The Darkness and the Thunder

by Stewart Binns

  It was a tearful departure for Winston Churchill at his brother’s home on the Cromwell Road in London on Tuesday last when he gave a farewell lunch for his family and friends. It was a bitter-sweet occasion. Some were happy that he would at last have the chance to be the warrior he so craves to be. Others were sad that it might have marked the passing of a dazzling political career, uncannily like the end of his father’s glittering career in 1886.

  Besides Winston’s and Goonie’s families, Margot Asquith was there, as were Clemmie’s sister, Nellie Hozier, and good friend Violet Bonham Carter. Lady Randolph, Winston’s mother, was also there but spent most of the time upstairs in paroxysms of tears. Eddie Marsh was also in tears, inconsolable at the loss of his mentor.

  Violet Bonham Carter recalled the gathering later: ‘Winston alone was at his gayest and his best, and he and Margot held the table between them.’

  The next day Clemmie got a letter from James Masterton-Smith, Winston’s naval secretary at the Admiralty for his entire time in office.

  It is half past ten and the shutters of the old familiar private office are going up … To those of us who know and understand, Winston is the greatest First Lord this old Admiralty has ever had – or is likely to have. With those of us who shared his life here, he has left an inspiring memory of high courage and tireless industry, and he carries with him to Flanders all that we have to give him – our good wishes.

  Winston crossed to France the following day. When he arrived in Boulogne he was met by a car, sent for him by the commander-in-chief himself, Sir John French. He used it to travel to see his friends at the regimental headquarters of his old regiment, the Oxfordshire Hussars at Bléquin. That night he had dinner with French, who was very kind to him and offered him either a role on his staff as an ADC, or the command of a brigade. Winston chose a brigade but asked if he could first gain experience of the trenches with the Guards Division.

  On the 18th he heard that Lord Cavan, Commander of the Guards Division, has agreed to take him on.

  Winston wrote to Clemmie immediately. He was in his element.

  18 November, St Omer

  Hot baths, decent beds, champagne and all the conveniences. I am sure I am going to be entirely happy out here and at peace. I must try to win my way as a good and sincere soldier.

  He also wrote to his brother, Jack, in the Dardanelles: ‘I am extremely happy and have regained a peace of mind to which I have long been a stranger.’

  He is now at the HQ of the Guards Division at La Gorgue, 12 miles east of St Omer. He writes to Clemmie at midnight after an evening with the elite regiments of the British infantry.

  19 November, St Omer

  I went this afternoon to see my regiment. They were very caressing and highly approved of my course of action and thought it very right and proper. Altogether, I see that the army is willing to receive me back as ‘the prodigal son’. I am very happy here. I did not know what release from care meant. It is a blessed peace. How I ever wasted so many months in impotent misery, which might have been spent in war, I cannot tell.

  Winston is attached to 2nd Battalion Grenadier Guards, a battalion with a pedigree that includes service to his ancestor the Duke of Marlborough, who was an ensign in the Guards and later its Colonel. It has fought in all the Great War battles since August last year but has suffered appalling losses. In the 1st Battle of Ypres it lost all but four officers and 140 men from a strength of over 600.

  Second Battalion is due to go into the line at Neuve Chapelle that afternoon, and Winston goes with them. As he strides across the desolate landscape, with the constant rumble of artillery in the distance, his host, Lieutenant Colonel George Jeffreys, says nothing for over an hour. Eventually, he reveals the reason for his silence.

  ‘I think I ought to tell you that we were not at all consulted in the matter of you coming to join us.’

  Winston, embarrassed, responds sheepishly. ‘I’m afraid I wasn’t told which battalion I would be joining either, but I’m sure we can make the best of it.’

  Another silence ensues until the battalion adjutant, Lieutenant Wilfrid Bailey, clearly annoyed at how many personal items Winston has brought to the Front, speaks.

  ‘I’m afraid we’ve had to cut down your kit rather. There are no communications trenches here, so everything has to be carried over open ground. The men have little more than they stand up in. We have found a servant for you, a good man, who is carrying a spare pair of socks and your shaving gear. We have had to leave the rest behind, which includes the four cases of alcohol.’

