“IMPERISHABLE GLORY” FOR THE KENSINGTONS
[”By your splendid attack and dogged endurance on May 9th, you and your
fallen comrades won imperishable glory for the 13th London Battalion.
It was a feat of arms surpassed by no battalion in this great war.”
This was the fine tribute paid to the 13th (Kensington) Battalion of
the London Regiment by General Sir Henry Rawlinson, commanding the 4th
Army Corps, after the Kensingtons had taken part in the British advance
in May between Bois Grenier and Festubert. The battalion had already
greatly distinguished itself in the Neuve Chapelle operations and
elsewhere. This story of some of the doings of the corps at the front
is told by a member of the Kensingtons, who wishes to remain anonymous.]
The main body of the Kensingtons had gone out in October, and I left
England with a draft in January, the dead of winter. We marched up to
billets in Laventi, three miles from the firing-line. The place was
being heavily shelled by the Germans, and amongst other buildings the
church was smashed up; but the men were lucky, and I don’t think that
any soldiers were hit there. I shall always particularly remember that
place, because it was there that I saw for the first time a man who had
been killed by the enemy.
I was going along a street near an old ruined house which was being
used as a soldiers’ club, when I heard the noise of an exploding shell.
The crash was very near, and soldiers rushed out from the ruined
house to see what had happened. They told me that the shell had burst
farther down the street, and that a civilian had been killed. Without
any loss of time they took a door down, and using this as a stretcher
they carried the dead man away, and as I watched them I realised that
we were fairly in it, and I am bound to say that I was very strangely
moved and deeply impressed by this little tragedy.
[Illustration:
_To face p. 80._
FIELD ARTILLERY NEAR YPRES.]
We realised even more fully what it all meant when for the first time
at the front we put five rounds of ball ammunition in the magazines and
marched off for our first spell in the trenches, between our billets
and the firing-line. We started at dusk, so that we should reach the
trenches just when it became dark.
There was something very solemn in going away like that towards the
enemy; yet there was, of course, intense excitement and curiosity. It
was not a very exhilarating start, because the country was in a very
bad state, owing to the heavy January rains. There was plenty of water
in the trenches when we reached them, and it was bitterly cold. We
were only one night in them that time, but it was a useful breaking-in
experience, and hardened us a bit for the much longer spells, during
which the cold was so intense that the rifles were frozen as they lay
on the parapets, if care had not been taken to keep them well oiled
after firing.
We got some fine experience and first-rate preparation as a
nerve-steadier in carrying out the duties of “listening patrol.” When
night came we went out of our trenches and made our way to the front
of the parapet, working in pairs. This work was both dangerous and
ticklish, for we had orders not to fire under any circumstances, as
that would have brought the German machine-guns on us; but to use only
the bayonet in case we came across parties of the enemy.
The object of the “listening patrols” was to find out, if we could,
the German working parties putting up barbed wire entanglements and
doing other things for their own protection. One of the pair of men
would lie down on the ground and listen, and the other would be on the
alert, ready to report instantly any suspicious noise that was noticed.
If the Germans were putting up barbed wire, it meant that they were
quite exposed and good execution could be done amongst them by our
machine-guns; on the other hand, if the enemy heard our “listening
patrols” they would instantly open fire with machine-guns and rifles
and anything that came handy.
Patrol work was very trying, especially on the intensely cold nights,
when it was a hard matter to keep awake, and the man who was lying on
the ground was almost frozen stiff.
This sort of work went on for several weeks--until about March,
slushing about in the trenches, and often enough, when we went out of
them at night we would fall, in the darkness, into trenches that were
full of water. Sometimes men were in it up to the neck, and the only
way to get your clothes dry was to let the heat of the body do it--a
long business at times, when the body had very little heat to spare.
There was no help for it, because the men who came to grief like that
could not change at all.
Early in March we were digging trenches on La Bassée Road. This work
occupied us for several nights, and though we did not at the time fully
understand its meaning, we knew afterwards that the trenches were meant
for the massing of our men for the battle of Neuve Chapelle. These
were reserve trenches, and in the open; the consequence being that they
were exposed to the German fire, and the digging was very dangerous
work. We used to get as many as a dozen casualties in a company while
digging, and one spot became known as “Suicide Corner,” because of the
heavy losses there. Of course, the digging was always done at night;
but digging means making a noise, and whenever the enemy heard a noise
they went for the place it came from.
It was at “Suicide Corner” that I made my first real acquaintance with
the horrors of war. As usual we had gone out to dig. We had been taken
to our allotted place by the Engineers, every other man carrying a
spade, and our rear being brought up by four or five stretcher-bearers.
