B00D2VJZ4G EBOK (11 page)

A man next to me in hospital once had the most brutal looking face I think I ever saw. I learnt he was ‘Young Alf,’ or some such name, a professional heavyweight. I never expect to meet a man with a kindlier outlook on men and things. His boils got well, and he was marked for convalescent camp. When he said good-bye he insisted on giving me two English pennies, ‘for remembrance,’ as he said. I knew they were all he had in the world and I determined not to part with them. But I forgot. They were spent or lost when I got back to the regiment. I rather think ‘Young Alf’ would not have forgotten.

The most awesome and in some ways most dreadful thing I ever saw was a kind of ceremonial gas attack in the autumn of 1917. We withdrew from the front line to the support trench, so that the engineers could operate on the ground between. It was a still moonlight night, one of those nights when the guns on both sides were quiet and there was nothing to show there was a war on. The attack began with a firework display of golden rain. The fireworks petered out and a line of hissing cylinders sent-a dense grey mist rolling over No Man’s Land. What breeze there was must have been exactly right for the purpose. But the unusual silence, the serene moonlit sky, and that creeping cloud of death and torment made a nightmare scene I shall never forget.

It seemed ages before Jerry realized what was afoot. At last, however, the first gas alarm went and I think most of us were glad to think he would not be taken unawares. Presently the gongs and empty shell-cases and bars of steel were beating all along his front, almost as though he was welcoming in the New Year. But I was haunted for hours afterwards by the thought of what was happening over there. Sympathy was blown sky-high the next night, however. We were going out to rest and shortly before the relieving troops were due Jerry started one of the fiercest barrages I ever experienced. The relief could not come up. The trenches were crowded with men all packed up and unable to go, and it rained-heavens, how it rained! Hour after hour we stood there in the rising flood, helpless as sheep in the pen, while the guns did their worst.

It was six in the morning before we got back to the rest billets, more dead than alive. Even then there was no rest for me. I was detailed to parade for battalion guard in four hours. Battalion guard was a spit and polish business, and a full day would not have sufficed to remove nine days’ mud from my uniform and clean my saturated equipment. A scarecrow guard of deadly tired men eventually paraded. We had done our best to get clean, but neither the sergeant-major nor the adjutant, both looking fresh and beautiful, applauded our efforts. Very much the contrary, in fact. But we were all past caring what they thought or said about our appearance.

The next time I went into the line a spot of gas sent me out of it for good. I did not know American troops were in France till I found myself in one of their hospitals at Etretat. The nurses and doctors were gentle beyond anything I ever experienced. I could only account for it by thinking they must regard my case as hopeless, and when I found a large white bow pinned on my bed there seemed no room for doubt. I got rather light-headed and fancied my obsequies had already begun in the hustling fashion of the Americans. But the white bow only meant that I was on milk diet.

A week later I was in Blighty, the soldier’s Promised Land. Six months afterwards I appeared in the streets again as a civilian with a profound hatred for war and everything it implies.

Private Harold Saunders enlisted in the 14th London (London Scottish) in November 1915, and went to France with the 2nd Battalion in June 1916. When the 60th Division left France for Salonika he was left behind with a septic heel. He was transferred to the 1st Battalion, and was with them till a whiff of gas at Cambrai completed the wreck in October 1917. He was finally discharged April 1918
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I am not what is termed a literary man, so I shall have a little difficulty in clearly expressing myself, but I have had some experiences as a flight sergeant in the Royal Air Force which may prove interesting. I will, therefore, do my best with a poor stock of words to give an accurate account of my experience in the Great War in a kite balloon on the Vimy Ridge sector of the line. I shall not give the name of the officer who was observing in the balloon with me, but I will give the first initial of his surname, so that if he reads this, he may recognize himself.

In the early part of May 1916, before the big Vimy Ridge battle, in the morning soon after sunrise the balloon ascended with Lieutenant H. and myself to about 5,000 feet. Everything was at peace except an anti-aircraft gun showing evident anger at an annoying mosquito that was buzzing over enemy country. That bark was the only sound that made one realize that a tragic war was on. For people with jaded nerves who are perplexed with the ceaseless hurry, bustle and noise of modern life, I recommend a few hours up aloft in a kite balloon as a tonic and respite from its cares and worries. There is a charming and attractive calm and quietness about the experience that is recuperative and restful.