  There is an exchange of glances between the six staff officers who are escorting Winston, who now realizes that his arrival has not been greeted with much enthusiasm.

  ‘I quite understand, Lieutenant,’ he says. ‘I’m sure I’ll be very comfortable, and there is always the rum ration to keep away the chill. Please send the cases back to Division HQ and ask that they be put behind the mess bar for the convenience of the members.’

  Winston’s sleeping quarters is a derelict farm, christened Ebenezer Farm, 800 yards from the front line, just north of the ruined village of Neuve Chapelle. He chooses to sleep in the signals office, an eight-foot-square room that is occupied all night by a signaller sending Morse messages and the body of a Grenadier shot by a sniper earlier in the day.

  The next day he is in a front-line trench for the first time. He writes to Clemmie once more.

  22 November

  My Darling Cat,

  Everyone is continuing to be kind, and I think I’m overcoming the ‘bloody politician’ tag. Our trenches have been left in a mess by the previous occupants, but the Grenadiers, with their usual efficiency and discipline, are making progress in rendering them both habitable and defendable. Colonel Jeffreys is very severe with me and clearly thinks I’m a burden, but I’m sticking with him because there’s no doubt he’s a fine soldier, one of the army’s best, and his knowledge of trench warfare is profound.

  Please send the following with all speed to GHQ in St Omer:

  2 bottles Hine (My original shipment has been thought too bulky!)

  Sardines

  Chocolate

  Potted meats

  Three small face towels

  1 pr brown leather boots (Fortnum and Mason) – laces to the top

  2 pr khaki trousers

  Kisses to you and the Kittens,

  W

  PS Your little pillow is a boon and a pet.

  Winston’s next letter paints a vivid picture of life in the trenches, even in a relatively quiet sector.

  23 November

  Darling,

  I am with Eddie Grigg (you know, writer for The Times). He is CO No. 1 Company 2nd Battalion, and I am in his dugout. Fritz is snoring 130 yards away (we measured it fairly accurately this afternoon). We have whisky, which is allowed against the cold. The night is clear and sharp, but we are still fighting the squalor left by lazy soldiers and their officers, who should be demoted to the ranks for their indolence. Filth and rubbish everywhere. Graves built into the defences, and bodies scattered about, feet and clothing breaking through the soil. Troops of enormous bats creep and glide about the scene to the unceasing accompaniment of rifle and machine-gun fire and the venomous whining and whirring of the bullets which pass overhead.

  But amid this scene, and despite the cold and wet, I have found happiness and contentment such as I have not known for months. No newspapers, no political backbiting, no envy; just honest men defending their country and their loved ones.

  I love you,

  Pug

  His life at a crossroads, on 30 November Winston spends his forty-first birthday in the trenches, sleeping in a dugout only two feet six inches high. But he is happy. Colonel Jeffreys, who he seems to have won over, advises him to take a battalion rather than a brigade.

  ‘If you take a brigade, you’ll be out of touch with the fighting and, having watched you this week, I know you’ll prefer to be in the thick of it. Take a battalion
, where you can lead from the front.’

  That evening news arrives that the decision has been taken to withdraw from the Dardanelles. Winston feels that the news might bring the opportunity for revenge. He writes to Clemmie:

  My conviction that the greatest of my work is yet to come is still within me. I expect it will be my duty in the early months of next year – if I am all right – to stand up in my place in Parliament and endeavour to procure the dismissal of Asquith and Kitchener. I feel a great assurance of my powers … nothing can assail me.

  But politics is still cruel to Winston. Asquith, aware that he will be asked a question in the Commons about Winston’s credentials to take a command, writes to Sir John French, vetoing a brigade for him and suggesting only a battalion. But Winston is not too disappointed. He knows Colonel Jeffreys is right: he will relish the challenge of being an active soldier as a colonel much more than becoming a sedentary tactician as a brigadier.

