I followed the railway track until I saw a Red Cross flag, when I turned off and began to struggle across a field towards an Advanced Dressing Station. A doctor and an orderly came out and got each side of me, putting their arms under my shoulders, in order to cradle me the last few yards to the station where they put me directly into a waiting ambulance. ‘Do your best to keep your eye on these,’ said the doctor, then, ‘All right, driver’, and away we went. No one stopped to examine or bandage my foot.
There were two chaps gassed in the ambulance, one, poor devil, a Scotsman, was in a shocking state, fighting for his breath, and delirious. His breathing was short, gasping, and as he lay there he cried for his mother, ‘Oh mother, God, oh mother, help me’. I watched him lie in agony for there was nothing I could do. There were two others in the van, one man, less seriously wounded, next to me, and underneath the young Jock, another man, also gassed, though not as badly.
We were driving steadily through Ypres, we hadn’t been in it long, when suddenly the ambulance stopped dead, jolting everyone in the back. I shouted with surprise and the poor Jock groaned in pain, seconds before there was a resounding crash. Peering around the side of the ambulance I saw a cloud of dust drifting away from a veritable heap of bricks. The ambulance driver had seen a wall tottering, and had stopped just as the wall fell across the road. Had he driven on, we would undoubtedly have been crushed. There was no time to clear the rubble, so the driver was forced to take another route out of Ypres, to another town which I believe was Poperinge.
Editor
The Germans continued their attacks all morning before the initiative passed to the British, and counter-attacks were launched in the afternoon and early evening to regain much of the ground lost. Pressure on the 2nd Cavalry Brigade during the morning had been intense, the 18th Hussars and 9th Lancers in particular suffering severe casualties. Later, a squadron of the 4th Dragoons was pushed forward to support the 1st Cavalry Brigade between Zillebeke and Hooge, while the rest remained in the railway cutting until relieved at 9pm. The 4th Dragoons had suffered some seventy casualties, ten of them dead, while the Brigade had lost twenty three officers and 364 other ranks, around sixty per cent of its already depleted strength.
Ben was probably picked up by one of five Cavalry Field Ambulances which operated collection points and Advanced Dressing Stations just behind the line. If he was, then he was first taken to Vlamertinghe where the more severe gas cases were being treated with ChCLl3, methylated spirits and ammonia stimulants, while the less serious cases were being quickly despatched to Casualty Clearing Stations. Among those being evacuated was Ben. He was driven to number 3 Casualty Clearing Station on the outskirts of Bailleul, ten miles south west of Ypres.4 The CCS had only recently relocated from Poperinge, taking over one block of what had been an old lunatic asylum situated on the Bailleul to Ypres road. Doctors had estimated its capacity at no more than 350 men, yet during the month of May it admitted over 7,000 casualties. The influx of new patients naturally depended on the ferocity of the fighting. On May 9th they had received 808 patients; exactly a week later they had received none. May 24th, however, proved to be the most hectic day that month, for on top of the 111 wounded and sick patients still awaiting evacuation, the CCS admitted no fewer than 961 officers and men, of whom more than 600 were suffering from the effects of gas. It was, therefore, into organised pandemonium that Ben arrived.
The dreaded letter: official notification of Ben’s injury arrived at the Clouting home nearly three weeks after the event. However, the family already knew of this injury and had visited Ben in hospital.
Ben
By the time the ambulance arrived at the Casualty Clearing Station, I was panting badly and had a job to breathe from the effects of the gas. After being helped from the ambulance, I was left to wait for attention which, given the lightness of my wound, took a long time to arrive. When a nurse did come to see me, she asked where I was hit, and I motioned towards my foot. ‘But what about all that there?’ she asked, pointing to my tunic. It was still caked in the blood of ‘Mickey’ Lowe. ‘It isn’t mine,’ was all I could bring myself to say, for all in all, I was feeling decidedly sick from the combined effects of chlorine gas and a large amount of the Troop’s rum. The nurse returned, bringing with her a drink which made me violently and copiously sick almost as soon as I had touched it, but this eliminated much of the gas’s worst effects and I suffered relatively little from that time onwards, although my sense of smell was permanently impaired.
