[Illustration: CORPORAL HOLMES IN THE UNIFORM OF THE 22ND LONDON
BATTALION, QUEEN'S ROYAL WEST SURREY REGIMENT, H.M. IMPERIAL ARMY.
_Frontispiece_.]
A YANKEE IN THE TRENCHES
By
R. DERBY HOLMES
CORPORAL OF THE 22D LONDON BATTALION OF THE
QUEEN'S ROYAL WEST SURREY REGIMENT
_ILLUSTRATED FROM PHOTOGRAPHS_
BOSTON
LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY
1918
Dedication
TO MARION A. PUTTEE, SOUTHALL, MIDDLESEX,
ENGLAND, I DEDICATE THIS BOOK AS A
TOKEN OF APPRECIATION FOR ALL THE LOVING
THOUGHTS AND DEEDS BESTOWED UPON ME
WHEN I WAS A STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND
FOREWORD
I have tried as an American in writing this book to give the public
a complete view of the trenches and life on the Western Front as it
appeared to me, and also my impression of conditions and men as I
found them. It has been a pleasure to write it, and now that I have
finished I am genuinely sorry that I cannot go further. On the
lecture tour I find that people ask me questions, and I have tried
in this book to give in detail many things about the quieter side
of war that to an audience would seem too tame. I feel that the
public want to know how the soldiers live when not in the trenches,
for all the time out there is not spent in killing and carnage. As
in the case of all men in the trenches, I heard things and stories
that especially impressed me, so I have written them as hearsay,
not taking to myself credit as their originator. I trust that the
reader will find as much joy in the cockney character as I did and
which I have tried to show the public; let me say now that no finer
body of men than those Bermondsey boys of my battalion could be
found.
I think it fair to say that in compiling the trench terms at the
end of this book I have not copied any war book, but I have given
in each case my own version of the words, though I will confess
that the idea and necessity of having such a list sprang from
reading Sergeant Empey's "Over the Top." It would be impossible to
write a book that the people would understand without the aid of
such a glossary.
It is my sincere wish that after reading this book the reader may
have a clearer conception of what this great world war means and
what our soldiers are contending with, and that it may awaken the
American people to the danger of Prussianism so that when in the
future there is a call for funds for Liberty Loans, Red Cross work,
or Y.M.C.A., there will be no slacking, for they form the real
triangular sign to a successful termination of this terrible
conflict.
R. DERBY HOLMES.
CONTENTS
FOREWORD
I JOINING THE BRITISH ARMY
II GOING IN
III A TRENCH RAID
IV A FEW DAYS' REST IN BILLETS
V FEEDING THE TOMMIES
VI HIKING TO VIMY RIDGE
VII FASCINATION OF PATROL WORK
VIII ON THE GO
IX FIRST SIGHT OF THE TANKS
X FOLLOWING THE TANKS INTO BATTLE
XI PRISONERS
XII I BECOME A BOMBER
XIII BACK ON THE SOMME AGAIN
XIV THE LAST TIME OVER THE TOP
XV BITS OF BLIGHTY
XVI SUGGESTIONS FOR "SAMMY"
GLOSSARY OF ARMY SLANG
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Corporal Holmes in the Uniform of the 22nd London
Battalion, Queen's Royal West Surrey Regiment, H.M.
Imperial Army _Frontispiece_
Reduced Facsimile of Discharge Certificate of Character
A Heavy Howitzer, Under Camouflage
Over the Top on a Raid
Cooking Under Difficulties
Head-on View of a British Tank
Corporal Holmes with Staff Nurse and Another Patient, at
Fulham Military Hospital, London, S.W.
Corporal Holmes with Company Office Force, at Winchester,
England, a Week Prior to Discharge
A YANKEE IN THE TRENCHES
CHAPTER I
JOINING THE BRITISH ARMY
Once, on the Somme in the fall of 1916, when I had been over the
top and was being carried back somewhat disfigured but still in the
ring, a cockney stretcher bearer shot this question at me:
"Hi sye, Yank. Wot th' bloody 'ell are you in this bloomin' row
for? Ayen't there no trouble t' 'ome?"
