thedrifter
12-17-02, 09:06 AM
by Henry Williamson
The First Battle of Ypres was over. The
deluge in the second week of November
1914 decided that. Our battalion of the
London Regiment (Territorials) was out at
rest, leaving a memory of dead soldiers in
feld grau (field grey) and khaki lying in
still attitudes between the German and
British lines. 'Rest' meant no more fatigues
or carrying parties; it meant letters from
home, parcels, hazy nights in the estaminets
of Hazebrouck with cafe'-rhum and weak
beer, clouds of smoke and noisy laughter,
After 48 hours clear, a daily route march,
leading to nowhere and back again, with
new faces of the drafts which had come up
from the base. The war was now a mere
rumour from afar: a low-flashing, dull
booming beyond an eastern horizon of flat,
tree-lined and arable fields gleaming with
water in cart-rut and along each furrow.
In the first week of December 1914 the
King Emperor George V arrived at St
Omer in northern France, headquarters of
the British Expeditionary Force. Orders
were given immediately at all units to
prepare for a royal inspection.
The King in the service uniform of a
field-marshal, brown-booted with gold
spurs, brown-bearded, prominent pouches
under his blue eyes, passed with Field-
Marshal Sir John French and various
general staff officers down the ranks of
silent, staring-ahead, depersonalised faces
thinking that the gruff tones in which the
King spoke to the commander-in-chief
were of that other world infinitely remote
from what really happened.
Behind the King walked the Prince of
Wales, seeming somehow detached from
the massive power of red and gold, the big
moustaches and faces and belts and boots
and spurs all so shining and immaculate
between the open ranks of the troops stand-
ing rigidly at attention. The slim figure of
the Prince, in the uniform of a Grenadier,
appeared to be looking for something far
beyond the immediate scene-a slight,
white-faced boy in the shadow of Father.
The next afternoon the platoon sergeant
walked from billet to billet, with orders
that we were going into the line that even-
ing. A waning moon rode the sky, memento
of estaminet nights, moon-silvered cobble
stones, colour-washed house-fronts of the
Grande Place. The decaying orb was
ringed by scudding vapour; a wet wind
flapped the edges of rubber groundsheets
fastened over packs and shoulders of the
marching men. A wind from the south-west
brought rain to the brown, the flat, the tree-
lined plain of Flanders.
Going back was by now a prospect of
stoical acceptance, since marching in the
rain absorbed nearly all personal memory,
leaving little for coherent thought beyond
the moment. We marched along a road
lined with poplars towards the familiar
hazy pallor thrown on low clouds by the
ringed lights around Ypres -- called'
'Ypriss' by the old sweats who had been
out since Mons. As we came nearer, the sky
was tremulous with flashes: the night
burdened by reverberation of cannon heard
with the lisp of rainy wind in the bare
branches of trees above our heads.
At last we halted, and welcome news
arrived. The company was in reserve. We
were to be billeted for the night in some
sheds, and thatched lofts around a farm.
Speculation ceased when the platoon com-
mander said that we were taking over part
of the line the following evening. The Ger-
mans, he said, had attacked down south;
the battalion was to remain in brigade
reserve. It was a quiet part of the line.
There was to be diversionary fire from the
trenches, to relieve the pressure.
'Cushy, we said among ourselves as we
entered our cottage, to sleep upon the floor.
There was a large stove, radiating heat.
Bon for the troops!
The damp December dusk of next even-
ing was closing down as No 1 Company
approached the dark mass of leafless trees
at the edge of a wood. Through the trees lay
a novel kind of track, firm but knobbly to
the feet, but so welcome after the mud of
the preceding field. It was like walking on
an uneven and wide ladder. Rough rungs,
laid close together, were made of little
sawn-off branches, nailed to laid trunks of
oak trees. As we came near to the greenish-
white German flares, bullets began to
crack. The men of the new draft ducked at
each overhead crack; but the survivors of
the original battalion walked on upright,
sometimes muttering,'Don't get the wind-
up, chum,' as the old sweats had said to
them when first they had gone into the
line, many weeks before.
