Fighting Drunk

Saturday night, and some of the boys are rolling in on late pass from East Grinstead. One, a great raw-boned gunner is fighting drunk. He seizes the huge carving knife with which the hut orderly sub-divides our daily bread ration and prowls round the line of trestle and board beds defying any mother’s son to meet him in mortal combat.

After ten minutes pandemonium his challenge is accepted by a stocky little driver who in stature might have reached to his shoulder.

The driver hops nimbly out of bed in his shirt, drives his fist solidly into the challengers stomach and doubles him up like a jack-knife. The gleaning weapon sails high in the air and is retrieved by an onlooker, the injured man is pushed, none too gently into bed and once more peace is restored. Thank goodness Saturday only comes once a week.

If I found Forest Row somewhat demoralizing, let me hasten to add that all my memories of Colchester, the fine old garrison town in which the division completed its training were happy ones.

It was here, I think, that the Battery really found its soul. One of the highlights of our stay was when we finally got rid of the ancient Boer War 15 pounders and were equipped with guns of which we could really be proud – brand new 18-pounders with fixed ammunition, spring buffers, traversing, and trail spade gear.

For accuracy, I don’t think there has ever been a field gun to touch it: at a range of 2,500 yards it was possible to drop every round of a salve inside an area half the size of a bowling green.

In fact, I recall one occasion at La Bassée[1] when we put down a barrage inside a bracket of 12½ yards. We had to, to avoid dropping a few shorts into our own trenches.

The 18-pounder Q.F.[2] (Mark IV) had only one fault, as we were to find out later; its recoil of 42 inches was far too long. This made it unstable on hard ground, and the piece under stress was apt to jam in the slides at full recoil, whereas the French 75 mm recoiled a mere 12 inches and was as steady as a rock. But for accuracy, give me the 18-pounder every time.

British 18-Pounder Field Gun

It was at Larkhill[3] on Salisbury Plain where we had our first taste of our gun’s little eccentricities. This was during our first firing course, in which, I grieve to say, we did not do too well.

Out on the range one day we had just had the order, “Halt, action front”, followed by ”Right section ranging”, our own gun being number “2” I was number 3 (gun-layer) on the detachment and was busy adjusting the periscope dial sight when number 2 (who operated the range drum) gave me a nudge.

“Hey,” he muttered, “Owd Broncho’s watchin’ us. ”

Needless to say, General Brounker, G.O.C., R.A., and heaven knows what else besides, was the General Staff Officer who had to decide if we were fit for active service. He had dismounted from his charger and, surrounded by a galaxy of brass hats, was heading in our direction, an irascible man with a flowing white moustache and a brick-red complexion that spoke volumes concerning the parlous state of his liver.

To our horror he took up a position about ten yards behind the gun, binoculars at the ready, and surveyed us with his eagle eye. We would sooner have encountered the Kaiser.

However, orders were coming down the line and had to be carried out: “Aiming point, tree on right flank, all guns 25 degrees right, angle of eight, one degree elevation. Number 1 gun, 2,300 yards, number 2 gun, 2,300 yards, at 10 second interval, fire.

“Set,” called out the range-finder. “Ready,” I snapped, and with my hand on the firing lever, awaited the order to fire. Out of the corner of my eye I could see our sergeant knelt behind the hand-spike, his right hand raised in the air and peering over his shoulder the sinister hawk-face of the General.

There was a terrific crash as number 1 gun fired and I could hear the sergeant counting every second at intervals that seemed like minutes. Then his arm dropped and he shouted “Fire.”

What happened after that I shall never know.

Somehow we had managed to set the trail spade, intended to dig into the ground with the shock of the discharge, upon the only protruding rock on Salisbury Plain. So that, instead of burying itself, it flew back a dozen yards, and swung round viciously through an angle of 180 degrees, bowling over the detachment, half the General’s staff and sundry innocent bystanders.

The great man, however, with more speed than one would have given him credit for, had hopped nimbly out of danger and from a safe distance was discharging a volley of epithets that made a battery sound tame in comparison.

Sometimes in my dreams I still see that furious face and invariably I wake up in a cold sweat.

