The Trenches (2 page)

“We have to go!” he said to me one day as we walked home from work. “I can't stand just hanging around reading about the War in the papers. I want to be out there, winning it!”

But Rob's mum felt as strongly about him not going as mine did. And so we stayed in Carlisle, getting more and more frustrated.

Around February time, posters started being put up on walls around Carlisle and leaflets put through letter boxes, all saying the same thing: “Are You A Man or A Mouse?” They were put out by Lord Lonsdale, the local lord, who had set up his own regiment for local men soon after the War started.

I read one of the posters. It said:

Are You A Man or A Mouse? Are you a man who will forever be handed down to posterity as a Gallant Patriot? Or are you to be handed down to posterity as a ROTTER and a COWARD? If you are a Man, NOW is your opportunity of proving it. Enlist at once and go to the nearest Recruiting Officer.”

Rob
had also seen the poster. “They're calling us cowards now,” he said angrily.

I knew how he felt. Sometimes I felt ashamed, walking to work, and knowing that other boys of my age were already out in Belgium fighting to defend us. Some women had been seen giving out white feathers to young men who they felt should have been out fighting on the Front. I dreaded the moment when a woman might come up and give me a white feather in the street in front of everyone.

After seeing the poster, I brooded all day at work on the whole business of going off to war. Rob must have been doing the same, because as we met up after work, Rob said suddenly: “Do you still want to join up?”

“Of course I do,” I said.

“Then let's go and do it.”

I frowned.

“What's the problem?” Rob asked. “We both want to go out there and do our bit, stop the Hun. Lord Lonsdale wants people like us.”

“My mum won't like it,” I said doubtfully. “Nor will yours.”

Rob laughed. “Then we won't tell them till we've done it,” he said. “Once we're in, they won't be able to say anything about it. And I bet you that secretly your mum will be pleased to have a soldier in the family.”

I thought about it and hoped Rob was right. Maybe once I'd joined, Mum would accept it. She wouldn't have a choice.

“
Right,” I agreed determinedly. “Let's do it.”

So that very afternoon, instead of going straight home, we went to the Recruiting Office the Lonsdale Battalion had set up in the town centre. A Recruiting Sergeant was standing guard at the door, looking very smart and straight, his boots shining, his uniform smelling of starch.

“Yes, young men,” he boomed. “What can I do for you?”

“We've come to join up,” said Rob.

“Good!” beamed the Recruiting Sergeant. “How old are you?”

“Sixteen,” said Rob.

The Sergeant looked at Rob and said, “Sorry, son, you're too young. Come back when you're nineteen.” Then he gave Rob a wink and said, “Tomorrow, eh?”

Next he turned to me and said, “And what about you?”

“I'm nineteen,” I said, thinking quickly.

“Good,” smiled the Sergeant. “Come on in. Your country needs you.”

Rob looked at me, his mouth open. For the first time in our lives I had beaten him to something. Then his face broke into a grin and he said: “I'll see you tomorrow, Billy. When I'm nineteen.”

With that, he gave me a wink, and then hurried home.

“Don't tell your mum!” I called after him. “She might tell mine and I want to tell her myself!”

“Don't worry,” he called back. “I won't.”

When
I got home, Mum was looking worried.

“Where have you been?” she demanded. “Your supper's been in the oven this whole hour, waiting for you.”

“I joined up in the army,” I said. “I'm going to fight in the War.”

Mum looked at me, shocked, and her mouth dropped open. Then she almost fell backwards on to one of the kitchen chairs so hard I thought she'd break it. Then she began to cry.

At that moment my dad came home from work. “What's up?” he asked.

“I've joined up,” I said. “I've joined the Lonsdale Battalion. I start my training the day after tomorrow.”

Dad gave me a big smile. I could tell he was proud of me. “Well done, son!” he said.

“No! You can't go!” sobbed my mum. “Harry, tell him he can't go! He's too young! He can't join up! He's under age!”

