A War for King and Empire Page 5

  What intrigued me most were the troop dispositions, the enemy’s as well as our own, both of which were labelled in neat black capitals on the map. Two of the Division’s brigades, the 2nd and the 3rd, occupied the central apex of the Salient, two miles northeast of Ypres. Immediately to the Canadian right the line curved to the southeast and the British 28th and 27th Divisions. To our left were two French divisions. It was the name of the one adjoining us that caught my eye: the 45th Algerian Division.

  ‘Interesting?’

  Guiltily I looked up. General Currie was staring at me from five feet away, Boyle in his shadow.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ I said uneasily.

  ‘What’s your name, Private?’

  ‘MacPhail, sir. Malcolm MacPhail.’ Inexplicably, I felt the need to explain myself: ‘I was just looking at the gap on our left, sir.’

  ‘Oh?’ said Currie, and his eyes narrowed, looking straight at me.

  ‘Yes, sir. The Algerians. The roads were black with them, sir, fleeing the gas. I can’t imagine there’s many in the trenches any more - not alive. So I was thinking there must be a big hole.’

  Currie raised his eyebrows and turned to Boyle. ‘Even your runner seems aware of the situation, Colonel. Good luck to you and the battalion,’ he said, shaking the colonel’s hand. ‘I’ll send word to 3rd Brigade to inform them I’ve sent you.’

  ‘You’d better get along, MacPhail. The gap’s awaiting and your colonel is too.’

  ‘Yes, sir. Thank you, sir,’ I said, making a hurried retreat. Contrary to what I always thought – that soldiers were meant to attack – knowing when to pull out was an equally critical skill.

  However from the few words I’d overheard retreat was the last thing on General Currie’s mind.

  CHAPTER 5

  22nd and 23rd of April, 1915

  Kitcheners’ Wood, west of St. Julien, Belgium

  Behind us, visible across the darkened fields, was the black silhouette of Ypres, flames licking at the tall spires of the Cathedral and the Cloth Hall, plumes of smoke intermittently obscuring the sky. The moon had risen and in its soft illumination we formed up to await the 16th Battalion. We had been given the order to attack.

  The junior officers told us what little they knew: we were to counter-attack the large wood near St. Julien. It was some 800 yards north from where we stood in ordered ranks. A British battery of field guns had been captured in the wood only hours before and the 10th Battalion were to reclaim them. Other than the guns I think everyone understood that the enemy was mustering his forces and we were the first, and the last, line of defence. At first light, the Germans would pour forth from that wood and elsewhere to renew their attack. There was a feeling of desperation, even panic, in the air.

  The situation was considerably worse than I’d imagined and I’d never been accused of a poor imagination. At 3rd Brigade headquarters at Mousetrap Farm the bad news had been served up forthwith. The colonel heard it directly from the general. I heard it directly from a signaller, which led me to believe I got the more accurate version. The Germans had bit a two-mile deep chunk out of the left side of the Salient. With the left flank exposed and barely defended, the enemy was poised to excise the rest of the bulge like a surgeon with a scalpel would a mole. Three entire divisions including mine, 50,000 men in total, would be caught like a school of mackerel thrashing helplessly in a net. Ypres would be lost and perhaps much more. It would be nothing short of a disaster. No wonder Brigadier-General Turner had looked so relieved at our arrival.

  ‘Hey Mac,’ Jones said. ‘How many Germans do you suppose there are in that forest?’

  Without exception the men of C Company were shuffling from foot to foot, as if preparing for an important match, silently staring ahead, eager and anxious to get on with it but nervous they’d let the side down. Behind the mask of imperturbability I was gamely attempting, my stomach was churning.

  I shook my head. ‘I don’t know, Pat. A lot. I don’t think our commanders do either,’ I replied. I jerked my chin in the direction of Lieutenant-Colonel Boyle and Major Ormond. The two of them were joining the ranks of the men behind. To my surprise all the battalion’s officers appeared to be going into action.

