World War I

by Allan Burnett

  Once beyond the cutting, they were ordered to dig new trenches.

  When Ramage lay down the next day, cold, exhausted and hungry, he dreamed of having a hot clean bath, fresh comfortable clothes, and gorging on fish-and-chips and lemonade before sleeping like a cat. That night, after a long struggle, he made his own dugout, only for two sergeants to appear and claim it for themselves.

  ‘Thieves!’ he growled, but they ignored him. Ramage was infuriated by their selfishness.

  The next couple of days passed uneventfully except for the riot of lice chomping Ramage’s skin and the relentless hunger pangs in his belly. A day’s rations were barely enough to survive on, let alone tackle the physical work they were being ordered to do. An inch of cheese, six biscuits, a small tin of bully beef, a tin of jam to be shared among seven men, and sometimes a tiny piece of ham no bigger than a penny.

  While deepening one of the communication trenches, Ramage felt so weak he could hardly push the spade into the soil. When he found a sod of turf with a small turnip sprouting from it, he was so hungry that he tried to eat it, but it was as tough, dry and wizened as cork. Thank God they were eventually allowed to make a fire and brew some tea.

  It was almost the end of May. Ramage and his company were moved once more to the front-line trenches, near a railway embankment. Things were eerily quiet but no less dangerous.

  While resting on a board in his trench, Ramage savoured a Turkish cigarette. Suddenly he heard the crack of a bullet at his ear, then another striking the earth in front of him. A sniper must have seen the wisp of smoke. ‘Damn him!’ cursed Ramage, hurriedly stubbing out his fag. ‘I was enjoying that.’

  June began with a terrific bombardment. Ramage had never experienced anything like it. Whopping German shells slammed into the ground and burst, releasing hot, jagged chunks of shrapnel in every direction. Branches were torn from trees and flung through the air. Smoke billowed amid flames as men dived for cover. It wasn’t long before Ramage’s ear drums were close to bursting.

  ‘This is the worst since the 1st Gordons were annihilated in the Battle of the Marne last year,’ muttered one veteran.

  ‘Keep your bloody heads down!’ cried another.

  ‘How much longer will I survive this?’ wondered Ramage.

  He was crouching between the embankment and a hedge when a hunk of hot iron shrapnel the size of a golf ball hit his leg. Mercifully it had first passed through the hedge, which slowed it down to a relatively harmless velocity.

  After three days of relentless German firepower, Ramage was intensely glad when his platoon was relieved and withdrawn to dugouts behind the lines. Yet the random barbarity continued. A brave, hard-working soldier was shot in the neck after joking about how good it would be to get ‘a cushy one’ – a wound that was not fatal but still serious enough to get you sent home. Another was shot and killed right next to Ramage as they drew water from a well.

  The days dragged on. After another brief stint in a trench at the firing-line, Ramage and his platoon were sent to a rest camp. They marched through the outskirts of Ypres then got a lift on a motor bus. The camp was neither restful nor comfortable, and they slept in an open field wrapped in waterproof sheets.

  But there were compensations. A mug of beer, payment of ten francs and a letter from home cheered Ramage up. He even found a little sign written by a soldier and placed in a field next to a cluster of chicks: ‘Be careful, bird’s nest’.

  Otherwise the men entertained themselves with football, concerts and pillow fights. But they all knew that they would be back on the front line before very long.

  Eventually Ramage’s platoon was ordered back into action. With shovels resting on their shoulders, they marched through a village where the church had been so recently burned out that its floorboards were still glowing. They passed a dead horse lying by the side of the road.

  They marched back into Ypres and Ramage got a closer look at the damage to Cloth Hall. The central tower was wrecked, its clock stopped at 5.25. Statues still stood in niches around the outer wall, reminding him of Scotland’s national museum in Edinburgh.

  As they continued to make their way through the town Ramage noticed a rusting metal safe at the side of the road. Its door was open and papers were scattered all around. No doubt looters had taken anything of value.

