Blood and Thunder (40 page)

In Bernafray Wood, Pip Blacker had literally no idea what was occurring on the battlefield. ‘Conflicting rumours percolated' via wounded men who staggered away from it. Daylight had fully come on when he was given a job to do. Pip and his men were ordered to follow the advance, across the pitted, churned route, and somehow mark out a track of sorts through the battlefield for horse-drawn traffic to get to the new front line. Where this track would go, and when it was ready to come into use was all down to Pip. It was not a happy task, for they would be standing fully in the open; target practice for the German gunners as the battle raged on.

The nature of the attack and attempting to shift the direction of their advance as they went forward was causing bewilderment amongst the Guards battalions. On the left of Oliver Lyttelton, one of the Coldstream battalions fell under the British creeping barrage. In the confusion they became lost in the smoke and began swerving north instead of north-east as planned, causing a big swing to the left in the line. The other two Coldstream battalions followed and the whole attack began to veer off track. Oliver Lyttelton's Grenadiers followed in turn and a gap opened just north of the road running from Ginchy to Les Boeufs. With the heavy machine-gun fire scattering the Guardsmen it grew even more chaotic and the units became hopelessly jumbled. Rather than proper platoons there were now smaller groups fighting their way frantically forward and paying little attention to the wider situation.

The most problematic area was a sunken road full of Guards to the north of Ginchy, which accounted for swathes of various Coldstream officers and men. They threatened to fold until John Campbell, the OE commanding the 2nd Battalion, rallied his troops with his hunting horn. It seemed ludicrous to those around him, but he had taken it into battle with the aim of using it for just this purpose in the confusion of the fight. He and his combined force swept forward over the open ground towards the imaginary Green Line and were in position by 7.15 a.m. – albeit too far north along it because of the skewed advance. They had strayed into the area belonging to a division that included Foss Prior and the 8th Rifle Brigade towards Delville Wood.

To the left of the Guards, Foss had returned to the front having finished recuperating from his Hooge wound with lots of time spent at Eton. His battalion was preparing to attack to the east of Delville Wood and with Arthur Sheepshanks he had been out reconnoitring the terrain ready for the attack. They were to advance up a gentle slope and take a line titled ‘Switch Trench' at the top of a low rise. Foss had taken one of the battalion's leading companies out over the parapet and charged towards the German lines. Advancing up the hill towards Switch Trench at the head of the battalion the German artillery resistance became heavier and heavier. Jumping into the trench they found that it was still stuffed with Germans. They seized it at bayonet point and moved on. Unfortunately some of the Germans who had surrendered suddenly began attacking Foss' men from behind. Sandwiched in between enemy troops the 7th Rifle Brigade arrived and messy hand-to-hand fighting soon ensued as they tried to even up the score. By 10.30 a.m. the battalion's commanding officer had been wounded by shrapnel and Sheep took over command of the 8th Rifle Brigade. They had reached and taken their first objective but it was costly. Inside Switch Trench, Sheep could only count five fellow officers, a medical officer and about 150 men.

Swept away in the moment, along with the Grenadiers beside him, Oliver Lyttelton was ‘fighting mad'. He and his men rushed the summit at the top of the slope they had targeted and paused to take a breath whilst they rounded up prisoners. Looking about, Oliver could see that all of the battalions had become frightfully mixed up. He had some Grenadiers, some Coldstream and some Irish Guardsmen. He could see no other officer so he rounded up about a hundred men close to him and put himself in charge. He organised his ramshackle group. ‘Get this parapet straight,' he ordered, ‘and dig like hell.' While they were attempting to mop up a powerful enfilading fire was turned on them from the direction of the Quadrilateral, and although they now had some cover two or three of his men quickly became casualties.

