Authors: Richard Holmes
Tommy (49 page)
For most soldiers the base remained a staging post between Blighty and the unit. Even if they went forward from the base rebadged and in drafts to a new regiment, they generally adjusted to their new identities quite easily. There were sometimes teething troubles, especially in the case of officers who were âattached' to their new units rather than formally commissioned into them. I. G. Andrew was commissioned into the Cameronians after surviving Loos as a lance corporal in the Cameron Highlanders. He blew his £50 uniform grant on khaki doublet and Douglas trews made by the best tailor in Glasgow, regarding it as âan extravagance I never lived to regret.' However, after his turn in the bullring early in 1916 he found himself posted, with some other Scots officers, to a Staffordshire battalion which had lost heavily on the Somme. Its commanding officer told the newcomers to dress as Englishmen, but they held a meeting and refused, as was their right. The wise adjutant put it more mildly, as a request, and while âwe objected to being ordered to divest ourselves of our emblems, we didn't mind being asked'. Andrew was wounded going up the line not long afterwards and then posted back to the Cameronians, so doublet and trews earned their pay after all.
238
Units out of the line but within earshot of its monotonous rumble generally lived in billets. The pattern of accommodation resembled that of the staff, with large farms holding a company or two, or whole battalions scattered across big villages or in small towns, or in rest camps behind busy sections of the front like Ypres or the Somme. Camps were sometimes comfortable. In November 1917 Frank Dunham's battalion was: âmarched to Aubrey Camp, situated on the roadside between Roclincourt and Arras â¦Â Our camp was compact and cosy, and for the first time were were in what were known as “Cupola huts” or “Nissen huts”. These had wooden floors and were quite wind- and weatherproof.'
239
But before Nissen huts became general there were some less attractive buildings, as Lieutenant V. F. Eberle discovered:
We have fetched up in a so-called camp. To get in or out of it we have to walk through liquid mud which in places comes over the top of our boots. We occupy skeleton-framed greasy huts of wood with old canvas stretched over it. The floor consists of greasy mud. At 4am this morning steady streams of water descended on eight recumbent forms â came snorts and cussing as they rose and gazed at the descending rivulets. Then somebody laughed and the situation was saved. Everything has become wintry and wet now; sheets of rain and all around us a sea of mud.
240
However, many infantrymen preferred the worst camp to the best trench. Bernard Livermore thought that:
Our rest camps in that beautiful wood at St Eloi [behind Vimy Ridge] seemed like paradise after hell. We slept for hours in long huts with tiers of chicken-wire beds. We spent the next day clearing up, washing ourselves and our filthy shirts, socks and pants. A good breeze dried them sufficiently to make them wearable again. Our puttees and trousers were caked with dry clay and required hard brushing (with our hairbrushes) to recondition them. Letters and parcels were distributed â¦Â These brief holidays at Mont St Eloi were most welcome after spells in the line, but passed all too quickly. If we were not practising some stunt for the future, we had plenty of fatigue work to keep us occupied. We were usually tired by the end of the day, but it was good to climb into the tiers of beds, with chicken-wire mattresses, and wonderful to be able to take off our heavy boots before we settled down to kip.
241
Billets were arranged through the French liaison officers, attached to each unit, who worked with British billeting officers. John Reith gives a good idea of how the system worked early in the war:
The Battalion was billeted in the villages of Helfaut and Tilques. Transport in the former. We set our carts in two rows on a kind of village green, the horses were picketed, watered and fed, and I went along to the local
mairie
where Battalion HQ had been established. I was handed a slip of paper:
âCommune d'Helfaut. Rue Camp. Maison de Mdlle Obert, Julia. Nombre d'officiers à loger, 2 Nombre d'hommes â Nombre de chevaux â 7. 11. 14. Le Maire, E. Meynin.'
And on the top âLieut Reith, Lieut Workman.' The house indicated was a small farm on the edge of the green.
242
The system did not always work this smoothly, as Lieutenant Roe discovered.
