The Trenches (6 page)

The big entrance lobby had a marble floor that made an echoing sound when I walked in and the soles of my boots hit the marble. It made me feel like I ought to tiptoe and whisper, just like I used to when I was in the Town Hall back home in Carlisle.

I went to the desk and gave my name and the piece of paper they'd given me at the Casualty Station, and was sent immediately to see the man who'd be my officer while I was here, Sergeant MacWilliams. The Sergeant told me that I was to replace the regular telegraph operator who had been sent back home on leave. Then he told me how I was to act while I was here.

“Here, Stevens, you are like the three wise monkeys.
You
see nothing, you hear nothing, and you say nothing. Is that clear?”

“Yes, Sarge,” I said.

“Good. Because if word gets back to me – and it will, believe me – that you've said one word of what goes on in this place, or repeated what's been said to anybody, I'll make sure you're shot for treason. Is that clear?”

He then called for another private to show me where I would be based.

I couldn't believe the luxury of it! All right, it was in a wooden hut that had been set up in the grounds at the back of the building, but I had a real bunk, with real sheets and pillows.

After weeks of sleeping on a rickety cot, or trying to sleep in a mud-hole in the trenches, this was like being in heaven. That night I had the best night's sleep I'd had in ages.

And then there was the food at Base HQ. Hot dinners. Real meat and potatoes with gravy. Back at the Front we never saw a hot meal from one day till the next, not unless we could cook it ourselves over the flame of a kerosene lamp. And finding something edible to cook in the trenches was hard. Because of the rats everything had to be kept in tins. So we had tins of meat, usually bully beef, which was just stewed beef pressed into tins. Then there were tins of vegetable stew that tasted like nothing I'd ever had at home. And hard biscuits that were more like dog biscuits.

So
I was shocked when I heard some of the officers at Base HQ complaining because they couldn't get the food they liked. “No grouse. No venison,” complained one. “How can a man live?”

I just kept my head down and my mouth shut and wondered what they'd say if they had to live on bully beef and dog biscuits like most of us in the trenches.

Next day I started work, operating the telegraph keys, receiving and transmitting messages using Morse code. My key for sending messages was like a small metal knob balanced on a spring on a piece of flat board. This was connected to an electric cable. When I pressed this key down, it completed the electric circuit. I could send messages to another telegraph operator by tapping this key, quickly for a “dot”, a bit longer for a “dash”. Different combinations of dots and dashes represented different words.

I received messages using a sounder key, which was a small brass arm on a pivot. When it was pressed down, it also completed an electric circuit, and I could receive messages, printed out on long strips of paper.

Because it took so long for a message to come through this way, they tended to be short, using as few words as possible. It also took a good memory to know what each of the symbols stood for, without having to keep looking them up. Being the one who could translate the coded messages meant that I saw all the information that came in and went out, and I quickly
realized
what the Sergeant had meant about seeing nothing and hearing nothing, and keeping my mouth shut.

And it wasn't just the messages. All the Top Brass came through this building, and once they were inside the building they all talked about the War and how it was going, and what the plans were. It was as if we lower ranks were deaf and couldn't hear them, or couldn't understand what they were talking about. Or maybe they just didn't notice us. I'd noticed that about some rich people, they talk about all sorts of private things when the servants are around, things they'd never talk about in front of other people of their same class. I suppose servants are sort of invisible to them; they're people who don't count so they don't notice them.

With all these field marshals and brigadiers and generals around, and messages going backwards and forwards on the telegraph, I learnt more about the War than I'd have ever found out if I'd asked one of the officers from my own unit. I expect that if I had asked questions about what the plans were, and how the War was really going, I'd have been court-martialled as a spy. But officers talked about these things in the same room as me, or gave me messages to send, or receive, with all this important information.

One thing that really seemed to have the Top Brass worried was what was happening in Russia. Earlier in the year there'd been a revolution there and a new People's Government had taken over the country. The ordinary
people
of Russia were fed up with the way they were treated by the rich people.

The Top Brass were worried that Russia might pull out of the War. If this happened, the Germans would be able to release their troops from the Russian Front and send them to back up their troops here in Flanders.

But they were more worried that the ordinary people in Britain, especially us troops, might hear about the revolution and decide to start one of our own. In our trenches and at camp we'd heard rumours that there had already been mutinies among the French soldiers over bad food, terrible living conditions and no leave. I reckoned that the Top Brass were right to be worried.

I thought about what life was like for me and Charlie and the others in the trenches. And about Rob and Jed Lowe and all the other fighting units going over the top and being cut down, and I couldn't help but feel that Base HQ and the way the generals lived was a long way from what the War was really like. The dirt and the bullets and the blood and the mud. But I didn't say it out loud.

I also found out that not all the Top Brass agreed with the way the War was being fought. A lot of the generals wanted a quick end to the War and I heard one say to another that the Commander-in-chief ought to go for one all-out attack and finish the Germans off and get it over and done with. Messages came through from London, from the Secretary
to
the Prime Minister, saying much the same thing. But then I overheard General Plumer, who was the Commander's right-hand man, say to one of his major generals that the Commander's view was “to wear down the Hun bit by bit, like a dripping tap”. He added: “It's not worth throwing our weight against the Hun while he's still strong. We've got to weaken him first before we strike with everything we've got.”

When I heard this I thought, “That's all very well, but back in the trenches we're throwing everything we've got at the Germans already and they seem to be as strong as ever.” But I didn't say it out loud, I kept my mouth shut.

