Wednesday 5th April, 1:30 am our fifty-nine-hour train ride comes to its conclusion when we pull into the station at Godewaersvelde, a small town just south of the Belgium border, about fifteen miles south-west of Ypres.
I am disappointed that we bypassed Paris, they took us right around it. At least I can boast of having been across France.
The railway siding at Godewaersvelde has a sprinkling of Australian troops waiting for our arrival. Most of them look haggard and dirty but the atmosphere is distinctly Aussie.
“Where have you jokers been, we’ve been waiting weeks for ya to turn up?” “About bloody time!” “Welcome to the war chaps.” “Did you bring us any mail?” “Anyone from Bendigo here?”
The banter and Coo’ees go on for quite a while. Those on board the train cannot get off quick enough, everyone has had an absolute gut full of the cramped three-day rattle, limited food, no sleep or opportunity to walk around.
The first most striking observation when the platform noise abates is the thump, thump, thump of big guns in the distance. There is a very savage reality check amongst the new arrivals, including me, that we really have arrived at the war front.
I have trained for this for more than half a year. Read about it, spoken about it, dug trenches, thrown grenades, pitched tents, marched hundreds of miles but never fired a shot in anger. Now, in the blink of an eye, I stand at the front door of war.
The greeting troops tell us that the big guns are ten miles away and belong to us. “We’re giving Fritz a bit of a tickle up tonight” one chap explains. Such a short distance away we are defending the front line and making every effort to wipe out the enemy. On the other side of the line, his guns are pointed our way and his objective is the same. This is real war and we have arrived to join it.
The thump, thump, thump is relentless, I can feel the earth vibrate under my boots.
The night air is still, and the second observation I make is that I am cold. Not bleak cold, but my blood is probably a bit thin from being in Egypt for a couple of months and the sudden chill on the body bites. I am wearing all the clothes I own.
It takes a little while to detrain and line up. We are lead off with full packs, away from the siding and off through some very narrow, rough cobblestoned paths. A short distance away we are advised to “camp-up” beside the track till day break.
A few miserable hours later we load up again and march five miles south-west to a very small village called Caestre, arriving around midday. We are allocated several farmers barns for billeting. The accommodation is rough, but everyone is too dog tried to argue about it. We find a bit of space, roll out swags and call this our new home. The unrelenting thump, thump, thump to the east has continued all night and all through the morning. I’m pleased they are ours.
Later in the afternoon while walking around, trying to get my bearings, I overhear our Commanding Officer complaining about the conditions of the billets to a Messenger/Runner. There is no guide, no Staff Officers, no stores. The sanitary conditions are poor, the barns dirty and overcrowded. He is clearly not impressed that we have been “dumped” and goes into bat for the Battalion with the full force of his authority. I cannot see that anything will change for a few days, but he has my respect for demanding improvement. I note that the Officers are camped up in a small building with a sign that reads “Rouge Croix” over the door. My French lessons are only two days old, but I quickly understand this to translate as “Red Cross”.
It takes a few days to settle in and some help arrives from other Australian divisions to establish a cook house and basic supplies. We are brought up to speed with our current whereabouts and the war status around us. Training drills and short marches keep us occupied. The front-line trenches are only eight to ten miles east of us and the thump, thump doesn’t stop.
About a week after we arrived a call comes up that one hundred men are required immediately to transfer over to the 172nd Tunnelling Company. I didn’t even get to the line-up, men are so eager to see action that they climb over the top of each other to sign up. The positions were filled in minutes. As soon as they had packed their gear they were marched off down the road with a couple of Officers leading the way.
The next day, “B” Company are sent off on a 15-mile trek to Sailly-sur-la-Lys to “take up work with which the Battalion will be engaged in”. We understand this to mean that it is a relatively new area and “B” company will establish a camp and we will follow shortly.