  Part Twelve: December

  * * *

  EVACUATION

  Wednesday 8 December

  Dickebusch, West Flanders, Belgium

  Fourth Battalion Royal Fusiliers has had a quiet winter and is now supporting the Royal Engineers in digging and repairing trenches near Ypres. It is backbreaking work, especially in the heavy rain that seems to fall every day.

  The entire Front in the sector around the Ypres Salient has become a warren of interconnected trenches and saps. From the air, in the cockpits of the new reconnaissance aircraft now being used by both Allied and German strategists, the ground looks like a jigsaw puzzle but pockmarked with bomb craters like the surface of the moon.

  The second winter of the Great War has taken a firm hold. Little vegetation survived the first year, but now a huge meandering snake of barren ground from the Belgian coast, across Flanders, into France and all the way to Switzerland is a desert of mud, mottled by a detritus of machines, refuse and bodies. It is a pitiless void infested by men in their setts and burrows, but also by ravenous rats, creeping bats, feral cats and wild dogs. The only remedy for the human scavengers is to eat the pests, not only because it reduces competition in the food chain but also because, with nourishment scarce, vermin are a vital source of protein.

  No one who sees it for the first time can believe that civilized men can live and die in such an abhorrent mess. Surely warring droves of swine would find a more wholesome place in which to slaughter one another?

  All the ills of winter are returning: trench foot, trench fever, typhoid, pneumonia, influenza, as well as the ever-present venereal disease and shell shock. Perversely, perhaps the most soul-destroying phenomenon of the onset of winter in 1915 is the lethargy of boredom. After the intensity of the last few months of 1914, when men had little time to reflect on anything other than staying alive, 1915 has been a year of tedious static warfare, when men have had too much time to contemplate the awfulness of their predicament. Levels of morale have been plummeting, made worse because decades of regimental tradition and discipline have been difficult to maintain when most of the veterans who embody them have been killed.

  Wednesday 8 December is a day of triple celebration for the 4th Fusiliers. After much toil as temporary sappers, it is their first day of rest in billets at Dickebusch, three miles south-west of Ypres. Secondly, at roll call, they are addressed by their new commanding officer, Major George Ottley, formerly of the King’s Own Yorkshire Light Infantry. Ottley, who gives a rousing speech, has risen from being a lieutenant at the beginning of the war to be a major and brevet colonel, the commanding officer of a battalion. It is a record that appeals to battle-hardened soldiers.

  The men take to him straight away, especially when he tells them that he will be sleeping in the forward trenches whenever the battalion is in the line. At the end of his speech he introduces the third reason for celebration: the return from a long recuperation in hospital in Boulogne of two of the battalion’s most famous sons.

  ‘Gentlemen, please join me in welcoming two men who epitomize what the Fusiliers are all about. They are both highly decorated; they are both veterans of the Boer War and India; and both are survivors since the first landings of the BEF last year – and there are not many of those around.’

  There is a huge round of applause and loud cheers.

  ‘I believe one of them is nicknamed the Leyton Lash, the other Modest Mo. The second name I understand; the first one I need to do some research on.’

  There is a voice from the back of the ranks. ‘Ol’ ’Arry likes his beer cold an’ his women warm, sir!’

  ‘Don’t we all!’ is Ottley’s quick riposte, which only adds to the men’s liking of him. ‘Now, I have to tell you that both had tickets home, having received severe wounds, one at Hooge in July, the other at Bellewarde Ridge in June, but they declined the chance to return to Blighty, preferring to stay with us. That speaks volumes for them, and also for the battalion and the regiment.’

  ‘More fools them!’ is the light-hearted cry from several men.

  ‘Needless to say, they have both spent the last five months chasing the nurses, drinking the beer and enjoying the sea air in Boulogne.’

  More cheers, and various bawdy comments follow, including one that suggests that half the nurses in Boulogne are pregnant and another that half the French women of Boulogne are also pregnant.

  ‘Gentlemen, I give you Company Serjeant Majors Harry Woodruff and Maurice Tait.’

  Harry and Maurice march in smartly, although Maurice has a noticeable limp, and salute Major Ottley before they are swamped by the men. They look immaculate in their clean and pressed uniforms, their polished boots and chestful of medals gleaming brightly.