We arrived in the pouring rain after dark one evening. Our billeting officer pointed to a farm area and pointed out where we were to spend the night, only to be told that some other unit had got there first. Our claim having been jumped, there was no other sheltered accommodation available â¦Â All the remonstrations of our billeting officer and our natural indignation were of no avail, so we just marched into an orchard.
243
The inexperienced Second Lieutenant Guy Chapman was sent ahead by rail to prepare a billeting plan for his battalion, 13/Royal Fusiliers.
At length â¦Â our train came to a considered halt â¦Â I was given a bicycle and told to follow the brigade billeting officer. We rode in silence down silent roads, colourless, wreathed in mist. At last at the entrance to a village he dismounted. âThis is Nortlenlinghem. You've got the whole village. Put your men where you like and don't wake the
mairie.' â¦
I walked to the crossroads and in the waking dawn looked up and down. Everywhere there was silence; not even a cock crowed. Faint misgivings as to whether I was or was not in the war zone beset me. It was better to be on the safe side. Unbuttoning my holster and loosening my revolver I strode into Nortlenlinghem and began to explore. A charming village with well-built houses and barns. Trees heavy with fruit bowed over walls â¦Â A lean cat came out, yawned and was friendly. A dog broke into passionate yelps. I chalked signs and numbers on doors. Still not a gun fired, not a rifle. Where was this fabled war? At last there was the sound of marching feet and the battalion came in sight. I reported to the adjutant.
244
Private Anthony French remembered that his billeting officer was âa young and case-hardened lieutenant of exceptional thoroughness', who would move ahead of the battalion with his party, chalking numbers on doors.
When the head of the column entered the village he would be standing there on the crown of the road, arm pointing significantly to billet number one. The first platoon would wheel mechanically towards it. Then the leaders of the next platoon would follow his steps with expressionless eyes and wait for his arm to be raised. And so till the last small group, the men who had fallen by the way but were still afoot, still in step, dragging one foot behind the other.
245
Private Harry Ogle describes the process of moving into one of the big farms that dotted the landscape like âweights on a green picnic cloth'. His battalion was marching at ease, pipes and fags on, and rifles anyhow, until it approached its destination and formality descended.
The order has just been given to march to attention and the platoon wheels and marches in. As the farmyard within is occupied by the manure pit, a pump and a dog kennel, they halt in the passage. âNumber Twelve Platoon, halt. Left turn. Your billet is the barn in front of you. The garden and the orchard behind it at the gable end of the house and behind it is out of bounds. The pump must NOT be used for drinking, but it has other uses. The water cart is at Company headquarters just across the road you marched in by and its water must NOT be used for washing. Company cooker and stores are in the same yard. I have instructed Sergeant Talbot to see that any serious cases of sore feet or toes must go for treatment to Sergeant Major Cooper who will be at Company Headquarters at Seven pip-emma [signalese for pm]. And WASH 'EM first! â¦'
The platoon streams in through a side door in the passage â¦Â As the men enter, one of the corporals stands by the door. âHunt and Hurslton, orderly men. Rogers and Ogle, draw rations. Foss, Lines, Parsons and Wallsgrove, blankets.' In the barn the men are dumping or hanging up their equipment. âShears, save a place for me â here's my stuff â I'm off for the char.' âRight-oh, Eric' Shearsby pulls out Hunt's groundsheet, spreading it out with one end against the timber wall-sill. Then he places the equipment, pack and all, at its head and folds the groundsheet over it to keep it clean and allow movement on the floor. Private Teed unrolls his to full length, removes his puttees and loosens his boot-laces, then lies with his head on his pack, blissfully inhaling the smoke of a Woodbine. Just then Lance Corporal Plummer comes in saying, âThere's an old piece of tarpaulin over in Headquarters yard and it'll just do to stretch over those little holes in the wall. Come with me, Artie, and I'll show you before the guard's mounted!'
Meanwhile orderly men and ration carriers are crossing the road with the big black Dixie of tea and soon they are heard shouting, âTea up! Char!' By the time they enter the barn the platoon is ready with mess-tins or enamelled mugs. Before they are all served the blanket men arrive with their rolls of ten and throw them down while they get their tea.
