My Hundred Days of War

  MY HUNDRED DAYS OF WAR

  A MALCOLM MACPHAIL WW1 NOVEL

  Darrell Duthie

  Copyright © 2018 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 978-94-92843-02-9 (Trade Paperback edition)

  ISBN 978-94-92843-03-6 (e-book edition)

  First published in the Netherlands in 2018 by Esdorn Editions

  Cover design by JD Smith Design

  Interior design and typesetting by JD Smith Design

  Cover photographs acknowledgement: Library and Archives Canada/Ministry of the Overseas Military Forces of Canada fonds: An explosion taking place in a house in Cambrai. October, 1918 (a003404), Canadian ammunition column passing through recently captured village. September, 1918 (a003081), Detachment of Canadians passing through Cambrai. October, 1918 (a003405)

  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

  Contents

  PART ONE

  Map of Battle of Amiens

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  PART TWO

  CHAPTER 9

  Map of Breaching the Drocourt-Quéant Line

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  PART THREE

  Map of the Canal du Nord and Cambrai

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  PART FOUR

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 32

  Map of the Advance to Mons

  CHAPTER 33

  CHAPTER 34

  CHAPTER 35

  CHAPTER 36

  CHAPTER 37

  CHAPTER 38

  CHAPTER 39

  Author’s Note and Acknowledgements

  PART ONE

  CHAPTER 1

  9th of August, 1918

  Quarry near Domart-sur-la-Luce, France

  It is an axiom of mine that nothing good ever comes from being woken in the middle of the night. Since 1915 I’ve had few reasons to reconsider that wisdom.

  ‘Sir, wake up,’ said the voice. And then more urgently, ‘Wake up. Wake up, sir.’

  I was groggy. Comatose actually. At least I had been prior to this voice buzzing irritatingly in my ear. Its owner was shaking me roughly by the shoulder.

  ‘Smith, what time is it, for Christ’s sake?’ I mumbled.

  ‘It’s almost four-thirty, sir. There are new orders.’

  ‘In the morning?’

  ‘Yes, sir, in the morning.’

  I groaned and rolled over to my other side. I’d been running from a broad-shouldered Fritz with huge red eyes and a bayonet that could have skewered an elephant.

  ‘Can’t you deal with something by yourself?’ I growled.

  That was a little unfair. I regretted it the moment the words left my mouth. “Disparage in haste and repent alone,” said my mother. In my defence, I’m seldom at my best at four-thirty in the morning, and Smith was what you might call something of a morning person. I’ve never had much tolerance of morning people, so I suppose I had a chip on my shoulder long before he started to shake it.

  It didn’t help that my trusted assistant looked in fine form. His uniform was clean and neatly pressed, his sandy hair combed and proper. Smith was always in fine form, even at four-thirty in the morning. That’s what made him such an invaluable fellow to have around, that and his unfailing good humour – and the fact he spoke German. At this particular moment, I could have shot him. I hadn’t slept much recently. Not since the 4th really. On that day, in a beautiful château in Dury, France, itself a dreary village tucked away behind the shell-marked ruins of Amiens, General Lipsett told me we were going on the offensive against the Imperial German Army.

  ‘I’m sorry, sir, the colonel has asked for you.’

  ‘Whatever could be so important?’ Wearily, I hoisted my legs onto the ground and began to dress.

  ‘New orders just came in, sir.’

  ‘Yes, I heard, Lieutenant. But what on God’s green Earth have new orders got to do with me?’

  ‘We’re going into action, sir. They’re sending us back in.’

  If I hadn’t yet been fully awake, I was now. I sat up erect.

  ‘What do you mean they’re sending us back in? You must be joking. We were only put into reserve yesterday afternoon! And we’re heading back to the front again?’ I was incredulous. ‘We’ve been going pell-mell for weeks, we’ve had no sleep for two days. We were in the thick of it all day yesterday. And they want to send us back in?’

