Thomas Hope Floyd - At Ypres with Best Dunkley
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Thomas Hope Floyd >> At Ypres with Best Dunkley
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That same evening orders came through for me to proceed up the line,
but, as the following letter will tell, they were afterwards cancelled,
owing to some mistake:
"June 2nd.
"I had a walk down town yesterday evening. Then I came back and called
at the C.R.E. office to say good-bye to David Morgan. He was in--writing
letters--and I stayed a few minutes; then he walked back with me part
of the way. He wished me the best of luck. We both expressed a hope that
the war would soon be over! 'What a life!' said Morgan.
"Leigh got up before 4 this morning, as his train up the line left soon
after that. I got up at 6, and had breakfast. My kit was taken down to
the New Siding Station where I had to report at 7.50. The place was, as
usual, crowded with troops waiting to go up the line. There was a train
full of Portuguese troops in the siding. I reported to the R.T.O. He
said 'Get in officer's coach marked C, and get out at Bethune.' Then he
suddenly discovered that my name was crossed out. 'I've got your name
crossed off here; I don't think you are to go. You had better stand by a
few minutes while I telephone and find out,' he remarked. He then
telephoned to Headquarters and, after about ten minutes, the reply came
through: 'Not to proceed.' There had been a mistake about the division
or something. Anyhow, I was ordered to return to camp. So I told my man
to take my kit back, and returned. The others went up the line. It is
funny, isn't it? I am amused. I take all these changes with equal
equanimity. I am quite agreeable whatever happens.... I know that
whatever happens all will turn out right. I shall arrive at the right
place at the right time. It is most interesting. I expect you will be
pleased at the delay!
"When I got back I saw the Adjutant and reported to him. He was with the
padre, an Irishman who was an officer in Carson's Ulster Volunteer
Force, at the time. He was amused, and the padre said 'Lucky man!' So I
have had a nice easy day, writing letters and strolling about....
"There are a whole crowd of Portuguese here now. A large number marched
up from the station, with band playing, this morning. I find that the
Portuguese troops pay more attention to saluting than do the French; I
have received more salutes from Portuguese than from French; but I hear
that the discipline of the Portuguese in the trenches is very bad
indeed.
"I notice that it is announced in the paper to-day that a violent
artillery bombardment is in progress between Ypres and the sea. There
you are--that is the preliminary bombardment which always precedes a
great battle in war of to-day."
"June 3rd.
"I am still here, and have heard nothing further about going up the
line. The weather is still hot and fine--summer at its best. Yesterday
evening I went down town as usual. When I got back I found some
Portuguese officers in the mess. Everybody was talking French; it was
amusing; but I soon disappeared to my tent. Macdonald left this tent
some days ago; Leigh went up the line; ---- took the latter's place: so
now there are just ---- and I in Tent 12. He returned slightly tight
about 11, and talked a lot of stuff, telling me many stories of his
lurid past! He seems to have been a gay undergraduate at Jesus College,
Oxford, seventeen years ago; he is now thirty-eight. His home is in
----. His two children live there. He has a daughter fifteen and a son
in the Cathedral choir. Yet he himself is a Quaker! And he is in the
Army! He was present at the Battle of the Marne. He is a most quaint
individual altogether.
"He and I were censoring-letters this morning. It was amusing, but soon
became boring as most of the men employed the same formula: 'Just a line
to let you know that I am in the pink, hoping this finds you in the best
of health as this leaves me at present, etc.'!
"I went down town this afternoon and had a bath (an expensive luxury
which cost me 2s.) and strawberries and cream (which cost 3s. 6d.) That
just gives you an idea of prices in this God-forsaken land named
France....
"I also looked inside St. Michael's Church during the afternoon service.
It appears to be a case of come in and go out when you please. There is
one redeeming feature about the French people: they take their religion
seriously, and the children are systematically taught. One can see that.
The priest is a depressing-looking old chap. The service in the Gallican
Church is much nicer than the service in Roman Catholic, or extreme High
Anglican churches in England. There were not nearly so many candles
to-day carried in procession as last Sunday. Nor was the congregation so
large.
"I read the _Middleton Guardian_ correspondence to ---- in the tent when
I got back. He was interested. We then argued until about 11. Macdonald,
in a tent close by, called out 'Floyd, shut up!' The latter is marked
'temporary base' for a month; that is why he has not yet gone up the
line. All the others who came out when I did have now gone up the line;
I am the only one left behind!"
