Chapter 1
I am S479584 Private Jack Smedley of the 1st Battalion, The Hampshire Regiment. It is October 1915 and several months ago when I enlisted, I had to lie about my age as I won`t turn sixteen until March next year. I am quite tall for my age at just under six feet, which no doubt reinforced the illusion that I was older than I actually was. Luckily the recruiting officer didn`t delve too deeply into my past and check my date of birth. I think he was just glad to get one more volunteer through the doors regardless of their age or circumstance. I must be very careful with this journal, where and when I write in it and also where I secrete it for safe keeping as we are forbidden to make any sort of record of what we do and what goes on. I was raised on a farm just outside Winchester and spent my formative years there, helping out on the farm where I could, like after school and at weekends. My father enlisted only a month or so after the declaration of war. He joined the newly formed Royal Flying Corps and is now somewhere in France with his squadron. I had no ambition to follow him into the sky and so cheated my way into the army where I now find myself. After five weeks of training, I found myself along with many other young men, on the dock side at Southampton ready to board a run-down steam ship called “Andromeda”. In her civilian life, the ship was designed to carry three hundred passengers in relative comfort, on her regular run between Southampton and Genoa in Italy, but now, there were nearly a thousand of us crammed on board, on deck and even in the hold, as the ship prepared to sail for Cherbourg in France. The extra load meant the ship was sitting low in the water and everyone aboard was praying for a calm crossing as the ship looked as if a mere gust of wind would send her to the bottom with all hands.
After what turned out to be a rather uneventful crossing lasting nine hours, we docked at Cherbourg and were quickly assembled on the quayside to await further instructions. My unit was to move eastwards towards the front, I thought that the front was a long way away and was surprised to learn that the Germans were within twenty miles of the port. So much for thinking we were safe for a while. We weren`t told how long it would take to reach the front, but I deduced that it wouldn`t be long, having learnt how close the front was. Even at the dockside in Cherbourg we could hear the sound of distant artillery fire, ours or German, we weren`t certain. I and three other lads that I had become friends with during training were told that we would be attached to the headquarters platoon and would work alongside the Catering Corps cooking meals for the rest of our company. I was detailed as a driver for one of the two horse drawn field kitchen wagons and as a general kitchen hand when we were static at various locations. This suited me quite well as coming from a farming background I was used to horses and could already drive a wagon. My friend Billy got the other wagon and I had to show him how to put the tackle on the horses and then show him how to drive the wagon. He was from London and had never been this close to a horse, so for him it was quite a steep learning curve as we were told we would be pulling out at first light the next day which gave us only about nine hours.
Our little catering unit was headed by a Scottish sergeant named McBride, a corporal and two privates. Sergeant McBride was a quietly spoken man who had been a chef in a smart hotel in Edinburgh before joining the Army. He quickly made us feel at home and explained in more detail what our duties were to consist of. Just after dawn the following morning we had the wagons hitched up and were ready to move. A blast from a bugle from somewhere up ahead where the main part of our company was in a holding camp signalled the start of our journey. I couldn`t help but feel apprehensive as we moved out, it was my first time abroad and certainly my first time in a theatre of war, although we were reassured that action was some way off yet. As we moved out of the docks our small convoy was pulled to the roadside by the military police to allow some more important units to take the road ahead of us. Several companies of foot soldiers marched past, followed by a company of artillery, with motor Lorries towing large guns. Some units of the army were already mechanised and we were told that the whole army would be mechanised within a year, even though everyone said the war would be over long before that. For now, we had to make do with the horses. Once the artillery units had passed we expected to be signalled forward but we were kept at the roadside for several more hours. We were all milling about chatting and tending to our horses when there was a loud clanking noise from somewhere behind us. We didn`t know what was causing the noise and the horses got spooked and started bucking and fidgeting in their traces. After some minutes, with the noise getting steadily louder and the horses getting more and more spooked a monstrous mechanical monster appeared. The horses were going mad and we had a hard job controlling them. Sergeant McBride told us that the monster was a tank, commonly called a “Landship”, and that they were the latest thing to go to war. He explained that there were five men inside and that the tank was very heavily armoured and armed with two big side mounted guns which could throw a high explosive shell about two miles. It was supposed to be virtually indestructible and everyone thought that their introduction would hasten the end of the war. The tanks were about twelve feet high at the front end and were diamond shaped with massive steel tracks round the edge of the diamond shape to propel it along. As yet the Germans didn`t have anything comparable so the advantage was definitely ours. There