Tommy's Ark: Soldiers and Their Animals in the Great War. Richard Van Emden

by Richard van Emden

  During one spell in the line at Hulloch, Dann and I came out of our little dugout, which was about fifteen yards behind the front-line trench, to clean our rifles and bayonets. We were just about to begin when there appeared, on the back of the trench we were in, the largest rat that I ever saw in my life. It was jet-black and was looking intently at Dann, who threw a clod of earth at it but missed, and it didn’t even attempt to dodge it. I threw a clod at it, then it sprung out of the way, but not far and began staring at Dann again. This got on Dann’s nerves; he threw another clod but missed again, and it never even flinched.

  I had my bayonet fixed and made a lunge at it; it sprung out of the way for me all right, but had another intent look at Dann before it disappeared over the top. I would have shot it, for I had a round in the breach, but we were not allowed to fire over the top to the rear of us for fear of hitting men in the support trench; one or two men had been hit in this way by men shooting at rats, and orders were very strict regarding it.

  Dann had gone very pale; I asked him if he was ill. He said that he wasn’t but the rat had made him feel queer. I burst out laughing. He said: ‘It’s all right you laughing, but I know my number is up. You saw how that rat never even flinched when I threw at it, and I saw something besides that you didn’t see or you wouldn’t be laughing at me. Mark my words, when I go West that rat will be close by.’ I told him not to talk so wet and that we may be a hundred miles from this part of the front in a week’s time. He said: ‘That don’t matter; if it’s two hundred miles off or a thousand, that rat will still be knocking around when I go West.’ Dann was a very brave and cheery fellow, the same as the rest of us, and never shirked a dangerous job, but all his former cheeriness had left him. Old soldiers who knew him well often asked me what was wrong with him. But I never told them; they might have chaffed him about it. Neither I nor Dann ever made any reference about the rat from that day on, and though we two had passed many hours together shooting rats for sport in those trenches, especially along at Givenchy by the canal bank, he never went shooting them again.

  That summer, the preparations for the long-anticipated joint Allied offensive were well under way. New Divisions fresh out from England, as well as seasoned men who had seen action, all converged on the Somme. It was a region suitable not just for a battle but with two rivers, the Somme and the smaller Ancre, it was perfect for a spot of fishing, too.

  Lt Philip Gosse, RAMC attd. 10th Northumberland Fusiliers

  The Division moved steadily south until we reached the chalky downlands of the Somme, where we camped in an orchard above the winding river and within sight of the spires of Amiens Cathedral. It was now high summer, and I had my bivouac placed beneath a pear tree in a far corner of the orchard. But I was not lonely there, for a fat black dog appeared from nowhere, and would sit close beside me, panting heavily and gazing rapturously up into my face. A flock of geese, not so friendly but not seriously hostile, cropped the short grass round my bed, and two motherly cows completed my family.

  While we were here I managed to get a day’s fishing in the River Somme. I caught not a fish, but what did that matter? How better could a long summer’s day be spent than alone among tall reeds, watching a red-tipped float, even if it never bobbed?

  There were birds in the reed beds; noisy, suspicious reed warblers and chuckling sedge warblers. Dabchicks dived close by, kingfishers hurried up and down the river on urgent business. One, evidently thinking my rod a convenient resting place, perched on it for a while until, unable to keep still any longer, I moved, and the gorgeous bird went off like a flash of blue.

  This was one of those rare days of ecstasy whose memory remains but whose charm and mystery are difficult to convey to others.

  A/Bombardier Alfred Richardson, 116th Siege Batt., RGA

  Captain Walker sent for me, and asked me to take a horse, and Stead as orderly, and go for a long ride up the river to the source, and then come down slowly and notice all the good places for fly and minnow fishing. We set off towards 10 a.m. and travelled about ten miles upstream right to the very source and had lunch in a village near by. On going again down to the river, I saw a lovely heron. I watched the huge bird fly away until it was only a mere speck. I also noticed a beautiful jay, quite a number of stock doves, linnets and finches; of course, there were crows and magpies in abundance. I ventured to get up to a crow’s nest and also a stock dove’s, but no luck! After spending half an hour after the birds, I commenced my task.