Many of the more urgent cases were sent down the line late that afternoon, while the less serious, including myself, stayed the night there, near the railway station, in amongst the comforting signs of the Red Cross, which flew or were painted everywhere to under¬line to enemy aircraft the role of the place.
Next morning was another lovely, fine day and my spirits rose as I waited with others to be put on the ambulance train. Before embarkation, we were individually checked by a doctor to see if we were lying or sitting cases, sitting cases being those, like myself, who could walk or hop, for which we were designated ‘walking wounded’. Four of us were put into a compartment, and as I sat by the window, a team of Belgian ladies got on and put very pretty hand-knitted stockings, with mauve bows, on those of us with wounded legs. When the train pulled out of the station, a small number of civilians cheered us off, in appreciation for which a number of us hoisted our stockinged legs out of the windows and gingerly waved them goodbye.
The train took us to Boulogne where, for the first time in months, I was to sleep in a proper bed. But I found I simply wasn’t used to it and couldn’t sleep, so I got out onto the floor. I was discovered by the night sister who made me get back into bed, but still I couldn’t sleep, so I returned to the floor where I was allowed to stay, despite one more attempt by the sister to get me back into bed.
Editor
Ben had received little more than perfunctory treatment to his right ankle at Bailleul before he was evacuated with 257 other cases early the following afternoon, on Number 6 Ambulance Train, by way of St Omer to Boulogne, arriving at 7.20pm. After one night in hospital, he sailed, on May 26th, in one of two Hospital Ships, the St David, or the Dieppe, arriving at Graylingwell War Hospital late that evening.
May 24th had turned out to be the final day in the battle that was to become known as Second Ypres. The Dragoons left the trenches sadly depleted, but were never again used as makeshift infantry as they had been during March, April and May 1915. The 2nd Cavalry Brigade had been thrown into the defence of Ypres and had helped save the day by their fighting tenacity, earning special praise from their commander in chief, Sir John French, when he inspected their ranks three weeks later.5
Ben
Two Red Cross orderlies carried me on a stretcher on board ship and placed me in the hold, where dozens of us lay in long rows. I discovered that a stretcher was a horrible thing to lie on because it was so narrow. The only way I could lie comfortably was on my back, because if I lay on my side, my knees hit the wooden poles. We sailed across at night and, though the trip was uncomfortable, we were going home to Blighty and that was all that mattered. I knew how lucky I was. I was going home with a much sought-after Blighty wound, while others were going home with limbs missing, or faces irreparably damaged.
We landed at Southampton early in the morning and were placed under cover on the quayside. Several ladies were milling around, offering soldiers sympathy, cigarettes, mugs of tea and cake, which were most welcome. One nurse came over to speak to me. ‘What country do you come from?’ she asked. I was covered in grime and filth, and my face was almost black from the bag of charcoal I had carried up the line a week or so before. A mixture of dust and sweat had helped to even out the ‘tan’ so that she had actually mistaken me for a colonial soldier. She was genuinely amazed, as she wiped away a little dirt, to find this boy underneath.
Those lightly wounded, like myself, waited patiently on our stretchers until orderlies came to help us t
o the hospital trains. If at all possible, the authorities tried to place soldiers in hospitals close to home. Even so, it was welcome news when I learnt I was on a train headed for Chichester, a town just 45 miles from home.
Officially my parents had still to be informed of my injury, but a sixth sense had already told them I was in trouble. Within two hours of my being wounded, my mother had collapsed, so I was later told. She had woken early and had become increasingly agitated, until all my father could get from her was ‘my boy, my boy.’ The local doctor was called, and after examining her confirmed she was suffering from severe shock, but for no apparent reason. ‘How is the boy?’ he asked. My father replied that I was well, for the family had only just received a card from me a couple of days before.
