by Dai Smith
The Corps Commander was right about the pessimistic feeling prevailing: since the Battle of Loos, all along this front from Cambrin to Hulloch and as far as the eye could see, our dead were still lying out in front of us, and looking through the periscopes by day we could see the rats crawling over their bodies. They had a good picking along this front and were as fat as prize porkers. We also knew that from now on any attack that was made by us would involve huge casualties. We old hands were always hoping that the enemy would attack us, so that we could get a bit of our own back for the Loos battle. It was all very well for the Corps General to be so optimistic: he was living in a chateau or mansion many many miles behind the front line from where he issued his orders, which went from him to divisions then to brigades then to battalion commanders, from them to company commanders and platoon officers who with the men had to do the real dirty work. If he had been in a front-line trench on a dark or dirty night, and going around a traverse had been knocked head over heels on his back in the deep mud by someone carrying a roll of barbed wire, or by the burst of a shell, I expect his language would have been a little stronger than what he used back in his abode of luxury. A few weeks previously he had inspected the Battalion in Montmorency Barracks and noticed that the men’s brasses were not polished. He gave orders that all men in his corps when out of action must polish their brasses the same as if they were at home. Up to this time it had been a standing order in the Battalion to keep the brasses dull, but after that inspection our brasses were polished good enough to shave in. Many prayers were offered up for his soul, and a few days later when we marched down the main road towards the line with the sun shining brightly and striking on our polished brasses, the enemy in their observation balloons must have thought that hundreds of small heliographs were moving into action. One man called Duffy swore that the Corps Commander was a chief director in one of the large metal-polish companies and another remarked that the old sinner would sooner lose his trenches than his button sticks.
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 sprang 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 sprang 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 this way by men shooting at rats, and orders were very strict regarding it.
Dann had gone very pale; I asked him if he were 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 do 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, but from that day he was a changed man. He still did his work 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 at rats for sport in those trenches, especially along at Givenchy by the canal bank, he never went shooting them again.
A few months later we arrived on the Somme by a six days’ march from the railhead, and early in the morning of the 15th July passed through Fricourt, where our First Battalion had broken through on 1st July, and arrived at the end of Mametz Wood which had been captured some days before by the 38th Welsh Division which included four of our new service battalions. The enemy had been sending over tear gas and the valley was thick with it. It smelt like strong onions which made our eyes and noses run very badly; we were soon coughing, sneezing and cursing. We rested in shell-holes, the ground all around us being thick with dead of the troops who had been attacking Mametz Wood. The fighting was going on about three-quarters of a mile ahead of us.
Dann, a young signaller named Thomas, and I, were posted to A Company. The three of us were dozing when Thomas gave a shout: a spent bullet with sufficient force to penetrate had hit him in the knee – our first casualty on the Somme. Dann said: ‘I don’t suppose it will be my luck to get hit with a spent bullet; it will be one at short range through the head or a twelve-inch shell all on my own.’ I replied, as usual, that he would be damned lucky if he stopped either, and that he wouldn’t be able to grouse much afterwards. ‘You’re right enough about that, Dick,’ he said.
A few hours later the battalion moved around the corner of the wood, the company occupying a shallow trench which was only knee-deep. Dann and I were by ourselves in one part of this trench, the Company Commander being about ten yards below us. The majority of the company were soon in the wood on the scrounge; we had been told that we were likely to stay where we were for a day or two. I told Dann that I was going in the wood on the scrounge and that I would try and get a couple of German topcoats and some food if I could find any. The topcoats would be very handy as we were in fighting order, and the nights were cold for July. Just inside the wood, which was a great tangle of broken trees and branches, was a German trench, and all around it our dead and theirs were lying. I was in luck’s way – I got two tins of Maconochies and half a loaf of bread, also two topcoats. The bread was very stale and it was a wonder the rats hadn’t got at it. Although gas destroyed large numbers of them there were plenty of them left skipping about. I returned to Dann telling him how lucky I had been, and that we would have a feed. ‘Righto,’ he replied, ‘but I think I’ll write out a couple of quickfirers first.’ (Quickfirers were Field Service Postcards.)
Enemy shells were now coming over and a lot of spent machine-gun bullets were zipping about. He sat on the back of the trench writing his quickfirers, when – zip! – and he rolled over, clutching his neck. Then a terrified look came in his face as he pointed one hand behind me. I turned and just behind me on the back of the trench, saw the huge black rat that we had seen in Hulloch. It was looking straight past me at Dann. I was paralysed myself for a moment and without looking at me it turned and disappeared in a shell-hole behind. I turned around and instantly flattened myself on the bottom of the trench, a fraction of a second before a shell burst behind me. I picked myself up amid a shower of dirt and clods and looked at Dann, but he was dead. The spent bullet had sufficient force to penetrate his neck and touch the spinal column. And there by his side, also dead, was the large rat. The explosion of the shell had blown it up and it had dropped by the side of him. I seized hold of its tail and swung it back in the shell-hole it had blown from. I was getting the creeps. Although Mametz Wood, was, I dare say, over fifty miles as the crow flies from Hulloch, I had no doubt in my mind that it was the same rat that we had seen in the latter place. It was the only weird experience I had during the whole of the war. There was no one near us at the time, and men on the right and left of us did not know Dann was killed until I told them. If I hadn’t handled that rat and flung it away I should have thought that I had been seeing things, like many who saw things on the retirement from Mons.
