Blood and Thunder (23 page)

As part of a carrying party Dick got his first glimpse of Ypres. At the beginning of July he saw first-hand the destruction that had befallen the medieval cloth hall and the cathedral. The ghostly ruins were shrouded in gas that hurt the men's eyes. Billy, quietly going about his business amongst this terrifying spectacle and bearing the ‘grievous shock' of Julian's death bravely, painted a picture with words of his own: a town of rubble and broken bottles. ‘Darling Julian is so constantly beside me,' he wrote, ‘and laughs so debonairly of my qualms and hesitations. I pray for one tenth of his courage.'

Despite the fact that no major offensive was immediately pending as far as British plans went, intensity was rising around Ypres as the summer approached. Another OE who found himself moved into the area was Francis Grenfell. He had returned to the 9th Lancers following his wounds at Messines on 21 April to find the regiment at a reduced strength. He was moved up towards Ypres immediately. In the middle of May, the dismounted Lancers were subjected to the fiercest fighting they had yet seen and his squadron was moved into the lines at Hooge.

Empire Day, 24 May, was to dawn clear and sunny, with not a cloud in the sky. The Ninth were hustled into a stretch of trenches straddling the Menin Road, bolstered by the remnants of some infantry battalions placed under their officers' command. With his men Francis occupied the road itself. A light breeze was blowing when at 3.a.m. the cavalry saw four red flares shoot up and then a 30ft-high thick, yellow haze rising in front of them. It rolled down the ridge towards the British lines. With no experience of gas and having been issued with new masks only two weeks before, the cavalrymen flailed as the pungent smell overcame them. The masks became saturated and were rendered useless as men began dropping to the ground, gasping for air, stumbling blind through the trenches and clutching at their throats.

Then the German guns opened fire and troops poured towards them. The line broke on either side of the Ninth but they tried desperately to hold on although pounded by shells and trench mortars. Under the intensity of the German attack they fell back, abandoning the trenches. Casualties were continuous and heavy, the Germans poured past them, overrunning the British lines and pushing the survivors back towards Ypres.

In the early hours of 25 May, following their ‘greatest day of glory and sorrow of the whole war', forty-odd men came stumbling down the Menin Road from Hooge with a yellow tint to their faces, wearing ragged uniforms, caked in mud. They carried Francis Grenfell's body with them. They were all that was left. The 9th Lancers as he and his twin Rivy had known it, as Lennie and Douglas Harvey had known it, had ceased to exist.

Nearby Hooge, by the side of the Menin Road south-east of Ypres, was dominated by the ruins of a chateau that had been blown up by shellfire during the fierce fighting on 31 October 1914. This poisonous area was to become fiercely contended as the summer progressed. British tunnellers had managed to dig underneath a farm and carve out a gallery below what they hoped was a significant tangle of German trenches; stuffing it full of ammonal. On 18 July an OE nearby was awaiting what ought to be a decent-sized explosion that would rupture the German lines and enable elements of the Middlesex Regiment to flood in and take the void that was left, strengthening the British position.

The following day the mine went up with some force. But by the time the Rifle battalions arrived a few days after the explosion, it had still proved impossible to build a trench into the crater as planned. It now formed an unsightly gap in the British line, garrisoned at each side by men laden with bombs ready to lob their ammunition at anyone who might try to overrun the area. Wet weather was turning Hooge into a liquid mass of mud and slime and preventing any further extensions to trenches and other fortifications being dug properly.

Dick Durnford began hearing rumours of a German offensive; indeed they were not exactly concealing their efforts in front of him. He had been subjected to a full week of perpetual shelling and was extremely frustrated by the notion of having to sit still whilst the Germans took potshots at him. To make things worse, the trench on their right was not fully joined up so that they lived under constant threat of the enemy exploiting the gap. Dick had even neglected to eat, which he admitted was a very significant thing for him. As he was relieved from the line, exhausted, on 26 July there was little going on, ‘but you never know your luck,' he said cautiously. The situation at Hooge was indeed about to take a dramatic turn for the worse.

