Daniel Casey (1878 - 1958)
5th Dragoon Guards

Daniel Casey - The Great War

The following text was written by Daniel Casey (11/12/1878 - 06/03/1958) who served in the 5th Dragoon Guards during the First World War. It details many of Daniel's experiences in the war as well as discussing some of the war's consequences. It is part of a larger text which also discusses the actions of a man called Jack Daly (John Daly) who was Daniel's brother in law. The text was written some time between 1955 and Daniel's death in 1958. Daniel was my great-great-grandfather and I have typed these memoirs up from a photocopied version of his handwritten text. I have included the page numbers from his original text in square brackets and I have added footnotes to help put the events in context, for instance, giving the details of a person or battle that is mentioned. I hope to publish the full text soon. David Barrett, 4th August 2014.

   

In 1913 I became a London cloth worker, but a lot of more important events were happening in 1913, for at that time there was a large number of German emigrants in London. There were German butchers, German bakers, German tailors, they even had their German bands playing in the streets. I knew some of these German tailors, as my wife who was a tailoress worked for a German, and one day when I was in the company of one of these Germans we were walking across Tower Hill, when he pointed to the flag on the Tower, he said “that flag is coming down and the German flag is going up in its place.” I thought he was joking, I knew our royal family were of German descent, so I said “when is this going to happen?” and he replied “on the day.” I realised he was quite serious about this, yet all our politicians were arguing over was free trade v. tariff reform. Asquith [1] had promised Ireland home rule and as a result Carson [2] had armed the Ulster men with German rifles. British army officers had mutinied on the Curragh.[3] All of this made news in the newspapers but none spoke of war.

In the summer of 1914, the newspapers were excited over cricket scores. Then came the murder of the Arch-Duke Ferdinand.[4] This was a contrived political murder that was to lead to a World War, due to the entanglement of military alliances. I do not profess any claims to be an historian or to any expert knowledge as to what took place behind the scenes, but I do know that ultimatums were issued from the embassies, and due to our alliance with France, this country was committed to war. There was a great deal of hesitation on the part of our Liberal government who were hoping that the German Emperor [5] could be persuaded upon to respect the neutrality of Belgium, added to the fact that [41] this country was unprepared for war. It was at midnight on August the fourth that it became known that we were at war with Germany.[6] The streets were crowded with people, and I was disgusted with some of them who were singing and dancing, one would have thought it was holiday time. They were soon to learn how tragic war can be.

All reservists were called to the colours, and Lord Kitchener [7] who had no illusions as to what war with German meant, called for volunteers in a famous slogan “your king and country need you.” Also there was two other men in important positions who in my humble opinion deserved the deep gratitude of the people of this country for the part they played in the drama of 1914. They were Lord Haldane [8] who had built up a volunteer Territorial Army and Prince Louis of Battenberg [9] who on the pretext of manoeuvres had the British Navy mobilised so when war was declared they were able to “bottle up” the German Navy in the Kiel Canal, for the German Navy was useless as far as the war was concerned, but their submarines got out and did severe damage, and those capital ships that managed to get out were engaged in the Battle of Jutland and put to flight.[10] Yet these two men were hounded from their high positions. Lord Haldane had once said that his spiritual home was in Germany and Prince Louis was of German descent. Such was the hysteria of some newspapers that the editor of a two penny journal who was later convicted to penal servitude made King George the fifth change his name to Windsor.

But long before these forgoing events happened I was in Flanders, for on the outbreak of the war I had re-enlisted in the 5^th Dragoon Guards. Jack Daly came to see me off at Euston Square as I was sent to Dunbar in Scotland.[11] I had to wait until midnight for the train and to my surprise he insisted on paying for everything. He paid for a supper at a restaurant. He treated me in pubs and he bought me a bottle of whiskey to take with me on the long train journey. He seemed genuinely upset that I was going away. When I reached Dunbar I met some old comrades who I had [42] left in South Africa, and who like myself had re-enlisted so we all made an application to be transferred to Aldershot as it was from there that troops were sent to the war front.

I had not been in Aldershot very long before Jack Daly came to visit me. I made arrangements as regards his food and sleeping accommodation and then I told him that in the evening I usually visited the corporals’ mess in the canteen and that if he came with me he would have to buy a round of drinks for my mates so this he readily agreed, although I did not foresee that he would make a profit by doing so, for Aldershot at that time was a scene of confusion and chaos. Hundreds of men who had flocked to the colours had no uniforms, no rifles, no equipment, and no sleeping accommodation. The barrack rooms were over-crowded with men sleeping on the floors. Here was evidence if proof was needed that England was unprepared for war. An appeal had been made for blankets and overcoats for these men for the coming winter months.

When I took Jack Daly into the Corporals’ Mess that evening I introduced him to my four mates with whom I had soldiered in the Boer War. One of these a Corporal Mason [12] was a police constable in civilian life. He was a burly figure of a man with a big ginger moustache. He was always cheerful and was greatly attached to me, but I knew him to be a rogue and a brazen thief. He always had a bunch of humorous stories to tell of his experiences as a policeman. That raised a laugh and Jack was enjoying listening to one of these stories when Mason suddenly said to me “there is a big load of overcoats arrived for these recruits and I have twelve of them up in my room, and do you know they would fetch three quid a time second-hand up in the ‘Smoke’ (London).” Then Jack said to my astonishment “And how much do you want for them?” Mason gave Jack a keen glance and said “Well I reckon they are worth a quid each.” “I will buy them” said Jack “and here is the money.” And he put twelve pounds down in front of Mason. I said “you will never be allowed to take them out of the barracks, for you will be stopped by the sentries or [43] military police.” But Jack and Mason laughed and said it was easy. So the two of them made parcels of these coats, took them to the railway station and addressed them to the shop in Poplar. When the two of them returned Jack said “they will get there alright, and they are lovely overcoats.” He said “I am glad I came to see you at Aldershot as I have made a profit as those coats are as good as sold at a shilling a week.” 

It was to be a long time before I saw him again, as the next day I sailed to France to join the British Expeditionary Force commanded by General Sir John French.[13] My first impressions of the French towns and people were not favourable for it seemed as if they had not made any progress since the days of the French Revolution. I saw the cobbled streets, the old world chateaux, the farms with the stinking ponds in front of the houses. Their lavatories were stomach revolting. The men seemed to have no decency and the women no morals, and if we were out of date as regards our army, the French were more so as how they expected their soldiers to fight in the long uniform coats they wore I failed to see. But I am casting no aspersions on their bravery, for brave they certainly were.

I saw what the Germans had done already to their villages and towns, and I was to be in their country for four years and see the Germans do more damage. We had fought with the Boers in South Africa with rifles, and it seemed at first as if the Brains in the British army expected the troops to do the same against the mighty armies of Germany who had long prepared for this war, because we only had the same equipment that I carried in South Africa. The Germans were superior in numbers, superior in armament, for they had abundant supply of machine guns, of which there was a scarcity in our army, and as a result of the previous war with France in 1870 they had all the French roads registered for artillery purposes. And to fight this mammoth military machine, the British government had sent an Expeditionary Force. It was soon found that this was not going to be a war of movement but a trench war, miles and miles of trenches were dug six feet deep and three feet wide and they were dug in a zig-zag fashion to avoid enfilading fire. There was communicating trenches, so it was possible to walk [44] long distances without your head appearing above the surface of the earth, for as much as our guards hold their heads up outside Buckingham Palace, in the trenches the order was “Heads Down.”

This was in November 1914, just four months after war had been declared. My regiment the 5^th Dragoon Guards belonged to the 1^st cavalry division and this division was commanded by General Allenby (who was to be send to Palestine to take command).[14] We were 17 kilometres behind this battle front of Ypres, considered to be the bloodiest sector of the whole line. We were scattered in Flemish villages and owing to the incessant rain were sleeping in rat infested barns and out houses in squalid conditions. Our horses had no protection against the weather and were tethered to picket lines in various fields standing in liquid mud well above their fetlocks. Any lover of animals would have felt sorry for these horses, for although they received constant care and attention their conditions were severe. It seemed strange to know that just a month had passed since these villages were the scenes of bitter engagements, but the crude wooden houses at the road side were grim reminders. The Trappist Monastery and church on a steep hill known as Mont Des Cats [15] had been occupied by the Germans who had been forced to retire by cavalry. It was here that a son of the German Emperor was killed among others and buried in the same ground as men of our own cavalry, but one could tell that these men had been buried by the monks of the monastery, by the reverence displayed.[16]

One had an excellent view of the battle front at Ypres from this monastery and could see that it was a salient shaped like an horse shoe, with our troops on the inner-ring. Our poor battered infantry were bearing the full brunt of the fighting against vastly superior numbers and their losses were heavy and this knowledge cast a spell of gloom on us. General Allenby came to us and stated that these infantry were to be pulled out for a rest, and that we were to go as dismounted cavalry into the trenches. One man to every four horses was to remain behind. We were issued with emergency rations. These are rations that must not be eaten until one gets the [order to leave].[17] We were also issued with thick dark whale oil [45] to smear on our legs and feet as many of the trenches were water logged. We had heard tales of men standing up to their waists in water. We had seen hospital trains loaded with men who had frozen feet, and we were no going to have a similar experience. The troops had no illusions about Ypres. We all knew how bad it was and some grim jests were bandied about as to where they would like to be wounded so as to get to ‘Blighty’ (home). I heard one sergeant say he would not like to be wounded in the stomach, yet strangely enough that is just where he was hit and killed only two days later. But we all knew that some of us were not coming back.[18]

At 11 PM that night we assembled at the cross roads to get on the buses that was to take us to the trenches. These were old double decker buses from London that had been painted a slate grey colour and had the windows boarded up. No lights were allowed and all smoking was forbidden. It was a pitch dark night as these buses moved off at intervals so that a distance was kept between each bus, as the Germans had this road registered for shell fire. It was raining heavily when we arrived at the entrance to the communication trench, and we were warned to walk on the narrow duck boards that floored these trenches as there was deep shell holes concealed by liquid mud in these trenches. So in single file we went in each man gripping hold of the man in front of him. We knew we were in the battle zone alright with the artillery on both sides blazing away and the very lights [19] going up in the air like a Brooks firework display.

We done so much twisting and turning in these zig-zag trenches that I was quite bewildered to learn that I was in the front line trench and that not many yards in front of me was the German army. The regiment we had relieved was the Middlesex Regiment and one of them said to me as he was leaving “it’s all quiet here mate, so long as you leave Gerry alone.” I was to recollect those words later. When a very light went up, I saw that there was only six of us in our part of the trench, but I knew on my right and left was the whole regiment. We had no time to look about us for sentries were posted on the fire step of the trench with strict [46] orders to keep their heads down and not to move about. They had to be like statues. For the remainder there was plenty of work to do for there was ammunition boxes to be brought up, rations to fetch up, trenches to repair, and it was not long before we were all sodden with rain and covered in mud. Then to add to our misery these trenches were infested with big rats who seemed to have no fear because one only had to put his haversack down for a minute to find a rat at it after the emergency biscuits it contained. I saw one man put his haversack suspended by a wire in a manner to defeat rats but he had hardly turned his back when a rat was hanging head down on that wire. But my worst moment came when I was posted on the fire step as sentry for every man had to take his turn as sentry. I had my orders not to move so judge of my dismay when a big rat walked across my extended arm and just at that moment the Germans sent a very light up, so I dare not flinch. But the worst time for sentries was just before day break, that was known as zero hour, that is when every man stands to, tense and alert for that was when an attack could be expected. And one could feel the sigh of relief that came when the order “Stand Easy” was given for we knew that was one danger past.

When daylight came there was a chance of a smoke for those who were not on duty, and I saw a crude notice that was scrawled on a board, and was evidently done by a previous occupant of these trenches. It read “keep your head down when passing here.” Then I saw something uncanny at this angle of the trench for in less than 30 minutes we had a dozen men killed one after the other. They were all shot in the head. It was clear to everyone that not far away there was a concealed German sniper. A burial party was told to bury these men in some side trench. I know that they did not climb out of the trenches as that would have been too dangerous. And just then the artillery started a duel, the shells travelling over us with a noise like electric express trains. Some of these dropped near the burial party, so the dead were hastily buried. It was then I understood the peculiar smell in these trenches. It was then I understood why the rats were so big and so bold.

[47] But if some of us were in low spirits, there was one who was not, and that was my mate Moe Mason, for nothing seemed to upset him. I don’t know what he was like in the police force, but in the army he was the “life and soul of the party” with his brazen impudence and kept us in fits of laughter. So judge of our amusement when the officers came round asking if any man could cook (for they wanted a man to cook their food), when Mason said “I can cook sir.” So they took him to the officer’s dug-out in the trench that was screened by a blanket. A little while later Mason came to me and said “you ought to see what they have got down there. All their stuff comes from Fortnum & Mason in Regent’s Street. They have got tinned chicken, tinned soup, tinned butter, biscuits and bottles of whisky. I will bring you out some later.” And sure enough he did, for I had soup, chicken, and he did not forget a tot of whisky. He then said “I must go and scrounge some wood” and I knew where he was going to steal this wood because in the rear trenches the Royal Engineers had a dump of barbed wire, wooden stakes, brush wood, and all things necessary to strengthen the trenches. The rain had ceased and it was a clear day when Moe Mason approached this dump so he thought he would have an hour’s precious sleep, so he climbed on this stack of brush wood but his weight caused it to sag in the middle so presently Moe Mason was sound asleep in a hollow.

But what was his dismay when he opened his eyes to see a full blown General staring down at him with a full breast of medal ribbons on him. “Who are you?” roared the general. “Mason of the 5^th Dragoon Guards Sir” said Moe. “Stand to attention when you speak to me” roared the General. “But I can’t bloody well get up Sir” said Mason as he struggled in the midst of the brush wood. The General swore and threatened what he was going to have done to Mason, when Moe saw that he was wearing the South African war ribbon that he himself was wearing, so he said “You would not get an old soldier into trouble that was with you in the Boer War would you sir?” and the General went away grinning, and when Moe came and told us his adventure we also grinned.

But it was our [48] adjutant who was the cause of what happened to us that day, for he came round looking for something he could find fault with. He was escorted by the officers, and I heard him say “it’s rather quiet here, let’s stir them up, let them know we are here. Give them the 15 rounds rapid.” There was ten cartridges in the magazine of a rifle [20] and with another clip of 5 cartridges it would be possible to fire them all off in one minute. The sound effects would be the same as a machine gun. But there was no visible target, for the Germans like ourselves were in their trenches, yet every man had to fire 15 rounds into space. In my view it was a senseless order. In my view it was a waste of ammunition. But we got our answer quick enough. We certainly had stirred them up, for the Germans plastered our trenches with high explosive shell fire. I thought the end of the world had come as I crouched against the wall of the trench. For the earth trembled under my feet and it seemed as if the trench was closing in on us. On the left and right of us shells had landed in the trench and men were blown to fragments. It seemed an eternity before our own heavy guns started firing, and that diverted the Germans. It was then I remembered the words of the soldier I had relieved the night before – “it’s all quiet here mate so long as you leave Gerry alone.”

