by Jon E. Lewis
We know at what time the German sentries are relieved on the guns during the night. For they fire off all four guns in the battery, and reload. They are then quiet for another hour. The machine guns on all sides kick up an infernal din all night long.
Trench mortars come fussing over, but no one is hit; our nerves get rather frayed. The weather is dry, but horribly cold. It freezes all night, every night.
We have finished; to-night we are to be relieved, and everyone is pleased. My corporal is sick, but he remains on duty. He takes his overcoat out of his pack, and dons it; his pack will be lighter, and easier to carry; but he gets hold of someone else’s pack, and so moves off with two overcoats instead of one. Poor Joe, we very nearly carry him out.
We rest. That is – we drill, dig, and make up roads. An unpopular sergeant-major is leaving us for good. The boys line the road, and give him a send off that makes him come off the top of the bus, and hide himself inside. The usual bombers come over at night, splash us with dirt and little else. Our Company Commander comes back from a course of something or other, and with him come rumours of big attacks by Jerry. We parade for pay, but it is cancelled and we don’t get it, but instead, get into ‘full marching order,’ draw rations and ammunition. Then we stand by. N.C.O.s are called together. The news is: ‘The attack has opened; situation obscure.’ We know exactly what that means.
At six o’clock a fleet of motor lorries arrives, and all embark. Bugle-major K. wishes me ‘Good-bye and good luck.’ Off we go, further in to the west, St. Quentin way.
Many of the boys realize the significance of events. They are silent. Twenty-four hours hence many will be silent for ever. We pass through Chauny, which I recognize in the twilight, and later, at a cross roads, get out. Here is a concentration of troops, who are slowly moving off in various directions.
Jerry has been successful. He has smashed the 153rd Brigade, and nearly got their brigadier. Where he is or what he is doing no one knows. To my company is given the job of finding out. I am to take my platoon, search for a bridge, find out if it is held. If it is, I must take it, and hold it, preferably with bayonet. I arrange accordingly. We dump our packs, and with them my supply of tobacco, which is most unfortunate for me.
We move on, march, deploy, circle, get lost, dig in, get moved on, dig in again, are moved on yet again, and at dawn are still digging in, far from where we should be.
We get into our correct position about seven in the morning. No question now about the bridge: there it is, not a soul on it. Some R.E.s attempt to blow it up, but do not succeed. More digging. The morning is misty; all is quiet; some sleep, some dig, some make tea, and some eat.
Presently two Fusiliers come over the bridge; they have a Jerry prisoner. They tell us that the three of them slept in 153rd Brigade Headquarters. This is supposed to be in German hands, but actually he is 200 yards from it. These lads are lucky. They take their prisoner with them.
I have no officer in my platoon; the other platoons have one each, but two of them are no better off than we are, for early on their officers go off to the rear, and are not seen again.
How they explain themselves at Headquarters I do not know. They get through all right; but their platoons are captured and wiped out. At noon the attack opens up on us. Casualties are heavy. In going for a German bomber, I myself am hit and put out for a time. I come to, but cannot keep quiet. I go along, and examine my platoon; it is nearly non est.
Lieutenant W. calls for volunteers to go to Headquarters for help. I set off, and take a boy with me who is badly hit in the head.
The area we cross is swept by rifle and machine-gun fire; we crawl and escape it. The boy is in pain and crying. Presently he jumps up. ‘Here they come!’ he cries. I pull him down. ‘Who?’ I ask. ‘Jerry,’ he says. I look cautiously up. There he is right enough, the first wave almost on top of us.
‘Leave it to me, boy; we’re done; we’re prisoners now. Do whatever I tell you.’ I wait a second, then ‘Up!’ I say, ‘and take your helmet off.’ We do so. The German in front of me says, ‘Ach!’ raises his rifle and takes aim. I mutter to myself, ‘I hope to God he won’t pull that trigger.’ For ten seconds we remain so, then he lowers his rifle, and says what I take to be ‘Wounded?’ I nod, and say, ‘Yes, yes.’ He beckons, and we approach. We still have our equipment on, and the Germans utter shouts, pointing to it. ‘Slip it off!’ I cry to the boy, doing so myself.