The 7th Rifle Brigade had, until this point, been occupying a length of trench near the ruins of Hooge Chateau and the crater which they had taken over from some Highlanders. On the evening of 29 July they prepared to switch places with the 8th Battalion, who set out to relieve them at 9.p.m. Foss Prior and Arthur Sheepshanks had been among the senior officers in the 8th Rifle Brigade who had been scouting the area for some days, acquainting themselves with what they were about to let themselves in for. They were not impressed; lack of wire, overly deep, narrow trenches and the proximity of the German trench mortars were to hamper them. Additionally they would have to contend with bad communication lines and support trenches so mangled that weren't fit for habitation, not to mention the giant crater dividing their lines.

As their battalion took up residence, twenty-four officers and a shade under 750 men, the 7th Rifle Brigade marched back down the Menin Road in the opposite direction. Waiting for them at the other end was Ted Kay-Shuttleworth, who had been at a nearby hospital with a minor ailment throughout their last stint in the trenches. He had heard news of severe losses amongst his men, through artillery bombardments and the lines being peppered by trench mortars. They had lost one hundred men in a week, including two officers. Like Dick, he had heard of an impending German attack. He sat up discussing the rumours with some fellow officers before going to bed.

At about 2 a.m. he almost woke up, half aware that his 7th Rifle Brigade had begun arriving and tramping into billets for a well-earned rest. The weary footsteps continued for an hour, but just as the last of them petered out he became aware of a particularly violent bombardment going on nearby. He pondered whether or not it was at Hooge. Now fully awake, Ted listened as it grew more and more intense. Then a message arrived from Brigade headquarters. The 7th Rifle Brigade were to get back out of bed and be ready to move off immediately.

The noise had indeed been coming from Hooge. At 3.a.m. the 8th Rifle Brigade were settling in to their new home and going through the pre-dawn ritual of standing to. Suddenly a hail of shells pounded them for a few minutes. But this was nothing against the new force the Germans were about to bring into play. Sheets of fire began erupting from the enemy lines. Foss Prior was in command of C Company and it bore the brunt of the attack near the crater. The Germans were unleashing a torrent of liquid flame ‘like water coming from a large hose'. At the same time a massive bombardment of everything that the enemy could fire, trench mortars, shells and bullets, opened up on the communication trenches, no-man's-land and the support lines in the woods where Sheep and Billy Grenfell were settling in. The Belgian countryside had been transformed into a vision of hell on earth. Flames blanketed the front lines and they were enveloped in fire and thick, acrid black smoke, rising from which was the smell of flesh, burning.

Foss and his men were overrun with Germans wielding bombs. They came at the British soldiers from all directions, rushing the crater to break the British front line then fanning out behind the men occupying it. The scene was chaos, with charred bodies littering the scene and men turning and fleeing. The Germans had established machine guns in the ruins of Hooge and as the British turned and made for their support lines and the woods behind they sent a torrent of bullets crashing through the retreating soldiers.

One of the front companies tried to counter-attack, but they were pinned down by the machine guns and had to fight hand-to-hand to get out of the area. Whole platoons were overwhelmed and almost wiped out. The Germans tried to bomb their way down the communication lines, nicknamed Old Bond Street and The Strand; but the way was blocked and they were held. Back in the wood, Sheep and Billy had avoided the flames but were struggling under the weight of the German bombardment as what was left of the trees came crashing violently down around them.

Meanwhile, back towards Ypres, as soon as the order to get ready arrived, Ted Kay-Shuttleworth leapt from his bed and got dressed. Ted went outside and listened to the bombardment as the battalion prepared to move. The noise seemed to be gradually subsiding. He began to think it was all over and took off his equipment to lie down again. He had barely reached his bed when he heard the words: ‘Prepare to move at once'.

The 7th Rifle Brigade got underway at 6.30 a.m., shoving chunks of bread and chocolate into their pockets. As they walked the 3 miles towards Hooge, ammunition wagons galloped past on their way to the battle. They heard false whispers that almost as soon as they had been relieved the Germans had exploded a mine under the chateau stables; that they had taken six lines of trenches.

Back at Hooge at noon orders were received to mount a counter-attack at 2:45 p.m. after a hastily arranged forty-five-minute bombardment. The 8th Rifle Brigade was to lead the attack, bombing their way past The Strand and parallel to Old Bond Street towards the Menin Road. A Company and C Company had suffered so heavily from the flames that they were in pieces; the latter, Foss's, had all but ceased to exist. B Company had also been heavily hit when it tried to counter-attack. And so it fell to the last company, D, commanded by Arthur Sheepshanks and containing Billy Grenfell as one of its subalterns, to make the main assault.