All it seems to do here is rain. I’ve never seen so much rain in my life. We get a fair drop back home, but this is serious rain. In the first sixteen days we are in France, it rains hard on fourteen of them. Not just a few passing showers either, rain, rain and lots of mud. The local farmers must love it.
On the 18th April, the remainder of the Battalion pack up and we set off to Sailly-sur-la-Lys. With full packs, ammunition, and rifle to carry, the trek takes most of the day, it’s a decent effort. As we get closer, so does the noise. Our camp is only three miles from the firing line. Fritz is sending a few over our way as a welcoming gift but they land in open fields away from us. This is the first time I witness the enemy’s force and the penny drops that someone wants to kill me.
The shells burst in muddy fields, too far away to frighten anyone. I cannot see where the shrapnel travels, it just appears to be an explosion of mud. If this is as accurate as Fritz can be we’ll be fine.
The camp is set up reasonably well, our chaps have been busy. “B” Company are moved back to Caestre for a rest while the remaining “A”, “C” & “D” companies are assigned to take over existing works in areas close by named “Cellar Farm” and “V.C & Mine Avenues”. Four workshops are established for Blacksmiths, Carpenters, Armourers, Painters and Sign writers.
I’m now a carpenter.
I have not been in the trenches up till this point but those that have been reckon it is safer in there than out here. The reasoning is that Fritz is more likely to put shells over the top of the trenches and try to take out the supply lines further back. Supply lines will include troop camps if need be. Either way, you just have to deal with it.
“D” company, (my mob), commence work immediately, there is plenty of carpentry work to be done. Continuing to establish the camp to start with, then a few days in, Fritz knocks over the rail head (platform and siding) at Bac St Maur, which is very close by, and that becomes a major rebuild. The rail head is critical for supplies coming in to this area including tons of ammunition for the front-line chaps and heavy shells that need to be transferred to the firing line.
I enjoy the work, I enjoy the company. I’m happy with my lot at this stage.
Fritz progressively becomes more active and is dropping shells over frequently. They are more annoying than accurate. Close enough to make you look up and pay attention but I don’t feel that I am under serious threat. He is mainly using howitzer artillery along this front, 10.5cm and 15cm shells. (Four and six inches in our language). The howitzer fires a shell up in a very high arc so that when it comes down it is almost vertical. Their range can be up to seven or eight thousand yards so they’re not to be sneezed at.
He scored a couple of hits on some sheds about half a mile along the road from where I am and there were reports of a couple of casualties. Our guns gave it back to them, but we were unable to see any results because of the distance.
On days when the rain is solid few shells come over but when the weather is fine, and the planes come out, the Germans send shells up and over at a savage rate. Many are aimed at our planes. The shrapnel must come down somewhere but so far nothing has landed where I’m camped.
We watched as one of our planes buzzed around overhead and Fritz fired no less than seventy-five shells at him, every one of them missed. He couldn’t hit a haystack.
Overnight on the 1st May Fritz has a party and bombards our area quite heavily. There is some fear that he is progressing towards us. Our orders are to stay put and continue with our building projects
.
By 7:00am next morning we are assigned to an area of trench where we receive instructions to construct dugouts for eighty to one hundred men. This is my first visit to a front-line trench and it is very much what my training had taught me and what I expected it might be like. A bit narrower maybe but then it was most likely dug under some pressure and/or in the middle of the night. My first thought is that I’d never be able to lob a grenade up and out in such a narrow space. If I stand on the trench step my helmet is still lower than the parapet sand bags in most places.
An area where the back of the trench is a bit lower because of the natural fall of the land is selected as the portal (entrance) of the tunnel that will lead into the deep dug outs. A tunnel is dug that runs very quickly to a depth of around eight to ten yards. The ground is mostly clay so it’s solid and has resisted the rain. The waste is spread evenly along the parapet or behind the line in gullies or ridges so that Fritz planes cannot spot the large quantity of fresh soil and use the reference for big gun practice.
