Blood and Thunder (51 page)

By 8.a.m. Evelyn had led his company to its objective. The remnants of the road were hard to spot but once they had fixed their location they began digging in under heavy rifle fire. Oliver Lyttelton had been waiting for men of his own battalion to reach their destination, but he was not impressed by the task he had then been given. He was to lead a string of mules loaded with ammunition, wire and other stores up to Evelyn and was not looking forward to it at all. ‘Mules are allergic to shellfire and if anything burst close to them, they are apt to behave in a most un-Guardsmanlike manner.’ He would at least feel more useful than Henry. He felt absolutely awful, ‘like a worm’, sitting in a deep dugout fashioned by the engineers. He was to do ‘a sort of liaison officer job’ with the French next door but all he could think about was his battalion advancing in line with Eric’s Irish Guards whilst he did seemingly nothing.

There remained but one objective to be taken that day. Logie had sat smoking a pipe as the artillery whipped up a metal storm at dawn, wrapped in his College Wall scarf and waiting to pass through the likes of Evelyn on the way to the Steenbeck and beyond. He was in a jovial mood, determined to go into battle ‘as if it were the greatest game in the world and he was playing for Eton’. He and the rest of the 2nd Coldstream Guards crossed the canal at 6.20 a.m. and had a relatively easy time getting up to join the foremost point of the advance, picking up one single casualty.

At this point however, German resistance was beginning to harden. Out of the scattered farmhouses and pillboxes poured heavy rifle and machine-gun fire. On Logie and his men pushed, towards the Steenbeck. The troops on their left became held up and the creeping barrage left them behind. Logie and his men threw out a defensive flank whilst they waited, then together they moved off into ever-increasing artillery fire punctuated by the rattle of machine guns. Whilst their fellow men were frantically digging in the Coldstreamers performed a difficult wheel towards the French line. By 9.30 a.m. they had reached the fourth and final objective for the day after a highly successful innings and, as planned, the stumps were ready to be drawn. The Germans had quite clearly determined to hold fast at Langemarck and it was considered that to push further on was too risky.

Consolidation began and Logie, or ‘Elsie’ as he was known to his fellow officers, was preparing to move his men into position. He was walking up and down on top of the parapet ‘as cheerful as ever’ when a bullet struck the 22-year-old down. The Guards may have tasted success on this day, and casualties may have been ‘light’, but this was one that would hurt his friends and fellow officers immensely. Logie’s commanding officer penned an epitaph of which he would have been proud. ‘He was an Etonian and a Coldstreamer to the soul.’ Logie was the final member of the Eton cricketing side of 1912 to fall in the Great War. Including their twelfth man, the XI of that year served on seven different fronts, was awarded three DSOs, had one of their number taken prisoner and mourned five of their side. They had battled their way to victory in the heat of that July weekend at Lord’s in 1912 as a precursor to leaving their schooldays behind and embarking on their adult lives, but the match had turned out to be a glorious last hurrah before the war claimed them.

Not everyone achieved the same results as the Guards along the British front. They had been fortunate and immediately to their right troops made good inroads to take St Julien. But the southern end of the main advance was problematic. Gheluvelt Plateau was an objective and Haig believed that this was absolutely imperative in order for the offensive to succeed. A vast number of men were thrown at it but they had a torrid time and struggled greatly. The front German positions were taken but, in line with their new doctrine of defending the front lines lightly, they had fresh troops ready and waiting to counter-attack Gough’s men as they advanced out of the range of their artillery support. The Germans began to push the British back to the Steenbeck and intial gains were lost.

Overall two lines of German trenches and both the Pilckem and Bellewaarde ridges were in British hands. Blue and Black lines could be ticked off, but Green and Red had proved a leap too far. By biting off more than they could chew, the British had suffered under German attempts to repulse the attack and fallen right into their hands. It amounted to some 1,500 yards of enemy territory gained.

As he bedded down and tried to sleep that night in a captured pillbox, Evelyn Fryer considered that for a full-scale offensive his company had got off lightly. Some 117 men had marched out and at the end of the day he counted forty-two, although more would trickle in later. Henry Dundas’ battalion had suffered worse, thanks to concealed machine guns on their second advance. Approximately 470 men went in and of those 320 were missing, wounded or killed.

