Tommy's Ark: Soldiers and Their Animals in the Great War. Richard Van Emden (36 page)

I walked into the yard full of rage and bitterness. All the men had left the sheds and were flocking into the road. Some were strolling along in leisurely fashion, some were walking with hurried steps, some were running, some were laughing and talking, some looked startled, some looked anxious, and some were very pale.

We crossed the road and the railway. Then, traversing several fields, we came to a halt and waited. We waited for nearly an hour, but nothing happened and we gradually straggled back to the yard. Some of us walked to the spot where the shell had burst. There was a huge hole, edged by a ring of heaped-up earth, and loose mould and grassy sods lay scattered all round. Here and there lay big lumps of bleeding flesh. The cow had been blown to bits. The larger pieces had already been collected by the farmer, who had covered them with a tarpaulin sheet from which a hoof protruded.

The next day more shells came over, and the next day also. The big holes with their earthen rims began to dot the fields in many places. No damage of ‘military importance’ had been done. Not even a soldier had been killed, but only an inoffensive cow.

Fortunately for Frederick Voigt, he was serving near Ypres and was nowhere near that part of the line about to feel the brunt of the German assault. Information gathered from German prisoners pointed to the 21st being the fateful day and the front line east of the Somme battlefield being the target.

Driver Dudley Gyngell, 58th Divisional Army Column, RFA

20 March

Awoke this morning to a glorious sunshine and blue sky with fleecy white clouds. Although bearing very many signs of the strife – this place [Corbie] seems pretty peaceful and rather holiday-like – I fancied however that I heard a distant rumbling, but I must have been mistaken.

21 March

I am sitting at my window looking out into the garden. It is a wonderful morning of bright sunshine and golden shadows. An old Frenchman is tending his flowers. He came to the window: ‘Bonjour, Monsieur – I have picked you some violets to send to your sweetheart’ and he handed me a fragrant little bunch. Suddenly an ominous sound vibrated through the air – the German guns – the villagers gathered in the streets and listened with questioning faces. It is a sound they have not heard for months.

There was a jingle of spurs in the tiled hall and Shirley hurried in. ‘Pack up at once and stand by to move.’ So something had happened.

At 5.30 a.m. the Germans opened up a massive hurricane bombardment, and, with the advantage of a morning mist, their infantry advanced, bypassing strongpoints in a surge that would take them deep into British lines. The policy of rapid infiltration ensured that Allied forces were thrown into almost immediate confusion before an adequate defence could be made, negating some, though by no means all, of the preparations made to repel the attack. Beforehand, the Royal Engineers had supplied both pigeons and dogs to the front line to aid communication, but for different reasons they proved ineffectual.

Signaller Bert Chaney, 1/7th London Rgt

One by one our telephone lines were smashed. We endeavoured a number of times to repair them, going out into the barrage, creeping down communication trenches trying to find the ends of the wires, but in that mist and in that barrage it was a hopeless task, and we had to get back to our dugout thankful to be in one piece. Looking across in the direction of our visual communication system on the mound, we saw that it was impossible to see anything: the Aldis lamps were unable to penetrate the mist, even the telescope did not help.

Dashing down into the dugout, I scribbled two similar coded messages on the special thin paper, screwed them up and pushed them into the little containers that clip on to the pigeon’s leg. I and one of the boys, each carrying a pigeon, crept up the steps and, pushing the gas blanket to one side, threw our birds into the air and away they flew. We watched them as they circled round a couple of times and then they swooped straight down and settled on top of our dugout. We retrieved them and tried once more, but those birds refused to fly. We knew so little about homing pigeons we could not understand why. Those birds had been trained to fly direct to their loft, in that mist they would not fly on a blind course and would not start until they could see their loft. So down into the dugout again and another message was written and put into the small pouch attached to the dog’s collar. Leading it to the entrance, I gave it a parting slap on the rump, at the same time shouting firmly, ‘Home, boy! Allez!’ I watched it for a minute or two as it trotted off, then dropped the gas blanket back. Even while we were still sighing with relief, a wet nose pushed the blanket aside and in crawled the dog, scared out of its wits. All our efforts could not budge him, we pushed and shoved him, pulled him by the collar to get him moving, but he just lay down, clamped his body firmly to the ground and pretended to be asleep. He was a lot smarter than we were.

All we could do was swear a lot, give him a kick or two in the hope of moving him but without success. We eventually took the message from his collar, put it on the other dog, and tried to send that one on his way. Whether he was more timid than the first dog, or sensed its fear, he would not even move. He dropped flat on his stomach and there was no shifting him. Once again we went through the pushing and pulling, but it was no good. So ended all our wonderful preparation for keeping communications going during an attack. Within a few minutes of its commencement we had become entirely isolated.

Pte Albert Bagley, 1/6th Northumberland Fusiliers

The volume of firing got so fierce that at last flesh and blood could not stand against it any longer. As if by some instinct, every man threw himself down flat, burying his face in the soil as best he could for protection. For my part I was lying flat and wondered how long I would be like this, for the soil was sticking to my lips and I felt a tickling sensation under my face. Raising my head as high as I dare, I saw that the tickling was caused by a beetle worming his way. Oh, how I wished then that I was a beetle, or at least could be so small.

Lt Leonard Pratt, 1/4th Duke of Wellington’s Rgt

A shell landed ten yards from my doorway. It was a dud, then another hit the ground four yards away, it sent a great spray of earth and mud up to the skies, and left a hot sulphur smell in my nostrils. I looked down at my feet, and saw a worm climbing my breeches. I picked it up and threw it away into the trench, remarking that it was a
bit premature
for there was life in the old dog yet!

