All we could do was swear a lot, give him a kick or two in the hope of moving him but without success. We eventually took the message from his collar, put it on the other dog, and tried to send that one on his way. Whether he was more timid than the first dog, or sensed its fear, he would not even move. He dropped flat on his stomach and there was no shifting him. Once again we went through the pushing and pulling, but it was no good. So ended all our wonderful preparation for keeping communications going during an attack. Within a few minutes of its commencement we had become entirely isolated.
Pte Albert Bagley, 1/6th Northumberland Fusiliers
The volume of firing got so fierce that at last flesh and blood could not stand against it any longer. As if by some instinct, every man threw himself down flat, burying his face in the soil as best he could for protection. For my part I was lying flat and wondered how long I would be like this, for the soil was sticking to my lips and I felt a tickling sensation under my face. Raising my head as high as I dare, I saw that the tickling was caused by a beetle worming his way. Oh, how I wished then that I was a beetle, or at least could be so small.
Lt Leonard Pratt, 1/4th Duke of Wellington’s Rgt
A shell landed ten yards from my doorway. It was a dud, then another hit the ground four yards away, it sent a great spray of earth and mud up to the skies, and left a hot sulphur smell in my nostrils. I looked down at my feet, and saw a worm climbing my breeches. I picked it up and threw it away into the trench, remarking that it was a bit premature for there was life in the old dog yet!
Cpl Eric Harlow, 10th Sherwood Foresters
My recollection of the next few days is very hazy. We marched endless miles and held positions while other units went through and then we in turn leap-frogged back through them. We passed through the whole of the Somme battlefield we knew so well. We lived to some extent on the country and I remember participating in the slaughter of a very old tough cow and trying to disembowel it and cut up the meat into joints. Also I plucked some fowls and ducks and had very little sleep. My head was painful where the weight of the helmet pressed.
The advance had been so rapid that, although the casualty figures for the first day’s fighting had been enormous, a large proportion had simply been overrun and taken prisoner or, like Bert Chaney, they were cut off ‘in a small pocket of peace’, as he described it, and were waiting for events to unfold.
Signaller Bert Chaney, 1/7th London Rgt
We no longer needed the dogs and I sent them back with a coded message just to get rid of them. They were now only too pleased to go, being cooped up in a dugout was not their idea of a good life. I wondered sometimes if they ever found their kennels, which I am sure were by then in the hands of the enemy. The same thing applied to the pigeons though they had to run the gauntlet of some trigger-happy Jerries as they flew off, doing one complete circle to get their bearings before flying away west as straight as a die.
The defensive infrastructure had more or less collapsed and the war regained a fluidity not seen for four years. Once more civilians took to the roads, piling all they had on to carts and prams. The soldiers could not help but feel pity for people turned out of their home perhaps for a second time.
Maj. Cecil Lyne, 119th Brigade, RFA
Early in the war the Hun had overrun their once prosperous farm, driven off their cattle, killed all their stock and left them destitute. Then the tide flowed back; for 3½ years they had scraped and toiled till twelve fine cows stood in the stall, pigs, poultry, etc; their crops were all in and the old man had just put down 1,000 francs’ worth of artificial manures. Every penny in the world was in that farm, and suddenly the crash came. Father, mother and eleven children, they had to leave everything. Poor old Grand-père of 80 was left behind. Twenty-four hours later that farm was given as one of my targets, but I never fired on it.
What I’ve been telling you is such a pitiably incomplete fragment, just a glimpse here and there of the tragedy of it all, impossible to describe, but never to be forgotten.
Capt. James Dunn, RAMC attd. 2nd Royal Welsh Fusiliers
We passed eighteen dead horses and two broken limbers, the result of a direct hit which exploded the ammunition in a limber. For much of the way we were passing the country people clearing out. A woman, still in her second youth, very fat and quite composed, shared a cart with a breeding sow and a caged parrot; an ageing woman, wan, patient-looking, stooping, led the horse. The day was hot and the march trying; the men got fed up with being told – ‘it’s only one kilometre more’ – they ached with every weary pace.
Trp. Arthur Bradbury, 2nd Dragoons (Royal Scots Greys)
In one considerable village we scattered a flock of sheep, evidently all abandoned in extreme haste. These unfortunate sheep seemed inclined to move out with the troops and I could see in the eyes of my fellow troopers a hungry look, in spite of the stringent penalties against looting. We halted briefly on the hilly slopes above the village and witnessed the slaughter of a sheep by two of our troopers who used their bayonets. This unlucky animal was summarily divided and tied to our saddles, which dripped with blood as we rode. We contrived to get some of it cooked when we halted for the night.
