Copyright @ 2012 by Richard G Morley
All rights reserved.
ISBN-10: 1468009834
EAN-13: 9781468009835
DEDICATION
Thanks to Martie, my wife, who spent countless hours transcribing my hand written manuscript onto a laptop without swearing at me about my illegible writing. With all my love.
Thanks also to Bill Lewis a good friend and a great drummer for his insightful opinions, help and interest in this book.
I would like to dedicate this story to the memory of my great Uncle Leslie Greenhow. His sacrifice and the sacrifice of so many others must never be forgotten.
COMMENTS FROM THE AUTHOR
“I have written too much history to have faith in it; and if anyone thinks I’m wrong, I’m inclined to agree with him.” Henry Adams, Historian, 1838-1918
“Hope and not loss of lives is what decides the issue of war.” B.H. Liddell, Historian, 1895-1970
World War One quickly became the forgotten war as it was followed so closely by the Spanish influenza pandemic (between 50 and 100 million died in two years), the world recession / depression, and then by The Second World War a mere 23 years later. Those that were in that struggle seemed reluctant to talk about it, no one wanted to speak of the glory of the battle and the honor of victory. That war was fought by a generation that went tight lipped to their graves save a few. They felt that the horrors that they had endured were best left buried as deeply as the friends they left behind.
My effort in this novel was to give insight into a small portion of the Great War by using my characters as vehicles and attaching a human element to history that is so often lacking in many text books. I have taken some literary license concerning some events and those alterations will be corrected at the end of the book; for those history buffs. I spent three years researching and writing this novel and hope that I have provided as good a presentation of events as is possible. In an effort to better understand the perspective of my characters I went to the areas of the Western front that I discuss and walked the battle fields. I stayed in Auchonvillers, Albert, Arras, and Ypres and traversed the existing trench system where so many died. I visited the Thiepval memorial where 70,000 names of missing British soldiers are chiseled into marble columns. I would recommend that anyone who has an interest in knowing more about The Great War visit this area of France and the many memorials and cemeteries honoring the fallen. You will be overwhelmed.
All of my main characters are fictional and several characters I chose to use in important events are also fictional. I will let the reader know which are historically correct and which are not at the end of the novel. My hope is that you the reader enjoy this story and come away with some new knowledge of a forgotten war.
CONTENTS
PART ONE: ENLIGHTENMENT
GUELPH VETERANS HOME
PART TWO: THE STORY
KINGSTON, ONTARIO, 1916
PART THREE: THE REASONS TO JOIN
THE SECOND BATTLE OF YPRES, 24 APRIL, 1915
YPRES SALIENT, 24 APRIL 1915
YPRES SALIENT, 24 APRIL, 1915. TIME: 12:00
YPRES, BELGIUM, 24 APRIL, 1915 TIME: 14:00
YPRES, 24 APRIL, 1915.
PART FOUR: THE JOURNEY
THE CROSSING
U-103, 4910N LONGITUDE, 04551W LATITUDE
“DO UNTO OTHERS…”
LIVERPOOL DEBARKATION
LEAVING EAST SANDLING
PART FIVE: TOWARD THE SOMME
FIFTH CANADIAN GENERAL STATIONARY HOSPITAL AT AMIENS
THE ROAD TO SOMME FOR THE 1ST NEWFOUNDLAND
36TH ULSTER TO THE SOMME
GERMAN ARMY AIR SERVICE, “KESTA” #5
PART SIX: IN PREPARATION
OUR HOME ON THE SOMME, THE 36TH ULSTER
“MY LODGINGS IN THE COLD, COLD GROUND”
RECONNAISSANCE OF THE SOMME
1ST NEWFOUNDLAND REGIMENT
36TH ULSTER
PART SEVEN: THE REVELATION
FINDING LAZARUS
GUELPH VETERAN’S HOME, PRESENT DAY
5TH CANADIAN STATIONARY HOSPITAL
PART EIGHT: THE TIME HAS COME
36TH ULSTER DIVISION
THE 1ST NEWFOUNDLAND REGIMENT, 07:20 HOURS
THE GERMAN 119TH RESERVE REGIMENT
“OLD CHUM”
FINDING AN OLD FRIEND
THE 5TH CANADIAN STATIONARY HOSPITAL, JULY 1ST (09:00HRS)
VIMY RIDGE
PART NINE: GOING HOME
QUEENS UNIVERSITY
HISTORICAL CORRECTIONS
PART ONE
ENLIGHTENMENT
Queens University, Kingston, Ontario. Fall semester, 2005
YOU KNOW HOW PEOPLE SAY the early bird catches the worm? Well, it’s starting to look like a wormless day for me. I rushed across the campus in an attempt to make my sociology class on time. Bounding up the stone steps of Mackintosh-Corry Hall, I was glad to leave the chilly autumn air behind and turned left, running for the open door of Professor Kathryn Krull’s class.
