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

The right half Battalion paraded and marched off at 11.40 a.m. and had progressed as far as 600 [yards] from camp when a whistle blew and we were recalled.

How flat we felt and how everyone swore!

I understand that the bad weather in the Channel is the reason for the delay. It breaks the mines loose and you run on them and get blown to blazes.

I am sorry for the rest of the Brigade.

It has already preceded us and I can picture whole regiments lying in puddles on the quayside with only the howl of the wind and the pattering rain-drops to sing them a lullaby. That sounds quite melodramatic. But I bet it is all that and more for the poor beggars.

We now go tomorrow at 5.30 a.m. Reveille 3.30. Bow-wow! It is hardly worth going to bed and I wouldn’t but that I had so little slumber last night.

The men I am afraid won’t sleep at all. They are now busy singing, ‘When this b..... war is over we’ll be there …’ I am afraid some of them will get drunk, which will mean a rotten tour in the morning dark for company officers. That, however, is all in the game.

Countess Brownlow

has sent all the mess little pocket writing pads today. Very neat and very welcome. I am exceedingly pleased with mine. It was just the thing I wanted but couldn’t find. I have already written you the first note on it and have no doubt but that I will finish the pad on you, my dear girlie.

I wonder what you are doing tonight and of what you are thinking. My darling soul, when shall we meet again. When will the time come that we can once more set up our home and recommence our life of utter happiness. Ah, Maudie, how little I realised where happiness lay till this old war came along and it was denied me. How limited is a man’s mind. It does not allow him to enjoy life in the present but only to realise what moments have meant to him by looking back on them when they have passed. At any rate it has been so with me.

8.45 p.m. Fresh orders have just arrived. The 5.30 a.m. idea is now off and we do not move till 11.40. Thank heaven for its mercies and also for the forethought which led me to sneak the Second-in-Command’s blankets after he had left yesterday. I look like having a warm night’s sleep after all.

10th November ’15

At last we are under way. But our journey is destined not to be a straightforward one.

We came like birds as far as Folkestone, even to the pier of that town. But there we stopped. A Scotch major met us with the announcement that the Channel is closed and that we must stop the night in Folkestone billets.

A long march out into the night is the result with a longer halt on the Leas

where the wind blows chill and people say nasty things about the Army in whispers. The men were great. Never a murmur out of them after they had been warned that all was to be treated as night operations.

Our billets were eventually allotted and we got the fellows into several large empty houses – 150 in each. They are right as trivets.

We officers dropped on a top-hole billet also. A large boarding house where guests were non est before our advent.

They hunted up steak and chips for us and what with this and a whiskey and soda to wash it down, we are happy as bugs in a blanket and quite satisfied with the war up to now. Don Murray, D. S. Murray

and myself share a room where we have sheets and a cheval glass.

Corn in Egypt, I have not known such luxury since I left you, my sweetheart, and it has a most heartening effect upon one.

Especially is this so after my journey down. I came with Major Merriman and he, poor fellow, is rather depressing. I think he is obsessed with the idea that he is going to be shot. He is rather mournful about everything. I am no good in that attitude. The rest of the boys are so bright, God bless them. And yet I have no doubt but what the chances are the same for all of us.

If we don’t get away tomorrow I am going to try and find Miss Carey’s

and see her for you. I’d be tickled to death to meet her after all you have told me of her.

Chapter 1 (#ulink_d46f4185-bcee-5e62-80f7-9fb5d95a9751)

‘And all because it is war!’ (#ulink_d46f4185-bcee-5e62-80f7-9fb5d95a9751)

11–27 November 1915

11th November ’15

At last we are in France! We had no word in Folkestone of what they wanted us to do until 3 p.m. Then it came in a hurry that we were to embark at 4 p.m. A rush and a hurry and then the job was done, the whole battalion getting aboard intact. It was a good passage till about ten minutes out from here but then we ran into the rain.

At 3.30 p.m. the battalion finally sailed, with destroyer escort, for Boulogne.

What rain! Bow-wow. And it must have been going all day. They have put us into tents on the top of a hill and the whole place is a quag with running streams feet deep all about it.

We are soaked to the skin and cheery as the devil. Cotton, Don Murray, Bowly

and myself are in one tent all cuddled up close together for warmth. 10.20 p.m.

Townsend

has just poked his head under the flap and asked for shelter. The CO’s tent has blown down and its three occupants are hunting for homes. We have taken Towny in and he is now cheerily pessimistic, wondering why he joined the Army and expressing the wish that his mother could see him now.

We are a happy party, even though wet.

My stars, what strange creatures men are. Six months ago and half these fellows would have been half dead with less than half this dampness and now here we are happy as Larry and busily preparing for sleep. And all because it is war!

12th November ’15, 8.10 a.m.

What a night it has been! Rain in torrents and a gale which sent the camp dustbins hurtling along the ground to fetch up with a bang against the sides of various tents, the occupants of which thereupon effectively contrived to make the night yet more hideous by heartfelt and lurid cursing.

Twice we had to get up and re-peg down our frail home, but at length we got it more or less secure and were able to get to sleep.

The men have stood it very well and everyone is cheerful this morning in the chill, dry breeze.

We officers are being cared for in the Salvation Army hut where the two young women in charge have proved good Samaritans indeed, getting Bowly and myself hot tea and some warm water wherein to wash. We already had gruesome shaves in our tents and now feel fit as fiddles.

I believe we leave here at 9.30 for a 48 hours train journey.

We hear a rumour we go to the Argonne. If so, the St Omer tale falls heavily to earth.

[Later]

Neither Argonne nor St Omer has materializedbut we are here, off the beaten track, but close to Amiens and within thirty miles of the new Arras front, for which we are destined. We have had a truly awful day. It has, of course, rained but that is a minor evil now. The train journey was slow and uncomfortable but at length we got to Pont-Remy. There we started to march and there the fun began. The men were beat. A night with no sleep and soaked to the skin they had little heart for a twelve mile slog, overloaded as they were.

Then the guides took us three miles wrong and we had to about turn just at dusk. No one knew where we were for or how to get there, the guides being a pair of damn fools. However, the CO got us right at last and we went slowly forward again.

I handed B over to Don Murray and was sent to the rear with the doctor.

Don Murray did well. He is a good chap for his job.

The Doc & I have had an appalling time.