Blood and Thunder (11 page)

The senior subaltern is married. Somehow he seems to pay little attention to Maria. Perhaps if I was married I should be given the necessary inspiration of bravery; but being just a blasphemous bachelor, whenever the old bitch comes singing through the air I duck my head and drop into my pit.

As well as dodging shrapnel, Regie was also learning that life or death at the front was a lottery. One morning he had climbed into his married friend's shelter for tea when the Germans opened a bombardment and it began to rain shrapnel, shaking the leaves above their heads. He wished to God he could be in his larger, more efficient shelter. At a lull in the fighting he made a dash for his pit. ‘What do I find lying in the bottom of it but a great, hot, jagged splinter … about eighteen inches long.' He was resolved to live life for the here and now. In the next hour he might receive a bullet in the head or a thousand cigarettes might arrive in the post, you just couldn't tell.

Finally, Regie had learned that, as sharp as he thought he was, he still had a thing or two to learn from senior officers. He had sent a man to the guard room for answering back and he remained locked up until the major returned the next morning. ‘I always thought I was fairly adequate in abuse. But when this creature put up as his defence: “I didn't think a Second Lieutenant could order me to the Guard Room,” I just stood and gasped for ten minutes while this old retired Major talked to him. I never heard such [abuse] in my life, and the old man never once repeated himself.'

Regie's induction to life under fire on the Aisne was short; not because of flying shrapnel but because the French were about to relieve the BEF in the area. Sir John French had coveted a move north for some time. In the interests of supply lines and reinforcements it was desirable to be as close to the Channel as possible. Additionally, the German High Command had resolved to push for the Channel to gain a stronger footing in Belgium and threaten Britain itself. A mass logistical effort ferried the BEF north, in large part by rail, and when further troops arrived they would form a line from Armentières in the south all the way up to the area surrounding a little town in Belgium that was about to become engrained on British consciousness: Ypres.

Approaching Belgian shores in the first week of October was a mounted contingent that, like the 9th Lancers, contained large numbers of Old Etonians. The Household Cavalry, comprising the Royal Horse Guards (The Blues) and the 1st and 2nd Life Guards (The Royals) landed at Ostend and Zeebrugge and concentrated in Bruges in pouring rain on 9 October.

Arriving in the SS
Basil
was Charles Sackville Pelham, Lord Worsley. Affectionately known as ‘Otto' to his colleagues owing to his resemblance to a famous jockey, he had been an extremely shy child with an intense love of horses when he arrived at Eton in 1899. Whilst not a brilliant academic, he approached everything he did in a painstaking and conscientious manner. He could not abide liars or fools, but had a wickedly good sense of humour. ‘He sees a joke at once,' said his tutor. ‘Always an asset to a young man with many friends.' Worsley's path to Sandhurst had long since been decided on. With additional tutoring in Frankfurt and Touraine in languages he joined the Blues, his grandfather's regiment, in 1907 and took command of the regimental machine-gun section. In 1911 he became a married man and brother-in-law to Douglas Haig.

From Bruges the Household Cavalry turned south and commenced a tortuous march. It hardly felt like war. ‘It all seems so strange,' Worsley noted as he led a machine-gun company south. ‘One would think one was on manoeuvres.' In no time at all though, events would take a most serious turn and the Blues and Royals would be in the very centre of the action. As they advanced towards the fray they were cold, wet and tired, but they were all in good spirits. ‘Two of my drivers are just like music-hall turns and keep us all in shrieks of laughter all the time we are halted in the road; they are priceless.' They reached Ypres on 13 October and were sitting in the town square under the shadow of the medieval cloth hall. Less than a week later the German artillery would open fire on the thirteenth-century building and begin its systematic destruction.

On 19 October 1914, the battle for Ypres began. As part of an intended Allied offensive to push the Germans back towards their homeland the French had occupied Roulers and the Household Cavalry was ordered to protect them. They set out on a reconnaissance amidst rumours of German troops concentrating in the area. Don't worry, the French told them; there is nothing ahead of you. Within 250 yards they were under fire. Another OE, the Blues' adjutant, watched the brigade retreat west from a burning Roulers in the distance; covered by Worsley and his machine guns. By the end of the day the Germans had advanced up to 9 miles. The population of Roulers was streaming away toward Passchendaele. Worsley and his guns were unscathed, but he was witnessing the worst of the war. In the evenings the regiment billeted in empty houses where they found meals on the table, indicating the speed with which their inhabitants had fled. ‘One's heart bleeds for them … leaving every mortal thing.'

