Zero Hour (9 page)

Rats were everywhere, and they'd grown fat from eating corpses. They lived in swampy holes or the ribs of the dead in no-man's-land. They gnawed the men's packs and showed no fear of the living, at times stealing whole bags of rations.

With the endless duty of fatigues, some soldiers preferred being in the front-line. For Australian Sergeant Cecil Baldwin, it was the

best of times…I did 3 hours work laying wire at night, and had the rest of the 24 hours to myself… We also had splendid tucker.

EGGS AND CHIPS

Moving to and from the trenches was often very dangerous. The German artillery had the approaches and the communication trenches well marked, so the men were relieved at night for safety. Two or three hours' walk would bring them to their billets, often in farms, and still within shelling range. ‘
Madames
' ran the billets, as well as the farms, while their husbands and sons were at the front. Unlike the officers, who got clean sheets, and breakfast at a kitchen table, the troops slept on straw, crowded into barns that stank of compost and manure.

At nearby villages like Armentières and Fleurbaix, the soldiers crowded into
estaminets
—cafes or bars—where
madames
and unmarried
mademoiselles
sold them coffee, wine, beer and eggs and chips. One tree-sheltered courtyard converted into a cafe was given the nickname ‘Spy Farm' because it was only one kilometre from the front. The men flirted with the
mademoiselles
and joked about romance, but were always given the same answer: ‘
Apres la guerre'
—after the war. For many, these were the only women they saw or spoke to for weeks on end. Sergeant Cecil Malthus came to view one
mademoiselle
and her mother as his best friends.

A Maori soldier buying cakes from a local woman.
Alexander Turnbull Library G- 12755-1/2

THE CRUCIFIX

It was strange for the soldiers: one moment they were ducking from Parapet Joe, the next they were drinking watered-down beer, laughing, singing and briefly forgetting the war. The closeness of the
estaminets
to the front-line caused problems. At the beginning of the war, the humiliation of being sent home for misconduct was deterrent enough, but this threat wore thin after months at the front. Men went missing, fought, stole or turned to drink. New Zealander Sergeant John Russell drank to dull the memory of a raid he'd led:

The yells were really pitiful and haunted me for some weeks…those blood curdling yells for which I was responsible, they made me feel most depressed for a long time.

At first, persistent troublemakers among the Australians and New Zealanders were sent to Field Punishment centres to do military training all day, often at a run. More serious offenders got Field Punishment No. 1—nicknamed ‘the crucifix'—although the Australian commanders used it less. Early in the war soldiers were tied, spread-eagled, to a gun wheel for several hours a day over three days. Later on, they were tied to a pole. New Zealander Private Douglas Stark, considered a ‘problem soldier', was tied to a wagon wheel in hot weather but still managed to raise his head to abuse any passing officer. Once, when a group of Australians tried to untie a man enduring Field Punishment No. 1, the major in charge threatened to machine-gun them down. At other times, rescuers were more successful.

In France, as in Egypt, the Australian soldiers quickly gained a reputation as larrikins with little respect for authority. They often refused to salute officers they didn't respect and had the highest rate of desertion among all the Allied troops. The Australian commanders responded with harsh prison sentences of up to 15 years long, but for some men this was a relief from the trenches. Small groups of Australian soldiers, often deserters, ran illegal gambling dens and looted, even using guns to resist arrest. Some Australian officers wanted the right to execute their soldiers, but the government, which wanted to introduce conscription, was afraid that people would oppose it if they knew there was a possibility the conscripts could be executed.

The New Zealand Army, under Major General Russell, on the other hand, did have the authority to execute soldiers, and Russell was prepared to do so, especially after an increase in disruptive behaviour. In the build-up to the Somme, Private Frank Hughes became the ‘example to the rest'. He'd regularly left the front-line to get drunk. As 11 Maoris from the Pioneer Battalion faced him, their rifles loaded with either live bullets or blanks, Hughes refused a blindfold, saying, ‘I want to see them shoot.' The officer sent to witness the execution had to turn his back. After Hughes' burial, French women left flowers on his grave.

The New Zealanders also executed Private John King, as well as Private John Braithwaite, who was a journalist and, as he put it, ‘not a born soldier' but someone who'd ‘answered the call'. His family had already had two sons killed and another two permanently wounded in the war.

The executions unsettled some of the troops. Lance Corporal William Anderson, who was in the same battalion as Private John Sweeney—another who was executed— thought he

should have been sent in with the others to the Somme and given a chance of survival. It is likely enough the Germans would have provided the firing squad.

One soldier who was on Field Punishment was handcuffed to a tree stump after refusing to take part in the preparations ‘to shoot a boy wearing the same uniform as himself'.

It wasn't surprising that some men couldn't cope. Lieutenant Mitchell recalled that there was

something in trench-holding that is particularly nerve straining. One knows that, come what may, we must stay and take it…at the back of the soldiers mind is always that lurking feeling that the enemy artillery will concentrate on their trenches and wipe them with their garrison out of existence.

For Lieutenant Charles Alexander, there was nothing worse than to

sit crouched day and night in a wet muddy trench and hear nothing but the scream of his shells…and to see your comrades…blown to pieces, dying of wounds in the mud and to realise that it may be your turn next.

Men ducked at the sound of shells, held their breath and tensed their bodies. Others found themselves shaking or twitching uncontrollably. Some deserted from the army, killed themselves, or shot themselves in their feet or hands so they could no longer fight. Those caught with wounds that appeared to be self-inflicted faced being disciplined.