Of course this is not recommended whilst there is a war on, because the clouds can harbour unseen, unknown terrors and instruments of destruction. For instance, the enemy developed an astonishing accuracy in shelling kite balloons with shrapnel, I have had some uncomfortable half-hours with this kind of attack. This morning in May one shell burst towards our balloon, only one, but it left us guessing as to when the next would be sent over, for the enemy rarely let us off with only one try, but this morning he did. He was kind to us that day.

Our object on this morning was to locate a very annoying gun that kept everybody in our sector of the front on tenterhooks by its back-area firing – a nasty irritating business. We nicknamed the gun ‘Ginger,’ and its explosive crumps gave everyone the jumps. A hollow bang would faintly be heard in the distance, and, before you could count two, with a terrific whoop and crump, a high explosive shell would burst near.

I remember our sergeant-major getting terribly upset over this gun; we were at a part of the line, taken over from the French, called Bois de Ville, and our sleeping accommodation consisted of a lot of holes covered over with brushwood, mud and sandbags, and one went down three steps into it. One night ‘Ginger’ was particularly active; and ‘Molly’ M., our sergeant-major, could not sleep, but remained wandering about from one side of the small dug-out to the bottom step of the entrance, where he would fearfully look out. He did that once too often, for, with a roar and a crump, a shell exploded just outside our dug-out, and ‘Molly,’ with just his head showing, caught a drift of lyddite smoke from that shell that made him look like a nigger minstrel. He fled. We heard no more of him until our motor-cyclist reported having seen him running for dear life, with blazing and staring eyes, and a foaming and muttering mouth.

Poor old ‘Molly’! It became particularly hard for him, after telling us all on parade at home, ‘Now come on, you lazy lot of buzzers, lep, rite, lep, rite, faster, faster. When you get the other side and have a nine-point-two on your backsides, you’ll hop it quick enough.’

Poor old ‘Molly’! If he had gone to bed with Sergeant Tom B. and me he would have been all right; it was pure funk after all, for he never got a scratch otherwise.

We were out to locate this gun, but for a long time Lieutenant H. and I did not trouble much about guns. We were too enraptured with the glorious sunrise. It was wonderful, marvelous – words fail me to express what I felt. I felt very near to what some people call the infinite, whatever they may mean, or, as some may say, near to God, but whatever it was I was thinking and feeling, I began to realize in some dim way that to be absorbed in a vision of unutterable beauty is a fine experience. I was thinking that it was good to have been born, just to experience that one thing. I thought of many other things in a rambling sort of way…

Bang! like a big drum being struck. Swish-rip-a sighing whistle, a noise, or rather a shriek like the tearing of some gigantic piece of canvas. Christ! What’s happened? Gee! the balloon has burst. It had collapsed about us, and we were coming down. I desperately struggled to push away the fabric of the balloon from the basket, and suddenly from underneath the mountain of fabric, I glimpsed the white face of Lieutenant H. ‘We must jump,’ he said. I agreed with him, and immediately dived over head first, and nearly dived through my harness. It had no shoulder straps, only a waistband and loops for one’s legs. Never shall I forget that sickening horrible sensation when, in my first rush through the air, I felt my leg loops at the knees, and my waistband round my buttocks. I managed, however, to grab hold of the thick rope which is toggled on from the waistband to the parachute. Meanwhile, everything else seemed to go wrong; the cords of the parachute somehow in the struggle got entangled round my neck, so that as the parachute began to open with a deadly pull on my body, I was literally being strangled in mid-air.