Regie Fletcher was not having a merry time either. His artillery brigade had arrived at Hazebrouck where troops were stacking up and tempers were becoming frayed. A body of men, including his own, had been billeted in a farm where the owner was none too pleased about having British troops sleeping in her outbuildings. The men knew exactly which officer to call upon. A bombardier hunted Regie down and complained that the old lady had locked up the water pump and wouldn't let them take anything with which to cook their potatoes. Regie politely asked that she might give him some water personally. No. He tried again, in the sweetest manner possible and still she refused. His temper rapidly diminishing Regie continued to reason with the ‘old shrew out of Shakespeare' until he finally snapped. ‘I told her in good English that she was the most sour-faced cross-grained old [hag] I had ever met (and one or two other things as well).' The old scold went off obediently and unlocked the pump.

Now the old lady had realised that Regie was in a position of authority she sought him out for all her complaints about the soldiers living on her land. On one occasion she came after him to say that the sergeants had lit a fire in their makeshift mess that would burn her house down. He went to look and ascertained that in fact this was hardly likely to be the case. ‘I tell her not to worry herself or me.' She promptly burst into tears, to which Regie was immune. ‘Weep on madame; when the Germans come you will have something to weep for.' ‘I would rather have the Germans than the English' she spat. He replied, ‘
Ah taisez-vous Madame; allez-vous en tout suit à coucher
.' (‘Be quiet
Madame
; go to bed now.')

The day after the Household Cavalry was pushed away from Roulers, Regie and his guns crossed into Belgium. It was dull and dreary with a miserable drizzle throughout the day. The journey was arduous and Regie amused himself on their halts by making friends with tabby kittens and French soldiers; and putting giggling little Belgian children up on The Playboy and leading him around. Finally, 116th Battery rolled to a stop at Pilckem, some 5 miles to the north-east of Ypres. The country they found there was distinctly unsuited to the workings of an artillery battery. The whole of the area to the east of Ypres was flat. With no high ground to review the terrain, the Germans had taken to destroying any windmills, church spires or vantage points. The artillerymen would have to rely on conducting much of their ranging and observations by walking forward into the lines with a map and a compass in hand. The area around Pilckem already showed signs of heavy fighting on 21 October. Regie's commanding officer had been out to have a look around and had seen French territorials who had been blown to pieces by shells, about twenty of them, mangled and in a disgusting state.

The following day a change occurred. 118th Battery had been sent further east towards Langemarck in pursuit of the Germans. On the way through the town one of its subalterns was struck in the elbow by shrapnel and a reshuffle of the dwindling junior officers was required. Regie had just finished shaving when the major arrived and told him he was required to replace him. ‘Great bore this' was all he had to say. He had come to like 116th. ‘I say goodbye and reluctantly pack up.' The personnel in his new battery were nice enough though. His new major was apt to be rather too serious for Regie's liking; every time he saw Regie in his non-regulation Leander scarf his face would contort accordingly. Regie was thrilled though to find that the other subaltern was a Cambridge oar. ‘He was a Jesus … man and a member of Leander … I doubt if there is another Battery in the army that would hold on to Fawley in a pair!'
2

His men were raw. Every single one was a replacement for gunners that had been lost in the retreat. ‘New sergeants, new men, new guns, new horses.' The first thing he did was sit down and give them some instruction. Half of them didn't know the guns and even fewer knew how to operate the dial sight. This rudimentary lesson had to suffice. At lunchtime they came into action and began blazing away. The Germans came within 1,000 yards of the guns and shells began dropping all around; rifle bullets were pinging off the guns and their carriages. ‘The brutes began sniping us … Suddenly one beautiful shot came and burst above my head and the [shrapnel] went crashing into the trees behind.' The order came to retire and 118th Battery limbered up under heavy rifle fire. Regie's men were having a cruel introduction to the realities of war and he was forced to do much of the preparatory work himself. ‘My new section did not like it at all … I had to do the final adjustments myself.'