 

[1] La Bassée was a front-line village in the extreme northeast of France, close to the sea and the Belgian border. It was the site of a battle in 1914, part of the ‘Race to the Sea’

[2] The standard ‘quick firing’ (QF) British field gun of the World War I era, 84mm calibre

[3] Larkhill was an artillery school one mile north of Stonehenge (still in use)

The First Shock of Army Profanity

Winter, 1915, and once again the scene has changed. Now I am with our 2nd line brigade, stationed at Forest Row[1], Sussex, and housed in some ancient hutments designed for Mounted Infantry during the Boer War.

Just my luck! I had hoped to be placed on a draft to join the 42nd Division, now defending our far-flung empire in the land of the Pharaohs, camped on the desert in the very shadow of the Pyramids. How I had looked forward to an orgy of antiquarian exploitation among the magnificent temples of the Nile valley or the subterranean tombs in the Valley of the Kings.

Instead of which; here I was in a rickety, insalubrious shack that left one open to the elements with complete impartiality, a stranger in a strange land. One morning I woke to find my blanket covered with snow, with the wind whistling through a hundred crevices in the warped boards that formed an apology for roof and walls.

         Once again I was made aware of an all-pervading sea of mud, which surrounded the camp on all sides, but this time it was not the good, old-fashioned Lancashire variety, it was an evil smelling compound of the colour and consistency of mustard.

Here, for the first time, I heard Army profanity at its worst. At Bettisfield they swore like mere amateurs; here even the mildest among the gunners and drivers seemed unable to carry on a coherent conversation unless it was punctuated with oaths, and it was weeks before I came to realise that the foul-mouthed little blackguard who slept next to me and cheerfully helped himself to the contents of my weekly food parcel was really a decent warm-hearted little chap who would have gone out of his way to do me a good turn.

Little did I think that within a few months we should have been bosom pals, establishing a friendship among the Flanders shell-holes that has endured to this very day. If he reads this, I know he will forgive me for stating quite baldly my first impressions because he is now a reformed character: I am the one who swears.

The first shock of hearing Army profanity is very like plunging into a pool of cold water; for a moment it takes your breath away but soon you take it for granted and make the best of it. In fact, it is merely a mechanical device for giving emphasis to the prosaic periods of casual conversation. “Our armies swore terribly in Flanders,” cried Uncle Toby in Sterne’s “Tristram Shandy”, and since the time of Marlborough their repertoire has increased quite considerably.

Yet in spite of this, in my hut there was one young corporal who knelt down by his bedside every night and said his prayers, an act of faith that was tacitly respected, even by the rowdiest among us.

Well, what are my memories of this inhospitable and insalubrious spot? I hear a whinnying of horses at night and a thumping of iron-shod hoofs against swinging, wooden boskiness in the horse -lines …

It’s that blasted wild Canadian remount we christened “Red Tape”, which broke loose a week ago and has been running at large in the forest ever since. Every night without fail the infernal brute comes cantering down the lines of tethered horses, lashing out right and left at all and sundry, man and beast, alike, until the stalls are full of frenzied animals and the lines full of cursing picquets. “Be with the guns, boys this is an artillery war”. If this is gunnery, heaven help the sailors.

“Red Tape”, a coal-black gelding with blood-shot eyes and twitching ears, probably suffering from some acute form of toothache or other nervous disorder which drove him to distraction, was subsequently caught but never tamed.

In fact, we never even succeeded in shoeing him, and though on one occasion a saddle was lowered on his back and a head-stall pulled over his head, the sum total of our efforts boiled down to a couple of crippled rough-riders and another spell of freedom for the outlaw. After that we gave him up.

 

[1] Forest Row is situated on what is now the Royal Ashdown Golf Club, West Course; adjacent to the A22 London-Eastbourne road, between Forest Row and Wych Cross: http://www.ukniwm.org.uk/server/show/conMemorial.121

 

The Colonel Cancels All Christmas Leave

I suppose, like most of my comrades, I could have soldiered at Southport for the duration, but soon sinister rumours began to spread of another move to a camp somewhere out in the wilds, and for once the rumour proved to be true.

Early one morning the entire brigade entrained for Bettisfield Park Camp[1], and after a journey lasting all day, with infuriating delays whilst we were shunted into sidings to make way for other troop trains bound for more important destinations, we were ultimately unloaded at a tiny, wayside station in the heart of the wilderness. We were then told in the gathering darkness, to get ready for another route march.

