Forgotten Voices of the Somme (29 page)

From there, we were unloaded and put on to a motor ambulance. There was no room inside, so I was put on the front with a blanket round me, and the driver was told to hold on to me so that I didn't fall out. From that point we were taken – this is still during the night – down to
Dives Copse
, where we were just laid on the bare grass. They gave us an injection in the chest, for tetanus, and then we were left. I wanted to piss like hell, and so I crawled away on my elbow and my knees, and I laid on my side and had a pee, and crawled back again.

In the morning, some of the old
Tin Lizzie
ambulances came along – the ancient T-model Fords. One took me down to Corbie, and I was taken to a school there and laid on the bare boards. Nobody came near me all day. Nothing was done whatever.

I had some secret codes on me – I crawled to a fireplace and put a match to them and burnt them – and then in the evening we were taken to the station and loaded on a train for Rouen. That was the first time I saw any nurses. We got to Rouen and the first thing was I was undressed, and I felt rather embarrassed with this girl undressing me. She used a towel and did it discreetly, and as she was pulling my shirt up at the back, there was a sudden sharp stab of pain. 'Ouch!' I said. 'What's the matter?' she said. She was smoking a cigarette, so I said that she must have dropped some ash on me. 'I haven't,' she said – and when she pulled my shirt up, she found the other wound in my back. She said there was a piece of shell in there, a shell splinter, and she threw it in the grass. So bang went my souvenir.

By then, my jaw was locked tight and I thought I'd got lockjaw. But a doctor –
Dr McNeill
– came round and looked at me. 'You've no got lockjaw, laddie,' he said, 'you've got a piece of dirty German iron wedged in your hinges . . .'

Corporal Harry Fellows

12th Battalion, Northumberland Fusiliers

On July 14, I helped to bury about five hundred Welsh, English and German bodies. We dug graves about eight foot long, six foot wide and two foot deep. First you removed the man's equipment. If the body was badly damaged, you cut it away. Then you took the man's pay book out of his right-hand breast pocket. This pay book contained all his details: his religion, his next of kin, his regimental number and the will that we all had to make. His wallet was in his left-hand pocket. Then we cut the identity disc from the man's neck, and we put the pay book and the wallet together and tied them with the string from the identity disc. We then buried the men, six to a grave, head-to-tail, and we stuck a bayonet above each man's head. On the bayonet, we hung the little parcel we'd made, with the man's steel helmet over the top to protect it from the weather.

Lieutenant Norman Dillon

14th Battalion, Northumberland Fusiliers

We were sent up to clear a pathway through Trônes Wood, so that stretcherbearers could carry their stretchers unimpeded. The route through the wood was very pocked with shell craters and some filling-in was necessary, and we were sent to do it. My platoon was no sooner on the job than the Germans began an 'area shoot'. In other words, they got every available gun in range, and put every shell they had on the area. It was extremely nasty. There was no cover. I got my chaps to sit down with their backs to the bigger trees – to get some protection. It was very frightening. In a wood, the noise of shellfire is amplified, and shrapnel bursts go through the leaves and make a terrific rending noise. The howitzer shells, which come down almost vertically, were responsible for killing several of my chaps. I got a lot of my chaps out of the wood, and went back with some stretcher-bearers to salvage what I could of the remainder. I'm afraid their lives were wasted. I was disillusioned by the waste of such a number of men without any just cause.

JULY 15 – SEPTEMBER 15

Following the success of July 14, the British were now poised before the German third-line defences, and the villages of
Flers
and
Gueudecourt
. Before they could be attacked, however, Delville Wood and
High Wood
had to be taken. On July 15, whilst the 13th Battalion, Royal Fusiliers was taking part in an unsuccessful attack on Pozières, the first of a series of bloody assaults was being mounted on Delville Wood. Over the next four days of fighting, the
South African Infantry Brigade
suffered almost 2,500
casualties
. Delville Wood would not be finally secured for another six weeks.

