The Shadow of War

by Stewart Binns

  The 1st and 2nd Battalions Welch Fusiliers, which have been in France since August, have seen little action and suffered almost no casualties, other than the ill-fated Captain Davies. In stark contrast to so many other regiments, their only hardship has been the many pairs of blistered feet caused by ill-fitting new boots.

  A draft detachment of around 100 reservists is being prepared at Hightown for the long journey to reinforce the 1st Battalion. They are the pick of the men in training; not only are they fit and ready to fight, their departure will create space for the new volunteers who are flocking to the recruiting offices.

  The draft will be led by 2nd Lieutenant Francis Orme, a gangling 23-year-old from a renowned military family, who has only recently passed out of Sandhurst.

  As news of an imminent departure for France spreads around the barracks, the three Thomas boys are summoned to the Regimental Adjutant’s office. With the senior officer are Colour Serjeant Major John Hughes and Lieutenant Orme.

  The three boys march in smartly and salute. The adjutant smiles at them.

  ‘Stand at ease, Fusiliers. How is your training going?’

  Hywel answers.

  ‘Very well, thank you, sir, but I’m a little behind my brothers.’

  ‘Well, all three of you are doing exceptionally well.’ He looks down at various sheets of paper in front of him on his desk. ‘You are physically strong, and your scores on the range are outstanding – especially yours, Fusilier Thomas, H. Your scores are as high as we’ve ever seen from a novice; you are a remarkable marksman. Indeed, were it not for the small matter of the war in France, we would be preparing you for the Regimental Shooting Championships at Bisley.’

  Hywel looks distinctly self-conscious.

  ‘Thank you, sir. I’ve always enjoyed shooting on the farm.’

  ‘Now listen; you will have heard that Lieutenant Orme here is taking a detachment of men to France next week, probably on Wednesday. Altogether, one hundred and nine men have been chosen, all with some experience as reservists. All, that is, except six recent volunteers, all of whom show great promise. We have spoken to the other three, Fusiliers Jones, G. and Jones, E. and Fusilier Bennett.’

  The Thomas brothers look at one another in amazement; they know what is coming next.

  ‘Yes, we have chosen all three of you to be part of Lieutenant Orme’s detachment.’

  All the Thomas boys thank the adjutant in unison; there are smiles all round.

  Before CSM Hughes dismisses them, Lieutenant Orme offers them some warm words of encouragement.

  ‘Delighted to have you in my detachment, Fusiliers Thomas, Thomas and Thomas. It will be my first posting as well. Perhaps we can help one another?’

  Appreciative of the lieutenant’s words, Geraint answers this time.

  ‘Thank you, sir, we’ll do our best.’

  CSM Hughes then takes them to the Regimental Quartermaster’s store, where they are issued with weapons and kit. It is a proud moment for them, and they find it hard to stop grinning during the whole process.

  Finally, they are taken to the Orderly Room where their details are checked by the Regimental Clerk, a punctilious serjeant, who fires questions at them.

  When it comes to the question about their next of kin, there is a difference of opinion. Initially, Hywel answers for all three of them.

  ‘None, Serjeant, both our parents are dead. There are just the three of us.’

  Morgan disagrees.

  ‘I have a twin sister, Bronwyn.’

  The serjeant looks puzzled.

  ‘Make your minds up. If one of you has a sister, then you all have a sister! Unless you breed differently in Presteigne. What’s her address?’

  ‘Don’t know, Serjeant.’

  ‘Then it isn’t much bloody use me putting her down, is it?’

  The boys look at one another. They do not know how to answer.

  ‘Look, if you cop a Jack Johnson in France and you all go up in smoke, we have to send a telegram to someone. I need a name and address.’

  Geraint, never afraid to ask an obvious question, asks the one that both his brothers want to ask.

  ‘What’s a “Jack Johnson”, Serjeant?’

  The serjeant smirks.

  ‘It’s an exploding shell that gives off shitloads o’ black smoke.’

  The boys still seem none the wiser.

  ‘Don’t you have newspapers in Presteigne? Jack Johnson is World Heavyweight Champion. He’s a bloody darkie, black as the ace of spades! Anyway, I need a name.’

  Hywel comes up with a name.