There was more agony for Henry. John Dyer was killed by a chance shell, several miles behind the advance. ‘If ever a person deserved all that life could give it was John. The sweetest nature that any man ever had, he hadn’t a single enemy in the world.’ He bitterly mourned the death of Eric Greer too. It was another cruel, cruel blow to their circle of friends. Statistics about ground gained versus casualties suffered meant absolutely nothing to those left behind.

Henry had been tentatively inquiring about a return to his men and to the fighting line. Now he was completely resolved to return. ‘In what capacity I don’t care,’ he claimed. He wasn’t doing it for any love of fighting. ‘Doubtless existence in the battalion would be even more idle. None the less, I could laze with a clear conscience – which I can’t do here.’ As soon as the battalion came out of the lines, Hugh Ross began applying to get him back. A clear plan had evolved. Of their group of pals, an Etonian company commander named Ivan Cobbold had picked up a nasty facial injury, with a broken jaw and several teeth knocked out. Henry wanted to take over from him until he could return.

The rain which had been threatening all day began to fall in torrents soon after dark and the ground became disgusting, un-traversable. It was a suitable reflection of the mood at brigade headquarters. Sadly it was just the onset of weeks of horrific, wet conditions. Oliver was firm in his conviction that the artillery bombardment had caused the unending storm to come down on them.

In what proved to be her last letter to her son, Logie Leggatt’s mother wrote that his father, ever the optimist, had slowly ceased to talk of what they might all do after the war. As for her, she said that the three years of waiting had given her a chance to get used to the idea that he might not return. They were firm in their conviction that Logie would do his best; he had never let them down and all her life, if she lived to be a 100 and he didn’t live to 23, she would have the memory of the best and dearest boy ever a mother had. She would see him always in her mind, turning halfway down the stairs as he left, saluting her.

Had Logie spent more than a few months at Cambridge then his perspective might have been different. Likewise had Henry or Ralph not walked straight out of Eton College and into the war, then their school might not have figured so prominently in their minds. As it was, there had been no time for their schooldays to recede into the past; they were everything. Eton College to them was a life without death and without the day-to-day hardships of the front or the stresses of battle and it was almost the only life experience that they knew away from their present misery, so they would cling to it fiercely.

In 1915 Logie had written home of his motivations for going to war, and given that his friends, new and old, were becoming ever more cynical about the conflict, his sentiments were apt to appeal to them. ‘What am I fighting for? Not at all England with its follies and conceits, simply for about a hundred friends … for red-brick buildings and a grey chapel … and above all for the most tremendous tradition I shall ever know.’ His love for Eton was infectious. An American colleague, a Harvard man, had been entirely caught up by this group of OEs and the manner in which they represented their old school with passion and pride. ‘Does anyone wonder, Sir,’ he wrote to Logie’s father, ‘when such nobleness and strength, gentleness, sweetness and purity is in the hearts of those she sends forth?’

One acquaintance of Logie’s put it succinctly when he said that his fallen friend had helped to set the current tone amongst the Collegers. Logie knew that he was not perfect, but his high standards were inspiring fellow Etonians to look up to him as an example when the time came to leave for war. Those that followed him aspired to emulate more than his sporting achievements. Logie conducted himself in such a way that he embodied a school spirit that meant a lot to the large numbers of very young men on their way to the front with limited experience of life outside their boarding houses.

If anyone had been exposed to Logie’s example it was his former fag, Ralph. In turn, the likes of Henry had come to know and love him during the war. The eldest members of their coterie had now been struck down: Logie, John, Eric. They had left little more than adolescents behind. The war, however, would carry on. The example of Ralph and Henry’s lost friends had set the tone. Now it would be up to the youngest of them as the killing went on and the Flanders offensive began to look as if it might take on the same wasteful, relentless momentum as the campaign on the Somme the year before.

Notes

  
1
  A cricket club comprising Old Etonians.

  
2
  At lunchtime at Lord’s the crowd was allowed to promenade on the pitch. They were warned of the resumption of play by a series of bells. The stragglers would then be shooed away by policemen and the match would begin again.

