1915_ The Death of Innocence - Lyn Macdonald [154]
Pte. W. Hay.
I was sent in front, maybe about fifty yards. It was a covering party, meaning that so many men went out in front to lie there and watch for the Jerries in case they made a sudden counterattack. If you heard them coming you were supposed to fire a few shots and warn the blokes behind. We were all dead beat. A young man falls asleep quickly when he’s tired, and I fell asleep when I was supposed to be wide awake, and Sergeant McGill, he was my platoon sergeant, he came rushing over and woke me up. He said, ‘You could be shot for falling asleep over your post! Get back in, back where you were. Send another chap out.’
He was a great chap, Dave, he was a great friend of mine really. So of course he wouldn’t put me on a charge, but if he had I would have been court martialled for sleeping at my post and endangering the whole company which I was doing really. But I was exhausted, like everybody else. We’d had no sleep, no hot drinks, for four days and we had practically nothing to eat.
Despite their exhaustion and the privations of a week’s grim fighting the men of the 27th Division could not be pulled out completely, for the line at the tip of the salient had to be held until the last. The best that could be done, while the retirement continued behind them, was to rest them in relays a little distance behind the support lines. It was not a relief, but it was at least a respite. There was no chance of a wash or a clean-up, but there was food to eat and time to have a sleep, and time at last to write home to families waiting apprehensively for news. Jock Macleod had spent eight sleepless days and nights in the line.
2nd Lt. J. Macleod,
We are having a so-called rest in rear of the firing line, but we are still heavily shelled all day. It will be grand when the Huns run out of ammunition. In the last thirty days we have only had our clothes off three times, have never been out of shell-fire and have lost very heavily in casualties, officers and men.
My valise unfortunately had to be abandoned along with heaps of other stuff in the much bombarded town of Ypres. When things get quieter it may be possible to recover it but for the time being please send me a toothbrush and tooth powder, some soap and a towel, and some socks.
You would be rather astonished if you could see me now. Buttons have been shed galore. My hands are dirty. So is my face! I am unshaved and my bonnet has lost one of its ribbons. We are lying in a dug-out which contains some British officers and native telephone orderlies! The dug-out is in the remains of a charming country house estate, with statues and busts, and ornamental water. The natives all wear their shirts outside their trousers, a somewhat astonishing habit, and a good few have starched white cuffs, which look absolutely incongruous in these surroundings!
The many postponements had at least given General Plumer a breathing space and an opportunity to work out detailed plans for the retirement but it was no easy task to disentangle the scattered troops. Parts of the 4th Division alone were attached to six different divisions under five different commands in five different sectors. It would be days before they were reunited.
Mercifully the night was peaceful, the moon sailed high, the weather stayed fine and the first stage of the withdrawal went like clockwork, unharassed by the enemy. It was a luminous dawn and behind the German line on the ridge above Polygon Wood the sun rose early into a sky of pale, cloudless