  Eventually, they reached their destination – a spot where they had orders to dig a trench to lay communication wires. It was hard going, but they set to work, and once the job was done they got a lift back to the rest camp in the middle of the night. However, their stay there was brief.

  The next evening they were sent into Ypres yet again and billeted in a store which they were to guard. Ramage was made corporal of the guard and watched as his sentries returned from looting sprees, bringing with them tins of jam and salmon, and sour wine.

  A one-armed Frenchman was brought before Ramage for interrogation after he was found apparently looting a house. However, he produced the papers to prove he was removing things on the orders of the house-owner so Ramage set him free with his wagonload of furniture. Even if he is looting, thought Ramage, who are we to judge?

  Ramage decided that it was unlikely there would be trouble in Ypres that night. He had taken his shirt off to check for lice and was sitting in the store writing a letter when the sergeant major arrived unannounced.

  ‘Get your shirt on, Ramage! It’s time to do some real work. There’s going to be an advance and you are needed for bomb-throwing duties.’

  At last, thought Ramage – a chance for a proper fight instead of hiding in the trenches. He was marched to a dilapidated barracks with the coats of arms of Belgian towns painted on the walls. Here he was kitted out with new equipment and ammunition.

  Ramage and company were sent to occupy some captured German trenches. They were to stay there and await the order to go over the top and run at the enemy with their grenades.

  ‘Poison gas ahead!’ said one wounded Tommy, as he passed them in the other direction.

  Immediately the order went out. They were to put on their protective equipment. Each soldier had been issued with a ‘smoke helmet’ – a cloth bag he pulled over his head and tucked into his collar, with a clear-plastic panel to see through.

  The smoke helmet made the going much harder. It left the soldiers looking like primitive spacemen from one of the science-fiction novels that were so popular at the time, stumbling through an alien world as they hauled their grenades along a dark, shell-blasted communication trench. Ramage was at the rear and could hardly see where he was going. Several times he stumbled and began giggling inside his cloth helmet at the ridiculousness of it all.

  Finally, fed up with not being able to see properly, he tore off his helmet. Instantly he got a whiff off something that was like petrol mixed with garlic. His eyes began to burn and well up. Realising his mistake, he pulled on the helmet again and kept plodding along.

  Some of the soldiers didn’t act as quickly, so the men at the front halted to wait for those who had fallen behind. Several men vomited because of the gas. One was shot dead. Another was blown up by a shell. Eventually the remaining soldiers received further orders.

  ‘Bombers this way!’ shouted an officer.

  Ramage and his colleagues followed, shells bursting all around. The protective cloak of darkness was beginning to give way to early light.

  They carried on along another trench, stepping past broken bodies, until they reached the captured German trenches. First the corpses of British soldiers had to be moved. One dead Tommy was in a crouching position with his hands over his face. Another was twisted into a recess in the trench wall. Bloated and frozen with rigor mortis they were difficult to shift, and Ramage’s camouflaged khaki kilt apron was soon as bloody as that of a butcher’s.

  Ramage was then ordered to go with some men to guard a forward communication trench linking the captured trenches with those still under German control. Moving stealthily, his head ducked, he arrived to find
the trench full of more dead bodies. Most had horrifying wounds, and they were piled up in heaps – Tommies on top of Germans. It was difficult to know where to start.

  ‘They’ve done me in this time.’

  Ramage spun round, surprised to hear signs of life. It was a severely wounded soldier with four good-conduct and long service stripes on his sleeve, lying on a waterproof sheet with another sheet blanketing him. Next to him was a boy, no more than sixteen years old, with a broken leg. He jabbered in agony when Ramage and the others, ignorant of first aid, tried their best to tend to him. Ramage put some water to the boy’s lips, and then to those of the old soldier.

  As morning crept in, the bombing corporal made tea for the wounded while Ramage comforted another casualty whose wounds had not been dressed. A handsome fellow of about thirty-five, he turned his tired face to Ramage and said, ‘Help me to sit up, would you?’

  As Ramage did so he discovered the flesh on the man’s back was all bloody. Ramage called for a stretcher and began binding the man’s wounds. ‘Damn the inhumanity of war!’ he cursed.