The entrance to the tunnel is shored up with heavy timber to support the ground above and hopefully to sustain any hit that would collapse the area and trap soldiers inside. At a safe depth, we change direction and run out to the left and right like a letter “T”. These legs are widened, and the crown of the tunnel is supported using timber columns and braces. By the end of the first day there is adequate cover in the dugout to support fifty men.
We receive our first pay on French soil. When in Egypt we were paid in Piastres, now it’s in French Francs. I’m assured by the paymaster that the conversion rate is the equivalent of one shilling and six pence per day which is the rate of pay for my rank. Some chaps who are married and might have children back home can choose to have a percentage of their pay diverted to their spouse.
Either way, there isn’t much opportunity to spend it crawling around an 8’ deep trench in the middle of a field. A few pennies change hands in impromptu “two-up” games. They don’t get any of mine, I’m too stingy to part with it.
Percy Spark is an old friend of mine who I knew from our days in the 20th Light Horse together. Originally from Allendale (Victoria), he enlisted a few months before I did. I’d seen him in Egypt and spot him passing through our camp in Sailly one afternoon. We chin wag and swap a few stories. He tells me he picked up a bonzer job as a driver in the 6th Battalion. We make a deal to keep in touch.
The slightly warmer weather and cramped conditions have introduced a second enemy; Lice.
They are the worst thing ever and the best I can do is have a “Louse hunt” every night and, my word, do I crack them! They stick like treacle and hide in our clothing. They love the tight areas like the seams of our trousers and vests. Pale fawn in colour and about the size of a grain of rice they get in everywhere, particularly the tight, warm body crevices if you know what I mean. The only way to keep on top of them and limit the itch of their bite is to spend an hour a day killing the little blighters off.
Once the Railhead is repaired and the deep dug out nearby completed, we are assigned to erect two sleeping huts in the Sailly-sur-la-Lys camp for some of the officers. The project takes a couple of days because of the amount of carpentry involved. The majority of cut timber required for all these projects have been transported in by rail, courtesy of the British war effort.
One of the men in the 1st Pioneers is a chap by the name of William Thornley, came out of Sydney. He’s a difficult coot and has been in and out of trouble with authority at Gallipoli and in Egypt. Court marshalled two or three times along the way, drunk, fighting & insubordinate. He’s a mature man around 40 years old. He pushed his luck a bit too far and is court marshalled again in the Sailly camp for serious offences that include using “insubordinate language, disobeying an officer, wilful defiance of authority and resisting an escort”. I’ve no doubt his priors weighted heavily against him as he is sentenced to three years penal servitude and marched off. I couldn’t warm to him anyway.
Word is filtered back to us that the Germans have increased their use of gas. A couple of weeks back, just a few kilometers North-East of Ypres in an area known as Langemark-Poelkapelle they waited for the right wind conditions and opened Chlorine gas canisters. Reports are that thousands of Allied troops, mostly Canadian and French, along with many civilians have perished. We need to prepare for this threat. Distribution and reeducation of the gas mask is implemented. We carry them over our shoulder or around our necks always.
The entrance to dug outs or tunnels are required to be gas proofed. The easiest way to ensure this is with the use of hessian to cover the opening. It needs to be several layers thick and continually kept wet.
By mid-May the Battalion’s work of the strengthening of the reserve line has continued. Most of my efforts have been building sleeping huts, some of which now have concrete floors.
Now I am a Concreter.
Also, a lot of time is spent manufacturing “Duckwalks” for trench floor lining or across tracks that have been damaged. Duckwalks and duckboards are the same thing, just depends who you’re talking too. They are made up in the workshop into 8’ lengths and look very much like a ladder. Their main purpose is to line the floor of the trench as a means of creating a stable footing and help keep the mud down as well. Other troops have been running communication lines, deepening and reinforcing trenches, moving supplies to forward posts and keeping the big guns supplied with heavy ammunition. Drainage parties are assigned to re-direct or remove rain water from the trenches.