  ‘The Reverend Henry Kewley, the Vicarage, St Andrew’s Church, Presteigne. Thank you very much, Serjeant.’

  ‘That’ll do. Now off with you! And try not to get in the way of a Jack Johnson in France … or a whizz-bang.’

  ‘What’s a “whizz-bang”, Sarje?’

  ‘Fuck off, you cheeky little bugger!’

  That night, the Thomas boys are allowed to leave Hightown Barracks and go into Wrexham to celebrate their deployment. They do not go very far, just to the King’s Mill, a Banks’s pub a few hundred yards down the road. It is very much a soldiers’ haunt. Many men come up to them to shake their hands and congratulate them, and a few even buy them jugs of ale.

  As they talk, Morgan takes the opportunity to get something off his chest.

  ‘Hywel, I know your opinion of Bron, disownin’ her an’ all that. But when it comes to our next o’ kin, shouldn’t she know if we get blown up by one of those Jack Thompsons?’

  ‘Jack Johnsons!’

  ‘Yeah, one of those.’

  ‘I suppose so. But what do we give as her address? A dockside whorehouse in Tiger Bay, Cardiff?’

  ‘Perhaps that nurse who came to Pentry has found ’er and straightened ’er out?’

  ‘Not much chance o’ that, Morgan. There’s no way back from bein’ a tart in Tiger Bay.’

  Geraint changes the subject.

  ‘I wonder what Tom’s up to?’

  Hywel misses his boyhood friend. Tom has not been seen since the trauma over Bronwyn.

  ‘If he’s got any sense, he’ll be a long way away from Presteigne and will never go back.’

  Morgan looks into the fire glowing in the hearth, then stares at the chestnut-coloured brew in his jug.

  ‘Bet they don’t ’ave Banks’s Mild in France.’

  Hywel looks at his younger brother. Although he has felt much better since following his brothers and joining the Welch Fusiliers, he is still very raw after the ordeals of the summer. But he is putting on a brave face in front of Geraint and Morgan.

  ‘I’m sure they ’ave beer in France. And I’m sure it will ’ave the same effect as Banks’s.’

  ‘I ’ope so, Hywel! I do ’ope so, with all those darkie bombs goin’ off.’

  Hywel smiles pensively and also stares into the fire. He is still thinking that a quick and painless death in France will be an appropriate end to a life full of sadness and with no prospect of respite.

  Sunday 25 October

  Neuve-Chapelle, Nord-Pas-de-Calais, France

  The constant series of attempts by the German and Allied armies to outflank one another all along the French-Belgian border goes on relentlessly. The loss of life increases alarmingly by the day.

  The war, initiated by rulers whose motives are akin to the vainglories of medieval kings and princes, is, despite the impressive resolve of its generals and soldiers, impossible to win, at least in the short term. All the while, the new technologies of transportation and weaponry are enabling millions of young men to be sent to the battlefield, where they are being killed on a horrifying scale by increasingly lethal modern armaments.

  The British Expeditionary Force, the greater part of Britain’s small but outstanding army, is being destroyed. Of the BEF’s original strength of eighty-four infantry battalions just two months ago, each of which comprised about 970 men, only nine have between 350 and 450 survivors. Thirty-one are down to betw
een 200 and 300, and eighteen have fewer than 100 fit men ready for action. The most severely depleted of all, the 1st Loyal North Lancashire, is a battalion in name only as it now consists of one officer and thirty-five men.

  Besides the obvious bullet wounds, shrapnel injuries and the mutilations caused by artillery shells, a new malady is beginning to emerge. There are more and more reports of less tangible symptoms after combat, including tinnitus, amnesia, headache, dizziness, tremors and hypersensitivity to noise. What puzzles the medical staff is that men often present with these ailments even when they have not been in close proximity to an explosion. There are also increasing numbers of men who appear ‘lost’ or ‘disorientated’. Fellow soldiers coin a new term for their condition: ‘the thousand-yard stare’. The medics begin to use the term ‘shell shock’.