Pte Thomas Hope, 1/5th King’s Liverpool Rgt
Evidence of these hurried departures are scattered all over. A perambulator with buckled wheels nobly strives, with the aid of its broken spokes and rusty framework, to defeat the attempts of its load of children’s underclothing to flutter away on every friendly breeze after its youthful owners. A dilapidated harmonium is visible, miserably exposing its innards to all who pass the gable end of the little parlour in which it had once been the pampered, well-dusted hallmark of snobbish village respectability. A more gruesome object, a kennel, with long rusty chain and rain-washed skeleton of a dog, the neck bones encircled by a sodden leather collar. As I gaze on it I inwardly hope the faithful animal was killed before its master fled, or, if not, that his bones lie rotting the same as his dog’s.
Capt. Harold Pope, 1/2nd Lancs Heavy Batt., RGA
Things seem a bit more settled for the moment, though there was a bit of an alarm yesterday, and we were ready to move at short notice. We are using a deserted château as a mess. A very fine house with everything left behind. We use all their plates and dishes and everything. The owner has a magnificent aviary of rare foreign birds, also ostriches and emus, in his grounds. Most of them will die of starvation, I’m afraid.
Capt. John Marshall, 468th Field Coy, RE
Doctor Foster and myself spent the best part of two days going round the town letting out dogs from premises – the owners of which had locked them up, leaving the dogs in charge, with the idea that they themselves would return in a day or two. We had several stiff climbs, up walls and trees, to get at some of these animals – and then they generally received us as burglars in a most ungrateful manner. Doctor Foster rescued a parrot that called itself Coco. The bird bit him twice on the nose, so that he had to wear a bandage. It could swear beautifully.
It appears that despite his truculence Coco was taken as a pet or mascot of the unit, for Captain Marshall records that ‘after many journeys’ the bird ended up living in Birmingham after the war. Just how he got it home is not revealed.
Pte Albert Bagley, 1/6th Northumberland Fusiliers
The officer turned to me and asked if I wanted anything to eat. He pointed out to me a chap who he said would see me all right. The man was only too pleased, and on diving his hand into a sandbag, he withdrew a loaf, a lump of cheese and then his water bottle. Imagine my surprise when, putting my lips to the water bottle, I found it contained fresh cow’s milk. On asking my new friend where he had obtained it, he told me that nearby was a farm where all the animals were still installed.
It wasn’t very far and I was surprised at looking round to find the place intact, and all the animals still fastened up. Our first visit was to the hen house, and my friend searched the nests for eggs quite methodically, just as if he were t
he owner. He then searched one of the hens and, before I knew, he had rung its neck and laid it on a corner. He then took me into the place where the cows were and proceeded to give them a feed of hay and then calmly got a petrol can and started to milk the cows until at last he had the can full. He also filled his water bottle and also another, which belonged to the officer to whom he was batman, which explained why he could wander off where he pleased. He then filled a sandbag with potatoes. We then returned, he carried the hen and sack of potatoes, and I the can of milk and the two water bottles. On reaching our destination he proceeded to light a fire and two hours later I was carrying roast chicken, boiled potatoes and milk to the officer in the trench. On returning to the fire, I was greeted with a meal of the above delicacies.
Lt J.R.T. Aldous, 210th Field Coy, RE
All the way up the road, and in fact all over the countryside, houses and whole villages were on fire, lighting up the whole district. One most pathetic side of the war which was very much in evidence was the dreadful fate which the livestock on the farms had to suffer: when the owners of these farms cleared out, they were in such a hurry that they left all their livestock tied up in the barns with the result that many were killed by shellfire, many were burnt in the farms, and those which escaped starved to death in their sheds. On our way up, the air was full of the cries of those miserable animals and the smell of burnt flesh was easily recognisable in some of the roads as we passed along.
Capt. Philip Ledward, Headquarters, 23rd Brigade
The brigade had already suffered heavily and everyone was gloomy. One of the first casualties had been ‘Jane’, the brigade headquarters’ cow. She was acquired and served with the 23rd Infantry Brigade for three years. During all that time she gave milk, often in the most depressing situations. All through the time we were at Passchendaele she stood in mud and never saw grass, but she continued to give milk. Her ‘man’ was from the Devons, a thorough yokel who could manage her like a horse. When we made long moves we used to give him 100 francs and send him off into the blue, and he used to drive Jane by easy stages through the back areas to our new objective. All our mess servants came from the Devons and they knew how to make Devonshire cream – that was what we used to do with her milk, drinking tinned milk the while in our tea. She was at once a boon and a distinction and was much mourned. She and her faithful man were killed by a shell near Villers-Carbonnel and fortunately it was instantaneous.
The Germans were finally stopped at Villers-Bretonneux, a few miles east of Amiens. Their advance had taken them fifty miles to the west but the decisive breakthrough had eluded them. In early April, the Germans renewed their efforts further north, but once again, after prodigious expenditure of men and munitions, the attack petered out. Men taken prisoner during the spring and early summer saw the evidence that the entire German offensive, for all its apparent might, was in fact increasingly ramshackle and held together by a shoestring.
