The day had gone from sunny and warm in Liverpool to cool and rainy as we approached East Sandling. Someone had opened the door and we were quickly made aware of how damp and chilly it really was. Around the camp were fields filled with recruits being lead through various training endeavors. They were climbing over barriers, crawling under barbed wire, shooting and bayoneting straw-filled German soldier uniforms.
As we all jumped out of our boxcar, one Sergeant barked out that this was standard weather for the time of year, so we had better get used to it. We formed into long lines by regiment and ordered to cue up in front of a tent for our assignments.
Assignments were generally given with consideration of one’s life experience, qualification, and education. Because the men in our band had some higher education, the probability that we would be ordered to be a sapper or an infantryman was low.
As our group approached the table in the tent at the end of the line, we could hear a fellow asking a series of questions designed to help them place you in the position you were suited for. I looked past the shoulder of the man ahead of me and saw that the fellow sitting at the table was a small man with thick hair and enormous bushy eyebrows.
“Name, religion, education, qualifications,” he growled out mechanically in a thick Irish brogue.
“He’s a leprechaun, or perhaps a troll,” I thought cheekily. But before I could sort it out for myself, it was my turn.
I had been reciting the information for three men ahead of me and was going to impress him with my efficiency. “Ian Macdonald. Protestant. First-year university. Bagpiper,” I said.
The leprechaun never looked up as he scribbled the information onto a form. But as he was writing “bagpiper” on the form, he stopped and looked up at me with one great eyebrow raised.
“Did you say bagpiper?” he asked.
“Yes, sir. We–”
“We?” he interrupted. “How many is ‘we?’”
“There are four pipers, and three drummers at hand with more–”
“Stay where you are!” he interrupted again. “I’ll be back.” He sprang from his chair and left the tent. I looked at Sean and Terry who were also bemused by this little fellow’s odd behavior.
Several minutes later he returned with an officer in trail. The leprechaun’s chest was all puffed out and he was beaming as though he had found his lost pot of gold.
The officer with him was a pleasant looking man, very distinguished, tall and lean with silver grey hair and a fine mustache. His uniform was neat and fit well, but he had a cane and walked with a noticeable limp. Upon his uniform breast hung an impressive number of medals including, as I noticed right away, Her Majesty’s Medal of Valor. This was a man of considerable distinction.
The leprechaun barked, “Attention!” We snapped to attention and saluted as we had been trained to do at Valcartier.
The Officer limped over to me, saluted and then thrust out his hand.
“At ease lad. I’m Camp Commander Donald Hicks, and you are?”
“Ian Macdonald, sir.” I noticed a small medal on his uniform that was a gold bagpipe.
“I understand that you are a bagpiper and that there are others?” Hicks queried.
“Yes sir,” I said proudly.
“Wonderful news,” Hicks said. “We sorely need pipers.”
Terry Manning stepped up and interrupted.
“Beg your pardon, sir,” he said. “We came all this way not to entertain the enemy but to fight them.”
Hicks slightly raised one eyebrow, a warning to Manning to remember his place.
“And you, my impetuous private, are who?”
“Pardon me, sir, I meant no disrespect,” Terry said, realizing his breach of protocol. “I am Private Terry Manning, Pipe Major of Queens University Pipe Band.”
“Private Manning, I applaud your enthusiasm in wanting to engage the enemy. And I guarantee that you’ll get more than a belly full of the western front soon enough. Furthermore, you must leave it up to your commander to determine where you will be most useful,” Hicks said in a cool tone.
This was a mild dressing down by Hicks which served to correct Terry’s rambunctious nature without real humiliation. Many other officers would have been a great deal more harsh.
“The British Army is prepared to offer each of you pipers and drummers a position of distinction among your fellow troops,” Hicks continued. “And along with that position of distinction you will receive an extra penny per day above that of an infantryman.”
We all glanced at each other.
