Forgotten Voices of the Somme (10 page)

Lieutenant Norman Collins

6th Battalion, Seaforth Highlanders

I had a lance corporal, called
Meekle, and we were ex
tremely close. We often used to go out together in no-man's-land, and I would have a chat with him, and he told me a lot about himself. He was a small man, and he stammered, and you wouldn't think he'd 'say boo to a goose', but his men worshipped him. When a shell dropped near, and the fragments whistled through the air, Meekle would say, 'You want to watch out, boys! There's death in those pieces!' It was his sense of humour. Well, Meekle and I used to do two hours' patrolling, and then four hours on a wire bed in a dugout, before going back out to do another two hours' patrol. When we came back to the dugout, to get into the wire bed, the dugouts were lit by candles, and there were rats' holes in the wall all around them. We'd blow out the candle, and quickly we'd have to put our blankets over our faces, because immediately the candle was out, the rats darted out of the holes to eat the candles.

Second Lieutenant W. J. Brockman

15th Battalion, Lancashire Fusiliers

These men's lives were in your hands, and they relied on you. Their education was pretty low. My chaps were Lancashire labourers, and the class distinction was much greater then, than it is now, and they
preferred
to be led by what they described as the 'officer classes'. When you got used to them, they were marvellous chaps.

Second Lieutenant Tom Adlam VC

7th Battalion, Bedfordshire Regiment

I had a very happy platoon. Perhaps that's because I'm a good mixer. And, always, if anyone could do something better than me, I let them do it. Some

officers would think they had to do better than their men. But if I found a man who could do something better than me I'd say, 'Well, you do that.' And I think they liked it.

Private Reginald Glenn

12th Battalion, York and Lancaster Regiment

Our officer – Bardsley – was one of us. He'd come up from the ranks, and he slept with us and lived with us.

Corporal Jim Crow

110th Brigade, Royal Field Artillery

I got on wonderfully well with the bulk of the officers. But some of them didn't know as much about ranging a gun as I did, and I used to advise them. While we were covering the Australians, I took an officer called Melly up to the front line before dawn, and just as we got up there, they were standing down after being on duty all night. When we got to the sentry, he pulled us up and asked us for the password. The password was 'Tacker'. I gave it, and he said, 'Pass, friend!' The officer came up, and the sentry asked him, and he burst out laughing. I managed to get him off and we went into the line, and we were stood alongside some infantrymen who were cleaning their rifles, and the officer says to one of them, 'My good man! What would you do if the Germans came over now?' 'Give them a bloody rough time!' said the Australian.

A bit later on, we observed the Germans carrying munitions to a strongpoint. We watched them for a bit, and then one of the infantrymen said, 'Why the hell don't you get a gun on them?' 'Oh yes,' said Melly. 'Good idea! What gun's on duty, Crow?' ''A' subsection, sir.' 'Give them actioning then! Give them five degrees right!' 'What range, sir?' 'Three thousand yards!' I was supposed to pass this down the line. 'Excuse me sir,' I said, 'you'd be wrong.' 'Why?' 'The guns are two thousand yards behind us, sir,' I said. 'You give that deflection, and you'll be firing on the New Zealanders!' He took a bit of persuading, but in the end I persuaded him. He observed the first shell, and then he gave another ridiculous range. By the time he'd wasted three or four shells, the Germans knew what we were doing, and they promptly packed up. But there weren't many officers as incompetent as that. Just the odd one or two.

Sergeant Wilfred Hunt

9th Battalion, Devonshire Regiment

The quality of officers was shocking.
Shocking
. The one that we got, at first, collapsed when we got to where the guns were opening up. He just collapsed, and we never saw him any more. He ought to be in a tomb. He was a mummy's darling.

Second Lieutenant W. J. Brockman

15th Battalion, Lancashire Fusiliers

We had to eliminate those officers that we called 'yellowbellies'. They were more bother than they were worth. The 'windy' ones. Many of the officers were posted back to England, and were able to say, 'Oh, I've been in France,' when in fact they'd been there for about a week, and they got lovely jobs at home – because those of us at the front said that we didn't want them. There was another way of getting rid of them. If anybody was asked to supply the name of an officer for a course, you gave the name of one you didn't want. So, after a bit, you knew you could rely on the people you'd got. But, of course, the rate of
casualties
amongst the officers was absolutely fantastic. There was a time when they reckoned the life expectancy of a subaltern was about three weeks.

Second Lieutenant Tom Adlam VC

7th Battalion, Bedfordshire Regiment

The men a little up the scale in the officer line could be a little
trench shy
. One was a bit nervy, and he came round when things were going wrong, to haul us over the coals. He was looking over the trench, and I put my hand on his shoulder and said, 'Not there, sir, there's a sniper often shoots there.' After I'd done it about four times he was eating out of my hand.

Lieutenant Phillip Howe

10th Battalion, West Yorkshire Regiment

Our divisional general was
Major General Pilcher
who was a bit of a character, rather a bloodthirsty man. I remember on one occasion when we were in the trenches, he came round, and there was barbed wire in front of our line with a large red rag stuck on the barbed wire, and he said, "Why don't you go fetch it in, to show how brave you are?' I said, 'That would be damn silly. They

put it up there to attract someone out, and if you fall for it, you get shot.' He said, 'Yes. I know. My son got killed doing that.'

Sergeant Frederick Goodman

1st London Field Ambulance, Royal Army Medical Corps

We had clergymen, representing the Church of England, the Catholics, or whatever, and we would have many men who were badly wounded, in an awful state. The clergymen would come along and administer the last rites, and that was fine, but there were times when some of these clergy fellows did not have their feet on the ground. By that I mean that they should know that a man who is passing out doesn't want religion pushed at him too hard. He's not in a fit state to give it careful consideration. So the man would sometimes tell the padre to go away – not with the best of language – and it was pretty awful.