It was with gratitude as far as I was concerned that I heard we were to be relieved at night. I do not know how I looked but the faces of all the others was grey and their eyes red-rimmed for want of sleep. We staggered to the buses that was to take us back. The roll call had shown we had heavy losses. Now anyone would have thought that after such an ordeal we would have been allowed to relax to have some leisure, but we had to clean up, we had to attend to our horses. And then we received a shock, for recollect none of us were conscripts, we all were regular soldiers, trained and used to army discipline. There had been no panic under shell-fire, there had been no weakening of morale, yet a new order was now issued - sergeants must not fraternize with the men. They must give an order and if it was not instantly obeyed, the man must be arrested and charged. [49] Furthermore, the sergeants must not answer any questions. This meant that if you asked your troop sergeant a question, he stared at you as though you did not exist. I think the sergeants felt this more bitterly than the men, because formerly when work was done and we were off duty, they would come across to our camp fire and have a chat and a drink of the men’s tea. Besides, the squadron sergeant major who was their boss now treated them like dogs and that was the manner the Brains of our command expected to win this war. We had to parade every evening to hear the sergeant-major read out regimental orders and there was always a post script of a long list of men who had been court-marshalled and shot at dawn for various charges.[21] It seemed as though we were to be treated worse than convicts.

We were well aware that the poor battered infantry were suffering terrible casualties, especially among their company officers and although we had no respect for the staff officers in their glossy riding boots and smart uniforms and who were known as brass hats, we all had the deepest admiration for the infantry officers who were in the trenches with their men. These were officers who led their men “over the top” to the attack on the German trenches, by the orders they received from the command who were well out of danger in the rear, whose staff head-quarters was in some chateaux where they had man servants to wait upon them. But so serious was the losses incurred among these infantry officers, that the War Office decreed that sergeants and sergeant-majors in the cavalry regiments should be granted commissions as officers so we lost our sergeant-major and troop sergeants. But this led to some grim jests by our men, who maintained that they were committing suicide and that they only had four days to live and according to their time take this is how those four days would be spent. On the first day they would go to Cox’s Bank in London and cash their cheque for the officer’s allowance, on the second day they would get their officer’s uniforms and kit, on the third day they would get gloriously drunk around Piccadilly, on the fourth day they would join their infantry battalion, go “over the top” and finish.

[50] This order also offended our wealthy cavalry officers who had been trained at Sandhurst College. The mere thought that they would have to associate with ranker officers was repugnant to them. These also had they had plenty of money could go on leave to London for a few hours where they were to be found in high class hotels and restaurants. This came to the notice of Labour MPs in the House of Commons who demanded that if officers could obtain leave why not the men, so the order came that all men who had been at the front for over 12 months should have 96 hours leave, but I was out there 15 months before it came to my turn for leave.[22] And what an exciting time for me it was in such a short space of time, for we were honour bound to return so as to permit another man to have leave.

Although I had taken every care to keep myself clean, we were herded together in cattle trucks coming down from the front, that I was lousy when I reached home in my full kit, so my first request was a bath and a change of linen. My relations could not understand because I looked so clean. Then it was a rush around to see friends, and that was how I met Jack Daly again after 15 months at his shop in Poplar. But there had been great changes in those 15 months. Women were working in the munition factories and making khaki uniforms. The call of Lord Kitchener that your king and country needed you now fell on deaf ears because the news of our serious loses had reached the people. The government had appealed to men to come forward and fight for their country, they put up Lord Derby [23] a well-known sportsman to introduce a scheme. It was all in vain, so conscription came and when I arrived in Poplar I found Jack’s wife Beattie in a very anxious frame of mind, as they were taking able bodied men irrespective of class, and she did not want Jack to be a soldier.[24] At first I thought why should he evade it when others had to go? I had seen war in all its grimness. Why should he not go and take his chance? But Beattie had been good to my wife and me, she always brought something for my young children, and so I suggested how he could avoid being a soldier, in fact how he could avoid leaving the country, by joining the Navy.

[51] Now that may seem strange at first, but all wars bring rackets and I knew a racket was being worked in this one, for my own brother in law had been in the navy since he was a boy. He had climbed the ladder of promotion and had retired on a chief petty officer’s pension, but when war broke out he rejoined the navy and was now the chief regulating officer at a naval depot, and this naval depot was the Crystal Palace. I knew that there were two sailors from this depot who in civilian life were two well-known music hall comedians and I knew they were now appearing in a leading part at the Drury Lane Theatre in pantomime and they had not missed a performance. So it was a clear indication that a racket was being worked. About twelve months previously I paid a visit to Portsmouth to meet my brother in law and his family and while there I had been introduced to and became acquainted with some chief petty officers who were friends of his. I knew these CPOs were now at the naval depot at the Crystal Palace, and in the last few hours of my short leave I was calling on them before going to Victoria Station and I thought I might be able to do something for Jack Daly. I explained to his wife Beattie what she would have to do when she received my letter. I was almost sure that if Jack was accepted for the navy, in due course in the process of his naval training he would arrive at the Crystal Palace where he was to make himself known as a relative of mine, so Beattie was very grateful for my endeavour.

My wife and her sister who were seeing me off at Victoria Station came to the Crystal Palace with me.[25] We all had tea in the warrant officers mess and my brother in law and another warrant officer made up the party to accompany me to the station and on the way I fixed it up about JD. But what a sight was Victoria Station. They had erected barricades to prevent relatives and friends intruding on the platform where the long troop-train was waiting. Most of the women were weeping and the men’s faces were grave, because they knew that for some it was a final parting. Victoria Station was aptly described as the Station of Sadness and Sighs. As soon as a soldier crossed the barrier then his leave expired. Military Police examined his papers and he was [52] hustled into a railway carriage, words of command were shouted. The parting was over. The leave was over. You were back in the army. Nearly every soldier was silent and depressed. No joking or laughter when the train reached Folkestone.

The sea was rough and we thought we might have another day in ‘Blighty’, but that night the ship came alongside and we were herded aboard in the darkness. Then an officer came along to see that each man had his life-belt on because although the ship was escorted by two destroyers it was a risky crossing on account of the German submarines. At Boulogne we were marched early in the morning to a base-camp. There was a couple of hundred of us all from different regiments marching into this camp, and then I heard the angry shouts and wondered what it was all about until I saw what they were shouting for. There lined up to meet us was some celebrities of the boxing ring and these were dressed as physical training instructors which of course was phoney and we all knew this was a ‘racket.’ They were dodgers, and they were not the only ones. Other well-known faces were here for safety. The camp commandant’s face went white when he heard that shout and so we were formed up in a hollow square while he made a speech. He made all sorts of excuses, why these men were retained at the base, but that was not all that upset us, because we saw army lorry drivers cooking their breakfasts at the roadside of nice thick slices of bacon that was destined for the troops in the front line trenches. The people in England were sending out to the troops, cigarettes, tobacco, and other comforts and these were being stolen at the base.

When I rejoined my regiment I did not have a lot to say and my mates left me alone to get over my despondency, because they all had the same experience after returning from leave. I know it was a couple of days before I was normal. Due to the weather and the conditions prevailing we were issued with a ration of rum. This worked out at eight men to a pint of rum so a man received a tablespoon full. This rum is excellent to repel cold if taken at its full strength, but yet again the troops were done down, for the sergeant major and the sergeants had first approach to it and also more than their share [53] and they made up the deficiency with water. We all knew this but there was nothing we could do about it except grouse. But there was one amongst us who evidently had other ideas, and that was my mate Moe Mason, for nothing seemed to escape his keen eyes.

We were halted one day on a march. The order came to feed our horses and rest easy. When Mason came up to me and asked me what I had in my water-bottle, I told him water, for ever since my South African experience I always kept my water-bottle filled. “Lend it to me” said Mason. “What for?” I said “you have got your own water-bottle slung around your neck.” “Don’t argue” he said “lend it to me”, and when I did so I knew he contemplated mischief. Then a short time afterwards I heard a sergeant major shout “has anyone seen my water-bottle?” and he came straight over to Mason and said “show me your water-bottle”, which being given to him he tasted and spat it out. It was mine. It only held water. What he was searching for was rum. Presently Moe Mason shouted “here’s a water bottle”, pointing to one on the ground on its side with the cork out, “is this yours sir?” The Sergeant Major glared at the troops who were trying to stop from laughing, because they knew what he must have had in the bottle, the rum he had pinched, and now someone had pinched it off him.

When we had halted again Mason came up with my bottle and said “empty that water away and have some rum.” Now both of us knew the potency of this spirit and it would never do to get drunk, for that would be asking for serious trouble, so I used to put a little drop in my tea, and I was eking it out. But one night when we were all sitting on the ground drinking our tea a fellow close to me shouted “I can smell rum.” I nearly choked myself drinking that tea and quickly rinsed the mess-tin out, but it was a narrow squeak. But Moe Mason was not finished with this sergeant major because I saw him watching every move this sergeant major made, and that’s how he came to find out that he kept a jar of run back that should have been issued to the troops. But this incident happened on our way back from the Battle of Cambrai.[26]

I ought to explain that there had been some [54] considerable changes since the early months of the war. For now the men who had enrolled in Kitchener’s Army were now fully trained and in the field, and ship-loads of troops had arrived from Australia, Canada, and New Zealand. We also had a naval division with their heavy-gun[s], even the conscripts were having the finishing touch to their training behind the lines. So we now had several army corps, and the 1^st Cavalry Division was attached to these in turn, if and when a ‘push’ had been planned, for the cavalry were always in reserve for a break-through. It was the 3^rd Army we were attached to commanded by General Byng [27] at Cambrai. The infantry had managed to make an advance that was grossly exaggerated in the newspapers as a Great British victory, and we heard that the church bells in England had been rung in honour of this event. Now no war correspondents was allowed in the battle zone, so they must have obtained a garbled version behind the lines to report what they did or else it was done to revive the morale of the people at home, for the facts were that the Germans counter-attacked the very next day and drove our men back to where they had started from. In effect the Battle of Cambrai was a failure. My own view was that the espionage system of the Germans must have been perfect, for they seemed to be fore-warned. There was certainly a leakage of information, and that did not come from the troops, for we had been forbidden to talk about what we did and all our letters were censored, besides, none of us knew anything about the strategy of the war.

I saw Sir Douglas Haig in his car that day looking at the map. He had generals and staff officers with him and he was in a terrible rage, so it was obvious there had been yet another blunder. I heard a fellow next to me say as we rode along “The Brains of the British Army I could put in a thimble” and I was inclined to agree with him, because although we were sleeping rough and our horses and saddles were out in the open unprotected from the weather, we were expected to be just as clean as if we were in barracks. Boots and buttons had to be polished and our steel-work bright and burnished. We had inspections nearly every day, besides guard duties, and the sergeant-major seemed [55] to delight in bullying the sergeants for not being stricter with the men, all of whom hated him, but he was smarmy towards the officers almost licking their boots. One of the officers gave him a very valuable coat. It was a uniform coat that was fur-lined, and he was going to send this coat home to England, but he kept the jar of rum he had stolen from the troops rolled up with this coat and made into a parcel. This package he used to put on the ammunition-limber that was drawn by four horses, with instructions to the two drivers to take care of it on the line of march. Now Moe Mason had observed all this, so as we came away from Cambrai, he must have put his plan into effect, because that evening when we halted and bivouacked the parcel was missing.

The two drivers declared that it was impossible for it to have fallen off the limber, so the sergeant-major went around like a bear with a sore head, smelling the men’s breaths. He would come up close and ask a question, but we all guessed what was the matter and we was all hoping that one of the officers had taken it by mistake, for then there would be an enquiry and it would be traced to him, and he would have to account for having this rum in his possession. Then someone mentioned in his hearing that the two cooks told off to make the tea were drunk. He almost ran over to these two men only to find they were perfectly sober. But if he had gone around the next night, he would have found all the men smelt of rum. There were plenty of mud-filled shell holes at that place so the coat and empty jar was never found, and for weeks after when he was near, one man would say to another “it was a mystery how the sergeant major lost his coat.”

For a couple of months I was away from my regiment and my mates, as I was one of a dismounted detachment under the command of a captain ordered to the Somme Battle-Front for night-work. None of us had the least idea what was meant by night-work, because they never give any explanations in the army, one gets an order that has to be instantly obeyed. I think the term should be blind obedience, but we were told that we would sleep in the day-time. We travelled in army lorries as it was a long distance from where the regiment had camped. [56] We passed through towns and villages as yet untouched by the war with shops, restaurants, business premises, all of them conducting business as usual. We passed men and women working on the land and it all seemed so peaceful. It was a lovely day with the sun shining, the sort of day one would choose for a picnic, and then we came to the battle zone.

What a contrast it was. It was just as if we had arrived at the verge of a desert. Nothing but desolation, rubble, and clouds of dust. Not a building left standing, all razed to the ground and although it was summer-time not a blade of grass to be seen and only the stump of trees that had been blasted by shell fire. Military policemen covered in dust were challenging and directing the traffic. There were no French people here, this was British territory. Our driver asked a policeman for direction as to our destination, and then I noticed that our troops had given their own descriptions to various places, for there were crude sign posts up stating “this way to Tommy Trench” “This way to Dead Horse Hollow.” There were soldiers and wagons everywhere. I saw some steel Nissan huts that our troops had erected to be used as offices and store-rooms, but this was only the beginning because we had to go on further.

When we stopped our final job was to put up our tents which had to be in a straight line, and the lorries having gone back, I got a chance to look around me. Close to us on our left was a captive observation balloon with the artillery observer in the suspended basket high up in the sky. From this a field telephone cable led to a battery of guns on our right-front. I noticed that these artillery men had dug a deep shelter close to these guns and I was soon to learn the reason, because I saw these men emerge from this shelter putting out their pipes and cigarettes and form-up behind their guns. I heard the officer give them the elevation at so many degrees for they were firing from “the map.” I heard the order to fire, and then to my amazement they dashed into their deep shelters like a lot of rabbits. I realised only too well [57] what that meant as we all took cover. I thought all hell had been let loose over there for German high explosive shells was bursting all around those guns making deep craters in the ground. But that was not all, for when the shaking had ceased, a German aeroplane came out of the blue and set the observation balloon on fire. The observer jumped out and was parachuting to the ground when this airman circled around him firing at him with his pistol. Instantly we all seized our rifles and fired at him, and we thought we had hit him for his plane came tumbling over and over just like a wounded bird. But just when he was a few feet from the ground he flattened out and went skimming away to the German lines. We almost cheered that German so full of admiration were we at what he had done, and we agreed if anyone deserved medals, then our observer and this German deserved them, for it was so thrilling. Our people soon had another balloon up, and the same observer, who was unhurt, went up again. But for sheer audacity this same plane came back again, but this time we were all prepared and he was driven off.

