In the Line of Battle

Snakes have made their appearance, though they are small and nervous compared with the Australian specimen. Water is horrible, but, thank God, the weather is cooler, except just at midday, and does not entail a great thirst. Our rations make up for that. Boiled bacon has been added to the menu and is somewhat salt, and that, added to the dryness of our biscuit, and your ration of one pint per day, is – small. In the tucker respect we are much better off than our opponents, who seem to be ill fed, ill clad, and, as usual, ill paid… The drawback is washing…

    May 19th.

Official reports to hand announce that Gallipoli is in ruins, owing to a very severe bombardment from the guns of Lizzie and a few of her ilk. There is absolutely no room for argument about Lizzie being effective. She is a whole army and navy in herself. At the outbreak of hostilities here the authorities were much troubled by the enemy having an armoured train armed with heavy guns, and of course extremely mobile. After it had done much damage Lizzie got her eye on it, and three shots put paid to its account. Their gunnery is little short of marvellous. The boys here are astounded because she puts her shells right over the strip of land we are on, and drops them on some unsuspecting vessel in the Narrows, seven or eight miles away. To get the line of fire and sight it is necessary to use aircraft. We have the great Samson himself here, squinting in the air for us, and are splendidly served in this respect. The Turks gave him a great reception last night, and every piece of gunnery was turned in his direction. Fortunately he was unhurt, being miles off range.

I drew my first issue of tobacco and cigarettes to-day – two packets of cigarettes and 2oz. of tobacco and a box of fifteen matches! Very welcome to a smoker, and I have no doubt they will secure many blessings in the future…

    May 20th.

Contrary to expectation the Turks came again, and in large lumps, too. They gave us a perfect fusillade at tea-time last night – rifles, machine-guns, and artillery kept it up till dark. Then we being in the second line of defence (or supports), went to bed. About twelve o’clock Wednesday they started again, accompanied by bombs and machine-guns and rifles. They fairly lighted the night up, and as for row – Bedlam let loose was not in it.

The bombs gave us a bad moment or two. They did not kill any one, but threw up such clouds of dust that we were literally blinded; and then the main attack started at about 2 a.m. on the right and developed all along the row of trenches. A lull occurred till about 3 a.m.

We stood to arms, and then it really began.

First they chanted their war-cry and called on Allah and blew on a little tin trumpet. It sounded terribly weird at that time of the morning – it was pitch dark. We could only stand at our loopholes and strain our eyes to peer into nothingness. Firing continued in a desultory manner. All of a sudden their front wing was in the first line of trenches, which were about eighty yards in front of ours.

Half blinded by the dust and choked by the gas, the boys stuck to it like Britons, and sometimes staved the Turks off. Three Turks did manage to get in B Company’s line, but they did not manage to get out again. By this time we had got our bearings, and then the boys settled down to steady firing. Never heard such a noise. I was strained to the utmost pitch of excitement. Times again they managed to get up to the earthworks, but failed to get into the line.

The German officers hooted them on and beat them with their swords; but after the terrible hail of shot one could not be surprised at their jibbing. Two or three officers were shot, with their hard black helmets, proving beyond doubt their nationality…

Last night was a mixture of prayers and curses. Some of the boys yell for Turks to come on – they had some “back at work” shot for them.

The action was continued all day. Casualties were few, owing to excellent cover…

    5 a.m., May 21st.

All night long we were waiting for them to come again, but the lesson had been too severe. All day yesterday they sniped and got a few, amongst them our special shot… I have got the knack of keeping awake all night.

They have landed some 6-inch howitzers from the naval boats, and these are manned by marines. Firing lyddite, and manned by experts, they gave the Turks the time of their lives. The Turkish artillery is outclassed by them. Their big guns on the forts by the shore have a moving platform and consequently were hard to find; however, the boats got wind of where they were, and they started to shell our fellows last night at dusk. The tars saw their flash and fired three shells. Have heard nothing of them since, so suppose they hit something…

Last night passed away uneventfully. Just a little rain of bullets now and then. Also the enemy fired a new kind of shell, believed to be melinite, which stifles a man to death and does not hit one at all. Nice respectable death, after the manner of some deaths!

A rain set in early this morning and brought attendant miseries with it, mud and dampness and general cussedness of every one concerned.

The beggars had the cheek to come over yesterday and demand that we surrendered. After such a pommelling as we gave them two days ago this is colossal. I think they just wanted to spy out a bit more of the defences.

    Sunday, May 23rd.

There is a furious bombardment going on out in the harbour. The warships are all standing in close and tackling the last of the main Turkish forts and strongholds in the Dardanelles…

Quite a minor excitement was caused by the arrival of some submarines, supposed to be the pair that slipped by Gibraltar some days ago. The fact that first drew our attention to them was the small or mosquito craft which were running all round in circles, and the bigger vessels were all on the move. Nothing was heard as to whether they were captured or sighted again. I suppose the idea was to keep a good look out and also to provide a much more difficult mark than if they were standing still.

I had a night’s sleep last night, the first undisturbed since we landed sixteen days ago. I feel splendid this morning, Sunday – not much like our usual one, though. I absolutely pine for St. John’s, Wagga Wagga, for their singing and for one hour of Canon Joe Pike. Tommy Thornber is with me in this respect. The most profitable hours of my life were undoubtedly spent there…

The Turks around us are very quiet to-day. It is Sunday, so they ought to be.

    Empire Day, May 24th.

Peculiar thing – the long-expected armistice arrived to-day, instead of yesterday… I, being of fair size, was one of the assorted few who were to form the burial party. We set out at 8 a.m., and started carting the Turks to their own lines and handing them over to their friends. To attempt to describe the condition of the bodies, some of them having lain out in the sun for twelve or fourteen days, some of them since they landed a month ago, would be futile…

A line of flags was drawn equidistant from both lines, and each party of men kept between their line and the centre line of flags. As this line of flags was made up by one Turk and one Australian alternatively, we had a good view of live Turks. In point of physique they are not our superiors, as I imagined, but of a stock top-heavy – all-chest-and-no-legs sort of build; dark almost to blackness, with such a variety of casts of feature that they cannot be said to possess a distinctive one.

The officers are undoubtedly German – that is, the principal; and a scowling, evil-looking lot they are, though some of them attempted to ingratiate themselves with our boys by offering cigarettes and so on. The body-carting finished about one o’clock, and such work as exchanging … equipment has been going on.

    May 25th.

The submarine that was reported three days ago got in her work on the Triumph this morning at about 12.30, and she sank in seven minutes. The loss has thrown quite a gloom over the trenches here in camp. Our boys could see the survivors struggling in the water and saw the old ship sink, and could not raise a hand to help them in their trouble. As a loss to the Navy it was not a big one, as she was one of the older class of vessel, and from what I can gather we did not lose many of the crew…

I snatched about an hour’s sleep this morning, or I should have seen the disaster to the Triumph…

    May 26th.

The number of men lost was only fifteen in the sinking of the warship yesterday… Our socks are stuck to our feet, and the blend of the smell of our socks, chloride of lime, and dead Turks is a subject for a connoisseur…

    May 27th.

To-day we have had our welcome spell. Never before did men stretch out to enjoy sleep in such circumstances. Our resting trenches are about half a mile away from the firing-line, and the only danger is from spent bullets, whizzing by too high to hit the trenches, and just beginning to drop as they get to us. After the first line that is easy.

CHAPTER XV

A STRETCHER-BEARER AT LOOS

[Continuing the Allied advance in France, the British forces on September 25th, 1915, captured the western outskirts of Hulloch and the village of Loos, and secured an advantage near Hooge. At the same time the French took Souchez and the rest of the region known as the “Labyrinth,” and broke through the German line in Champagne. The fighting at this period was exceptionally severe, and was acknowledged by the bestowal of many honours, amongst them the award of the Distinguished Conduct Medal to Private Harold Edwards, 1st Battalion South Staffordshire Regiment, whose story this is. In the official description of the award to Private Edwards, “for conspicuous bravery and devotion to duty,” it was stated that “he gave a fine exhibition of the highest courage and disregard of personal danger.”]