Cpl Eric Harlow, 10th Sherwood Foresters

My recollection of the next few days is very hazy. We marched endless miles and held positions while other units went through and then we in turn leap-frogged back through them. We passed through the whole of the Somme battlefield we knew so well. We lived to some extent on the country and I remember participating in the slaughter of a very old tough cow and trying to disembowel it and cut up the meat into joints. Also I plucked some fowls and ducks and had very little sleep. My head was painful where the weight of the helmet pressed.

The advance had been so rapid that, although the casualty figures for the first day’s fighting had been enormous, a large proportion had simply been overrun and taken prisoner or, like Bert Chaney, they were cut off ‘in a small pocket of peace’, as he described it, and were waiting for events to unfold.

Signaller Bert Chaney, 1/7th London Rgt

We no longer needed the dogs and I sent them back with a coded message just to get rid of them. They were now only too pleased to go, being cooped up in a dugout was not their idea of a good life. I wondered sometimes if they ever found their kennels, which I am sure were by then in the hands of the enemy. The same thing applied to the pigeons though they had to run the gauntlet of some trigger-happy Jerries as they flew off, doing one complete circle to get their bearings before flying away west as straight as a die.

The defensive infrastructure had more or less collapsed and the war regained a fluidity not seen for four years. Once more civilians took to the roads, piling all they had on to carts and prams. The soldiers could not help but feel pity for people turned out of their home perhaps for a second time.

Maj. Cecil Lyne, 119th Brigade, RFA

Early in the war the Hun had overrun their once prosperous farm, driven off their cattle, killed all their stock and left them destitute. Then the tide flowed back; for 3½ years they had scraped and toiled till twelve fine cows stood in the stall, pigs, poultry, etc; their crops were all in and the old man had just put down 1,000 francs’ worth of artificial manures. Every penny in the world was in that farm, and suddenly the crash came. Father, mother and eleven children, they had to leave everything. Poor old Grand-père of 80 was left behind. Twenty-four hours later that farm was given as one of my targets, but I never fired on it.

What I’ve been telling you is such a pitiably incomplete fragment, just a glimpse here and there of the tragedy of it all, impossible to describe, but never to be forgotten.

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

We passed eighteen dead horses and two broken limbers, the result of a direct hit which exploded the ammunition in a limber. For much of the way we were passing the country people clearing out. A woman, still in her second youth, very fat and quite composed, shared a cart with a breeding sow and a caged parrot; an ageing woman, wan, patient-looking, stooping, led the horse. The day was hot and the march trying; the men got fed up with being told – ‘it’s only one kilometre more’ – they ached with every weary pace.

Trp. Arthur Bradbury, 2nd Dragoons (Royal Scots Greys)

In one considerable village we scattered a flock of sheep, evidently all abandoned in extreme haste. These unfortunate sheep seemed inclined to move out with the troops and I could see in the eyes of my fellow troopers a hungry look, in spite of the stringent penalties against looting. We halted briefly on the hilly slopes above the village and witnessed the slaughter of a sheep by two of our troopers who used their bayonets. This unlucky animal was summarily divided and tied to our saddles, which dripped with blood as we rode. We contrived to get some of it cooked when we halted for the night.

Pte Thomas Hope, 1/5th King’s Liverpool Rgt

Evidence of these hurried departures are scattered all over. A perambulator with buckled wheels nobly strives, with the aid of its broken spokes and rusty framework, to defeat the attempts of its load of children’s underclothing to flutter away on every friendly breeze after its youthful owners. A dilapidated harmonium is visible, miserably exposing its innards to all who pass the gable end of the little parlour in which it had once been the pampered, well-dusted hallmark of snobbish village respectability. A more gruesome object, a kennel, with long rusty chain and rain-washed skeleton of a dog, the neck bones encircled by a sodden leather collar. As I gaze on it I inwardly hope the faithful animal was killed before its master fled, or, if not, that his bones lie rotting the same as his dog’s.

Capt. Harold Pope, 1/2nd Lancs Heavy Batt., RGA

Things seem a bit more settled for the moment, though there was a bit of an alarm yesterday, and we were ready to move at short notice. We are using a deserted château as a mess. A very fine house with everything left behind. We use all their plates and dishes and everything. The owner has a magnificent aviary of rare foreign birds, also ostriches and emus, in his grounds. Most of them will die of starvation, I’m afraid.

Capt. John Marshall, 468th Field Coy, RE

Doctor Foster and myself spent the best part of two days going round the town letting out dogs from premises – the owners of which had locked them up, leaving the dogs in charge, with the idea that they themselves would return in a day or two. We had several stiff climbs, up walls and trees, to get at some of these animals – and then they generally received us as burglars in a most ungrateful manner. Doctor Foster rescued a parrot that called itself Coco. The bird bit him twice on the nose, so that he had to wear a bandage. It could swear beautifully.

It appears that despite his truculence Coco was taken as a pet or mascot of the unit, for Captain Marshall records that ‘after many journeys’ the bird ended up living in Birmingham after the war. Just how he got it home is not revealed.

Pte Albert Bagley, 1/6th Northumberland Fusiliers

The officer turned to me and asked if I wanted anything to eat. He pointed out to me a chap who he said would see me all right. The man was only too pleased, and on diving his hand into a sandbag, he withdrew a loaf, a lump of cheese and then his water bottle. Imagine my surprise when, putting my lips to the water bottle, I found it contained fresh cow’s milk. On asking my new friend where he had obtained it, he told me that nearby was a farm where all the animals were still installed.