On July 16, the 11th Battalion Border Regiment took part in an attack which took Ovillers. Four days later, the
20th Battalion, Royal Fusiliers
was part of an unsuccessful attack on High Wood. An attack by the 1st Battalion, Royal West Kent Regiment, three days later, also failed. The fight for High Wood would continue for almost two months.

Just after midnight on July 23, attacks began on
Pozières Ridge
. The 1st Australian Division captured most of the village of Pozières, but was then

bombarded by the German artillery, suffering over five thousand casualties. Two days later, the whole village was taken, and attacks began on Mouquet Farm.

The battle was now descending into disorganised localised fighting, as is demonstrated by the 9th Battalion, Royal Fusiliers' attack on Pozières Ridge, on the night of August 4. Both sides were suffering heavy casualties, for minimal gains. In a confidential memorandum, circulated to the
War Committee
on August 1, Winston Churchill criticised the incoherent strategy and limited ambition of the campaign. In defence of the campaign, Haig argued for the importance of maintaining a steady pressure, and wearing down the enemy.

On September 3, an attack was mounted with the intention of securing the starting points for a coming major offensive. These starting points included High Wood, and
Guillemont
– positions that had already been the subject of fighting for several weeks. The 12th Battalion, Gloucestershire Regiment captured the German second line to the south-east edge of Guillemont. On the same day, Delville Wood finally came under British control.

Lieutenant William Taylor

13th Battalion, Royal Fusiliers

We went into the line for our next attack, which was to take the village of Pozières. Pozières was beyond La Boisselle, off to the left, and it had been attacked by one of our other battalions in the brigade, and a new battle had been arranged where the
13th Rifle Brigade
were to lead the attack and we were to support them. We knew that Pozières was heavily defended and we didn't relish the prospect. We knew it was a tough nut to crack. One just faced up to the thing.

When we took up our position, we had fairly good, deep trenches to assemble in, and we were there all night, under very heavy shellfire, before attacking in the morning. The attack began at about eleven in the morning. We were supposed to be supported by our artillery, but the Rifle Brigade led the attack, we followed them, and instructions came through – too late – that the attack was to be cancelled. So the artillery didn't open up at all. The Rifle Brigade had a terrible time, and we went forward about fifty yards when, suddenly, the message came through to us that the attack was cancelled. We'd seen what

was happening in front with the Rifle Brigade being shot down, and we lay down about fifty yards ahead, stayed there about an hour, when we had the order to retreat. While we were laying there, we received all our casualties. That was frightful. Men that had been with you all the time. It was a complete shambles. The whole thing.

I have an extract here from a letter I wrote home three days afterwards. I said, 'I am still in the thick of it, and the shelling has been very heavy for the past twenty-four hours. I lost more than half my platoon, including both my sergeants, who were killed, and I now have only sixteen men left. I am still quite well, although somewhat shaken. A piece of shell hit my field glasses and smashed them beyond repair, and another piece hit my helmet. So I'm lucky to be alive.'

I was thankful that I hadn't been hit. If that piece of shell that hit my field glasses had hit me, I wouldn't be here now. Every time one went into action, one knew that one might not come out. It didn't affect my morale, but after a battle, one was exhausted. One only had a certain amount of resistance, and I suppose a certain amount of it was taken from one. The remaining members of the platoon took it as a matter of course. What could they do?

After that schemozzle, we were relieved by the
5th Australian Division
, and we went well behind the line to a little village called
Bresle
, where we rested for about a week. About three or four miles behind the line. We had a quiet, restful time, while we received more men to make up our numbers, although we were still quite short of men. It was a peaceful farming village, which hadn't been shelled at all. Just the sort of place one wanted to recoup. We were there for about a week, and we were marched back to the line to hold a sector beyond Mametz Wood, on the edge of High Wood.

Corporal Frederick Francis

11th Battalion, Border Regiment

We slept in a wood outside a village called
Authuille
, and at seven-thirty in the morning of July 16, the colonel gave the command, 'When I blow the whistle, dash out of the wood, and try to get into the front-line trench.' So he blew the whistle and I remember distinctly, he patted us all on the back and said, 'Good luck! If things don't go well, I'll come out and lead you myself.' Well, they didn't go well; there were all these German machine guns focused on us, and he came out. He was shot through the head and killed immediately.