It was obviously to our interest to dig as hard as we could, to get
shelter, and we went at it with a will, being pretty well massed.
There was a man quite close to me, digging for all he was worth.
Suddenly he went down, and I felt sure that he must have been shot,
because the Germans, doubtless hearing our digging, had opened rapid
fire on us. I soon found that the poor chap had been shot through the
chest, and I went to fetch up our stretcher-bearers. They came, and a
doctor came, and the man was carried to the shelter of a neighbouring
hedge, where the doctor and the stretcher-bearers did everything they
could for him, by the light of an officer’s electric pocket-torch; but
he had been mortally wounded in the chest, and he died at the hedge
side, in the darkness which was lit only by the light of the torch and
the flashes of machine-guns and rifles. The poor fellow was covered up
and put on a stretcher and carried back to the billet.
This was the first man I had seen killed in action, and it made a very
deep impression on me, especially as it happened at night. That picture
of the dying soldier under the hedge, with the doctor and the ambulance
men striving by the light of the little torch to save him, will, I
think, remain in my memory when many of the bigger happenings of the
war have faded and are almost forgotten. It is an early and a very
sorrowful impression of the days that came just before the beginning of
the furious battle of Neuve Chapelle.
No one who was in those Neuve Chapelle operations will ever forget the
massing of the British forces for the fight. The whole countryside was
alive with troops of every sort, and there was the incessant rumble of
gun-carriages, ammunition-wagons and heavy motor-lorries, and the tramp
of hosts of men on the march. There was a great deal of inevitable
noise, but at the same time a sinister and impressive quietness. There
was the feeling in the air that something very big was going to happen,
and everybody felt on the “edge.”
The Kensingtons went on in the night until we got into some reserve
trenches, which there had not been time to finish properly. They were
simply scoopings in the ground, with the earth thrown up on each side,
a rough-and-ready sort of arrangement, affording very little cover and
with not enough room for us to lie down--indeed, so shallow were they
that when the bombardment began in the morning we were actually lying
one on top of the other.
The bombardment which opened the battle of Neuve Chapelle began fairly
early, and it is no exaggeration to say that when the immense number of
guns began crashing it was hell let loose. The very earth shook, and no
part of the country where we were seemed to escape from the shattering
effects of the shells of every sort which were bursting all around us,
a great many of them in the air. Some shells fell into the reserve
trenches, and many of our fellows were hit.
The trenches in front of us were manned by two fine Line regiments, and
these troops were ordered to advance towards the Germans and dig them
out of their trenches. The Linesmen had a heavy task before them, but
they began to carry it out most gallantly, and while they did so we
came in for a very furious attack from the enemy’s batteries, because,
although they could not get at the advancing Regulars, we were well in
the zone of their fire. We suffered severely during this bombardment,
and were glad when the order came to rush to the trenches that the
Linesmen had left and take their places.
To get to the trenches we had to rush over some fields, and as we
dashed along we were under a heavy fire, which caused us serious
losses, and those of us who reached the comparative shelter of the
trenches were thankful when we were able to drop into them and so
escape from the open ground. The thing to do was simplicity itself,
and that was to get across the open space from one lot of trenches to
another. There was no question of doing anything except look after
yourself and carry out your orders; there was no chance of helping any
one who fell--it was forward all the time, and those who went down had
to be left where they fell.
Shells were bursting everywhere and the fragments were scattered all
around the battlefield, and men were going down, killed or wounded, on
every hand. It was through this real hail of fire that we reached the
trenches which had been occupied by the two Line battalions, and then
we saw a sight that I, at any rate, shall never forget--a spectacle,
too, which proved how terrible the struggle was and how greatly the
Regulars had suffered.
I talk of trenches, but no such things were left--the German gunners
had smashed them out of all resemblance to ordinary trenches--and
owing to one of those inevitable happenings of warfare some of our own
British shells also had helped to complete the work of destruction.
The trenches had been blown in on all sides, and the barbed wire
entanglements near them had been utterly destroyed, so that what we saw
was a confused heap of ruins, or rather an area of shattered ground in
which men had been killed and buried at the same time. The real horror
of this part of the affair was to see the brave fellows who had done
their best, and were now lying dead and shattered in the debris.
I soon had a very bad experience in the trenches that we had taken
over, so to speak.
