In Great Spirits

by Archie Barwick

  28th October. Was flooded completely out last night by a heavy rainstorm just as darkness was setting in, what bon, so some of the boys made room for me, crowded as they were, in their miserable dugout, & lit a fire at which I dried myself & clothes, for everything I possessed was sopping wet. Oh a soldier’s life is a beauty in such weather but as soon as we get back into dry billets we forget all the hardships. It’s wonderful in what good spirits the boys keep. They laugh & joke over it all, as if it was the fun of the world.

  There are a few going to hospital, the extreme cold & exposure affecting the weaker ones. My feet is what gives me the most trouble. I simply cannot keep them warm, & we all know if your feet are cold the rest of your body is likewise.

  There is a little sunshine this morning. It looks as if it has a mind to clear up, but the wind don’t mention it — it chills us to the bone. If it would only drop, things would not be so bad.

  Old Fritz made another attack last night but it was squashed like a rotten tomato. All our Brigade are being issued with yellow patches for their backs today or tomorrow, sure sign of a hop over.

  29th October. About midnight I was woken up by one of our Sgts to come down to the officers dugout & get instructions for tomorrow morning’s move. All the platoon Sgts were there. The orders were that we were to move off at 8 in the morning, taking our overcoat, waterproof & blanket with us & leaving our pack behind.

  After getting our orders we went back to bed & reveille was at 6. I had no time to lose for I had to slip round to wake up the boys for they were sleeping far apart, draw the rations, bombs, sandbags & etc to see that they were issued, & then I had to get my breakfast & pack up as soon as I could. The morning was very threatening & cold as blazes, so things were not too pleasant. After breakfast we fell in & each platoon detailed some men off to clean up the possies. I left some letters & my diaries with Jack Hayes & instructions what to do with them in case the worst happens.

  The march up to here where I am writing this in Delville Wood was a most miserable affair, for it rained heavily the whole time — other roads don’t mention them. We passed scores of big guns on the way up, all covered with tarpaulins, ready for action whenever wanted, & piles of great shells lying all around them.

  We reached Delville Wood after a couple of hours marching & here we are camping out in the open among the great shell holes & fallen timber. We have got a lot of fires going, & at the present it has ceased raining, but we are all wet to the skin. This is the place where the S. African Brigade fought so well & were pretty well wiped out. She is nothing but a vast cemetery & has been turned over & over by the German & British bombardments. Broken gun emplacements are everywhere to be seen & the remains of trenches & dugouts that have been wrecked, & timber is lying all over the joint.

  (I had to knock off at this point for the Germans started to drop heavy shells all round us, & we had to move our men further down the wood.)

  On the way down we passed some enormous guns. They were firing away & when we passed in front of them the report nearly lifted us off the ground. One of them was named “Busty”; it was chalked up in big letters on his barrel.

  The country simply swarms with guns. Wherever you look you will see them, standing out in the open, no attempt whatever being made for concealment. I watched them firing some 380 lb shells. They have a small lift attached to the gun, & they roll the shell on to this then hoist it up & swing it in close to the gun’s barrel. It is then pushed home, the charge of cordite rammed in, the great breech block closes, & then they fix the lanyard on. By this time the gun has been sighted & laid. The gunner takes a final squint & pulls his sight apparatus off the barrel, for the tremendous shock of the discharge would break the delicate instrument. At a signal all the gun crew put their fingers in their ears & off she goes. She jumps back like a two-year-old & you can watch the shell as it tears along through the air quite plainly — looks as big as a cricket ball at close quarters, they fairly roar as they shoot along. Almost before the gun has hit the ground, the Tommy gunners have got hold of her, thrown open the breech, & the smoke is blown out & the same performance is repeated. It takes about 4 mins roughly to fire a round from these big guns.

  About 4 o’clock we moved off for the firing line, & had to squeeze our way up with the 6th Batt (they were on the move at the same time). We reached our destination after wading through acres of mud & rivers of water. We had to go into an old trench half full of water & these are our quarters for the present.