And for the life of me I couldn't answer. After more than a year in
the British service I could not, on the spur of the moment, say
exactly why I was there.
To be perfectly frank with myself and with the reader I had no very
lofty motives when I took the King's shilling. When the great war
broke out, I was mildly sympathetic with England, and mighty sorry
in an indefinite way for France and Belgium; but my sympathies were
not strong enough in any direction to get me into uniform with a
chance of being killed. Nor, at first, was I able to work up any
compelling hate for Germany. The abstract idea of democracy did not
figure in my calculations at all.
However, as the war went on, it became apparent to me, as I suppose
it must have to everybody, that the world was going through one of
its epochal upheavals; and I figured that with so much history in
the making, any unattached young man would be missing it if he did
not take a part in the big game.
I had the fondness for adventure usual in young men. I liked to see
the wheels go round. And so it happened that, when the war was
about a year and a half old, I decided to get in before it was too
late.
On second thought I won't say that it was purely love for adventure
that took me across. There may have been in the back of my head a
sneaking extra fondness for France, perhaps instinctive, for I was
born in Paris, although my parents were American and I was brought
to Boston as a baby and have lived here since.
Whatever my motives for joining the British army, they didn't have
time to crystallize until I had been wounded and sent to Blighty,
which is trench slang for England. While recuperating in one of the
pleasant places of the English country-side, I had time to acquire
a perspective and to discover that I had been fighting for
democracy and the future safety of the world. I think that my
experience in this respect is like that of most of the young
Americans who have volunteered for service under a foreign flag.
I decided to get into the big war game early in 1916. My first
thought was to go into the ambulance service, as I knew several men
in that work. One of them described the driver's life about as
follows. He said:
"The _blessés_ curse you because you jolt them. The doctors curse
you because you don't get the _blessés_ in fast enough. The
Transport Service curse you because you get in the way. You eat
standing up and don't sleep at all. You're as likely as anybody to
get killed, and all the glory you get is the War Cross, if you're
lucky, and you don't get a single chance to kill a Hun."
That settled the ambulance for me. I hadn't wanted particularly to
kill a Hun until it was suggested that I mightn't. Then I wanted to
slaughter a whole division.
So I decided on something where there would be fighting. And having
decided, I thought I would "go the whole hog" and work my way
across to England on a horse transport.
One day in the first part of February I went, at what seemed an
early hour, to an office on Commercial Street, Boston, where they
were advertising for horse tenders for England. About three hundred
men were earlier than I. It seemed as though every beach-comber and
patriot in New England was trying to get across. I didn't get the
job, but filed my application and was lucky enough to be signed on
for a sailing on February 22 on the steam-ship _Cambrian_, bound
for London.
[Illustration: REDUCED FACSIMILE OF DISCHARGE CERTIFICATE OF
CHARACTER.]
We spent the morning of Washington's Birthday loading the horses.
These government animals were selected stock and full of ginger.
They seemed to know that they were going to France and resented it
keenly. Those in my care seemed to regard my attentions as a
personal affront.
We had a strenuous forenoon getting the horses aboard, and sailed
at noon. After we had herded in the livestock, some of the officers
herded up the herders. I drew a pink slip with two numbers on it,
one showing the compartment where I was supposed to sleep, the
other indicating my bunk.
That compartment certainly was a glory-hole. Most of the men had
been drunk the night before, and the place had the rich, balmy
fragrance of a water-front saloon. Incidentally there was a good
deal of unauthorized and undomesticated livestock. I made a limited
acquaintance with that pretty, playful little creature, the
"cootie," who was to become so familiar in the trenches later on.
He wasn't called a cootie aboard ship, but he was the same bird.
Perhaps the less said about that trip across the better. It lasted
twenty-one days. We fed the animals three times a day and cleaned
the stalls once on the trip. I got chewed up some and stepped on a
few times. Altogether the experience was good intensive training
for the trench life to come; especially the bunks. Those sleeping
quarters sure were close and crawly.
