It was only 10:15 in the morning. Both Terry and George went to the commanding officer -– a sergeant –and implored him to let them go and continue the retrieval, inasmuch as they were trained to be bearers – and George was almost a doctor. The sergeant insisted that there be no retrieval.
“No more Newfoundlanders will needlessly die today,” he said solemnly. But the pipers were quick to remind him that they were not from Newfoundland and that to leave the men wounded on the field could, in fact, needlessly allow those who could be saved to die. They badgered him like teenage girls trying to get their father to allow them to go to a dance and, as is usually the case, he broke down and allowed them to go.
“I want no more death in this regiment today!” he commanded. “I will permit you two to go out and field-dress the wounded now, and our parties will go out and retrieve them after dark.”
Terry and George ran to get some medical supplies and deposit their pipes in a safe place. They knew that they had to leave quickly before the sergeant could change his mind.
Back above the trenches, the two crawled around the sloping field, moving from body to body until they found a wounded man. Then they would stop the loss of blood as best they could and move on. They dispersed morphine and allowed those that were beyond hope to slip away peacefully and painlessly.
This slow process of crawling from man to man went on for several hours until they had run low on supplies. Terry volunteered to run back for more medical provisions and George stayed to tend to his current patient. The two of them tirelessly toiled throughout the afternoon, patching up the wounded and retrieving supplies.
By dusk they felt they had located and stabilized those that could be saved. The wounded soldiers who were to be picked up were fixed with a long streamer of gauze to identify their location.
Back in the St. John’s trenches, George informed the sergeant that they had found nearly four hundred wounded men who were ready for pick up and the man broke down.
“We owe you two men more than we can ever repay,” the sergeant said. “Because of your heroism, many lives have been saved today. You will be remembered for your bravery.” He hugged them both.
As darkness fell, the parties of eager survivors formed up and brought back hundreds of wounded men. In all three hundred eighty-five men were counted as wounded.
The next day, after a tireless group of volunteers had worked throughout the night, the sergeant took roll call for the 1st Newfoundland Regiment. Only sixty-eight men answered the call. More than over 700 were dead, wounded, or missing.
The young sergeant looked old now, with a pale color and dark rings deeply encircling his eyes. He had been laboring all night with his men and was completely spent. His uniform was covered with both mud and blood. He and his men had borne more than any young men should ever be asked to bear, and they were drained and devoid of emotion. He held out the roster with the sixty-eight checks and turned to his men and the two pipers and gave thanks for their safe return.
Terry and George had recovered their pipes and played “Amazing Grace” for all the fallen men. They played the tune three times and stopped. There was neither clapping nor cheering this time, just a sad and tired “Thank you.”
“OLD CHUM”
TO MY CHUM
No more we’ll share the same old barn,
The same old dugout the same old yarn,
No more a tin of bully share,
Nor split our rum by star shell’s flare,
So long old lad.
What times we had both good and bad,
We’ve shared what shelter could be had,
The same crump hole when the whizz-bangs shrieked,
The same old billet that always leaked,
And now – you’ve “stopped one.”
We’d weathered the storm two winters long,
We’d managed to grin when all went wrong,
Because together we fought and fed,
Our hearts were light; but now you’re dead.
I am mateless
Well, old lad, here’s peace to you,
And for me, well there’s a job to do,
For you and the others that lie at rest,
Assured may be that we’ll do our best,
In vengeance
Just one more cross by strafed roadside,
With it’s G.R.C., and a name for guide,
But, it’s only myself who has lost a friend,
And though I may fight through to the end,
No dug out or billet will be the same,
All pals can only be pals in name,
But we’ll all carry on to the end of the game,
Because you lie there
—Wipers Times, unknown author
By 08:30, the 1st German trench had been reached and breached. The objective of the 36th was to take the three main enemy trenches and move south of Beaumont-Hamel to capture the Beaucourt Station. It was a tall order considering how well the Germans had fortified this area. The St. Pierre Redoubt and the infamous Schwaben Redoubt were protecting the ground between them and their objective, and neither stronghold seemed to be weakened by the week long bombardment.
Hundreds of Irish had fallen in an effort to reach the first trench and now even more were charging into the onslaught running past the bodies of their dead comrades.
Bill, Sean, and I had marched across No Man’s Land, playing around craters and dead men. The stink of death and smoke from exploding shells was so profound that I had to breathe exclusively through my mouth to avoid gagging and retching. Puking and piping does not work well together.
Sean was leading our small band through the muck and we played “Wearing of the Green” as we crested the first German trench. Waves of Irishmen continued past us and down the bank of the barbed wire trench.
We couldn’t believe what we saw, other than the paths cut by the 36th, the entanglement trench seemed almost entirely intact. The large paths through the treacherous wire were a testimony to the sacrifices required of being the first to reach and cut through such a barrier.
The sides of each path were strewn with the bodies of brave young men, now being used to weigh down the wire and keep it back so the still-living could charge through in an effort to kill their enemy and avenge their comrade’s deaths. The amount of dead was appalling especially at the eastern end of the entanglement paths. The German gunners focused their guns at the openings and simply mowed down the men as they ran through.