  30th October. This morning the Capt & I went to the firing line & on the way up we passed 3 big tanks that had been put out of action by shells. I was very anxious to see one of these famous machines, after all I had heard & read about them. They are ponderous affairs & nothing but a direct hit from a shell would stop them for they are all steel, a proper land dreadnought. From a distance a tank looks somewhat like a threshing machine with the wheels off.

  We passed any amount of dead men on the way up, both ours & German. These were all killed in the last charge when Flers was taken.

  We had to run the gauntlet in one place for about 200 yds, for we were quite exposed to the Germans but they never shot at us. We then went through a shallow trench to the firing line, & here we had a look at a job we had to do this afternoon.

  I can’t make old Fritz out. Although he can see hundreds of our men quite close to him, he never shoots at them — they work all day long right under his nose & real close to him. I think he is frightened of giving himself away, for at the present time he is hiding anywhere & never discloses his presence from fear of our guns, which never stop night or day.

  The Colonel was up there also & we had a short yarn with him, then came back & had dinner, such as it was: a piece of dry bread & water. Yes & I thought I was lucky to have it — one can’t be too particular these times. If ever I get back I’ll be able to sleep out in the yard anywhere & in all weathers & live on the smell of an oily rag.

  Well we went up this afternoon. I took 24 men with me, & we got sopping soaking wet. We only worked about an hour & down she come. We reached our dugouts — & by the way we felt so disgusted & miserable that we walked over the top & in full view of the Hun guns for nearly a mile, did not care if we stopped one or not — expecting to find them fairly dry, but no, we found about 2 ft of water in it & half the dugouts fallen in & us wet to the skin & nothing dry to change into, all our blankets & overcoats sopping, a pretty state of affairs. You may not believe it, judging by the writing & the book, but I am at this present moment as cold as ice, wet to the skin, with no dry clothes, & as hungry as a hawk — enough to kill any man. Nearly every Australian is in the same mess tonight on this famous Somme.

  You can see quite plainly the tall spires of Bapaume from here. It is England’s objective & it does not look very far away, but it means the same to Germany as Verdun to France & they will fight to the last to retain it. On either side & to the rear of her there looks to be fairly heavy patches of wood & one fairly long ridge to climb. This I expect is where they will offer a desperate resistance. The ground for miles around is nothing but a mass of shell holes. It looks from a distance like a well-fallowed paddock, the result of the thousands, yes & millions, of shells that have been poured on to it.

  31st October. Never had a wink of sleep all last night, just lay there & nearly froze to death in my wet & sopping clothes. Oh what a night.

  This morning I took another party of 28 men up to Flare Alley to work on the trench there. I know you won’t believe me when I say that the mud there is up to your hips & men have to go backwards & forwards all day long through this awful stuff. A couple of trips through it & you are nearly knocked out, for it is terrible hard work pulling yourself through the sticky clay. The 6th Batt are in an awful place, nearly up to your armpits, & still men stick it. But if it is bad for us what must it be like for Fritz, for he has 10 times the amount of shell fire to contend with than us. 6 of them gave themselves up last night, they could not stand it any longer.<
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  It has turned out rather a nice day, & this evening the sky is thick with shells, aeroplanes & balloons. They brought one of ours down by shell fire & we shot one of theirs down so honours are even but we have 20 times as many up as Fritz. We are moving into the firing line tonight & just at present they are shelling our Hqrs like blazes & they have hit a few I know.

  1st November. Early this morning Dave Murray & I went fossicking about round towards the old wrecked tanks. From there we went over to Gueudecourt, & I think I saw the most dead men, both British & German, that I have seen in France. The ground is just littered with dead men & horses, arms, legs, heads & etc lying all over the place. The worst place is just on the edge of the village — they must have had some machine guns hidden there & they caught the men as they rushed out of the trench & over the road. The place is a shambles & stinks something awful, so we beat a hasty retreat, which was just as well for us for a few minutes after we had got away from it they started to shell it heavily with 5.9s.

  We have given them a terrific bombardment this afternoon. Nearly every gun must have been in action & the vibration was very pronounced. Fritz showed his good sense & kept fairly quiet while it was on.