We landed in London on Saturday night about nine-thirty. The
immigration inspectors gave us a quick examination and we were
turned back to the shipping people, who paid us off,--two pounds,
equal to about ten dollars real change.
After that we rode on the train half an hour and then marched
through the streets, darkened to fool the Zeps. Around one o'clock
we brought up at Thrawl Street, at the lodgings where we were
supposed to stop until we were started for home.
The place where we were quartered was a typical London doss house.
There were forty beds in the room with mine, all of them occupied.
All hands were snoring, and the fellow in the next cot was going
it with the cut-out wide open, breaking all records. Most of the
beds sagged like a hammock. Mine humped up in the middle like a
pile of bricks.
I was up early and was directed to the place across the way where
we were to eat. It was labeled "Mother Wolf's. The Universal
Provider." She provided just one meal of weak tea, moldy bread, and
rancid bacon for me. After that I went to a hotel. I may remark in
passing that horse tenders, going or coming or in between whiles,
do not live on the fat of the land.
I spent the day--it was Sunday--seeing the sights of Whitechapel,
Middlesex Street or Petticoat Lane, and some of the slums. Next
morning it was pretty clear to me that two pounds don't go far in
the big town. I promptly boarded the first bus for Trafalgar
Square. The recruiting office was just down the road in Whitehall
at the old Scotland Yard office.
I had an idea when I entered that recruiting office that the
sergeant would receive me with open arms. He didn't. Instead he
looked me over with unqualified scorn and spat out, "Yank, ayen't
ye?"
And I in my innocence briefly answered, "Yep."
"We ayen't tykin' no nootrals," he said, with a sneer. And then:
"Better go back to Hamerika and 'elp Wilson write 'is blinkin'
notes."
Well, I was mad enough to poke that sergeant in the eye. But I
didn't. I retired gracefully and with dignity.
At the door another sergeant hailed me, whispering behind his hand,
"Hi sye, mytie. Come around in the mornin'. Hi'll get ye in." And
so it happened.
Next day my man was waiting and marched me boldly up to the same
chap who had refused me the day before.
"'Ere's a recroot for ye, Jim," says my friend.
Jim never batted an eye. He began to "awsk" questions and to fill
out a blank. When he got to the birthplace, my guide cut in and
said, "Canada."
The only place I knew in Canada was Campobello Island, a place
where we camped one summer, and I gave that. I don't think that
anything but rabbits was ever born on Campobello, but it went. For
that matter anything went. I discovered afterward that the sergeant
who had captured me on the street got five bob (shillings) for me.
The physical examination upstairs was elaborate. They told me to
strip, weighed me, and said I was fit. After that I was taken in to
an officer--a real officer this time--who made me put my hand on a
Bible and say yes to an oath he rattled off. Then he told me I was
a member of the Royal Fusiliers, gave me two shillings, sixpence
and ordered me to report at the Horse Guards Parade next day. I was
in the British army,--just like that!
I spent the balance of the day seeing the sights of London, and
incidentally spending my coin. When I went around to the Horse
Guards next morning, two hundred others, new rookies like myself,
were waiting. An officer gave me another two shillings, sixpence. I
began to think that if the money kept coming along at that rate the
British army might turn out a good investment. It didn't.
That morning I was sent out to Hounslow Barracks, and three days
later was transferred to Dover with twenty others. I was at Dover a
little more than two months and completed my training there.
Our barracks at Dover was on the heights of the cliffs, and on
clear days we could look across the Channel and see the dim
outlines of France. It was a fascination for all of us to look away
over there and to wonder what fortunes were to come to us on the
battle fields of Europe. It was perhaps as well that none of us had
imagination enough to visualize the things that were ahead.
I found the rookies at Dover a jolly, companionable lot, and I
never found the routine irksome. We were up at five-thirty, had
cocoa and biscuits, and then an hour of physical drill or bayonet
practice. At eight came breakfast of tea, bacon, and bread, and
then we drilled until twelve. Dinner. Out again on the parade
ground until three thirty. After that we were free.
Nights we would go into Dover and sit around the "pubs" drinking
ale, or "ayle" as the cockney says it.
