Captain ‘Tiny’ Brown had been running in the open, from tank to tank, under heavy machine-gun fire, and at last he had been obliged to take refuge in a trench with the infantry. Just then there came a lull in the German attack, and Tiny, who was gazing anxiously over the parapet through field glasses, was amazed and delighted to see two brown forms creeping along through the grass in no-man’s-land.
He bobbed down, excitedly called the sergeant of the infantry platoon, and thrust the glasses into his hand. ‘Look out there, man, and tell me what you see!’ he commanded eagerly.
Very cautiously the sergeant peeped over the top. ‘Why, it’s only a couple of birds, sir,’ he said in surprise.
‘Yes, my boy, two fine partridges! What a stroke of luck!’ Tiny’s face lit up with joy; he had forgotten all about the war. He borrowed a rifle, and then made a sporting offer to the sergeant.
‘Now, sergeant, we’ll both take shots at the partridges, shooting alternately. I bet you five francs I get them first.’
The sergeant was naturally taken aback; he hardly expected that kind of shooting in the front line, especially when the Germans might attack at any moment. No doubt he considered this excited tank officer utterly mad, but nevertheless he thought it wiser to accept the offer.
The curious contest lasted some time, for a third party entered into the game – German machine gunners in a wood behind them. Every time a steel helmet showed above the parapet, machine guns opened out in disapproval, so the rivals were forced to be very wary; but eventually the birds rose into the air, and thereupon Tiny brought them both down.
Maj. Neil Fraser-Tytler, D Batt., 149th Brigade, RFA
Yesterday the Germans deigned to turn a machine gun on to me. I was out shooting partridges with the new Irish pointer which I have annexed, and must have come a little nearer to the precious line than he quite approved of. Probably he considered pursuing partridges in no-man’s-land during April contrary to the laws of the Hague Convention! So he splashed some bullets about in an aimless fashion till I removed myself to a quieter spot . . .
A month later, Major Fraser-Tytler tried his luck again.
Maj. Neil Fraser-Tytler, D Batt., 149th Brigade, RFA
The enemy, with the exception of their professional snipers, are harmless with their rifles. The other night, when I was pursuing a wounded partridge on a grassy slope within 700 yards of the Hun main line and in full view of them, not a single shot was fired at me, except a few rounds of Hun whizzbang shrapnel, which burst as usual harmlessly high in the air. Curious when one thinks of the South African War, with accurate rifle shooting up to 1,500 yards.
As things are quiet at headquarters, the colonel has been spending several afternoons with us sniping from our Observation Post, and, his home being in the midst of the best partridge country, I have frequently been over there for joint drives, utilising the orderlies and spare signallers as beaters, so neither partridge killing (forget the month) nor Hun killing (always in season) has been neglected.
The Germans launched their final attacks in May 1918 before, exhausted by their efforts, the front lines settled once again. But there was a difference. In the past the Germans had been able to withstand Allied counter-attacks, giving ground only inch by inch. No longer. When the Allies regrouped to launch an offensive of their own, there would be neither the morale nor the uniform strength in depth to resist. In the meantime there was a short hiatus in which both sides could appreciate the summer weather and the wildlife that once more flourished in countryside that had been occupied and farmed until just weeks earlier.
Lt Cyril Walker, 18th Div., Signal Coy, RE
We remained for a month holding the line between Albert and the Ancre. Not a strenuous front on these midsummer days – no worries beyond occasional shelling near the main road and by the batteries. The poppies have taken a new lease of life and flourish in tangled tracts with vetch, cornflowers and blue masses of suckory; great yellow swallowtails flit everywhere, and fritillaries and little blues and browns. All the country is open and chalky under a baking sun. The grasshoppers’ chirp becomes unsupportably insistent, and little coveys of quail whistle by your feet in the ripening corn, or get up and fly when flushed by a dog.