  Many suffer from ‘nervous disorders’ that some call ‘fear of battle’ and others call ‘cowardice in the face of the enemy’. For the men of High Command, ‘shell shock’ and ‘nerves’ pose a major dilemma, one that they choose to ignore. After all, what is the difference between conditions caused by the psychological stress of battle and the ‘cowardice’ exhibited by men who do not have the stomach for the fight? Few senior commanders allow themselves to show much sympathy for men who are described as ‘shell-shocked’ or suffering from ‘nerves’, even though there is much evidence that the phenomenon extends to the very top of the military hierarchy.

  As in France and Germany, the personal tragedies of the death toll reach into every corner of Britain, including the homes of the ruling class, whose sons in the officer corps are dying in staggering numbers. Prince Maurice of Battenberg, the nephew of Winston Churchill’s First Sea Lord, Louis of Battenberg, and a grandson of Queen Victoria, dies at Ypres serving with the King’s Royal Rifle Corps. Winston’s cousin, 2nd Lieutenant Norman Leslie, the son of Lady Randolph’s sister Leonie and her husband, Sir John Leslie, is killed with the Rifle Brigade at Armentières.

  It is also a bleak time for the Stewart-Murrays of Blair Atholl. There is still no word from or sighting of Geordie. It is now six weeks since he was last seen in action with the Black Watch near Vailly.

  Eton College, perhaps the one school that most typifies the noblesse oblige of the British aristocracy, and the Stewart-Murrays’ Alma Mater, will send 5,629 Old Etonians to fight in the Great War. Of these, 1,157 will be killed, another 1,460 will be injured and 130 will be taken prisoner. Those who are born to lead must expect to bleed.

  The telegrams begin to arrive at remote farms, village cottages, detached and semi-detached suburban homes and terraced houses all over the country. For the time being they are delivered to the families of professional soldiers and army reservists, but that will soon change, as will their volume and frequency.

  The Ypres Salient remains the critical fulcrum of the war in the autumn of 1914. For British forces, the fighting is being concentrated into an increasingly confined area along a line between Lille and Béthune in the south, and between Ypres and Armentières to the east.

  But the whole of the front line extends much further. North of Sir John French’s BEF at Ypres, between his soldiers and the coast, the Allied line is held by French and Belgian troops who are resolutely defending their position west of the Yser River under the direct command of Albert, King of the Belgians. To the south of Béthune, the defensive bulwark is held by General d’Urbal’s 8th French Army, which continues to fight with great tenacity. Facing the Allies are two entire German Army Groups: the 4th, under General Duke Albrecht of Württemberg, and the 6th, under Crown Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria. In total, Allied forces number just over 350,000, while the two German armies can muster well over 500,000.

  French colonial troops from Morocco have already acquitted themselves well in the fighting. Newly arrived British Empire troops from the Meerut and Lahore Divisions of the Indian Army will soon perform with equal distinction, despite having only meagre supplies, few munitions and no winter clothing.

  Significantly, the events in and around Ypres in the autumn of 1914 are to offer a salutary lesson: in the battles of the Great War, it is far easier to defend a position than to attack one. Both the Allies and the Germans are running short of food, clothing, medical supplies and materiel. Shells and bullets are being rationed and transportation is becoming a major headache. The railway systems are in chaos and the roads are blocked by shell holes, broken-down vehicles and endless streams of civilians seeking refuge from the fighting.

  Bicycles become a godsend for messengers and reconnaissance; dogs are used as pack animals for machine guns and small mortars. Horses are put to use in the more mundane role of beasts of burden, rather than as cavalry chargers, and aerial scouting from the sky becomes vital to strategic planning.

  There is many a nostalgic sighting for British men far away from home when huge fleets of buses arrive, still painted in the liveries of the bus companies belonging to the towns and cities of their origins. They include over 300 red and white ‘Old Bill’ London buses requisitioned from the London General Omnibus Company. Each BEF brigade is allocated thirty buses, manned by their own volunteer drivers, who are given uniforms and rifles. Stories soon circulate, apocryphal or otherwise, that men are being driven to the battlefield by bus drivers who previously drove them to work in Civvy Street.

  Serjeant Harry Woodruff and what remains of the 4th Battalion Royal Fusiliers arrive at Pont Logy, 1,000 yards due west of Neuve-Chapelle, early in the afternoon of 25 October.