We came to a cross-ride in the wood, and
waited there, while a cock-pheasant crowed
as it flew past us. Dimly seen were some
bunkers, in which braziers glowed brightly.
The sight was homely, and cheering.
Figures in balaclava woollen helmets
stood about.
'What's it like, mate?' came the inevit-
able question. 'Cushy,' came the reply, as a
cigarette brightened. These were regulars,
the newcomers felt happy again. Braziers,
lovely crackling coke flames!
The relief company filed on down the
path, and came to the luminous edge of the
wood, beyond which the German parachute
flares were clear and bright, like lilies. The
trench was just inside the wood. There was
no water in it, thank God! One saw sand-
bag-dugouts behind the occupants standing
by for the relief. It was indeed cushy!
Thus began a period or cycle of eight
days for No 1 Company: two in the front
line followed by two days back in battalion
reserve in billets, two in support within the
wood and two more again in the front line.
It was not unenjoyable: danger was neg-
ligible-a whizz-bang arriving now and
again-object more of curiosity than of
fear-news of someone getting sniped;
work in the trench, digging bv day, revet-
ting the parapet, and fatigues in the wood
by night; for the weather remained fine.
One trench had a well-made parapet with
steel loopholes built in the sandbags, and
paved along a length of 50 yards entirely
by unopened tins of bully-beef taken from
someof the hundreds of boxes lying about
in the wood. These boxes had been chucked
away by former carrying parties, in the
days before 'corduroy' paths. The trench
had been built by the regulars, now no
longer bearded, though some of their toes
showed through their boots. It was said
that a cigarette end, dropped somewhere
along it, was a 'crime' heavily punished.
Water to the waist
---------------------------
All form, and shape even, of the carefully-
made trenches disappeared under rains
falling upon the yellow clay which retained
them, One was soaked all day and all
night. The weight of a greatcoat was
doubled by clay and water.'We volunteered
for this!' was an ironic comment among
those in water sometimes to the waist.
After the rains, mist lay over a country-
side which had no soul, with its broken
farmhouse roofs, dead cattle in no man's
land, its daylight nihilism beyond the
parapet with never a movement of life,
never glimpse of the Alleyman (Allemand
-German)-except those who were dead,
and lying motionless in varying attitudes
of stillness day after day upon the level
brown field extending to the yellow sub-
soil thrown up from the enemy trench,
beyond its barbed wire obstacles.
At night mist blurred the brightness of
the light-balls, the Very lights or flares as
they were now generally called. The mists,
hanging heavier in the wood, settled to
hear, which rimed trees, corduroy paths,
shed and barn; and clarified into keener
air in sunlight. Frost formed floating films
of ice upon the clay-blue water in shell-
holes, which tipped when mess-tins were
dipped for brewing tea; the daily ration of
tea being mixed in sandbags with sugar. It
was pleasant in the wood, squatting by a
little stick fire. Movement was, however,
laborious now upon the paths not yet laid
with corduroy by the sappers. Boots became
pattened with yellow clay. Still, we said,
it might be worse-for memory of the
tempest that had fallen on the last day of
the battle for Ypres, of the misery of cold
and wet, the dereliction of that time, was
still in the forefront ofour minds.
One afternoon, towards Christmas, a
harder frost settled upon the vacant battle-
held. By midnight trees, bunkers, paths,
sentries' balaclavas and greatcoat shoul-
ders became stiff, thickly rimed. From some
of the new draft came suppressed whimper-
ing sounds. Only those old soldiers who
had scrounged sandbags and straw from
Iniskilling Farm at one edge of the wood,
and put their boots inside, lay still and
sleeping. Lying with unprotected boots
outside the open end of a bunker, one en-
dured pain in one's feet until the final
agony, when one got up and hobbled out-
side, seeing bright stars above the treetops.
The thing to do was to make a fire, and boil
some water in a mess-tin for some Nestle's
cafe'-au-lait. There were many shell-
fractured oak-branches lying about. They
were heavy with sap, but no matter. One
passed painful hours of sleeplessness in
blowing and fanning weak embers amid a
hiss of bubbling branch-ends.
continued...............