“You will be doing a great service to the Crown. You are truly needed for your talents,” he said. “I, myself, am a piper and was wounded in the battle at La Bassee last year, thus my limp. I will tell you this: The troops will hold you in great regard and, in fact, they will protect their piper before most of their officers.”
It seemed we had little choice. Terry said, ”We request tents in the same area.”
Hicks raised his eyebrow again, but smiled slightly.
“Done. I neglected to mention that you may be required to perform other important duties as well as piping and drumming. You will be trained as stretcher bearers and instructed in field dressing techniques,” Hicks said. “Now if there is nothing else, gentlemen, I request your presence in my tent at seventeen hundred hours this eve, and bring your equipment. Until then, Corporal O’Reilly here will assign you your tent. Good day.”
We snapped back to attention and saluted our commanding officer. He returned the salute and exited the area limping along with his cane.
The leprechaun–Corporal O’Reilly–turned out to be a decent fellow and escorted us to our respective tents giving us an in-depth tour along the way. We pipers settled into one tent and the drummers in another. Even though pipers would fight to defend their drummers, and vice-versa, there existed a playful riff between the two groups. We would constantly lob friendly insults at each other. Off-color references about one’s familial lineage or mental capacity were simply forms of endearment.
The accommodations were meager and the tents seemed oddly colder inside than out. The British military had provided a small coal stove in the center of each tent with a pipe going up through the roof. It was wholly inadequate and threw off only enough heat to warm something within one foot of it.
As we later learned, it was valuable for heating a pot of tea and could dry out a pair of soggy hobnailed boots by morning if the boots were placed close enough. We could also put a basin of water on it to provide warm water for shaving and washing.
The fact remains that “the little stinkers,” as Dan McKee called them, were better than nothing at all and could operate on just a handful of coal or coke. Our uniform was that of the 48th Highland of Canada and of course, we were kilted.
It would have been difficult to get the men to follow a piper who was not wearing a kilt. The 48th’s tartan, Stewart of Fingask, was overall red with cross hatch blue and green, white and yellow. It could be easily seen by the men on the battle field. Unfortunately, it was also easy to pick out by the enemy.
There was also the practicality issue of a kilt in the battle field, especially when one was “regimental,” or without undergarment. Sliding bum first down a muddy trench would instantly enlighten most kilt enthusiasts as to their short comings. Nonetheless, the true Scots and descendants of Scots believed that the kilt was the dress for battle and that it gave the wearer an ancient aura of distinction.
As day one at East Sandling training camp was closing rapidly, Terry was sitting on his cot oiling his drones with bore oil and glancing periodically at his pocket watch.
“He said seventeen hundred hours... that’s five-thirty, right?” Terry asked anyone who might be listening. Civilians don’t think in a 24 hour clock.
“That’s what I heard,” Sean said while lying on his cot looking vacantly at the tent roof. I smiled to myself at Terry’s impatience. In the next tent, I could hear the drummers working on some routines
, tapping their sticks in unison on various pieces of wood.
George Cohen was wrapping hemp around the stocks of his drones in an effort to stem the leakage of air from his bag. Hemp is a thin string that pipers use to wrap the chanter base, blow pipe base and all the drones where they go into the bag. I was working on a tune with my practice chanter, an instrument that looks and sounds like that of a snake charmer. It has a soft reed and creates a fraction of the noise of a highland bagpipe chanter. The tune was “Tumbledown Mountain,” a snappy four-part jig that had a fair degree of difficulty because of the number of embellishments throughout.
I should explain that because the bagpipe is a continuous wind instrument, pipe music includes embellishments to create separations between the notes and enhancing the tune overall.
D-throws and doublings, taorluaths, grips, strikes, and leumluaths are just a few of these embellishments known as grace notes. They all consist of a series of rapid finger movements which must be performed in a precise manner and, if executed correctly, can provide the necessary nuances that create and make a tune.
“Slow down your taorluath, Ian. You’re blurring it,” Terry said, as I continued to practice the tune. I took his advice without objection and practiced my taorluaths over and over again with greater deliberation.