She was at the podium still arranging her notes. I had made it under the wire. She glanced up from the podium as I sat down.
“Ah, Mr. Way, so nice of you to join us,” she said, to the sound of snickers from my classmates. She held up a hand to quiet the class and began.
“We shall be discussing the phenomenon that has affected virtually every society throughout the history of mankind,” she announced. “That would be the phenomenon we refer to as war. We will be discussing the many causes, affects, and ramifications of war. Why do they start? How could we have avoided them, if at all, and how can we avoid them in the future?”
War will always be a topic that can generate diverse opinions and with the Iraqi war, the Afghanistan war, and the global war on terrorism, the topic proved to be especially timely.
Professor Krull continued for forty-five minutes attempting to wet the thirst for knowledge of a crowd of college students whose thirst was, frankly, more suited for beer than knowledge.
Her parting assignment for us was to write a five-page paper incorporating our insightful thoughts on war.
“You have the freedom to use your imagination,” Krull said. “I am expecting some interesting papers. Thank you and have a wonderful Thanksgiving.”
We were about to break for Thanksgiving, so I had several days to think about and complete this assignment. Yeah! Something to be thankful for: a five-page paper.
“Holy crap, it’s two-thirty!” I said, glancing at my watch. “I need to run again.”
Bagpipe practice would start in thirty minutes and I had to run across campus and get my pipes at the dorm, only to come right back to where I was.
I ran out the door past some slower I-don’t-really-have-anywhere-else-to-go-now students, whose sole purpose in life, it seemed, was to get in my way and then slow to a snail’s pace. I’m not paranoid. I believe they really are out to get me or at least screw up my day.
I had started playing the bagpipes several years ago in my high school band in Guelph, Ontario. We had a pipe and drum marching band and, despite the fact that I always felt that you became a music nerd if you played an instrument in high school, there was something about this instrument that was just, well, cool.
Maybe it was the Braveheart thing or maybe the Sean Connery influence, but when we got kilted up and played at a football game, the girls paid more attention to us than to the football players. Even the football players themselves had a curious appreciation of the bagpipers — not in a weird way.
I personally believe that the instrument stirs something ancient, something long-forgotten that lies deep within us. Whatever it was, I still didn’t want to be late for practice.
>
As I hurried across campus toward the dorm, I began to ponder Professor Krull’s assignment. It occurred to me that the pipes have, historically, been thought of as an instrument of war. Perhaps I could fit that into the assignment somehow. I bounded up the dorm stairs, waving to my pals as I flew past them. I grabbed my pipes from my room and flew back down the steps, two at a time.
“Going to get rid of some of your hot air, eh Brian?” one of my pals called. I just laughed as I ran out the door.
Practice was an hour long, and it took a full twenty minutes to tune all of the pipes, leaving us only forty minutes to play our tunes. We were able to squeeze most of our parade sets into those forty minutes, still leaving ample time to take a good beating from our taskmaster pipe major.
“Watch your cuts and holds, work on clean starts and stops,” he barked. “Revisit the music — some of you are not playing the band setting.”
