Tommy's Ark: Soldiers and Their Animals in the Great War. Richard Van Emden (37 page)

It wasn’t very far and I was surprised at looking round to find the place intact, and all the animals still fastened up. Our first visit was to the hen house, and my friend searched the nests for eggs quite methodically, just as if he were the owner. He then searched one of the hens and, before I knew, he had rung its neck and laid it on a corner. He then took me into the place where the cows were and proceeded to give them a feed of hay and then calmly got a petrol can and started to milk the cows until at last he had the can full. He also filled his water bottle and also another, which belonged to the officer to whom he was batman, which explained why he could wander off where he pleased. He then filled a sandbag with potatoes. We then returned, he carried the hen and sack of potatoes, and I the can of milk and the two water bottles. On reaching our destination he proceeded to light a fire and two hours later I was carrying roast chicken, boiled potatoes and milk to the officer in the trench. On returning to the fire, I was greeted with a meal of the above delicacies.

Lt J.R.T. Aldous, 210th Field Coy, RE

All the way up the road, and in fact all over the countryside, houses and whole villages were on fire, lighting up the whole district. One most pathetic side of the war which was very much in evidence was the dreadful fate which the livestock on the farms had to suffer: when the owners of these farms cleared out, they were in such a hurry that they left all their livestock tied up in the barns with the result that many were killed by shellfire, many were burnt in the farms, and those which escaped starved to death in their sheds. On our way up, the air was full of the cries of those miserable animals and the smell of burnt flesh was easily recognisable in some of the roads as we passed along.

Capt. Philip Ledward, Headquarters, 23rd Brigade

The brigade had already suffered heavily and everyone was gloomy. One of the first casualties had been ‘Jane’, the brigade headquarters’ cow. She was acquired and served with the 23rd Infantry Brigade for three years. During all that time she gave milk, often in the most depressing situations. All through the time we were at Passchendaele she stood in mud and never saw grass, but she continued to give milk. Her ‘man’ was from the Devons, a thorough yokel who could manage her like a horse. When we made long moves we used to give him 100 francs and send him off into the blue, and he used to drive Jane by easy stages through the back areas to our new objective. All our mess servants came from the Devons and they knew how to make Devonshire cream – that was what we used to do with her milk, drinking tinned milk the while in our tea. She was at once a boon and a distinction and was much mourned. She and her faithful man were killed by a shell near Villers-Carbonnel and fortunately it was instantaneous.

The Germans were finally stopped at Villers-Bretonneux, a few miles east of Amiens. Their advance had taken them fifty miles to the west but the decisive breakthrough had eluded them. In early April, the Germans renewed their efforts further north, but once again, after prodigious expenditure of men and munitions, the attack petered out. Men taken prisoner during the spring and early summer saw the evidence that the entire German offensive, for all its apparent might, was in fact increasingly ramshackle and held together by a shoestring.

L/ Cpl Thomas Owen, 1st South Wales Borderers

Three others joined me. They also had staggered from the shambles of no-man’s-land, and we bled from various wounds all along that pitiless road to the rear. How we escaped the shelling I know not. German transport wagons lumbered past us at intervals, the drivers whipping the horses to a mad gallop. Here and there, dead or dying horses lay among the splintered ruins of shafts and wheels. The very road was greasy with blood. Yet even as the horses fell, the poor brutes were dragged to the side of the road and the matter-of-fact Germans whipped out knives and cut long strips of flesh from their steaming flanks. Heaps of intestines lay in the ditches.

Pte George Gadsby, 1/18th London Rgt (London Irish Rifles)

We had not been on the march long when we realised what a terrible state Germany was in. The roads were blocked with transport, two and three motor cars were lashed together and pulled by the power of the front one, and vehicles (not much better than orange boxes on wheels) were packed so heavily that they creaked under the weight. Although we realised what privations confronted us, we could not but raise a smile as we marched along. The Germans’ transport reminded us of a travelling circus. Behind each cart generally followed a cow, whilst on the top of the loads could be seen a box of rabbits or fowls. A motor car came dashing along the road, evidently containing German staff officers. They were wearing their high coloured hats and resembled proud peacocks rather than soldiers.

What a pandemonium! Now and then a troop of dusty cavalry mounted on boney ponies passed us on the way, whilst a battalion of infantry led by martial music (which did not sound much better than the noise made by a youngster kicking a tin can along the road) advanced to the front with stooping heads looking particularly fed up and worn out.

Pte Frank Deane, 1/6th Durham Light Infantry

We were marched off back across our trenches and onwards, behind the German lines. That night we spent out in the open, then marched further back. I became quite cheerful because they seemed to have such a ramshackle lot of transport, an old harvest cart being pulled by a donkey, a mule and a horse. I didn’t see any motor transport, so I thought, well, if that’s the sort of equipment they’ve got, they won’t last long; I felt quite optimistic.

Chaotic and exhausting though the retreat was, it was not without its humour, black, odd or simply bizarre.

Signaller Bert Chaney, 1/7th London Rgt

Very heavy siege guns, each with a team of at least a dozen horses, were being pushed back, the gunners whipping and cursing their mounts for not moving fast enough, the gunners telling us as they passed that the Germans were advancing fast. Amidst all the chaos, two horses attached to a swanky private carriage came trotting smartly down the road, two Australian soldiers sitting side by side on the driving seat, one wearing a black silk topper and flourishing a long whip, while the other sat beside him holding aloft an open umbrella. They also were retreating but they stopped long enough to tell us that they had no intention of letting this smart equipage fall into German hands if they could help it, saying, ‘It’s too good for the bleeding Hun.’ Then off they went, the driver raising his hat in salute, oblivious to all the shells that were falling around, some very close indeed.

