1915_ The Death of Innocence - Lyn Macdonald [314]
Pte. W. Jackman.
The people in front was this 21st Division, and we had to try and get in and take over the line from them, but they’d started off by digging a small trench alongside the road, and we all laid down there and the order came to dig in. Well, we only had trenching tools and there was a little mound in front of us what they’d chucked up and we had a bit of cover like that. So we kept on digging away. Where I dropped in the trench there was a dead man, and me and another chap had to hump this bloke out. That was my first experience of a dead man. We dug, and dug and dug, and it was hard chalk and all you could do with a trenching tool was dig into the bank, the wall of the trench. The shrapnel was coming over, and we was trying to make a hole to get our head in there.
Trpr. W. Clarke.
We were practically on top of Jerry’s trench and relieving was a dodgy business. It was only twenty or twenty-five yards from them and you couldn’t stand up or you’d get it in the noddle. Right, we crouch our way to this trench, start to go in – and by the way I’ve got my load on my back, plus a huge trench periscope made of sheet steel. I was so loaded I could hardly walk, let alone crouch. We get half-way up the trench and a message is passed down, ‘Lieutenant So-and-So refuses to be relieved.’ What we heard him called by the men we were to relieve I can’t repeat here, but after almost having a riot on his hands he gave in.
Right, we get to our position and I had to go along to the left. When I got there I found I was the only man. Round the corner from my bit of trench it had all been blown in and it was filled with liquid mud, so when I reported this I had orders that every two hours I must crawl along the trench and make contact with the infantry on our left. Which I did… now and again! On the way there was a dead Welsh Fusilier, lying on the fire platform, and he wasn’t a pretty sight, a great big hefty fellow, about six feet four inches. He was beginning to smell terrible. We reported him and later that night came a message: ‘Soames, Clarke, bury that man.’ I thought, ‘Oh blimey, here we go again.’ Anyway we had a go. He was too heavy and bloated for us to get him over the top and bury him, so in the end we dug a hole in the side of the trench, pushed him in and covered him up the best we could. But as it rained the earth washed away and there was our companion again! We kept on having to cover him.
Pte. W. Spencer.
Our company was on the extreme right nearest to Tower Bridge. We got half-way up the hill, there was quite a steep gradient where we were, and then we paused again and got down and we were ordered to take cover as much as we could. But there wasn’t much cover at all, and of course we were right in the line for machine-gun fire from the Germans. All we could do was lay out in the open, that’s what it was. By then it was getting dusk and we lay down on the ground and there was plenty of firing coming up, and then Jerry started sending these Very lights up to see people who were moving and train machine-guns on them. Well! Next thing a Very light came over and just missed my back and settled on my haversack. I could feel it! It had flared up and smoke was pouring over my head, you see? I could smell it and I thought, ‘My God! I’m on fire.’ I rolled over quick on my back and rolled back and forward to smother it. No time to get it off – it was blazing! Then I pulled it off when it got to a smoulder. I kept that haversack for years. It had a large hole in it where the Very light had burned through.
Throughout the night as others moved in to relieve them, small parties of exhausted men made their way out of the line and went thankfully back from the battle zone in such