  The source of the river was quite a peculiar spot – a small lake with about half a dozen deep holes round the sides through which the water issued out of the ground. In the centre of the pond, I saw at least forty or fifty fine trout lying in the bottom. I made about a dozen sketches of the whole length of the river in sections, marking all the nice trout ‘streams’, weirs, gravel and stony bottoms etc and all the essentials appertaining to fly fishing. We arrived back at 3 p.m. after a grand day. Captain Walker was delighted with the sketches and greatly complimented me on them.

  This morning I got up at 5 a.m. and went in the trap with Mr Walker up the stream and we spent a lovely three hours’ fishing with the minnow on a stretch of three miles. We had two good ‘runs’ just below a small sluice; Captain Walker has up to now caught 47 fine trout – oh! and we are on ‘active service’!!

  On 24 June a five-day, later to be extended to a seven-day, bombardment of the German trenches began. It was hoped that the enemy’s defensive positions, constructed over the previous eighteen months, would be smashed and the Allies could begin to roll up the German line in France. This would be the first great attritional battle that the British Army had been involved in and the fighting would have a profound effect on the battlefield and all the creatures that lived or worked there.

  2/Lt Montague Cleeve, 36th Siege Batt., RGA

  The guns were dug into an enormously deep bank about 10 feet deep by the side of a field. The digging we had to do to get into that gun position – 10 feet deep and about 40 feet in length – was simply gigantic. We’d camouflaged it extremely well by putting wire netting over it threaded with real grass. We had an awful job to manoeuvre the guns into it, because the caterpillar tracks were useless, they could get them into the neighbourhood of the guns, but then we had to manhandle these enormous monsters – they weighed several tons. We had to push them into their positions. When they were there they were very well concealed, so much so that a French farmer with his cow walked straight into the net and both fell in. We had the most appalling job getting this beastly cow out of the gun position. The man came out all right, but the cow!

  Lt Bernard Adams, 1st Royal Welsh Fusiliers

  I stood in the open, completely hidden from the enemy, on the reverse slope of the hill . . . Already I could see smoke curling up from the cookers. There was a faint mist still hanging about over the road there, that the strong light would soon dispel. Close to my feet the meadow was full of buttercups and blue veronica, with occasional daisies starring the grass. And below, above, everywhere, it seemed, was the tremulous song of countless larks, rising, growing, swelling, till the air seemed full to breaking point.

  Who could desecrate such a perfect June morning? I felt a mad impulse to run up and across into no-man’s-land and cry out that such a day was made for lovers; that we were all enmeshed in a mad nightmare, that needed but a bold man’s laugh to free us from its clutches! Surely this most exquisite morning could not be the birth of another day of pain? Yet I felt how vain and hopeless was the longing, as I turned at last and saw the first slanting rays of sunlight touch the white sandbags into life.

  On 1 July the British bombardment reached its peak and then, just prior to the men going over the top, several mines were blown under the front line.

  Pte Harry Baumber, 10th Lincolnshire Rgt (Grimsby)

  The mine went up and the trenches simply rocked like a boat; we seemed to be very close to it and looked in awe as great pieces of earth as big as coal wagons were blasted sk
ywards to hurtle and roll and then start to scream back all around us. A great geyser of mud, chalk and flame had risen and subsided before our gaze and man had created it. I vividly recall as the barrage lifted temporarily and there was just the slightest pause in this torment, several skylarks were singing – incredible!

  The following episode took place on the Somme, not on 1 July but a number of weeks later. However, this particular description of an attack has, in almost every way, captured the feeling of that first day, and how officers and men passed those last few hours before going over the top.