"June 4th.
" ... At 3.50 this afternoon I was informed that the Adjutant wished to
see me; so I went to the orderly room. He informed me that I go up the
line to-morrow morning. I go to the 2/5th Lancashire Fusiliers, 55th
Division....
"Now I am going to bed in my tent for the last time in this peaceful
place, where the only reminder of the fact that war is raging is to be
traced in the encamped city on the sand dunes above the town and the
swarms of soldiers. The sunset is fine, the air is now a little cooler
after the heat of the day, and the sea and the river calm and
refreshing."
Thus ended my long wait at Etaples. The following morning (June 5) I
rose at 6. Having had breakfast, I reported at the New Siding Station at
6.50. I was ordered to get into the train which was drawn up there, and
get out at Hazebrouck, where I would receive further orders from the
R.T.O. there. The train moved off at 7.40. As we passed Camiers we
noticed an American camp there; an American waved the Stars and Stripes
as we passed. We passed through Boulogne at 9. At 1 we reached the city
of St. Omer, where the great Earl Roberts had died at Field-Marshal
French's G.H.Q. in 1914. All round here we noticed numerous German
prisoners working along the line; and we passed many dumps of various
kinds. At 2.30 we steamed into Hazebrouck. I noticed a long hospital
train standing in the station, full of wounded who were being taken to
the Base hospitals. Those who were in a condition to do so looked very
pleased with life.
I reported to the R.T.O. in the square at Hazebrouck, and he gave me
instructions to go by the next train to Poperinghe. It was a sultry day
and I was glad of a drink. I managed to get one on the station. I could
occasionally hear the rumble of the guns in the distance now, but very
faint.
The train left Hazebrouck at 3.30 p.m. The country looked as calm and
peaceful as anything. The only signs which suggested war were the German
prisoners at the side of the railway and the numerous dumps. But we drew
nearer to the Front. The train halted at Abeele, a village near the
frontier of France and Flanders. As we stopped here for a few minutes a
number of us managed to dash into an _estaminet_ opposite the station
and get a drink! From Abeele onwards the most noticeable objects were
the aeroplanes which were now very numerous above us, the presence of
which indicated our proximity to the war.
At 6.30 the train came to a standstill in a station which I was informed
was my destination, Poperinghe. "This is the railhead for the Ypres
Salient" I was told. So out I got with my kit. I was expected. There was
a mess cart awaiting me at the station; and in it I jogged along to the
Transport Lines which were in the vicinity of Brandhoek a mile or so
further on--on the left of the road from Poperinghe to Ypres.
The transport driver told me what it was like in that part, how it had
been very quiet when the 55th Division took over their positions in the
Salient from the 29th Division the previous autumn, but had grown more
lively every day; how they had received a nasty gas bombardment only a
few days ago, how the Boche had recently taken to shelling us furiously
and systematically every night, and how there were some very hot times
ahead--there was to be a raid by a battalion in our brigade that night.
It was fairly quiet when I arrived--it was a time of the day when things
generally were somewhat quiet, when the guns were resting before joining
in the nightly fray--so I did not immediately notice how near to the war
I had come. But I was soon to realize it.
When I reached the Transport Lines I made the acquaintance of two
officers of the 2/5th Lancashire Fusiliers of whom I was destined to see
much in the coming months, Philip Cave Humfrey and Joseph
Roake--especially Roake, as it was his good fortune to remain with the
Battalion until long after the cessation of hostilities and to be with
me in the 15th Lancashire Fusiliers in the Army of the Rhine. Humfrey,
by a curious coincidence, turned out--though I did not know it until
many months after--to be the brother-in-law of my school-friend William
Lindop!
Never shall I forget that summer evening near Brandhoek. Roake,
effervescing as always with droll wit, and Humfrey, with his natural
cheerfulness and affability, made me at home in their little hut at
once. I can well recall the scene: a tiny little wooden hut at the edge
of a large field; the wall adorned by a trench map of the Ypres Salient,
on which our present position was marked in pencil, and a striking
group photo of the Imperial War Cabinet, taken out of an illustrated
journal, in which the well-known faces of Lloyd George and Lord Curzon
seemed to dominate the picture; a little table upon which Humfrey
drafted a signal message to the Adjutant of the 2/5th, announcing my
arrival and asking for instructions, the table upon which an excellent
little dinner was almost immediately served; outside the observation
balloons in a curved line, denoting the Salient, and aircraft sweeping
through the skies.
