Читать книгу: «To Fight Alongside Friends: The First World War Diaries of Charlie May», страница 2
David Crane
February 2014
Prologue
‘A pippy, miserable blighter’
7–10 November 1915
Lark Hill,i 7th November ’15
I am going to commence this book this evening because now I have seen you for the last time before going abroad and I will therefore be unable to make [a] personal confession to you again for some time to come.
I arrived back here depressed from my leave-taking from you and Baby and found little to ease the sadness of my soul. More than half our fellows are out and the mess is full of the 23rd men, come over to say ‘goodbye’.ii You know how little I love them and tonight they put me in no mood to reconsider my affection. Some are singing ragtime with deplorably poor success, whilst the remainder talk ‘shop’ in loud and raucous tones. They are hateful people and I wish they would go home and allow us to make our final arrangements in peace and quietude.
Our kits have all to be on the transport wagons by 6.15 a.m. tomorrow and we follow on Tuesday. I will be jolly glad when we get on the move, as will all the rest of our fellows. We believe we are bound for St Omer. I wonder!
I wrote to you this evening but not at length because I could not. I’m such a pippy, miserable blighter that it would be a sin to convey it to you, and just when you will want bracing up.
Guillet was in this afternoon with his bride.iii They looked very well and appeared very happy. It quite reminded me of our honeymoon. By gad, my sweetheart, what happiness has been ours! It seems wonderful to me to look back upon.
8th November ’15
Had a final inspection of the men this morning, checking rifles and bayonets principally. They will get them mixed up though their innocence of any such thing is simply sublime. I had to ‘strafe’ them a bit come the last and have promised them the most diabolical punishments if they get up to the same tricks at the front. They seemed rather pleased than otherwise. But they are like that. Promise them a regular hell of a time in France and you can’t please them better. Their keenness to go is marvellous and I trust it will hold when they get there. They are topping fellows and I do hope we can bring the most of them back with us.
This afternoon the CO declared a half holiday as B and C Company were playing off the battalion final at soccer.iv It was ‘some’ match. Rivalry ran terrifically high and we all expect to hear of several fights tonight. B lost 1–nil. It was a splendid game, the best any of us have seen on the Plain. The men were simply wild about it, and I am afraid it cost a certain company commander, who ought to have known better, rather more hard cash than he cares to think about in cold blood.v
The mess is in great form tonight. Everyone is in except the CO, Merriman and Knudsen,vi who are all three spending this last evening with their wives. They have their farewells yet to do. I do not envy them, poor chaps, nor their womenfolk. Mrs Knudsen was up at the match this afternoon and I got her to give the prizes. She came into the mess afterwards and wished us all goodbye. It was rather an ordeal for her. We promised to bring [her husband] back safely for her and I sincerely trust we shall.
All our fellows are in hilarious mood, singing and joking no end. They are a grand lot and as I look at them I can’t help feeling proud of our old battalion and the men who’ve made it. They are all so clean-cut and English as you know so well, my own, I feel confident they’ll go when the chance comes. Please God the 22nd may carry the old Regiment’s name another rung up the ladder of fame.
They have me on to make a bit of a speech tonight at mess when proposing the King’s health. I wish they wouldn’t do these things. It is one of the chief trials a senior officer has to face. I always make such a hash of speeches. Go red and hum & hah and generally look a perfect ass. However, ‘faint heart never won fat turkey’, so I shall have to go through with it.
All the transport has gone now with the machine gun[s] etc. Our kit has been taken with the former so we are reduced to what we stand up in and must endure the horrors of a floor-board couch for the first time for some months. There is some proverb about hard work softening the roughest couch, I believe. I am unfortunate. I have had an easy day.
9th November ’15
We have not gone yet. That is the one and only item to be recorded today … Yet how near we were!
The right half Battalion paraded and marched off at 11.40 a.m. and had progressed as far as 600 [yards] from camp when a whistle blew and we were recalled.
How flat we felt and how everyone swore!
I understand that the bad weather in the Channel is the reason for the delay. It breaks the mines loose and you run on them and get blown to blazes.