were several tanks in their own little convoy and once they had cleared our position, we were waved back onto the road and recommenced our journey. The field kitchen wagons that Billy and I drove were heavy vehicles with six wheels each, two axles at the rear to spread the load and a single steering axle at the front, each pulled by four heavy horses. When put together on a static site, they combined to give the catering guys a range of four ovens and several open fire pits. They were powered by coal which was delivered daily by men of the army service corps. We soon learned the routine of our job and within a few days it became almost second nature to us. Getting up early in the morning, around four o` clock, helping to prepare breakfasts for the company of two hundred men, then getting the fires extinguished and the wagons hitched up ready to move. In the evenings it was similar, parking the wagons close together then tending to our horse teams whilst the catering guys prepared the evening meal. Usually this was stew of some sort, often with dry bread and gallons of tea to wash it all down. The food was hardly appetising, but we all soon got used to the field rations. The catering team did their best with very limited resources and truth be told we didn`t go hungry, just fed up with the same food all the time. Occasionally one of the company scouts would swing by with some animal that he had shot to help with the rations. One day he bought in a large deer that he had shot and the evening meal that day was superb indeed. As part of the HQ platoon we were right at the back of our convoy so didn`t really see much. There were occasional skirmishes with the enemy but the action never reached back as far as us. We`d hear sounds of battle but that was all. We soon learned that any plans we might have had were subject to change at the last minute, with our company frequently being diverted to some other location where they were needed. Also attached to HQ platoon were the medics and they were frequently seen hurrying up towards the front as the various battles raged. Often they came back several hours later empty handed saying that they had lost more men to the enemy. It was rare for them to bring back any living casualties.
We`d been in France for two months and even though we kept moving we hadn`t in fact travelled much over thirty miles from Cherbourg. This seemed to be our lot, moving a mile or so forward and then either backtracking or going off somewhere else on a tangent. We seemed to keep coming back to one particular village, Brillevast; about twenty five miles inland from Cherbourg but still only about fifteen miles from the sea as our journey seemed to run parallel to the coast for much of the time. We came back to Brillevast for the second time in mid-December and reclaimed our previous location just outside the village. As the rest of our company was taking a few days rest and recuperation away from the action we expected to be there for a few days at least which eased the pressure on us and the horses considerably. We had defensive trenches already dug from our previous stay in the village, so it was quite easy to get acquainted with the trenches again. These were only shallow dug outs, nothing like the full size trenches further up the line at the front, or so we were told at any rate. Apparently the front trenches were about nine feet deep, about eight feet wide and the walls were braced with timber to prevent the trench collapsing. On the forward facing edge they had two steps, or rather two wide ledges, running the whole length of the trench, to allow men to have somewhere to stand to shoot at the enemy without being too exposed. There were wooden ladders every six feet or so to enable troops to go up and over the top to engage the enemy. There were side caverns dug out of the trench walls, also wood lined which acted as offices and sleeping areas for the officers. We still had to stand guard along with everybody else in HQ platoon, usually two hours on watch then four hours off. However, “off” was misleading as we still had the horses to attend to and our usual kitchen duties so it wasn`t much rest for us. One evening Billy and I were sharing a dug out on the eastern side of the village when were heard the sound of voices from nearby. It was already dark even though it was only a little after four in the afternoon. We had taken the guard at four and would stay there until six when we were due to be relieved. The voices got closer and we identified them as belonging to two young French girls. We were on alert in case they turned out to be less than friendly, but we needn`t have worried. Suddenly two young faces peeped over our low parapet, and after a few whispered comments between them, the two girls, probably about fifteen or sixteen, stood up and showed themselves. We couldn`t speak any French and they didn`t appear to speak any English but this didn`t prove to be much of a problem. Within minutes the girls hopped over the parapet and joined us in the dugout. Two hours later when we were relieved, both Billy and I emerged from the trench as men rather than boys. It was a wonderful interlude, but if there had been an enemy attack we would have been totally useless as we were otherwise engaged, sampling what the two girls had to offer. They had only just got out of the dugout and hidden themselves behind a rocky outcrop when our reliefs arrived to take over the guard. We stayed in Brillevast for ten days and each day when we were standing guard our French girls would come visiting. Luckily, for us and them no one ever caught us and we spent many a happy hour in that dugout, oblivious to anything apart from the female bodies snuggled next to us. I think that if the Germans had suddenly attacked, we would have probably stayed hidden in the dugout!!!!!
