Tommy's Ark: Soldiers and Their Animals in the Great War. Richard Van Emden (13 page)

Most animals, at least those not considered edible, were no more than transient visitors to the trench system. However, one animal that was neither edible nor transient was the trench cat. Useful for catching rats and even small mice, she was also a reminder of home, a great companion and a focus for affection. Some cats had grown wild since losing their civilian masters, others had, as so many cats are prone to do, followed the line of least resistance and sought out a provider, then settled in to become part of the fixtures and fittings.

2/Lt Alexander Gillespie, 2nd Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders

Writing is difficult, for Sonia, the trench cat, is paddling about on my knees, and making herself into a living sporran. She has come from the ruined farm behind, I suppose, but she takes the change very philosophically, and is a sort of permanent housekeeper, who never leaves company headquarters in this dugout, but is handed over to each relieving regiment along with other fixtures, appearing in the official indent after the ammunition, spades, fascines, RE material, etc as ‘Cat and box 1’. She has no real affections, but prefers kilts, because they give more accommodation in the lap than breeches; on the other hand, she has an unpleasant habit of using bare knees as a ladder to reach the desired spot.

Cats such as Sonia were frequently valued out of all proportion to their actual worth, as front-line entertainment and morale boosters. Captain James Dunn recalled in his book,
The War the Infantry Knew
, that there were two ‘much-made-of-kittens’ in their Company HQ. He believed that when the poet Robert Graves managed to tread on one of the kittens, his eviction from the unit was not far behind. ‘Graves had reputedly the largest feet in the army, and a genius for putting both of them in everything. He put one on a kitten: it was enough. Not long afterwards he was transferred to the 1st Battalion.’

Lt Philip Gosse, RAMC attd. 10th Northumberland Fusiliers

It seemed that ever since the British took over this line of trenches from the French, the medical officer of each battalion had instructed the medical officer of the next to be careful to look after the Landlady, who proved to be a cat, and was the one and only remaining civilian of Givenchy.

The regimental doctor produced a tin of preserved milk and gave me precise instructions as to its proper dilution and the hours of the daily feeds, just as in peacetime he must have done to many a mother over her first baby’s bottle. He explained that the Landlady was out, that she went out at dusk every evening, but would return at dawn and expect to find her saucer of milk ready prepared and in its usual place.

As to her other rations, it seemed she supplied herself with these by catching rats and field mice every night. These duties I gladly promised to perform and we said goodbye.

Tired and wet after the long march, I was glad to get out of my damp clothes and curl up in the less damp blankets on the low bunk which had been made up by cutting away the chalk on one side of the dugout. I soon fell asleep and must have been so for some hours, when something heavy fell on me which woke me up with a start. At first I thought a shell had struck the roof and that I was buried in the debris. Then I became aware that the weight on my legs was moving as though alive and I lay quite still, afraid to stir.

Whatever could it be? I dared not put down my hand to feel for fear it was a rat, but if it was it must have been one of those huge monsters an Irish soldier had told me of, ‘as big as a dog’. Meanwhile the movements of the heavy object had become rhythmical, a sort of prodding was going on, accompanied by an odd, deep, throbbing sound. Then all of a sudden, as sleep cleared away, it dawned on me that my waker could be no other than my Landlady; gingerly I reached in the direction of the object and felt the soft fur of a cat, busy at that exercise all cats enjoy, of kneading with alternate paws . . .

During the whole day she slept curled up on my bunk and did not wake up until the evening. Then, a little while before sunset, she arose, tripped up the steps of the dugout and inspected the skies. From where she sat she had a good view of Notre Dame de Lorette behind our lines, and of the broken spire of the church of Ablain-St-Nazaire, beyond the crumpled village of Souchez.

After a while she sauntered up the trench which led towards the front line, and at a respectful distance I followed her. Presently she reached the fire trench and without warning leaped up on the parapet, where she sat gazing across no-man’s-land, with all the tranquillity of a peacetime cat seated on the wall of its own backyard. No doubt from her point of vantage she could see the ruined mine shafts of Lens and even German soldiers moving about in their trenches.

But I trembled for her. Only fifty yards separated our front line from that of the enemy. At that very moment, more than one German sniper must have been watching her; perhaps was then drawing a bead on her with his rifle. Down many a periscope her image was being thrown by artfully adjusted mirrors into the retina of bloodthirsty Boches. Each second I expected to hear the crack of a rifle and to see my Landlady leap into the air and then fall dead or mortally wounded into the bottom of the trench.

But nothing of the sort happened, and I was led to suppose that all Germans were not as black as they were painted.

Then, to add to her foolhardiness, the Landlady commenced her evening toilet, in full view of two vast contending armies, each armed to the teeth with every device invented by civilised man to destroy life and limb . . .

It was strange, I thought, that the Landlady could sit up there for twenty minutes in perfect safety while if I, a non-combatant whose profession was to succour the sick and wounded, whether friend or foe, showed my head for but one moment above the same trench, I would receive a bullet through my brain. How incalculable are the ways of man.

The Landlady, unperplexed by such reflections, having rested after her ablutions, rose, stretched herself, and then disappeared over the parapet into no-man’s-land – and not a sound, not a shot. What she did there until she came back to bed with me some eight hours later no one knows. Probably she hunted rats and mice in the long grass that grew so rankly amongst the coils of barbed wire out there. Those small mammals were her sport and her supper.