Thankfully, by the time Sean, Bill, and I arrived and marched through the entanglement trench, the bombers had taken out many of the machine guns. The heaviest fighting had moved into the second trench, but over the fifty meter stretch of land between the trenches there was still plenty of hand-to-hand action.
A German aeroplane flew over us, very low. It seemed to be moving slowly and I could see very plainly the faces of the pilot and his gunner/bomber behind him. The man in the back seat leaned over the edge of the aircraft and dropped a hand bomb on a group of advancing Irishmen.
The young men were focusing on their objective and never saw the threat looming overhead. As I watched the event, I instinctively shrugged up my shoulders and winced my face in anticipation of the impending explosion. In a flash, the explosion sent dirt, debris and men flying in all directions. Out of the fifteen or so men that had been advancing, just one remained. He stood stunned, unsteady, and looking around trying to comprehend what had just happened to him and his fellow mates.
His helmet had been blown off of his head and some of his tunic and webbing was torn, but all in all, he seemed unharmed. The cloud of confusion was lifting as he saw all his friends dead and dying all around him. The unmuffled noise of the low-flying aeroplane finally caught his attention and he looked in its direction now realizing what had just happened.
I watched curiously as the young soldier leaned over and retrieved a rifle from the body of one of his comrades. He calmly pulled the bolt back and ejected the spent shell from th
e chamber replacing it with a new bullet, raised the gun to his shoulder and fired it at the retreating aircraft.
I could still clearly see the bomber in the back seat of the aeroplane smiling as they flew farther from the destruction of his attack. The young Irishman fired only one shot and I knew that it was ridiculous to think that he could actually hit the plane, but I looked at the aircraft to see if he might possibly have gotten lucky. The bomber still looking back at his handy work suddenly snapped back, a brief puff of pink spatter blew by and his head rolling back, then forward. He hung limply over the edge of the cockpit with his arms flapping in the slipstream as the pilot sharply banked the aircraft away from the battle and toward his home field. It was a remarkable shot, either highly skilled or extremely lucky.
Both Sean and Bill had stopped playing and had joined me in watching this stunning battlefield duel and its astounding outcome. The entire event – from attack of the aeroplane to the revenge of the rifleman – had not taken more than forty-five seconds, but for some reason that seemed like a long time.
I looked back to where the young man had been standing and he was gone. The rest of the battlefield, which had seemingly stood still while this played out, was now active again and the noise and confusion of war had returned. We had only progressed some twenty feet when the aeroplane attacked, with still about thirty feet to go before we entered the second trench. The three of us once again refocused on our mission and began playing.
There was still a remarkable amount of fighting going on all around us, but it was clear that the Germans were retreating. I looked around at the landscape, there were hundreds of gray and khaki bundles strewn about the battlefield like so many piles of dirty laundry, each one representing someone’s son.
Then, seemingly from nowhere, a German soldier ran toward us with his rifle held high over his head and its bayonet pointing right at me. I assume he must have been out of ammunition, or else he would have shot me.
He looked deranged as he charged us screaming something in his native tongue. We stopped playing and braced helplessly for the attack. Then, inexplicably, the German stumbled forward and fell face down in the muddy earth at our feet. Twenty meters away I saw the Irish rifleman who had killed the aeroplane bomber just minutes before with his gun pointing at the dead German. He glared at the body of our attacker then looked at me. Then, with a slight nod, he spun around and fired at two other Germans killing them both.
My heart was pounding wildly as just moments before I thought I was a dead man. My mind and body had not caught up with the quick turn of events. Sean looked at me wide-eyed and then at Bill who was equally wide-eyed. Looking at each other in disbelief we all seemed to let out a collected sigh of relief and then began to play “The Minstrel Boy” again.
My hands were shaking rather noticeably and I was having some difficulty with my playing when my right shoulder was abruptly punched back with such a force that my hand flew off the chanter and the blowpipe popped out of my mouth. I stumbled one or two steps, but was able to plug my blowpipe back into my mouth and raise my right hand back to the chanter. I fell back into place with Bill and Sean and resumed the tune afraid to think about what had just happened to me.
Both my friends realized, as it soon occurred to me as well, that I had just been wounded. They seemed to be more interested than I was as to the extent of the wound. Sean was looking at me across Bill as we continued to play and march. I kept on playing, looking straight ahead not wanting to acknowledge having been shot. The pain had elevated from dull to intense as my nerves recovered from shock and began to send me the message that something bad had happened to me. I grimaced and my eyes began to water as the pain continued to build.
Bill was keenly aware of my deteriorating condition and, in mid-tune, his right arm came up across my chest with his hand held out flat.
“Hold on there buddy boy,” he said. “I think it’s time to take a look at you, eh.”
I was in no condition to argue and, in fact, was quite relieved that someone had made the decision to stop me.