I and another Kensington had been allotted a firing position, and we
were doing our best with our rifles when I suddenly became aware that
my companion had come to grief. I looked round and saw that he was
lying at the bottom of the trench--and I made the terrible discovery
that his head had been blown completely off. I would not mention this
circumstance except by way of trying to show what the whole of the
trench warfare meant. This incident occurred in the open trenches; but
a lot of the dug-outs were blown in with the men inside, which meant
burial alive, and I know of one case in which seven men, so killed,
were lying together, and that is only one instance of many of the same
sort in this tremendous war.
When we got into the trenches that had been occupied by the two Line
regiments we were ordered to take up a firing position, and the first
thing we did was to try and restore the parapet and to make the trench
serviceable, in case the Linesmen were driven back. At this particular
time everything gave way to the chief business in hand, which was to
fight, and only the stretcher-bearers were allowed to do anything for
the men who fell. Here, again, every other man carried a spade, and
those who had them had to set to work at once to put the trenches to
rights again, as far as it was possible to do so. This work was being
done very vigorously when it had to be dropped suddenly, because the
order came that we were to advance right up into the village of Neuve
Chapelle; and so it happened that we were rushed up just behind the
spot where the Regulars had dug themselves in. We rushed up into the
village and lay in the open, behind some ruined buildings.
The Germans had arranged a counter attack, and if this had come to
anything we should have made a dash for the trenches, which were just
in front of the village; but as it was we made for the village itself,
or what was left of the place, for by this time there was nothing left
but the ruins, and the whole region was an absolute shambles.
Before we made this rush the men of the Line regiments began to bring
in German prisoners. These came in batches of fifteen or twenty,
disarmed, of course, so that one or two British soldiers were enough
for a batch. These prisoners looked as if they had had a terrible time,
and, indeed, they said they had been through some dreadful experiences
owing to our artillery, and that our guns had given them a shell for
each yard of ground they held.
The German attack not having materialised, we were able to retire to
the trenches and make them habitable. Before this could be done we had
to get the wounded out and bury the dead. As a rule, we had dug a grave
for each man, but now there were so many of the killed that we had to
put the bodies side by side in long trenches, which we made just behind
the line. Quite a cemetery came into existence there, and we did our
best to make it nice and worthy to be the resting-place of those who
had given their lives for their country.
There is one feature of this great war which has been lost sight of to
some extent, and that is the tremendous call which has been made on
the physical endurance of the men, quite apart from the ceaseless and
excessive strain on the nerves and mind. I will give one illustration
on this point.
On the night of March 10th, during the battle of Neuve Chapelle, the
front line ran short of ammunition and the Kensingtons were ordered
to take up a supply. First of all we had to load up with our little
lot, and, as it was impossible to carry the ammunition in the cases,
each man got a score of canvas bandoliers across his shoulders, in
addition to his own kit and rifle, and he had to stagger along with
this tremendous weight, the filled bandoliers alone representing
about eighty pounds; so that with the rifle and standing kit each man
carried a burden of considerably more than a hundredweight. That was
bad enough, but matters were made infinitely worse by the fact that
we had to go along a newly-made road, or rather track. This road had
been constructed by the Gurkhas, by the simple plan of putting bricks
down almost anyhow--there were plenty of bricks handy from the ruined
buildings all around us; so that the road we had to take was rather
like the huge teeth of an enormous saw, for there was no steam roller
to flatten down the surface.
In the darkness, under constant fire, we staggered and stumbled along
with our ammunition; but even the biggest and strongest amongst us
could not do more than cover about a hundred yards at a time. If a man
did that he was proud and thankful, and having got a bit of rest as
best he could--and that was by hunking up and resting on the rifle, for
if a man had really got on to the ground he would have been hard put to
it to rise again--we forged slowly ahead.
We had been ordered to take the ammunition into a house that was
battered, but was more whole than the rest--it was really only a
skeleton of a building--and having reached the house we very gladly
dumped our bandoliers down in the garden. To reach the garden was quite
a simple matter--all we had to do was to dash through a big hole in the
side of the house, made by artillery fire, and I give you my word that
we lost no time in shedding our burden of bandoliers.
It was a most exciting little performance from start to finish, yet it
put a terrific strain on every man who took part in it--load yourself
up with more than a hundredweight of stuff and see what it feels
like; then you will partly realise what we had to go through--and the
excitement was by no means ended when we reached the garden in the
darkness, because just as we were getting rid of the bandoliers a shell
crashed into the house next to us and smashed it to smithereens, a lot
of our chaps being fairly smothered in the flying bricks and rubbish.
That _was_ a night, and one that I shall never forget.
