A War for King and Empire

  A WAR FOR KING AND EMPIRE

  A MALCOLM MACPHAIL WW1 NOVEL

  Darrell Duthie

  Copyright © 2020 Darrell Duthie

  Darrell Duthie asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  ISBN 978-94-92843-050 (Trade Paperback edition)

  ISBN 978-94-92843-043 (e-book edition)

  First published in the Netherlands in 2020 by Esdorn Editions

  Cover design by JD Smith Design

  Interior design and typesetting by JD Smith Design

  Cover photographs acknowledgement: William Rider-Rider/Canada Dept. of National Defence/Library and Archives Canada: Box Barrage of German eight-inch shells bursting inside Canadian lines. France, May 1918 (PA-002554); Henry Edward Knobel/Canada Dept. of National Defence/Library and Archives Canada: Attacking under smoke (PA-000169)

  This book is a work of historical fiction. The names, characters, events and dialogue portrayed herein are either the product of the author’s imagination, or are used fictitiously, except where they are an acknowledged part of the historical record.

  www.darrellduthie.com

  Also by Darrell Duthie in the Malcolm MacPhail WW1 series

  Malcolm MacPhail’s Great War – (1917-1918)

  My Hundred Days of War – (1918)

  Contents

  PART ONE

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  The Ypres Salient

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  PART TWO

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  Festubert and Givenchy

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  PART THREE

  The Plugstreet Trenches

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  PART FOUR

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 32

  The Battle of Mount Sorrel

  CHAPTER 33

  CHAPTER 34

  CHAPTER 35

  CHAPTER 36

  Author’s Note and Acknowledgements

  PART ONE

  CHAPTER 1

  2nd of February, 1915

  Salisbury Plain, England

  ‘MACPHAIL! Whatever is a sloth like you doing in the army?’

  We were mustering for parade under a gloomy grey shifting sky, another squall blowing in.

  My uncleaned rifle aside, I don’t think the sergeant-major realized what an excellent question it was. These last few weeks I’d been giving it some thought and I hadn’t yet stumbled upon a satisfactory answer. Back home it had been so very easy to get swept up in the patriotic fervour. “For King and Empire” the recruitment posters had enthused, in coloured letters and a profusion of flags.

  Signing the attestation papers on that August morning in Calgary, the skies were a vibrant blue as far as the eye could see. The snow-capped Rockies towered majestically on the horizon. The captain shook my hand and clapped me brotherly on the back when the deed was done, and for a brief, glorious moment I was the hero and I dared to think of a future. If truth be told, I could barely wait until we shipped out. That was not entirely down to an upwelling of patriotism. The war had come as a welcome distraction; an escape from the misery engulfing my life. The prospect of a spell behind bars was more than I could bear. When the city faded from sight I was relieved, though my mother’s tears at the station tore at me and lingered in my mind long afterwards.

  Since then everything had been a blur, an express train roaring to its destination even if the final destination was seemingly delayed. We’d been shunted indefinitely onto the cold rain-swept plains of a wintery England to drill and shoot, and stab inanimate jute bags with our bayonets, nary a Hun in sight. I was beginning to question what I’d got myself into. The sergeant-major was glaring at me, evidently expecting a response.

  Straightening my shoulders I stared resolutely forward. The rain was driving down in cold unrelenting sheets. I sniffed, my nose dripping again. Between my toes I could feel water sloshing. My boots, still wet from yesterday, were inundated.

  ‘I don’t suppose it’s too late to enter a plea of insanity?’ I said, coughing.

  The sergeant-major’s eyes came to the boil. ‘Let’s see if your wit stands up to a week of latrine duty, Private MacPhail.’ At that I heard a smattering of snickers from the rank behind.

  ‘But, sir…’ I began.

  ‘For the umpteenth time…’ Company Sergeant-Major Atkins’s voice – never soft at the best of times – rose to address the entire platoon. ‘When will you clods get it into your thick heads? I’m a sergeant-major, not an officer. And you’ll address me as such. Or you’ll bloody well wish you had joined the Navy.’

  ‘Yes, Sergeant-Major,’ I mumbled, amongst a chorus of others.

  I rather doubted the navy had as much water to contend with as we did. But Atkins was visibly in no mood for a discussion on the matter, or any other come to that. He’d been terribly out of sorts these last few days, ever since a couple of wags – probably the very ones snickering behind me – had put their MacAdam shield shovels to the test and furrowed a trench from the latrine to his tent.

  At the time I’d laughed with the others. However the last laugh was to be Atkins’s as I was delegated to cleanup, even if I could detect precious few signs of mirth on his face. As to the MacAdam shield shovel it was shortly thereafter relegated to scrap, like so much of the other gear we’d brought with us – too light as a shield, too heavy to dig with or to carry – replaced by a more practical, tried-and-tested British version. It made me wonder if that was the fate awaiting us soldiers, too.

  Along with the rest of the platoon I shouldered my rifle and dutifully we marched off to another afternoon of musketry training, a hundred-odd feet squashing in unison.

  At the range my luck failed me once more.

  ‘Oh, no. Not again,’ I groaned.