“I wasn't the only one who was under age,” I protested. “About half of the recruits who were in the Recruiting Office were under nineteen. In fact they let William Chambers join up, and he's only thirteen.”

“That's criminal!” said my mum angrily, and she burst into tears again.

“There, there,” said my dad, and he went to her and put his arm around her to cuddle her. He then gave me a wink and a nod of his head to say, “Leave this to me, son. I'll take it from here.”

I
went out and round the corner to Rob's house and told him what had happened.

“Your mum'll get over it,” he assured me. “When do you start your training?”

“Day after tomorrow,” I said. “I've got tomorrow to tell them at the Citadel Station what I'm going to do, and get packed.”

“Well don't go off to France without me,” said Rob. “You may have joined up first, but I'm going to be there with you, and I bet when we're there I get more Huns than you do.”

I don't know what Dad said to Mum, but although it didn't make her change her mind, it quietened her down. Or maybe it was just that she accepted my going. She still sniffled a lot and wiped her eyes whenever she saw me the next day, but on the whole it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be.

My brothers and sisters thought my going off to war was very exciting, and John asked me if I'd bring him back a Hun helmet as a souvenir. I promised him I'd do my best.

Rob enlisted the next day, claiming to be nineteen, and persuaded the Recruiting Sergeant that he and I needed to start our training together because we were best friends. Because the army was keen to get friends to join up together, they agreed. I had to smile at this. It was typical of Rob, being able to talk the army into letting him start training a day earlier. Anything, rather than miss out and let me be ahead of the game.

March–
April 1917

On 15 March, Rob and I began our training at Blackhall Camp, which had been set up on the racecourse just outside Carlisle. We were given uniforms of a rough, grey material with the Lonsdale's very own badge and shoulder flashes sewn on the sleeves. We were billeted in long wooden huts, with bunk-beds running along the two long walls. Rob grabbed the bottom bunk of our pair and I took the one on top.

The huts were pretty basic, just light, timber buildings, but considering they'd been put up quickly, they weren't too bad. The only thing really wrong with them was that they were cold. The walls seemed strong, but when the wind blew at night when we were asleep, it came in through the timber sheets and caused a terrible draught.

During the day we did our marching drill using wooden poles instead of rifles because we were told the soldiers at the Front needed all the rifles.

At the end of the first day, Rob looked at his pole and sniffed scornfully and said, “I hope I get a chance to practise with a real rifle before I go into battle. I don't think a wooden pole will be much use against the Hun.”

We
dug trenches and then filled them in again for three days on the trot. By the end of those three days my back and arms were killing me! It seemed so stupid to me, digging a trench just to fill it in again. One of the boys in our hut, Jed Lowe, said we had to learn how to dig trenches because that's what we'd be living in when we got to the Front. He reckoned he knew because his older brother was already out there in Flanders. He said we needed to fill the trenches in again so that the next lot of recruits would have somewhere to dig up, otherwise they wouldn't be able to practise digging. I supposed Jed knew what he was talking about, having a brother at the Front, but it still seemed a big waste of effort to me. To my mind, we should have been spending our energy fighting the Hun.

The weeks passed. We dug trenches. We filled them in again. We drilled. We marched. We drilled some more. I became an expert in handling a wooden pole and pretending it was a rifle.

It was in the middle of the third week that I was sent for by our Commanding Officer. I was puzzled, as was Rob. What had I done wrong that I was being summoned in this way?

An awful thought struck me. Had my mum gone to the authorities and complained about them taking me when I was under age? Was that what it was?

I put this to Rob, and he frowned and said it was possible.
“
The only way to find out is to go and see what he wants,” he said. That was the way with Rob. Straightforward.

Knowing he was right, but with a sinking feeling in my chest, I went to the Commanding Officer's Quarters.

Our Commanding Officer, Brigadier Reynolds, motioned me to stand at ease after I had saluted.

“Private Stevens,” he said. “I understand that you worked as a trainee telegraph operator at the Citadel Railway Station in Carlisle. Is that correct?”

I was surprised by the question. I couldn't see what it had to do with my being in the army and going to fight the Huns.