There seemed every prospect that we should be fairly mopped up, and
when the order came for the N.C.O.’s to take back the men in parties we
lost no time in returning, as best we could, to the trenches. Shelling
was going on all the time, and just by way of giving a finish to the
performance something like thirty star-shells burst together, making
the dark night as light as day and giving the Germans a chance to plump
more shells into us as we got back. This hurrying up with ammunition to
the firing-line is only one of many such things that have been done as
part of the day’s work by British soldiers at the front.
About two nights afterwards these two Line battalions of which I speak
were relieved, and we took over their trenches. There were no dug-outs,
or any such protections; the trenches were simply breastworks, and we
had a very bad time when the wet weather set in, as it did.
When we took the trenches over they were in an unfinished state, and we
set to work at once to complete them. One night, or rather about two
o’clock in the morning, I was working on the top of the back parapet,
with my head and shoulders showing, and half asleep, for I was dead
tired. Suddenly the Germans sent up about fifty star-shells, which
burst in the sky and made the darkness as light as day and showed us up
as clearly as possible. Instantly the enemy opened rapid fire on our
trenches and swept us with machine-guns, the bullets whistling over the
parapets.
I was roused as swiftly as if the réveillé had sounded--perhaps faster,
because there are no whizzing bullets when the bugles blow--and I well
remember that I wriggled and rolled sideways. I knew that the darkness
had become as light as daytime and that the German fire was peppering
us, and that the best thing to do was to get out of it as rapidly as
I could. So I fell flat, then lay still, then rolled into a trench as
best I could. I remember--so soon do we get accustomed to war--that
one of our chaps growled, “Why don’t you go a bit farther, then you
could go through an opening!” Fancy a chap picking and choosing a
landing-place when he was clearing out from shell-fire! I knew that in
rolling and falling like this there was a risk of landing on top of a
fixed bayonet, as some of our fellows did, but I cheerfully took that
chance in my eagerness to get under cover.
After this we polished up our bayonet work and went through a lot of
routine, at the end of which we were told that we were to take the
offensive and that some Regulars were to do the support work--a proud
position for Territorials. So we filed into a front trench and relieved
men who were only seventy yards away from the Germans, so that we knew
we should not have far to rush when the real business came to hand.
I wish I could tell you of what happened on the glorious Ninth of May,
when, according to all reports, the Kensingtons did so well and won so
much praise from General Rawlinson; but I cannot go into detail, for I
was hit at the start, and fell before the German lines were reached.
I know that this particular fight began early in the morning, that it
lasted all day, and that our chaps were practically surrounded. The
order had come that we were to go for the Germans, and I was doing my
bit in carrying it out.
We were rushing forward when I was shot through the chest and was
knocked completely out. When this happened I was in a trench, and our
chaps were cheering loudly, as if no such things as Germans existed.
The bullet that struck me had gone through my left lung, though I did
not know this until later, and I had had a very narrow escape; but I
did not at the time fully realise how close a call I had had.
After being shot I just managed to get back over the parapet, and I was
bandaged up and kept going for the time being.
I felt pretty well until the alarm came that the Germans were starting
on the gas tack, and then I wanted to be on the move. Respirators were
fixed, and every preparation was made to meet the devilish device. For
my own part, being shot and helpless, I naturally wanted to be out of
it, so I beseeched the stretcher-bearers to carry me away, so that I
should have, at any rate, a sporting chance.
“Will you try and get me out?” I said; “because I know that gas
will finish me.” And being good chaps two of them came, put me on a
stretcher, and carried me down a communication-trench and into safety,
under a constant and heavy fire, which lasted all that famous day.
I have been yarning long enough, though I could say a good deal more.
By way of finish I will tell you of a little incident of sniping.
Sniping was going on all the time. In many places it was very deadly,
especially where the green uniform of the snipers harmonised with
the cabbages, so that the snipers could not be seen. We got used to
the cabbage-patches whizzing bullets, but we were puzzled by some
especially dangerous firing which came upon us from the rear. For a
considerable time we could not make this out; then we discovered a
haystack, and suspicion was aroused. We kept a strict watch, and made
particular inquiry, and were rewarded at the end of it, by finding that
what looked like an inoffensive haystack was a place of cunning hiding
for a German marksman. This special rick concealed in its very heart
a son of the Fatherland, who had been having a truly glorious time in
potting us. He knew that he was certain to be discovered; but he went
on sniping till we found him and put an end to his performance. He knew
that his discovery was certain, and that discovery meant death; but he
kept his game up--and he died game.
This was quite fair and square fighting, for sniping is legitimate. I
cannot say as much for the German practice, which we fully proved, of
using dum-dum bullets in their machine-guns. This they did by taking
out the bullets as ordinarily used and reversing them.