For the first couple of weeks we all thought what an easy job we had. We had no horses to worry about, we had good rations, we had fine weather, and there was no guard duty to do. Also, there was little danger in the work we were doing. The engineers to whom we were attached had erected water-tanks at the entrance to the communications trench and we had to lay water-pipes up to the front line trenches, but it all had to be done at night. But then we got more dangerous work to do, for we had to work in what was termed “the out.” That is outside the trenches in “No Man’s Land.” We had to erect barbed wire entanglement. We worked in pairs under supervision of a private in the Royal Engineers. We first of all posted our “look-outs” who had to lay flat on the ground with their guns at the ready position. The remainder of us were issued with thick leather mittens, and warned that a soon as a very rocket was fired into the sky we were to keep perfectly still. These rockets as they descended to the earth illuminate the ground but they only last a minute, but it was a nerve wracking experience to me every time one went up, as I felt as if cold water [58] was running down my spine.

But there were any amount of unburied dead laying around in strange posture. I saw one sitting up, another on his hands and knees as if he was looking down a grating. I saw one in the German barbed wire like a scare crow one sees in a field with his tattered clothing fluttering in the breeze as one of these rockets lit up this area where we were working. I was told that this one on the wire had been there since the early days of the war and that nearly every sentry who came on duty at that part of the front line trench had fired at it in mistake.

One half of us was employed in hammering in the long iron stakes into the ground while the others came along with the barbed wire which is coiled on a big reel with a hole in the ends through which a stick is passed. Two men handle this reel. It was not such a simple job as putting a single wire fence up. This had to be an elaborate job, for these engineers certainly know their work. This entanglement had to be of varying heights and extend in depth for about three yards until it was level with the ground. It was a man-trap, anyone getting caught in that wire had about as much chance as a fly has on a fly-paper. We all had to be out of it before daybreak and no one was more relieved than I was when the order came to “pack up.”

There was one thing I noticed, we never received any bullying from officers or sergeants while we were on this job. On the contrary they went out of their way to be friendly with us. It was quite a different atmosphere to that of being with the regiment, but owing to the stress of the previous months I had failed to write home to my wife, so I was surprised when I was told my captain wanted to see me. I went to his tent which he used as an office and saluted him. “Why have you not wrote to your wife?” he asked. I explained that none of us had any leisure time during recent times. “Well, write now” he said, “you sit down and write now because she is very anxious about you.” At the same time he lent me his pen and gave me a field service postcard half of which is printed to say you are fit and well. But as I sat down to write I could see he was studying me. Then when I gave him the card [59] he said “Can you read a map?” I said “yes sir.” He said “Well here are two maps. I have got a job on the general’s staff, so I want you to go back to the regiment tomorrow and fetch my horse back here at the same time as you bring your own, as I shall want you to be my orderly. You can travel back on the ration lorry tomorrow as far as it goes then you must manage to pick up another lorry to take you the rest of the way to where the regiment is.” I said “I will need a document in case I am challenged.” He said “I never thought of that, but of course you will.” So he wrote me an official pass. He gave me some money for expenses, and the next day I went off on the lorry to find the 5^th Dragoon Gds.

This lorry took me less than half way, but the driver had advised me how to pick up another lorry, and by enquires I found the regiment was in a French village. After I had reported my errand to those concerned I sought out Mason and the rest of my mates who were all pleased to see me. There was a little estaminet (a small wine shop) in this village and that was well patronized by our chaps in the evening. It was kept by an aged French woman. It was a proper old world establishment not unlike one we read about in novels of old time France, but I don’t suppose it was ever so crowded as it was now by our chaps. Some were playing cards, others were gambling on the crown and anchor board, this is a game where the owner of the board has the advantage of three chances to your one. It comprises the heart, the diamond, the club, the spade, the crown and the anchor, painted on a board and is played with three dice on each of which is painted the above. The betting is even money, but should three of one kind show up you get a treble concession. As we passed this board to get to the bar I placed two francs on the heart but talking to Mason and the others about our job on the Somme I forgot all about it, and some time later I heard a shout of “who owns all this money on the heart?” It was remarkable for it had shown up continuously, and my stake had doubled each time so my winnings was a large sum. But where I was going the next morning, back to the Somme battle zone, money was useless so I treated [60] the whole crowd of them to bottles of white wine (vin blanc). This can make you intoxicated, so I had a hangover at daybreak the next morning, but I had plenty of willing workers to help me and see to it, that I had all I required for my journey.

It was a novel experience for me to find my way alone. I did not push my horses too hard and when I came to an hotel that had stables, I saw that they were well cared for. Of course as soon as I arrived in the area of the Somme I was challenged by our military police. We used to term them ‘red-caps’ and none of us had any liking for these police when we were in England as their main purpose seemed to be to get soldiers into trouble, but out here it was a different matter, as the jobs they had to do was both difficult and dangerous. You could come across them directing traffic on a road that was being shelled by German artillery, and they had no cover to protect them. So when I was challenged by these police I showed them the document that my officer had given me.

My first job was to report to him and he immediately came over to look and fondle his horse which was in good condition and did not look any worse from the long journey we had done. This captain gave me instructions what he wanted done. I was to go to him each evening at 7 p.m. for orders. The rest of the time was my own (except to care for the two horses). No more barbed wire work. No more taking orders from sergeants and corporals. The only one I had to take notice of was the captain. It was the first easy job that had come my way since I arrived in the country. When we went up to the front on horseback we who were the orderlies stayed at the entrance to the trenches to look after our horses, while the general and his staff officers went on up to the front line. But one night while we were waiting with the horses, a long distance shell exploded very near us making a big crater in the ground. When our party returned the general said “We did not expect to find you here.” He said to me “where did it drop?” I said “Just over there sir” because it was so dark, yet when he flashed his torch we who were the orderlies could see how close it had been.

This job as orderly came to an end too soon for me, for we were ordered to the regiment for the big offensive and strangely enough it was to be the Somme where this was to take place. When I rejoined my troop I found it had been issued [61] with a newly designed automatic gun. It was in the shape of a rifle and fired like a rifle with a butt firmly pressed into the shoulder, at the muzzle end a tripod was affixed to it and it was loaded by a clip containing 25 cartridges. It was called the Hotchkiss rifle. It required three men as a team to work this new invention, number one was the one who fired the gun, number two fed the ammunition clips into the gun, and number three was in charge of the pack-horse that carried this gun on its back and the cases of ammunition in panniers at its side. He brought the gun into action and was responsible for it on the line of march, and I was the number three that led this pack horse. In my view I had the hardest job in the team because I had two horses to attend to and two sets of saddling and harness to clean. We were continually rehearsing as a team with this gun. We would gallop to a selected spot when the other two would quickly dismount and hand the reins of their horses to me. They would then seize the gun and ammunition from my pack horse and laying flat on the ground begin blazing away at the target. I would wheel about with the four horses and gallop to some sheltered hollow. This all had to be done quickly. It was a matter of timing. I think they expected good results from this new weapon, as first the colonel came to watch this rehearsal and then the general, and both clocked the time it took, but what used to annoy and embarrass me was when we were on the march the “top brass” used to come along and inspect my outfit. As most soldiers know I would rather have been less conspicuous.

July the first 1916. The Battle of The Somme began, and I saw another one of our inventions that day, it was the first army tank, but unlike the elaborate tanks we have today. In fact we called it a land Crab.[28] It had caterpillar treads and was in the shape of a diamond ◊. The driver rode on a bicycle saddle inside and his two mates had a Lewis Gun each to fire through the turrets of the tank, but I should not have cared for their job. Any amount of troops were there, the guns were blazing away on both sides and shrapnel shells were bursting over our heads. We had to stand aside to let our foot guards pass through. These were going to be thrown in to attack the German lines. [62] These were the old type of foot-guards, every one of them was six foot tall and as a Londoner I had often seen these same men in their scarlet tunics and busbies and admired the precision of their marching as they took up their various guard duties. They were now dressed in their khaki field service uniforms, each man had a short trench spade stuck in his belt. They had mills-bombs in their pockets, and with their bayonets fixed they certainly meant to give a good account of themselves.

We were mustered in Carnoy Valley. This was a deep hollow with a ridge that screened us from the enemy, and as we had orders to “stand easy” we were free to move about, so several of us climbed up the ridge to see the guards go into action, because if the Somme attack could be termed a spectacle, then these guards were star performers. We saw them go forward in an open order. Our guns had opened up with a barrage and behind this barrage of artillery fire, the guards walked steadily. We saw the gaps that came in their ranks from the concealed machine-guns of the Germans. We saw them digging in and we knew something had gone wrong. Then a staff officer came up to our own commanding officer and said “It’s a failure – get your bloody cavalry out of here. This is an infantry job.” The poor battered infantry have got to hold the line.[29] I thought this staff officer seemed unnerved, but we retired a few kilometres back in a very desolate place where we camped.

But at 4 a.m. the next morning each troop had to send a detachment to form a burial party, and as usual those who names are at the beginning of the alphabet were selected as I was one. None of us had any idea where we were going when we rode out of camp that morning. We passed through the empty and desolated town of Albert and we saw the church whose spine had been hit by a shell dislodging a statue of the Virgin that had been at its summit. It was uncanny to see this statue hanging head down with no visible means of support. I daresay that I have heard hundreds of soldiers commenting on this strange sight.

We arrived at Fricourt and what a grim and horrible job awaited us. To our left and right I saw men from other regiments already on the job of digging and pulling the dead out of dug-outs and trenches. [63] As one party of men lifted these dead they searched for the identity disc which every soldier carries. This was handed to the officer in charge who wrote the particulars in a book. Then the second party conveyed them to a deep trench that was to be their grave. If where we had been the day before had been bad, this was much worse, for this place had been the scene of hand to hand fighting. British and German dead lay here in strange postures. That was unnerving to see. I saw a dead German who was trapped by a beam of timber on the back of his neck, like a rat in a break neck trap. A bomb had been thrown into this dug-out, and as he rushed out this timber had trapped him. But what was awful to see was his face was laughing. I saw a man of the Bedford regiment locked in death with a German. The British soldier had run his bayonet through the German’s stomach but the German had run his bayonet through our chap’s throat.

There were other gruesome sights. When I looked at our officer’s face he seemed as if he wanted to be sick. I think we all felt that way and was glad to get back to camp. We were a very subdued body of men, and when the others came round asking what sort of job we had been on, none of us had any desire to talk about it. But there are so many various jobs to do in a cavalry regiment that next day the whole grisly scene was erased from my mind. It seemed to me as if the discipline was becoming even more strict, for we were having inspections and drills very frequent. The troop sergeants seemed to snarl when they gave an order and men were being punished for trivial offences. One of my mess-mates was a young fellow who came from Newcastle. He was a good soldier who took great care of his horse. He thought a great deal of this horse and used to fondle it, but just as we were about to march one day, the troop sergeant ordered him to hand this horse over to an officer’s servant while he would have to ride another horse. Now to be fair to the servant, he had nothing to do with this arrangement, for he was like us, he had to do what he was told. But the effect of this order on my young mess-mate whose name was Davidson was sad to see. I saw the tears in his eyes. This servant was also sorry and to spare [?] matters with Davidson [64] he invited him over to the officer’s mess, where he gave him a good mean and some whisky.

Now I don’t suppose Davidson had even tasted whisky in his lie, and when he came back I could see he was drunk. If it had been in the evening I could have concealed him, but it was in the morning and we were saddling-up to mover off. I said to him “when the sergeant comes round you are looking at your shoes.” But this sergeant came straight up and said “Davidson.” Of course the young fellow straightened up. He could see the state he was in, but even then I think it would have been alright, if Davidson had remained quiet. Instead here before him was the man who had taken away his horse, so he made a dash at the sergeant. He was over powered by the men and placed in charge of the guard. I was awfully upset at the way matters had turned out, but when I took him his evening meal I was shocked to see what they had done to him, for he lay on the ground tightly bound hand and foot and a rude gag had been forced in his mouth. I was mad with rage. I said to the sergeant of the guard “Loosen those ropes” but he was another of the bullying type. He said “And who the hell are you?” I said “Unless you loosen those ropes I am going to fetch one of the officers here.” He said something about the prisoner being violent and they had to use restraint, but he took the gag and ropes of Davidson. Of course I told Mason and the other members of our clique all about it, and Mason who had police training said to me “Watch your step, because those bastards will try to frame you.”

The next morning when I took Davidson his breakfast I said to him “Look Bill, I am an older man than you and an older soldier, so will you take my advice.” He asked me what that was, so I told him that I wanted him to send for the troop sergeant and apologise to him for the attack he had made on him, and my reason for this was that I had an idea that this sergeant Yates was at heart a decent type of a man, who had only been carrying out his orders. In my view he was not to blame for the harsh discipline, that was the policy of the fellows with the red tabs on their uniforms and glossy boots. We all [65] knew that Davidson would be court-martialled, and the officers comprising the court would not be officers of the 5^th Dragoon Guards, but officers from other regiments. We also knew that Davidson faced a serious charge “drunk and striking a superior officer while on active service.” These courts had the power to sentence a man to death for had we all not listened to regimental orders with its post script of the names and regiments of men who had died at the hands of a firing-squad at dawn.

The following day this sergeant Yates came up to me in the horse-lines where I was grooming my two horses and said “Is that chap Davidson a ‘towney’ of yours?” I said “No sergeant, he comes from Newcastle and I come from London.” And then I explained how upset Davidson had been when ordered to hand over his horse to the officer’s servant. I told him of the care and attention that he had lavished on this horse, all of which was news to this sergeant who was as I guessed a decent type. Besides, all troop sergeants like to have their men take an interest in their horses. I would get up in the night if we were near a farm or a hay rick to get extra forage for them. Of course I had to get permission from the sentry, because in feeding my horses on the picket line it disturbed the others. But as a result of my talk with the sergeant, when the court martial was held, no mention was made of the whisky he had been given. The sergeant soft pedalled his evidence and said Davidson was a good soldier and had previously given no trouble, so he was sentences to 25 days field punishment No. 1. This is a senseless form of punishment for the prisoner is crucified to a wagon wheel. With both arms extended he is lashed with ropes tightly tied for two hours every day, he also has to do all the unpleasant jobs there are to do in a camp. But we all knew punishment could have been much worse.

Now although Davidson was grateful to me, Moe Mason’s words came true because the sergeant-major had me under suspicion as being a “sea-lawyer.” This means a man who causes trouble. But I took great care not to give him a chance to make a charge against me. But the next incident happened to one of our clique of which there was five all belonging to different squadrons of the regiment. This man’s name [66] was Jackie Fisher, who like myself had returned to the colours at the outbreak of this war, and like the others had been with me in South Africa. He was well educated and could speak three foreign languages fluently, these were French, German, and Spanish. Before he had joined the army he had been a sailor in the Mercantile Marine as a ship’s officer. Now one would have thought with such a background, that when he was recalled as a reservist to the colours, that he would have been sent to the navy, but that is the way the “brains” of our army works. For he had to come to the 5^th Dragoon Guards. But he was quite a character. I do not know if he had any domestic worries for none of us spoke of our home affairs, but he was certainly reckless. He was also a good man to have with you in an emergency for he was a quick thinker. But his vice was drink. If there was any possible chance to obtain drink Jackie Fisher would be there, so there was no excuse for what he did.