The First Battle of Ypres was over. The
deluge in the second week of November
1914 decided that. Our battalion of the
London Regiment (Territorials) was out at
rest, leaving a memory of dead soldiers in
feld grau (field grey) and khaki lying in
still attitudes between the German and
British lines. 'Rest' meant no more fatigues
or carrying parties; it meant letters from
home, parcels, hazy nights in the estaminets
of Hazebrouck with cafe'-rhum and weak
beer, clouds of smoke and noisy laughter,
After 48 hours clear, a daily route march,
leading to nowhere and back again, with
new faces of the drafts which had come up
from the base. The war was now a mere
rumour from afar: a low-flashing, dull
booming beyond an eastern horizon of flat,
tree-lined and arable fields gleaming with
water in cart-rut and along each furrow.
In the first week of December 1914 the
King Emperor George V arrived at St
Omer in northern France, headquarters of
the British Expeditionary Force. Orders
were given immediately at all units to
prepare for a royal inspection.
The King in the service uniform of a
field-marshal, brown-booted with gold
spurs, brown-bearded, prominent pouches
under his blue eyes, passed with Field-
Marshal Sir John French and various
general staff officers down the ranks of
silent, staring-ahead, depersonalised faces
thinking that the gruff tones in which the
King spoke to the commander-in-chief
were of that other world infinitely remote
from what really happened.
Behind the King walked the Prince of
Wales, seeming somehow detached from
the massive power of red and gold, the big
moustaches and faces and belts and boots
and spurs all so shining and immaculate
between the open ranks of the troops stand-
ing rigidly at attention. The slim figure of
the Prince, in the uniform of a Grenadier,
appeared to be looking for something far
beyond the immediate scene-a slight,
white-faced boy in the shadow of Father.
The next afternoon the platoon sergeant
walked from billet to billet, with orders
that we were going into the line that even-
ing. A waning moon rode the sky, memento
of estaminet nights, moon-silvered cobble
stones, colour-washed house-fronts of the
Grande Place. The decaying orb was
ringed by scudding vapour; a wet wind
flapped the edges of rubber groundsheets
fastened over packs and shoulders of the
marching men. A wind from the south-west
brought rain to the brown, the flat, the tree-
lined plain of Flanders.
Going back was by now a prospect of
stoical acceptance, since marching in the
rain absorbed nearly all personal memory,
leaving little for coherent thought beyond
the moment. We marched along a road
lined with poplars towards the familiar
hazy pallor thrown on low clouds by the
ringed lights around Ypres -- called'
'Ypriss' by the old sweats who had been
out since Mons. As we came nearer, the sky
was tremulous with flashes: the night
burdened by reverberation of cannon heard
with the lisp of rainy wind in the bare
branches of trees above our heads.
At last we halted, and welcome news
arrived. The company was in reserve. We
were to be billeted for the night in some
sheds, and thatched lofts around a farm.
Speculation ceased when the platoon com-
mander said that we were taking over part
of the line the following evening. The Ger-
mans, he said, had attacked down south;
the battalion was to remain in brigade
reserve. It was a quiet part of the line.
There was to be diversionary fire from the
trenches, to relieve the pressure.
'Cushy, we said among ourselves as we
entered our cottage, to sleep upon the floor.
There was a large stove, radiating heat.
Bon for the troops!
The damp December dusk of next even-
ing was closing down as No 1 Company
approached the dark mass of leafless trees
at the edge of a wood. Through the trees lay
a novel kind of track, firm but knobbly to
the feet, but so welcome after the mud of
the preceding field. It was like walking on
an uneven and wide ladder. Rough rungs,
laid close together, were made of little
sawn-off branches, nailed to laid trunks of
oak trees. As we came near to the greenish-
white German flares, bullets began to
crack. The men of the new draft ducked at
each overhead crack; but the survivors of
the original battalion walked on upright,
sometimes muttering,'Don't get the wind-
up, chum,' as the old sweats had said to
them when first they had gone into the
line, many weeks before.