After a few weeks, when we were hardened somewhat, they began to
inflict us with the torture known as "night ops." That means going
out at ten o'clock under full pack, hiking several miles, and then
"manning" the trenches around the town and returning to barracks at
three A.M.
This wouldn't have been so bad if we had been excused parades the
following day. But no. We had the same old drills except the early
one, but were allowed to "kip" until seven.
In the two months I completed the musketry course, was a good
bayonet man, and was well grounded in bombing practice. Besides
that I was as hard as nails and had learned thoroughly the system
of British discipline.
I had supposed that it took at least six months to make a
soldier,--in fact had been told that one could not be turned out
who would be ten per cent efficient in less than that time. That
old theory is all wrong. Modern warfare changes so fast that the
only thing that can be taught a man is the basic principles of
discipline, bombing, trench warfare, and musketry. Give him those
things, a well-conditioned body, and a baptism of fire, and he will
be right there with the veterans, doing his bit.
Two months was all our crowd got at any rate, and they were as good
as the best, if I do say it.
My training ended abruptly with a furlough of five days for
Embarkation Leave, that is, leave before going to France. This is a
sort of good-by vacation. Most fellows realize fully that it may be
their last look at Blighty, and they take it rather solemnly. To a
stranger without friends in England I can imagine that this
Embarkation Leave would be either a mighty lonesome, dismal affair,
or a stretch of desperate, homesick dissipation. A chap does want
to say good-by to some one before he goes away, perhaps to die. He
wants to be loved and to have some one sorry that he is going.
I was invited by one of my chums to spend the leave with him at his
home in Southall, Middlesex. His father, mother and sister welcomed
me in a way that made me know it was my home from the minute I
entered the door. They took me into their hearts with a simple
hospitality and whole-souled kindness that I can never forget. I
was a stranger in a strange land and they made me one of their own.
I shall never be able to repay all the loving thoughts and deeds of
that family and shall remember them while I live. My chum's mother
I call Mother too. It is to her that I have dedicated this book.
After my delightful few days of leave, things moved fast. I was
back in Dover just two days when I, with two hundred other men, was
sent to Winchester. Here we were notified that we were transferred
to the Queen's Royal West Surrey Regiment.
This news brought a wild howl from the men. They wanted to stop
with the Fusiliers. It is part of the British system that every man
is taught the traditions and history of his regiment and to _know_
that his is absolutely the best in the whole army. In a
surprisingly short time they get so they swear by their own
regiment and by their officers, and they protest bitterly at a
transfer.
Personally I didn't care a rap. I had early made up my mind that I
was a very small pebble on the beach and that it was up to me to
obey orders and keep my mouth shut.
On June 17, some eighteen hundred of us were moved down to
Southampton and put aboard the transport for Havre. The next day we
were in France, at Harfleur, the central training camp outside
Havre.
We were supposed to undergo an intensive training at Harfleur in
the various forms of gas and protection from it, barbed wire and
methods of construction of entanglements, musketry, bombing, and
bayonet fighting.
Harfleur was a miserable place. They refused to let us go in town
after drill. Also I managed to let myself in for something that
would have kept me in camp if town leave had been allowed.
The first day there was a call for a volunteer for musketry
instructor. I had qualified and jumped at it. When I reported, an
old Scotch sergeant told me to go to the quartermaster for
equipment. I said I already had full equipment. Whereupon the
sergeant laughed a rumbling Scotch laugh and told me I had to go
into kilts, as I was assigned to a Highland contingent.
I protested with violence and enthusiasm, but it didn't do any
good. They gave me a dinky little pleated petticoat, and when I
demanded breeks to wear underneath, I got the merry ha ha. Breeks
on a Scotchman? Never!
Well, I got into the fool things, and I felt as though I was naked
from ankle to wishbone. I couldn't get used to the outfit. I am
naturally a modest man. Besides, my architecture was never intended
for bare-leg effects. I have no dimples in my knees.
So I began an immediate campaign for transfer back to the Surreys.
I got it at the end of ten days, and with it came a hurry call from
somewhere at the front for more troops.