“It’s time to go to the commander’s tent,” Terry finally announced loudly, while looking at his pocket watch for the last time. We all stopped what we were doing, including the drummers in the next tent, and gathered up our equipment for the meeting with Hicks.
The sun was dropping in the southwest sky and the camp was becoming cooler by the minute as we marched over to Commander Hicks’ tent with our pipes and drums. The camp was alive with men milling about chatting and smoking outside their tents. They were waiting for the dinner bell which would not sound for another half hour and were killing time.
“Hey, how about a tune?” someone shouted, while others chimed in as we walked by them.
“We’ve got to see the commander first. We’ll play later,” Terry shouted.
As we approached Hicks’ tent we could see him standing out front craning his neck to observe our progress.
“Come in gentlemen,” he said, moving inside as we neared. ”I realize it’s a little late for Tea, but I took the liberty of having our cook set up some with crumpets. I also have some brandy for those who prefer some spirit.”
I noticed Bill and Dan eyeing the brandy and ignoring the pot of tea and plate of crumpets.
“Thank you for your hospitality Commander, hot tea would be just the ticket to take the chill off,” Terry said.
We poured ourselves some tea and helped ourselves to crumpets. Both Dan and Bill showed great restraint in following Terry’s lead and did not head straight for the liquor.
It was purely a social visit that Hicks wanted and he kept it that way by steering the conversation away from politics and the war. It was, however, an inevitable topic as we all continuously pressed him on his experiences in battle.
He acquiesced, finally, and in a low monotone voice began to recount his experiences on the Western Front. Staring blankly at the ground he rambled on about the unthinkable carnage. He made it clear that through no actions of his own he came out of the battle alive.
“I piped my platoon over the top only to watch the lion’s share of my men drop before they got fifty feet. Each wave of men ran into German machine gun fire, charging over the bodies of their fallen comrades only to fall themselves fifty feet closer,” he said. “Wave after wave advanced fifty feet at a time leaving most of them dead in the process until one of our Grenadiers took out the nest with a well-placed bomb.”
A grenadier was the name for a man trained in throwing a grenade. It was later changed to “bomber” at the insistence of the Royal Grenadiers.
We all sat motionless, fixed on this man as he walked us through his own valley of the shadow of death. We were almost afraid to breath. Hicks’ voice weakly cracked as he explained that at the end of the day the British gave back all their ground to a massive German counter attack. The commander’s eyes welled up as he stopped talking and took a heavy sigh.
“Somehow I was spared,” he said softly, his head hung down as he sat staring at the tent door. Hicks shook his head as if to clear those thoughts from his mind and faced away from us.
“I believe a brandy is in order gentlemen,” he said regaining his composure. We reverently stood and joined him in a toast to his brave lads gone west. There was no talk of glory and adventure, only the realities of the battlefield from a man who knew. We were all touched by his reluctant recounting of his experience and did not pursue any further information regarding the subject.
“Now, gentlemen, if you will indulge an old piper and your commander, I request the honor of joining you in several tunes for the camp before dinner,” Hicks said with a soft grin.
Happy to escape the somber environment that had developed, Terry gladly accepted his request and we pipers went outside to tune. The drummers stayed inside the tent to make another run on the crumpets and brandy.
“Leave me enough for a bedtime nip,” Hicks warned with a smile.
Whenever you tune pipes, it is impossible not to attract attention, and the inevitable crowd began to mill about waiting for the entertainment to start.
“Front and center, drummers!” Terry commanded in his loud and clear parade voice. The drummers ended their attack on the liquor and snacks and clambered outside with their equipment.
Hicks glanced at Terry and said, “You have command ability, son, I see officer in your future.”
Terry puffed up slightly but pretended to ignore the comment. “Circle up!” he called.
The crowd was quite large and growing by the second. Hicks suggested we march over to a large field near the mess tent to better accommodate the number of men amassing. We formed up a line, two abreast, and marched out to the command of Pipe Major Terry Manning.