I'd been at Base HQ for about four days when the Commander-in-chief himself, Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig, arrived. He'd been on a tour of his commanders at their different positions at the Front to see how the War was going. He came into the Communications Room with General Plumer and immediately Sergeant MacWilliams leapt out of his chair and snapped stiffly to attention, banging the heels of his boots smartly together, saluting as he did so. I followed his lead and leapt to my feet, snatching off my earphones.

I was amazed to find that Haig was much smaller than I'd thought he'd be. I don't know why I expected him to be tall, but I did. His hair was white, and he had a big moustache. He carried himself absolutely stiff and straight.

“Stand easy, Sergeant,” said Plumer.

Sergeant MacWilliams and I stood easy, and the Sergeant
gave
me a hard look which meant “Get back to work”, so I sat down, put my earphones back on and turned back to my telegraph key.

“Any messages, Sergeant?” asked Plumer.

“All today's messages have gone to Brigadier General Davidson, sir!” bellowed the Sergeant.

That was one of the odd things about sergeants, they seemed to shout all the time, even when they were talking to someone just a few feet away.

Haig and Plumer nodded, then turned and walked out of the room. In the whole time Haig hadn't said one word.

Sergeant MacWilliams turned to me and said: “You are a very privileged man, Stevens. You have just seen one of the greatest men in the world. If we had more men like Field Marshal Haig this war would be over by Christmas.”

The day after Field Marshal Haig arrived a new phrase started to crop up in messages that I sent and received. “Big Push”. At first I hadn't got the faintest idea what this meant, and I'd learnt that it didn't do to ask questions. Over the next couple of days, though, I kept my eyes and ears open trying to find out more about it. I soon learnt from the mutterings that went on between generals and brigadiers and other officers, that this Big Push was going to be a major offensive. No one said when it was going to be, or where it was going to be, but a decision had definitely been taken to launch a massive all-out assault.

I
was surprised, especially after what I'd heard General Plumer say about “the dripping tap” and that Haig didn't believe in launching a major offensive until the Germans were already weakened. From the telegraph messages that I was taking the Germans seemed as strong as ever. It occurred to me that maybe the Commander wasn't the one taking the big decisions. But then, if Field Marshal Haig wasn't, who
was
taking the decisions? Was it the politicians back in London? I'd heard rumours that there had been a lot of arguments between Haig and the Prime Minister, David Lloyd George, about how this war was being run. A couple of days later I heard solid proof.

I was in the Communications Room, taking down messages that were coming in from stations at the Front, when I heard Field Marshal Haig and General Plumer talking together in the corridor just outside my door. They were talking about the Americans coming into the War. So far, although the Canadians and the New Zealanders and the Australians had come into the War on our side, the Americans had kept out of it and stayed neutral. Charlie and some of the others said this was because there were so many Germans living in America that the Yanks wouldn't know which side to fight on if they came in.

“The first contingent of Americans have arrived in France,” I heard Plumer's voice say.

“How many?” came Haig's question.

“
Just a few hundred,” said Plumer.

“A few hundred!” exploded Haig. “What does President Wilson think this is? A tea party that's got out of control?”

“The Americans say it's just a token force,” said Plumer. “They say most of their men are in training and they'll be over here by Christmas.”

“Before Christmas!” snapped Haig. “We need them now, not by Christmas! It's bad enough that Lloyd George has taken our planes just to make sure he gets votes! Now he won't ask Wilson to bring his men in earlier! Sometimes I don't think that fool Lloyd George wants us to win this war!”

Then I heard the heels of their boots ringing as they both marched off along the corridor.

The business of the planes I'd only found out about since I'd been at Base HQ. It seems that the Germans had sent over planes and carried out air raids on Britain. The month before, in June, a bomber had scored a direct hit on an infants' school and killed all the little kids. The public back home had been up in arms, demanding to know what the Government was doing to protect it from more German air raids. As a result, the War Cabinet had ordered two squadrons of the Royal Flying Corps to be sent back to England to defend it against German bombers. This meant that the numbers of British planes here in Flanders had been cut and all the generals had been livid.

“We're losing thousands of men a day over here!” I'd heard
one
general rage to another. “They lose a few kids and we have to send our flying boys back to protect them. Next thing they'll demand our army goes back to protect them as well!”

Personally, I was glad I was just an ordinary soldier and didn't have to make decisions about where to send the planes or the troops. It seemed to me that whatever the Top Brass did was wrong. If they refused to send planes back to defend England and bombing raids killed more kids, then they'd be in the wrong. But if they sent the planes back to England and our troops were killed because they didn't have protection, they'd be wrong again.

August
1917

At the end of three weeks, the bloke I had been filling in for at Base HQ returned from leave. By this time, by keeping my skin dry, my burns had healed enough for me to be classed as fit to return to active service. I still had scars on my arms where the skin had been burnt, but many men had worse souvenirs of this war.

I had mixed feelings about going back to the Front. On the down side, after the safety and luxury of life at Base HQ, including a real bed and proper hot food, I was going back to an uncomfortable cot in a tent on a muddy field. Then back into the real mud of the trenches. But I was really looking forward to getting back together with Charlie and the others. Always having to be on my guard about what I might say while I was at HQ, which mainly meant saying nothing at all, had been wearing me down. I never felt relaxed the whole time I was there. It sounds ridiculous that I could feel more relaxed back at the Front, with bombs falling and the Hun firing at us, and the mud and the mess, but I did. And that was because I didn't feel relaxed surrounded by generals and brigadiers, but I did when I was with my own mates.

I
managed to squeeze on to one of the transit buses taking the new influx of troops to Poperinghe, and got back to camp by late afternoon.

Charlie was in our tent playing cards with Ginger and Wally as I came in. They all let out a cheer as I walked in.