THE GROUSER
Fred Ambrose
> ‘Next, Private Morgan,’ shouted the Sergeant-Major. ‘Quick march! Left wheel! Halt! Right turn.’
‘Sir (to the Colonel), Private Morgan, sir, who is reported by Corporal Thomas for not complying with an order. The offence took place yesterday afternoon at 4.30 p.m. near the man’s billet, sir.’
‘H’m, yes,’ said the Colonel, ‘very serious charge indeed – especially on active service. Give me his conduct sheet, Sergeant-Major.’
As the Sergeant Major searched his wallet, the Colonel turned to the Corporal who made the charge. ‘Well, Corporal, what was the trouble?’
‘It was like this, sir. The Surgunt Major said some officer from Headquarters – sanitary or something – ’ad complain about our billat bein’ untidy – tins an’ things about the place, sir – an’ he was blamin’ me because the place was so dirty, so I ordered Shoni Morgan – Private Morgan, I mean, sir – to burn the tins an’ then bury them. He refuse to obey the ordar, sir. He said what was the good of burning the tins if they was to be buried after. He said he would burn them tins or bury them, and last of all he did say that he wouldn’t bury or burn them, sir. So he did refuse to obey ordars, sir.’
By this time the Sergeant-Major had found the elusive conduct sheet. By no stretch of leniency could Private Morgan’s record be regarded as creditable – CB, Stop pay, Field Punishment, Nos. 1 and 2, figured largely, while the numbers of a few ‘Drunk’ entries in red ink stared up from the paper.
The Colonel glanced at the sheet, frowned slightly, and looked up. ‘Well, Morgan, what have you to say for yourself?’
‘They are always on to me, sir, an’ it isn’t fair to put all the work on to the same chap all the time. There was a lot of chaps sittin’ in the billat doin’ nothin’ and the Copral ought to ask them to ’elp too, an’ that is what I told ’im. He always do pitch on to me for the dirty work sir…’
‘Yes, Morgan,’ said the Colonel, ‘but being in the Army…’
‘I know, sir, I’m in the Army, but I didn’t join…’
‘Silence,’ thundered the Sergeant-Major; ‘Don’t interrupt the Colonel when he is speaking.’
But Private Morgan would not be silenced: he commented with extraordinary fluency upon the unfair division of labour in the Battalion in general, in particular upon the unnecessary amount of labour that was the portion of his platoon. He asserted that the Sergeants had their favourites, and the Corporals their pets. Taking a wider survey, he was beginning to develop the thesis that nepotism was widespread in the Army, when the Colonel cut him short with, ‘Very well, I sentence you to Field Punishment, No. 1 for fourteen days. In future you will obey orders first, and make your complaints afterwards.’
The Colonel nodded, and the Sergeant-Major addressing the culprit as if he were a regiment of soldiers, shouted, ‘Right turn! Quick march! Right wheel!’ and Private Morgan disappeared.
This was my first acquaintance with Morgan, who was known to his comrades as ‘Shoni’. On the short side, with black hair, and rather squarely built, he was a typical Welsh collier.
I had but recently joined the Battalion from the Depot, and I was beginning to find it no easy matter to aid in administering justice to a Battalion with such a curious psychology. Formed at the beginning of the war, the Battalion had had the usual training, and had now been some time in France. The men were quick and smart, but they had no discipline – I mean they had no ‘sense’ of discipline. They obeyed orders, but they were outspoken in their criticism of authority in any shape or form. I put it down to the years of tuition they had received in Trades Union and socialistic principles in the South Wales coalfield. And ‘Shoni’ Morgan was more than representative of the type!
Of Morgan I was destined to see more than was enough. He was a ‘grouser’ – the super-grouser of the Battalion. It is the privilege of the British soldier to grouse, but grousing was more than a privilege to him: it was an obsession. One day it was the rations – he did not get his fair share. For this he blamed everybody from the Corporal to the CQMS. Another day it was fatigues: they always pitched on him. What were the Pioneers for? They were paid for doing navvy’s work. He had joined to fight: he was an Infantry Man, not a navvy.