But who can say if she had not friends in the German lines? Who knows but what she was a spy in German pay? But no, it would be treachery even to think such a thing.

Did she, I used to wonder, leap up on the German parapet and make herself at home in the enemy’s line as in ours? That I can well believe, but what happened beyond our front line she kept to herself, a profound secret . . .

When the time came for us to leave those trenches I said goodbye to the Landlady with real regret, and was punctilious to inform the relieving medical officer of her requirements and habits.

When cats became part of the trench fabric, it was likely that, in due course, some would have kittens, and a generation of kittens was destined to be born and raised in or close to the front line.

2/Lt Alexander Gillespie, 2nd Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders

We are back again in the old trenches which we used to hold at the end of March, when the weather first began to get fine. There is a great difference since then: the grass has grown so long everywhere that we can hardly see the German parapet, and the trees hide a great deal of the front too, now that they are in full leaf . . . These trenches are much deeper than the others I have been in, for somehow or other they never flooded so badly, so they still hold the original line of last October, through the middle of a wheat field which was never harvested. Now the wheat has sown itself, and is growing up everywhere in tall bunches on the parapet; in fact, it is in the ear already. Sonia, the cat, is now the happy mother of three kittens, very pretty little kittens too. Never having known any home except this trench, I suppose they would be most indignant if our line went forward and left them. In the meantime, they and their mother and three servants live in one dugout, when they are not sprawling in the sun.

Capt. Charles McKerrow, RAMC attd. 10th Northumberland Fusiliers

I have just returned from having tea at the mess. I was suspicious of little pussy, so made a thorough examination of my bed. I found that she had decided to produce her family on my pyjamas and that the event was not far distant. I hastily removed her to a box, but at present she is under my bed. I have just had a look and one has arrived. She seems to understand all about the business herself and I see no reason to help. The ungrateful beast refuses to look at a sandbag I offered in place of the white tiles. I daresay she knows best. My future efforts will be required to prevent her insinuating her infants into my sleeping bag.

2/Lt Alexander Gillespie, 2nd Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders

All is quiet today on the front held by the 93rd, except that fierce engagements go on night and day between the three kittens, and also between Sonia, a proud mother, and a small black terrier pup, called Satan Macpherson, who belongs to the machine-gun officer. Satan has the best intentions in the world, and is only anxious to do his best for the new army by paying a friendly call; but as soon as he attempts to advance, he is met with high explosive and driven from his position at the point of the bayonet. Fighting still continues.

In late April the Germans introduced a new horror to the fighting in Belgium: chlorine gas. The first soldiers affected had no protection and suffered terribly as a consequence. In the days and weeks that followed, some basic protection was rushed up to the front line and, in time, increasingly effective gas helmets were manufactured and distributed.

Lt Denis Barnett, 2nd Prince of Wales’ Leinster Rgt

Young had to go off this morning to a village a few miles back to be gassed. He (and a lot of staff men) were put in a trench and given a dose, with respirators on, of course. They found the respirators worked admirably, though there were two unhappy frogs in the bottom of the trench who curled up and died at the first whiff.

2/Lt John Gamble, 14th Durham Light Infantry

One thing I must tell you, before I stop, and that is about a little bit of diversion during the gas attack.

I had just been bandaging up a couple of wounded, when one of them called my attention to a couple of big rats which were staggering about on their hind legs as if drunk. It really was one of the funniest sights imaginable. One usually only gets glimpses of rats as they scuttle rapidly by (during the day), but these two were right out in the open, and their antics were too quaint. They were half-gassed of course, but strangely enough it was one of the things I remembered best after the show was over. One good thing the gas did was to kill a lot of the little beasts.

Capt. James Dunn, RAMC attd. 2nd Royal Welsh Fusiliers

Gas drifted through the village at five and again at 7.30 this morning. The Germans put it over at Hulloch, a couple of miles to our right, and entered 300 yards of front and support trenches. Here, the gas crept along the ground in thin dilution, at a fair pace, well below the height of a man standing . . . Horses and tethered cattle were startled, and tugged at their head ropes. A little dog on a heavy chain, unable to scramble on to his kennel, ran about frantically; hens flew on to walls and outhouses clucking loudly; little chickens stood on tiptoe, craning to raise their gaping beaks above the vapour; mice came out of their holes; one climbed the gable of a barn only to fall back when near the top. Seedling peas and other vegetables were bleached and wilted.

The first pad-like respirators were manufactured and handed out within two days of the first gas attack, while gas hoods or helmets were supplied to all front-line troops just weeks later.

Pte Arthur Empey, Royal Fusiliers (City of London Rgt)

German gas is heavier than air and soon fills the trenches and dugouts, where it has been known to lurk for two or three days, until the air is purified by means of large chemical sprayers.

We had to work quickly, as Fritz generally follows the gas with an infantry attack. A company man on our right was too slow in getting on his helmet; he sank to the ground, clutching at his throat, and after a few spasmodic twistings, went West [died]. It was horrible to see him die, but we were powerless to help him.

In the corner of a traverse, a little, muddy cur dog, one of the company’s pets, was lying dead, with his two paws over his nose. It’s the animals that suffer the most, the horses, mules, cattle, dogs, cats, and rats, they having no helmets to save them. Tommy does not sympathise with rats in a gas attack.

At times, gas has been known to travel, with dire results, fifteen miles behind the lines. A gas, or smoke helmet, as it is called, at the best is a vile-smelling thing, and it is not long before one gets a violent headache from wearing it.