  News came that the attack in which Ramage was to take part had been abandoned. He greeted this with frustration. In spite of everything, he was bursting to get at the enemy.

  He almost cried with excitement, therefore, when he saw a group of Germans moving in the dawn light. Their spiked helmets were about 250 metres away as they worked to repair a battered trench, their shovels tossing earth in the air.

  Ramage had a clear shot. Through gas-fuddled eyes he aimed his rifle and fired, but it seemed to have little effect. Even when a German officer turned his back to him Ramage still couldn’t hit the target.

  ‘Germans are coming!’ somebody barked. ‘We need three good shots to snipe at them!’

  Still itching to do what he had been trained for, Ramage ordered two privates to follow him, which they did reluctantly, and he headed up the trench to cut off the advancing enemy.

  Ramage took up position, leaning on a corner. He set his rifle and began sniping. To get a better rest for his elbows, he found himself standing on the back of a dead Tommy whose body squelched in the mud – still doing his bit, even in death.

  For an hour Ramage shot at the Germans, with what effect he did not know. Eventually, when it appeared the enemy had withdrawn, he was pulled back.

  Sent to another trench with a jacket full of grenades, Ramage was given new orders to take command of eight grenadiers and set up two new bombing posts. During the watches the men were to keep their eyes peeled for any advancing Germans, bombs at the ready.

  By 7am, Ramage was in desperate need of a rest. He stood up to throw his waterproof sheet over his shoulders. It was all the enemy sniper required. From around sixty metres away a German soldier pulled the trigger on a Mauser Gewehr 98 rifle. The bullet exploded from the barrel and flew through the air at almost 1,000 metres per second, in the direction of Ramage’s forehead.

  CRACK!

  Ramage screamed. His vision blanked, his brain went fuzzy. He was aware of blood pouring from his body.

  ‘My hand …’ he gasped.

  The bullet had struck his left hand, which had been just a few centimetres away from his face, severing two fingers and making a hole in his palm.

  Ramage sank to his knees, clutching his shattered hand at the wrist. An officer calmed him and began bandaging the wound, and he lost consciousness for a while. His sleep might have been permanent if the Mauser had not been notoriously inaccurate at short range.

  Before Ramage could be sent back to the dressing station, darkness had to fall. While they waited, his comrades showed great compassion: laying him down gently, lighting his cigarettes, making him tea, and sharing their rations. As he prepared to leave he shared out his belongings with them, including his rifle, which he knew he would no longer need.

  Ramage’s combat service was ended by a single bullet in Hooge, outside Ypres, on 18 June 1915. There would be no more forced marches, no more rifle inspections, no shortage of food, no hard cold beds or sleepless nights, no muddy clothes, no shells or bullets, and no danger or excitement. Provided he made it to the dressing station alive.

  This he did, and his hand was re-bandaged. He learned there that the wounded chap he had bandaged up two nights previously had died from exposure. Ramage was more fortunate. A doctor put him on an ambulance which took him into Ypres, where the wounded were being collected. Two stretcher cases lay next to him in the jiggling, swaying vehicle. Ramage couldn’t ignore the death rattle from one of them – a gurgling sound that told everybody he would need no further treatment.

  Ramage was forwarded to a hospital at Le Treport, on the French coast, where he was given a proper bath. His hand was seriously infected and more fingers had to be cut off. After a few days he was taken down the coast to Dieppe and put on a boat heading across the English Channel for Britain.

  In a sanatorium in Hastings, on the south coast of England, Ramage was operated on to remove more bone from his hand. Eventually he became well enough to go out walking on the promenade along the seafront, dressed in a fresh kilt, with his arm in a sling.

  In Hastings, Ramage was treated like a hero. Women he had never met lavished him with gifts, shopkeepers gave him matches and cigarettes for free, people made way for him wherever he went.

  Eventually he was permitted to visit his family in Aberdeen. There he began to plan for the future. He attended classes in botany and zoology at the city’s university. But soon he had to head back south to a hospital in Roehampton, London, where he was fitted with an artificial hand and, eventually, an artificial arm.

