Where the ghoulish rats abound
Where we cursed like hell when the minnies fell
And the shrapnel burst around.
No more over the top we’ll go
Lashed by a storm of shell
As we charged, with a curse
Through bullets and worse
And laughed on the brink of hell.
And when in a bed we lay dying
We’ll think of our dead comrades’ graves
Where the spirits of before surround them
And the ghost of a barrage still waves.
Twas there in the crashing barrage
Two comrades of mine went west
They played a straight game and played it well
But now they are forever at rest.
We laughed and swore together
In the trenches on the Somme
And jested with fate and fought like men
And wondered when death would come.
But now they are gone forever
As if they had never been born
But they are dead and happy
But their mothers are left to mourn.
We laid them at Mailly, side by side
In sound of the British guns
They had won their earth by right of their birth
For they will bring us sons.
Then down in our dugout whey and worn
We rested from the fight
IWM Q3963
I wrote to our mothers and sweethearts at home
By the guttering candle’s light.
But I hope against hope
When the last post sounds
And the judgement day is at hand
That the soldiers who died and the soldiers who lived
Will meet in the promised land.
After the attack I was appointed burial officer and was told just to get on with the job of burying the dead. I had a squad of men to help me, carrying picks and shovels, and also stretchers. Of course some of the men they were picking up were their brothers and cousins and they of course were very upset, very very upset. Their number included my two particular friends Smith and Mclean; both had been killed in the action. Lt Smith had been a dentist in civilian life, and Lt Mclean a divinity student; it shows you the waste of life there was in that war.
In a Highland Regiment, there were many men from the same family, village or town. I mean some of them obviously were just crying, and it was quite natural. If your brother was picked up on a battlefield like that, well, you’ve only got to imagine what you would feel like, and that’s exactly what they felt like.
We took the dead on stretchers back to Mailly Maillet Wood and dug a long trench and put the dead in there, wrapped in an army blanket, neatly packed in like sardines. They fell side by side and they were buried side by side. We covered them up and we gave them a proper funeral with reversed arms: all the ceremonial of a proper funeral, blowing the Last Post and the pipes playing ‘Flowers in the Forest’. I think there were about 80; it might have been less. And Smith and McClean; I saw them buried there too. As an officer you needn’t stand aloof, but the best way of comforting the living would be to give them a stroke on the head or a pat on the back or some gesture like that, without words. But it was a horrible thing to do, to have to bury your own cousin or brother.
I thought we were finished, but afterwards I was told to go back into what had been no man’s land and bury the old dead of the Newfoundland Regiment, killed on 1st July. I was given three platoons which carried picks and shovels and, still under shell fire, we buried them in shell holes.
The flesh had gone mainly from the face but the hair had still grown, the beard to some extent. When bodies have lain out for a long time there is a sweet smell, and it is not as repulsive as one might suppose. I thought ‘there but for the grace of God go I’, but the sight didn’t make me any braver when I had to go into my next attack.
A picture of British dead taken by a German photographer. Above, the cemetery at Mailly-Maillet. The dead Seaforths who were buried here were afforded greater care by Norman. However, the close proximity of their bodies during burial has ensured that the gravestones above ground are somewhat compacted.
The dead Newfoundlanders looked very ragged, and the rats were running out of their chests. The rats were getting out of the rain, of course, because the cloth over the rib cage made quite a nice nest and I should think this was the driest place they could find in no man’s land. However, when you touched a body the rats just poured out of the front. A dozen bodies would be touched simultaneously and there were rats tumbling everywhere. To think that a human being provided a nest for a rat was a pretty dreadful feeling. The puttees on the men’s legs looked quite round but when the flesh goes from under the puttee, there is just a bone, and if you stand on it, it just squashes. For a young fellow like myself, nineteen, all I had to look forward to at the time was a similar fate. It still has an effect on me now; you never forget it. After the war I used to have nightmares and heavy dreams, dreams of all kinds. For years I was back there on the Somme.
I remember the mine crater at Beaumont Hamel, which was blown on July 1st and blown again for our attack. It was close to where I was burying the Newfoundlanders, so for a short while I wondered over and walked down into the crater. However, it was very loose and you could see all sorts of things that were lying about, jackboots, and I decided it was better to get out because the soil was slipping away and I could easily have been buried.
Nobody knew what to do, we were all fresh, all newcomers to the job. All we could do was remove the paybooks. These were in quite good condition as they were in a sort of oil cloth which protected them. Photographs of mothers and fathers and sweethearts and children were all in the pay books, and of course their last will and testament. I don’t know how many we collected – hundreds I suppose. We left their identity disc on so they could be identified later, and put the personal items in a clean sandbag. Then we shovelled the dead into shell holes, most half-filled with water, about thirty rotting bodies to a shell hole, and covered them up as best we could. We tried where we could to get a bit of wood and make a mark to identify the place. In the setting sun I saw once again the green and blue tinge to the shell water, and it looked rather beautiful.