“Yes, sir!” I replied.

“In that case, it looks like we'll be losing you,” he said.

I was shocked. Did that mean I was going to be thrown out of the army? I knew that some people had what they called “reserve occupation” jobs, which meant the authorities felt it was more important that that person stayed in England to do that job rather than go and fight, but I couldn't see that a trainee telegraph operator came under that heading. How could they be losing me?

“But I want to go to France, sir!” I blurted out.

“Oh, you'll be going to France all right,” said the Brigadier. “Only not with the Lonsdale Battalion. The Engineers are desperate for men with technical experience, especially in telegraphs and communications. So, you're being assigned to the Royal Engineers, Signals.”

For
the first time since we were tiny nippers, Rob and I were split up. It was strange to be saying goodbye to him. We'd been together as best mates all our lives, living in the same area, in the same classes at school, and even working at the same place, the railway station.

“Don't worry,” grinned Rob as I packed my stuff up that evening, ready to go. “We'll meet up again on the Front. While I'm shooting Huns and winning medals and you're mending bits of broken wire.”

I forced a grin back at this, but I had to admit that what he said rankled with me. I'd joined up to fight, not to work a telegraph key, or repair signalling equipment. I could have stayed behind in Carlisle and done that.

“Huh! Don't
you
worry,” I responded. “Once I get over there I won't just be stuck working on the telegraph. As soon as the officers see how brave I am under fire I expect they'll put me up at the Front as well. I'll be shooting as many Huns as you, you can count on it.”

“I'll have a head start on you,” said Rob. “We're off the week after next.”

I thought of what lay before me then. More training. More things to learn. Meanwhile, Rob would be out there at the Front, getting all the glory.

My face must have showed how miserable I felt about it, because Rob laughed and slapped me on the back.

“Don't put on such a long face, Billy,” he grinned. “I didn't
really
mean it about getting more Hun than you. Come on, cheer up. We're all in the War together.”

“Yes, but you'll be actually
in
the War,” I said gloomily. “Me, I'll be on the edges, sending messages, just like you said.”

Next morning I went off to a camp in Yorkshire for further training to be an Engineer, while Rob carried on at Blackhall Camp.

If I thought Engineer training would be easier, I was wrong. It still meant lots of digging trenches and filling them in again, just the same as before. The difference was I had extra stuff to learn.

I already knew quite a bit about Morse code and telegraph keys from my work at the Citadel Station, plus a bit about wireless. Now I had to go to lessons to learn even more. Most of it was practical stuff, how to repair a cable, fitting connections, that sort of thing.

Most of the other blokes were like me, they'd joined up to fight and found themselves put into the Engineers because of the work they did in civilian life.

One of my new pals was a fellow called Charlie Morgan. He was from Newcastle. He worked at the railway as a telegraph operator, but, being 21, he wasn't a trainee any more but a fully trained-up operator.

I liked Charlie because he was so confident about everything. He was sure we were going to win the War. He
was
sure he was going to be rich one day. He was going to have one of the biggest houses in Newcastle. All it took was time. It was good to have someone like Charlie as a mate, it sort of took the edge off Rob not being around any more to keep things cheerful.

I spent four weeks at the Engineers Training Camp, by the end of which I could mend a telegraph cable, and dig a ditch (and fill it in again) in my sleep. During the training, six of us Engineers had palled up. As well as me and Charlie there was Ginger Smith, Wally Clarke, Danny MacDonald and Alf Tupper. Danny was just a year older than me at eighteen, Ginger was nineteen, Charlie, Wally and Alf were in their early twenties. We'd all been working on the telegraph, which gave us something in common. Plus, we'd all volunteered to go out and fight the Hun, but had all ended up in the Engineers learning how to repair telegraph and telephone cables instead, which had annoyed all of us. But, as we'd all learned during our training, orders are orders and you didn't argue. As one of our sergeants had told us during training, “When I say ‘Jump!' you don't even ask how high – you just jump! You're not in the army to ask questions!”