L/ Cpl Thomas Owen, 1st South Wales Borderers
Three others joined me. They also had staggered from the shambles of no-man’s-land, and we bled from various wounds all along that pitiless road to the rear. How we escaped the shelling I know not. German transport wagons lumbered past us at intervals, the drivers whipping the horses to a mad gallop. Here and there, dead or dying horses lay among the splintered ruins of shafts and wheels. The very road was greasy with blood. Yet even as the horses fell, the poor brutes were dragged to the side of the road and the matter-of-fact Germans whipped out knives and cut long strips of flesh from their steaming flanks. Heaps of intestines lay in the ditches.
Pte George Gadsby, 1/18th London Rgt (London Irish Rifles)
We had not been on the march long when we realised what a terrible state Germany was in. The roads were blocked with transport, two and three motor cars were lashed together and pulled by the power of the front one, and vehicles (not much better than orange boxes on wheels) were packed so heavily that they creaked under the weight. Although we realised what privations confronted us, we could not but raise a smile as we marched along. The Germans’ transport reminded us of a travelling circus. Behind each cart generally followed a cow, whilst on the top of the loads could be seen a box of rabbits or fowls. A motor car came dashing along the road, evidently containing German staff officers. They were wearing their high coloured hats and resembled proud peacocks rather than soldiers.
What a pandemonium! Now and then a troop of dusty cavalry mounted on boney ponies passed us on the way, whilst a battalion of infantry led by martial music (which did not sound much better than the noise made by a youngster kicking a tin can along the road) advanced to the front with stooping heads looking particularly fed up and worn out.
Pte Frank Deane, 1/6th Durham Light Infantry
We were marched off back across our trenches and onwards, behind the German lines. That night we spent out in the open, then marched further back. I became quite cheerful because they seemed to have such a ramshackle lot of transport, an old harvest cart being pulled by a donkey, a mule and a horse. I didn’t see any motor transport, so I thought, well, if that’s the sort of equipment they’ve got, they won’t last long; I felt quite optimistic.
Chaotic and exhausting though the retreat was, it was not without its humour, black, odd or simply bizarre.
Signaller Bert Chaney, 1/7th London Rgt
Very heavy siege guns, each with a team of at least a dozen horses, were being pushed back, the gunners whipping and cursing their mounts for not moving fast enough, the gunners telling us as they passed that the Germans were advancing fast. Amidst all the chaos, two horses attached to a swanky private carriage came trotting smartly down the road, two Australian soldiers sitting side by side on the driving seat, one wearing a black silk topper and flourishing a long whip, while the other sat beside him holding aloft an open umbrella. They also were retreating but they stopped long enough to tell us that they had no intention of letting this smart equipage fall into German hands if they could help it, saying, ‘It’s too good for the bleeding Hun.’ Then off they went, the driver raising his hat in salute, oblivious to all the shells that were falling around, some very close indeed.
Lt J.R.T. Aldous, 210th Field Coy, RE
Bullets seem to come from a house in front of Vieux-Berquin and some more as enfilade fire through a gap between two houses on the left of our line. One amusing incident was that after the first house had been hit a very fat and old pig crawled out of the building and sat down a few yards away, turned round and looked at the house. He remained like this all through the bombardment as he was too fat to walk away, and sat there watching his former home burned down to the ground.
Capt. John Marshall, 468th Field Coy, RE
We took with us a brindled terrier named Jack, which had attached itself to Kelly, our cook. During our stay at Fouquières, this Kelly, hearing that a pal of his had got drunk and had received a black eye fighting a Canadian, set out with another man, accompanied by the faithful Jack, to try and find their friend. The first thing they did was to visit all the estaminets and not unnaturally imbibed too much liquor. This led to a heated argument as to the whereabouts of the missing man, which culminated in a fight between Kelly and his friend, in the course of which Kelly also acquired a black eye.
Kelly had false teeth, and, to avoid their being damaged, he removed them, placing them on his coat before the fray commenced. The dog took them away and buried them, they could not be found that day, but on the following day the faithful hound, on being led to the neighbourhood, dug them up.
Ever since the start of the war, the British soldier had proved himself adept at balancing his responsibilities to the army with the pursuit of his own interests and requirements. When it came to hunting, British soldiers continued la chasse whether it was deemed legal or not: fishing with grenades, riding down a partridge, chasing a hare across a field. These activities had not always gone on far from the front lines or out of sight of the enemy. Second Lieutenant Frank Mitchell recall
ed one incident which took place shortly before a tank attack in the spring of 1918.
2/Lt Frank Mitchell, Tank Corps
Captain Brown, called ‘Tiny’ because he stood over six feet high, was explaining various points of the attack to his tank commanders. There was a slightly serious look on his kindly face. He was Irish, a shy and modest man with a passion for fishing. He had brought his fishing rods to France with him, and wherever he found a pond, stream or river which might possibly contain a fish, he angled eagerly and with tremendous patience. His talk was of shooting and hunting, and of the wonderful fish he had caught on the Blackwater. He had been my section commander at Villers-Bretonneux, and this morning, as he talked, I remembered vividly an incident in that earlier battle.
Tommy's Ark: Soldiers and Their Animals in the Great War. Richard Van Emden Page 26
