1915: The Death of Innocence

by Lyn Macdonald

  Pte. G. Marrin.

  I was ordered to go on a ration party, and four or five of us had to find our way from the front line back to the wagons, or as far as the wagons could get up the line, which would be some long distance really. But you didn’t know where you were going and they just gave you that direction, ‘You keep going that way and you’ll find them because they’re looking for you in any case.’ Which was quite true. We found the ration depot, drew our rations and we had to put them into sandbags, and our duty then was to get this food back to the line. We were so exhausted that I can remember we tied the rations to our feet to drag it along because we couldn’t walk by that time – we were so tired. But of course we never got to the line, because when we got to the line there was no line there! Where we’d been, or where we thought we’d been, it had all gone, the men had all gone and everything had moved, so we didn’t know where we were. And there we were, back in the line again with these ration bags tied to our feet and everybody had gone. They’d either moved back or forward and there was no means of telling where they’d gone, you see? Somebody would come along and say, ‘Oh yes, they’ve moved to so-and-so,’ so you’d try and find out where that was, just wandering. Then, when these other relief regiments came through, we were challenged. ‘Who are you?’ And I said to this officer, ‘I’m 13th Battalion Middlesex.’ He said, ‘They don’t exist, get out of it!’ I can remember him now, standing there on the trench saying, ‘Get out of it, get out the bloody way!’ He was bringing in a new posse of troops that knew more about it than we ever did. They were trained soldiers. We did what we were instructed to do. We found the communication trench and we walked through the communication trench and got out at Vermelles, and from there we had to go back and find the base and find our regiment somehow – or what was left of it.

  But that was days later. Meanwhile the unfortunate 73rd Brigade stuck it out in the trenches they were soon to lose. It was the end of the second day of the Battle of Loos, and the beginning of a long, hard and ultimately fruitless grind.

  Chapter 36

  Harry Fellowes remembered very little of the long trek back. All he retained was a muddled impression of trudging in anonymous clusters of men, dragging along like automatons, stumbling and limping up the dark road, sometimes falling, sometimes dropping out to slump at the roadside, too weary to curse or complain when passing transport forced them into the ditch. Looking back it seemed to him that they had spent more time in the ditch than on the pavé for there was, as ever, a solid stream of limbers, ambulance wagons, staff cars, motor cycles, attempting to reach the front in the hours of darkness, and working-parties toiling to repair the gaping shell-holes that impeded them. Tempers were short. Everyone on the road that night was engaged on urgent business, and the exhausted Tommies making their way piecemeal from the line came low in the list of priorities. Here and there an equally done-up officer took a group of stragglers under his wing and tried to introduce a semblance of order to encourage them along the road. The leaderless men were kept going by a simple urge to get out of it.

  Further back there were Military Police at the road junctions but it was almost mid-day before Harry Fellowes was set on the road to Vermelles with other survivors of the 62nd Brigade, and it was almost nightfall before he found his own battalion. It had taken twenty hours to cover less than six miles from the front, and Fellowes was too close to collapse to sup more than half the hot soup that was ladled into his mess-tin and then crawl into a bivouac tent to stretch out on the naked earth. He slept far into the forenoon of the following day and woke up ravenous.

  The Battalion was camped in the field where they had rested on the way to battle. Now the same field might have easily accommodated all four battalions of the Brigade. More stragglers came in during the morning and after dinners at noon the men were paraded for roll-call. They were a sadly bedraggled bunch and there were not many of them. In C Company perhaps sixty men lined up and Fellowes spotted only a few familiar faces. He could see few officers. Captain Pole was there, not in his familiar place in front of C Company but out in front, facing the thinned-out ranks of dishevelled men. All but five other officers had been killed or wounded and Pole was now in command of what remained of the Battalion. He looked as drawn and hollow-eyed as anyone, but he stood the men at ease and addressed them kindly. He knew they had been through a hard time, but they had done well in their first experience of battle. He knew and understood that every man was tired, but very soon they would be moving back to billets. Meantime he urged them to smarten up and to prepare to march out in a soldierly manner as a credit to the Battalion. He would inspect them in the morning. Until then there would be no drills or parades. He nodded to the senior sergeant to dismiss the parade and began to walk away.