I had already arrived at Graylingwell War Hospital, Chichester, when my parents heard where I was. ‘There’s only one remedy for her shock and that is to take her to see Ben,’ the doctor told my father, and with that he brought my mother, and one of my sisters, all the way over to see me, while he went off to see a friend in Chichester. It was ironic, but his name was Dr Steinhauser, a German who had been naturalised English and had been our doctor for many many years. His diagnosis was correct, and my mother was all right, but years later when I asked her about the incident, she said simply, ‘I just knew you were in trouble’.
When my mother came to see me, she did not look in shock. On the contrary, she looked very well. It was the first time I had seen any of my family since January 1914, since when so many things had occurred. My mother sat by my bed for two hours and we talked and talked, during which she broke the bad news that my cousin Sidney had been missing in action since the 9th of May. He had only been in France a couple of months, she told me, and this had been the Regiment’s first real action. There was some hope he might be a prisoner of war, but the family feared the worst.
Sid Clouting had enlisted at Hastings in the 5th Royal Sussex Regiment and had trained with the Battalion before embarking for France in February 1915. I found out in later years that after a spell acclimatising to the front line, the Battalion was selected to take part in an early morning attack on the German trenches near Aubers Ridge, but that the attack had utterly failed. The Regiment lost nearly 250 men; nearly 100 were killed, of whom Sidney Clouting was one. His body was never found.
At Graylingwell Hospital, preliminary examinations showed that the shrapnel had hit me just above the ankle joint and had come out through the tongue of my boot. I had no operation, rather my ankle was daily dressed and re-dressed when fragments of bone, puttee and boot, which gradually worked their way to the surface, were picked out. Nor did I received any physiotherapy, my ankle was simply bandaged and it was just a question of waiting until I felt I could try walking again.
The hospital was an ex-mental institution taken over for war work. It was large, with near enough 1,000 beds, and divided into many wards, including ours, Queen’s Ward. It was staffed by full-time nurses, orderlies, and any number of volunteer helpers who gave many hours of their time, not just in providing nursing support, but in running an on-site library, canteen and even a Post Office. The local community did all they could to help our recovery. Soldiers did not draw pay while in hospital, so relief was provided by a Gift Fund, financed by local people, for the purchase of anything from fruit to musical instruments, games to stationery. On the wards we played endless card games, or, as the weather was so warm, we would go outside and sit on the lawns. For the more mobile, there was the opportunity to play bowls, indeed there was even a tennis court. We would sit, and talk, and reminisce and leg-pull. The trenches might have been a million miles away, for everyone wanted to forget what had happened in France, almost as if it had never occurred.
At night, the war returned for many on the ward. Chaps constantly shouted out in their sleep as though back in France, sometimes kicking out with their feet, or jerking their arms wildly. The most disturbed were those who were coming round after an operation, for there were no recovery wards, and men were brought back into the ward direct from the operating table. Usually a nurse would sit with them until they regained consciousness, or, when this wasn’t possible, a soldier sat close by, ready to shout for help. Being only lightly wounded, I helped out on several occasions, mucking in to hold bandages as nurses dressed wounds on their rounds.
There was one man, a quiet fellow, who had both feet amputated during a particularly difficult operation and was taking a long time to come round from the anaesthetic. On finally waking, he launched, most unexpectedly, into a tirade of language that was just so awful the men on the ward held a handkerchief over his mouth, to protect the nurses. He had difficulty accepting what had happened and had become delirious, blaming everyone around him for his loss. He had been in hospital some time and had borne the pain without ever complaining as the doctors fought a losing battle to save his feet. When this man finally recovered, we told him what he had said, and he was very embarrassed.
By this time, soldiers were only being allowed out of the hospital if they were accompanied by an escort, who guaranteed to pick us up and bring us back by a pre-arranged time. The problem had been alcohol. Many soldiers had been returning drunk, as local people treated the wounded heroes to drink after drink in nearby pubs. The rule was now needed more than ever, for Australians and Canadians had begun arriving at Graylingwell since April and May, and these men seemed to have plenty of money – far more, it appeared, than the Tommy. Not only could these men rely on being bought drinks, but they could afford their own. The hospital was forced to introduce its own curfew, set at 10pm.