Lt J.R.T. Aldous, 210th Field Coy, RE

Bullets seem to come from a house in front of Vieux-Berquin and some more as enfilade fire through a gap between two houses on the left of our line. One amusing incident was that after the first house had been hit a very fat and old pig crawled out of the building and sat down a few yards away, turned round and looked at the house. He remained like this all through the bombardment as he was too fat to walk away, and sat there watching his former home burned down to the ground.

Capt. John Marshall, 468th Field Coy, RE

We took with us a brindled terrier named Jack, which had attached itself to Kelly, our cook. During our stay at Fouquières, this Kelly, hearing that a pal of his had got drunk and had received a black eye fighting a Canadian, set out with another man, accompanied by the faithful Jack, to try and find their friend. The first thing they did was to visit all the estaminets and not unnaturally imbibed too much liquor. This led to a heated argument as to the whereabouts of the missing man, which culminated in a fight between Kelly and his friend, in the course of which Kelly also acquired a black eye.

Kelly had false teeth, and, to avoid their being damaged, he removed them, placing them on his coat before the fray commenced. The dog took them away and buried them, they could not be found that day, but on the following day the faithful hound, on being led to the neighbourhood, dug them up.

Ever since the start of the war, the British soldier had proved himself adept at balancing his responsibilities to the army with the pursuit of his own interests and requirements. When it came to hunting, British soldiers continued
la chasse
whether it was deemed legal or not: fishing with grenades, riding down a partridge, chasing a hare across a field. These activities had not always gone on far from the front lines or out of sight of the enemy. Second Lieutenant Frank Mitchell recalled one incident which took place shortly before a tank attack in the spring of 1918.

2/Lt Frank Mitchell, Tank Corps

Captain Brown, called ‘Tiny’ because he stood over six feet high, was explaining various points of the attack to his tank commanders. There was a slightly serious look on his kindly face. He was Irish, a shy and modest man with a passion for fishing. He had brought his fishing rods to France with him, and wherever he found a pond, stream or river which might possibly contain a fish, he angled eagerly and with tremendous patience. His talk was of shooting and hunting, and of the wonderful fish he had caught on the Blackwater. He had been my section commander at Villers-Bretonneux, and this morning, as he talked, I remembered vividly an incident in that earlier battle.

Captain ‘Tiny’ Brown had been running in the open, from tank to tank, under heavy machine-gun fire, and at last he had been obliged to take refuge in a trench with the infantry. Just then there came a lull in the German attack, and Tiny, who was gazing anxiously over the parapet through field glasses, was amazed and delighted to see two brown forms creeping along through the grass in no-man’s-land.

He bobbed down, excitedly called the sergeant of the infantry platoon, and thrust the glasses into his hand. ‘Look out there, man, and tell me what you see!’ he commanded eagerly.

Very cautiously the sergeant peeped over the top. ‘Why, it’s only a couple of birds, sir,’ he said in surprise.

‘Yes, my boy, two fine partridges! What a stroke of luck!’ Tiny’s face lit up with joy; he had forgotten all about the war. He borrowed a rifle, and then made a sporting offer to the sergeant.

‘Now, sergeant, we’ll both take shots at the partridges, shooting alternately. I bet you five francs I get them first.’

The sergeant was naturally taken aback; he hardly expected that kind of shooting in the front line, especially when the Germans might attack at any moment. No doubt he considered this excited tank officer utterly mad, but nevertheless he thought it wiser to accept the offer.

The curious contest lasted some time, for a third party entered into the game – German machine gunners in a wood behind them. Every time a steel helmet showed above the parapet, machine guns opened out in disapproval, so the rivals were forced to be very wary; but eventually the birds rose into the air, and thereupon Tiny brought them both down.

Maj. Neil Fraser-Tytler, D Batt., 149th Brigade, RFA

Yesterday the Germans deigned to turn a machine gun on to me. I was out shooting partridges with the new Irish pointer which I have annexed, and must have come a little nearer to the precious line than he quite approved of. Probably he considered pursuing partridges in no-man’s-land during April contrary to the laws of the Hague Convention! So he splashed some bullets about in an aimless fashion till I removed myself to a quieter spot . . .

A month later, Major Fraser-Tytler tried his luck again.

Maj. Neil Fraser-Tytler, D Batt., 149th Brigade, RFA

The enemy, with the exception of their professional snipers, are harmless with their rifles. The other night, when I was pursuing a wounded partridge on a grassy slope within 700 yards of the Hun main line and in full view of them, not a single shot was fired at me, except a few rounds of Hun whizzbang shrapnel, which burst as usual harmlessly high in the air. Curious when one thinks of the South African War, with accurate rifle shooting up to 1,500 yards.

As things are quiet at headquarters, the colonel has been spending several afternoons with us sniping from our Observation Post, and, his home being in the midst of the best partridge country, I have frequently been over there for joint drives, utilising the orderlies and spare signallers as beaters, so neither partridge killing (forget the month) nor Hun killing (always in season) has been neglected.

The Germans launched their final attacks in May 1918 before, exhausted by their efforts, the front lines settled once again. But there was a difference. In the past the Germans had been able to withstand Allied counter-attacks, giving ground only inch by inch. No longer. When the Allies regrouped to launch an offensive of their own, there would be neither the morale nor the uniform strength in depth to resist. In the meantime there was a short hiatus in which both sides could appreciate the summer weather and the wildlife that once more flourished in countryside that had been occupied and farmed until just weeks earlier.