At this moment, a German doctor emerged from a nearby dugout, escorted by some of Oliver's men and ‘blinking in the sunlight'. Oliver grabbed his opportunity to find out more about their position. ‘Do you speak English … where is that fire coming from?' The man pointed to the Red Cross on his arm. ‘I am a non-combatant and I do not know.' Oliver pulled out his revolver and absurdly threatened to shoot him. At this the doctor promptly burst out laughing. ‘I am quite sure you will do nothing of the kind.' Oliver couldn't help smiling at his own silly threat. ‘Get out of here,' he said and watched as the German scrambled up the back of the trench. ‘I kicked him not very hard in the behind to restore my self respect.' The doctor merely grinned as he made off. Oliver later learned that he had spent the rest of the day down in the valley under the same heavy fire as Pip Blacker, tending to the wounded with nothing but the stash of field dressings that he had on him. ‘A brave man.'

Harold MacMillan by now had gone over the top too. After the first half an hour they had got through the worst of the fierce German artillery barrage. Harold himself had been slightly wounded in the knee but refused point blank to turn back, waiting till there was a halt and then binding it up himself. They halted for a second time at about 8.20 a.m. and found that they were being held up by Germans in a 500-yard stretch of uncleared trench, which they attempted to bomb and rush.

Communications were dire and having despatched pigeons backwards and forwards the fact that the attack in this area managed to retain any kind of clarity was down to an officer named ‘Crawley' De Crespigny. Insisting on going about in his forage cap and not a helmet he was to follow Harold MacMillan's battalion, but having found no sign of them he decided that they had already moved on to the next objective and decided to carry out his original orders. He therefore proceeded to the Green Line.

It soon became apparent when they reached it that the area was still rife with isolated Germans, who subjected them to a hail of bullets from a trench and from their open flanks as soon as they began to move forward. They managed, however, to drive back the Germans and rushed the Green Line. When they got there, instead of finding the missing Coldstream Guards, De Crespigny found Germans, lots of Germans shooting at them from all directions. Thinking that they were about to come across their own men they had been in the wrong formation and took heavy casualties. Pushing on though they came into contact with Oliver Lyttelton's battalion and managed to strengthen the right flank of the Guards Division.

Elsewhere, Oliver had noticed that some Coldstream Guards were trying to come up on his side. They appeared to be pinned back by machine guns and so he decided to try to help. He grabbed two sergeants and a few stray men with four light machine guns, Lewis guns. Together they all crawled out of their new line and tried to lay down a covering fire. It proved a thankless task. Never again would he trust a Lewis gun because he could see them having no effect at all. Leaving his little band with plenty of ammunition Oliver crawled back to try to find someone with a proper machine gun.

Pip Blacker meanwhile had made it into no-man's-land and begun work on his track. On their way he and his men found a wounded officer of Henry Dundas' battalion and two quivering, unhurt Germans whose nerves had gone. They appeared to have done all they could to help the Scots Guards officer and so Pip and his orderly stopped to share some ration biscuits with them ‘which they ate like starving animals'.

They moved off and a short time later had begun marking out their track with the help of another Old Etonian, Dormer Treffry, a 39-year-old Cornish subaltern. Together they were putting out pickets when the German artillery began potting at them. The first shells hit at a harmless distance some 100 yards away, the second lot screamed over their heads and burst at less than half that distance. The next flurry was right on target.

Pip had been standing some 20 yards from Treffry and as he threw himself on to the floor he looked up just in time to see a shell burst right under the elder man's feet. Treffry was flipped into the air ‘like a shot rabbit' and Pip watched his legs spin as if he were doing a cartwheel. Before he had properly registered in his own mind what had happened he was on his feet and running towards him. He had a sick feeling in his stomach and all that he could think was, ‘What am I going to see in the next ten seconds?'

Poor Treffry was lying on his back. One of his legs had been almost severed, his femur protruding into the air, and the other was bent back at an awkward angle. Worst of all, his abdomen had been torn open and his intestines had spilled out. Pip saw immediately that there was no hope, but his fellow officer was still conscious. In his head a plan was forming: pick him up, get him over the ridge to help. But then another thought occurred to him. Would it not be kinder to just put him out of his misery?

As they tried to lift him Treffry was trying to speak to them. Pip leaned over and ‘in an almost inaudible voice' Treffry croaked, ‘Get them out of it. Get out of it yourself. Leave me here.' More shells exploded around them, one just a few feet over their heads. The corporal kneeling beside Pip told him later that if he hadn't been leaning down to hear his fellow OE's words then it would have taken his head from his shoulders.

