A War for King and Empire, page 6
The colonel was in bad shape and didn’t care to talk about his wound or anything else. I had the impression that German colonels were above conversing with mere privates, let alone enemy ones. However, he was also Bavarian and as I’d never met a Bavarian I tried for a spell to draw him out, until his haughty manner made short shrift of that. When he stumbled and fell crossing the field towards Mousetrap farm I didn’t lend a hand, as I would have otherwise. Instead I watched him painfully pull himself up while I motioned menacingly with the bayonet and hissed at him to hurry. I turned my attentions to the junior officer.
Ulrich was his name. ‘You fellows fight like hell,’ Ulrich said in good English.
‘Thanks,’ I grunted, not knowing what else to say. Ulrich was a fine enough fellow and for some reason that surprised me. I suppose I was expecting a fiery-eyed monster fresh from pillaging a Belgium village. Pointedly I asked about the gas attack.
His eyes bulged. ‘The gas surprised us enormously,’ he said. ‘They gave us protectors but the men are afraid of it now that they’ve seen what it does.’ I didn’t bother telling him what the French thought.
Shortly after reaching brigade headquarters a Lieutenant-Colonel Hughes arrived to collect the “trophies” and listen distractedly to my story. I didn’t realize it at the time, but he was the son of the Minister of Militia, Sam Hughes. Admittedly it was going on 3 a.m., but my first impression was not a favourable one. But then I’d never much liked the father, who was more of a bombastic know-it-all than your average politician. I think the son found me a trifle impertinent – besides their rank it was something he and the German colonel had in common.
By the time I returned to the wood, the battalion had forsaken any hope of holding it and had retired south, near the hedge. There, sections of men were digging in. A couple of machine guns were furiously raking our left flank. Just as I reached a hole with a few men a trio of shells went off in rapid succession, close enough to light up the scene for a long, terrifying moment.
‘Jesus,’ I muttered as I slid in between the others. ‘Was it like this the entire while?’
‘Worse. I think Fritz has run out of ammunition.’
I couldn’t help smiling and looked to see who’d spoken. It was Pat Jones. He was beaming at me.
‘You made it,’ I exclaimed and clapped him on the shoulder. ‘I told you.’
‘Barely,’ he said. ‘You cut it a little close yourself, Mac.’
Quizzically I looked at him. Reaching out a hand he plucked off my cap.
Softly I whistled. He was holding it aloft with one finger stuck through a hole in the front.
‘Where are the others?’ I asked. ‘And Roy Dundas. Have you seen him?’
‘To tell you the truth, I don’t know. I saw Lieutenant Bell get it right at the get-go. Half the platoon fell in that first charge. To be honest I was mostly looking out for myself. I did see Atkins a while back.’
‘Naturally,’ I said. ‘Atkins didn’t get to be a sergeant-major on the basis of his personality alone. What about the colonel?’
‘Plastered by a machine gun in the groin,’ he replied.
I groaned. ‘And Major McLaren?’
‘Shot.’
‘Yeah, well, it was pretty thick.’
Jones grunted. ‘Ormond’s in charge of the battalion now. Word has it there are only five officers left.’
‘And who’s in command here?’
‘Don’t ask me. Lieutenant Glanfield was around but he seems to have disappeared. I don’t think there’s an NCO left, Mac.’
At 6 a.m. word was passed to do a roll call and by then it was light. Lying in the trench, as the sun’s rays slowly revealed the horrible carnage littering the fields, I shouted my name when the moment came. There was no waving of arms or standing to attention and calling “present”. There was certainly no point in reading out the whole nominal roll. It was far quicker to count the survivors.
Thirty minutes later Major Ormond dove in amongst us. He was inspecting what was left of the Tenth. As we’d been speculating exactly how many that was, I simply asked him.
He hesitated for a moment. ‘A little less than 200,’ he replied. ‘We began with 816.’
I winced, even though I’d been prepared.
Then he said something else which surprised me even more.
CHAPTER 6
23rd and 24th of April, 1915
Kitcheners’ Wood, west of St. Julien, Belgium
‘MacPhail,’ said Major Ormond, ‘as of now, you’re platoon corporal.’