  Captain, now Acting-Colonel, Pole had started along the road when Harry Fellowes caught up with him. Until a few moments ago he had completely forgotten the existence of the message he still carried in his pocket. ‘Excuse me, sir,’ he called, and handing Pole the crumpled paper he began to pour out excuses and apologies. Pole read the message: ‘The C. O. wishes the attack to be carried out with bayonets in the true Northumbrian fashion.’ Harry said again, ‘I’m very sorry, sir. I did try to find you.’ It was some moments before Pole looked up and spoke. ‘It doesn’t matter, sonny, now.’ Harry never forgot Pole’s words nor the tears that were coursing down his face.

  The wounded who were fortunate enough to be rescued were well on their way back to safety. Christison was one of the lucky ones, but it had been touch and go.

  Lt. A. F. P. Christison.

  I was very weak, almost out, and very glad to see bearer parties from the Royal Engineers looking for wounded. They got me and Sergeant Saunders on stretchers and started to carry us back, but shells dropped close and we were abandoned. We were lucky. A bearer party from the Scots Guards picked us up and got us to the advanced dressing station where emergency surgery was carried out. From there I went back in a two-horsed ambulance which was hell, as my wounds were now hurting and every jolt was unpleasant. I had another operation in a base hospital at Choques and was evacuated to the Royal Free Hospital in London, via Boulogne, in the hospital ship Anglia on 28 September. Our Battalion casualties on 25 and 26 September had been 8 officers and 102 other ranks killed and 350 wounded. Thirty-six were missing. Sergeant Saunders, now without a leg, was awarded the VC and I was given the Military Cross.

  Sgt. J. Beard.

  During the night we were collected and laid out in a group. In early morning we were transferred to an Advanced Dressing Station – a schoolroom – about 10.30.1 was put on the slab and the surgeon said, ‘You’re a lucky chap, Sergeant. Can you bear to see it?’ I peeped up. There was a hole in my groin you could put a fist in! The surgeon told me I’d had a miraculous escape. It had just missed the femoral artery, and a fraction of an inch any other way and the bone could have been shattered or I could have been emasculated. Lucky me!

  I was put on a train to the base hospital at Rouen. On Saturday 2 October, I was taken aboard the hospital ship, St George, and by hospital train to Derby. We had a wonderful reception when we arrived at Derby. It seemed as though the whole town turned out to wave and cheer. Women were kissing us and we were showered with cigarettes. How lovely it was to lie in a nice warm bed! By the way, the wounded man I went out to was rescued. I met him later at camp in Sheerness.

  Young Bill Worrell who, thanks to Ben Williams, had got out early, was taken to a base hospital at Rouen.

  Rfn. W. Worrell.

  It was a canvas marquee hospital and I woke up – I’d been half-conscious, most of the time – and I woke up and behold, there was somebody I knew. It was Doctor Dowding, a great friend of my aunt, and there he was, to my absolute astonishment. He was in the RAMC then. He’d seen my name on the casualty list and he’d come in to have a look. So he said, ‘Well, we’ll get you back to England as soon as possible.’ My jaw was all wired up by then and I could hardly speak, but I said, �
�Do you think I’ll get there?’ He said, ‘You certainly will! Now is there anything you want?’ ‘Well,’ I said, ‘I’ve lost my hat. Could you possibly find me an officer’s hat with a Rifle Brigade badge?’ Of course we all used to scrounge there, because there were no strict restrictions on dress – and out of the line any time you wore any sort of cap – that was before they issued the floppy cap that you could put in your pocket. But for your best, you’d always try, if you could, to get an officer’s hat. That was a mark of complete distinction – an officer’s hat with a floppy top, a big rim, and you were made! I don’t know how Dr Dowding wangled it but next day, sure enough, he came back with an officer’s hat – Rifle Brigade badge and all.