They retreated carrying wounded men they found nearby on their carriages and Regie sympathised with his frightened, inexperienced men. Rifle bullets chased them in the driving rain. Dusk fell early. Men fell asleep in their dinner plates and Regie, who had subsisted on nothing but lumps of chocolate lovingly sent by his mother since 5.30 that morning, couldn't find the energy to eat a thing. Frantically they attempted to dig in and camouflage their guns. Finding themselves in a cornfield Regie prayed to God that German pilots knew nothing about harvesting and in late October began disguising them as giant corn stooks. ‘My only hope is that the entire field does not catch fire when we blaze off.' That day he watched lines of German prisoners being led past the field. ‘I have never seen such poor wretches. Some boys of only sixteen, some crumplety old men … all the most miserable looking scallywags.' He found it oddly cheering. Surely if that was all the Kaiser had to offer by way of men then victory had to be just around the corner.

The frenzied firing was not to last. The following day 118th Battery fired nothing before lunchtime, although they could hear ‘a devil of a battle' going on towards Ypres in the south. Regie even had time to sit down and give his section a lecture on ‘The Art of War as Practiced by 2nd Lieutenant R.W. Fletcher, RFA'. The battle hadn't stopped, and neither had the German gunners, but the fact was that the British artillery were running out of shells. On 24 October a limit was placed on expenditure. Regie's battery was equipped with eighteen pounders and from now on they would be restricted to 120 shells per day for the four guns in his care. The day before the restriction was imposed he claimed to have fired 700 in about twelve hours. If he fired this new lower amount over the same period he would be firing each gun once every twenty minutes, whereas in the heat of battle on 23 October, he had been timing his battery's fire at forty-five-second intervals. It was a dramatic reduction.

The shortage was not a surprise. It was apparent on the Aisne that demand was outstripping supply. The British Army was not guilty of outright negligence. It had two-and-a-half times the amount of shells available in 1899. The fact was that neither Britain, France, nor Germany, all of whom would begin to run out of shells, had anticipated just how much modern industrialised warfare would be dominated by artillery. Along with their dwindling supply of shells, the theories, tactical doctrine and assumptions of all of the war's major combatants were being tossed to the wind.

Regie and his brigade left their corn field on 24 October. Rather than listening to the furore of the battle to the south they were being fed into it. The logistics were absolute chaos. Every time they attempted to limber up the Germans pummelled them with another barrage. They finally got away in the early hours of the morning and trudged off into the fog. Men lay sleeping in ditches, every country road was choked with a cacophony of guns, wounded men, straggling, exhausted troops, wagons and refugees fleeing for their lives. Panic reigned. One general was in such a hurry that he charged an entire brigade of infantry through the middle of 118th Battery, cutting off Regie, supplies, horses and a gun. Tempers frayed. Precious guns were not supposed to travel in the rear without an escort and Regie told him so, but the high-ranking officer would not let him pass. It was the ‘greatest honour' of Regie's young life when the great man labelled him an ‘impudent young blackguard'.

Their new home, when they finally got there, was to be in the thickest part of the action as the battle intensified. The guns were rolled up under cover of a small wood at Veldhoek, near Ypres. Within two days GHQ had abandoned any attempts to try to regulate the number of shells being fired. Any hardship Regie had yet faced was about to be magnified considerably. The Germans were about to introduce a third of their armies into the cauldron of noise, chaos and shells in an attempt to make a decisive push towards Ypres, and beyond that, the Channel.

Regie was aware of the rumours of an impending attack, but enthusiastic. The sight of the prisoners had given him hope and convinced him that the Germans were ‘obviously' putting their last reserves into the field. He even felt sorry for them. ‘These poor German lambs led to the slaughter to gratify the ambitions of a few swollen headed vampires.' He felt even sorrier for his compatriots in the British infantry. He had been dragged out of bed after a full day's work and sent into the line with some Coldstream Guards to spot potential targets for his guns. Regie was ‘tremendously impressed' at how they managed to function in the face of the combined threats of snipers, machine guns, shrapnel and Black Maria. A mere month ago he had expressed his distaste for ‘foot-sloggers'. Now he thought that the infantry were ‘really marvellous'.