‘There must be others, sir,’ I protested. ‘Surely…’
‘There aren’t,’ he curtly interjected. ‘Hold the line until you hear otherwise. Understood?’
He waited until I gave a bewildered nod. Before I could ask anything else he sprinted for the next hole. I suspect he was replaying the scene every thirty yards.
‘I’ll be darned. Lance-Corporal Malcolm MacPhail,’ snickered Jones.
‘Give it a rest, Pat,’ I said. I was tired and thirsty and not in the frame of mind to assuage Jones’s bruised ego. While he hadn’t said it outright, I knew very well he reckoned he ought to have been the one. For my part I would have raised no objections. But that wasn’t what our new commander had decided.
From an original platoon strength of fifty-two I now counted twelve men, myself included. Hopefully there were others who would turn up, and soon – they were desperately needed.
The day was long and trying, filled with an endless pounding by the German guns, which never did run out of ammunition like ours, and the bitter knowledge that waves of men were imminent. The only good news was when an unscratched Roy Dundas arrived. He’d been with a group of Canadian Scottish. By nightfall there were only ten of us remaining. The food and water were long gone, the ammunition dangerously low. From the activity a hundred yards further it was clear the enemy had plans.
‘Hey, Mac. Wake up. You’d better wake up. We’re supposed to stand-to.’ The words were accompanied by a gentle prod of a foot.
Startled I bolted upright. Somehow I must have dozed off for a second.
‘What time is it?’ I asked, my heart pounding, worried I’d fouled up or worse.
Ryerson glanced at his watch. ‘Three o’clock. Word is the Boche are about to attack.’
To my relief they didn’t, not immediately. Roughly thirty minutes later a couple of red rockets and a green one could be observed in the sky over their lines near Mauser Ridge. It was to our immediate left. Then shortly before 4 a.m. the dull, grey pre-dawn sky lit up again. This time it was to our right, in the direction of the Gravenstafel Ridge two miles away, where the division held the front-line trenches. A fierce bombardment had begun, the flashes coming in rapid succession amidst a noise like distant thunder.
‘That must be the attack,’ I said. The others nodded gravely. ‘Their generals will be frustrated we’ve held them for so long. They’ll be looking to give us the coup de grâce.’
‘Great,’ muttered Jones. ‘I thought… just maybe… we’d seen the worst of it.’
‘No, Pat,’ I said very slowly. ‘I’m afraid to say I don’t think we’ve seen the worst of it by a long shot.’ For once I was right, although I’d understated it.
A dense billowing cloud appeared. It clung to the horizon near Gravenstafel Ridge, lit from behind by the sun as it prepared to rise. In the dark the cloud’s colours were indistinct but there was no mistaking what it was. It was growing larger, already moving over our front lines.
Having seen what the gas had done to the French I felt nauseous. Aware I should be setting a good example I got everyone to recheck their rifles and gear – better to be doing than to be thinking.
A half hour later we were on the move. Orders had come. It took some fancy footwork but the battalion extricated itself from the trenches under the very noses of the Boche, leaving them to the 16th Battalion and the 2nd – the latter had come up in relief. Away from the wood we quick-marched to brigade headquarters at Pond Farm and then on to Bombarded Cross Roads before turning left onto the road to Keerselaere. I was weary, every limb ached, and for the second time in two days we were marching towards the fearsome cloud. There was a sense that something pivotal was happening. Not a man among us didn’t feel it. Shortly thereafter we left the road and congregated in a field.
From all around – to the left, right, but mainly in front – sounded the distant clatter of gunfire. The same smell of bleach was in the air that I’d whiffed two days earlier, only stronger. Much stronger. I ran my tongue over my teeth to cleanse them but the metallic taste remained.
From out of the darkness emerged a figure and a voice. ‘Who’s in charge here?’ it demanded to know.
‘I am,’ I responded. ‘Major Ormond put me in command of the platoon.’ Nine months ago I would have asked who was asking. But then nine months ago I wasn’t in the army. Ironically, one thing you quickly learn in the army is that it’s not so important what’s being said as who is saying it. The intonation in this voice suggested it belonged to someone in command.
‘MacPhail, is that you?’