The German has spared us. Would we have spared him under the circumstances? God knows! Perhaps not.
We go back, through our own barrage, to the rear of the German line, passing through successive waves of troops going forward.
Only one thought now: to get out of this hell, and as far back as possible. But the Germans in charge of us do not know the country. More prisoners join us, little groups of dead are here and there where they have fallen, English and German together. It is very hard, many are only boys.
One of our officers from ‘A’ company is lying on a stretcher badly wounded in the stomach. He is delirious with pain. It hurts to see him writhe, and hear him call his N.C.O.s one by one. I know each one he mentions, and wonder whether they are living or dead.
We carry this, officer about for some hours, until we reach a German casualty clearing station, where we leave him. He has grown much quieter, and I think his end is near. But oh, for a sleep; my head is fit to burst.
Relentlessly onward we go. Back, back, right clear of the battlefield, moving all night.
Morning comes, we reach a camp where the remnants of my company are already assembled, having travelled by a quicker route. I greet them, and am glad to meet the survivors. But I go off to sleep, and am oblivious to everything. I get just an hour. We are off again, no stopping here. What a crowd: hundreds, perhaps thousands, French and English – a long column stretches down the road before and behind us. We are escorted by Uhlans, not bad fellows. They rest us frequently, and after each rest I am shaken vigorously before I come round. They send a horseman in advance, we go through a village, the inhabitants line the road with pails of water, we drink as we pass. The women wring their hands at the sight of us, and when they can pass us a piece of bread quickly, so that our guards cannot see the action. We go to Guise; the castle on the hill is visible some way off.
We enter the town, which, though in German occupation, is still full of French inhabitants. They rush into the ranks, push tobacco, bread, and food into our hands. One woman braves the guards, and rushes to me with a can of hot coffee, then she is gone. The men throw their caps to those who are without. Tears are in all eyes.
We stay here the night. We who are wounded are taken to a dressing station, they give us bread and jam to eat, with weak coffee to drink. The place is full of German wounded. Some are terrible; a man is near me with half his jaw blown off; they are trying to feed him with a little teapot. The sight is ghastly. Poor fellow. He is only one. The whole place is overflowing. They come in one long stream all night and all day. The push is costing them dear.
We must go away next day; there is no room for us, others are on the way. Down to the railway we go. A huge train is waiting. From many trucks come cries of men in mortal agony. What a load; whither are we going? Sixty of us, all wounded, all packed in one truck. We pass Le Cateau. At Diedenhofen, a German says, ‘Here you get hot eat.’ We do, and it is good.
The Jerries scrounge an issue of cigars and cigarettes for us. We are at Trier West, and change from trucks to carriages. On we go into Germany. Adventure is at an end; henceforth we are prisoners.
Private Alfred Grosch joined Post Office Rifles (8th London) October 13th, 1915. Wounded (acting Sergeant) and captured at La Fère, March 22nd, 1918. Nine months in various camps in Germany. Reached home on New Year’s Day, 1919. Discharged, February 28th, 1919.
RETREAT
R. G. Bultitude
In the early hours of the morning of March 22nd, 1918, our own front-line troops retired through us. At the time we were occupying a sha
llow trench forming the support line before Marcoing, in the Cambrai salient, and a little later we also withdrew.
Our first halt was on the slope of a hill. We could not see the attackers, but their artillery plastered the hillside with shrapnel, and we were not sorry to get orders to move again. During the halt one of our officers handed me a bottle of whisky to ‘look after’ for him. I did not see him again, but the whisky came in useful.