I managed to get to our front line, but I couldn't see anybody about except one man, and I said, 'Who are you?' He said, 'My name's
Joe Holgate
, and I belong Workington.' I said, 'What are you doing in our front-line trench?' he said, 'I was in D Company and the commanding officer and his second were lying wounded and they told me to lead the rest of the company on.' But he found nobody else alive. So we shook hands with each other and we decided to rally anybody we could find, to come. I was just climbing over our barbed wire – I'd just got my right leg over – when I got this machine-gun bullet. It went right through my waterworks. It clung itself on to the wall of my bladder.

I was lying wounded, and I kept saying, 'Will somebody please come and get me in?' A voice replied, 'If I volunteer to come out, can you climb on my shoulder?' 'No,' I said, 'my left shoulder's badly wounded and my foot's practically hanging off.' So he said, 'Just a minute! I'll get help!' So he returned shortly, and between him and another man, they got me on to my back and on to a stretcher, and as they were lifting the stretcher up to get me back into our own front trench, the Germans sighted a machine gun on us. Luckily, they missed us. When I was back in our trench, the medical officer produced a big bottle of iodine and he poured it all over me, wherever he saw blood. Then he handed me to the stretcher-bearers. They took me as far out of the line as they were entitled to do, before handing me over to the Royal Army Medical Corps. I was taken to a field dressing station. There were British and German wounded lying next to each other. I can remember an RAMC man looking at me and saying, 'He won't live long . . .' and he took my watch out of my breast pocket – my official watch, suspended on a leather strap. Royal Army Medical Corps? Royal Army Robbing Corps!

Private Donald Price

20th Battalion, Royal Fusiliers

It was still dark, and we were taken out about five hundred yards, towards High Wood, with not the faintest idea what we were going to do. We lay down in the dark, ready for the final spurt. We came under an
enormous
barrage. God, it was appalling. Screams of death. Screams from fellows all over the place. By the time we got to the wood – we were nearly annihilated.

We made a big mistake. We had to go forward, and we kept to this big road because the undergrowth was so thick. The unfortunate thing was – that's what he had his machine guns trained on. And before we'd finished, I found

myself completely alone. I was exhausted, carrying this load of shovels and ammunition, and I rolled over and I saw the dugout, and I rolled down this dugout – which was quite deep – and when I got to the bottom of the dugout, there were three seriously wounded Germans. They were sitting at the side, screaming away, and eventually I sat down next to one of them. And immediately, I went to sleep.

When I woke up, they were all dead. The lot of them had died. I was being held up by one of these dead fellows. I realised that I'd got to get out and get back to my regiment – if I could. Somehow. So I got to the top of this dugout and I remembered where I'd come from, I knew the way back, and I semicrawled, crouched and ran back to the beginning of the wood, where I'd started from.

Much to my amazement, there was a sergeant major there with three other fellows, and the sergeant major said, 'Where the hell have you come from?' 'Up there!' I said. 'Is there nobody there?' 'No.' I got into the hole with them, on the edge of the wood. By that time, it was getting dark. The shelling had stopped – it was calm. At about midnight, somebody came to the back of the hole and said, 'Get out! We're your relief!' The sergeant major told us to make our own way back, and I got out with an Irishman named Terry, and we ran out towards Mametz Wood – but we missed our way. We started running past Delville Wood and there was a hell of a fight going on there.

So we turned right and made our way down
Happy Valley
, and Terry and I were so exhausted that we decided to stop. It was still dark, and we would find our way back in the morning. We found our way into a trench and, without any ado, we flopped down and went to sleep. When we woke up, we found that we'd been sleeping in a latrine. Covered in crap. And we thought nothing about it. We looked down and found that our battalion was back in the holes that we'd vacated. We went back there, and when we got back the people who'd turned up were minimum. We'd lost about four hundred men in that one night.