There was no emotion then. There comes a time when emotion becomes a strange sort of word, you get so much that you become deadened to it, you’re bound to. You didn’t know men that had been dead for four and a half months and were strangers to you, you only knew them as young soldiers and officers who’d gone to war just as you had, and they’d died. You felt in a way horrified to think that there you had, in my case, probably nine hundred or so young men – they must have been an average age of nineteen or twenty, who had all come over to France to do what they thought no doubt would be a wonderful job of work and in one day – one day – they were destroyed. You thought then, and you saw what happened, and you realised what their aspirations and their ambitions were and what they were going to do to put the world right, and they were going to do this and that, and all they did was to die in really a few minutes. Yet you couldn’t weep for them any more than you could for any of the other 20,000 who died on 1 July, but it seemed to me to be such a terrible waste of life.
The cemetery at Mailly-Maillet just after the war, and today.
Editor: The Brigade diary notes in simple detail the onerous work undertaken by nineteen year old Norman and the men under his command. On November 20th is records that:
‘Large parties were employed in collecting the dead and loading the bodies on to wagons, nearly 100 bodies being collected’, while the following day a further ‘144 bodies were recovered.’ On November 22nd the diary notes that in total ‘630 British bodies of men killed on 1 July and 8 Germans have been buried, and a further 90 bodies have been collected of men killed on November 13th and transported to Auchonvilliers Cemetery. The area is now clear of dead except for a few Germans.’ On the 24th the diary record
ed:
‘During this period of duty in the trenches the battlefield was almost entirely cleared, not only were all the bodies of those killed on Nov 13th collected and transported to Auchonvilliers cemetery but 669 skeletons which were found lying out in “No Man’s Land” were buried. These were the remains of soldiers of the 2nd Seaforth Highrs, Middlesex Regt, Royal Fusiliers and a Newfoundland Inf. Regt who had been killed on July 1st; on the battle front of one of our battalions about 545 of these skeletons were buried. Few identifications of them could be obtained as their identity discs had either been removed previously or had been eaten by rats which swarmed amongst the corpses. Altogether the bodies of a little short of 1,000 soldiers were dealt with.’
The crater blown under the German lines on 1st July was reblown on 13th November. It is pictured shortly after the successful attack. The crater’s sides were dangerous and liable to slippage.
Norman
Finally, this loathsome job was finished and with one or two men I took the sandbags full of pay books down a communication trench to Brigade Headquarters. I noticed as we went that the communication trenches had bodies, and parts of bodies, sticking out of the wall for quite a long way. The trench, I suppose, had been dug through the bodies where they lay. Occasionally you would see a loose head or two kicking about.
At Brigade headquarters I handed the sandbags over. I was in a deep dugout in the chalk, and I stood there amazed by the luxury of the officers who were down there. I was asked very politely to have a cup of tea, and they handed me some cakes, which I ate. It was incredible. I was glad then to get up. I couldn’t really face it. I was feeling a bit under the weather but in front of me I noticed some parcels and I saw that these lovely cakes came from a box labelled ‘Fortnum and Mason, Piccadilly’.
Norman wearing his officer’s tunic and Sam Browne belt. These clearly identified the wearer as a British officer and they were often discarded in action as they attracted German sniper fire.
It did seem strange that a short distance away you had the war going on and heavy shelling and in this dugout you were back in London, so that even at the front there were stark differences between those in and those close to the line. By this time in the war, many junior officers were wearing other ranks’ uniforms. In English regiments many officers had taken to wearing puttees and other ranks’ tunics. In Scottish regiments, the kilt was the same for everyone; however when we were in the line we wore an other rank’s tunic. So many officers had been picked off while wearing a Sam Browne belt, which no doubt shone with the efforts of the batman that morning. So we all wore a tommy’s jacket in the line and the only badge of rank was pencilled in indelible pencil on the shoulder strap, one triangle for a 2nd Lieutenant, two for a Lieutenant, three for a Captain. But the officers down this dugout all had red tabs on and they were all spick and span, polished boots and Sam Browne belts. And there I was dirty, and probably lousy, wearing just a tommy’s uniform. I’ve never forgotten that and I rather resented it. I was very pleased to get out and get back to my men, up the communication trench with my little crew and back into the trenches. I was more at home with them. I didn’t like the idea of leaving the survivors of my own men – they depended on me for things that other people couldn’t give them.
It was the closest bond because we were both living in the same world. It’s extraordinary really, because the association between officers and men as a rule was very short. Neither lived very long, but during that period it became the most intense feeling. Your affection for the men under you – there’s no doubt about that. We used to write to their mothers when they were killed, and the mothers used to reply asking for some sort of memento, ‘Have you any little thing you could send us to remind us of our dear boy?’, which you could never send, of course. It was really quite pathetic. I don’t believe we ever replied to these letters, otherwise we would have been entering into correspondence and I believe there was an order forbidding this.