  Well! I clung to that hat. I wouldn’t let it out of my sight in case it got pinched – in fact at night I slept with it under my pillow. You see, when we went into the line that night we were wearing woollen helmets because of having our gas-masks rolled up over them, which you couldn’t do over a cap, though as things were I’d probably have lost my cap in any case. Anyway, Dr Dowding got me a really posh hat, though it was ages before I could wear it because when I got to England I was months in bed in hospital. But I kept it with me all the time. It was my most prized possession and when I did eventually get out in my hospital blue suit I wore my officer’s hat and I was as pleased as Punch.

  Not all the wounded had been got away safely and the troops could only hope that the injured men they had been forced to leave close to the German line had been picked up and cared for by the enemy. The dead were another matter. They were long past help and it was pointless to risk more lives just to retrieve their bodies. Old soldiers accepted this but there were men in the New Army who did not agree with that precept. A day or two after the opening of the battle Colonel Thuillier commanding the 1st Division’s artillery, had a chance meeting that deeply impressed him.

  Lt. Col. H. F. Thuillier.

  Returning from Loos along the straight Lens Road I met a sergeant and six or eight men of the 7th KOSB near the top of the ridge where the old German front line had been. I warned the sergeant that he would be exposed to enemy machine-gun fire farther along the road, and advised him to take his men across country. He thanked me, and asked how he could get to Hill 70. I replied that he couldn’t get there at all, because it was now in the enemy’s hands. He said, ‘How can that be, sir? The Regiment took the hill and got over the other side.’ I answered that there had been a lot of fighting since then, and that the Germans were on the top of it now, and I asked him why he wanted to go there. He said that his Colonel had sent him up to bury two officers of the regiment who had been killed on the top of the hill. I told him that it was out of the question, but he replied that he knew exactly where the officers had fallen and that he and his men proposed to get as near the spot as possible by daylight, creep out at night, and bring in the bodies. I explained that it was impossible, but he said, ‘Well, sir, we couldn’t go back and face the Regiment when we hadn’t even tried to bury the officers, so we’ll be getting along and make the best try we can. Thank you kindly for warning us all the same.’ His men, who had been listening intently, gave unmistakable murmurs of agreement and the party prepared to move off. I said, ‘Now, look here, Sergeant, it’s really quite useless. You’ll only lose your lives, and we can’t afford to lose men like you. I’m not going to allow you to go to certain death. I forbid you to go, and I am ordering you back to your regiment.’ The NCO, evidently very disappointed, said, ‘Well, sir, if you order me to go back I must go, but I can’t face the Colonel and say I haven’t carried out his orders unless I show him in writing the order you’ve given me. I must also ask you, sir, if you’ll excuse me, to give me a note with your name, rank, and regiment on it.’ I gave him the documents, and saw him and his party, very reluctantly, turn about and go down the road towards Mazin-garbe.

  I don’t think I have ever been more impressed with the spirit of any men than I was with that of those eight or nine Scotsmen. The NCO appeared to be an old regular soldier, but his men were all youngsters and the story doesn’t show half the difficulty I had in turning them back.

  It was true that Hill 70 was now back in the hands of the Germans. Even the illustrious Guards had not succeeded in taking it.

  The plan was for the 2nd Guards Brigade to recapture the Chalk Pit, circling to approach it from the north, and to carry on to storm the pithead buildings of Puits 14 bis before the 3rd Guards Brigade struck from the west to assault Hill 70. It was late in the day. The light was failing but the Irish Guards of the 2nd Brigade reached their objective and thrust the Germans out of the Chalk Pit and Chalk Pit Wood just as they had planned and, just as it was planned, the Scots Guards swept up behind them to press on to Puits 14 bis. The Irish Guards had not been intended to go with them, but somehow, in the enthusiasm of this first success, they were swept up and carried along across the long stretch of open ground between Chalk Pit Wood and Puits 14 bis.

  Just up the slope across the Lens—la Bassée road German machine-gunners were posted at intervals round three edges of Bois Hugo. As the Guards came running across their front they presented a target that was a machine-gunner’s dream. They were cut down as they ran. The advance ground to a halt and withered away, and as the 3rd Guards Brigade began moving towards Hill 70 their comrades were already in retreat. It was not a rout. They were the Guards, and although for many it was a first experience of battle they had been trained and disciplined in a hard school. Later some guardsmen insisted that they had heard a shouted order to retire. If they had it had been a ruse by the Germans and, true or false, their retirement was so determined that it took all the efforts of their few remaining officers to stop and steady them.