I am sorry for the rest of the Brigade.vii It has already preceded us and I can picture whole regiments lying in puddles on the quayside with only the howl of the wind and the pattering rain-drops to sing them a lullaby. That sounds quite melodramatic. But I bet it is all that and more for the poor beggars.
We now go tomorrow at 5.30 a.m. Reveille 3.30. Bow-wow! It is hardly worth going to bed and I wouldn’t but that I had so little slumber last night.
The men I am afraid won’t sleep at all. They are now busy singing, ‘When this b..... war is over we’ll be there …’ I am afraid some of them will get drunk, which will mean a rotten tour in the morning dark for company officers. That, however, is all in the game.
Countess Brownlowviii has sent all the mess little pocket writing pads today. Very neat and very welcome. I am exceedingly pleased with mine. It was just the thing I wanted but couldn’t find. I have already written you the first note on it and have no doubt but that I will finish the pad on you, my dear girlie.
I wonder what you are doing tonight and of what you are thinking. My darling soul, when shall we meet again. When will the time come that we can once more set up our home and recommence our life of utter happiness. Ah, Maudie, how little I realised where happiness lay till this old war came along and it was denied me. How limited is a man’s mind. It does not allow him to enjoy life in the present but only to realise what moments have meant to him by looking back on them when they have passed. At any rate it has been so with me.
8.45 p.m. Fresh orders have just arrived. The 5.30 a.m. idea is now off and we do not move till 11.40. Thank heaven for its mercies and also for the forethought which led me to sneak the Second-in-Command’s blankets after he had left yesterday. I look like having a warm night’s sleep after all.
10th November ’15
At last we are under way. But our journey is destined not to be a straightforward one.ix
We came like birds as far as Folkestone, even to the pier of that town. But there we stopped. A Scotch major met us with the announcement that the Channel is closed and that we must stop the night in Folkestone billets.
A long march out into the night is the result with a longer halt on the Leasx where the wind blows chill and people say nasty things about the Army in whispers. The men were great. Never a murmur out of them after they had been warned that all was to be treated as night operations.
Our billets were eventually allotted and we got the fellows into several large empty houses – 150 in each. They are right as trivets.xi We officers dropped on a top-hole billet also. A large boarding house where guests were non est before our advent.xii
They hunted up steak and chips for us and what with this and a whiskey and soda to wash it down, we are happy as bugs in a blanket and quite satisfied with the war up to now. Don Murray, D. S. Murrayxiii and myself share a room where we have sheets and a cheval glass.xiv Corn in Egypt, I have not known such luxury since I left you, my sweetheart, and it has a most heartening effect upon one.
Especially is this so after my journey down. I came with Major Merriman and he, poor fellow, is rather depressing. I think he is obsessed with the idea that he is going to be shot. He is rather mournful about everything. I am no good in that attitude. The rest of the boys are so bright, God bless them. And yet I have no doubt but what the chances are the same for all of us.
If we don’t get away tomorrow I am going to try and find Miss Carey’sxv and see her for you. I’d be tickled to death to meet her after all you have told me of her.
Chapter 1
‘And all because it is war!’
11–27 November 1915
11th November ’15
At last we are in France! We had no word in Folkestone of what they wanted us to do until 3 p.m. Then it came in a hurry that we were to embark at 4 p.m. A rush and a hurry and then the job was done, the whole battalion getting aboard intact. It was a good passage till about ten minutes out from here but then we ran into the rain.i At 3.30 p.m. the battalion finally sailed, with destroyer escort, for Boulogne.
What rain! Bow-wow. And it must have been going all day. They have put us into tents on the top of a hill and the whole place is a quag with running streams feet deep all about it.ii
We are soaked to the skin and cheery as the devil. Cotton, Don Murray, Bowlyiii and myself are in one tent all cuddled up close together for warmth. 10.20 p.m.
Townsendiv has just poked his head under the flap and asked for shelter. The CO’s tent has blown down and its three occupants are hunting for homes. We have taken Towny in and he is now cheerily pessimistic, wondering why he joined the Army and expressing the wish that his mother could see him now.