  It is cruel to see the state some of the men are in. They have to wade through mud right up to their armpits, & in this awful state they have to stop, for it will be several days yet before we are relieved. It’s enough to kill any man. It would not be so bad if we had dry dugouts to go to or had a change of clothing, but no, neither of these are to be had.

  Have been bad all day & night with diarrhoea & pretty crook too. I fancy it must have been the water that I got from the shell holes, for we have had no other for several days now.

  You have no idea of the difficulty of transport here. Horses & mules struggle along up to their withers in mud. It is something awful & it never seems to stop raining.

  2nd November. Last night we were withdrawn from the firing line, the 3rd & 4th Batts relieving us & the 2nd. Talk about a weary march to our present dugouts — mud 3 ft deep & water water everywhere, as tired as could possibly be & a pretty heavy load to carry. Besides our guide got lost & walked us round in a circle, & when at last we struck our trench we were about finished for the men were dead beat. The next thing was to get my men into shelter for there was the same tale of insufficient shelter; however after a lot of arguing, swearing, persuading & bounce I got them all under shelter of some sort or other. That is one thing a Sgt has to do: look after his men before himself, he is judged a lot by that.

  Had a fairly liberal issue of rations this morning & we want them badly too. We also had 14 pair of clean socks per platoon; not enough but better than none at all I suppose.

  This morning Len & I received a fair batch of letters — they cheer one up considerably when things are miserable. Aunt Carrie especially is a very cheerful writer & I must say all Aunties have acted tip-top to Len & I, for they all write regularly & send lots of parcels, while I am afraid they do not hear too often from us. Of course we have not the inclination nor time for letter writing & I’m sure they understand that part of the business.

  Had a shave this evening, first one for 10 days & I wanted it bad enough as you may guess, but everything has been against a man lately & we have been so miserable & wet. I borrowed an article here & there & scraped my face clean again, for a man might just as well be killed clean as dirty.

  3rd November. Well we did not go to the trenches after all last night, but I think we shall be after the Huns early tomorrow morning. It did not rain last night, only a very heavy dew, & by Jove it was cold. None of us got hardly a wink of sleep our feet trouble us so. Where I have been sleeping since we came into these trenches is a little nook cut out of the wet ground & it is about 3 ft wide & 4 long. On this ledge 3 of us doss, with our legs hanging out in the cold wet trench, so you can imagine what a rosy time we are having, but still there is no grumbling, all take it in good spirit, although it is a soldier’s privilege to growl, & at times some of them exercise their right to the utmost.

  We have had a good fire going all the morning. We go over into Flers village whenever we want wood — there is plenty of it there, the remains of the houses & etc.

  4th November. One of our chaps made a great fire opposite my dugout. We then got a can of petrol water & put it on the fire, & soon she was boiling merrily & didn’t we enjoy the tea. You have no idea how we miss our tea; it means a lot to us I can tell you.

  During the afternoon all the N.C.O.s & officers talked over tonight’s attack. We moved off at 7 o’clock sharp in single file. The pace was very slow for all were heavily loaded & the ground was as sticky & muddy as could be. We took our time for we only had about 3 miles to go, & we had to be in position by 11 o’clock. We took the long way to White Alley trench. It was not bad going till we branched off into Grass Lane. It is called Grass Lane out of pure sarcasm for it is a sunken road & is covered with 3 to 4 ft of slimy sticky white mud. Oh it is something awful. One experience of this Somme is enough for a lifetime, for we have all, like Napoleon, discovered another element: mud. It is so bad that often & often without a word of a lie a man gets bogged & the clay is so tenacious that it takes 3 men to pull him out, & then again you will come to another place where do what you will it is impossible to stand on your feet, & over you go fair on your side or the broad of your back in the frightful stuff. These sort of busters are so common now among us that we don’t even swear, just take it as a matter of course. We are constantly wet through to the skin & our clothes absolutely covered with mud. These are the conditions under which the great Somme offensive is being carried out — cruelty to human beings I reckon. They feed us as well as they can but we are always tired, for a mile in this mud is worse than 5 on a hard road, but still the game proceeds & the men toil on unceasingly.