Second Lieutenant Tom Adlam VC

7th Battalion, Bedfordshire Regiment

I remember what one of the men said about our padre: 'He's a grand chap. He don't ask if you're a Roman Catholic, Church of England, or a Hottentot. He just takes you and buries you.'

Corporal Don Murray

8th Battalion, King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry

We had a sergeant.
Sergeant Bates
. A terrible man. He used to take his shirt off, and run his teeth up the seams to kill the lice. With his teeth! A dreadful man. He always used to say what he'd do if he got hold of the Germans. He would have done, too – he'd have torn them limb from limb.

He was a great big hulking man. In civil life, he'd done nothing but wheel steel in a barrow to a melting forge and tip it in. And he was ignorant. He couldn't remember anybody's name. There was one fellow called Courtenay, and he used to call him 'Twopenny'. That was the nearest he could get. He could remember me for one reason: like a fool, I'd made some tea in the middle of the night, and I'd offered him some. 'What's your name?' he asked. 'Murray.' 'Right,' he said, 'I'll remember that.' And he bloody did remember it. Every time he wanted someone for a fatigue party – 'Murray!' I was the only one he could think of. I was working like the devil. I said to him that I was

going to complain: 'I'm going to see the officer!' 'What for?' he said. 'I'm getting no sleep!' I said. 'It'll be all right,' he said, 'I'll make out a rusty duster.' 'What's that?' I said. 'All the sergeants have them!' he said. I thought a bit. He meant a duty roster.

Lieutenant Phillip Howe

10th Battalion, West Yorkshire Regiment

I met a lot of peculiar characters. I had one soldier, a very old soldier, who had been in the Egyptian war. Whatever was going on, he was always perfectly shaved every morning, he always had his buttons cleaned and shiny, but unfortunately, whenever he had the opportunity, he got himself completely unconscious through drink. He spent all his time out of action suffering field punishment number one, because he was always drunk. But in the front line – he was magnificent.

Second Lieutenant W. J. Brockman

15th Battalion, Lancashire Fusiliers

I was in charge of a fellow called Private Mason, and if he could do anything wrong, he would. Once when we were going over duckboards, up to the line, a message came up from the back, 'Mason's dropped his rifle in the water.' He was one of those awkward people – you couldn't help but feel sorry for the chap. But the amazing thing about Mason was that as soon as the war was over – they couldn't demobilise everybody at once – they started educating some of the troops. Officers had to recommend people, and by way of a joke, I put Mason's name down. The next time I saw him, he was a sergeant, and he was teaching others. At last, he'd found the thing he could do.

Private Philip Cullen

4th Battalion, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light
Infantry

We'd had sixty recruits from Devon. They were older men, and this was no war for an old man. We were going back, and being shelled to hell, and this forty-five-year-old man slipped on a footbridge, and fell into a ruddy trench, and it took eight of us half of an hour to get him out. We were being shelled all the while, and I wanted to get away. I lost my temper. I was only a private, but I was in charge, and I truly told him what I felt. I was sorry for it afterwards, but it was the only time I lost my temper.

Second Lieutenant Tom Adlam VC

7th Battalion, Bedfordshire Regiment

My company commander I always looked upon as the bravest men I ever saw – except that he never knew what fear was. He'd go anywhere as long as he had a cigarette in his hand. And all the men thought worlds of him, so did the officers, because he was such a great chap. He went right through the war, came back on leave, went back again, right through the war, the whole lot of it. And then after the war, went mountain climbing and got killed. Extraordinary thing.

Corporal Bill Partridge

7th Battalion, Middlesex Regiment

Captain Gillett was such a splendid company commander. They called us 'Lucky B' – not meaning lucky bastards, but meaning lucky B Company, because we had the least casualties of any company in the batallion. We put it all down to his leadership – whether it was going out doing night raids, going out in front doing the wire, or just dealing with ordinary trench
shelling
, mortars and
minenwerfers
– he was uncanny in his leadership. Not only that, but he was with us all the time. Never asked us to do anything he wouldn't do himself. He became Lord Mayor of London after the war.

Sergeant Charles Quinnell

9th Battalion, Royal Fusiliers

Captain Cazalet was a very gallant officer; a splendid man in himself in addition to being a very, very efficient man. He had a way with him. He would never bark an order at you; he would give an order in a conversational way. 'I would like you to do so-and-so,' and by God you did it, too. You gave everything you had.

Corporal Henry Mabbott

2nd Battalion, Cameron Highlanders

Anybody would do anything for anybody else in the trenches. It was a wonderful bond. In fact, one of my platoon sergeants offered to become my best man, but unfortunately he developed trouble with his wound, and he wasn't able to do it.

Private Philip Cullen

4th Battalion, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry

On my twenty-first birthday, I was sent out from the trenches with a fictitious message that was supposed to be from company headquarters to battalion headquarters. I was sent down, and as I arrived at battalion headquarters I was met by Jimmy Bishop, the sergeant major. 'Hello!' he said. 'What do you want?' 'I've got a message for you from Captain Greenwall,' I said. 'Give it to me. And go in there!' he said. 'I've got to go back, sir!' 'You're going in there!' he said. I was in there for ten minutes, when a tumbler of neat rum came in. I was drunk for twenty-four hours.

Corporal Harry Fellows

12th Battalion, Northumberland Fusiliers

One night we'd all got down, but for some reason I couldn't sleep. I crawled out, trying not to wake up the other three lads, and walked away and lit a cigarette. Then the Germans sent over a shell that hit the bivouac. Two of the lads were killed, and my particular friend –
Dick Turnbull
– had both his legs shattered. That was the saddest moment of my time in the army.

Private Philip Cullen

4th Battalion, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry