Tommy's Ark: Soldiers and Their Animals in the Great War. Richard Van Emden (15 page)

2/Lt James Foulis, 5th Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders

My dear little Nancy . . .

The ‘Germs’ are about 100 yards away, and we often throw shells and bombs and things at each other, but our trench is a jolly strong one so they cannot do us any harm.

We have got a lot of enormous rats and tiny mice. They scuttle and scamper about everywhere and do not bother about the war at all. This morning one of our soldiers killed a large rat with a spade. Now we have a bomb-throwing machine, so we put this rat on to the machine and threw it all the way into the German trench. I wonder if they had it for breakfast?

2/Lt Andrew Buxton, 3rd Rifle Brigade

My dear old Rachael . . .

You can’t think how I loved getting your letter telling me of your animals and the carrier pigeon. It is such a different world that you are in to what I am with war going on, but some day I shall come back and see all your things, and keep some perhaps myself like I used to do. I am writing this in the middle of cultivated fields where we are practising. In the hedges here are lots of caterpillars; some in bunches in thick webs which they have made, and some lovely coloured ones with yellow ones, and red and black lines down their sides.

I am wearing shorts, so my knees are getting sunburnt and quite sore. At present I am in a farm with lots of white pigs about, which the farm people try to sort out and put in different sties, etc, calling out all sorts of funny noises to make them come. The same way, they shut up ducks at night and calves. They had a great hunt after two calves yesterday, which got out into the corn. My men helped get them in.

2/Lt James Foulis, 5th Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders

My dear Nancy . . .

Do you remember me telling you about the little white dog we had at Aldershot? Well, we still have it. It has gone with the regiment everywhere they went. It is a mascot. There are a dreadful lot of big rats here so the dog is getting very fat. You see, it eats so many rats. Soon it will get so fat it will not be able to catch any more rats. Then it will not get enough to eat so it will get thin again. And then it will be able to start catching more rats and get fat again . . .

We are living in a lovely big green wood and you would be surprised at the number of birds there are in it. They don’t seem to care a button for all the shells that are flying about and keep on singing merrily all the time. There are cuckoos and turtle doves, blackbirds, thrushes, linnets and all sorts of others, and even one or two pheasants. There are also lots of great big frogs in the pools and they go croaking and chattering to themselves all day long.

Heaps of love from Uncle Jim

With time on their hands and the summer in full bloom, there was ample opportunity for men to wax lyrical about insects in their letters home, eschewing any idea that trench life was anything but prolonged periods of boredom in which the search was keen for anything to stimulate the intellect.

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

I woke up with the sound of ducks quacking in the farmyard just outside; they seemed to have an intolerable lot to say, and as I lay I noticed the most gigantic Daddy-long-legs I have ever seen on the ceiling above me. It suddenly occurred to me, what on earth can he use his legs for? They are far too long, and the joints all go the wrong way; he has wings, so he needn’t use them for wading; perhaps they act like the tail of a kite to keep him steady on the wing, but in that case it would have been better to give him a better pair of wings. Or perhaps he thinks his long slim legs are irresistible to Granny-long-legs. If Darwin’s right, there must be some purpose in his legs to fit him to survive, but I can’t see it; they are like the appendix.

2/Lt Andrew Buxton, 3rd Rifle Brigade

I forgot to tell you, in the bombardment we had in the last trenches on 10 September, it was interesting to see how the shock of the exploding shells made the spiders drop down from the hedges and trees and hang by their threads, then work up, only again to fall. We had the joy up there of a dead cow just beyond one of the sap heads from which our patrol usually got out, and then did their listening work, often sitting just by it, or even on it, I think. When I went out there, I preferred a few yards more to the right to listen, though I must say it’s a marvellous cow, not smelling at all in spite of having been there a very long time. You see I give you all the details of this wonderful life as they occur to me . . .

In the summer, the British Army took over part of the French-held line to the north of the River Somme. The area had been something of a backwater and would remain that way for another ten months. In 1915, there was clear but nevertheless patchy evidence of Franco-German fighting, but by and large it remained a beautiful part of France. To the naked eye it had more than a passing resemblance to the chalky countryside of the English South Downs, a fact the British Tommy appreciated. To many units of Kitchener’s new civilian army, it would be at the autumnal Somme that they would receive their first introduction to war.

Pte Thomas Williams, 19th King’s Liverpool Rgt

It is hard to believe that after months of hard training we are at last in France. The surrounding countryside might well be taken for a typical English scene. It is a rather flat, undulating landscape covered with a patchwork pattern of fields. Where the plough has been at work, the patches are dark in colour from the newly turned soil furrows, but many acres of yellow stubble remain unploughed from the late harvest.

The villages nestle down in the hollows where the tall elm trees and the hedgerows are still covered with dead leaves which gives them a beautiful russet tint when viewed from a distance. There are, however, a few points to remind us that we are not back on the open chalkland country of Salisbury Plain. The long avenues of trees by the roadsides, the sunken grass-grown lanes which wind through the fields, the wayside crucifix or shrine, and finally the distant rumble of the guns, all help to impress upon us that we are no longer on English soil.

Pte Horace Smith, 1/8th Worcestershire Rgt

There was a strange, though false, air of peacefulness about these trenches in the valley of the Ancre. Their deep sides were lined with wild flowers, and every morning at ‘stand-to’ the larks rose from ‘no-man’s-land’ and sang hymns of praise. Mingled with the long grass, which was as high as our barbed wire entanglements, were millions of vivid red poppies. But in that narrow valley which separated the opposing forces lay many bodies, both French and German, for there had been bitter fighting here earlier in the year, and had we but known it, this ground was to be the grave of many of our own men in the bloodbath of the Somme.

Pte Thomas Williams, 19th King’s Liverpool Rgt

One morning a tabby cat wandered in through the doorway of the old cowshed. She mewed plaintively. The poor creature was nothing but a walking bag of bones. How on earth she got any food in this deserted place it was difficult to imagine. When I endeavoured to stroke her she drew back, spitting savagely. However, a drop of milk in an old tin worked wonders and soon she became quite tame and confiding . . .

At night-time I discovered that the farmyard was by no means deserted. Standing there in the bright moonlight, the scene was a grim one with black ruins silhouetted against a starlit sky. In the centre of the yard the midden was alive with small, moving forms. Twin pairs of flittering eyes were watching in the shadows and high-pitched squeaky calls came from every corner.

Rats! They were everywhere! They gambolled over the midden, fought with each other on the cobblestones and went scavenging in parties through the gloom of the tumble-down buildings. It was not difficult to guess how the lean tabby cat had kept alive all these months. Here was food enough and to spare. But puss was not the only one to levy a toll on the overabundant rat population.

As I stood watching this strange spectacle, a dark shadow passed over the moonlit ruins. This was followed by a sudden and shrill scream of pain from the far side of the yard. Descending on silent wings, a great white barn owl had snatched up a victim. A wild scurry for cover and the yard was deserted. But not for long. In a very few minutes the hordes of rats were back once more at their nightly revels . . .

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

I am back with the mice in my dugout, but this time I am armed with two traps bought for a few centimes. They are most efficient and quite instantaneous. In six hours I have got seven, ranging from Pa and Ma who were large and fat, to the smallest baby who was quite otherwise. I shall continue like Nero till not a mouse remains . . . I go rat-hunting with my automatic pistol in the evenings, but with little success, as much practice has made the rats of the neighbourhood very wily. There are crowds of them but they won’t sit still. I have, however, fourteen mice and caught a lovely fawn one last night. I have cured the skin and shall send it home.

Not everyone was as intent on ridding a dugout of all vermin. Rats were rarely put up with, but mice, on the other hand, had at least a chance of turning a situation to their advantage. John Mackie’s delightful description of one small mouse is interesting. It is not only indicative of his deft powers of observation but also a good example of the time officers had to pass in inconsequential pursuits when little or nothing was going on outside.

Capt. John Mackie, 1/5th Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders

We called him Adolphus because he looked such an old rake. He lived in a reserve trench where he spent his time in consuming other people’s rations. A pale-faced little fellow, dapper and urbane, he welcomed each successive set of visitors with an easy tolerance, making them free of his quarters all day, and only asserting himself by night. Then indeed he strolled jauntily out to look his guests over and sample their food. Adolphus was only a mouse, but he was much admired, as well for his high spirit and fine carriage as because he undoubtedly represented the original inhabitants of the land. Even the trench rats I tolerated, recognising that they had a better right to the place than I; so you will easily understand that Adolphus made me feel very ephemeral indeed. He possessed that air of indefinable superiority otherwise found only in head waiters, who albeit they accept your tip, yet do it condescendingly as receiving the just tribute of evanescence to perpetuity – ‘You cannot afford to dine here every night, but I, I am always here’ . . .

[Lt] Grey filled his pipe with a sigh of relief and complimented me on my cunning in teaching the subs [new officers] a new card game.

‘They’re good lads,’ he said, ‘none better, especially in the front line. But I get most infernally tired of their eternal prattle when we’re in reserve. I’m too old for it . . . Yes they’re fine young fellows, but one does feel the need of something more intellectual than their conversation.’

To us, as we smoked in silence, came Adolphus. The candles had been lit and we lay on the two wire frames which answered as beds, or if one chose to sit upright, as chairs. Between us was the rough table which was the only other article of furniture in the dugout. Adolphus, after collecting the crumbs under the table, took post on my toes, whence he regarded me with the appraising, condescending look of which I have spoken. I stirred uneasily and Adolphus vanished.

Grey, eager for intellectual pursuits, placed a piece of biscuit on the floor, and covered it with his tin hat. Then he propped up one side of the helmet with a match to which he had attached a piece of string. Five minutes later Adolphus was not greatly dismayed or apprehensive – ‘The young gen’lmen will have their little jokes.’

It was time we varied the performance so I put a drop of whisky (it wasn’t so dear then) into a ‘Gold Flake’ tin lid, and mixed in a few crumbs of biscuit. Next time Adolphus was released, he reappeared with a little friend (suspected feminine) and both were entrapped as usual. When the helmet was lifted they seemed reluctant to run away, and although – in deference to custom no doubt – they eventually retreated, it was only to emerge at once with all the lads of the village in their train.

The little roués gathered round the cigarette tin lid in a warm brown bunch, and their tails protruded all round till the whole thing looked like an enormous spider wriggling on the floor. Every now and again some slight noise sent them scuttling to their holes, but as the ‘binge’ proceeded, Adolphus got less able to scuttle. His pale face made him easily recognisable in the gay throng, but his jaunty manner had altogether vanished. Long after the rest of the band had been dispersed, Adolphus remained at the tin lid, sometimes inserting a tentative paw, sometimes sitting on his hind legs with a thoughtful expression. It took much more than a casual noise to disturb him now.

If you put out your hand towards him he made no movement at all until the last moment, when he would take an electric leap into the air. It seemed to us that he landed with a rather heavy flop and it is certain that he had not the least idea where he was when he came to earth again. His bosom companions had left him; even the first little friend, with true feminine caution, had forsaken him. There were no kindly tramlines to direct his steps, no helpful police to advise him, but perhaps, in some dark recess of the dugout, Mrs Adolphus was awaiting his return.