My company was leading, and we were under fairly heavy shell-fire for some time. As we passed through one village, evidently some sort of headquarters, the mixed assortment of clerks, storekeepers, and other oddments were making a hurried exit. A hundred yards or so ahead of us, a two-horsed wagon, containing stores and half a dozen men, had just started off when a shell burst, apparently immediately over it. We made a detour round the mangled remains of horses and men.
Although our latest spell in the trenches had only been the normal one of eight days, we had been relieved, had marched back to the reserve line, a distance of about eight miles, had immediately been exposed to a protracted shelling, with gas, and then, without food or rest, had returned to the line.
During the spell of trench life, too, there had been considerable activity; it had been difficult to get rations up when we were in the front line, and there had been no rest during our four days in support. The infantry-man is a soldier by day and a navvy by night. Sleep is a luxury in which he is allowed to indulge only on rare occasions, and then for very brief periods.
We did not start on our long trek any too fresh. We marched all day, with very few and very short halts. A little after dark we came to some cross-roads, went straight across them, and very shortly after, walked plump into the arms of the enemy!
For several hours we had been marching at ease in apparent security, and were therefore taken completely by surprise on the first challenge in a foreign tongue.
We scattered in open order on to the fields on either side of the road, and lay flat awaiting developments. A sergeant shouted out that he knew the place as the site of an Indian Labour Corps encampment.
An officer and one or two men went forward, calling out that we were English, and were promptly shot.
The fight that followed remains in my recollection as a confused medley of bursting bombs, rifle and machine-gun fire.
I found a shallow hole in the ground, and from its shelter fired point-blank at forms just seen in the darkness under the unmistakable squarish German helmets, until my ammunition gave out.
A form appeared, and Johnson’s voice said, ‘I’ve got one in the thigh, old man.’ I felt the wet blood on his trouser-leg, but by the time I had fumbled for and found my first-aid outfit he had wandered off again. I heard afterwards that he acted as orderly in a German War Hospital.
Among the confusion of shouts, groans, curses, and the detonation of bursting bombs, I thought I recognized a voice calling for help as that of a company stretcher bearer and one of my pals. He was known as ‘Blanco,’ from which anyone acquainted with Army humour will at once realize that he had coal-black hair and a swarthy complexion.
I crawled towards the voice, and found its owner in a shell hole with five wounded whom he had collected by the exercise of I don’t know what powers of sight and physical exertion. He bandaged their wounds in the darkness with my unskilful assistance.
Loud commands in German, and a sudden intensification of firing apparently from all sides told us that we were almost if not quite surrounded. The only chance seemed to be the road; obviously if the enemy were behind us there we were completely ringed round; if not, there might be an avenue of escape by the way we had come.
By the time we had got our wounded companions on to the road (I have no idea how), the enemy were pretty fully occupied in guarding and disposing of their captives. Luck favoured us, and we got clear. A few others, possibly a dozen, also escaped, as we found out eventually.
We had, of course, no idea as to the whereabouts of the remainder of our battalion, and when we reached the crossroads any direction seemed as likely as another to lead us into trouble again.
Providence, sheer chance, or a sense of direction led us to turn left.
During the rest of that night, and, I think, the whole of the next day we struggled along. By good fortune we all escaped being hit by splinters from a huge ammunition dump which had been fired by our engineers, and from which a shower of red-hot metal rained down over a large area of the road and its surroundings.
The noise of the explosions completely shattered the nerves of the most seriously hurt of our comrades, and it was almost impossible to control him. We got him past the blazing dump somehow, and I then remembered the officer’s whisky. We all had a swig, and we poured a very generous quantity of the neat spirit down the delirious man’s throat. We had practically to carry him, after that, but he became quite quiet. He died an hour or two later, and we were able to leave him by the roadside.
The other four needed more and more support as time went on, and our progress became a crawl.
I retained a few small personal belongings, my haversack and rifle, but had to discard the rest of my equipment.