19

‘HELL'

At the end of the first week of August Henry Dundas got his way and assumed command of Ivan Cobbold's company. ‘I am more pleased than I can say,' he assured his parents. ‘I shall be able to keep it warm for him till he comes back. I only hope I shan't be inadequate.'

He settled in quickly, but it was not a difficult task, for the entire company had been wiped out in the opening phases of the summer offensive and he was starting afresh. He was thrilled to be amongst Scotsmen. He could discourse on Hearts and Hibs with them. He didn't think his NCOs were loud or violent enough but he was over the moon when he heard a corporal charged with the Lewis gun marching along humming Gilbert and Sullivan ‘and the less common bits, such as “see how he fares”, “For he is a pirate king” etc … I must speak with him on the subject.'

To bolster his conviction that he had been right to go back to the battalion he had a letter from General John thanking him for his work on his staff and wishing him well. ‘I should have done the same, I am sure.' He was, however, apparently mindful of Henry's youth. ‘Your reputation for bravery is so high that it will probably lead you astray!' He imparted some wisdom that he hoped would keep him safe. ‘Don't go and charge the Boche by yourself or stick your head over the top so that they can get a pot at you. Remember you are a Company Commander, so you are precious.'

It was sensible advice from his beloved general. At the age of 19 Henry would now have responsibility for over 200 men and the rank of captain when his company came up to strength. The average age of the four company commanders in the 1st Scots Guards at this juncture of the war was 20 years and 3 months. They had assumed a rank and position that took some ten years to achieve in peacetime. ‘And to this,' Henry recalled joyfully of he and his predecessor, ‘Ivan and I were thrown out of the ECOTC proficiency in 1915 for Idleness. Ha! Ha!!'

He still managed to find shades of school life everywhere. Dundas was eagerly awaiting the arrival of Tommy Goff as a subaltern in his own company. ‘It will be nice having someone who was at Eton in those Halcyon days.' Ralph was of course nearby, having been given his old job at brigade headquarters, regardless of the anger he had expressed at being taken from his battalion to join Feilding's personal staff. Henry couldn't give a damn if he was disappointed, he thought it ‘delightful.

He went to Canada Farm to visit the graves of John Dyer and Eric Greer. Henry was slightly consoled to see that they were buried almost next to each other. In his own regiment they had said a sad goodbye to little Esmond Elliot, cox of the VIII in 1913, who had died of wounds in the aftermath of Pilckem Ridge. And an Eton contemporary had been awarded the Victoria Cross for protecting an NCO of the Royal Engineers as he tried to cut enemy wire. He was hurt but refused to abandon him and died of his wounds as a result. ‘It is a queer war,' Henry wrote. ‘Dunville … was with me at Eton and did not seem to have the makings of a hero, and now look at what he has done.'

Death was everywhere he turned. In fact it was to be an overriding, miserable theme as the rest of 1917 played out and continued to mercilessly hack away at Henry's friends and acquaintances. Despite the success of the Guards' endeavours at Pilckem Ridge, overall the grand strategy attached to the Ypres offensive had overreached, learning nothing from events on the Somme the previous summer. Attempts to follow up the opening day were destroyed by shocking weather. It rained solidly. In fact it would only stop on three days during the entire month of August, leaving the battlefield a scene of unimaginable horror.

On 10 August the downpours had eased off just long enough for Hubert Gough to order another assault. Not enough concentration was placed on the crucial Gheluvelt Plateau and it failed miserably, with matters hampered by the appalling conditions. Gough, though, appeared to be oblivious to unfolding events. He ordered another attack on 16 August, again not placing proper attention on the plateau. Tanks detailed to take part were useless on account of the mud, and the fighting was desperate. In the grand scheme of things it mattered little that Langemarck itself had been taken, for it had cost 15,000 casualties that Britain could ill afford. Up and down the line there were shattered formations that could no longer function properly, and seventeen more Etonians died in the mud of Flanders because of the inept operations in August, nine of whom had only left school since the summer of 1914.