1915_ The Death of Innocence - Lyn Macdonald [338]
In the line at Loos a battalion of the Camerons had a Christmas visit from a Staff Officer.
Lt. G. Barber, 1st Bn., Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders, 1st Brig., 1stDiv.
On the morning of the 24th I was sent to D Company, to take command while Gordon went on leave. This time D Company was in a support trench about a hundred and fifty yards from the front line. This trench was in poor condition – narrow, too seldom traversed, and not nearly deep enough. As I had to send two platoons up to the front line every night, it was rather difficult to improve the trench, especially as no work was possible by day owing to the fact that the Hun on Hill 70 could look down and shoot right along it. This fact was not fully appreciated by the Powers That Be who wear Red Hats, until one of them arrived about eleven o’clock in the morning on Christmas Eve and shouted down the steps of my dug-out for me. I went up and found an irate Staff Officer who wanted to know why the devil my men were not doing any work! I pointed out to him, respectfully but firmly, that unless he wanted half the men blotted out it was an impossibility. While arguing the point, he started along the trench and when he was about thirty yards away from the dug-out the Huns put over a covey of ‘pip-squeaks’. I’ve never seen a staff officer hurry so fast in all my life! He bolted into my dug-out like a rabbit, head first. He then stayed so long talking about the impossibility of working by day, that I very nearly had to offer him lunch! Christmastime did not reduce the daily hate on both sides.
But in some parts of the line at least the ‘hate’ tailed away in the evening of Christmas Eve. It was the Germans’ Weihnachtsabend, the traditional night of celebration, but there was not much sign of celebration in the trenches. From time to time there was a plaintive attempt at a carol and once in the trenches close to Plugstreet Wood a tremendous voice entertained the trenches of both sides with a selection from La Traviata, stopping abruptly in mid-aria as if a door had been slammed shut. Near Wulverghem a Christmas tree ablaze with candles appeared on the parapet of the German front trench. For a few moments the tiny pinpoints of flame flickered uncertainly in the dark until a British officer ordered rapid fire and the Tommies shot it down.
In the first chill light of Christmas morning the guns boomed out.
Cpl. D. A. Pankhurst, Royal Field Artillery, 56 Div.
We hailed the smiling morn with five rounds fired fast, and we kept up slow fire all day. Those were our orders. Some batteries sent over as many as three hundred shells. It was a Christmas present to Fritz, they said. But I do believe myself that it was intended to discourage fraternising.
The 7th Green Howards did not parade until ten o’clock on Christmas morning, and they richly deserved a lie-in for the whole battalion had been out until the early hours working in the rain and the dark filling sandbags with liquid mud and had returned dead beat and chilled to the marrow. A rum ration on their return and a hot breakfast when they woke up restored their spirits and they looked forward to a lazy day with a few festivities to enliven it. Later the Chaplain came over to hold a Christmas carol service in a field near the camp – the third he had conducted that morning – and it was lustily enjoyed by everyone but the Sergeant-Major. There was no music, but the Sergeant-Major was the proud possessor of a fine tenor voice and he volunteered to act as precentor and lead the singing. It was very cold so the service was a short one, but there was time for a number of old favourites before disaster struck. The Colonel saw it coming.
Lt. Col. R. Fife, DSO, 7th Bn., Green Howards.
It went pretty well until the Sergeant-Major started the hymn, ‘Once in Royal David’s City’, to the tune of ‘Hark, the Herald Angels’. I saw the awful pitfall