At last in the distance we saw a group of huts, but now also we came under sporadic machine-gun fire. It was not very heavy in our direction, and we got safely into one of the buildings. In a field a little further on British troops were digging themselves in, but the space between them and ourselves was swept by bullets and it would have been suicidal to attempt to reach them.
One of our charges had been hit in the head; his mind now was wandering, and he was babbling and muttering. The other three were in some sort of shape to help themselves, and we decided that when darkness came on ‘Blanco’ should try to get them across to ‘the line,’ and then if possible send someone to help me in getting the fourth over.
The first part of the programme was more successful than we had hoped, ‘Blanco’ and his charges went off on hands and knees, hand and knees, or hands and knee, according to where they had been winged, stumbled on to a sort of dug-out, which they found occupied by our own American medical officer and a number of other casualties, and heard that the diggers-in comprised the other three companies of our own battalion!
I, of course, had no knowledge of what had happened to my companions at the time, and it soon became apparent that there was very little hope of any help reaching me, for the firing again became very heavy, and the hut itself was constantly being hit.
The effects of the whisky had long since worn off. I had had no other food or drink for considerably more than twenty-four hours, during most of which time I had been on the move and heavily encumbered. I could hardly remember when I had last slept. My companion became violent, and I had to sit on him to prevent him rushing out of the hut, which contained other occupants in the shape of two dead men. My vigil seemed interminable.
Towards morning I had practically given up any hope of leaving the hut alive, because it was obvious that sooner or later the enemy infantry would advance, and we were pretty certain to be ‘mopped up.’ I fished a piece of paper out of my pack and wrote a short farewell letter to my wife, in the hope that some decent German, finding it on my body, might manage to get it sent on.
Daylight came at last, and with it a slight lull in the firing. My comrade had sunk into a condition of lethargy, and I determined to risk the journey. We reached the M.O.’s dug-out; I think I carried my companion part of the way and dragged him the remainder. I never knew his name, and have heard nothing of him since – but I hope he got home safely. The M.O. was killed the same day whilst evacuating the wounded.
I joined the rest of the battalion. My first action upon reaching the half-dug trench was to tear up the letter I had written an hour or two earlier and thankfully scatter the pieces to the winds.
For the next week or so (one quite lost count of time) the retreat resolved itself into a test of endurance. The battalion managed to keep more or less together, but there was no pretence at a
ny sort of order. Some had to drop out, either through exhaustion or wounds, sometimes stragglers from other regiments joined us or were overtaken. A few were killed by the enemy’s ubiquitous machine guns. The latter were always more or less at our heels (and as often on our flanks), but, after all, bullets drill a fairly clean hole, and one does not mind them – much. The thought of great gaping wounds caused by jagged bits of shell, to say nothing of the shattering of nerves by concussion, is a different thing. The absence of shell-fire was our one cause for self-congratulation.
In some ways the attackers probably had a worse time than we. To a certain extent we could and did choose our own places and times for halting and showing fight. Our artillery, too, frequently continued to fire over our heads almost until we reached the guns.
The enemy troops, however, probably did get some orations. Our food was such as we could ‘scrounge’ from’ deserted canteens and Y.M.C.A. huts, when anything had been left by those who had preceded us: perhaps a few biscuits, a packet of chocolate, or, as happened on one occasion, a tin of pineapple chunks. We were badly troubled by thirst; there seemed to be no water anywhere except that collected in shell holes, stagnant and impregnated with gas. Eventually we were driven to crawling about in the early mornings and licking the dew off the grass.
But the almost insupportable hardship was the lack of sleep. The longest uninterrupted spell I remember was one of about a couple of hours, wedged with three fellow slumberers between the outstretched fore and hind legs of a dead horse (for shelter from a biting wind), its belly for a pillow and the cobblestones of a village street for a bed. For the rest, we dozed as we walked, or fell asleep, willy-nilly, whilst making some sort of cover, only to be prodded into wakefulness almost immediately in order either to move off again, or to be ready to repel an attack.