  Ramage felt lucky. One of the other patients had been blinded in one eye and lost both hands. Before his artificial hands were fitted, the man wrote letters to his wife using pencils tied to his stumps. Two other handless men read newspapers by opening the pages with their teeth. Others hobbled about on artificial legs. ‘It’s impossible to tell the real from the artificial,’ lied the staff. They meant well, of course, but the injured soldiers knew better.

  When Ramage was discharged, he was given a new pair of boots, an overcoat and a railway pass – plus a little money to get him restarted in civilian life. He headed for the railway station and arrived back home in Scotland, where he received his army discharge papers, dated 30 August 1916.

  George Ramage’s war was finally over. He wrote in his diary:

  Thus ends my active military experience … enjoyable on the whole, though the feeling of the utter stupidity of war was ever present. Why then did I join the army? Was it following the mob, in other words, cowardice?

  For my own self esteem let me say that was not the reason. Here it is. War is a hellish travesty of humanity, yet as long as one nation is prepared by force of arms and by its consequent slaughter, disfigurement and devastation, to overthrow the liberties and destroy the lives of other nations, each nation must be prepared and ready to resist to the death.

  WAR REPORT

  Personnel: Lance Corporal George Ramage was born in Sunderland in April 1882, the son of a Scottish artisan metalworker. Ramage was brought up in Aberdeen by two aunts and considered himself a Scotsman. He was educated at the city’s university and after obtaining his degree, became a primary-school teacher in Ayrshire and Edinburgh.

  In January 1915 Ramage enlisted with Aberdeenshire regiment, the Gordon Highlanders. That April he joined the 1st Battalion Gordons in the battlefields of northern France and Belgium, a region also known as Flanders. He worked as a grenadier – or bomb-thrower – in and around Ypres.

  Badly wounded in the hand in June, he was taken to England for treatment and fitted with an artificial arm. After the war he returned to Edinburgh and taught at Sciennes Primary School. He took frequent holidays in Aberdeen and on the continent. In spite of his artificial hand he enjoyed playing the piano. He was well-liked by his pupils and died aged just 51 in March 1934.

  Event Log: Ramage took part in the Allied defence of the Ypres salient. The Allies were
British, French, Belgian and Canadian forces. The city of Ypres is in Belgium, on its border with France. A salient is an area of ground that projects from friendly territory into enemy territory, and therefore is almost completely surrounded by hostile forces.

  The Allies’ goal was to stop the German army advancing beyond Ypres and into north-western France. The British nicknamed Ypres ‘Wipers’ because most of them couldn’t pronounce it properly.

  Ypres was on the Western Front – a line of opposing trenches almost 500 miles long. It snaked from the Belgian coast all the way to Switzerland. Advancing from the front’s north-east side was the German army, while on the south-west side were the British, French and other Allies.

  By the time Ramage arrived at Ypres in 1915, the German advance had been halted by the Allies. Both sides had dug into protective trenches, but found they were barely able to move forward because the firepower on the other side was too great and the enemy defences too strong. The situation was a deadlock – neither side was able to defeat the other.

  Ramage experienced the Second Battle of Ypres and its aftermath in May and June 1915. He witnessed the German bombardment of the city, which was part of their attempt to break through the Allied lines, and experienced smaller battles at Hooge and Bellewaarde on its fringes. The Germans took Hooge in May with the help of poison gas, but in June the Allies retook some of the lost ground. It was during this episode that Ramage was wounded.

  The fight over Ypres continued for three more years, with more than one and a half million soldiers killed on both sides – equivalent to a third of the Scottish population. But the Germans ultimately failed in their objective and the city became a symbol of Allied tenacity when they eventually broke the deadlock and claimed victory over Germany in 1918.

  Inventory: Poisonous chlorine gas. This deadly greenish-yellow gas was first used effectively in war by the Germans at Ypres in April and May 1915. It was either released from a canister to blow on the wind or was launched in a missile. George Ramage was right in the thick of these first attacks.