Sheep was summoned and told to send half of his men up the trenches to dispel the assaulting Germans that had been penned up in them since the morning. These front platoons were then to move into position ready to attack. Dick Durnford's battalion was to attack too; the 9th King's Royal Rifles had been ordered to charge along the Menin Road towards the Chateau ruins and the stables.

Sheep was given instructions not to attempt to make contact with the 7th Rifle Brigade as the gap was too great. Ted Kay-Shuttleworth and his men were next to him, but they were having a difficult time getting to their communication trench. They had orders to lie down and play dead in the event that any enemy aircraft passed overhead, thus three or four times they were compelled to stop and throw themselves down on the Menin Road, which held them up. Ted walked up with another OE, ‘Bones' Drummond
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, commanding one of the 7th's companies and they grew more and more anxious about their timing. Finally, they reached Zouave Wood, to the rear, at 1.55 p.m., just five minutes before the artillery bombardment was about to start.

At 2.p.m. the British artillery opened up as planned. The Germans retaliated in kind. Zouave Wood was in chaos, and had now become a mass of shell holes, splintered trees, battered foliage and mashed up trench lines. Faced with a walk through it all to be ready to advance at 2.45 p.m., Ted and his men had to begin climbing over the carnage, attempting to stay in some kind of military formation. They staggered over the debris, exhausted men awake for thirty-six hours breaking down and crying with the roar of shells intensifying overhead.

Organisation was in complete disarray. Ted continued climbing over fallen trees, tangled foliage and splintered branches in the direction of the communication trenches. The atmosphere was so thick with dust and smoke that they could hardly see where they were going. The men became scattered and the earth shook beneath their feet. At 2.10. p.m. a bullet pinged off of Ted's wristwatch and his ability to time their counter-attack was gone. Together with a fellow officer he crawled to the edge of the wood and they decided on a plan. They would lie there until they saw everyone else move and then take their men and run after them.

Sheep and Billy were also having trouble co-ordinating their attack. Billy had crawled right to the point from which they were to begin. His company commander was attempting to do the same when a bullet went through his thigh. He attempted to crawl down to tell Billy that he had been put out of action, but was in too much pain. He was vaguely aware that Billy was wearing a watch, but insured himself by sending a rifleman along to find him. He never arrived.

At exactly 2.45 p.m., despite the fact that the enemy did not appear to have been in the slightest bit silenced by the bombardment, the 8th Rifle Brigade commenced their counter-attack. Billy Grenfell's platoon was to bomb their way up The Strand, ejecting the German squatters before lining up in front of their own barbed wire to advance towards the crater where the British lines had stood before the flame attack. The bombing went off successfully and Billy charged up the trench, but as soon as they advanced into the open, the ground in front of them was swept by bullets. Billy made it a little over 70 yards up the hill before he was hit and his large frame pitched forward and hit the ground with a thud. Sheep, who ascertained that 25-year-old Billy must have been dead before he hit the ground, was hit twice in the face by flying debris but carried on regardless; an act of valour that was not to be an isolated occurrence in his war.

Ted Kay-Shuttleworth was lying in wait along the edge of the wood waiting for something to happen. At last he saw another subaltern of the 7th Rifle Brigade making a run for it to his left and so up he got and rushed out from the battered trees towards the Menin Road, followed by his men. It was baffling. Somehow in the confusion they found their own men in front of them, and then they ran right up against their own barbed wire in full view of the German machine guns. A shell knocked them down and wounded Ted's colleague in the thigh.

There were so few of them left that Ted decided they ought to wait for reinforcements. He could see nothing happening to either his left or his right so he began scraping at the ground, trying to make some cover. The man next to him had his head split by a bullet; Ted grabbed the dead man's entrenching tool and continued digging. He and his wounded friend had a discussion. Should they attack? There were ten of them left. It seemed madness and almost all of them were carrying some kind of wound. They were in full view of the enemy and so there was nothing for it. They crawled back and fell into a soaking wet, abandoned trench behind. Ted was one of only three men unhurt and he began attending to the wounded, binding up bleeding arms and legs. More and more broken soldiers were dropping into the trench.