Pte Wilfrid Edwards, 15th London Rgt (Civil Service Rifles)
The front lay west of the old Somme battlefields, in more or less undevastated country, and a period of relative quiet supervened. There was a front-line trench on the slopes above Albert, in standing corn over the chalk, which was memorable in a number of ways. A typical sequence of events on quiet days was as follows: at ‘stand-to’ an hour before dawn, the darkness of no-man’s-land would become musical with the songs of skylarks, which continued until sunrise. When the sun was well up, a bevy of swallowtail butterflies would appear, fluttering over the trench and perching on the wild carrot that was flowering on the chalky rubble of the parapet. We had ample opportunities for observing these lovely insects: we could almost rub noses with them! Curiously, I do not remember seeing any other butterflies here, though white admirals and marbled whites were common elsewhere. Despite bursts of shelling and small-arms fire, and a nasty smell of phosgene among the corn, they all appeared in mint condition. They ignored us, and we them for the most part, though one or two went home to younger brothers, folded up in green envelopes.
Lt Cyril Walker, 18th Div., Signal Coy, RE
The 12th Division relieved us in the line and we went to Querrieu on the Ancre to prepare for active battle on the Somme. The weather began wet but became hot again. The lazy Somme tempted with its cool, reedy backwater and shady poplars. The hills by it are hot and chalky with scattered juniper bushes and gay wild flowers where great swallowtails flit and settle. Golden orioles call and fly in packs about the high woods and Australian soldiers battle or bomb for fun in the cool river while their mules graze in the deep watermeadows.
Even where the trenches ran through the old Somme battlefield to the north, there was a poignant beauty to be appreciated when the all-too-evident scars of the land were softened by a new natural growth.
Cpl Fred Hodges, 10th Lancashire Fusiliers
One day I picked a bunch of red field poppies from the old grassy trench and put them in the metal cup attached to my rifle. They quickly wilted in the hot sun, but in any case I don’t think the idea would have appealed to my officer if he had seen them. Most of the boys and men I was with apparently found no pleasure in flowers, but I was acutely conscious of them growing there in the midst of all that man-made destruction. Only field poppies and a few other wild flowers, but the persistent charm of nature in such conditions during that period of May, June and July 1918 was more poignant than it had ever been before in my life, or since.
That spring and early summer, I was often conscious of the great contrast between the man-made ugliness and horrors of the war-torn countryside, and the fresh, unchanging harmony and beauty of nature. Certainly I have never lived so close to nature since, nor been so acutely aware of life. Between wrecked villages, the crops lay ungathered, and nature, uncontrolled by man, was a riot of scent and colour; oats and barley mingled with blue cornflowers and red poppies, with the song of a lark in a blue sky. This contrast was almost too much to be borne.
In our daily lives in towns and cities, we live with our senses half asleep, but in those fields near Albert, where for nearly four years death reigned, I was never more alive. Even at night, when on sentry duty under the stars, which I seldom noticed when living in a town, I was intensely aware of the orderly arrangement of the stars compared with the disorderly scene all around.
L/Cpl Frank Earley, 1/5th King’s Own Yorkshire Light Infantry
I am in a narrow trench about four feet deep, and my dugout is a hole scooped out of the trench side and roofed over with a piece of corrugated iron. When, at night, we settle to rest, and hang up the oil sheets at the openings, and light our candle, we are comfortable and happy. You must know that we have good companions – fine big earwigs,
who run about the walls all day and night. They are much bigger than those you know at home, and look very fierce. I like to watch them crawling about and running out of the way of the big field spiders. See what grand amusement I have!
For all its evident beauty and variety, the natural world brought its own complications and dangers. It had been two years since men held trenches that were within a stone’s throw of abandoned farm animals and most of the men serving in 1918 would simply not have had the length of service to remember how strange cracks and rustlings put the hairs up on the neck.
Pte Christopher Haworth, 14th Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders
Two men are standing on sentry at each end of the bay, while Scott is resting, too cold to sleep, on the fire step. The other members of the section are in dugouts at the rear of the trench. It is uncomfortably quiet; a cloud passes over the moon, and our small world is plunged into darkness, but the blackout is momentary, as a high wind speedily moves the small cloud onwards, leaving the moon to shed its silver-green light on us. A cock crows in the distance.