  Lt G.P.A. Fildes, 2nd Coldstream Guards

  Growing brighter minute by minute, the day of ordeal stole upon us. Watched from the new trench in which we had already sought refuge, it approached with unparalleled dignity. Before its stealthy advance, the green and amber hues of twilight faded imperceptibly, and over the face of the country brooded a deathlike silence, stirred only from time to time by the wakening notes of a lark. Against the glow the village trees turned from black to purple, countless tints of colour tinged the landscape, while over all hung a motionless haze. From one moment to another, the scene unfolded all the colours of Creation. Before our eyes the flush of the eastern sky gave place to an iridescent glow, purple and crimson lit to red and orange. Then, amid the mists, arose a chant of birds: the world was stirring in its sleep. Soon the heavens glowed with reflected light, each fleeting phase surpassing the former in wondrous beauty, and against this background floated a blotch of clouds, diaphanous and burnished on their lower edges by the first rays of the rising sun. The spectacle seemed to contain an omen.

  Now slashing the sky with lurid streaks of fire, the sun proclaims its imminent approach. At the sight, a glorious record of such a dawn steals back to one’s memory. Here, lighting the way for History, a soldier’s sunrise comes to greet us. Each moment intensifies the impression.

  At last the skyline merges into a sheet of fire, the horizon grows dim to dazzled eyes. There! riding upon a flood of glory and mantled in majesty, looms a blazing blood-red orb. Hour after hour this fateful vigil dragged on and on. The daylight, climbing aloft in the cloudless heavens, must have drawn the thoughts of many in its wake. Already our ears were assailed by a furious cannonade.

  Hour after hour the air shrieked in torment. We who watched and waited in the narrow trench found distraction in the wanderings of beetles and other insects that crawled along the walls and floor of our refuge. Against the side most of us had cut a seat, but even that did not serve entirely to relieve us in our cramped confinement. These hours seemed an eternity.

  How can one describe the emotions with which we watched the last five minutes go? For the hundredth time I looked to see – and as I looked, the hour was struck by an uproar of artillery! The moment of ‘Zero’ had arrived, bringing with it a spontaneous tempest of gunfire. Overhead, the sounds swelled to an unparalleled volume, and the earth around commenced to throb and tremble. Merging into the din, a new note grew audible – the note one remembered so well at Festubert – the death dirge of machine guns.

  Before very long, the surrounding turmoil developed into a frenzy. Heavy earthquakes shook us from head to foot; terrible concussions smote the air. Huddling on to our heels and straining our necks upward to watch the grass beside the trench, we realised that the German barrage had opened; and as it poured on to our line, its crashes followed every second, until they blended into a continuous roar. You could only speak to a neighbour by shouting. Gradually, the shocks approaching, and the trench drumming deafeningly to the storm, fear crept into one’s heart. Our minds became dazed, dazed like those of the insignificant insects which, shaken down by the vibrations and alarmed at the inexplicable convulsion that had suddenly engulfed their world, now scurried frantically upon the floor.

  Amid this inferno, an order reached us to advance.

  Chaplain Thomas Tiplady, Army Chaplains’ Dept

  I cannot get it out of my mind – that kitten in the crater. I had just come up with my men who had been in another part of the line and we entered the communication trench from the village street. After a time we reached a support trench, and looking over the parapet we could see our own front line, no-man’s-land, the German trenches, and the village beyond, with the church pointing with unheeded finger to heaven. Then we came to some forsaken dugouts. They had been rendered untenable by the violence of shellfire. The roofs were battered in, and the debris lay scattered about. ‘Look,’ said my comrade, and I looked. There, in a crater made by a large shell, was a pretty little kitten. If anything speaks of home, it is a kitten. It carries our memory back to the blazing fire and the cat sleeping within the fender. Yet here are thousands of lads who have not been home for months, and here are poor dugouts – the crudest possible imitations of homes – that have been battered in. Day and night these soldiers dream of home. In a trench a man is as much out of place as a kitten in a crater, and as surely will he leave the trench for the fireside. The home will triumph over the trench. The crater belongs to war; the kitten to peace. The one speaks of death; the other of life.

  Cpl Hector Munro, 22nd Royal Fusiliers

  At the corner of a stricken wood, at a moment when lyddite and shrapnel and machine-gun fire swept and raked and bespattered that devoted spot as though the artillery of an entire Division had suddenly concentrated on it, a wee hen chaffinch flitted wistfully to and fro, amid splintered and falling branches that had never a green bough left on them. The wounded lying there, if any of them noticed the small bird, may well have wondered why anything having wings and no pressing reason for remaining should have chosen to stay in such a place.