  The position we are taking up for our attack was well out in no man’s land & we had to go over the open to it. Now this is pretty ticklish work with a mob, especially when you are trying to get the men there without the enemy knowing it, for they are constantly sending up flares. When these go up the men have to stand perfectly still, for the slightest movement gives the whole show away & over comes the machine guns & shells, & then finish. Well after a lot of manoeuvring we got them into position. 9 & 10 platoons were in the trench while 11 or 12 were lying out at the back of it about 2 yards away, for both sets of platoons moved practically together.

  We were in position about 9 o’clock & shortly after Capt Jackson brought some of B Coy along & put them at the rear of us again. They were our supports, for this attack was being carried out by C & D Coys. So far so good, but the men began to get restless & some of B Coy started to sit up & just then the Huns put a big bright flare up & evidently spotted the steel hats. He immediately sent 2 or 3 more big flares in rapid succession, & satisfied himself that troops were there. It was not many minutes before the shells started to fly around but happily for us he mistook the wrong trench we were hiding in & all the 5.9s lobbed harmlessly over our heads, which was just as well for us, for we would have been murdered in cold blood.

  Slowly the hours dragged by, for we were cold & miserable lying on the wet ground, but the knock out was to come about an hour before the hop over, in the shape of a blinding storm of rain which soaked us through & through & nearly washed us away. Oh what bon. We all felt as happy as the boy that killed his father, but we had to lay there & take it like Britons. The sheepskin vests came in very handy here for they kept our bodies fairly dry & warm but the rest of us was as cold as ice. The Heads made a great mistake at this point for they should have postponed the attack for the ground wouldn’t carry a cat let alone a man with a load up, however we were to find this out afterwards to our sorrow.

  About 11.30 Fritz became very suspicious & kept on sending flares over towards us. At last he was satisfied that there was something dirty doing, & up went his artillery & S.O.S. flares. When I saw these go up I said to a mate who was lying alongside me that the game
was up & that we might just as well go over at once or go back to our trench, for we were discovered & once the element of surprise is lost in a case like ours well things are bound to be very warm & willing. He kept on sending up his artillery flares. They are something like a Catherine wheel, only much larger & more powerful & are of a dark red to pink colour.

  We still had half an hour to go before our guns put the barrage on his trench. At about 15 mins to go over came his shells & they fell all round us, & he opened fire on us with machine guns & rifles all along the line. About 10 mins to go we got the order to fix bayonets & get ready. I had no officer with my platoon so I was in charge of it. The fire at this point was getting very hot & all knew that we would have our work cut out, for Fritz was waiting for us as we were soon to find out to our bitter cost.

  5th November. A couple of minutes to go & all were straining at the leash. The moon had almost gone down & there was a faint ghostly light over all save when the flares lit everything up in a white shimmering light & the ground could be seen to be all watery & shiny.

  All of a sudden the strain was over, & so were we. I was the first one of my platoon (as I should be) to hop over & I gave a few more a helping hand, for the sides of the trench were steep & slippery. As soon as we showed up the flares were sent up in batches which lit everything up like day, & showed us men falling everywhere & the boys struggling through the mud bogged nearly to the knees, for the ground was as soft as a well-fallowed paddock after a storm of rain. I was forcing my way through as fast as I could & calling for my men to keep up & box on.

  Just before we reached the German wire (which was not smashed at all for the artillery fire which was supporting us was shocking — about 20 shells & it was over, a “barrage” they had the heck to call it) I got a terrible buster, fell fair into a big shell hole full of mud. A nice state I was in to be sure but I scrambled out as soon as I could & made a rush for the wire. Having no wire cutters I had to force my way through as best I could & the consequence was that I got badly cut all over & ended up getting hung in the stuff for all the world like a sack of wood chucked on to a heap of barb wire, but I felt nothing at the time for my blood was running hot & we only thought of getting in their trench.