We are a happy party, even though wet.
My stars, what strange creatures men are. Six months ago and half these fellows would have been half dead with less than half this dampness and now here we are happy as Larry and busily preparing for sleep. And all because it is war!
12th November ’15, 8.10 a.m.
What a night it has been! Rain in torrents and a gale which sent the camp dustbins hurtling along the ground to fetch up with a bang against the sides of various tents, the occupants of which thereupon effectively contrived to make the night yet more hideous by heartfelt and lurid cursing.
Twice we had to get up and re-peg down our frail home, but at length we got it more or less secure and were able to get to sleep.
The men have stood it very well and everyone is cheerful this morning in the chill, dry breeze.
We officers are being cared for in the Salvation Army hut where the two young women in charge have proved good Samaritans indeed, getting Bowly and myself hot tea and some warm water wherein to wash. We already had gruesome shaves in our tents and now feel fit as fiddles.
I believe we leave here at 9.30 for a 48 hours train journey.v We hear a rumour we go to the Argonne. If so, the St Omer tale falls heavily to earth.
[Later]
Neither Argonne nor St Omer has materialized but we are here, off the beaten track, but close to Amiens and within thirty miles of the new Arras front, for which we are destined. We have had a truly awful day. It has, of course, rained but that is a minor evil now. The train journey was slow and uncomfortable but at length we got to Pont-Remy. There we started to march and there the fun began. The men were beat. A night with no sleep and soaked to the skin they had little heart for a twelve mile slog, overloaded as they were.
Then the guides took us three miles wrong and we had to about turn just at dusk. No one knew where we were for or how to get there, the guides being a pair of damn fools. However, the CO got us right at last and we went slowly forward again.
I handed B over to Don Murray and was sent to the rear with the doctor.vi Don Murray did well. He is a good chap for his job.
The Doc & I have had an appalling time.vii He is a regular nailer is the Doc and I admire him from the bottom of my heart.
The men fell out in bunches till at last we were left on an open plain with 60 footsore men, separated from the battalion and utterly lost.
I bet there will be some grey hairs to show for the night’s adventure. The men were so done that they sneaked away from us and hid where they could lie down in the wet and sleep. We dug ’em out and booted them on and in the end we got here, bringing every straggler with us.viii
I hope I may long be spared a similar tour.
Don & I are now billeted in a large French house from which the family is absent, and are happy as Larry now the day is over.
13th November ’15
A busy and a good day. It has not rained. Let that be noised abroad. Our village is small and poor on the whole but we have sorted out good billets for both officers and men. The latter for the most part are in lofts and barns with plenty of dry, warm straw to lie on.
They are well fed and rested & the trying tour of yesterday is now only a memory to be talked about to wondering friends and relatives when the war is over and the beer of peace foams in the pewters in the hostel of their local village.
Don Murray and I are in clover.ix This billet is all right. And we have turned the dining room into the Coy mess room, a purpose it serves admirably. We are all foregathered in it this evening writing letters etc. and are a cheery party. Murray, Bowly, Cotton, Shelmerdine and Prince are all here.x Young Shel did jolly well yesterday, so Murray tells me. He is our Mess President and is full of eggs and the price of fowls at the moment.
I have put your photo and Baby’s on the mantelpiece in our mess and they look jolly homely, my sweetheart. Tonight I have written you and am mighty glad to say I had two letters and a watch case from you last night.
This village is quite quaint and its inhabitants more so. For the most part they are hairy, dirty, baggy-breeched and in sabots. They have not had the English before but they evince no interest at all. Seemingly they have no interest left in life than the driving of an odd cow or two out on to the hillside to graze. Poor devils. I always understood the French were characteristically clean and neat. But I am sure you could not find a village in England where the occupants are so really grubby.