  ‘Listen, Mac,’ Jones whispered, and he leaned over close, his head next to mine. I could almost smell the fear on him, although it may well have been my own. In any event the usual false bravado in his voice had disappeared and I thought better of him for it. ‘If I don’t make it, would you write a letter to my folks? And tell them that I did my best?’ He looked me at me plaintively, almost abjectly.

  He was the one man in the company nobody would have dreamed of calling a shirker or a coward. Too many had suffered his verbal barbs for that. I had put an arm round countless shoulders, young lads aching from some cruel witticism Pat had thrown out unthinking, to amuse the mob. Yet despite it all Pat Jones was charming and interesting, and even kind-hearted when the peculiar dynamics of a group were absent. For some reason he’d never said a word against me, but I didn’t care for his pretences and his cutting quips, and I think he knew that. In an unguarded moment back in England, when we’d snuck out to a neighbouring village for an evening of drink, he’d said as much.

  ‘Sure, Pat,’ I said now. ‘Of course. I’d be honoured to write for you. But don’t think for a moment you’re not coming back. You heard the sergeant-major. Atkins knows what he’s talking about. Keep your wits about you and your head down, and you’ll be fine. Trust me, just wait and see. Besides, you owe me some beer and I’d much prefer you stick around so I can collect on that.’

  Jones smiled a wan smile and began fiddling with his bayonet. ‘Thanks, Mac.’

  The 800 soldiers of the battalion were assembled in long rows, two per company: C Company left and D right. We’d be given the dubious honour of leading the charge. The other two companies of the battalion were behind us and thirty yards behind them were the Highlanders of the 16th Battalion, just arrived. Eight rows of 200 men each, all staring ahead. 1600 men to check the German advance. 1600 men to put a stake in the ground in front of a corps numbering twenty times that.

  I studied the familiar faces. Pat was beside me, but Roy Dundas was a row ahead and oblivious to my efforts to catch his eye. There was young Harold, with blushing cheeks and looking as if he’d stepped out of a schoolroom to join us, and Fred Fox and Lieutenant Sanders, and all the others. These past eight months we’d developed quite a bond.

  At a quarter to midnight, the colonel gave the order and we began to move.

  In long waving lines that extended further than I could see we trod off through the fields in the darkness. We were so close together, I was constantly bumping up against the shoulders of the men next to me. Which was fine for the feeling of comradeship though I couldn’t help thinking it presented the Germans with a target even Dundas could hit. The 10th Battalion was truly going to war – just as we’d envisioned all these past months.

  The night was uncannily still; a quiet broken only by the rustle of the knee-high grass and the padding of hundreds of feet stepping forward in ordered pace and measured ranks. A rhythmic knocking came from bayonet scabbards as they swung to and fro, banging against thighs already stepping forward again. Overhead it was clear. Stars shone and the sky was a deep blue-black with only whispers of cloud hanging here and there. A heavy ground mist had begun forming not long before and in the time we’d taken to form up it had turned into a whitish haze that clung to the contours of the earth, much as the gas cloud had earlier. However, after walking for only a few minutes, I was able to make out the jagged form of the wood ahead, looming above the mist.

  Not a word was spoken. 1600 men moved as ghosts in the night. We’d be warned not to speak and for once no one thought to do otherwise.

  I judged we must have reached the 600-yard mark when the rank ahead slowed and stopped.

  Men looked from left to right, not daring to whisper, but wondering what was impeding our progress. Shuffling forward we came upon the first rank of the battalion who were gathered like a herd of cattle in a stockyard, milling in front of a modest hedge. It was only 4 feet tall, but it blocked our path as effortlessly as any Roman wall in centuries past would have done.

  To the men in front, most of them tall and lithe and used to overcoming a little greenery, this presented few concerns. Undaunted they began stepping over and through the hedge. But then webbing got caught and entrenching tools fell against rifle butts, branches snapped, and bayonet scabbards scraped on a hidden line of wire that ran through the hedge. It made an unholy hubbub.

  CRACK. A rifle went off. TUF-TUF-TUF. Then a machine gun opened up. A thousand tongues of fire pierced the darkness in front. A man in front went down. To my left another.