The sensation was horrible and unforgettable; my face seemed to swell to twice its size, and my eyeballs to become too big for their sockets. Then I was suddenly freed, and could breathe again, but my neck was badly lacerated and raw. My bad luck was not over, however, because I was suddenly pulled up with a sharp jerk that jarred every bone in my body. I had fouled the cable which held the balloon to the winch, and my parachute had, in striking it, coiled itself round about three or four times. Suspended in mid-air! I remained in that helpless position for what seemed like hours, and I looked down, and saw Lieutenant H., his parachute getting smaller and smaller. Then I slowly began to unwind – round and round I went like a cork, and broke away with a rush, the silk of my parachute being torn almost across, and I began hurtling down at a great speed, with my damaged and useless parachute flap, flap, flapping above me. I thought it was all up with me. I had seen a couple of parachute accidents, and I knew what to expect. I could do nothing but curse at the damned bad luck I was having. I have read that face after face of one’s friends and scenes of one’s past haunt one when in danger. It is perfectly true, because I actually experienced it.

Crash! I had shut my eyes, I thought I had struck the ground. No; in a slanting, rushing dive, I had struck poor old H.’s parachute, and the force of my fall had caused his parachute to collapse. ‘Sorry,’ I shouted. One had to shout I remember, for the wind seemed to be blowing a gale, although actually it was a calm, sunny day. ‘Sorry, but I couldn’t help it.’ ‘It’s all right, old man,’ he shouted, ‘but couldn’t you find some other bloody patch to fall on? Millions of bloody acres about you, yet you must pick me to fall on.’ ‘It looks like finish,’ he continued. It did.

Suddenly his parachute began to bellow out with a flapping roar, tumbling me off like a feather, but I was too inextricably bound up with his cords to shoot away altogether; incidentally, I was hanging like grim death to something or other. What it was I don’t know, but I imagine it was about half a dozen of his parachute cords. And so we landed, two on one parachute. At least, I landed first, because I seemed to slip down just before we landed, and he landed full weight on top of me.

I know nothing of what happened immediately after, but I heard subsequently that we had landed almost on the support trenches, and scores of Canadians had rushed out and gathered round us, and that the enemy thought it was a fine opportunity to drop a few shells around.

Flight-Sergeant W.S. Lewis served with the R. F.C. and R.A.F. from June 1915 to March 1919. A good deal of that time was spent in France on the Vimy Ridge sector. He entered the Civil Service in May 1919 and is now an established civil servant
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On Sunday, May 21st, 1916, the battalion was in camp at Camblain-l‘Abbe, behind Vimy Ridge. Recent spells in the line had been quiet, the weather was warm and sunny, and everyone was in good spirits. I was on camp-cleaning fatigue, but, the camp being in a good condition, there was nothing to do beyond picking up an odd piece of paper or two. After dinner most of the men settled down in the huts to sleep or write letters; it was all very pleasant and happy, something like Sunday at home.

During the afternoon, when I happened to be near the officers’ hut, the company commander put his head out of a window (he was having a bath) and told me to let him know at once if any message came from Battalion Headquarters. I did not think much about the matter and, so far as I knew, no message came. About five o’clock we sat down to tea. In my hut we had just drawn our rations from the dixies when the company commander appeared at the door and said in a strange voice, ‘Pack up immediately! Pack up immediately!’ We swallowed our tea, put on our equipment and fell in outside. In half an hour the battalion was on the road, marching in the direction of the line. When we met the other companies it was obvious from the faces of officers and men that something serious was afoot. The old hands, I suppose, guessed what was coming, but to me it was all new.

We came to the hamlet of Villers-au-Bois, and there rested in a field for perhaps an hour in the evening sunlight. The officers went away to receive orders. When they came back we took the road once more, my company leading the battalion.

As we left the hamlet some Engineers ran across the road in front of us and climbed a bank on the side, apparently to get a better view of something. One of them shouted to his comrades as we passed, ‘This way for the orchestra stalls!’ Emerging from a belt of trees, we saw what they were looking at. Across a level stretch of country, two or three miles wide, we saw the Ridge. I do not suppose that it is much of a height as hills go, but it dominated the landscape at all times, and that evening it was as awful a sight as could be imagined. From end to end it was covered with a thick cloud of grey smoke, lit here and there by the twinkling flashes of shell-bursts. Seen across that peaceful-looking countryside it seemed unreal, fantastic, but there was no one so new to warfare that he did not know what it meant.