‘Kick me, Chris,’ says MacDonnell, full of surprise. ‘Am I standing in a trench or in a country farmyard?’
Another cock answers the call, and one of the sentries, half turning so as to see into the trench, is much perturbed and calls to me, ‘Those blasted birds’ll give our position away if they keep on screeching like that.’
I do not reply to his remark, as I believe it myself; not that a feathered rooster will inform the enemy of our whereabouts, but it is making a noise, a clarion call, and our tired, frightened and nervy minds hang on to the idea that the cock will arouse the sleeping enemy and cause him to blow us to the moon.
Now a dog barks, the echo ringing across the sleepy and frosty air. The cock crows again, the other bird answers, and another cloud – a much bigger one this time – completely obscures the moon. Silence once again, and MacDonnell and I resume our walking.
A whitish-grey light is gradually appearing in the sky: the moon now is entirely blotted out, heralding the approach of dawn and once again the call of the cock pierces the air. Suddenly the quietness is broken by a screeching whistle, and a heavy shell lands Crump! Bang! Wallop! behind our trench, followed immediately by four more. The sentry turns and stares at me, but says not a word about the cock, although he has his suspicions that the old bird has brought this trouble upon us.
Pte Henry Irving, 2/4th Gloucestershire Rgt
Twenty paces away, slightly to our left, was part of a building with a small farm with a wooden lean-to on the nearest half wall end. We creep, listen, creep, listen and so on like stalking cats. The only terrifying thing now was broken tiles over which we had to creep. Soon all three of us were lifting the largest pieces of tile out of the creeping line. More creeping and listening. It seemed like a lifetime getting to that wooden lean-to but we did, stood up and prepared for any sudden intrusion but none came, that is probably why I am writing this . . .
A few more Jerry parachute flares, he was getting the wind up, then in the distance we could hear a cock crow, and to really put us on the alert and ready, we could hear something moving about and cracking the tiles which littered the ground. The safety catch is off and bayonet is on to surprise anyone who might be snooping for a take over. In a case like this, surprise attack at close quarters is the best, especially in the dark. The tile cracking came nearer and came round the corner of this half-demolished small farm when, all of a sudden, grunt and another grunt and the sound of four or five piglets out for an early day with mamma. Thoughts turned to gammon rashers but the mother would squeal blue murder especially as she had some offspring and so we waited for the lot to get out of our way.
Thoughts of gammon rashers: no matter where he was, no soldier ever felt he was fed enough by the army. Civilian-run estaminets had traditionally been the place for a Tommy to buy his egg and chips, often at inflated prices. After four years of war, civilians were hard-nosed and savvy as to the laws of commerce and savvy too as to the ways of British troops and their capacity to help themselves.
Pte Christopher Haworth, 14th Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders
Milk can be obtained from the one cow on the farm, but no free issue. Having purchased du lait, my section scouts around the farm in the hope of locating chicken or other treasures which might be put to good use when darkness falls. We are like primitive man now, and if we are unable to purchase necessities, we ‘scrounge’ them, which to the mind of the serving soldier is quite legitimate as it often happens that money is worthless. On this farm, however, there is nothing to scrounge: troops have been here before, and Madame understands the psychology of the British soldier, and locks the cow up at night in case she strays. This is a wise precaution, for if Madame left it in the field at night it would be cooked meat by the morning. When a fellow has not tasted meat since he left England, and is hungry – and we are always hungry – it becomes a natural instinct to kill the cow . . .
We enter a house for a meal of pommes de terre frites and oeuf frite – a plate of chips and one egg – one franc. The dining room is dirty – we are repelled by the sight of big black gluttonous flies, a solid mass covering the plates which had been used by others.
‘Hell!’ exclaims Fraser. ‘We can’t eat here.’
‘It’s the best you will get in this godforsaken place, Jock,’ says a man who is finishing a meal. ‘All the other places are the same – covered with flies – they breed quicker here than lice on a soldier’s shirt – and that’s saying something!’
We do not like the idea but must feed, and having dined we get out quickly.