Together the two of them managed to get the mortally wounded Treffry on to a stretcher and they began to carry him. Pip took the head end because it meant he could face away and he wouldn't have to look at his mutilated body. He had completely forgotten about the artillery bombardment until they began walking. One shell hit a few yards away, plunging into the soil before it detonated and sending up a column of earth high above them. Mud rained down on them and on Treffry. They lowered him for a few moments and Pip sincerely hoped that the wounded man had lost consciousness, but as the last bit of earth splattered on to him Pip saw Treffry shift his head and heard him muttering.

Oliver Lyttelton was still in search of that machine gun when he wandered along a trench and into another OE, Lieutenant Colonel Guy Baring, commanding the 1st Coldstream Guards and looking forlornly for his battalion. ‘I've just been trying to give them some covering fire,' Oliver told him. Baring was adamant that he was going to go to join them and began trying to climb out of the trench. ‘Not that way, sir,' Oliver pleaded. ‘Go round a little, you will get hit there.' He continued to plead but to no avail. Baring clambered up on to the parapet where Oliver heard a bullet strike him and he caught his body as Baring fell back dead in his arms.

Immediately afterwards Oliver, still in his quest for an elusive machine gun, came across a Brigadier John Campbell sitting in another shell hole. This modest abode was the site of his headquarters and there he sat, still with his hunting horn, blowing on it intermittently to Oliver's astonishment. He was overflowing with enthusiasm. He beckoned Oliver over to him and at once they commenced arguing about where they were. Campbell was sure that they had reached the third objective and now occupied the Blue Line on their maps. Oliver was certain they still hadn't progressed past the first, the Green. It was not surprising that the officers were baffled. The maps they carried had been issued a day or so before the battle and they were hugely. inaccurate Eventually Oliver managed to convince Campbell that he was right and that the brigadier was nowhere near as far forward as he had anticipated. Campbell was defiant and recognised that to stop here meant imminent failure. ‘Those bastards in that redoubt are holding us up,' he barked. Then came his orders. ‘Go and get a few men and bomb them out.'

Having bound up his wounded leg, Harold MacMillan had now acquired a Lewis gun and was on his way to find a use for it when he felt a bullet pierce his left thigh. He threw himself into a shell hole, shouted to an NCO to take over, and that was that. He lay there for the rest of the morning, ‘doggo' in the summer weather. Another bullet had drained his water bottle and so, with a dry throat, he read a copy of Aeschylus'
Prometheus Unbound
in Greek that he'd stuffed in his pocket. Doubtless the lead character, a champion of humanity and civilisation, would have been appalled at the man-made carnage going on around Harold. The battle continued to rage and men ran backwards and forwards past him. He played dead whenever Germans appeared. By lunchtime his hole had been blown in twice by shells a few yards off and the pain in his leg had become much more severe. He took half a grain of morphia and there on the battlefield he took a two-hour nap until some fellow Grenadiers came by and helped him to safety.

Oliver Lyttelton was no idiot. The task assigned to him by Brigadier General Campbell was suicidal. ‘But needs must when you get an order' and so off he went to collect a dozen or so men with a supply of bombs and they commenced chucking them down the trench in question to try to flush out the enemy. They progressed some 40 yards before he heard a mass of footsteps stampeding towards him. He shouted an order to mount their Lewis gun. The first German to rush round the corner was shot down at point-blank range despite throwing his arms in the air. Suddenly eighty or ninety more arrived, all with their hands up, seemingly oblivious to the fact that they outnumbered Oliver and his men more than seven to one. In less than an hour Oliver, despite his impossible task, had reported back to Campbell in his shell hole. ‘The redoubt is cleared, sir, and I have captured about a hundred prisoners.' ‘By God!' Campbell exclaimed, ‘that's the best thing I've seen done in this war. Damn me if I don't get you a VC for that!' Oliver informed him that the Germans had all had their hands up already. ‘My VC vanished.' Nonetheless, the Guards had in part reached the Brown Line, their second objective, and now they began to consolidate their position.