In France there were some villages we passed through or else camped near whose estaminets (pubs) were placed out of bounds to all British troops mainly because they sold brandy and rum. But to forbid any British soldier to do anything is simply an incitement for him to do it. We were halted one day in a village in which one of these pubs were with its placard outside stating “this place is out of bounds to all British troops.” When it was found out that Jackie Fisher was missing we were all ready to move off. There was Fisher’s horse but no Fisher. Presently he came out of this pub speechless drunk and lay down on the foot path and went to sleep. None of us could rouse him as much as we tried. The officer was furious. “One of you bring his horse and leave him there” he shouted. So the regiment moved off and left him stretched out on the footpath. Now when Jackie woke up he found a circle of curious villagers around him. His knowledge of French enabled him to have a good wash and brush up also some food and then he set off to find the regiment.

He was able to find the camp of another cavalry regiment that belonged to our brigade. This was the 2^nd Dragoon Guards who were termed the Queen’s Bays on account of their bay horses. Jackie Fisher made his way to where the cooks were preparing the evening meal and to their engussers [?] he stated that [67] he had just come out of hospital and had missed the regiment. So clever was he in acting this part, that he even obtained the sympathy of their sergeant-major who ordered the transport to take him to his regiment, and that was how Jackie Fisher arrived back ‘in state.’ He was not in the least worried and did not want any telling where he had to go, for he went straight over to the guard-tent and surrendered himself as a prisoner to the sergeant of the guard. We were all wondering what punishment he would receive. He came up before the colonel carefully dressed and smart in appearance and was sentenced to spend 25 days Field Punishment No. 1, exactly the same punishment meted out to Davidson, but in this case it was to have different results, because when they lashed Jackie Fisher to the wagon wheel it was behind an estaminet (pub) and as he was securely fastened no guards were posted over him. The daughter of the landlord at thus pub came out into the garden and Jackie attracter her attention. She was full of compassion and wanted to get a knife and cut him loose, but Jackie said “No.” Then he told her to take some money out of his pocket and bring him a bottle of brandy. When she brought the brandy he told her to pore it down his throat which she did and when they came to untie him at the end of the two hours, Jackie Fisher was drunk again, and they wondered how a man who was tied hand and feet could get in such a state.  But several of us knew the full story. At any rate Jackie was not tied up any more because we got urgent orders to move on a forced march to Arras for a big offensive.[30]

We arrived there on Easter Sunday 1917[31], and by a freak of the weather there was a heavy snow storm with a freezing northern wind. The snow was blinding and visibility was nil. We got orders to load the magazines of our rifles with five rounds and have one in the breach with the safety catch on, so we all thought we were going to get through. We got as far as St Catherine that is East of Arras under heavy shell fire and shrapnel fire, but the snow storm seemed to stop all the fighting it became so dark that it was almost uncanny. I had endured some severe weather in this campaign since 1914, but I consider that was the worst I had encountered.

We were halted and told to dismount. [68] Our major told us to make a bonfire as the weather prevented and craft from flying. We did not far to go for firewood as quite close to us was a ruined sugar factory, all the same some of our chaps risked their limbs in pulling the timber from these ruins. I was detailed off to make some tea as we had orders to use our emergency rations, so with two dixies I went to find some water which I got from a shell hole for there is a belief in the army that any water is fit to drink provided it has been boiled. We of course had no milk in our tea but it was hot strong and sweet and everyone said what a lovely drop of tea it was. There is a reason why I mention this as I will relate presently. Now although I had helped to build this fire there was such a crowd round it that I could not get even a glimpse of it. Our horses were formed in a circle and kept on the move because of the freezing wind. I was dead weary for want of sleep as I lay down in the snow and covered myself with a blanket. Then I felt both my legs go number so staggered to my feet. By the glare from the fire I saw a mound of snow not unlike a newly dug grave and I realized that under it was one of our chaps. I hastily cleared the snow away and shouted to the men around the fire to come and give me some help as this man was frozen stiff. We got him to his feet, slapped him, rubbed snow in his face and dragged him [up] and down until we had restored him to a sense of his surroundings. Years later I was to meet that man in Oxford Street. He was a taxi cab driver and he made a terrible fuss of me for saving his life.

When daylight came there was some more tea to be made but another man had the job of making it. He asked me where I had got the water from the previous night and I pointed to the shell hole. When he got there he started shouting “Come here some of you and see where Casey got the water.” We ran up and standing in this shell hole were three dead German soldiers whose bodies had decomposed. Their faces were green. The language the troops used is unprintable, but I quietly reminded them that they all had said “What a lovely drop of tea it was.”

We were told that our advanced troops had taken the front line trenches of the Germans and had captured hundreds of prisoners [69] and presently we saw these prisoners coming towards us and stumbling through the snow all held their hands above their heads including their officers yet the only escort that I could see was a couple of our infantry-men with fixed bayonets. But also coming towards us was a long line of stretcher bearers and walking wounded men. We found that we were not to be used but to retire a few kilometres back behind the line. None of us had any sleep, and our horses were so stiff and weak so that they staggered as we mounted on their backs. We passed the advanced dressing station and saw outside on the ground a wide area of stretchers of badly wounded men, Germans as well as British all awaiting the attention of the over worked surgeons who looked more like butchers than doctors in their blood stained overalls. The hospital orderlies were hurrying from one stretcher to another at the call for water. But also outside was a pile of blanket covered dead with only their booted feet exposed to view and each of these had a ticket attached to them. Then strangely enough the sun came out with a summery glow and the snow rapidly melted. The warmth of the sun caused our wet garments to steam. It was also strange to see those long ranks of cavalrymen riding along enveloped in a steam cloud. We had a German aeroplane hovering above us. He was “spotting” for his artillery and we soon knew that we were the target as shrapnel shells began bursting in the sky quite close. But our colonel gave the order to change our direction which took us out of the line of fire.

We entered a wood where we halted and made camp after attending to our horses. Fires were lit and we made some tea, but the order was that all fires must be extinguished before dark as we were resting there for the night. I saw some of our chaps were digging shallow trenches to sleep in so as to evade shell splinters, but I could not be bothered and decided to sleep at the base of a tree near an open glade. We all saw that this glade had been the scene of recent fighting, as there were dead bodies of Canadian soldiers and Germans laying around, and death had caught them in strange postures. There were three Germans just climbing out of a ditch. One Canadian was putting a biscuit in his mouth. All [70] were like a lot of wax work figures in a museum. But so inured were we at seeing such sights, that we viewed them with a detached interest.

I lay down under the tree but for some reason I could not sleep. I could hear the German plane up in the sky cruising around. It was the first time in the history of war that aeroplanes had been used they had no wireless as that had not come into general use. They signalled with the Morse code. Then I saw standing close to where I was laying the figure of a tall man in khaki. I said “what job are you on mate?” and to my astonishment he ran away, so I got up to look which way he had run. It was then I discovered the dug-out with steps leading down so I went down and struck a match and there on a rude shelf was a telephone receiver. So I went and brought my troop-sergeant to see it but either he did not wish to be bothered or else he did not wish to disturb the officers. He said that our people had cut the wire but I knew he was wrong yet I dare not contradict him. I lay down again and it was then I heard the shot. It was a sentry of a regiment next to us, The Queen’s Bays who had fired. I jumped [?] up with my rifle and saw he was firing at the tall fellow whom I had spoken to. He was running towards me in a series of leaps and bounds, so I fired and I got him. Up came this sentry. “Did you see what he was doing?” he asked me. “No” I replied. “Come here and I will show you” he said, so we both went out in this glade, and then I saw what he meant. For on the ground in the shape of an arrow was some tree wood covered in phosphorus paint. This fellow was a German dressed in our uniform who was signalling to the German plane overhead. But when I reported it, no comment was made. It seems to be the practice in the army only to find fault and never to give praise.

But soon we received the order to saddle up and mount and we moved to the opposite end of this wood facing the roadway where we dismounted and holding our horses’ bridles stood in a long line listening to the German shells exploding in the place we had recently vacated. This persistent German plane descended to tree-top level and I saw clearly the black cross on its under carriage. Then there was a terrific explosion that rocked the ground and nearly stampeded [71] our horses for this air-man had blown up one of our ammunition dumps at the side of the road. This developed into a blazing bonfire and we must have been observed by him in its glare. Looking back into the wood I noticed a light as if someone was carrying a lantern. I pointed this out to a man standing next to me. “Keep your mouth shut” he whispered. “Why?” I asked. He said “You will be asked to go in there and find out what it is.” I suddenly realized how right this fellow was, because that is just what would have happened if I had reported it to my troop sergeant, so discretion came before valour for I don’t profess to be any hero, so I kept my mouth shut.

We received the order to mount and in single file and keeping close to the side of the road we rode at a fast trot away from this dangerous spot, when we got the order to form sections we all knew we were safe. Back we went for about 18 kilometres and we halted and camped at one of the most pleasant places I had yet seen in this campaign. This was a grassy meadow surrounding by fruit trees. In the distance one could see a large town which was St Pol. Close and nearby was a village with ships, houses and an estaminet. It all looked so peaceful. It was like returning to civilisation. It seemed hard to believe that only three days previously we had been frozen, that we had been in Arras where death and destruction was rife. Our immediate needs was a bath, as we were dirty and lousy, so it was a great pleasure to be marched to a nearby brewery where there was a huge vat of running hot water. We carried a change of underwear in our saddle wallets. We also were able to boil our dirty washing, in fact within a few hours we all were as smart and as clean as if we were home in barracks. I found time then to write some letters home, all of which had to be censored by an officer so could not mention any of our experiences.

We had a deal of inspections and drill, notably bayonet fighting. For this purpose we had an instructor from the Scots Guards to teach us how to push the bayonet into the dummies that were laid out along the difficult course we had to advance over. He made it very real and he would insist on us using bad language. I thought [72] surely this is out of order, to force a man to swear, but he told us that when you stabbed a man you did not say “take that ‘mate’’ you said instead “take that you --- German bastard” (I have a reason in describing this as I shall relate further on in this manuscript). We also had practice with the Mills hand grenade. Now since the beginning of the war there had been three types of bombs with which we practiced with. The first type was one you had to light with a match like a firework, this was fixed to a small wooden bat not unlike a Ping-Pong bat. The second type was in a jam tin and called the plum and apple bomb. The mills bomb was pear-shaped and when you extracted the pin you had so many seconds in which to get rid of it. It was thrown like a cricketer throws a ball and its explosion had a 50 yard radius. But our tricky instructor wanted us to hold it until the last two seconds. I always threw mine as soon as the pin was out. But it was in bayonet fighting that I came off best, because I had watched every detail of the expert instructor from the foot-guards sent to teach us, notably the drawing up of the right leg when one is lying in a prone position for this gives one a leverage to rise quickly to one’s feet. This experience was being watched not only by our own officers, but also staff officers. I was therefore embarrassed and nervous when one of the latter said “I want that man to do it by himself.” So I went through all the actions alone. Then he said “that’s the way it has got to be done.”

Well, well, did I hear about it from the troops when we sat down to tea that evening. They kept saying “did you hear about Old Casey being sorted out by the brass-hat?” Several reckoned I would be promoted and they were certainly right, for next day our major came up and told me I was a corporal and that my name would be in the orders that night. Moe Mason and the rest of our clique was furious. Mason said I wanted my brains tested if I took the stripes. He said “it is not as if you are going to stop in the army after the war and besides you are only going to be a lackey for the sergeants.” And to a certain degree he was right, for a corporal does all the running about for the sergeants. He has to keep a rota of men for fatigue duties and men for guard duties. If he takes his man on guard parade and that man’s outfit is not clean [73] it’s the orderly corporal who gets a telling off from the regimental sergeant major. He was also responsible for the division of the rations so that each had equal shares, but still it had its advantages, there was no more Sentry Go for two hours at a stretch, no more miserable fatigue duties, and you were entitled to give orders. But I was resolved it would make no difference to my friendship with Mason and co.

I had not been promoted very long before I was in trouble through doing a man a good turn. There was a tall muscular man who had been called up as a reservist for the war in my squadron. He came from Yorkshire where he had been employed in the woollen mills making cloth. He and myself had much in common for in civilian life he was a trade unionist and so was I. At that time to be a trade unionist was like sticking one’s neck out for trouble as they were not popular. But from what little he told me about his domestic life, I was led to believe that being called up had disrupted certain plans he had made so that he was short tempered. I would personally not like to upset him if he was drunk. One day he left the camp and found one of those forbidden estaminets that sold absinthe, brandy, rum, etc. and although he was the only customer in the place the proprietor left the door wide open so anyone passing could see inside. Then there came along an officer of the army service corp. He was a well known race-horse trainer and had been a jockey so he was not very tall, but seeing this soldier in a forbidden pub, he went in and ordered him out. But our man had drunk too much to realise the position. “I am a cavalry man” he shouted “and not a short --- Comms.” That was the nick-name we call them, Comms, short for Commiserat [?] This officer went and fetched the guard owing to the man’s threatening gestures, and he was arrested. It was a foregone conclusion that he would face a district court-martial, for this affair had been reported to General Head Quarters, and was very serious indeed.

My acquaintance with him had told me that he had a wife and family at home, so I managed to get to see him. I told him to say that he suffered from stomach trouble and for days he could not eat solid food and on the day in question the pain had been acute. He went to buy some brandy at this pub [74] which on an empty stomach made him dizzy so that he had no clear recollection of seeing the officer. To this he agreed. I got him to rehearse what he was to say as an excuse, but I did not know that I should be one of the escort to march him in to the court martial. A deal board mounted upon two trestles and covered with an army blanked was the table behind which was seated three officers, a major, a captain, and a lieutenant all from different regiments and the major in the centre was the president of the court. Two other officers were there, one as the prosecutor and one as the prisoner’s ‘friend’, also this one who had made the charge and our sergeant-major. To hear the manner that charge was read out one would have thought it was the ‘Old Bailey’ but when it came to the time when the prisoner is asked had he anything to say, this unfortunate fellow was tongue tied. He could not speak. So I quietly kicked his foot as a reminder to say what I had suggested. But I did not know that this major could see under the table/ “Why are you kicking the prisoner’s foot corporal?” he asked and I replied “so that he will tell you what he has told me since he has been in my charge.” And before I knew what I was doing I was telling about the stomach trouble and the affects of the drink. But then he asked “what did he tell you about the foul language?” I replied “Bad language is part of our military training, we are compelled to swear.” Well, if looks could have killed me then I ought to be dead because I explained what happened when we were taught by the instructor – bayonet fighting. He roared at me “What are you a sea lawyer?” and as I made no reply, he sentenced this man to five years imprisonment to be served in England.