The quality of food for officers was incomparably better than for other ranks. Not that officers were less willing to ‘scrounge’ when the opportunity presented itself, though some were a little less capable than others.
Capt. John Marshall, 468th Field Coy, RE
Crawling through the rhododendrons bordering the moat, I disturbed a pair of roosting swans. Remembering books of the Middle Ages which speak of the swan as an edibility, it occurred to me that I might introduce one to the menu of the mess, so I went in search of a weapon and found a pick helve. Cautiously approaching one of the gabblers, I caught him two strong blows on the neck, but he seemed none the worse for them, and escaped me. Men: in future hit swans on the top of the head.
In July 1918, the Allies launched a series of small actions designed to pave the way for greater success. Tanks were used in great numbers and, with the ground ahead less broken up than in the great battles of attrition of 1917, their progress was often spectacular. For those surviving farm animals out grazing, the appearance of so many tanks must have been terrifying.
2/Lt Frank Mitchell, Tank Corps
As I was walking in front of a tank I heard a strange noise immediately ahead, and suddenly a huge form charged down on me out of the night. As I recoiled, it rushed past me, missing me by inches, and then pulled up abruptly, heaving and panting. Greatly startled, I flashed my torch in its direction, and discovered that it was a poor inoffensive cow, shuddering with fear! Hastily I rushed to the driver’s flap, yelling to him to stop, and he pulled up just in time. The cow was tethered to a peg in the ground, and the rope, becoming entangled in the track, had dragged the terrified animal nearer and nearer, in spite of its frantic efforts to escape.
At length the dim outlines of the wood came into sight, and the tanks, like huge toads, crawled into the undergrowth to find hiding places. To enter the pitch-black depths of a wood at night is a weird experience. Branches are cracking and snapping on every side, occasionally a young tree falls heavily to the ground, startled birds flutter by, squawking and crying, the muffled light of a torch sweeps to and fro revealing great trunks standing like pillars in the night.
With newer, ever more reliable tanks, the value of horses on the battlefield was slowly but surely being undermined. By 1918, the condition of the horses being sent from Britain was also being called into question.
Capt
. Norman Dillon, 2nd Bttn, Tank Corps
We were supplied with horses, although I can’t think why. They were rarely, if ever, used, but provided me with an opportunity for riding. They were frightful brutes, some being broken down polo ponies, or racehorses, or those thrown for purchase by owners at home or in Ireland, happy to part with vicious or unmanageable animals. One of the best refused to jump even a narrow trench, and had a habit of rearing up when we met one of the motor vehicles, which fortunately did not happen very often.
The Australians were good horsemen and were rather proud of this and thought we knew nothing in this respect. We had one horse that nobody could ride because it was a confirmed bolter. But it looked a picture. It was not difficult to arrange an exchange for a less exciting mount, and off they went, pleased at scoring off the Pommies. The next we heard was that one of their experts got on its back, when it promptly bolted and went nearly into Amiens (seven miles) before it stopped.
To cement the partnership between the Australians and ourselves, a small attack at Hamel was staged with 60 tanks. The result was a great success . . . At last the realisation that the tank was a war winner had penetrated the horse-minded GHQ.
After the strains of fighting, the opportunity to recuperate was welcome. For young officers, on whose shoulders great responsibility for the lives of their men rested, time out to take stock and relax was essential.
Lt Henry Lawson, 10th Manchester Rgt
Often we lived in a wood when resting; a lovely little place full of spring and summer scents and sweetness. I was interested in butterflies and moths. Once I found on a stem of grass the most perfect specimen I had ever seen of Hylophila bicolorana, a gloriously vivid-green moth with white underwings, having just emerged from its chrysalis and dried its wings. At the time I was talking with our Company Commander, lying in the shade of the trees. I drew his attention to this miracle of nature’s beauty and speculated whether it could be a harbinger of peace. I derived comfort, a kind of companionship, from this cycle of natural life within range of the shellfire and the total destructiveness of war.
Tommy's Ark: Soldiers and Their Animals in the Great War. Richard Van Emden Page 27