That was very often the drill after every band practice. The simple fact was that the good pipers didn’t need the lecture. It was the not-so-good pipers that should have listened, yet many didn’t. Consequently, only a few would improve.
Not to sound conceited, but I am not a bad piper. I know there are others who are far better, but they only inspire me to do better. Actually, it’s a good spot to be in — the middle that is. If you are the worst player, you feel like crap and everyone else either looks down on you or pities you. If you are the best, everyone expects perfection and looks more closely for any mistakes. Upper middle. That’s the place to be.
“Hey, Brian. You going home?” a voice asked. It was Mike Hanni-ford, a good piper and a good friend. He was half Algonquin Indian, but he looked more like a full-blood. That made for a very interesting mix: pipes and a native, or first nation as we call them, would not seem to be a natural.
I snapped out of my mental wandering. “Yea, Mum and Pop are having a big Thanksgiving thing going on. You know, lots of family and food. What about you?”
“No, we don’t really celebrate Thanksgiving,” Mike deadpanned. “We’re not that thankful since the white man took everything from us.”
This unending ball-busting was Mike’s style, and we could be ruthless to each other with off-color remarks. All in good fun — you truly only bust the balls of the people you like.
“You’re just angry because your tribe invented the boomerang arrow and damn near wiped itself out.”
“Frig off, eh!” he said laughing. “You frig off ya bugger.”
“How about come with me to Guelph?” I asked. “Lots to eat and plenty of fun people. There’s even a topless bar about four blocks away from my folk’s house, but I think they are closed for Thanksgiving.”
“Na,” he said. “But thanks anyway.”
“Come on,” I insisted.
Mike considered the invitation for a moment. “When are you leaving, eh?”
“Soon as you’re ready.”
“Okay, then,” he said smiling.
“Good deal! I’ll meet you at my car in twenty minutes.”
Twenty minutes later I plodded across the parking lot with a large bag of dirty laundry — a gift for my Mother, who I knew would appreciate it. Mike was at the car, leaning on the front right fender of my classic 1979 Datsun B-210, with a sappy grin pasted across his face.
“Hey, don’t scratch the fender with that boney butt of yours, ya frigger!”
“I was polishing it with my bum, ya freak,” he said. This is going to be a long trip, I thought.
“Hey,” Mike said. “I just got the latest issue of The Voice and thought you might want to read it over our break.”
The Voice is a quarterly magazine for bagpipers and drummers.
“I’ve got this five page paper due, I doubt I’ll have the time,” I said.
“Well, I brought it anyway. Check out this cool cover.”
I took the magazine, setting my bundle of laundry down, and was stunned by what I saw. The cover folded out to form a twelve-by sixteen-inch sepia tone photo that looked very old. It showed a piper playing on a makeshift stage in a classic piper pose — very straight with one leg cocked to one side. He was a handsome guy, and it was obvious he was trying to play pipes while attempting to hold back a smile. He was in full kilt, horsehair sporran, and a glengarry hat. To his right was another stage with four kilted men dancing around four swords laid out on the floor – the Scottish Sword Dance. It was a surreal scene, set against a background of a bombed out church and several trees that had been burned to stumps with a few charred and broken limbs remaining.
In the foreground was a large crowd of kilted soldiers sitting and cheering for the entertainment. This group of men was mud covered and haggard looking, but still appeared to have the spirit to laugh and cheer. Among them were a few men, with blank expressions and vacant stares, who seemed numb to their fellow infantrymen.
It was the most stirring photo I had ever seen, and I knew I had to learn more. I flipped the cover over and on the back a small-print caption read, “A kilted regiment enjoying some entertainment after the devastating losses of the Battle of Somme, WWI.”
“Devastating” was the word that caught my attention.
Mike got into the Datsun and hollered, “Let’s go!” The trance was broken, and I jumped in and tossed my sack of dirty clothes on the back seat.
The three-hour drive was a blur filled with idle chatter and poor drivers. I couldn’t stop thinking about that photo and the word “devastating.”