Most had little choice but to continue—to not do so meant they'd let down their comrades and their own sense of honour. One New Zealand soldier, ‘Clarrie', had insisted on going into battle with his company and was killed. He'd always been too terrified to fight so his commanding officer had given him jobs away from the front, for his own good and for those who had to share a trench with him. According to Second Lieutenant Ormond Burton, the

really brave man is he who knows fear and overcomes it. Clarence had known it very dreadfully and to make things harder had fallen to it time and time again. Now he had the victory.

Others couldn't overcome the terrifying thoughts of death or injury. Private Victor Spencer, an 18-year-old who'd lied about his age when he'd enlisted, was the last New Zealander to be shot on the Western Front. After deserting with shell-shock, he was found living in a house with a French woman and two children. He said his nerves had ‘been completely destroyed' and that he'd had to turn to drink. Out of 28 New Zealanders sentenced to death, five were executed. For generations, their families tried to clear their names; in September 2000, the New Zealand government pardoned them.

BLIGHTY

‘A chap said to me today as we marched,' wrote Sergeant Evans, ‘“Kiss me Sergeant and make me sick, then I'll get blighty.”' Getting a blighty, meant the men could be away from the front for two weeks to six months. Some wounded soldiers grinned as they were carted out. After losing his toe, Sergeant Malthus called, ‘It's a blighty, a good blighty, it'll do me.'

At a casualty clearing station, Malthus waited with rows of wounded as doctors cleaned and dressed injuries. Those the doctors thought had a strong chance of recovery were loaded onto hospital trains, then onto ferries to England, where they went to overcrowded hospitals or to specialist units for their wounds. In one hospital, hundreds of men who had face wounds underwent experimental operations to clumsily reconstruct their noses and mouths. Many of the techniques were being used for the first time. In other hospitals, men who'd lost arms and legs had wooden, rubber and metal limbs fitted. Hospital wards stank of chloroform, pus and gangrene. Malthus almost died from blood poisoning when his wound became infected and gangrenous. After recovering, he, like others no longer fit to fight, sailed home.

Those that stayed were nursed back to health. Wealthy English aristocrats opened up their country homes for recovering soldiers, but with the welcome rest, memories of the front haunted them. Men woke sweating and screaming, babbling about their nightmares. Evans dreamed that he fell into a shell hole next to a wounded German, and they fought, but he didn't have a gun or knife, so he had to strangle the German.

Some who had missing limbs and smashed bodies wished they were dead. They saw no future for themselves. When the more fortunate had healed, doctors declared them fit to fight. Australian Corporal John Allan went back to the front with no illusions:

No one who had actually gone through this war… witnessed its horrors is anxious to get back to it. I am going back. It is not from choice. It is my duty and that alone makes me go into it again.

A BLIGHTY VISIT

Every 15 to 18 months, the men were given clean, lice-free clothing and 10 to 14 days' leave to go to London, or sometimes Paris. With their leave pass, they boarded trains jammed with British, Canadians and fellow Australians and New Zealanders, then, at the French coast, boarded ferries for England and the white cliffs of Dover. Onlookers cheered as the troop trains sped through towns, en route to London. At Victoria Station, the men pushed through crowds of returning British soldiers being hugged by loved ones. When Lieutenant Mitchell arrived in London, he was ‘vastly pleased with himself. Ten days of absolute freedom.' He swaggered onto the streets of London with an air of ‘Make way for an Aussie on leave.'

It was an exciting time. There were no orders to follow, no fatigues, no flares or gun flashes; instead, the dimly lit streets were crowded with people. The Anzacs listened to the English accents around them and watched British soldiers having afternoon tea with their wives in tearooms. They slept in real beds between clean sheets on soft mattresses—‘a glorious feeling' according to Second Lieutenant Burton.

They took guided tours or jumped on and off the tube and double-decker buses, visiting the famous London landmarks they had read or heard so much about: Westminster Abbey, the Tower of London, St Paul's Cathedral, the British Museum, Hyde Park. One by one, they ticked them off. In his diary, Sergeant Evans described how he strolled down Pall Mall to Buckingham Palace, swapped buttons with a Scots Guard soldier, and at Trafalgar Square saw the Queen Mother pass by in a car—‘Though fairly old, she was still quite nice looking.' ‘A simply ripping day, quite an Australian sunny day,' he wrote, aware that he'd been fortunate with the weather on his leave. Others found the climate gloomy, and couldn't understand why people would choose to live there when they could live in Australia or New Zealand. Many soldiers also visited family or the birthplace of their parents, once again concluding that their own countries were better.

The war was very evident in England. Food was rationed and men in khaki uniforms were everywhere. During air raids, the soldiers crowded into cellars with civilians until the all-clear signal was given. Private Melville ‘Melve' King found it ‘a pitiful sight to see women and children rushing among the streets of London looking for shelter from bombs'.

With food shortages and so many British men in France, the Anzac soldiers, with their distinctive swagger and high pay packet, had no difficulty befriending young women. They took them out to restaurants, then to movies and shows. Other women, prostitutes, sidled up to the men, causing the army significant headaches. The soldiers—husbands and sons—had gone to fight for their country, but many ended up hospitalised with sexually transmitted infections. To stop infection, the Australian Army gave out condoms, but the New Zealand Army—reluctant to scandalise the public back home—preferred to give lectures. This approach led to the New Zealand troops having the highest rate of STIs out of all colonial countries fighting in the war. A New Zealand woman, Ettie Rout, who'd followed the troops to Europe against the government's wishes, handed out free condoms and set up a New Zealand–only brothel in Paris, until the army took her advice and began issuing preventative kits.

OLD FAMILIAR FACES