It was at a place called Hulloch that we battled it out – but it was Loos, all the same. All my fighting and what I saw of it was done in the Loos district. Our division was at Fromelles, Aubers, Givenchy and Festubert, and a lot of minor events, and I came through these engagements very luckily. Our first battle, however, was Neuve Chapelle, though we did not do any actual fighting there. We were in reserve; but from what I learned later this was worse than the fighting-line, because we seemed to get all the shell fire. It was not till the battle of Loos came along that I was unlucky and got “clicked.”

I wanted to be a soldier, and the very day we declared war on Germany I enlisted in the South Staffordshire Regiment, the old 38th. I was trained hard for a few months; but that was easy work, because I had been employed in a Staffordshire forge. Then, before the Christmas of 1914 I was sent to France, and got a spell of trench work until March, when, on the 10th, the British captured Neuve Chapelle.

It is not easy to say what stands out most clearly in my mind of those early operations, because what I chiefly remember is Loos; but I know that we were terribly troubled in the trenches and round about them by rats. These horrible things swarmed – they breed like rabbits, or worse – and they went for anything that was going. They were huge, fierce brutes, and I know of more than one case of a sentry on a lonely post who in the night-time got a bad scare because he thought the Germans were on him, when as a matter of fact it was nothing worse than an enormous rat which was out foraging and made a jump at his face.

More than six months passed between the battle of Neuve Chapelle and the battle of Loos. Of course an ordinary soldier doesn’t know much of what is happening, and he doesn’t pretend to – he has his own business to mind; but we knew for several days ahead that something was coming off, judging by the amount of stuff that went up. What do I mean by stuff? Well, the shells, principally. They were preparing the way, and were smashing up the whole of the countryside. It was really terrible to see what havoc was done by the German shells at Vermelles – streets were blown to bits, churches and houses were just made into rubbish heaps, and as for men, especially Germans, they didn’t count. It isn’t easy to make anybody understand what happened; but perhaps the easiest way is to imagine your own house and street and the country near it turned from a smiling, prosperous place into a heap of dreary and desolate ruins.

In that battle of Loos we were thrown up against all the latest and most devilish tricks of German warfare, including gas. There was poison-gas and smoke-gas, terrible artillery, awful rifle-fire, and of course the rifle and bayonet. You seemed to be up against every sort of devilry, including the Germans. I suppose you can’t expect anything else from them, being what they are.

We were in reserve trenches on September 24th, and on the night of that same day we went up to the firing-line.

It was a miserable night, with drizzling rain all the time. We started at ten o’clock, creeping and crawling through a long communication trench. We did not finish this advance job till two o’clock next morning, and then we sat in the trench and waited for the dawn to break. It was a solemn business, squatting there in the cold drizzle, talking in low tones, and wondering which of us would go down.

It was a lovely morn that broke, and glad we were to see it. Then, at about a quarter past five, the band began to play. And what a time it was, to be sure! It was a terrible bombardment, with the whole countryside shaking and shivering with the crashing of the guns, and your head felt like bursting with the din.

We had to stand this horrible racket for some time. I don’t know how long, but it seemed a fair stretch; then the word came to mount the parapet of the trench. It was a high parapet, and ladders were needed to get over it. There were plenty of ladders to each parapet, and as the order was one man to a ladder, no time was lost in getting out of the trench and on to the open ground over which the advance was made to the German trenches.

As soon as the men who were making the attack got over the parapet, the stretcher-bearers went after them with the stretchers. My chum with my stretcher was Private Pymm.

The men of our battalion had their smoke-helmets on, and they looked like devils. And that was a proper thing to look, for they went straight into a hellish fire – no other word will describe the storm of shells and bullets that met them. It seemed impossible for any one to live in it, yet our men went forward, and being a stretcher-bearer I had a wonderful view of them.

As soon as we got over the parapet the men began to fall, and we began to bandage them up. What we had to deal with were mostly “blighty” wounds, as we called them – just one through the thigh, or a flesh wound. We did the best we could for them; and we had soon tackled a few. Then we went on and tackled a few more. We had dropped our stretcher and were hurrying about, each of us doing the best he could.