It was then that I first saw what was going to be to me a very common
sight during those memorable "Wipers days"--an air fight. I had not been
in the little wooden hut many minutes before Roake called me out to
watch a scrap between British and German aeroplanes over the Salient. We
got out our field-glasses and, in the cool of a summer's evening, when
any ordinary individual in "Blighty" would be relaxing from the labours
of the day in cricket or in tennis, we surveyed with interest the
contests between the chivalrous heroes of the air far above. It was then
that I first saw a "blazing trail across the evening sky of Flanders."
There were many such in the summer of 1917, though the brilliant young
airman of whose death that glowing eulogy had been written now lay
sleeping beneath a little wooden cross in the grave in which the
Germans, paying homage to true chivalry, had laid him at Annoeullin. Who
could watch those little specks rising and falling, and falling to rise
no more, up there in the bright blue sky without a thrill of admiration
for these "New Elizabethans" of England and Germany?
It was during tea that I realized that I was really at the war. The guns
began to boom and the hut shook with the continual vibration. And then
the band of the 2/5th Lancashire Fusiliers struck up some jolly tunes in
the field. War and music going hand in hand, it was difficult to know
whether one ought to feel jolly or sad. I think I may safely say that we
felt as jolly and gay as could be; I know that the romantic aspect was
the one which appealed to me most. This was the real thing, none of your
home-service games.
The bombardment became more intense as the evening progressed. After
dark the Transport moved off to carry rations up to the men in the line.
If it is not superfluous to do so, I would wish to pay here the warmest
possible tribute to those gallant Transport men who used to "carry
rations on the road from Pop to Ypres." It was no picnic. The Boche knew
quite well the time that vast and apparently never ending chain of
traffic would be wending its nightly way from Poperinghe to Ypres. He
shelled the great high road systematically every night. Every night
some of those gallant men would go never to return. It seemed marvellous
that so many could escape the destruction which was hurled at them; but
war is full of wonders.
My diary of that night reads as follows:
"As it began to get dark the bombardment became louder and louder and
the flashes more vivid. Shells were falling at Vlamertinghe, half way
between Poperinghe and Ypres, exploding with a great sound. They were
falling here yesterday!
"At about 10.30 p.m. we saw the Transport set off along the road, taking
rations and supplies up to Ypres.... Humfrey went with them. (I would
have gone up with him, but the Adjutant of the 2/5th had sent a message
by the signals saying that I could sleep at the Transport Lines and
report the following morning.) Red Cross motors were also coming back
from Ypres with wounded. Meanwhile the moon--a full moon--steadily rose
above the Front, amid the flashes between Ypres and Messines, the
bombardment sounding like thunder. It was a fine scene. If only there
had been an artist there to paint it! A farm on the Switch Road (a new
road for traffic built by the British Army) some way off got on fire. I
hear that the King's, in our Brigade, are going over the top on a raid
to-night. Our great offensive here has not yet opened, but it will come
off before very long....
"To bed 11.30, the guns booming like continuous thunder. I was awakened
in the night by shells whizzing past the hut where I was sleeping."
So I was, at last, introduced to that strangest of all music--the
screech of a shell: _Whoo-oo-oo-oo-oo-UMP!_
CHAPTER II
THE PRISON
It has already been observed that the 55th (West Lancashire) Division,
after a hot time on the Somme, particularly at Guillemont and Ginchy,
had come up the Salient in October, 1916. So when I joined the Division
it was in the 8th Corps, commanded by Sir Aylmer Hunter-Weston
("Hunter-Bunter," as I remember Best-Dunkley calling him), in Sir
Herbert Plumer's Second Army. The 55th Division was responsible for the
sector between Wieltje and the south of Railway Wood.
The 55th Division was commanded by Major-General Jeudwine, of whom it
has been said: "No General ever was more devoted to his Division: no
Division ever was more devoted to its General."[2] The three infantry
brigades in the Division were the 164th Brigade (Brigadier-General
Stockwell), the 165th Brigade (Brigadier-General Boyd-Moss), and the
166th Brigade (then commanded by Brigadier-General Lewis). The 2/5th
Lancashire Fusiliers, who had been commanded by Colonel
Best-Dunkley--an officer who had previously been Adjutant on the
Somme--since October 20, 1916, were in the 164th Brigade.
In those days a brigade consisted of four battalions. The other three
battalions in the 164th Brigade were the 1/4th King's Own Royal
Lancaster Regiment, commanded by Colonel Balfour, the 1/8th King's
Liverpool Regiment (Liverpool Irish), commanded by Colonel Heath, and
the 1/4th Loyal North Lancashire Regiment, commanded by Colonel Hindle,
who, after winning the D.S.O. and Bar, was killed at the head of his
battalion at Heudecourt during the great Battle of Cambrai on November
30, 1917. When the necessity for "infiltration" brought about the
reduction of the strength of brigades from four battalions to three, the
Liverpool Irish were afterwards transferred to the 57th Division. But
throughout the whole of the period with which this narrative deals the
Liverpool Irish were still with us.
It is interesting to note the summary of the situation written by the
chronicler of the 2/5th Lancashire Fusiliers in the 1917 _Lancashire
Fusiliers' Annual_:
"On May 26th, the Battalion moved back to the Prison. Lieutenant-Colonel
B. Best-Dunkley went on leave the same day, leaving Major Brighten in
command.
"Then began a very memorable 17 days--Ypres was shelled heavily every
day, particular attention being paid to the Prison.
"By night the Battalion was occupied in digging a new communication
trench, Pagoda Trench. The digging was finished in two nights, but there
was all the riveting to do as well. Every night the working parties have
to pass through a barrage. Our casualties during this period totalled 60
or 70. The _moral_ of the men was very high all the time. The continual
shelling, paradoxical as it must seem, hardened and prepared them as
much as anything for the great day which every one knew was not far off.
"We had our first serious gas attack on June 3rd. It was preceded by a
heavy bombardment of Ypres, after which some 25,000 gas shells were put
over, lasting from 10 p.m. to 4 p.m. We were fortunate in having very
few casualties."
That was the position of the Battalion when I set off to join it in the
Prison cells on the morning of June 5, 1917.
I rose at 10 a.m. It was a rowdy morning. The guns were still unusually
lively. While we were having breakfast shells were bursting three or
four hundred yards away from our hut, and we could hear occasional H.E.
dropping as far back as Poperinghe behind us.
The following letter which I wrote home from my cell (which I shared
with three other second-lieutenants, Gilbert Verity, Bernard Priestley
and H. A. Barker) in the Prison, dated June 6, 1917, describes my
journey to Ypres:
"At 11 a.m. I set off up the road with another officer to the city where
my unit is stationed. We got a lift in a motor as far as a town
half-way. This town (Vlamertinghe) was almost entirely in ruins. There
has been an ancient church there, but only the front of the tower and
all the crucifixes remain. Shells were bursting all about. We sat down
on a fence and waited for another lift. It was most exciting. I have not
got the 'wind up' yet; I am more interested than anything else. I
contemplated a famous hill on my right. Then we got on another motor.
This ride was _most_ exciting, the excitement consisting in whether we
could reach the city without being blown to pieces by the shells which
were exploding to front of us, to right of us, to rear of us, and to
left of us! The road was cut up by shells which had exploded on it, and
trees were felled across it. We jogged a good deal riding over this
debris. We saw one of our batteries on the left of the road which had
been smashed by a German shell. A good many of the transport horses had
been killed on the road last night, but the bodies had been removed by
now. We got out of the car just outside the city and walked into it.
What struggles have taken place here! One could hardly realize that in
pre-war days this had been a great and flourishing city. Just a few
buildings remain standing, and those all in ruins; debris everywhere,
shells constantly exploding everywhere. It is reckoned that the rate of
casualties in this city just now is a thousand a week; military, of
course--there are no civilians here; it is a battlefield where battles
have been fought, where strafing is going on now, and around which a
great battle is about to be fought. One battalion in our brigade went
over the top on a raid last night. Our guns are even now conducting the
preliminary bombardment along the line which precedes a great offensive.
And the Germans are giving it us back too! My companion was very anxious
that we should reach the Prison without personally encountering any
shells. He told me that the corner round which we were passing was a
windy one! But we got inside the Prison safe and sound, and here I now
am writing this while the shells are flying and our guns stationed in
the city are speaking. The top of this building is in ruins as shells
are constantly hitting it, but we are down below, and we have
wire-netting to catch the falling debris.
