To Fight Alongside Friends: The First World War Diaries of Charlie May

To Fight Alongside Friends: The First World War Diaries of Charlie May
David Crane

Gerry Harrison

‘I do not want to die. The thought that we may be cut off from each other is so terrible and that our babe may grow up without my knowing her and without her knowing me. It is difficult to face. Know through all your life that I loved you and baby with all my heart and soul, that you two sweet things were just all the world to me’Captain Charlie May was killed, aged 27, in the early morning of 1st July 1916, leading the men of ‘B Company’, 22nd Manchester Service Battalion (the Manchester Pals) into action on the first day of the Somme.This tolerant and immensely likeable man had been born in New Zealand and – against King’s regulations – he kept a diary in seven small, wallet-sized pocket books. A journalist before the war and a born storyteller, May’s diaries give a vivid picture of battalion life in and behind the trenches during the build-up to the greatest battle fought by a British army and are filled with the friendships and tensions, the home-sickness, frustrations, delays and endless postponements, the fog of ignorance, the combination of boredom and terror to which every man that has ever fought could testify.His diaries reflect on the progress of the war, tell jokes – good and bad, give details of horse-rides along the Somme valley, afternoons with a fishing rod, lunch in Amiens, a gastronomic celebration of Christmas 1915 and concerts in ‘Whiz Bang Hall’. He describes battles not just with the enemy, but with rats, crows and on the makeshift football pitch – all recorded with a freshness that brings these stories home as if for the first time.The diaries are also written as an extended and deeply-moving love letter to his wife Maude and baby daughter Pauline. ‘I do not want to die’, he wrote – ‘Not that I mind for myself. If it be that I am to go, I am ready. But the thought that I may never see you or our darling baby again turns my bowels to water.’Fresh, eloquent and warm, these diaries were kept secret from the censor and were delivered to his wife after his death by a fellow soldier in Charlie’s company. Edited by his great-nephew and published for the first time, these diaries give an unforgettable account of the war that took Charlie May’s life, and millions of others like him.

Copyright (#ulink_f1f659ee-5778-5a93-8bbf-8b29e6d20a02)

William Collins

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

WilliamCollinsBooks.com (http://www.WilliamCollinsBooks.com)

This William Collins paperback edition published 2015

First published in Great Britain by William Collins in 2014

Copyright © Gerry Harrison 2014

Foreword copyright © David Crane 2014

Gerry Harrison asserts the moral right to be identified as the editor of this work.

Maps © John Gilkes

Cover image © IWM

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780007558551

Ebook Edition © July 2014 ISBN: 9780007558544

Version: 2015-10-13

Praise for To Fight Alongside Friends: (#ulink_7be40ca9-3bf5-5d87-afeb-4edca5594874)

‘What shines through like sunshine is Charlie May’s default belief in service to country, his quiet commitment to others over self, and his sheer decency. You could bet your life on Charlie. And, in a way, we did’

The Times

‘[We] want to hear the voices of those who were there, unencumbered by 21st-century prejudices … To Fight Alongside Friends [is] the disarmingly jaunty, previously unpublished diary of Captain Charlie May … beautifully edited and minutely annotated’

Sunday Times

‘By 1 July 1916, when the last diary entry was entered at 5.45 a.m., the reader feels that they know Charlie May, and what follows comes as a shock, as if a cinema reel had broken in mid-reel’

Financial Times

‘Every so often one comes across a diary where it is the sense of personality behind it that lifts it out of the ordinary: such a diary is that of Captain Charlie May’

David Crane

Captain Charlie May, in the summer of 1915, before his departure for France.

Contents

Cover (#ufa7b6dc3-addd-5165-912b-fb4b9067e48d)

Title Page (#u21aaef87-f356-5c5d-a56c-055cc85ab2b1)

Copyright (#uc233fd20-e33f-55c5-a409-71fb972e083c)

Praise (#u6c4afdf4-2743-5495-bbce-d8927b63333a)

List of Illustrations (#uc9f61214-4405-5a38-aec8-36f8b90ee748)

Maps (#u17aa0dc0-8da0-5805-8ba9-8bfc6c5ce507)

Foreword by David Crane (#u99c6aaf6-dd09-5b3c-9782-23a203682e19)

Prologue: ‘A pippy, miserable blighter’ (#u13fef291-c0f9-5c5b-94d3-b5f74bbcf2ce)

Chapter 1: ‘And all because it is war!’ (#ua26d59cf-881f-59f5-912c-517665c0d1c9)

Chapter 2: ‘Mud caked to his eyebrows’ (#u395dd2cd-2b48-56d9-8487-f3638a6e64c4)

Chapter 3: ‘Our past glorious Xmastides together’ (#u165b2e5d-829a-5484-bcc7-c61492d836ff)

Chapter 4: ‘It is the wire that is the trouble’ (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 5: ‘Full of brimming excitement about my leave’ (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 6: ‘What a game it is!’ (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 7: ‘Dry trenches mean happy men’ (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 8: ‘Pushes and rumours of pushes fill the air’ (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 9: ‘God bless the fool who made that shell’ (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 10: ‘The flickering, angry light of a burning village’ (#litres_trial_promo)