  There was a battered orchard alongside the stricken wood, and the probable explanation of the bird’s presence was that it had a nest of young ones whom it was too scared to feed, too loyal to desert. Later on, a small flock of chaffinches blundered into the wood, which they were doubtless in the habit of using as a highway to their feeding grounds; unlike the solitary hen bird, they made no secret of their desire to get away as fast as their dazed wits would let them. The only other bird I ever saw there was a magpie, flying low over the wreckage of fallen tree limbs; ‘one for sorrow’, says the old superstition. There was sorrow enough in that wood.

  Lt Philip Gosse, RAMC attd. 10th Northumberland Fusiliers

  Those days on the Somme were not in favour of bird-watching. For one thing there were practically no birds in the battle area, and for the other there were more urgent matters to occupy one’s time and attention.

  But even at shattered Fricourt there was something pleasing. In the vault of what had once been a house a pair of swallows had their nest, and all day long kept flying in and out through a dark opening in the ground. They must have built their nest, laid their eggs and hatched their young during an almost continual hail of shot and shell.

  I wondered if in happier pre-war summers this same pair of swallows nested under the eaves of the house which once stood there and if, when it was destroyed, the homing instinct had been so strong that in spite of every inducement to go elsewhere they had nested in the cellar of their old dwelling.

  Cpl Hector Munro, 22nd Royal Fusiliers (City of London Rgt)

  Unlike the barn owls, the magpies have had their choice of building sites considerably restricted by the ravages of war; the whole avenues of poplars, where they were accustomed to construct their nests, have been blown to bits, leaving nothing but dreary looking rows of shattered and splintered trunks to show where once they stood. Affection for a particular tree has in one case induced a pair of magpies to build their bulky, domed nest in the battered remnants of a poplar of which so little remained standing that the nest looked almost bigger than the tree; the effect rather suggested an archiepiscopal enthronement taking place in the ruined remains of Melrose Abbey . . .

  Cpl G.W. Durham, 7th Canadian Infantry Brigade

  Recently I saw one of the most extraordinary things I have seen out here. One of our planes went over and spot
ted a new trench packed with Germans, and the two [French] batteries started in to destroy the trench and its garrison, with the plane doing the observation work. They got on to the target quickly and were blazing away, getting direct hits. The French were firing salvoes under the direction of the Battery Commander, who stood on a barrel. I never saw a man so pleased. They were getting a sweet revenge for a 75 Battery’s crew, still lying dead nearby, when over came a huge covey of partridges, about 30, and dazed by the firing, settled about 50 feet in front of the guns. The French officer, who was directing his battery like a cheerleader with shouts and arm waving, held up his hands, ‘Tenez. Tenez’ [‘Hold it. Hold it’], and sent a sergeant to drive the birds to the left, lest the concussion of the guns should destroy them. I shall never forget his rolling tongue as he shouted what seemed to me like ‘le bruit des canons les écraserait’ (literally, ‘the noise of the guns would crush them’). They then continued the slaughter of mere men.

  Lt Philip Gosse, RAMC attd. 10th Northumberland Fusiliers

  Starlings were always the first civilians to reoccupy shattered strips of Picardy won back by our advancing troops. Whatever they found to attract them I do not know. Had they been carrion feeders it would have been explained, for there were feasts spread out for vultures. But starlings prefer a diet of fruit and insects. Of the first there was of course none; of insects there were flies in plenty as well as other crawling ones, which thrived and multiplied on the clothing of living men. As for animals, these seemed to have all disappeared, even if trapping had been practicable. Nothing could live in that horrible poison-drenched shell-ploughed waste but man, and his chances of survival were but slender. Even the obsequious trench rat had disappeared. But I did get one addition to my collection in the battle area, which turned out to be a specimen of the very rare subterranean vole, Pitymys subterraneus, which burrows to a depth of four or five feet in the earth. It was picked up dead in a trench at Contalmaison by a soldier who gave it to me.