  The man lying to my left looked over. ‘Jammed, is it?’ said Roy Dundas.

  I nodded.

  The action of most rifles requires four distinct movements to reload after firing: an upwards push to unlock the bolt; a pull back to expel the used round whereupon a new one springs up from the magazine beneath; a short push to chamber it; and a downward jerk to lock the bolt again before firing. Therein lay the beauty of the Ross Rifle; a simple pull back, push forward, and you were ready to shoot. That was the theory. And in theory it should have made the Ross the fastest firing rifle in the field. But as we grew more practiced, and the conditions steadily worsened, the theory began to show cracks – after firing the bolts obstinately refused to open.

  Like everyone else I’d been attempting to emulate the example of the Old Contemptibles, whose withering rifle fire at Mons had held the Germans at bay for a glorious day last autumn. Naturally I was nowhere near their standard, but I’d come to discover I had a knack for shooting. On top of which the redeeming feature of musketry training was that I could s
ee how it might be useful “over there”. Not like the endless drill and route marches in full pack across acres of sodden Wiltshire prairies, cold wet gales positively daring us to continue. They’d only resulted in my boots, my morale, and my health reaching their current sorry state.

  After camping out for more than four months on the British Army’s answer to the North Pole, spirits were buckling. None of us had joined up to die of pneumonia, especially without ever having seen a German. While we had marched past the famous Stonehenge on several occasions – in the driving rain the thrill was decidedly short-lived – our wartime experience was a far cry from the glorious adventure we’d dreamed of.

  Neither was the foulness of an English winter the only cause for complaint. Only yesterday one of the platoon, Pat Jones, had been belly-aching: ‘I didn’t enlist in the army to learn how to salute, Mac.’

  ‘Saluting is like waving,’ I informed him between coughs. ‘But hold your hand steady and look straight ahead. If I were you, Pat, I’d be thankful they didn’t test for aptitude. Otherwise, I dare say you’d still be picking your nose back home.’ He sighed, wearily.

  Jones’s troubles were not confined to saluting. I could see him, a few men down, with his arm in the air like a schoolboy summoning the teacher. Apparently his rifle had jammed as well. With a tone of righteousness becoming a free-thinking citizen of the Dominion, he took up the issue with one of the British instructors. In turn the instructor, little charmed by such democratic ways, admonished him: ‘Congratulations, Private. The Hun are approaching and you, laddie, are as good as dead. Not that you’re of any use to the army alive.’ The Scottish singsong made it sound friendlier than it was.

  Unlike Jones, I had the good sense to keep my mouth shut concerning my equipment inadequacies. That much I had learned about the army – any admission of weakness was an invitation for someone to stomp upon it and you.

  I waited patiently until the NCOs had their backs turned, dealing with another intractable problem from the colonies. Then with a grunt I wrestled the bolt open; a stiff kick from one of my sham shoes did the trick. To my surprise the boot didn’t disintegrate with the effort as I half expected it would. The damned boots they’d given us mere months before were already falling apart. Like most everything else we’d brought along they’d promised us new British ones. Except for the rifles. We were stuck with them. Our glorious Minister of the Militia, old Sam Hughes, wasn’t having any truck with complaints about his beloved Ross rifle. All the same, I couldn’t help thinking that Atkins’s admonitions about keeping the thing well-oiled and clean weren’t entirely ridiculous.

  ‘MACPHAIL!’

  At the roar from behind my heart began to pound.

  ‘Yes, Sergeant-Major,’ I casually replied, trying to make as if I were lovingly coaxing open the bolt rather than having just applied a heel to it.

  ‘If I ever see you handle your weapon like that again, MacPhail…’ growled CSM Atkins.

  He loomed over me and I rolled over onto one side so I could see him properly. Atkins’s weathered face was a mask of deep creases and beet red, held up by a handlebar soldier’s moustache. Dark eyes under dark eyebrows glared disapprovingly. Atkins had been in the Boer War – with a chest full of colourful baubles to prove it – and he never let us forget it. I pitied the Boers.

  ‘It was jammed, Sergeant-Major,’ I said meekly.

  ‘Now why does that not surprise me,’ he grumbled. I braced for what was coming next. However, Atkins had apparently spotted an even bigger problem down the line for he angrily shook his head, mumbling a few words that began with “bloody” and ended with “fool”. Then he stalked off without another word. I sighed in relief.

  Dundas had naturally heard it all. He pushed up his cap to reveal his auburn locks.

  ‘Atkins has taken a real shine to you,’ he said with a chuckle. ‘Most of us, he doesn’t even know our names, but he sure knows yours.’

  Roy Dundas was a wry young fellow. At twenty-three he was two years younger than me, with a lean, skinny physique, a freckled nose, and a banking clerk’s meticulous attention to detail. The meticulousness I’d discerned from the fact that Roy’s rifle never jammed, the creases in his pants stayed sharp and he knew down to the last penny what he could afford to spend on beer. However, well-oiled rifle or not, at Roy’s two rounds a minute it was obvious why there was invariably a line at the bank.