  Neuve-Chappelle is a village of little distinction eight miles north-east of Béthune and sixteen miles south-west of Lille. Like so much of the ground over which the opposing armies have fought since the war began, the landscape is monotonously flat, with only the occasional church spire to break up the otherwise tedious horizon. Well-engineered French rural roads criss-cross the terrain in almost endless straight lines and disappear to a vanishing point, their drainage ditches offering the only cover between huge open fields of crops.

  The fusiliers can see the houses of Neuve-Chappelle in the distance. They are occupied by men of Germany’s 158th Infantry Regiment (7th Lotharingians) from Paderborn in Westphalia. The Londoners are told that the order to attack is imminent and that they must stand to.

  Harry looks round at his platoon. Most are new reservists, recently arrived from hasty preparatory retraining at Albany Barracks. He wishes Maurice was here, but it has only been eight days since his bayonet wound at Herlies. At least Captain Carey is nearby; both he and Major Ashburner have recovered from the flesh wounds they received in the skirmish.

  There has been no replacement for Lieutenant Mead, killed at Herlies, and no new company serjeant major to replace Billy Carstairs, killed at Vailly.

  An hour passes and there is still no order to attack. The only movement is the appearance of a bicycle at about 3 p.m., hurtling towards them down Rue du Grand Chemin from the direction of Battalion HQ. It carries a fusilier, peddling frantically, as if in possession of an urgent message. But when the rider comes to a halt at the side of the road, it is not a messenger but Platoon Serjeant Maurice Tait.

  Harry is open-mouthed.

  ‘What the fuck are you doin’ ’ere?’

  ‘I’ve come to keep an eye on you!’

  ‘Thought you was gonna be banged up in ’ospital.’

  ‘The nurse I saw was a right Miss Fitch, and the Doc said I’d be as right as ninepence in a fortnight, so I fucked off!’

  ‘How did yer get back?’

  ‘Hitched a lift wiv some Cherry Bums, 4th Hussars, on their way down ’ere.’

  ‘Hussars! “Whose-arse” tonight, you mean! Not gone queer on me, ’ave yer, Mo?’

  ‘Fuck off, ’Arry! They were good lads; their officer gave me a packet of fags.’

  ‘He sounds like an iron hoof to me. Didn’t tell yer to bend over and tie up yer shoelaces, did he?’

  Maurice just grins, ignoring Harry’s taunting. So Harry changes the subject.

  ‘’Ave
yer seen Ashburner?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘What did he say?’

  ‘He said, “Fusilier Tait, you are a very ill-disciplined soldier and deserve to be sent straight back to the hospital and punished for insubordination.” Then he stood up, smiled at me and said, “But we need men like you here. Very good to have you back. Your platoon is at Pon Loggy” – or something like that – “so see if you can get up there. A little skirmish is in the offing.” ’

  Harry smirks.

  ‘Little skirmish! Take a butcher’s: a thousand yards of open ground, and Fritz is in every birch an’ broom in them ’ouses over there. Some tosser at HQ ’as looked at a map and said, “Jolly easy stroll to the German positions, no problem for our lads!” Well, he don’t ’ave to fuckin’ walk it, do he?’

  Maurice realizes that Harry’s mood is no calmer than when he left.

  Five minutes later, the order passes down the line and hundreds of Cockneys in khaki begin to move across the broad fields of Neuve-Chapelle; to the right are the Northumberlands, to the left the Lincolnshires. They are a comfort to the London boys. They have given stern support whenever it was needed in the past; today they will have to do so again.

  The first men begin to fall at about 700 yards. The toll grows exponentially with every yard thereafter. There is no cover, and no evasive action is available; survival is a lottery, determined by the aim of the German marksmen, or the breaths of wind that make bullets veer away from their intended victims. Who would send men across open ground into repetitive hailstorms of bullets unleashed from lethally accurate modern rifles and machine guns? The answer is tragically simple: generals who have no other strategy, because none has yet been thought of.

  The fusiliers, like all the other men on the battlefields on both sides of the Great War, know that the only combination that will unlock the secret code of victory in this diabolical conflict is simple: whoever is prepared to sacrifice the most men, the most resources and has the strongest stomach for the fight. All any man can hope for in the numbers game of the Great War is that his name, in the final reckoning, will be added to the list of survivors rather than the toll of the dead.