Finally, we pulled into my parents’ driveway and hopped out of the car, eager to stretch our legs. The house I grew up in was very modest, in a modest neighborhood in a modest city. Guelph is my idea of a nice city. It is well-designed — not too big or too small, yet plenty to do. Guelph is home to several universities and a good amount of industry, including a large brewery. It is nicknamed “The Royal City” because it was named after the ancestral family of George the IV of England.
My folks must have been waiting at the door because they came out almost immediately. Hugs, kisses, handshakes and introductions followed.
I couldn’t wait to get inside to a computer and search online for “the battle Somme” and find out what the word devastating meant to the writer of The Voice. I went inside and got on-line. First I had to contend with the dreadfully slow family computer. It desperately needed some attention, not like the ones at school which are constantly cleaned up by an army of unpaid computer geeks.
Finally, I found a summary of “Battle Somme” on Wikipedia.
“A major offensive of World War One, led by Field Marshall Douglas Haige against German forces on the western front in the Somme Valley of France. Haige bombarded the trenches for seven days dropping over 1.6 million artillery shells. On July 1, 1916 at 07:25 the Hawthorn ridge mine prematurely went off followed by 13 more at 07:30 marking the beginning of the ground assault. Unfortunately, the Germans had plenty of advance warning and had fortified their bunkers, allowing them to weather the assault far better than was anticipated by the British. What ensued was the single most devastating loss of life for the British Empire in history. The first day of the Somme offensive the British suffered 56,000 casualties...”
I did a double take. Did I read that right? The British suffered 56,000 casualties on the first day of the Somme offensive? I was stunned. How could that be? As I continued reading, I discovered that the German machine guns did most of the work, cutting down the oncoming soldiers like blades of grass.
How could I have never heard of this battle? Fifty-six thousand casualties in one day. That was almost as many as the lives that were lost in the Vietnam War over 12 years. Devastating was exactly the right word to describe the losses, especially since the Battle Somme went on for five months!
The enormity of the losses in this battle stunned me. I was in a haze, enough to concern my mother, who was busy preparing for the family gathering.
“What’s the matter, Brian?” she asked.
“Mum, have you ever hea
rd of the Battle Somme in World War I?”
“Oh, yes, that was a terrible battle, so many died,” she said. “Your great Uncle Leslie was killed there. He was a stretcher bearer.”
I looked at her. “Really?”
“Oh, yes. More Canadians were killed in Ypres and the Battle of Passchendaele, but we lost a lot of good young men at the Somme.”
“I need to know more about this time in history. I know so little about it!” I said.
“Well, dear, I just read in the paper yesterday that we have one of the last surviving veterans of World War I right here in Guelph at the Veterans Home. He’s 109 years old and served for three years. I think the article even mentioned that he was a bagpiper.”
“Do you think he would mind if I paid him a visit?” I asked. “I mean, he lived through this battle but may not want to remember such a horrible experience.”
“Old people love to get visits from young people,” she said. “It makes them feel needed and wanted especially if they can pass on something of value.”
My Mother is a very wise person. She never received any higher education, but books can’t teach common sense.
“It’s too late now, honey, but tomorrow you should go talk to him.”
I smiled. “You know how sometimes things just seem to come together, Mum? First there was Professor Krull’s assignment about war, then I invited Mike on this trip and he just happens to bring The Voice along, and now I learn that there’s a survivor of the Battle Somme right here in my town. I’m going to ace this paper!”
GUELPH VETERANS HOME
I ROLLED OUT OF BED at about half-past nine and banged on Mike’s door on my way to the bathroom.
“Get up, we’ve got stuff to do!” I called.
On my return trip to my bedroom, Mike opened his door bleary-eyed with a severe case of bedhead. “What on earth time is it?”
“Nine-thirty,” I said. “Get dressed. We’re going to get something to eat and then go meet a piece of history.”
“Holy crap!” Mike grumbled as he rubbed the sleep from his eyes. “Nine-thirty?”
The Last Lady from Hell Page 1
