right flank. The wood was won and then lost, and had not been secured in time for the assault on Longueval.

Anonymous

Behind Fricourt, there's a ridge, and running along the ridge was a line of trees, and the Germans still occupied that. My company had the task of clearing them, as part of a mopping-up operation. We attacked the wood from a sunken road running parallel to it. Before the attack, there was – the only time I saw it – an unrestricted issue of rum. There was a large jar of rum being passed round, and men were holding out their mess tins for it. At the request of the artillery, the attack was postponed by an hour, and the rum was still being passed round during that hour. I just had a sip, but a lot of the older soldiers were walloping it down. When we eventually went over, they were a mob of waving, screaming maniacs. Some of them even forgot to take their rifles. But what could have been a stark tragedy turned into a black comedy, because the artillery had done a lot of damage, and there was just one German machine gun left, and two of our bombers silenced it. When we got to the trench, there were a lot of dead Germans inside it, and we could see the others running away. One man said to me afterwards, 'I don't remember a lot about it, but we must have frightened the bloody daylights out of Jerry.'

Sergeant Wilfred Hunt

9th Battalion, Devonshire Regiment

On July 2, we were called up to join the Devons, who'd been badly mauled between Fricourt and Mametz. We reorganised as best we could – I was made from lance corporal to sergeant, and we were taken straight to
Death Valley
. We went over the top, and our objective was a road. We were supposed to stay at the road, but somebody said, 'Come on! We're going further!' So we went through to a cornfield. When we got to the other end of this cornfield, we found some Germans busy digging. They saw us at the same time as we saw them, they brought their machine guns out, and we had to look sharp back to where we started from, to the road, where we should have stopped.

Sergeant Alf Razzell

8th Battalion, Royal Fusiliers

We went over on July 7, in the morning. Just before we went, the colonel climbed up one of the ladders and looked over. Each company was to go over separately, with a space of two minutes between each. I was going with the

third line – the 'Headquarter Company' as our colonel called it. He was going with the third line too.

Well, just as the first line were going, the colonel turned to the adjutant, who was alongside him, and he said, 'It's a gift, Bobby!' After just a few moments, it was our turn to go, and over we went.

The people who had been over on July 1 were lying there. The casualties were lying everywhere; there was a body every few yards, all the way down the valley. It was a horrifying experience, even for somebody who'd been out there quite a while. When we had gone about eighty yards, I saw the colonel stagger and put his arm around his orderly's shoulders. He staggered on for a few more steps, then sank down on to the ground. He was obviously badly wounded. Of course, you carry on, but I noticed that there were very few men still standing in the two lines in front of me. We were being enfiladed from either side from the high ground left and right, because when I went to use my rifle afterwards, there was a hole through the butt at right angles to the direction in which we were advancing.

With seven hundred yards to go to the German trench, we came to a road which cut obliquely across our line of advance, and I noticed that every man that got on to the road went down. They obviously had a fixed machine gun – or guns – a few inches above the road. I saw then the cutting power of a machine gun, because within a few seconds every man that went down was just a mound of bloody cloth with bits flying off. Naturally I didn't cross that road. I went along a slight ditch along the side of the road, until I came to the German wire, which was impassable.

The wire was breast high, and probably fifteen feet in depth, so I dropped into a shell-hole under their wire. I was immediately joined by another man, and we both thought that the attack had failed. For about an hour, the Germans were throwing bombs at us; we were just out of their range, but we were near enough that we could feel the displacement of the air when they exploded.

After an hour, we saw Mills bombs being thrown in the opposite direction, so it was obvious that we had a bombing party in their trench. And after a bit, the Germans in front of us got out of their trench and disappeared, so we made our way to the left until we found a place where we could get through the wire by picking our way carefully, and we joined the Tommies in the trench.

We stayed with them all that day, and we advanced up the German communication trenches and took over their support trenches, and various saps and little trenches. We more or less took it all that day. That night, we expected a counter-attack – which didn't come.

We discovered that the colonel, the adjutant and all four company commanders had been killed. Every officer in the battalion had been killed or wounded. There was one sergeant – myself, one corporal and one lance corporal. We were annihilated. Our battalion, that we were so proud of, was annihilated in the time it takes you to walk seven hundred yards.