"I was received by a young Major and the Adjutant, Lieutenant Andrews. I
had lunch with them and the other officers in the (Headquarters)
mess-room."
There let us pause for a moment. There are scenes in one's life,
pleasant and otherwise, which one can never forget, which ever rest
vividly in the eye of the mind. There were many such scenes during my
experiences in France and Belgium; but none do I recollect more clearly,
and few with more satisfaction, than this my first meal with the 2/5th
Lancashire Fusiliers. Never was a subaltern given a more friendly
welcome than that which Major Brighten extended to me. I was made at
home at once. Padre Newman, who seemed little more than a young
undergraduate with a gay and affable countenance, but with that
unselfish and utterly unostentatious heroism depicted in every
feature--a typical example of the kind of hero which our public schools,
with all their failings, have sent forth in hundreds and thousands
during the last five years--was placing jolly records on a gramophone
when I entered the little cell; and the mess-waiters were preparing
lunch on a table which had been erected for the purpose.
In England I had been accustomed to "battalion messes," but out here
such an arrangement was very rare. "Company messes" were the thing out
here. There were generally five messes in all--Headquarters and the four
companies. Major Brighten at once invited me to stay for lunch at
Headquarters and, when the meal was announced to be "served," told me to
sit next to him. I found him extremely interesting. The conversation
was most entertaining. The subject upon which his wit pivoted during a
good part of the meal was the Brigadier (always an interesting topic!),
his latest sayings and possible future career 'after the war'--a period
which Major Brighten always declared to be in the very near future. The
first thing which struck me about Major Brighten was his youth; he was
only twenty-seven. I had not been accustomed to such young senior
officers in England. In fact, youth seemed to be the foremost
characteristic of the Battalion. Nearly all the officers were extremely
young. And I learnt that Colonel Best-Dunkley himself was only
twenty-seven! It was the pride of the Battalion that it was led by
youth. If ever a proof were required of the truth of Disraeli's famous
maxim "The youth of a nation are the trustees of posterity," it is here
in the brilliant record of the 2/5th Lancashire Fusiliers. Let Mr. Alec
Waugh and the League of Youth and Social Progress carefully note that,
for here, surely, is a feather in their cap!
After lunch I was posted to a company--"B" Company; and I was conducted
to another cell where I found my company commander, Captain H. H.
Andrews, sitting up in bed, looking very happy. It was quite the thing
to stay in bed until the afternoon in those days, because the nightly
working parties did not get back until just before dawn. It was a day of
pleasant surprises. I had already been very favourably impressed by the
magnetic personalities of Major Brighten and Padre Newman; now I was
ushered into the presence of another amiable military genius, Captain
Andrews. I had not been in his presence two minutes before I
congratulated myself on my good fortune in having "clicked" for so
delightful a company commander as Captain Andrews. Though older and very
different in appearance, he was another officer of the same stamp as the
lovable and brilliant Major Brighten. He was an ideal company commander.
One could not hope for a better either from a military or from a social
point of view. He was ability, wit, and sociability combined. Those were
great days.
But to continue the reproduction of the letter quoted above:
"I am attached to B Company, commanded by Captain Andrews, and I have
been appointed by him to command the seventh platoon. Just before tea
Captain Andrews had me in his room and gave me maps of the district and
explained--with reference to the maps--the situation. He also told me
the plan of campaign and explained what Haig's intentions for the whole
summer offensive are and what he requires us to do; so I now know the
general idea, and I also know in detail what this battalion, this
company, and my own platoon have got to do--and when; but as it is all
very secret information only for officers, I, unfortunately, cannot give
it you. My opinion is that the general plan is good, with the exception
that I do not quite appreciate the point with respect to the particular
part which this battalion (and brigade) has to play in a few days; it
strikes me as being rather foolish, though it may be all right.
"While we were having tea the Germans set up a most terrific bombardment
of this prison. Shells exploded just outside the window-opening, causing
quite a wind inside the room. It is going on still; shells keep striking
the wall outside. There it goes--bang! And there are our guns smashing
back at them. There again--debris scattering in the quad, the other side
of the door. Whizz-bang! It is extraordinary that any walls in this city
can remain standing at this rate. They say that this goes on day and
night. When a shell explodes the room is temporarily darkened by the
cloud of smoke which rises. This is _some_ bombardment; it is worse than
the worst of thunder-storms.
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