Garden parties, hosted by local families, were a well-appreciated source of outside entertainment. By July, I was hobbling around on crutches and the ward sister asked me if I would like to go to one such party. I readily agreed, and made sure I was at the front door at the appropriate time. I was pointed towards a carriage driven by an elderly coachman, but before climbing aboard, I stopped to stroke the horse. ‘You fond of horses, Tommy?’ he asked. I told him that not only was I from a cavalry regiment, but that I had grown up with horses on an estate near Lewes. ‘You don’t happen to know Bill Clouting?’ he asked, to my astonishment. He and my father had worked together as stable lads at the home of Phillip Sassoon, before my dad married and moved away.
This coachman now worked for the lady to whose home several patients had been invited for tea. At the time, she was with the matron, but presently she reappeared to join us on the short trip to her home. ‘You’re never going to believe this, Miss, but I used to work with this soldier’s father,’ the coachman said. ‘Good heavens, well then he must ride up on the box with you,’ she answered.
There were plenty of invitations for wounded soldiers to attend various functions laid on for their benefit. On two occasions, I went to a garden party at Sir James Horlix’s house, near Good-wood. Some twenty of us were picked up in a charabanc and taken over to his home for the afternoon, where we were met at the door by the butler and shown into the garden. We sat on garden seats to chat, while Sir James walked round to talk to each group of soldiers. Lemonade was served, and a tea of bread, butter and jam, as we sat around a large wooden table taken outside for the occasion.
Walking round the garden at one of Sir James’s parties, I found a grass snake. This discovery put my mind into action, and asking for a jam jar, I managed to bottle the snake up, with the idea of taking it back to the hospital. It was only about a foot long, so there was little difficulty getting it onto the ward or concealing my activities, as I tied a bit of bandage round its neck and roped it to the rear leg of my bed. All the soldiers loved to play tricks on the nurses and I was no exception. I knew that last thing at night a nurse, would came round to tuck us into bed; it was as good a chance as any for a joke. Keeping a straight face was the hardest part, as I asked the nurse earnestly, ‘Do please be careful and try not to step on my watchdog’. This particular nurse was well known for her nervousness and timidity and I eagerly followe
d the path of her eyes as she looked down. Then she saw the snake, gave a little yelp, and promptly fainted on top of me.
I had not quite expected this reaction, and while another nurse slapped her face to bring her round, the sister was called. Deep down, I would like to think this sister saw the funny side of the incident, but that, for the sake of ward discipline, she felt obliged to put on a good act to the contrary. Ward sisters had the ability to put the fear of God into junior nurses, VADs and even soldiers alike. Sitting in a hospital bed made me something of a captive audience, and I was left in no doubt as to what would happen if I ever tried a trick like that again. The dressing down finished with her telling me to get up, get dressed, and take the wretched creature up the garden, an orderly being to sent with me to ensure I left it there.
I left hospital in early September and was given a week’s leave. I was still lame, although I no longer needed crutches and spent much of the week relaxing and exercising my foot. My brother William was still at school, but my two sisters had entered dom¬estic service at a house near enough for them to still be living at home. Since the death of Charles Brand, the estate had been run down. Most of the animals had long been sold off, leaving my father to look after no more than a couple of mares and a couple of Shetland ponies, a far throw from the days when some eighteen horses stabled at Little Dene.
From Little Dene, I returned to the Regiment’s depot at Newport, where I stayed for two or three weeks before I was moved back to the reserve Regiment at Tidworth. At Tidworth, I found Lieutenant Swallow working in a cushy job. Mullens would never have had him back, medically fit or not, so he was now seeing out the war as a Transport Officer, or some similar title. He came up to me and said, ‘Oh hello, Clouting, how are you getting on?’ A little harshly, I pointed out that I was about to leave for France again, yet to give Swallow his due he did not try and avoid me, quite the opposite. But deep in my heart I had the feeling he wasn’t a man; he’d failed in action as a soldier.6
Teenage Tommy Page 16