  Then a flare burst overhead and began a slow wobbling descent, eerily lighting up the field ahead. The rifle and machine-gun fire intensified. Some of the men went to ground. Lieutenant Sanders stood and looked back over his shoulder, waving his arm forward to say “come with me” and he might even have said that – for all the noise I couldn’t be sure. A round caught him and I saw him stagger. Just as his head rose again a new volley found its mark; his body convulsed and he fell.

  ‘Oh, shit,’ murmured a voice. It wasn’t the one inside me, though I concurred.

  ‘Keep moving,’ muttered another deeper voice. This one spoke authoritatively: a corporal or a sergeant. Whoever he was, he was speaking softly, though the air was zipping with bullets and a hushed tone was not about to bring a return to the stillness.

  When I got to the hedge I held my rifle with both hands at eye level and went to step through. The wire and the young beech branches scraped at my loins, and my foot got entangled in the strand of wire that ran about three-quarters of the way up. I felt myself teetering over. A strong hand grabbed at my tunic and pulled me back. Then my foot came free. ‘Steady on, MacPhail. You’re fine, fella. Now get going. Show me what you’re made of,’ said someone, not unfriendly. I turned and saw the stern face of Sergeant-Major Atkins. His eyes had a sparkle to them I couldn’t recall seeing before.

  ‘Thanks, Sergeant-Major,’ I breathed, but I was distracted by another machine gun that began rattling. It felt like it was only yards away. When I turned back to the sergeant he had disappeared into the night. I plunged off towards the wood. Running with the others, rifle and bayonet extended, I charged for the trench just in front of the wood. Across the full periphery of my vision, dots of orange flashed in the dark and the harsh chatter of gunfire seemed only to grow. A smell of smoke and gunpowder lay thick.

  It was a desperate but silent charge. There was no loud roaring of men closing with the enemy, or brave cries to encourage the others or themselves, only the constant whizz of bullets and the sight of man after man crumpling to the ground, and having to jump over them. I remember looking at one upturned face as I leapt past and, to my horror, realized it was young Harold.

  The distance to the trench was no more than a hundred yards and somehow I reached it unscathed. Most of those beside me did not. Bodies were strewn everywhere. Two men were engaged in a fierce grappling match. I ignored them and climbed into the trench and up the other side. The wood was dead ahead, the approaches swarming with men, all of them filled with the same mad exhilaration.

  In a minute I reached the first line of trees. And then I was upon him. I saw him step from behind a large oak where he’d been sheltering. Curiously it was the pointed tip of his pickelhaube that I noticed first; I ought to have been paying more attention to the rifle he was raising to one shoulder.

  The soldier’s eyes were fixated upon me, but he’d misjudged it; he was too close and had run out of time. Too close to aim and too close to fire, but not too close for a bayonet. I jumped for him, thrusting the rifle forward. Cold steel flashed right before the bayonet sank into his chest. His arms slumped, his rifle tumbled to the ground, and his head dipped. I yanked the rifle away and ran on, berserk with rage and excitement.

  The wood was a mad scrambling melee of men, a swirling of kilts from the Highlanders of the 16th as they rushed the enemy, the fighting fierce and mainly hand-to-hand. Germans were everywhere – lying, kneeling, and standing behind trees attempting a shot.

  Deep in the wood I came upon one such man, a shadow crouched behind a thick tree trunk. Virtually at the same moment I glimpsed him I saw the outline of a field gun further on, peculiarly pointing north – the wrong direction. The German soldier was shooting as fast as he could work the bolt. He didn’t notice me circle around to his rear, and I was two steps from him when he paused and raised his head from the sights to cock an ear – he’d sensed my presence. My rifle butt hit him hard from behind, just below the crown. For Harold I told myself. The undergrowth crackled and gave way as he slumped forward. I left him and moved on in the direction of the gun. It emerged that there were two of them.

  They were ours all right, 4.7-inch field guns. All around the dead lay in macabre piles: British, Turcos and Germans. The sad history of a day of fighting. Mainly they were Germans who lay on top.

  There I caught sight of a familiar face, the face of the adjutant, Major Ormond, and I went to him.