The weather had broken during the day, and as we marched through the camp gates ankle-deep in viscid mud, the leading files struck up with the chorus: “When you’re a long, long way from home.” Its real implications were just beginning to dawn on us.

The camp was still in process of construction; all the huts were new and the moment one stepped off the macadam road leading to headquarters one was knee-deep in slush. For some obscure reason the site chosen was a sort of amphitheatre sloping down to a small lake, the huts being erected at various stages up the slope.

We were surrounded on all sides by an impenetrable jungle, an extensive pine forest where I at least spent many happy hours studying the habits of jays and red squirrels.

LEISURE MOMENTS

As we were miles from the nearest village, there was little else I could do in my leisure moments, as the canteen and recreation-room had little attraction for me.

Of course, as an alternative I might curl up on my bed in the hut with a book, providing I could close my ears to the interminable games of “housey-housey” (which I am given to understand was the prototype of “Bingo”) or “Crown and Anchor”, which last was the cause of many a barrack-room argument, often terminating in a free fight.

But, by and large, life at Bettisfield Park bored me to distraction. The same old bugle-call announcing Reveille day after day, the hasty gulping down of a steaming decoction said to be tea but known as “gunfire”, the same old half-hour of physical “jerks” on the parade -ground and then breakfast, followed by hut inspection and muster parade.

After a close scrutiny by an eagle-eyed sergeant-major, who looked behind our buttons for traces of “soldier’s friend” and searched for traces of unshaven beard on faces that had never felt a razor, we broke up into detachments under our respective instructors.

Two incidents from this period stand out in my mind. The first arose from the cancellation of all Christmas leave by the colonel as a disciplinary measure for some lack of smartness on parade, which resulted in a mass exodus of determined camp-breakers.

They swarmed out after darkness and stowed away aboard slow-moving goods trains which passed nearby. Some were absent without leave for over a fortnight and not a few returned under escort.

There was some talk of courts-martial, but ultimately wiser counsels prevailed and defaulters’ drill and confinement to barracks was the extent of the punishment meted out by our commanding officer, more in sorrow than in anger. Probably he realised he had given the men some justification for mutiny.

The second incident was provoked by a very youthful and callow second-lieutenant who had obviously just been posted, and was airing his uniform for the first time. At regular intervals, he would emerge from the officers’ mess, stroll importantly past the guard-room, acknowledge the guard’s salute with an airy wave of his cane and then retrace his steps. This went on until the corporal of the guard could stand it no longer.

“Aw’ll learn yon mon a lesson he’ll not forget in a hurry,” he declared.

“Who the ‘ell does he think he is, Kitchener?”

“What’s on your mind, corporal?” I asked. I was doing my first two-hour stretch at the time.

“Never thee mind, lad,” he said, with a sinister wink, “Just give me th ‘ griffin when tha sees him comin’ again.”

Sure enough, a few minutes later the dapper little figure emerged from the front of the officers’ mess and headed majestically in my direction. I gave a discreet whistle.

“Guard, turn out,” roared the corporal, and as the abashed youngster drew level he gave the order: “Present Arms.” I have never seen a man so embarrassed in all my life as was that unfortunate second-lieutenant.

He blushed scarlet, stared wildly at the imposing line of staring eyes and rigid rifles, muttered something about a mistake in his rank and then fled.

“Slope arms; dismiss.” said the corporal, solemnly, and after that all was peace.

 

[1] Bettisfield Park RFA training camp was constructed in the Deer Park of the mansion called Bettisfield Park, Flintshire, a home of the Hanmer family. It lay between Whitchurch (Shropshire) and Ellesmere.

Sad Farewells

Leave-taking was a sad business. Apart from an occasional week’s holidays, this was the first time I had left home with the prospects of a prolonged absence and an uncertain destination and my mother’s tears brought forcibly to my mind that I was not going on a holiday cruise.

But the die was cast and soon I was waving goodbye to my brother on the station platform and seeing the familiar skyline of Blackburn, with its stately parish church, its treelined boulevard on which fountains still played and its forest of factory chimneys, fade into the distance.

At Southport we found the whole Brigade billeted in private houses and we, too, were quickly provided with suitable accommodation.

I found myself, along with three others, in a comfortable semi-detached house in Churchtown. It was tenanted by a childless couple, and the husband, who might well have been a survival from the Victorian age, ruled over the ménage with an iron hand.