When we came out our sergeant major said to me “what’s the matter with you do you know you are asking to be shot?” I said “sir what I said about the bayonet training is true.” He said “of course it’s true but I would not have the guts to tell them so.” But it was Mason who took a serious view when I told him. “Whatever you do” he said “watch your step for they will have you as sure as God made little apples.” By this he meant that faults would be found with everything I did and this sort of thing was not uncommon in the army. But I think [75] I was fast becoming as reckless as Mason and Jackie Fisher and did not care, for we were enduring a primitive type of life not unlike animals. The Earth was our mattress and the sky was our roof. We slept in our clothes for we only took our boots off to sleep and when we were aroused all our joints were stiff. What a boon is sleep. I used to think the worst torture any one could endure is to be deprived of sleep. I have seen our fellows when we were on the retirement and they were on dismounted work stumbling along and then some have fallen flat on their face for want of sleep. I have seen men sitting in mud fast asleep. I myself have fallen asleep in the saddle riding along on a night march and we had plenty of night marching. I can recall an incident that happened to me on a night march when we were in a long column of troops going up for the second battle of Ypres.[32] Riding along I fell asleep and when I woke up another cavalry regiment was passing me because my horse with no control had dallied. I had no means of knowing where my regiment wold camp, so I done something that I had learned in Africa, for I dropped the reins on the horse’s back, and in the darkness that horse took me right through the camps of other regiments he took me right p to the picket lines of my own troop. People who say that horses are not intelligent do not know much about horses.

It was raining heavily all the time we were in this sector. One could see the water pouring off the gunners as they rammed the shells into the breech of their guns. Mud was everywhere, it was pitiful to see the infantry in their muddy trenches, when the glare of a very light went up. But I saw a very famous man that night, a man who could aptly be termed a second Lord Nelson for he had lost an arm and an eye. He was totally devoid of fear as he stood outlined on the parapet of a trench giving his orders his only weapon was his walking stick. His name was General Carton De Wiart[33], and I was not alone when I said that was the sort of leader I would follow to the death.

We failed again to make a break through and suffered terrible casualties in our infantry divisions. If these figures had been published at the time it would have caused an upheaval in England. The Battle Fields of Ypres will long be remembered [76] when the history of the First World War is told. Years later with the British Legion I marched passed the Menin Gate memorial on which was inscribed thousands of names of every regiment including my own who lost their lives in the Battles for Ypres and whose bodies were never recovered. It has been said that every blade of green grass that afterwards grew there represented a human life. The thing we have to ask is was it worthwhile? Was it right to order these men to their death. Some generals seemed to think that men are expendable material. They are the type that play chess on a board, the type with their maps and their charts and their staff officers, are well in the rear of the battle zone yet who dictate their orders to those in the front line.

I can recall an incident in which I was concerned. We were having a spell in the trenches to relieve the tired, overworked and battered infantry, when one dark night three of our Hussars wondered by mistake into the German lines and were captured. Our general we were told was furious because it informed the Germans what division they were confronted with, so he ordered that a patrol must go out and bring back some German prisoners “dead or alive.” This order was given to us with the same indifference as if we were told to go and fetch some parcels from the stores. We had to leave behind us all means of identification, all personal letters, pay book, and identity disks. We had to discard our steel helmets and wear woollen caps termed balaclava helmet. Our leather jerkins were work inside out. This patrol consisted of over thirty men with two officers and two sergeants in five lines spaced well apart. The first line was armed with bludgeons. The second line with bombs and revolvers, and the others (including myself) with loaded rifles and fixed bayonets. In the centre came a couple of men carrying what looked like a long drain-pipe. This was termed “a Bangalore Torpedo” and was to be used to blow up the German barbed wire defences. In the darkness I heard the two sergeants planning to jump into the first shell hole they came to, but whether they did or not I cannot say because shortly afterwards we surprised a German working party who were working in front of their trench. There was a scuffle [77] we fired a few shots and then we were on our way back with six badly damaged Germans. But as we neared our own line out of a shell-hole there emerged the figure of a man. A youngster on my right (he was only 19 years of age) rushed forward and pushed his bayonet through his stomach. Then we found it was one of our own officers. It was obvious that it was a case of cowardice but we had to take him in. He was in terrible agony but before he died he exonerated this young soldier from all blame.

These prisoners we had captured were Bavarians. That told us what divisions we were confronted with. A report was sent back to General Head Quarters of the result of the patrol, and we were told the General was pleased. Bud I do not supposed it disturbed his breakfast. He might just as well have been sitting in his club in Pall Mall, because he did not experience that tense feeling of fear that must have gripped us all, as we crossed No Man’s Land in the darkness. It would not have mattered to him if none of us had returned, for men were expendable material, and so again the question arises was it worthwhile? Then for those who were fortunate enough to return form this war cam the Great Betrayal by the politicians. They had promised “Homes Fit For Heroes To Live In” when the facts were one had to be a hero to live in one. Hundreds of men found they had lost their old jobs and could not find new ones. Unemployment was rife. Gallant officers who had led their men against the German trenches facing murderous machine-gun fire, were to be seen pulling barrel-organs around London’s West End streets begging for a living. Yet war time profiteers had made huge fortunes, the malingerers and slackers who had evaded the net of conscription, had made money in the rackets that prevailed, and to those who like myself were able to return to their old jobs they found that although their employers could afford to pay excess profits tax, that although the cost of living index was 300 per cent above pre-war level, they had to work for a starvation wage, because the trade unions were weak. And the factory gates was haunted by unemployed men that intimidated those at work. [78] Is it to be wondered at that men thought, with all its misery, with all its mud, with all its blood-shed, we were better off with no money in our pockets in the comradeship of the Battle Fields, where the brotherhood of man was sincere, where pals stuck together stronger than glue, where greed and meanness was unknown. None of us were saints but we practiced and did not preach our own doctrine, “help one another.”

We travelled back a good distance behind the lines to billets in farm 13 days [?] and were told the King of the Belgians was coming to visit us as he was the Honorary Colonel of our regiment. So it was arranged that we should have a sports day, a kind of military tournament. Marquees were put up to serve as refreshment bars, one for the officers, one for the sergeants, and one for the men. In our one two barrels of French been had been bought by our officers to be sold at a franc a litre. This was a scandal as it meant they would be making a big profit on their investment. They had put in charge of this canteen a man who was disliked due to his habit of toadying to the sergeant-major. This man had previously been in charge of a dry canteen selling Quaker Oats biscuits and etc. and generally carried a large sum of money on his person that belonged to the officers. We who were not engaged in the events went into this canteen, and the five of us who belonged to one clique pooled our money so that we were able to buy several litres of this French beer which is so weak that it ought to have hospital sisters to serve it. But presently the man who was serving said “no more beer” yet the second barrel had not been tapped. Mason said “I will soon see about that” and he went over to the sergeant’s tent and called the regimental sergeant-major out. Because he knew that he also had invested money in this canteen project. He came over and ordered the canteen man to sell everything he had for sale, but it was soon evident that this canteen man had no idea of tapping a barrel so Mason said “I will tap it” and taking off his jacked he flung it on the ground close to where the canteen man’s jacket lay. I had to leave them as one of my horses was in the next event, but shortly after Mason approached me and he was whistling away. He said “do you want some money” and he thrust a bundle of franc notes in my hand and went down the road whistling a tune.

That [79] evening as we sat on the ground drinking our tea our troop sergeant came up to us and said “Have you heard the news. The canteen has been robbed of 1300 francs.” I nearly choked myself drinking my tea because I guessed who had taken it, but Mason made no secret of his wealth for he went into the estaminet used by the troops and bought them all bottles of wine. This reached the ears of our colonel and Mason was asked to go and see him. The colonel said “did you know about the canteen being robbed?” and Mason said “Yes sir I heard about it.” The colonel said “it has been reported to me that you are flush with money have been buying the men wine.” Then Mason put on a confidential manner and said “Well Sir, I know it in not allowed but I have been having a gamble on the crown and anchor board and I have won a packet.” There was no way of proving this for no one would inform on the crown and anchor men so as much as they had suspicions they had no evidence as Mason said no one can identify money unless they take the numbers on the notes. But in any case, whatever they thought or suspected it did not appear to worry Mason for he was just as cheerful and as brazen as ever.

We travelled back again to the Somme region and made our camp in a desolate place from which the Germans had been expelled. There was ruined farms and buildings there, it was January 1918 and a heavy snow storm was making things bad for our horses whose endurance was something marvellous.[34] It speaks volumes for the discipline of a cavalry regiment that these horses which had come out from England had survived all the rigours of this terrible war. There was plenty of timber in the ruined buildings that could be pulled out, so we all worked like slaves to build stables for our horses. It was the first time in four years that they ever had a stable together. With broken bricks we made roads because the place was pitted with shell-craters which were treacherous now as they were covered in snow. For our own shelter we found some sheds left by the Germans and had to admire how clever and thorough these people are for they had built tiers of bunks in these sheds with wire mattresses for beds. I had seen German trenches which [80] were far superior to our own. To their dug outs they had built stairs, and in them they had built shelves. They also contained furniture they had stolen from the houses they had destroyed, but as soldiers we certainly had to give them credit.

Now although these sheds were nice and dry and we were out of the snow and the biting wind, it was bitterly cold so we searched in the ruins of the nearby buildings and found some old pails and some old oil drums and as there was plenty of wood to be dug out in these we made a number of fires. But there was no outlet for the smoke and soon the atmosphere was not unlike a thick London fog. As I was having my tea one evening in these conditions, I heard the harsh voice of Moe Mason shouting my name, and presently he found me and I was astonished to see that he was smoking a long cigar. He had a boxful of these under his arm and he started handing round as if they were cigarettes. He said “Have a smoke, it’s my birthday.” He little dreamed when he said those words that in less than an hour he would be dead.

“Come on outside” he said to me “I want to talk to you.” So we both went out of the shed into the cold fresh air. “Do you want a drink?” he asked me. I thought he still had some rum saved from what he had pinched from the Sergeant-Major, so I said yes. He said “Go over to that limber (wagon) and help yourself.” So I went over to this limber and I could scarce believe my eyes, for among a lot of other things I saw a 6 dozen case of Reid’s Stout. “Don’t be frightened” said Mason “it won’t bite you”, and then he told me the story, which for brazen impudence and audacity would want some beating. It appears the officers were again going to invest in a canteen by getting supplies from the rail-end at Peronne which is 18 kilometres away from where we were camped and where the Expeditionary Force Canteen had their depot. This was a large stores of goods supplied to British army officers. These supplies that Mason was to fetch was going to be sold to the troops, and the officers intended to make a profit. The regimental sergeant major was in on this deal and it was left to him to make all the arrangements, so he had given [81] Mason a list of the goods required, and had asked him to take the limber which was drawn by four horses to this depot for his lead-driver he had given him a man whose name was ‘Nobby’ Black. This man was of a surly disposition and was not one of our clique. Mason had left camp at 4 am that morning to travel to Rail End, but when he got there he had found that there were other limbers and wagons from other regiments lined up at the side of the road all waiting to be attended to. So Mason having rigged up the horses and leaving Black in charge went to have a look around this depot, and what he saw fairly surprised him. There was cases of whisky, cases of beer, boxes of cigars, tins of soup, tins of chicken, butter biscuits, salmon, in fact almost everything. He saw a sergeant who belonged to the stores with a list in his hand, “How much longer have I got to wait sergeant?” asked Mason. “Don’t worry me” said the sergeant “I am looking for x in a diamond.” By this he meant he was looking for a mark on a case of goods. Mason watched this sergeant go out of this marquee, then going to the entrance he shouted “Nobby, pull over here” and when the limber came over he said “stand by the horses while I load up”, and taking off his top coat he helped himself to whatever took his fancy. Then he said to Black “Pull the shut across and pull over there while I go in and sign for the goods.” So putting on his top coat he went in at one entrance and came out the other, got mounted and they were away en route for the camp.

As they neared the camp they met the colonel, the adjutant, and the regimental sergeant-major and Mason as the oldest soldier of the two shouted “eyes left”, that was the salute, then again “eyes front.” Just then the regimental SM rode back and said “Mason, did you get those supplies?” “No sir” said Mason “you have to send a GS wagon in tomorrow morning.” The lead driver turned round as the RSM rode away and said “Moe then what is that stuff we have got in the limber?” “Look to your front” said Mason “and keep your mouth shut”, and that was the first knowledge that Nobby Black had that he had assisted in a big robbery.

Mason said “Jackie Fisher, Dodger Brown, [82] and Jimmie Litherland are over there putting up a tent, come on over, we are right away from all the others. We have cleared away the snow and we are going to have a big do tonight.” So I went over to lend a hand to put up this tent. Mason had found an old pail in which he had lit a fire and he was laughing as he swung this pail over and over to make the fire draw up – when it happened. None of us had heard the aeroplance come over our heads and drop the bomb. I was blasted up in the air, Mason and Brown were blown to pieces. Poor Jimmie Litherland had a huge hole in his back, but my first recollection was Jackie Fisher slapping my face and asking if I was alright. He said “Mason and Brown are dead and Jimmie has gone down the road to the dressing station.[35] Pull yourself together. There is a lot to do before they get here.” I heard revolver shots as they were shooting the horses that were maimed because it seems this airman had dropped a second bomb on the stables we had worked hard to build. Fisher said “Quick, that bomb has made a deep crater let’s get all this stuff into the crater and cover it with snow.” So all the stuff Mason had nobbled the stores of went into this bomb crater. Then Fisher said “Here they come, make out you are shell-shocked. Put on an act.” He laid down as if he was senseless.

Up came an officer and a sergeant. “What happened” he asked me. I made out I did not hear him and kept my eyes shut. He said “this poor fellow has a severe shock” then he saw the mangled remains of Mason and Brown. “Two dead” he said “but what about this chap here” he said as he went up to Fisher. Now if I had put up a good performance it was nothing to the performance of Jackie Fisher. He ought to have been an actor. When he finally agreed to act normal the others were on their way to the stables. “Let them go on in front and hang back” whispered Fisher. In the same tone I asked “why?” Gripping my arm he said “Moe has got that money on him from the canteen do. That must not be found, go and get it and bury it with the rest.” So back I went to poor Moe Mason and took this blood stained money from his pocked and buried it with the rest of the stuff. I put more snow over it and hoped it would not [text can’t be read] while we were there. I also took some personal [letters to? text can’t be read] his wife as I found her address.

The next day our major saw [83] watching me very closely. Presently he came up to me and said “was Mason a great friend of yours?” I had all sorts of things come into my mind, but I replied “Yes, sir.” “Would you like to go to his funeral?” he asked. “Yes, sir” I replied. Then in a grating voice he said “then go and get him ready.” This was a brutal order and when I found that Fisher had been ordered to do the same service for Brown I guessed why. What Fisher called the officers was not appropriate for a funeral. I had to get a blanket and some wire to fix Moe’s head on his shoulders and tie his leg on with wire then fold him in the blanket. He was so light I could have picked him up with one hand. But the strange thing was his face was laughing at me. Then along came an old French manure cart in which one of our horses was in the shafts and led by one of our own fellows, and that was the hearse. Fisher and myself we walked behind until we came to the burial pit of the hospital. This was a long deep trench in which hundreds of dead were buried packed one on top of the other six high. We both had to get in this trench and place Mason and Brown close up to the last lot one on top of the other. And that was the final resting place of Moe Mason, ex-policeman, a brave soldier, always cheerful, always generous. He may have been a rogue and a thief, but he was the best pal I ever had in my life. I often pray, may God rest his soul. As for Jimmie Litherland, he had managed to get to the hospital safely, and I learned some time later that a wonderful surgeon had saved his life. I was very glad when I heard this because I had known Jimmie in Dublin many years before.