The big concern is that we are now recording casualties, regularly.
Fritz still hasn’t got his range right but every now and again a shell will drop short and one or two of our troops are caught out.
Our “A” company chaps had been marching four miles each way, each day, to strengthen and improve the line around Fleurbaix but the trek was dangerous and over open ground. To eliminate the danger, they were moved out of Sailly camp and billeted in Fleurbaix for a week until their work there was completed.
The camp has become an extremely active place to be. It runs like a small town, everyone has a role to play and the expectations are that under the circumstances of being a soldier at war everyone is required to pull their weight. Men’s lives are at stake, including yours. And, just like a small town, when there is a decent story (or gossip) to be had, it races through the camp like a bush fire.
On the 17th May the Sailly camp lights up when Sergeant Miller is escorted through the front gates and without much ceremony, dumped in a chair outside the Commanding Officer’s hut. He doesn’t appear hurt, but his head hangs low. There is obviously a serious issue at hand. Miller was one of the men seconded to the 172nd Tunnelling Company from the 1st Pioneers about six weeks ago. We heard that he had been charged with desertion while on duty with the 172nd. Later this day he is tried and found guilty.
He is sentenced to be shot.
A week later his sentence is commuted to five years penal service and he is stripped of his rank. He must have been owed a favour or two as within a week his sentence is fully suspended, and he is returned to the 1st Pioneer Battalion as a Private.
CHAPTER 8
THE FRONT DOOR OF HELL
May - June – July 1916
“The work we do is building up the trenches with hurdles & sandbags, they are in a very bad state in places, there’s hardly any trench. I believe the English Bantams were in them before us.
After dark we have to get up on top of the parapet to place the sandbags uniformly and that’s when the fun begins. As soon as the Germans turn their machine guns one has a hurried dive for the shelf of the trench and a little bit of Australian lingo (not of the best) can be heard.
I took a double header the other night from on top when a machine gun slipped a few bullets unpleasantly close to the chicken. In the descent I ripped my pants with a piece of tin used in the making of a dug out - but – well, this is only minor detail.”
ONE OF THE advantages of bein
g camped up in one place for a while is that the mail from home catches up with you. I am blessed to have regular mail arrive at good intervals. It is quite a moral boosting process to sit down and study every word from Mum & Dad, Frank and Wal and the enthusiasm to write back to them immediately makes me feel warm. I enjoy sharing my news back to them.
Frank, Wal, and I have a “letter by number” system in place so we can keep track of what arrives and what goes missing. On the back of my letters I always write the date I post it. On the front left-hand corner of Frank and Wal’s letters they write a number representing the amount of times they have written and then a date which is the date of my letter to them that they are replying to.
There is a three-letter gap in our correspondence and the assumption is that they are on the bottom of the briny (sea) after a couple of our ships were sunk.
One of the letters that gets through from Wal tells me of a horrible murder that has taken place back home in Beech Forest. A four-year-old girl, Doris Foley was bludgeoned to death by the seventy-one-year-old caretaker of the Ditchley Park Hotel, George Leake. The poor child’s body had been dumped 50 yards away in the bush. Searchers found her the next day and not long after found Mr Leake in his room with self-inflicted injuries to his throat and wrists. He has been arrested and charged with murder.
Two of our chaps from Beech Forest who are here in Sailly-sur-la-Lys with me, Ern Smedley and Stan Tulloch, had told me about the sad story but Wal’s letter had filled in a couple of gaps. The news shakes us all up as we know Doris’s mother, who has been working as a house maid at the hotel for a few years. We also know old George Leake who has lived in Beech Forest for thirty years. Very sad.
By late May, “D” Company has been moved back and spends some of its time in the reserve line trenches. A lot of the work is required to be carried out under the cover of darkness. Prior to that we had a two-week stint in and around Fleurbaix and will be going back into that area again shortly.
Walk a War in My Shoes Page 7