We came to a cross-ride in the wood, and
waited there, while a cock-pheasant crowed
as it flew past us. Dimly seen were some
bunkers, in which braziers glowed brightly.
The sight was homely, and cheering.
Figures in balaclava woollen helmets
stood about.
'What's it like, mate?' came the inevit-
able question. 'Cushy,' came the reply, as a
cigarette brightened. These were regulars,
the newcomers felt happy again. Braziers,
lovely crackling coke flames!
The relief company filed on down the
path, and came to the luminous edge of the
wood, beyond which the German parachute
flares were clear and bright, like lilies. The
trench was just inside the wood. There was
no water in it, thank God! One saw sand-
bag-dugouts behind the occupants standing
by for the relief. It was indeed cushy!
Thus began a period or cycle of eight
days for No 1 Company: two in the front
line followed by two days back in battalion
reserve in billets, two in support within the
wood and two more again in the front line.
It was not unenjoyable: danger was neg-
ligible-a whizz-bang arriving now and
again-object more of curiosity than of
fear-news of someone getting sniped;
work in the trench, digging bv day, revet-
ting the parapet, and fatigues in the wood
by night; for the weather remained fine.
One trench had a well-made parapet with
steel loopholes built in the sandbags, and
paved along a length of 50 yards entirely
by unopened tins of bully-beef taken from
someof the hundreds of boxes lying about
in the wood. These boxes had been chucked
away by former carrying parties, in the
days before 'corduroy' paths. The trench
had been built by the regulars, now no
longer bearded, though some of their toes
showed through their boots. It was said
that a cigarette end, dropped somewhere
along it, was a 'crime' heavily punished.
Water to the waist
---------------------------
All form, and shape even, of the carefully-
made trenches disappeared under rains
falling upon the yellow clay which retained
them, One was soaked all day and all
night. The weight of a greatcoat was
doubled by clay and water.'We volunteered
for this!' was an ironic comment among
those in water sometimes to the waist.
After the rains, mist lay over a country-
side which had no soul, with its broken
farmhouse roofs, dead cattle in no man's
land, its daylight nihilism beyond the
parapet with never a movement of life,
never glimpse of the Alleyman (Allemand
-German)-except those who were dead,
and lying motionless in varying attitudes
of stillness day after day upon the level
brown field extending to the yellow sub-
soil thrown up from the enemy trench,
beyond its barbed wire obstacles.
At night mist blurred the brightness of
the light-balls, the Very lights or flares as
they were now generally called. The mists,
hanging heavier in the wood, settled to
hear, which rimed trees, corduroy paths,
shed and barn; and clarified into keener
air in sunlight. Frost formed floating films
of ice upon the clay-blue water in shell-
holes, which tipped when mess-tins were
dipped for brewing tea; the daily ration of
tea being mixed in sandbags with sugar. It
was pleasant in the wood, squatting by a
little stick fire. Movement was, however,
laborious now upon the paths not yet laid
with corduroy by the sappers. Boots became
pattened with yellow clay. Still, we said,
it might be worse-for memory of the
tempest that had fallen on the last day of
the battle for Ypres, of the misery of cold
and wet, the dereliction of that time, was
still in the forefront ofour minds.
One afternoon, towards Christmas, a
harder frost settled upon the vacant battle-
held. By midnight trees, bunkers, paths,
sentries' balaclavas and greatcoat shoul-
ders became stiff, thickly rimed. From some
of the new draft came suppressed whimper-
ing sounds. Only those old soldiers who
had scrounged sandbags and straw from
Iniskilling Farm at one edge of the wood,
and put their boots inside, lay still and
sleeping. Lying with unprotected boots
outside the open end of a bunker, one en-
dured pain in one's feet until the final
agony, when one got up and hobbled out-
side, seeing bright stars above the treetops.
The thing to do was to make a fire, and boil
some water in a mess-tin for some Nestle's
cafe'-au-lait. There were many shell-
fractured oak-branches lying about. They
were heavy with sap, but no matter. One
passed painful hours of sleeplessness in
blowing and fanning weak embers amid a
hiss of bubbling branch-ends.
continued...............