For the fortnight as far as Fisher and myself were concerned everything was normal. The snow had disappeared but there was so many shell holes in and around that camp, that it was difficult to tell where we had pitched that tent. None of the troops shared our secret. Nothing that could link Mason’s name was ever discovered. Fisher and myself are the only two who knows the history of Moe Mason, and how he met his death. At the end of that fortnight something occurred that is etched on my memory. It was the 21^st of March 1918. The morning was cold and there was a thick mist. When I was ordered to take a man and go with the waggon to the ration dump and collect [84] the squadron’s mail and rations. This dump was at the side of a road some distance from the camp, for the lorries that fetched these rations dumped them at certain points on the map. As we rode along in this waggon towards this dump, a heavy explosive shell exploded behind our waggon. It landed where a few seconds earlier this waggon had been. The follow who was with me said “that’s Big Bertha” – that shot was fired from Paris. I said “don’t talk rubbish for that shell has come from a place much nearer than Paris.” At the same time I was puzzled because we were 17 kilometres from the front line. It was now 6 am so when I got to the dump, I said to the lorry driver “have you heard any news?” He calmly said “yes, Gerry broke through at 4 o’clock this morning.” I could hardly believe what he was telling me, because for months our own army had been strengthening our defences. As I have already described I had personally done some of the work that had to be done and I know how elaborate these defences were. They seemed to me as if a rat could not get through.

When I returned to camp, an officer said to me “Corporal is there any news at the dump?” I said “yes sir, Gerry has got through.” He said “don’t talk so ridiculous” but he had hardly got the words out of his mouth, when the telephone rang a minute later. The call came “Boots and saddles. Saddle up.” And with the precision to which a cavalry regiment is trained, and without any panic, men were mounted and formed up on parade. I was ordered to take over the ammunition limber, as at that very moment the corporal in charge of it had his leave pass come through. I said to him as a joke “bet you that you don’t get any farther than Boulogne” and it turned out afterwards that I was right. Off we went at a fast pace up to the front. My limber was drawn by four horses and I was the wheel driver while I had a good man as the lead driver in old Rig Whyatt who was a reservist and knew his drill. When we reached Varmands [?] we knew there was trouble. All but the number three of each section seizing their rifles and handing their reins to him dismounted and hurried into the trenches. They were all fully trained and each man knew his job. All the horses and my limber had to seek cover. We did not know then that this [85] was to be the Big Retirement. We all knew that for some time now there had been “unity of command.” We all knew that the supreme commander was a French general, and we all knew his name was Marshal Foch. But to our amazement our own chaps came out of the trenches without even firing a shot, for the order had come “retire.”

Not even mounting their horses, they took another position, but hardly had they got their guns sighted when again the order came “retire, retire.” None of us could understand it, but it was then I saw the Germans, coming on like the waves of the sea in close formation. There must have been thousands of field-grey uniforms. But there was no panic amongst our troops. They started to dig trenches but hardly had they completed them, when again came the order to retire. O saw a man sitting on top of a pole of rolled blankets, so I dismounted and went over to him. “What are you supposed to be doing?” I asked. He said “I am waiting for a lorry for these blankets.” I said “take my advice and clear out of it before you are wiped up, look over at that rise far in the distance.” The Germans were now coming over the summit in large numbers. This fellow was off those blankets and running towards the retiring troops as hard as he could run. We came to the Bridge of St Christ [?] which our engineers were preparing to blow up. When an officer of the Royal Ulster Rifles came up to me and said “we have got to hold this bridge head for a time, can you let me have some ammunition.” I said “certainly sire, take what you require”. And just then the bridge was destroyed, but the worst part of it was that the 18^th Hussars had just arrived on the other side. But calmly those horses were made to swim across.

We passed a hospital where the soldier patients came out in their hospital garb, wanting to know what was the matter. We told them the Germans were close. They all knew they would be German prisoners yet they accepted the news calmly. So it went on night and day without sleep, and our dismounted men walked all the way. I could not understand why they were not permitted to ride their horses the long column of them were behind my limber. We came to a place called Carby [?] where when I went to get some water for our horses a group of French women were gossiping. “Madame” I said [86] “Allemande ici” (Mrs the Germans are here), and just then up came a French gendarme who told them to get away at once. It was pitiful to see those people old and young leaving their homes. We looked in some of these houses which were well furnished and saw the personal garments had been left behind, all loot for the Germans. These refugees had barely got out of sight, when shells began to explode on these houses. But on the tenth day there came Haig’s famous order “with your backs to the wall, fight.” There came Marshal Foch’s jubilant should “Now I have got them.” Because the Germans were driven back they were allowed no respite night or day, they were driven back far beyond their own trenches onto their Hindenburg line which was supposed to be impregnable. And so we come to the 5^th of August when this great stronghold of the German Army was taken. For after nearly four years of [text can’t be read] the tide had turned in our favour.

But during that German retreat their armies had maintained to retire in good order leaving a trail of destruction, and this destruction was something to be seen to be believed, it was so devilish. With some of our fellows I entered a large house, which seemed untouched. One chap said “this is one house they have missed”, but I knew he was wrong for there on a sideboard dresser all the crockery was hanging up in a normal way, but each tea cup had a hole bored in the bottom, every utensil was treated in the same manner. Out in the orchard every fruit tree had been ruined. We had been alerted to watch out for booby-traps so when the wind blew in our direction and the Germans sent up in the air children’s coloured toy balloons, none of us touched them for they were filled with bacteria germs, and the medical staff men dealt with them. The Germans placed explosives in the brick work of wall so that if a man on horse trod on a certain part of the roadway he struck a detonator, and these walls would collapse on anyone passing. We saw the empty prisoner of war bagis [?] from which they had removed our troops and read the messages on the walls that our chaps had wrote just before their departure, and those messages hardened our hearts, and the sentiments that was expressed was – [87] “the only good Germans are dead Germans.”

It was after midnight when we rode through the shell-wrecked and empty desolate town of Amiens. It was a bright moonlight night and we were able to see how the Germans had destroyed the cathedral, railway station, and shops. It was like riding over something that was dead.  Had rejoined my troop and had long since handed over the Hotchkiss gun to another man so now I only had my own horse to consider and care for. This was quite a change for me as for months I had always had two horses to groom. The one I was riding was a mare and I called her Cinderella and she knew her job, she was a good jumper and could gallop as good as any in my troop. I saw that there was plenty of cavalry Regiments riding through the streets of Amiens that night.

In the dawn we were formed up near St Quentin, and I saw we had massed artillery besides the heavy siege guns, but none of us had been ‘briefed’ on what we had to do, yet I could sense it was something out of the ordinary. But all through the years of this war all cavalry jobs had been dismounted work, but this was to turn out to be something different, for at half past four that morning every gun opened fire in a ceaseless drum-fire that alone must have made the Germans get under-ground and must have smashed their barb wire entanglements then in open order I saw the tanks go forward. But then we got the order “trot-gallop” and we were past the tanks. “Draw swords” was the order, and then we were leaping over the German trenches, and Germans were surrendering before we were near them in hundreds. We had come to open country and on we went one long line of British Cavalry with drawn swords. We passed the big-gun on the railway, the gun called Big Bertha. But all the German artillery men had left their guns eager to surrender. We saw the concrete pillar-boxes that each contained a machine gun, but these gunners when they saw horses leaping over their trenches were too petrified to fire.[36]

Our captain had gone too far in front of our squadron and the boy trumpeter could hardly keep up with him, which was just as well, because a tall German officer came out of a dug out and aimed his pistol at our leader’s back. “Look out sir” shouted the boy. [88] Our captain and his horse turned as if on a turntable, and he shot the German dead centre between the eyes. Then we saw the long line of German transport. I had the job along with others of making this transport turn round towards our lines. There was lorries, waggons, carts, in fact every kind of vehicle, and some of the drivers must have been grand-fathers for they had grey whiskers.

Our casualties were mostly leg wounds, but the infantry especially the Australians were very busy collecting wrist watches and other articles from the Germans who were being herded along in hundreds. I saw also on our way back that big gun we had passed in our charge on the Germans, now had a chalked sign that read “Captured by the Australian infantry” when in fact we were the first to pass that gun and make the gunner put up his hands. Of course none of us had any knowledge of how important that cavalry charge was, until later in the day we were visited by Lord Rawlinson[37] who was in command of the Fourth Army and Field Marshall Sir Douglas Haig. They both told us as we were assembled on parade, that the day’s events had already had its repercussions in Berlin. Haig also said we were going to drive the enemy right into Germany, but there was still a lot of fighting to do before that was possible.

Some few days later I was one of those who was caught in a gas cloud sent over by the Germans, and the next thing I recall is being attended to by an American army doctor, who ordered me to be taken to the hospital train. This meant a journey by motor-ambulance, from the advanced dressing station, where stretchers of badly wounded British and German soldiers lay side by side. I know I was grateful to a medical orderly, who took an interest in me, because I must have been at a very low ebb. But when we eventually reached the train, and I saw the hospital sisters in their clean starched uniforms, it seemed a step nearer to civilisation. One of them put me in a sleeping bunk that were on each side of these Pullman carriages, and we were soon on our way to the Base Hospital.

I was taken to the Canadian Hospital at Stales, where I was bathed and put in a bed [89] with spotless clean sheets. It was the first time I had slept in a bed for nearly four years of war. The doctor came round and we were all given a card marked H.S.D. This meant Hospital Ship Deck. I know that I got very excited at the thoughts of going back to “Blighty”, that I must have had a relapse, because when I woke up I saw all fresh faces in the ward. At first I thought I had been transferred to another ward, and then I recognised the sister, who was a good looking fair haired Canadian girl, so I beckoned her to me. “Where are those fellows I came down in the train with, sister” I asked her. She replied with a smile “they are all in England now, but you had a temperature and so could not go. But when you get better, you are going to the Convalescent Camp at Wimereux on the coast.” Well I could not control my feelings and broke down crying. She patted me on the shoulder and told me to chin up, but she did not know I had been out there since 1914. She did not know all the hardships I had endured for nearly four years.

Some three weeks later a batch of us patients comprising men from different regiments were conveyed in motor buses to this camp, which was situated on a high cliff over looking the English Channel and on a clear day one could see the white cliffs of Dover. The staff at this camp, were ex-pugilists and music hall comedians, all dressed in the red sweater and white slacks of gymnasium instructors. None of these had ever been near the front line, but their job was to get us all back to normal. The food was good and plentiful, and we did no work of any description and these people did all they could to make things pleasant. They invented all sorts of games so as to get us to laugh. That was their job, to make us laugh and get us well again. One came was called “O’Grady says this” and you were not supposed to take any action, until the preface “O’Grady says” was uttered. This is a game that makes you laugh, but while all this light hearted games are in full swing, the adjutant would be strolling around with a pencil and a note book. I soon found out why, because I had only been there three weeks, when the instructor told me the doctor wanted to see me. So I went to his tent and saw a burly army doctor sitting at a table smoking a pipe. [90] There were a lot of documents on this table. He said “Ah yes, let’s have a look at you.” So he examined me. “Yes” he said “you are alright. Up you go, and the best of luck.” He then shook hands with me, and that’s how I knew I was destined to go up country again, back to the mud and the misery, to have lice crawling over me again, to never have my clothes off.

No time was wasted for next day we were herded in cattle trucks that was to take us on the first stage of our journey to Rouen, where I was to receive a complete new outfit. I also had a deal of back pay due to me, so I resolved I would ask for 100 Francs, and have a spree in Rouen, which is a large place and was untouched by the war. I knew that my stay there would be short. This cavalry camp was situated outside Rouen, and consisted of a large number of canvas tents to accommodate officers and men of British cavalry regiments, all waiting to be refitted and transported to their regiments at the Front. I was issued with a brand-new outfit including under-wear. I was given a pair of high-leg riding boots that were specially made to keep out water. These boots alone must have cost the British tax-payer several pounds. There was no trouble in getting an advance in pay. In fact everybody there seemed eager to help.

I was lucky to find two fellows that I knew, one was in the 4^th Dragoon Guards, so the three of us moved into one tent. I invited them to come into Rouen with me as they had no money. We got a tram-car just outside the camp that took us into Rouen. In my view all towns in France are alike, for the moment one leaves the main thoroughfares, you find yourself in mean squalid streets which at the period was dimly lighted. There was a number of cafes, restaurants, and estaminets. In some of these were some tough looking characters, but we were not interfered with. The next morning was November the 11^th, and at first I thought that everybody had gone mad, until I got the news. The War was over. I saw colonels and officers wrestling on the ground shouting with joy. Needless to add I was also pleased, but I had to go up country all the same.

We were all cooped up in cattle trucks, and every time the train stopped, we were running up to the driver to get hot water to make some tea. Then the line got so bad we had to get out and wait for army lorries. [91] When my lorry arrived I found we had to travel another 180 kilometres to reach my regiment. When having reported myself, I learned we were going right into Germany. The order had come from Sir Douglas Haig that from now on “every British soldier must sleep in a civilian bed.” This meant that the population must give up their beds. So I had the job of knocking at street doors, and demanding sleeping accommodation for some of our men. We had heard the news that the German Emperor had fled to Holland and that there was a revolution amongst the German people. We heard of the mutiny in the German Navy, and every day as we rode towards the German frontier at the heels of the retiring Germans, we saw sights of what happens when a great army disintegrates, when discipline no longer prevails, when an army becomes a rabble, for we saw guns abandoned in ploughed fields. We saw army lorries over turned in ditches. We saw rifles and bayonets by the road side. We had strict instructions not to interfere with the disturbances that seemed to be happening everywhere we went, for angry crowds of women were seeking out the girls who had been living with German soldiers during the four years of occupation. I saw a gang of women seize a blonde young woman and tear every inch of her clothing off of her as they beat her up. I saw others go into the house this young woman occupied and bring out the furniture into the roadway where it was smashed and burnt. I saw another angry crowd dray a shop keeper out of his shop and beat him up, while others smashed up his premises. This was vengeance on those who had collaborated with the Germans. Yes the French and Belgian people had good reasons for hating the Germans that people in England fail to understand, for a Divine Providence ordained that Germany should not invade England. We were spared the robbery – rape – and destruction that the people of France and Belgium suffered for four years. Yet there were people in high places in this country as the records show who allowed the Germans to arm and form a powerful army, to menace the world 25 years later.

I shall not forget our march into Germany, for it was to make history as we entered Bonn. We rode in a column 4 abreast with drawn swords. At every window, in every door way, and lining the [92] streets were crowds of people, yet the only sound that could be heard was the clatter of our horse hooves. The silence was so tense that one could imagine it was a funeral procession, as indeed it was for Germany. For the first time in her history British cavalry was entering as victors of the war she had schemed and planned. Our destination was the German barracks in Bonn, where our horses was made very comfortable because we did not stand on army ceremony in obtaining straw, hay, & oats. We simply went around and took all we required. The mayor of Bonn was ordered to find us all beds, and that was when I saw how efficient these Germans are, for we went to the stadt (town) school where the classrooms had been transformed into dormitories. Everyman had a bed with spotless clean sheets and pillows, so I told this mayor we all needed a bath. He took us to another part of this school in which was a large circular bath that was capable of bathing 40 boys at one time with hot and cold water. That was the best bath I have ever had. Our dirty washing was collected and returned fumigated clean and mangled. It was surprising how quickly this was done.