  ‘Yes, sir. We’re to attack later this morning.’

  I frowned. ‘Great. To whom do we owe this stroke of genius?’

  ‘I’m not sure, sir, the orders came from Corps headquarters.’ Smith’s voice was studiously neutral, much like Holland the entire war. Smith had no Dutch blood in him I was aware of, his parents having emigrated from Germany. In 1918 that was reason enough to keep a low profile.

  I, on the other hand, had no German blood in me, and I was never one to shy from speaking my mind, especially when it was running on fumes. ‘Bloody idiots,’ I croaked.

  When I reached Lieutenant-Colonel Hore-Ruthven, the senior staff officer in the division, he was rocking back and forth on his heels, staring at a map and looking like he hadn’t slept a wink in the past week. Normally, Hore-Ruthven was a model British officer. This morning, however, the colonel’s short greying hair was tousled, his tie was undone, and a length of shirt protruded gawkily out from underneath his olive-green tunic. It was as if I was watching an older version of myself in the mirror, all except the hair: mine was brown. But this was Colonel Hore-Ruthven and such sloppiness was unheard of.

  ‘Good morning, Major MacPhail,’ he said with a sigh, when he saw me. ‘You’ve heard the news?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ I replied. ‘I’m dumbfounded, Colonel.’

  He smiled weakly. ‘We all are, Malcolm. I sent a wire to Corps HQ and they confirmed it. We’re to go back into action. Someone at Fourth Army Headquarters didn’t approve of the 32nd Division replacing us. So we’re heading back in and they’re pulling out. The plan is to resume the advance sometime after 10 a.m. The orders are being written as we speak. It’s all a bit up in the air.’

  What was also up in the air was a noticeable Scottish lilt, and that was remarkable; the colonel, Scotsman or not, typically sounded like he’d learned his English from the same tutors as the King. It was another foolproof sign he was close to the end of his tether.

  Anxious to hear what my own role was to be, I said, ‘You sent for
me, sir?’ I yawned – a loud lazy eruption that made it sound as if I’d awoken from deep hibernation.

  ‘God damn it, MacPhail. We’re all tired. Pull yourself together man. It’s only thanks to the general that you’re not in front of a court martial today. That’s a thought that may keep you awake.’

  I bowed my head. ‘Yes, sir. Sorry, sir,’ I mumbled.

  ‘Fine,’ he replied, and threw me a pointed glance before continuing. ‘Now then. General Lipsett is meeting later with the commander of the 8th Brigade. He wants you to accompany him. But before you do, I need to know everything about the enemy positions around Folies. We have to prepare. Frankly, we don’t have a lot of time. Our orders are to take the village and move beyond it to Bouchoir.’

  His finger went to the map and moved down the Amiens-Roye road to the southeast, first to Folies, then a mile further, to Bouchoir. Both were miles inside enemy territory. I tried to concentrate on what Hore-Ruthven was saying, ‘… above all, Major, we need to keep the momentum going…’

  It didn’t really need saying; since yesterday we were smashing down Kaiser Wilhelm’s door. Knowing a thing or two about Willy and his army, it wouldn’t do to let up for a single, solitary moment – not if we were to make the breakthrough that might end this blasted war.

  Back at the modest tent that passed as home and intelligence headquarters for the 3rd Canadian Division, I was fully awake and apprehensive. All this haste, the sudden last-minute changes – none of it bode well on the eve of an attack. Too many attacks had ended in disaster for less. That wasn’t the well-informed intelligence officer in me speaking, nor even the cautious lawyer, but rather the weary warrior. After 43 months at the front, you pick up a thing or two.

  The tent was pitched in a corner of a lime-stone quarry near the ruins of Domart-sur-la-Luce, together with the rest of the Advanced Divisional Headquarters. Even in the moon’s pale glow, the grey walls of the quarry weren’t exactly scenic, but it was reasonably safe from Boche guns. My thoughts were elsewhere. The prospect of an impending battle has a rare way of focusing the mind.