Blood had soaked the right arm of my tunic and was dripping down my hand and off of my pinky finger. It had been interfering with my burls – I remember being very annoyed at that. As men continued to run past us and flood the German trenches, I stood unsteadily letting my friends open my tunic and search for the source of the scarlet flow.
“Bingo,” Sean said. It was a clean shot, he said, through the shoulder muscle just outside the joint. Judging from the blood flow, no major blood vessels had been hit, only tissue.
“Very lucky,” Bill said as he began to wrap the oozing wound with gauze from his small field dress kit. I was lightheaded, but immensely relieved.
“We must press on. These men need our support,” I said.
“Okay, then press on we shall!” Sean agreed. Bill smiled and muttered something about tough guys, but I didn’t really hear his full comment. We pressed on. The time was 10:00 and the 36th Ulster’s men had fought their way through the third German trench. It had taken two-and-a-half hours to make six hundred meters, and at what cost? The battle, which at the onset was projected to be a decisive and easy victory, had turned into a costly and devastating miscalculation.
Unknown to the men of the 36th, their advances had been among the greatest of the day. The German command, however, was well aware of that fact and responded with a massive and focused artillery bombardment. The result was the killing of hundreds of Irish and German soldiers alike. Waves of Germans rushed the breach created by the Ulstermen and were met with well-placed Vickers and Lewis machine guns exacting some well-deserved revenge.
The fighting was everywhere around us, and we continued to pipe as ordered. Right in front of our trio lay a wounded Ulster soldier. He had been shot but was trying unsuccessfully to stand and continue the fight. The gunman who had shot him was thirty feet away and running at the wounded soldier with his gun held out in the bayonet thrust position. The wounded man was too focused on trying to stand to notice the charge of the German and only saw him at the last second.
Bill yelled, but it was too late. The Irishman spun and fell on his back, his arms held out in a vain effort to stop his attacker, but it was of little use. The German plunged his bayonet through the helpless young man’s chest causing his victim to curl into a fetal position. The pain was so intense, he couldn’t even scream, all he could do was look horribly surprised.
Bill Lewis cast off his drum and charged wildly at the German who was standing over the dead soldier. The Boche was too involved in watching the young soldier die to notice the rapidly approaching danger.
Bill hit the man at a full sprint, as he had many times on the Queen’s rugger field. This time though, instead of trying to yank the rugby ball out of the arms of his opponent, he grabbed the German’s head around the neck and under the chin. As Bill would have with a rugby ball, he pulled and snapped the man’s neck twisting it grotesquely, one hundred-eighty degrees from its original position. The result was instant. The man fell dead next to the dead Irishman with Bill standing over both of them. His breathing was tight from the anger that had driven him to kill without mercy.
When Sean and I arrived moments later, Bill was still staring menacingly at the man he had just killed.
“He should never have killed that wounded boy,” he said in a low growl. I put my hand on his shoulder. That seemed to help bring him out of his rage.
“Where’s my drum?” he asked. He was concerned about having left it behind.
“I have it, Bill. I brought it,” I assured him.
Bill nodded, took his muddy but undamaged instrument and clipped it to his harness. The dead German lay stomach down on the muddy ground, his head twisted, looking up at his killer with unseeing eyes. We walked past him with no pity or remorse and started to play another tune.
By 1400 hours, six-and-a-half hours after we had started the advance, our reserves were running dry. Lieutenant McDonnell had ordered us back to the t
hird German trench, which was being adequately held. He feared that the B.E.F. had horribly underestimated its enemy and, as a result, there would be few if any reinforcements coming.
A small group of Ulstermen had fought up to the Beaucourt Station, but the resistance was so intense and the support so inadequate that they were unable to hold on to the position.
The three of us had stopped our piping and drumming to help retrieve the wounded – our other very important duty. It seemed to be an endless task. Trip after trip, we would go out and collect the wounded and return to the newly set up field station.
It had become very apparent to me that the number of injured men moving back toward our lines far outnumbered the soldiers coming from behind our lines. The waves had completely stopped by 1800 hours and we were ordered to fall back to the second German trench.
The three of us were preparing to withdraw when Sean realized that he had placed his pipes in a temporary aid post that had been set up in one of the third German trenches being evacuated. Bill and I had moved our equipment back to the German first trench earlier.
“I have to get my pipes before darkness sets in,” Sean announced. There was a hesitance in his voice. Bill and I tried to reason with him – it was still too dangerous to leave the relative safety of our position – but it was to no avail.
“I’ll be right back,” he yelled over his shoulder as he trotted toward the now poorly held location of his pipes. Ten minutes later Bill and I had just off loaded a badly wounded man at a new aid post and were returning to the battlefield when Sean reappeared with a gravely wounded man draped over his back.
“That doesn’t look like your pipes to me,” I said, relieved to see my friend had safely returned.
“I couldn’t just leave him suffering there, could I? Will one of you take him from here? I need to get going.” We agreed to take the wounded man and Sean turned once again and ran off to retrieve his beloved pipes. “I’ll be right back,” he called again.
The Last Lady from Hell Page 26