My bed I must put on record. It is wooden framed, stands against a wall and has a mattress over a foot thick. There is a lovely soft pillow and a warm quilt. The fat pillow arrangement which lies on top I have cast aside because I mistrust it. It looks as though it might work on to your face and try to smother you. Over this massive arrangement hang heavy, cretonne curtains, flowered with a mystic red and yellow flower. I think this must be native to France. Certainly I never saw such a repulsive species of flora in the British Empire. It has its advantages however because the sight of it makes me hot – and warmth is very desirable in this chilled atmosphere.
14th November ’15
Sunday. Church parade at 10 a.m. in an old, broken-down Church with nothing inside it save damp and mildew.xi
Afterwards, we toured the Coy billets and had to strafe some of the men for having them untidy. For the most part, though, they were quite good although a lot of the men are pretty sorry for themselves, thinking straw but a poor bed. They may, however, be thankful they are doing so well and I have no doubt will fully realise this before we are many months older. Many of them realise it now and are thoroughly enjoying themselves while they may.
Prince is laid up with bad neuralgia and toothache. The day before yesterday cracked him up and he is pretty dicky today. I am very nervous about him because, as you know, I never thought him strong and I am afraid he will prove a weakness if we have hard slogging to do. It is a pity, because he is such a good boy when he is in form.
We have had Bethmann, our interpreter, to lunch today. He is a very decent chap and works hard. We like him. Also he is a good man to keep in with because he has all the arranging of billets etc. – and B Company is not averse to a decent billet when one is going.
We strolled around the village this afternoon and thoroughly explored it. On the top of the hill east of the place there is a great crucifix hanging over in the wind and looking very desolate and sad. Just below it is a hovel or two standing in its attendant heap of manure. These heaps are the chief – at any rate they are the most obtrusive – features of the landscape. They assail the nostrils at every turn and are prolific to a degree. Every house has one, and the bigger the house the larger its heap. Pride of place seems to go with the magnitude of one’s dung-heap. Every man to his own taste, of course. This one, however, certainly strikes a mild outsider like myself as strange.xii
Doc, who is Scotch, calls these heaps ‘middens’ and curses them unceasingly. He swears we will all die of typhoid if we remain here a week. The well from which the battalion water is drawn he looks upon as chief drain to the collective ‘middens’ and he chlorides of lime like fury. The well, by the way, only fills a dicksie (two galls.) in four minutes, and since it takes about 100 dicksies per day to make tea for the battalion and another 100 or so to fill the watercarts, you will understand that everyone does not look on the well with the same degree of antagonism as does the Doc. It is a splendid thing to put a defaulter on to. One day’s turning of that handle will cure a man of the most divers evils.
15th November ’15
The ground was white as far as one could see this morning with the bare trunks standing out black against it and the frosty sunlight glistening on the snow. Three inches had fallen in the night to the sorrow of all save sundry small boys who whooped and bellowed outside my window and threw snowballs at everyone and became a general nuisance.
The battalion went out for a route march under Seconds-in-Command, leaving Coy commanders with fatigue parties to try and get their houses in order. It was a problem fraught with many pitfalls for the unwary. My own especial bête noir was drainage.
This village is innocent of any such modern fastidiousness as a sewer. Indeed everything drains back on you, not away as any ignorant Anglican might suppose.
I have seen sinks dug, planned gutters here and erected dams there, and striven generally and with moderate profanity till the impossible has been achieved. Water has been persuaded beyond a higher level and my cookers now stand on a more or less dry foreshore.
Also we have dug a bath and built seats round it and a soak-hole for the water which is no longer pellucid. So altogether we have progressed and, so encouraged, I begin to feel some confidence that, did we remain here long enough, the mud might be persuaded to leave the village street.
Dear, old, tax-ridden, law-abiding England! How I would delight to see one of your wolf-nosed sanitary inspectors turned loose in this, our Brucamps.xiii How you would sniff, how snort, how elevate your highly educated proboscis! How you would storm, how shriek and how summons! And how masterly indifferent would our grubby people be of you, how little would they be impressed, how hopelessly insane they would think you, and what grave danger there would be of a second Revolution if you or any untold number of you essayed to remove from them their beloved dung-heaps.
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