We moved again on Christmas Eve, but only a mile up the road. Late in the evening of Christmas Eve our girls came visiting again, and gave us a Christmas to remember. We even volunteered to take extra guard sessions that night and ended up staying in the dugout for a straight eight hours. I am sure that Sergeant McBride suspected something was going on, but he never said a word about it, just gave us a knowing look when he passed us.
On Christmas day we were all in for a surprise when our company sergeant major arrived in a horse drawn cart with a large sack in the back. Inside was a small present for each and every one of us, nothing of any real value, but worth the world to us as all the parcels contained chocolate, fruit and cigarettes, something which we just didn`t get every day. Later, after a special cooked breakfast, again something we didn`t get every day, usually it was dry bread with cheese or porridge at weekends, we got another surprise when an excited shout echoed along our trench from one of the more forward positions. One of the forward lookouts had seen an approaching German soldier crossing no-mans-land between our lines and those of the Germans, carrying a white flag on the end of a pole. One of the sergeants went up over the top of the trench and stepped into no-mans-land to go and meet the German. A conversation then took place, out on the bare ground between our lines, then from somewhere a football appeared. The sergeant waved our troops over the top as the Germans did likewise and before long we were enjoying a game of football with the enemy. For a few short hours the war between our two nations was forgotten, as we did what young men from wherever they came from did and enjoyed a bit of fun with a ball. As dusk fell, we each retreated to our own trenches and the war began again. Billy and I had drawn a guard shift for the early evening but by some swapping were able to arrange to spend all night in our dugout, for the second night running. I am sure the rest of the lads in our troop wondered what the hell was going on and must have suspected that we had something going, but it was also to their advantage as they could sleep all night without having to worry about a stint in the dugout, so probably despite suspicions, they kept quiet and everybody was happy. We had only been in the dugout for a few minutes when our girls again came visiting. So Christmas night, was wonderful as well as the day.
The days between Christmas and New Year were quiet with only sporadic shooting breaking out at intervals, but nothing to really get worried about. This all changed on the second of January when we received orders to move again. This time we were going right up to the front line some eight miles away, so would be facing the Germans properly rather than outposts as we had up to now. The German line was like a horseshoe shape and until now we had been on the ends of one of the spurs, with no real action just sporadic breakouts of fairly random shooting. Some of the young lads were a bit trigger happy and tended to shoot at anything that moved, particularly when down in the dugout position, but this new move would put us right in the firing line of the German artillery, something none of us was particularly looking forward to facing. We were sorry to leave Brillevast, not least because it meant leaving our girls, but we were both pragmatic enough to realise that our space would no doubt soon be filled by some other lucky lads. We knew that we would probably not return, and our final night with the girls was bitter-sweet. We moved as planned up to the main front, as our company was relieving a company of Royal Scots Dragoon Guards and a company of Sherwood Foresters along with two companies from the Devon and Dorset regiment. Just behind our new position was a whole squadron of artillery, which was bombarding the German positions only half a mile away, pretty much on a constant basis, with only about an hours respite around midnight. The noise was deafening and constant and was a real shock to the system after the relative quiet of Brillevast. We learnt through the grapevine that the German line was weakening and had in fact been breached in several places by a company of infantry, from the Yorkshire Regiment. Rumour had it that the Germans might soon pull back, vacating their line, which would give us several miles of re-captured land. The story was that the British were planning a major offensive later in the year which would hopefully push the enemy back many miles. This was reputed to be an Anglo-French operation on the banks of the River Somme, but the French later pulled back to a position of support only following a major enemy offensive at Verdun.