  ‘Ah, MacPhail. You come with me,’ he ordered. ‘You’re the runner, aren’t you?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ I replied. ‘Are these the guns we were supposed to recapture, sir?’

  ‘They are but they’re not going anywhere, not without horses. So we’ll have to wait for some. In the meantime you and I are going to undertake a reconnaissance.’

  Which seemed a strange thing to do in the middle of a battle. But then I heard shells falling – the Germans were shelling the wood – so I knew we had taken it. Shells came crashing down through the foliage and you had literally a split-second to seek cover. Sometimes they exploded too high with a deafening boom, followed by a dangerous shower of boughs as thick as my thighs, and steel fragments that easily could tear through both.

  I accompanied Ormond to the southwest corner of the wood. Heaps of German bodies, hundreds of them, and many, many of ours, littered the forest floor. ‘Blast it,’ he said after we’d walked for a while.

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘The attack veered too far right,’ he muttered. ‘We missed the whole left side of the wood.’

  It was only when we came upon a group of 35-odd men, mostly from the 16th and a handful from the battalion, did I appreciate the significance of this. They were in a shallow trench near the tree line, pinned down by fire from an enemy redoubt in the corner we’d missed. I didn’t see how we were going to hold the wood, not with the left of it still in German hands and surrounded from every direction but the south. Ormond must have come to a similar conclusion for two assault parties were hastily assembled.

  Almost as hastily the attack was repelled. We made it little further than the trench parapet. We clambered up, firmly resolved to charge the Boche, but a torrent of machine-gun fire and a handful of bombs stopped us in our tracks. In my case I didn’t make it out of the trench before the man in front shook under a volley of bullets and his body fell backwards, taking me with him. When it was over I counted more than a dozen men down. The party under Lieutenant Lowry that was to circle round the flank was no more successful.

  We lay there, catching our breath and thanking the Lord that we still could, when I heard Ormond say: ‘We’ll have to dig in.’ There really wasn’t a choice. 15 yards away the Germans in the redoubt were determined to see the end of us and any honest arbiter would have given them better than even odds. It would only be a matter of time before the Germans counterattacked in force. Even the most optimistic amongst us knew how that would end.

  Furiously I began scraping and clawing at the earth. 200 yards away a machine gun in a farmhouse – one someone had decided not to clear as it wasn’t our job – started to rattle. Luckily I found a German entrenching tool in the ditch as mine seemed to have disappeared. With all of us digging, including the major, we managed to furrow out a little cross trench. That enabled us to crawl a retreat to the main trench that swung round the wood, an extension of the very trench we’d crossed going in two hours earlier.

  Like most trenches in the Salient this one was woefully shallow, only two-feet deep – the water table being too high to dig any further – but it did have a decent parapet. And having been French a day earlier it was facing the right way. Furthermore it contained some surprising trophies. It was packed with dead and wounded enemy soldiers and I nearly jumped out of my britches when I came upon a colonel. He was alive, if not fit.

  ‘Sir!’ I yelled excitedly at Ormond, trying not to draw the attention of the entire German 26th Reserve Corps – the one from General Currie’s map. ‘You’d better have a look, sir.’

  Ormond approached. ‘Well, well. Isn’t that something...’ He saw straight away what the fuss was about, enough to know it wasn’t a fuss at all. Not every day did someone capture a German Oberst.

  ‘I went through all their papers, sir, and noted their insignias,’ I said. ‘The men here are from the 2nd Prussian Guards and the 234th Bavarians. I’m sure that’ll mean something to someone.’

  Ormond, who hadn’t flinched once all night, glanced at me again.

  ‘What exactly did you do before the war, MacPhail?’

  ‘I was a lawyer, sir, although I’m trying to keep it under my cap.’

  He grinned. ‘Were you indeed? As a matter of fact so was I.’ He scratched at his chin.

  ‘I could take a message back to Brigade,’ I offered.

  Ormond shook his head. ‘No. I’ve a better idea. Forget the message: take them back.’ He pointed at the colonel and the officer beside him who was wearing an Iron Cross ribbon. The actual cross appeared to be missing in action.

  Once I’d shepherded them and myself out of danger I began to talk.