Our diet was carefully measured out according to official stipulations, and the army regimen strictly adhered to.

Breakfast, which we shared with the family, consisted of porridge and bacon and bread. The master of the house also partook of marmalade, but as it was not included in the Army menu, he kept the jar under lock and key, lest we might be tempted to indulge surreptitiously in his absence.

He was a man of violent temper and I remember one occasion when, finding some fault with the cooking of his dinner, he deliberately picked up his wife’s plate and flung its contents into the fire, then sat down and finished his own meal without turning a hair.

I can still see the stricken face of that poor, humiliated woman to this day.

I was an artilleryman, a gunner in fact and as yet I had never seen a gun. Southport did not remedy this hiatus, for the only offensive weapons we had were four wooden dummy muzzle-loaders, which we used for drill purposes.

We had, however, a number of horses, which were stabled in various livery stables in the vicinity. ‘These were chiefly rejects from overseas, and proved to be both intractable and ill‑conditioned. Sometimes it seemed as much as one’s life was worth to enter the same stall with one of these unpredictable bundles of nerves, with its rolling eyes, its cocked ears and vicious hoofs. But somehow we survived.

BOER WAR RELICS

Then, one red-letter day a freight train rolled into the siding, bringing us a number of remounts and four real guns for each battery. True, the guns were relics of the Boer War, with neither shields nor dial sights; they were loaded with the aid of ramrods and fired with “T” tubes and lanyards, and having no recoil mechanism they were apt to run amok and cripple half the detachment whenever they were fired.

But still, they were the genuine article and seen from a distance, as when we paraded for manœuvres on the sands, they made a most imposing picture.

All my recollections of Southport are pleasant ones. The early morning route marches, from which we returned with voracious appetites; gun drill on the grassy parade ground under a warm summer sun; an occasional spell of guard duty outside the Battery Office, which was in another private house and where the sentry was an object of awed admiration to all the urchins in the neighbourhood, to say nothing of the dogs, and in the evening a stroll along the promenade, an odd pint in the local and a visit to the “flea-pit,” this last a small cinema in the immediate vicinity, housed in a wooden shed with bare forms to sit on and a tinkling piano by way of orchestra.

YES THOSE WERE HAPPY, CAREFREE DAYS.

Signed Papers

“Well, well,” he replied, “Yesterday, or today?”

Nevertheless, he signed my papers without further comment and I duly took the oath of loyalty. It was a relief, after standing about stark-naked in a draughty anteroom for over half an hour, to be herded down into the storeroom with half a dozen fellow recruits.

Here the presiding genii were two typical “old sweats,” real hard-boiled, yet in a sinister sense, amusing characters, who regarded all rookies as fair game. They were both veterans of pre-Boer War days: one, a bombardier gun-layer[1] had lost an arm, and had his empty sleeve ostentatiously across his breast; his subordinate had been more fortunate … he had only lost an eye.

Ostensibly, their job was to provide us with our uniforms and equipment and this they did, but after their own fashion and with many a joke at our expense.

“Ay, son,” quoth the bombardier, as he saw my eyes straying apprehensively in the direction of his empty sleeve, “Thee tak’ a good look at that. Afore tha’s finished, tha’ll think aw’m dommed lucky.” How right he was!

The final indignity these jokers perpetrated was to turn us out improperly dressed, wearing slacks, spurs, and bandoliers, an unthinkable combination for field artillerymen. Fortunately, military police were unknown in Blackburn at that early stage of the war and we were allowed to proceed on our way unmolested.

WE RECEIVE OUR MARCHING ORDERS

Although the Territorial forces had been primarily intended for home service, immediately on the outbreak of war the 4th Blackburn Battery, like the remaining batteries in the Brigade, volunteered for active service almost to a man.

At that time the Brigade’s mobilisation strength comprised 24 officers and upwards of 600 N.C.O.s and men, with 500 horses.

It formed part of the 42nd Division, which by 9th September, 1914, had entrained for Southampton and was soon in Egypt defending the Suez Canal.

It had the honour of being the first Territorial division to serve overseas, a distinction of which it was very proud.

A second-line division, the 66th, was formed in August, 1915, and after intensive training was retained as the spearhead of home defence in the event of a German Invasion.