It took us all our time to write these letters. They always gave these jobs to young 2nd Lieutenants, and the letters I’m afraid had little variation amongst them because when you had to write these letters, sometimes there were about sixty to pen, and you didn’t even know who you were talking about. We always tried to write a nice letter to the mother or father because we felt for them, we understood what they were feeling. ‘Dear Mr and Mrs So and So, I’m sorry to have to tell you that, as you no doubt have already heard by telegram, your dear son was killed on such a such a date. He was a fine chap and I was very fond of him and he was a good soldier and you, I’m sure, are very proud of him’ and so on and so forth. As much as you could do, you made her feel that her son was a hero and that’s about all. There was quite a bit of hype, there’s no disguising it. There must have been hypocrisy in it, but it was kindly hypocrisy, you were doing it to comfort the mother. By the time you got to the stage of writing fifty or sixty letters, you couldn’t remember who they were – too many. But at the time when they were killed you certainly felt for them very much, very much.
Beaumont Hamel
25/11/16
Dear all
It is with great thankfulness that I have so far come through the Battle of the Ancre without a scratch.
The last fortnight has been absolute hell. On the 13th at dawn the Battalion went over the ‘bags’ [Ed. sandbags, in other words over the top] and after a few hours hard fighting captured four lines of trench and the village en route, that the Boche has held for over two years.
It was a magnificent success and our division has made a name for itself.
Letters sent to Norman by the bereaved after they had received confirmation of a loved one’s death.
On July 1st the Regulars attempted the feat and failed. I suppose you will know all about it from the papers.
We were relieved on the Wednesday following and, after two days rest to be reorganised, went in the trenches again in support.
This morning we came out again much to my relief.
I have had my first wash and shave for a week!
I needed it badly.
There are only 2 officers of my company left now and I am one of them.
For 3 days I have been O.C. party collecting the dead and it was the most loathsome job I’ve ever had.
We were shelled heavily all the time as of course we were working in the open in full view of the Boche. He used to spot us from his observation balloons and aeroplanes and send over ‘crumps’ [5.9″shells] and shrapnel.
I had a few of my party knocked out and had some miraculous escapes. A 6” [shell] on one occasion burst 10 yards away but I was only covered with mud.
We are back a few miles for a short rest. Yesterday I had tea with the Brigadier General as he was so pleased with the work done.
His dugout was a splendid place.
I have a few souvenirs but I don’t know whether I’ll get them home. I had a helmet but left it as it was too big to carry. However, I still have a fine Boche officer’s automatic pistol, a bayonet, some bells from the door of a Boche dug-out, shoulder straps etc. I could have got dozens of things but was too busy, and the one I most value is myself.
My word, you should have seen and heard the barrage. Every minute four shells burst on every yard of the ground.
The [German] trenches were just wiped out and it was only by the mouth of the dugouts that one could tell that there had been a trench.
I expect that we will get a rest soon, for a month, at any rate we will not be going over the ‘bags’ again for some time so don’t worry. By the way Henderson had a narrow squeak. He was hit by a piece of shell that went through his belt, tunic, and buckle on his kilt knocking him over for a few minutes! He brought his company out of action alone. He’s a splendid fellow and wishes to be remembered to you.
Well, there is no more news, so ta! ta!
Best love, Norman
P.S. My poor servant was ‘nah-poohed’ and I haven’t found the body.
[Ed. nah-poohe
d, soldier’s slang for finished, ended or, in this case, dead. Derived from the French ‘i1 n’ y en a plus’, literally meaning ‘There is no more’.]
28/11/16
Dear Mother and all
I am keeping quite well and am not in the trenches again yet. We have moved into an old house and are quite comfortable. This is the first time I’ve had a roof over me for 6 weeks. You will have received a letter written after the big battle I should think. I’ve had enough of ‘pushes’ for a long time. Just had a letter from Sheffield. I hope you are all well. They say that Bolton is going to Sheffield for Xmas. I am sure he will have a jolly time. I wouldn’t mind popping in for the day. I certainly hope I’m not in the trenches then.
Been busy writing to the different homes in Elgin and Glasgow etc of the ‘B’ Coy men knocked out… I found my old servant (Grigor). I’m very sorry about him as he did look after me well. I wrote home to his mother. He has a brother in this battalion also.
I was reading a paper on the ‘push’ and it gave the Naval Division a lot of credit for work we did.
Best love
Norman
Editor: Norman’s reference to writing to Grigor’s mother is interesting. As already noted, Norman was responsible for writing to the families of all those killed in his platoon, a routine job that would nevertheless have been emotionally trying, regardless of how uniform the letters inevitably became. In three cases, at least, Norman received replies, heart-breaking letters which he chose to keep all his long life.
Relief is evident on the face of the man on the left after he was rescued from a muddy shell hole where he had sunk shoulder deep. Notice the shoulder straps have been torn during the attempt to extricate him. IWM Q1563
Mrs Phin
479 Gairbarid St
Maryhill, Glasgow
Dec 4th 1916
Dear Mr Collins
Last Man Standing Page 10