‘Yes,’ I replied. Then I saw who it was. ‘Sergeant-Major Atkins! Am I happy to see you.’
I hadn’t spotted him during the frenzied march but was relieved to see him now and I greeted him like a long-lost soulmate. Whatever else he was, Atkins was the right man to have in your corner in a tight spot. I’m not convinced he thought the same of me for he reciprocated with a weak grin.
‘Get your platoon together, MacPhail. The 8th Battalion needs our immediate assistance. Their OC, Colonel Lipsett, sent a message. We’re to hold Locality C at all costs.’
‘Locality C?’ The question slipped out. I figured if something needed to be held “at all costs” it would be useful to know what that was.
‘Damn it all, MacPhail. Can’t you for once just do what you’re told without asking questions? Locality C is that way, on the opposite side of the ridge road. You’ll know it when you see it.’ He pointed north, up the shallow back slope of Gravenstafel Ridge toward the support trenches.
‘Yes, Sergeant-Major.’
He may have felt a twinge of guilt at his outburst, for he gave me a pat on the shoulder as I got the boys moving. Then he gave me something that later would be much more important, a handful of cotton bandoliers. ‘Put these on when you get up there. The gas is pretty bad, I’m told. There’s not enough of them to go around so the rest will have to use handkerchiefs.’
I handed them all out to the others, leaving me with nothing. The only explanation that comes to mind is that as platoon corporal I figured it was the proper thing to do. Stupid. But proper.
Locality C proved to be nothing more than a trench – visibly in the French tradition – a couple hundred yards long at the top of the low ridge, with a commanding view downslope to the north. I presumed the view was what made it so important.
Along with a few stragglers from other units we were guided into a position 800 yards to the left. To our right the men from the 7th and 8th Battalions were spread out very thinly. There was no more than a company holding a position meant for a battalion, so even our sorry remnants were welcome.
Holding our left were the Royal Highlanders of the 15th Battalion – or they should have been. That was precisely the problem according to our guide. 1000 yards further north near the Stroombeek was the front line, but the left had buckled.
‘The Highlanders beat it,’ he said. The guide was a fair-sized fellow with tired eyes, bullet holes in his tunic and a bloodied dressing around his forehead where his cap should have been.
‘Beat it? So who’s holding the front if the 15th aren’t?’ I asked.
He sighed. ‘The Germans.’
‘Oh,’ I mumbled. I tried to recall what I’d seen on the map and thought of a new question. ‘So what you’re telling me is that this trench is the front line?’
‘You catch on fast,’ he replied. Which might sound facetious, but I don’t think he meant it that way. ‘Colonel Lipsett says if we don’t stop them here the whole brigade is going to be cut off. Most of our fellows are still 1000 yards forward,’ he explained.
Arriving at the trench, I took out the tattered handkerchief I’d been of a mind to throw away days earlier and began to tie it around my nose and mouth.
‘Piss on it first,’ said the guide. The 8th Battalion were known as the Little Black Devils. Suddenly I understood why. I frowned. ‘Piss on it,’ he insisted. ‘We had a medical officer along, Captain Scrimger. Told us it counteracts the chlorine. Trust me.’ He had that weary resigned look of someone who knew what he was talking about, so to the smirking astonishment of the platoon, I dropped my trousers and followed his instructions. Soaked the handkerchief completely through – despite drinking barely a drop since the day before. Nerves will do that to you.
Mine didn’t improve when I saw the three stricken soldiers in the trench. Their flesh was an unnatural ghoulish white and they lay sprawled inert, struck down by the poisonous gases.
The trench was of the two feet deep variety with a miserable parapet of sandbags stacked two or three high. The gas that had come over little more than an hour before was heavy, and it had settled down into the nether regions, its fumes wafting upwards like steam from some old witch’s cauldron. Even with the saturated handkerchief I found myself coughing and gasping; my lungs on fire. I kept blinking. My eyes stung and tears followed. Doing my best to ignore it, I endeavoured to get the men spread out and ready.
We’d been assigned a twenty-yard stretch consisting of two lengths of trench. A traverse broke it in the middle. There wasn’t even a parados to shelter our backs. It was my first command, and I was damned if we were going to lose it.