  A soft, flickering yellow radiated from a gas lantern gently swinging back and forth on the ceiling, casting small shadows that flitted across the canvas before disappearing. Smith was seated at our rickety wooden table under the lantern, on an even more rickety wooden chair. He was hunched over, valiantly punching away at the round metal keys of a little Corona typewriter, in a two-fingered dance you get rather adept at when you’ve done as much of it as he has. He looked up when I opened the flap. ‘Did everything go alright, sir?’ He’d obviously not seen my face, or he wouldn’t have asked.

  I slumped down on the edge of my cot and exhaled: somehow the tent’s flimsy walls held. ‘Splendid, just splendid,’ I replied, clearing my throat. ‘We’re to attack Folies. We’ve got four or five hours to prepare and almost no time to reconnoitre. There’s near zero coordination with the other divisions, the men are exhausted, and there’s not nearly sufficient artillery in range for a decent barrage. To top it off, most of the tanks are destroyed or broken-down. So, Smith, it’s splendid all round.’ Tiredly, I shook my head. This was shaping up to be an altogether worse morning than usual. ‘And to think I was so full of optimism going to bed last night,’ I said.

  ‘Folies…,’ Smith said thoughtfully, sensibly ignoring most of what I’d said. He pulled a large map over onto the table, ‘… that’s two miles past Le Quesnel. But we haven’t even taken Le Quesnel, sir?’ He looked puzzled.

  I shook my head. ‘No, we haven’t. According to the colonel, 4th Division sent a battalion in to capture it right around the time you woke me. I expect it’ll be a couple of hours before we hear anything.’

  While I’d been whining about being turned out of bed, another group of men had more serious worries. They were running across the treacherously flat fields fronting that farming village, hoping not to rouse the ire of the machine guns hidden everywhere, the ones which had stymied us yesterday. It was a thought that put a missed nap into a healthy perspective.

  ‘Once they take it – if they take it – we’re to pass through the 4th Division units and resume the attack,’ I added.

  ‘Hmm,’ said Smith, still scrutinizing the map. ‘The good news is there aren’t many prepared positions. All of the old Somme defences are further back.’ He was referring to the trenches, wire and other defences from our early-1916 lines. Smith hadn’t been around to remember that battle, although I sure did after two months convalescing in a hospital. Field-Marshal Haig had blown through a quarter million men in six months for a few miserable yards of mud. They called it the “strategy of attrition”. Smith may not have remembered the Somme, but he remembered all too well when the field-marshal tried the same trick again last year at Passchendaele, near Ypres. We both made it out, but the overall result was gloomily similar.

  ‘Yes, that’s exactly what I told the colonel, Smith. The machine-gun nests are the biggest problem, and the Boche have spent all night reinforcing. With all this screwing around, they’ve gained another five or six hours, so it’s anyone’s guess how it looks,’ I said, a little gloomily.

  ‘Very true, sir,’ agreed Smith. ‘We’re fortunate the Germans will be equally confused. After all, they were as good as routed yesterday. And their reinforcements will have travelled all night.’

  I nodded. Smith had hit the nail on the head; if there was one small mercy, the Germans were in a worse spot than we were.

  ‘It’s ridiculous, Smith,’ I moaned. ‘Is there no one in this army who knows or even cares that the division spent hours marching into reserve last evening, while the 32nd marched forward? And less than twelve hours later we’re doing the reverse? It’s sheer bloody madness. It’s hard enough to win this war, without this sort of incompetence.’

  Smith bobbed his head understandingly, concentrating on the papers in front of him. Any scent of controversy was anathema to him. He wasn’t going to jump into a beehive just to comfort me. In another age, he would have been in the diplomatic corps instead of the army. However, eighteen years into the twentieth century there was precious little demand for diplomats; most countries with a dispute preferred to fight it out.

