1915_ The Death of Innocence - Lyn Macdonald [266]
It was closing time and I could hear Julie chucking the troops out. Mama began filling the soup bowls and I began rubbing my turn in anticipation. Then, of all the blasted bad luck, in came the Provost Sergeant, Tim Arley. He was a big raw ex-Irish Guardsman who fancied his luck with Julie and he used to use his exalted rank to get into the kitchen after closing time. When he saw me sitting there he went berserk – grabbed me by the collar and the seat of my trousers and literally threw me through the back door into the stinking midden in the courtyard. I scrambled out, smelling of non-violets! But I had the small satisfaction of hearing Julie roaring that he was a big ugly cochon who was no longer welcome in Mama’s house. I almost felt like going back to interpret that for him! I scraped off the worst of the muck but it was days before even my best friends would come anywhere near me. The sequel came when I met Tim Arley at the reunion dinner in 1921. I gave him a nasty look and reminded him that he had insulted me in front of a lady in 1915. He pretended not to remember but as I turned away he said, ‘Phew. There’s a terrible whiff of a midden here all of a sudden.’ That did it! ‘Choose your weapons,’ I said. ‘Right,’ said he, ‘one pint of bitter and thank you very much.’ What could you do with a man so lacking in decency! Anyway, he was out of luck with Julie – he told me she never spoke to him again as long as he was at Laventie.
Compared to the innocent enthusiasts of Kitchener’s Army now pouring into France, men like Frank Moylan who had been at the front for several months were old hands, but, although the new men had a lot to learn and it would be months before hard seasoning would turn them in the eyes of the Army into useful soldiers, even now the Army was glad of them. There was a lot more territory to cover. The British had now taken over a line that stretched across the downlands of the Somme to meet the right of the French Tenth Army, and on its left they had extended their front from the la Bassée Canal across the coal-fields where the trenches ran among spoil-heaps and mining villages. In front of the trenches of the 47th London Division was the looming black pile they called the Double Crassier.
Cpl, F. Moylan, 1/7th (City of London), Bn., London Regt., 140 Brig., 47 Div.
Let me explain the position of the front line. There was a communication trench leading back to the mining village, a sort of model place, with a brick wall round it and a hole had been knocked in the wall, that’s where the communication trench ended, and there were all the miners’ cottages there. There was a wide road and these cottages were on a slope each side, most of them with the furniture still in, and little gardens, and if you were in support you were in these houses. We had a company commander, Captain Green, and we used to think he was a bit of a martinet. These cottages had red-tiled floors and he made us clean them while we were in there. Of course you couldn’t move out in the daytime, and it kept us occupied, but they had an obsession about cleanliness, these officers. Even the brigadier, Brigadier-General Cuthbert, ordered brooms to be taken from these houses up to the front line and we had to actually sweep the trenches! And not only that, but there was a sandbag pinned up in each fire-bay, stuck to the side of the trench with a spent cartridge, and this was for rubbish to keep the trench tidy. We used to call him ‘Spit-and-Polish Cuthbert!’ That was his nick-name. Of course, in the summer months when it was comparatively dry it was easier to keep the trenches in good order than it was later on when we had all the mud.
Anyway, when you were in support you were back in these cottages and they all had