  A handful stood fast in the Chalk Pit. One of them was the son of Rudyard Kipling, an eighteen-year-old Lieutenant in the Irish Guards. A year previously his father had pulled strings and used his considerable influence to wangle John Kipling a commission at the age of seventeen. Now he was shot in the mouth. And there, in the Chalk Pit, he died.*

  Despite the fact that Bois Hugo and Chalet Wood had not been captured, the 3rd Guards Brigade went straight in to attack Hill 70. It was almost dark by now, the enemy was on the alert and even the invincible Guards could not get forward.

  They stuck it out for three days, repulsing counter-attacks, suffering shelling – and gas shelling too, for the enemy had moved further ahead in the technology of gas warfare. And the Guards tried again to capture the hill, but their efforts were futile and their casualties were huge. Hill 70 held out. It was a bitter blow.

  So far as the Staff were concerned the lack of progress was a hard pill to swallow after the success of the first breakthrough. And just as Hill 70 had baulked the British, the operations of the French Army on their right had come to a standstill in front of the bastion of the Vimy Ridge. But neither the French nor the British Command had given up hope. It was necessary to pause, it was even more necessary to reorganise, and it was clearly necessary to bring in fresh troops, but there could be no question of abandoning the offensive. At Sir John French’s urgent insistence, and in the light of his concern that his reserves were being so rapidly used up, General Joffre agreed to draw a division from his own reserve to relieve the 47th Division and the Guards and to carry his line northwards to include the Double Crassier, the ruined village of Loos and the killing field on Hill 70. And when the relief was completed, as soon as plans could be made for a new, and this time a joint attack, the French would do their utmost to regain it.

  Slowly the hardest hit battalions were recovering. They had cleaned up, they were comparatively well rested, and a few square meals had done a good deal to restore them. Most now had a roof over their heads, even if it was only the roof of a barn, but they had not yet fully recovered their morale. Despite the efforts of officers to get up sports and football matches and despite the return to normal routine, the air of depression was slow to dissipate. All too often there were reminders.

&nb
sp; Pte. G. Cribley, 8th Bn., Gloucestershire Regt., 57 Brig., 19 Div.

  My friend was killed. We lived next door to each other at home. We were boys together. After we came out the line the Post Corporal said to me, There’s a parcel for your mate, George’ – parcels couldn’t be sent home so they were divided up between the rest of us. There was a gooseberry pie in his parcel and it was all mildewed and had to be thrown away. I thought of his poor old mother picking those gooseberries as I’d often seen her do, and bottling them, because it was past the gooseberry season, and I thought of how she would feel when she got to hear of his death. The sight of those dead I will never forget. They were a ghastly sight, and I used to think what their mothers would have felt if they could see their boys now. It was that gooseberry pie brought it home to me.

  It was quickly brought home to the new drafts, now arriving to make up the numbers, that they had been brought in to fill the gaps. Less than a week after their fight at Hill 70 Carson Stewart joined the 7th Camerons.

  Pte. C. Stewart, 7th Bn., Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders, 44 Brig., 15 Div.

  A while before I left I went to see a pal of mine in hospital, George Sutherland. He’d been wounded at Festubert and sent home, and he said to me, ‘You’d better take your running shoes to France for you’ll have to get off your mark at the double.’ He wasn’t keen on going back. Oh, no! But I was full of beans. I was attached to the 44th Brigade (all Scots Regiments, kilty lads) and we were in reserve at the coal-mining village of Noeux-les-Mines. My battalion hadn’t long come out of the attack. It was a very badly arranged attack. The lads that came back said that the Colonel of the 7th Camerons, Colonel Sandilands, wouldn’t give them their usual drop of rum before the Battle of Loos. He told them that if they were going to meet their Maker, then he wanted them to be sober and he poured the rum into the trench before they went into action on the morning of the 25th. They talked more about that than they did about their losses. But they told us all about it.