Barely had we settled in when the view which I’d marvelled at turned threatening. My own shiny Waltham – the one my parents had given me on my 18th birthday – hadn’t survived the rigours of Salisbury Plain. But Pat’s watch gave it as a little after 5.40 a.m. The sun was stretching its limbs in the east and brilliant rays began to streak the fields in front. Above the tall mustard grass and other crops, which grew in abundance, bobbed the heads of an army of field-grey ants. Naturally they weren’t ants.
‘Get ready!’ I shouted. ‘They’re coming.’
The men on the Colt machine gun fed a belt of bullets into the gun. They had a rectangular ammunition box perched almost on the lip of the trench. Others fiddled nervously with the bolts of their rifles. No one wanted a jam. Not now.
Then the shelling began. There was a brief shriek and a blast, followed by an eruption of Belgian farmland, and a greasy plume of smoke spiralled upwards. Then another. And another. Despite the gas we sank down into the trench as the explosions rocked the ground. The big 5.9s pummeled us as we’d never been pummeled before. At the very moment I peeked left over the parapet a shell landed.
BOOM.
My ears reverberated. It was what my eyes saw that left me empty. Twenty yards away the section where Sergeant-Major Atkins held steady sway was blown tens of feet into the air. Dirt and large clumps, which later revealed themselves to be body parts, rained down upon us.
I knew what I would likely find, but I went anyhow. What I found was far worse.
The sergeant-major sat with his back to the trench wall, his head yawning to one side, eyes closed. I was about to call out to him but checked myself. I looked again in horror. Both legs from the calf down were gone, reduced to bloodied stumps. It was then that I saw him opening his eyes. He was still alive!
‘Sergeant-Major,’ I cried.
His head jerked round, awkwardly, searching, until finally he saw me.
A sad smile came over his face. ‘Ah, young MacPhail.’
I grabbed the arm he proffered. ‘Sergeant-Major.’
‘Just this once, call me Tom, would you? But don’t tell the others.’ He laughed briefly until a thick hacking cough overcame him.
‘Yes, Sergeant-Major,’ I said.
‘Sit with me for a moment.’
He clasped my hand and I clasped his. I held it firm. It was wet and sticky but I didn’t let go.
‘I always had high expectations for you, Malcolm. I know you’ll do the battalion proud.’ His voice faltered. ‘Do get the buggers, won’t you?’ With that his hand wilted and his head fell forward.
It seemed impossible. Company Sergeant-Major Atkins. Atkins, who most were convinced could face down a regiment of the enemy singlehandedly, was gone.
Then their infantry came up the slope. This time they were the ones advancing shoulder-to-shoulder, the bayonets and points of their helmets gleaming in the morning sun, confident in the gas and their barrage. Marching to victory.
‘Fire, God damn it!’ I screamed. Every rifle in the trench went off, even though we could barely see on account of the gas.
After three shots the rifles jammed and a boot or entrenching tool was required to smash the bolt open. But we kept at it. We fired and we kicked and we fired. Almost like at the ranges in England, were it not for the blood pulsing in my head and the rapid thumping coming from my chest. The smoke curled round and stunk of chlorine and cordite. We choked and spat from under the wet rags that masked our faces, but didn’t dare remove them. When one or two of the attackers made it as far as the parapet, bayonets were used. The Pickelhaubes and their little dark moustaches fell in droves, and a couple of ours did as well. For a furious few minutes so it went. Until the enemy – bloodied – retreated.
Mercifully when it was over a stiff breeze came up and Mother Nature shooed away the gas.
Without having been there it is difficult to explain the madness that overcame us. Anger and a desire to get our own back, to demonstrate to the Boche that we wouldn’t be taken for granted as their Kaiser Wilhelm had snootily promised when he proclaimed he would send us home in thirty rowboats. Perhaps even to show the storied British regiments that we, colonials, could be counted upon, too. But more than that; I think we knew we were fighting for our lives.
An hour later at 7.00 a.m. the enemy returned. Deceitfully, he was clothed in the uniform of the French, and that of the Highlanders and the Turcos. But one of our officers didn’t trust the bizarre assortment of uniforms coming from the direction of the Germans and we repulsed them with cold steel and a hail of bullets.