After that date, all the drafts intended for reinforcements came from the third-line units and it was to this third-line that I, along with the remaining recruits, was posted.

CHAOTIC

The first appeal of Lord Kitchener for 500,000 men had met with such a prompt response that all the available accommodation was overtaxed and the authorities found themselves unable to cope with the ever-increasing numbers.

Fortunately Blackburn was not classed as a garrison town but I recall that in Preston the position at one time became chaotic.

Men were actually reduced to sleeping under hedges and in front gardens, being free to enter and leave barracks and eat where they could. Schools, clubs and Institutions opened their doors, while the Tramway Power Station housed no fewer than 500 recruits nightly.

However, all this was now over and while we remained in our native town we were allowed to billet in our own homes. Every morning we paraded at the barracks at 9 a.m. and, having neither guns nor horses at our disposal, were promptly sent out on a route march.

For the next week, this, interspersed with an occasional recruiting parade, was the regular routine. Then, one morning we received our marching orders; we were to join the third line at Southport.

 

[1] Gun laying is the process of aiming an artillery piece, such as a gun, howitzer or mortar on land or at sea against surface or air targets. It may be laying for direct fire, where the gun is aimed similarly to a rifle, or indirect fire, where firing data is calculated and applied to the sights. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_laying

One Stipulation

But my parents made one stipulation. I must first obtain a proficiency certificate in first-aid from a series of practical lessons and demonstrations then in session in the old Parish Schoolroom, with qualified instructors under the auspices of St. John’s Ambulance Brigade.

I realise now that this was, on their part, a pathetic attempt to delay the inevitable, but at the time it seemed merely a futile and irritating waste of time.

And so indeed it proved to be. Having duly taken my course and passed out as proficient, I took a medical examination, filled in my application forms for both land and sea services whichever chose to avail itself of my invaluable assistance first and then leaned back waiting for something to happen.

Apparently neither branch of His Majesty’s land and sea forces knew what they were missing, for although I waited and waited, no orders to join my unit were forthcoming.

So one day, just after my 18th birthday, acting on a sudden impulse, I flung down my pen, marched down to the Territorial Artillery Barracks in King Street and enlisted as a gunner for the duration.

I still remember the army doctor’s quizzical, uplifted eye-brows when he asked me my age and I replied, “Nineteen, sir.”

Smashed Windows

I remember walking down King Street and Darwen Street and seeing with something of horror the smashed shop-windows of a few alien pork-butchers who only a few days before had been regarded as honest and substantial citizens.

Somehow, it seemed incredible that this could be the work of my own fellow-townsmen; it wasn’t quite “cricket.”  Yet it proved to be only the first of many signs and portents of the new era of war -fever into which we had entered.

Soon there was an epidemic of recruiting posters, infesting the hoardings like a disease, with huge patriotic slogans aimed particularly at the rising generation.

Some of these I remember well.  One depicted a wounded and weary member of the original expeditionary force in a shattered emplacement.  (This was before the period of trench warfare), looking back vainly for reinforcements and asking desperately: “Will they never come?”

God knows we were willing enough.  I myself enlisted at the age of 18 and I could name several youngsters who celebrated their 19th birthday in the firing line.

Probably the poster that influenced us most was that famous one of Lord Kitchener with its pointing finger and steely blue eye above the caption: “Your King and Country need you”.

Another was a vivid illustration of a field gun battery cantering into action with its six-horse teams at full stretch.  “Be with the guns, boys, this is an artillery war” ran the slogan beneath.  In point of fact, it was that spirited drawing that really decided my army career by turning my thoughts towards the Royal Field Artillery.

But meanwhile parental consent had to be obtained, and this involved some discreet manoeuvring.  At the age of 17, active service with a fighting regiment was out of the question.  Ultimately, however, it was decided that I might join some non-combatant corps such as the R.A.M.C. as an orderly or the R N. Medical Service as a sick-berth attendant.

Remembering the First World War

A few years ago, I was introduced to a document that I never knew existed. Essentially it is the diary of my great grandfather (George C. Miller) regarding his experiences of the First World War, published as a series of articles for the Blackburn Times at the time of the 50th Anniversary of WW1. It was honest, vivid and incredibly moving to read.

With the Centenary of the First World War upon us, I feel moved to share with the wider world my grandfather’s own experience of it, in his own words.