  An hour or two later, a capped head pushed its way through the tent flap, interrupting our work. I’d been busy. There was a lot of detail on the maps and photographs, and a massive stack of prisoner interrogations. It was dawn and bright sunlight silhouetted the soldier as he entered. For a fleeting instant, it gave him the appearance of some rough-hewn angel sent down to inspire us. His message proved less inspiring than his entrance.

  ‘The general is asking for you, sir,’ said the soldier. His eyes blinked as they struggled to adjust to the gloom. I quickly donned my cap and fastened my belt, slinging the lanyard of the revolver around my neck, and made to follow him. Then, on an afterthought – call it a premonition – I turned and scooped up the battered tin helmet from the cot.

  ‘Good luck, sir,’ said Smith. ‘Oh. I forgot to mention, this came for you.’ He stood and handed me a letter. Reading my mail would have to wait. I tucked it away. Given the contents, it was as well I did.

  Major-General Louis Lipsett was waiting at the top of the quarry, his hand drumming impatiently on his thigh. A tense looking Major Duguid was beside him. Behind them stood an idling staff car. Lipsett gruffly acknowledged my salute and waved me aboard. It was one of those big, boxy, Crossley staff cars that possessed all the streamlined grace of a small house on wheels. Even so it was crowded. There were two other officers propped in beside the driver in the open-air front seat. The major slid in beside me and the general in the back, closing the door as he did so.

  ‘I’m sending in the 8th Brigade,’ Lipsett announced. Whenever the general threw the conventions of English nobility or common politeness to the wind such as, “good morning”, I knew it was serious. ‘And I’m moving headquarters to Valley Wood.’

  ‘From what I recall, sir, there’s not much shelter other than tre
es. I passed through it twice yesterday, not long after it was captured.’

  ‘Then we’ll camp under the damned trees,’ he snapped. Lipsett might have been only a few ranks under God, he was never one to let a little danger stand in the way. Woe betide the officer who thought otherwise.

  Just after nine we reached a row of tall beeches which marked the western boundary of Valley Wood. There, a group of officers had collected, leaning on their canes awaiting our arrival. Valley Wood stood amongst flowering grasslands in a long vista of fields of swaying grain. High above, a thin veil of cloud sealed off the sky colouring it a misty grey, but it was bright, the air already warm, presaging another hot day. Four or five cars were parked haphazardly in the grass next to the trees – a couple of small Fords for the junior staff, a big Crossley for the general, and a smaller one for the brigadier. Small knots of officers and orderlies sat cross-legged on the ground or perched on the leather and wooden trunks doing double duty as furniture. The whole scene resembled not so much a headquarters as a picnic.

  ‘Ah, General Draper,’ enthused Lipsett, as he greeted the weathered-looking brigade commander. I shuffled over to listen, remaining a few respectful steps behind, in time to hear him say: ‘The 75th Battalion took Le Quesnel at five-thirty. They and the 87th are currently dealing with Quesnel Wood. Our orders have changed, Draper. The division is to continue the advance.’

  At the sound of a loud motor approaching I turned. It was a steel-plated box on wheels with a few helmets and the dark grey barrel of a Vickers machine gun protruding out the top: an armoured car from Brutinel’s Brigade. Brigadier-General Brutinel had gathered two dozen of them, a score of lorries with Newton 6-inch mortars and sixty-odd motorcyclists. Since their remarkable debut during the spring offensives when they helped hold it all together, they’d earned themselves a fearsome reputation. A tall, thin officer jumped adroitly down; it was Brutinel himself.

  When I looked back, Lipsett and Draper, and a major from the brigade, stood in the field of knee-length grass, seemingly unperturbed by the noise and the dust from the car, deep in conversation. Draper was gesturing in the direction of the front. Brutinel was striding energetically towards them. He’d been in the fight all day yesterday, not that you’d guess. I felt worn out just watching him.