  I got to know Dundas in the sprawling expeditionary camp at Valcartier in the fall. Later on the long ocean voyage to England we’d bunked together. But it was only here on the cold misery of Salisbury Plain that a pithy humour had emerged. He was certainly not like any banker I’d ever met. Most of them were in their mid-fifties, clad in dark three-piece suits and matching hats, the silver watch in their vest pockets the most sparkling thing about them. While I was in law, not banking, I think he saw the same independent streak in me as I saw in him. To most I had more the appearance and demeanour of a ranch hand who’d spent too much time indoors, than a fledgling barrister. It was probably why we got on so well.

  I groaned. ‘Atkins… yeah. I forget to oil my rifle, and before you can count to ten the sergeant’s got me shovelling shit. The man has an entire company to boss around yet he’s only got eyes for me.’

  ‘It’s too bad you’re tone deaf, Mac. There might be a song in there somewhere. ‘He’s only got eyes for me…’ he crooned.

  I groaned, louder.

  ‘Look, I know you were a lawyer, Mac, but you’ve got to learn when to keep your mouth shut. It wasn’t your rifle that was the problem, it was your mouth. Atkins isn’t a bad fellow deep down.’

  ‘You’ve obviously looked deeper than I have, Roy. And there’s no need to bring my mouth into it.’

  Conspiratorially Roy glanced around. ‘There’s a big march-past coming the day after tomorrow,’ he whispered. ‘The entire contingent is to turn out.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Apparently there are some VERY important guests coming. I overheard the instructors talking.’

  ‘Perhaps our luck is finally about to change,’ I offered.

  Much later, rethinking this moment, I came to the conclusion that I had never been so wrong in all my life.

  ‘Let’s hope so,’ said Roy. ‘Anything would be better than this.’

  4th of February, 1915

  Knighton Down, Salisbury Plain, England

  Roy Dundas had it right about important visitors. And when I finally heard who it was to be, it was abundantly clear something was about to change, even as it turned out it wasn’t our luck.

  ‘I’ll be damned. There’s the King!’ exclaimed the soldier to my right. For an instant several hundred men held their collective breath as the monarch we’d only seen in blurry photographs or on forest green one-cent postage stamps, rode into view.

  We stood at attention in long twin ranks, stretching for almost two full miles across a barren, gently rolling Knighton Down: the Canadian contingent, more than 30,000 strong. Down that endless line of immaculate khaki tunics and caps, every chest bursting with pride, trotted the horses of the inspection party. The King had even brought with him a wintery sun for the occasion, the rain temporarily in dutiful abeyance. Then I recognized what else he’d brought, or more accurately, who.

  ‘Lord Kitchener,’ I murmured to myself.

  Someone behind me whispered, ‘The hero of Khartoum,’ in a voice laden with awe.

  Lord Kitchener, whose glowering eyes and black walrus moustache adorned every recruitment poster in the Empire, rode in the King’s wake, a mighty dreadnought bringing up the rear. King George V, a mere boy in comparison, looked otherwise identical to how I’d seen him in pictures, stiffly erect on his horse, his dignified beard greyer than I imagined. I watched, spellbound like the others, as he stooped and greeted our own fearsome Colonel Boyle with a fleeting handshake and what looked like a kindly word or two.

  As the King rode in my direction, he turned, looked down ever so slightly and I cou
ld have sworn he gave me a nod of approval. Although afterwards every man in the battalion said the same. When the inspection was complete, the King retired to a podium where we assembled to listen. There he uttered a few words of which I heard not a single one, took the salute as we paraded past, and waved jauntily from the rear of his train carriage as it departed trailing an ellipse of white steam and a whistled good-bye. Across the Down a thunder of raucous cheers echoed after him as we tossed our caps in the air, like madmen.

  ‘Well?’ Dundas asked, when I met up with him.

  I grinned and nodded.

  ‘Do you really think so, Mac?’

  ‘Yes, Roy, I think we’re finally going to get to do what we all signed up for. The King and Lord Kitchener didn’t come here just to see us muck around in the mud. I think this must have been our big send-off.’

  ‘I’ll be damned,’ said Dundas smiling. ‘We’re off to war.’

  I grinned. ‘Yes, Roy. We’re off to war.’

  CHAPTER 2

  15th of February, 1915

  St. Nazaire, France

  Arriving in France, the first time any of us had set foot on the continent of Europe, most of the 10th Battalion looked as if they were on their deathbeds. I can’t speak for my own appearance, although it was probably as retched as I felt. After the stormy Channel crossing and three days wallowing in a winter gale on the Bay of Biscay, few including me had eyes for St. Nazaire. Not that there was time for sightseeing, and St. Nazaire was probably not the place to do it.

  The very next morning the unvarnished grim reality of war stood waiting, more than twenty boxcars long – a steam engine chuffing impatiently out of sight.

  Hommes 40 / Cheveaux 8 read the stencilled white lettering on the side of the first car. Relieved to be on solid ground the men were in good humour and we shuffled up the ramp in file and down the platform. As I tried to work out what 40/8 implied for the five men destined to inhabit the real estate normally reserved for a single horse, I must have paused. The man behind bumped into me.

  ‘Move it along chum,’ he said impatiently.