I was very interested in this school which was oblong in shape and catered for Protestants – Catholics – and Jews. On the left was for the Protestant children, on the right for the Catholics, and at the end was for the Jewish children, but they were all under one roof. I saw some of the school children who appeared to be well cared for, well clad, and well shod. This was after four years of war, and I reflected that at home amongst the poorer homes in the East End of London children had no boots to go to school in, and that our authorities in England could learn something from the Germans. We were allowed to go out in the town but the order was no one was allowed out singly. We had to keep in pairs and wear side-arms. It was then I saw Haig’s proclamation posted on the walls everywhere. It was in German, French, and English. It was a warning to the civil population, not to interfere with British troops, anyone who disobeyed these warnings, the penalty was death. We were surprised at the fashionable shops we saw and the well dressed people, the streets were clean and well lighted. I think we all agreed that Germany was far better and cleaner than France, and even London [93] at that period had nothing to compare with German public houses, which were scrupulously clean and commodious. Their beer was excellent after the weak beer of France. It was also very cheap. We saw that all houses and shops were lighted by electricity and all had telephones.

Out fellows had been well-behaved and orderly up to now. We had no quarrel with the civilian population, but that state of affairs was to be altered much to my disgust, for right opposite the German barracks where our horses were stabled was a very palatial public house containing comfortable chairs and round marble topped tables, and when our work was done, in the evening we used this pub as a canteen. We only had French money but the landlord who was a fat elderly German accepted this and supplied us with some excellent beer. Everything was quiet and orderly when in walked our captain accompanied by the squadron sergeant-major. Every man sprang to attention. “As you were” said the captain, then turning to the sergeant-major he said “what did these men have for their dinner today?” The sergeant-major said “bully beef and potatoes, sir.” “Why” said the captain, “are there no chickens about? And look, they are paying for their beer. Have these men forgotten what they saw in Northern France and Belgium?” Then he went behind the bar and selected bottles of wine and spirits and calling one of our fellows he told him to take them to the officer’s quarters across the road. They then walked out. I sensed what was going to happen because for a few moments there was a tense silence. Then one fellow said “who wants some more beer?” At the same time he went behind the bar and started serving up the beer. He was soon joined by a couple more who started putting bottles of wine and spirits on the counter. They said to the landlord “Get out of our way you German bastard.” The old man must have foreseen what was going to happen for he called to his two daughters to come down from upstairs and when they did so, he hustled them out of the pub to safety. Then one of our fellows hurled his glass mug at a plate glass mirror behind the bar. Another threw his at the plate glass windows and then they started smashing things up. So I came out in disgust and there right outside the pub door was our military picket of a dozen men whose duty it was to maintain law and order, but this picked went in the pub and started helping themselves to drink and tobacco. [94] And the man responsible for all this was our captain.

This elderly German had done none of us any harm. He was not to be blamed for what the German soldiers had done during the war, at least that was my view, but others thought differently. It seemed as if they were going to have vengeance on the German people for their soldiers had done in Flanders, France, and Belgium. The ancient Law of Moses, of an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, was to be enacted.[38] When our captain said “have these men forgotten what they saw in Northern France and Belgium” I knew to what he was referring, for we had seen in a Flemish village the daughter of an inn-keeper, a good looking young woman who had been raped by sixteen German soldiers, and when her young brother a boy of ten years of age had intervened, they had shot him. It seemed as if there is but a thin veneering to turn a man into a beast in war-time, but looking back to that period, I consider that the men of the 5^th Dragoon Guards were as well behaved and orderly a body of men in that long arduous campaign as could be found in the British Army.

We had orders not to fraternise with the civil population. We went on requisition forays, for what we required and for payment we gave a slip of paper, which stated that their government would pay. We all knew that our stay in Bonn would be short as we had to march on to Cologne, so the next day the Canadian infantry marched in.[39] We all trooped out to see them come in, on both sides of the road there were crowds of people, attracted by the sound of their brass-band at the head of their procession. Leading these troops was a senior-officer who carried the Royal Standard unfurled. He was escorted on both sides by officers with drawn swords. This splendid body of men, nearly all of them were six-foot in height, marched with the precision of our foot-guards. Then I saw among them a giant Negro soldier. He was over seven foot tall, but he marched with his rifle and bayonet on his shoulder as of Bonn belongs to him. I little knew as I watched this big nigger that in a few hours him and myself would clash, but what annoyed me was that on each side of this procession was six Canadian sergeants who were armed with short sticks, and with these sticks they were [95] knocking off the hats of the Germans in the crowd, as they shouted “hats off for the Royal Standard.” I saw one poor old man felled to the ground by a blow from one of the sergeants. I was indignant and I shouted “I come from London and have often seen the changing of the Guard at St James’ Palace, but I have never seen Londoners take off their hats.” My mates who were with me whispered “shut your mouth or they will think you are a Bolshevik.” That was a name that was given to the Russians who had revolted in 1917. But I thought these needless acts of brutality was unwarranted, especially as the Germans involved were mostly elderly men.

That evening as we were allowed out in twos, I had as my companion a man named Brock. It was the same man who had relieved me of the Hotchkiss Gun duties when I was made a corporal. He was a steady sober sort of a man, a clean and smart soldier. He was not the type who drink for drinking sake, although he was not averse to having a social drink. I imagine that in civil life he must have been employed in the building trade, because he displayed a great interest in the fine churches and buildings we saw. We walked across the Bonn Bridge that spans the Rhine River and I had to admit we had nothing in London to compare with it.

We were on our way back and turned down a side street, when we met this giant Negro whom we had both seen marching into Bonn that morning and at close quarters he was a fearsome kind of figure. I reckon they must have recruited him from some circus. To make it worse he was drunk. Where he had stopped us was right outside a small grocers’ shop in which behind the counter a stout middle-age German woman was serving. There was a group of women who were gossiping in this shop. This black giant said in a nasal drawl, “say – youse guys – where is there a “hook shop” round here.” I told him that we did not understand what he meant. He growled “you Limeys don’t know what a hook shop is?” Then he muttered “this will do for me” and he made his way to this grocers shop, where as soon as these gossiping women saw him approaching they fled in all directions, leaving the woman of the shop alone. We both saw this [96] Negro lift up the flap and go behind the counter. We both saw this middle age German woman retreating from him, terror in her eyes, for his intention was obvious, and then I said to my companion “Brock, are we going to stand here and let a black man rape a white woman?” “No” said Brock as he pulled out his revolver “come on.” We rushed in the shop and I said to this black fellow, “put your hands on your head, you are under arrest. We are taking you to your guard room.”

It was but a short distance away, but neither Brock or myself expected the reception we got, for in this Canadian guard room besides the sergeant and members of the guard, was a Canadian officer who it seemed to me to be half drunk, who when I had told the story of this black fellow’s intent to rape a white woman, said “and who the hell are you? Who are you?” I told him I was a corporal of the 5^th Dragoon Guards. He roared at me “what right had you to interfere? Why did you not let him do it? Get the hell out of here both of you before you are kicked out.” We could not argue with this officer, and we were a very bewildered pair as we left that Canadian guard room. Then about an hour later, our fellows came and told us, that this big Negro was looking for us with the intention of giving us a beating up, but they had sent him in a wrong direction.

We were moving from Bonn at four in the morning to go on to Cologne, and as we assembled on our horses in the road I could see this big fellow down in front of the column peering under the steel helmets of troops as they formed up in sections. As he came close to me, I leaned over in the saddle and touched him on the arm. The string of curses he shouted attracted the attention of one of our officers, who could see the state he was in. He shouted “Get away from here, you black scum, before I have you arrested and put in irons” and he slunk away like a whipped cur. But I reflected on the difference in discipline there is in the British Army as compared to the Canadians, because no British Army officer would have released a man from the guard room in the drunken state this man was in. I also thought that the civilians in Bonn were in for a tough time while these Canadians were there.

We travelled [97] all day in our march to Cologne, and we kept near the banks of the Rhine River all the way, and saw some wonderful scenery. The Germans certainly have every reason to be proud of that river for it is far more attractive than our River Thames. Our destination was a village on the outskirts of Cologne, and again the order was to be enforced – that every British soldier was to sleep in a civilian bed. I was detailed off to find accommodation for 12 men, and so went round knocking at doors, and when the woman opened the door I said “Fraulein Slapen” [woman, sleep] – that was the only German I knew. At the same time I held up one finger as a sign she would have to find a bed for one man. This was sullenly agreed to, for they had no choice in the matter. They had to give up the best bed in the house even if it meant their son’s or daughter’s, but I had left my own accommodation to the last, and the door I knocked on was a very poor dwelling. A woman opened the door and she had two young children clinging to her skirt, and I could see she was going to have another very soon. They seemed scared when they saw me, and I thought she was going to faint, but just then the husband arrived, and I could see that he was a poor working man. he told me in broken English that he was a plate-layer on the railway at very low wages. He had been discharged from the German Army with war wounds that he had received on the Eastern Front in Russia. He showed me some terrible scars as the result of some very crude surgery. I had every sympathy for this chap, who I could see was worried, so I told him I would make do on the sofa in the kitchen, for although they were poor, everything was very clean.

There was no much food in their larder, and what there was it was a substitute for food, what the Germans term “entsatz” [relief]. They had burnt oats for coffee and black bread which has a sour and bitter taste. They had no butter or sugar but used saccharine. Their home made jam was unsweetened, but one thing they did not seem short of was coal for a cheerful fire burnt in the kitchen grate on this cold evening, and I had slept in far worse places than this during the war. I had placed my rifle and equipment close handy [98] and had laid down on this sofa to sleep, when this kitchen was invaded by a group of noisy excited women and then a doctor arrived so I knew the woman of the house was confined, and in the midst of all this excitement, then came a knock on the door. It was a motor-cycle orderly from head-quarters with a message for me. It read “proceed to England on leave at once” and when the army says at once it means what it says, so I gathered up my belongings and went for instructions.

There was another man in my squadron who like myself had waited a long long time for leave, and him and myself were to go together. We were to travel on horseback to Cologne railway station and two men were to go with us, to bring our horses back, but the order also was that we were to hurry so as to catch the train, so we rode at a fast pace and dashed up to the station where the train was already in at the platform, so we had no time to say good-bye to the two fellows who had come with us, but got on the train with our rifles and gear in a breathless state. Then I got a chance to look about me and found we were in a saloon carriage with red plush seats. So I said to my companion, “it looks as if we are going home in style” and he replied “Not on your life. We shan’t be long in this train, about as far as the border, then it will be battle trucks for us.” And he was right for when we got there we saw hundreds of men from different regiments who were going on leave, waiting on the railway track for a French goods train to arrive it was a bitter cold night and they were stamping up and down to get warm. When the train came along we were hustled in box cars that are used for cattle forty men in each truck. This is how British soldiers were transported in the 1^st World War.

It was now the 20^th of December, and I was hoping to be home for Christmas, but that train on the first stages of its journey had to travel through the war ravaged areas and the rail track was pitted with shell-craters, so there were many stops and delays. Then it seemed as if the train was taking us all round France so that it seemed an eternity before we reached Boulogne and then we had to go to a rest camp for the night. This was on [99] the top of a hill, and consisted of a large number of canvas tents. It was bitterly cold, and all of us were “fed up” at the way we had been pushed around and the manner we had travelled. And when next morning there was no move made in getting us on to the boat, I began to feel indifferent as to whether I went on leave or not. For although I had left Germany as clean as a new pin, I was now in a dirty and dishevelled state. But towards evening we were marched to the jetty and on to the boat, and this time no order was given us to put life-belts on which was another reminder to us that the war was over.

When we arrived at Dover there was a train waiting for us, and I felt a real pleasure in being once again on an English train after such a long absence and travelling in a carriage like a human being, instead of cattle trucks. Also the engine driver unlike the driver on the French railway must have known how anxious we were to get home, because he travelled at express speed all the way, and when we reached Victoria Station, there was ladies to greet us with cups of tea and coffee, sandwiches, cakes, and cigarettes all of which was free. We all had to see the transport officer who advanced us £4-0-0 when we showed our pay books. He also gave us a railway warrant to our various destinations. This occupied a deal of time and so it was not until 11 p.m. that I got away from Victoria Station. I was not expected home, and so was not surprised that no one had come to meet me, and when I arrived home at Wapping I found that my wife and family had gone to midnight mass, because it was Christmas Eve, so without a rest I also went.

The Church of St Patrick’s was crowded but I was able to find a place at the back of the church, and as I attended to the service and listened to the hymns, with their message of “Peace on Earth, Good Will to all men” I felt that I had a great deal to thank God for, for this was the church I had been married in and all my children had been baptised in, and so I felt it was a good omen, that after four years of absence, our re-union should be at the doors of the church. I was well known and friends and neighbours wished me the seasonal greetings, and yet but a few days previously I had deemed it hopeless that I would ever reach home. I had a very happy time that Christmas, and I had been home only three days, when a telegram [100] came from the adjutant of the 5^th Dragoon Guards. It stated that if I could return to my previous employment I need not return to Germany. It also told me I would get my discharge papers from Wimbledon. This was a pleasant surprise to me, but I soon learned that I was not the only one to receive this kind of message, for the government had decreed that all reservists – all re-enlisted men, all the men of Kitchener’s army, were to be discharged at once. This was to avoid paying any further allowances to the dependants of these men, and it transpired that this was a big political blunder for no organisation was prepared to cope with this sudden return to civilian life of thousands of men, many of whom could not get their old jobs back because during the war their employers had engaged women at a cheaper rate of wages and did not want to discharge them.

When I went to Wimbledon to get my discharge from the army, I saw a scene of confusion for there were hundreds of soldiers, milling around like a crowd at a football match, and the staff was too small to cope with them. There was no orderly arrangement or the discipline that one expects to find in the army, so I decided to postpone my discharge until a later date. Then I went to visit Moe Mason’s wife and deliver to her the package which was addressed and marked ‘personal.’ When I knocked at the door it was opened by a good looking boy with curly hair, he was about eight years of age, and I saw the resemblance to Moe Mason and knew that this was the youngster that Mason had a great affection for.  He said “mum, there is a soldier come to see you” and out of the kitchen came Mason’s wife and also two men. I saw a good looking woman about thirty four years of age, of medium height and a plump figure, but for some strange reason I did not like her, and her greeting was none too friendly. One of the men told me he was Mason’s cousin. She said that she had no regrets at Mason’s death, as he had not been a good husband to her. But Mason’s cousin who was in the back-ground [101] signalled to me that she was not to be believed, and later told me she was living with the other man as his mistress and this had been going on since the beginning of the war. He said “she is a proper bitch and I am concerned over the poor kid.” And then I knew that this was a case of a broken home and a broken marriage due to the war. That while Mason had been fighting for his King and Country, there had been infidelity at home. I wondered what would be the future of the boy, and whether he would be sent to an orphanage, and then I thought of his dead father whose remnants I had buried packed like a sardine in a very long trench in No Man’s Land.