He was selected for reconnaissance work one night, and orders were given to leave the rifles behind. He remonstrated, as he always did: he did not see why he should not take his rifle. How was he going to defend himself? It was useless to assert that the object of the patrol was to discover without being discovered: he would not be silenced, and even in ‘No Man’s Land’ audibly protested that it was folly to leave his rifle behind.
The Bosches must have heard him, for a machine gun was turned in our direction, and we had to lie flat for half an hour before we could continue our work. ‘Shoni’, in his perversity, seemed most active when the Very lights went up, and he was cursed silently, but fervently, by every man in the patrol. We got back eventually, apparently without losing a man, the only casualty being my sergeant, who had received a bleeding nose through falling flat with too much celerity when the machine gun forced us to take cover. When I mustered the little party in the trench, ‘Shoni’ could nowhere be seen, and no one knew anything about him. Blessing him, I was about to return when the crack of a solitary rifle was heard from the direction of a Johnson hole we had crept past a little time before. I remembered remarking in an undertone how it overlooked a German trench and would make a fine sniper’s post. Our Very lights showed ‘Shoni’ lying prone, and putting in some ‘rapid fire’ – probably hopelessly ineffective – at the Bosches. When he had emptied his pouches, he crept back to our trench. I admonished him for his conduct, but he was, as usual, staunch in his defence. He did not think it fair to go out without his rifle to protect himself. What was his rifle good for? He had gone back ‘to get a bit of his own back’.
Another grievance was not long in presenting itself, for one afternoon, marching back from our billets to the trenches, we saw a string of London omnibuses taking down a company of Scotch Bantams from the trenches, where they had been training, and we learnt that they were soon bringing back a fresh company. Whether his equipment galled him more than usual, or whether his feet were more than usually sore I do not know: I know I was surprised by the force of his language. Why should he walk while those bloody Scotchmen were carried? He was as good as any bloody Scotchman any day. Macalister, looking sourly in his direction, brought a torrent of abuse upon himself, and hurriedly disclaimed his obvious Scotch ancestry before ‘Shoni’ turned his attention from his luckless fellow private to his general grievances. The whole army was in a rotten condition. Favouritism was rampant: it was not fair that one should march while another was carried: all should march, or all should be carried. It was the Sergeant who cut him short with a gruff ‘Silence in the ranks’.
I well remember that march. We were returning from billets along the old Rue de Bois. There was a battery of 6" guns roaring away on our left, while behind us, the sun was setting in a blaze of red, against which were silhouetted the quaint red-tiled cottages with their attendant poplar sentinels. The crimson glare shone on the filled ditches and the pools which pitted the roadway. From the fields, weary with their day’s toil, came the workers – old and bent peasants, soldiers broken in the war, soldiers on leave, and young girls and lads. We passed their peculiar three-wheeled carts, the driver persisting in his habit of driving in the middle of the road in spite of loud shouts of ‘À droit’. The motor transports squelched past us, sending up streams of mud to the accompaniment of curses from the infantry. As it grew darker, the gun limbers hurried past – a long train, stretching out into the gathering night. As we neared the trenches we saw the familiar star shells and Very lights rising and falling, showing up the ‘line’ as a black ridge. Shrapnel began to find us out, and we separated into small parties. This, apparently, was the opportunity for which Private ‘Shoni’ Morgan had been looking, for he dropped out. In the dusk and the bustle he was not observed, and he was not missed unti
l we began the inter-battalion relief. Half an hour later he turned up with a platoon of Bantams up for training. He did not see it fair to march while others were being carried, so he had stopped on the road until a bus had picked him up. How to punish him puzzled me. Field Punishment, or loss of pay, seemed not to influence his actions in the least, and yet his offence was flagrant. During that period in the trenches I kept him on fatigue duty all the time, supplying him with sufficient material to grouse about for an average lifetime.
After this he determined to transfer. The formation of a new tunnelling company gave him his opportunity. He, and several of his comrades, applied to the Colonel for the necessary permission, and in his particular case it was readily granted. So ‘Shoni’ Morgan joined the ‘Moles’, and the Battalion, officially, knew him no more.
We were, however, not without news of him. The Sergeant-Major, some time afterwards, told me that he had seen him in a working party coming back from the trenches. He looked well, and was singing. Knowing his officer, a mining engineer, I went across to his billet for a chat. He was most favourably impressed by Morgan. ‘He is one of the best miners we have,’ he said, ‘the most willing, and the most daring.’ I was discreetly silent. He stated, further, that he was recommending him for promotion. In the narrow galleries of the mine, it seemed, he had again found his element.
Hearing that he had been seen, with a stripe on his arm, in charge of a small working party, I sent him one of those all-embracing FS postcards, addressed to Second Corporal J. Morgan, RE, scribbling ‘Congratulations’ where the Regulations state ‘Signature only’. I wonder if he ever guessed who sent it.