246
Billets came in infinite variety. In one barn Ernest Parker's comrades discovered âan enormous barrel of cider. Round the barn hung great clusters of apples, while the next building in the village displayed an ancient rusty sign inviting us to sample the beverages of France.'
247
Frank Hawkings, in a part-ruined village closer to the line, helped convert a damaged house in the Belgian village of Voormezeele into a guardroom.
We have selected a café on the other side of the road, the outside of which we spent the morning fortifying with barrels of rubble. It has no roof, but the upper floor still exists. This afternoon we roamed about the village, looting furniture for the guardroom, and now, I must say, it looks very comfortable with carpets, easy chairs, pictures and tapestries on the walls and in one corner we have a pedestal on which is a large vase of roses.
248
Lieutenant Roe once found his âbillet and the platoon office in the local public house, the saloon bar having been cleared to make this possible'.
249
Gerald Burgoyne described a March 1915 billet which was far less welcoming:
The farmer and his wife curmudgeons, everything filthy; we slept in our âflea bags' in preference to the dirty, filthy bed in the room. The farmer's wife won't lend us a brush to sweep the floor, or to clean up, and everything is perfectly beastly. We managed to get a bit of bread from one of our men, and we had some cocoa with us, so we had a meal of sorts, of cocoa, bread and butter and jam and a slab of very heavy rich iced cake. However, even that did not spoil our sleep. We turned in just after 2 am I woke at about 6 am and dozed off till 10 am when I forced my servant to bring me a bucket of hot water, and I wanted it as I am getting itchy in my arms and am âafeerd'.
250
Later the same month Burgoyne reported of another billet that: âthe three other officers of my company and myself sleep and live in a tiny room 13 feet by 12 feet. On the floor are a double mattress and a single mattress (for Father) and the boy sleeps in a corner huddled up in a teaspoon of straw. However, he is young and has only just joined.'
251
Officers might eat in a single battalion officers' mess, but often the companies were too widely spread to permit it and they messed by companies instead. Regular officers such as Walter Nicholson and Rowland Feilding preferred battalion messes, arguing that it was hard for a commanding officer to keep an eye on his officers if they messed by companies, and in a small company mess casualties could have a particularly dispiriting impact. Gunner officers, their batteries habitually more widely spread than infantry companies, usually messed by batteries. Subalterns generally preferred smaller messes because of their relative informality. When Julian Tyndale-Biscoe returned to France in 1917 after being wounded, he was accommodated in an artillery brigade mess, whose secretary announced: âI want all my officers to wear moustaches and not look like a lot of smooth-faced flunkies.' âI am afraid I can't oblige him,' wrote Tyndale-Biscoe, âunless I wear a false one.'
252
When Robert Graves joined 2/Royal Welch Fusiliers another subaltern warned him that:
Only officers of the rank of captain are allowed to drink whisky or turn on the gramophone. We've got to jolly well keep still and look like furniture. It's just like peacetime: mess bills are very high; the mess was in debt at Quetta last year, so they're economising now to pay that back. We get practically nothing for the money but the ordinary rations, and we aren't allowed to drink the whisky.
253
Accounts of life in these company and battery messes run like a solid thread through officers' letters and diaries. P.J. Campbell, not long out of school, had served an unhappy apprenticeship in an ammunition column before joining his first field brigade and being posted to one of its batteries. He was warned ânot to take any liberties' with Edward, the senior subaltern, such as âcalling him by his Christian name for one thing, he keeps that for his friends'. Campbell had arrived to replace an officer who had been killed, and Edward resented the fact that âI had usurped the place that Geoffrey had once had. I was riding his horse â¦Â sleeping in his bed, sitting in his place in the mess.'
254
Another new officer, Josh (regarded as an old man at thirty-two), was married, and was endlessly questioned by the other subalterns, virgins to a man, as to how one actually went about sex.
When C. P. Blacker joined 2/Coldstream Guards from the 4th Battalion in 1918 he was posted to No. 1 Company.