Hicks gimped along in the line without aid of his cane, but I could tell he marched with considerable pain.
The crowd parted as we marched to the clearing and then followed us until we circled up again. Terry called the band ready. “‘Scotland the Brave,’ ‘Rowan Tree,’ and ‘Cockney Jocks,’” he ordered. “By the center, quick, march!”
The bass drum banged, the snares rolled, the pipers struck in the drones and the crowd went wild. Any pain that Hicks had been feeling was now gone, he was in the piper’s trance and getting high on the opium of a cheering crowd. It turned out that Commander Don Hicks was quite an accomplished piper and despite his pain kept up with us younger pipers. We played for three-quarters of an hour before we were saved by the bell–the mess bell.
Terry called pipes down and dismissed the band for dinner. The men were fired up and the mess was loud and raucous. We all sat at the commander’s table. It was the same food as the rest but it was an honor nonetheless.
That evening, as we turned in, I couldn’t stop thinking about Don Hicks’ vivid account of his horrific experience at La Bassee. I had never heard of such senseless slaughter and the realization that I had been so naive about war was now haunting me.
Reveille came too early and we all scrambled out of our cots and into our uniforms as quickly as our early morning clumsiness would allow. We were ordered to fall in and were marched out past rows of tents onto a large field.
It was still quite chilly, maybe ten degrees Celsius, and the early morning darkness provided no hope of warmth yet. We formed up in huge lines, maybe fifty men in each and at least ten rows deep. Five hundred bleary-eyed men lined up for calisthenics at four thirty could not exist without plenty of grumbling. That grumbling was extinguished by the loud shouts of our drill sergeants who insisted on making us do this exercise called a squat thrust, among others. You would bend down, put your hands on the ground before you, thrust your legs out as to be parallel to the ground and then reverse the process to a standing position. It was an unsettling exercise f
or those that were kilted because inevitably you would be mooning the row of men behind you, which would conjure up any number of reactions from the groans of disgust to whistles or cat calls.
Most of us were in good physical condition and the morning exercises were not much of a challenge. However, George Cohen, our med student piper, was not very physically fit, having come from a well to do family that considered manual labor to be beneath their class and status.
George’s lack of enthusiasm and inability to perform the exercises quickly caught the attention of our loud and very angry drill sergeant, Sergeant Balls. Yes. Balls. Perhaps his name was the source of his endless anger. Not knowing his first name, we decided it must be “Harry” and referred to him as such among ourselves.
“Sergeant Harry Balls” would root out weak soldiers and hound them mercilessly, pushing them to the mental or physical breaking point. Public humiliation was his favorite pastime and George Cohen was his favorite victim. I suppose that one could make a case that Balls was just trying to weed out those that were unfit for the battlefield or that he was trying to make better men out of all of us, but I believe he simply enjoyed bullying people and abusing his authority.
He would routinely reward George’s poor performance with K.P. or latrine duty. Latrine duty was particularly bad because the latrine was simply a multi-holed outhouse and could get rather messy. Every week new holes would have to be dug and the old ones filled in with lye and dirt.
Balls badgered George relentlessly, until one day after a particularly ruthless dressing down in front of the men, Dan McKee decided to take action. Dan had become fond of George’s dry sense of humor and easy-going demeanor and was weary of Balls’ attacks on his friend.
As we were all on the practice field, bayoneting German scarecrows and belly crawling under barbed wire, Big Dan told Sergeant Balls that his presence was needed in the latrine to break up a scuffle between two men. Bill Lewis and Sean Lyons were nowhere to be seen, which led me to believe that something was afoot. Several minutes later, Balls returned a pale and shaken shadow of his former self. The training seemed smoother for George after that day and Balls noticeably kept his distance from our little group. I queried Dan on several occasions, but he insisted that nothing out of the ordinary and taken place, so I left it alone.
The Last Lady from Hell Page 10