  That night they are the centre of attention at the Maison de Ville in Poperinghe. There is no shortage of beer bought for them to drink and no shortage of well-wishers. One of them, a young serjeant who has just arrived from London with a reserve battalion of the Middlesex, is curious about their decision to stay.

  ‘So, you two boys got some sort o’ scam goin’ or wot? Fags, booze, girls?’

  Harry takes an instant dislike to him. ‘Where are you from?’

  ‘Fulham.’

  ‘Some kinda Fulham wide-boy, are yer?’

  ‘Might be. Aren’t we all? Reckon you’ve got something goin’ or you’d be in Blighty by now.’

  ‘What’s yer name, son?’

  ‘Dave. Dave Woods. I know a few fellas in West London who might be interested in gettin’ involved as suppliers if yer interested.’

  ‘Listen, Dave. I do ’ave a proposition for yer.’

  ‘I’m all ears.’

  ‘Fuck off and leave us alone. We’ve got beer to drink.’

  Young Dave, not used to being insulted, is livid, but scrutinizes Harry carefully. He then looks at those around them, who are now watching the exchange in silence. Harry’s eyes are unblinking but carry a menace Dave has seen before in men who do not have to prove their worth. He decides that discretion is the better part of valour, pushes through the throng and walks off, muttering to himself. Maurice smiles at Harry, who is shaking his head.

  ‘Bloody cheek, Mo. Do we look like dodgy types?’

  ‘Must do … Well, you do.’

  Later that evening, when most of the men welcoming them back have gone, Harry and Maurice, now made sombre by a bucketful of Belgian beer, reflect on their decision to return to their battalion.

  ‘S’pose what we did was a bit doolally, Mo?’

  ‘Yeh, but what would we do in Blighty?’

  ‘Open those pubs we always talked about.’

  ‘But we’d ’ave to find a missus fer that, and I’m not ready to settle down yet. Mebbe after the war.’

  ‘Fuck me; we’ll be dead by then.’

  ‘Then it won’t make any odds, will it?’

  ‘S’pose not. D’ya reckon there’ll be a truce an’ a kick-around wiv Fritz again this Christmas?’

  ‘Dunno. If there is, we need to beat ’em this time.’

&n
bsp; ‘Well, we can’t beat ’em wiv a rifle an’ bayonet – perhaps football’s our best chance.’

  ‘Perhaps we could settle the whole ruck wiv a game of football. Then we could all fuck off home.’

  ‘That’d be too easy. We wouldn’t need generals fer that, an’ they’d all be out of a job.’

  ‘That’s why it won’t ’appen.’

  ‘You heard those rumours that 60,000 Frenchies ’ave broken through in the south?’

  ‘Oh yer, like the one that the Ruskies ’ave surrounded Berlin and are holdin’ the Kaiser hostage!’

  ‘It’s all bollocks. An’ what about Gallipoli? The word is that we’re pullin’ out.’

  ‘I ’ope that one’s kosher. We could do wiv those boys over ’ere.’

  ‘So, three days in billets, then back to diggin’ for the bloody sappers.’

  ‘That’s all right – better than bein’ picked off by Fritz like sitting ducks!’

  Friday 10 December

  St Eloi, West Flanders, Belgium

  Jack Norton-Griffiths’ latest tunnelling innovation involves the power of huge machines rather than the human toil of his clay-kickers. He is at St Eloi, the base for the major tunnelling operations south of Ypres, with Lieutenant Horace Hickling and several of the COs from the army’s tunnelling companies.

  ‘The big blow of Messines Ridge is on. Horace and I met with Haig and his staff at the beginning of the week and presented our “4-Bomb Big Bang” plan. They said no; but yesterday I got a call saying yes. The word is that the really big push that everyone is waiting for is on for June or July, and they’ve finally worked out that the big concrete emplacements the Germans have built on the Ridge are an obstacle that neither the infantry nor the artillery can handle. So we dig.’

  One of the engineers puts up his hand. ‘How far?’

  ‘Sixteen hundred yards.’

  ‘Bloody hell.’