When later I got my discharge papers, I found that I also had to go to a labour exchange, but here there was no delay. I was given a book of coupons that entitled me to twenty-six weeks unemployment pay. But as I was resuming work at my old firm, I never had to use them. I found things had changed as far as sentiments was concerned from that of 1914. Then on nearly every wall placards had stated ‘your king and country need you.’ Now it was different, for the slackers and the spivs now openly boasted of the manner they had evaded military service and instead of being condemned they were admired for their cunning. They also bragged of the money they had made in the war time rackets. Yet these types had jobs and hundreds of ex-service men had none. I saw British officers in their war time uniforms with medal ribbons on their breast pulling street-organs around the West End streets begging. They wore black masts to conceal their identity, but these officers had commanded companies of soldiers. They had led their men against the German trenches, and many had war wounds, yet these men were reduced to cadging for a living in the same streets in which war profiteers were staying in hotels and living in luxury.

I recalled that in the blackest days of the war, politicians had made promises, Homes Fit For Heroes To Live In [101] was Mr Lloyd George’s promise. Then a composer of music made a song, Land of Hope and Glory, but not for ex-service men at that period. And so these ex-soldiers began to organise in a movement called The British Legion, whose objects were to secure reasonable pensions for disabled soldiers, and this movement was frowned on by people in authority as they said it was revolt. It makes me smile to think that at the present time this British Legion is patronised by Royalty and also famous field marshals and political leaders. They seem to forget what it was formed for. There is no doubt about it, this movement has done good work in the interests of disabled soldiers. It states that it is non-political. Let’s hope it remains so, because we do not want a militarist political part in this country, for political stability is not possible. There is a saying “that the evil that men do lives after they are dead” and in my view that could also apply to the policies of some statesmen. In the First World War when General Allenby conquered Palestine, a British Statesman called Balfour[40] decreed that Palestine should become a national home for the Jews. I have no animosity against Jews, but I have always thought that from the beginning of the Christian Era that the Jews were a wandering race of people who had deep roots in many lands. It used to be a saying of Jews in London’s East End when talking to a Christian “it is your king, but my country” and if one went around when the Jewish holidays came round, and saw a large number of shops and businesses premises that were closed, one would realise how deep were the roots of this race of people in that part of the globe. But when Balfour gave Palestine to the Jews, it meant that the occupiers would have to be evicted. These Arabs we dispossessed of their lands and possessions and as refugees were driven in to the sterile desert where there is no irrigation. Then when Hitler began his persecution of the Jews some years later, they fled to this national home in such vast numbers that another British statesman named Bevin[41] gave orders to British armed forces, that these Jews were to be repelled. So there was blood shed and outrages.

At the present time [103] according to the newspapers, these Arab refugees are agitating for the restoration of the lands they were dispossessed of. They are living in squalor, they have no work, and are living on the charity of the United Nations, yet strangely enough both Arabs and Jews are being supplied with weapons of war. The Egyptians also do not want the Jews as neighbours and they are being supplied by Communist countries with the latest type of weapons. And so there is all the inflammable material to start a war in the Middle East. There is some lip-service being given to the theme that this is the “Holy Land” but to certain “Greedy Interests” it is also the Oily Land that is coveted, for the Middle East is rich in oil, and it all began at the period of the First World War and the politicians’ decision.

Yet another instance occurs to me of what happened ‘after’ the First World War, for when the peace terms were issued to the Germans, the one who had the deciding voice in dictating those terms was a very old French statesman [42] who had twice seen his country ravaged by German troops so his terms were harsh and vindictive. He assumed a Divine Right for the scriptures state “vengeance is mine said the Lord, I will repay”[43] So this old man caused hatred and sowed the seeds of a future war for the next generation. He also caused disruption and distress in this country because when the transport of reparation coal from the German mines began to arrive in this country, the British colliery owners sought to reduce already low wages of the miners, and when these were rejected by the miner’s union, the owners closed the pits and locked the miners out, so there was unemployment, distress and hunger in the mining areas. Our British ship building was also affected for our ship yards were idle notably the town of Jarrow where distress and hunger was very acute so that they organised a hunger march and led by their woman labour MP marched on London, and although they got no satisfaction when they arrived because London had mass unemployment.[44]

In the East End at nearly every street corner there could be seen groups of idle men. The labour exchanges had very long queues of men waiting to sign for the ‘dole’, and to these men there came the collectors for the organised unemployed movement, asking them to enrol for a penny a week. [104] This was the beginning of the British Communist Party.[45] The trade unions seemed to be out of touch with events and devoid of sympathy, by their rigid adherence to the rules, for no matter how many years a man was a member, he only had to be 13 weeks in arrears with his contributions and he was lapsed. How they expected a man to pay contributions from the miserable dole he received at the labour exchanges I failed to understand. At the other end of the social scale there was also a scandal, it was termed in the newspapers “the sale of honours scandal” for the men who had made big profits from the war, by contributing to a political fund, were given titles.[46] Such was the peace that victory had brought.

I was privileged to go with the British Legion to visit the war graves on the Western Front and to attend a service at the Menin Gate memorial. This was an ornamental archway on which is inscribed the thousands of names of men whose bodies were never recovered from the bloody battle field of Ypres where this monument stands and where every blade of grass represents a human life. Surmounting this archway is a statue of the British Lion looking towards Germany and underneath are inscribed the words “if you dare” but the sculpture must have been a mistake for this lion had its tail between its legs as if it was cowed. The Bishop of London gave a sermon that was relayed by loud speakers to the multitude present.[47] His text was “was it worthwhile?” He spoke of the thousands of men who had lost their lives. He spoke of the vast number of men who were blinded, mutilated, crippled and gassed, and we were all standing where this had occurred, and yet when I remember all I have described I thought what a lot of humbug and hypocrisy it all was and what an illusion that old Frenchman was the cause of in what was termed ‘the war to end all war.’

And when I went to visit Jack Daly I found he was another one who regretted the war was over, for it had been a long holiday for him. He told me that when he had joined the navy he had been sent to this training depot at the Crystal Palace where he had made it known to those I had spoken of, that he was a relative of mine. They had given him a staff job on the camp police and as he evaded being drafted to a ship and sent to sea, he had [105] obtained frequent leave of absence, which entitled him to free railway warrants, and by giving false addresses he had made use of these warrants to travel to Scotland, Ireland, Manchester, and other places all at the tax-payer’s expense. His wife had received the separation allowance for herself and her three children, and he had claimed and been paid compensation for loss of business, when in fact his wife had managed the business all the time he was away. He had received the war gratuity and a month’s furlough on full pay, and as most of this money had been added to his banking account he was better off after the war than he had been before the war, and yet, but for my intervention on his behalf he would have been sent into the army and drafted to a war zone. He might possibly have been one of the many thousands that never returned, but if he did not wish to remember this, I was not going to remind him, for his wife Beattie never forgot.

---

[1] Prime Minister Herbert Asquith, who introduced the Third Home Rule Bill in 1912.

[2] Edward Carson, who helped to establish the Ulster Volunteer Force in 1913.

[3] The Curragh Incident took place on 20^th March 1914 in County Kildare, Ireland. British army officers refused to take part in any potential action against the Ulster Volunteers.

[4] Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary, nephew and heir to Austrian Emperor Franz Joseph I, was assassinated on 28^th June 1914 in Sarajevo by Gavrilo Princip, a Serbian Nationalist.

[5] Kaiser Wilhelm II, ruler of Germany from 15^th June 1888 until 9^th November 1918.

[6] The British government gave an ultimatum to the Germans that they should leave Belgium by midnight German time (GMT – 1) on the 4th of August. When the Germans did not do this war became inevitable. A telegram was sent out to the British military just after 11 PM GMT stating simply “War. Germany. Act.”

[7] Horatio Herbert Kitchener (1850 – 1916), who became famous for his actions in the Sudan and Boer War and served as Secretary of State for War at the beginning of World War I. He died aboard the HMS Hampshire on route to Russia in 1916 when the vessel was hit by a German mine.

[8] Richard Haldane (1856 – 1928) served as Secretary of State for War between 1905 and 1912. He was an advisor to Prime Minister Asquith when the war broke out but was accused of having German sympathies.

[9] Louis Alexander Mountbatten (1854 – 1921) was a British naval officer and a German prince related to the British royal family. He was born in Austria and raised in Germany and Italy, but joined the British Royal Navy at fourteen. He became First Sea Lord in 1912 but had to retire from this post shortly after the war began. He changed his name to Mountbatten and relinquished his German titles in 1917. His son Louis Mountbatten was the last Viceroy of India and was murdered by the IRA in 1979. The Duke of Edinburgh, Prince Phillip, is one of his grandchildren.

[10] The Battle of Jutland took place from 31^st May to 1^st June 1916.

[11] According to the John Gray Centre, Dunbar housed a cavalry depot where the 5^th Dragoon Guards had their headquarters. 85 men were billeted in Dunbar Parish church halls at the beginning of the war and volunteers from the congregation paid for and cooked their first meals. Those from the 5^th Dragoon Guards slept in the ladies cloakrooms and took their meals at nearby houses.

[12] Daniel Casey refers to Mason throughout his text as ‘Moe Mason’, however, my research shows that his name was probably actually Arthur Robert Mason. It may be that ‘Moe’ was a nickname, or that Daniel preferred to use an alias for him.

[13] Sir John Denton Pinkstone French (1852 – 1925) was an Anglo-Irish soldier in the British army. He served as commander in chief for the BEF in the first two years of the war. He became Lord Lieutenant of Ireland in 1918 and remained such throughout the Irish War of Independence.

[14] General Edmund Allenby (1861 – 1936) fought in the Boer War and World War I. He captured Jerusalem from the Ottoman Empire in 1917 and helped to force the Turks to make peace on 30^th October 1918.

[15] Also known as Catsburg, close to Ypres and visible from the Tynecot British cemetery.

[16] Daniel Casey’s memoirs are slightly inaccurate here as all of Kaiser Wilhelm’s children survived the war. The person to whom Daniel is referring can only be Prince Max of Hesse (1894 – 1914) who was a nephew to the Kaiser being the son of his younger sister Margrethe and Friedrich Charles Von Hesse. He was killed in the capture of Mont Des Cats on 12^th October 1914 whilst serving with the Prussian 1^st Life Hussars.   

[17] The text here could not be clearly read, but seemed to say “order to leave.”

[18] The Commonwealth War Graves commission lists four men from the 5^th Dragoon Guards as having died on the 16^th of November 1914, with a further two deaths on the 17^th of November. This is likely to be the date of Daniel’s first experience of the trenches. However, the commission also lists 23 men from the 5^th Dragoons as having died on the 31^st of October, which means there is the possibility that the events described actually took place on that date.

[19] The phrase ‘very light’ refers to signal flares which were fired from Very pistols. These were named after their inventor, American naval officer Edward Wilson Very (1847 – 1910).

[20] This is likely to be the Lee Enfield Short Magazine rifle.

[21] A total of 306 men were executed by the British and Commonwealth military command during the war.

[22] If Daniel Casey was in the trenches by November 1914, as he stated on page 44 of his text, then this short period of leave should have been taken in approximately February 1916.

[23] Edward George Villiers Stanley (1865 – 1948) was the 17^th Earl of Derby and served as British Minister for War from 1916 – 18. In 1915 he was in charge of recruiting and set up ‘The Derby Scheme’ to encourage men to join the army, and was involved with setting up the ‘Pal’s Batallions’ which encouraged people from the same area to join up together and fight in the same unit.

[24] The Military Service Act of I916 was introduced in January 1916 and came into force on March 2^nd 1916 throughout Great Britain, although it excluded Ireland due to political unrest in the country. The original act required all unmarried men between 18 and 45 to serve in the army unless they were a widower with children, a minister of religion, or in a reserved occupation. A second act was passed in May 1916 which extended liability to married men.

[25] Ellen had several sisters: Mary (born 1867) who married a man called Pringle; Agnes who married a man called Dave Reidy; Margaret (born 1878) who married a man called Hasom; Kate who married a George Pointer. It is unclear which sister is being referred to here or who the naval brother-in-law was.

[26] The Battle of Cambrai was fought from 20^th November to 7^th December 1917 in the Nord-Pas-De-Calais.

[27] General Julian Byng (1862 – 1935). He was born in Hertsmere, England, and served in Egypt and the Sudan. During World War I he served in Gallipoli before being put in charge of Canadian forces at Vimy Ridge. Between 1921 and 1926 he served as the Governor General of Canada.

[28] Tanks were originally known as ‘Land Ships.’ The exact word that Daniel Casey uses here is not entirely clear but I believe it says ‘crab.’

[29] The initial plan at the Somme was to break through the German lines and then send cavalry forward to attack the open country beyond. It was expected that the German defences would be severely weakened by days of bombardment, however, for a variety of reasons they were less damaged than hoped, for instance, many of the British shells did not explode on impact. Over 20,000 British soldiers died on the first day of the battle.

[30] The Battle of Arras took place between 9^th April and 16^th May 1917 in Arras near Lille.

[31] Easter Sunday 1917 was the 8^th of April.

[32] The Second Battle for Ypres in Belgium was fought from April 21^st to May 25^th 1915.

[33] Sir Adrian Paul Ghislain Carton De Wiart (1880 – 1863) served in the Boer War, World War I and World War II. He was a British army officer of Belgian and Irish descent. He was shot in the face, head, stomach, ankle, leg, hip and ear, survived two plane crashes, tunnelled his way out of a POW camp, and bit off his own fingers when a doctor refused to amputate them. When talking of the Great War he said “Frankly I had enjoyed the war.”

[34] Whilst Daniel Casey asserts that these events took place in January 1918, my research indicates that they actually took place in December 1917.

[35] The Commonwealth War Graves Commission states that Arthur Robert Mason and James Brown were killed on the 23^rd of December 1917. They are both buried in Tincourt New British Cemetery near Peronne.

[36] This would appear to be the Battle of Amiens, which took place on 08/08/1918.

[37] Lord Henry Rawlinson, 1864 – 1925. 

[38] The Bible, Exodus 21:24.

[39] This would probably have been the 22^nd Canadian Infantry in December 1918.

[40] British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour (1848 – 1930) who issued the Balfour Declaration to Baron Walter Rothschild on November 2^nd 1917 promising to create a Jewish state in Palestine.

[41] Ernest Bevin (1881 – 1951) served as Foreign Secretary to the Labour Government after World War II. He oversaw the British withdrawal from India and much of the Middle-East, and helped to set up NATO. After the war there was over 100,000 displaced Jewish persons seeking to move to Palestine, but Bevin refused to remove immigration caps on Jewish immigration to Palestine.

[42] Daniel Casey is probably referring to Georges Clemenceau (1841 – 1929) who was French Prime Minister during the time the Treaty of Versailles was signed in 1919.

[43] This is first stated in The Bible, Deuteronomy 32:35 and is repeated in Romans 12:19 and Hebrews 10:30.

[44] The Jarrow March or ‘Jarrow Crusade’ took place in October 1936. 207 workers marched from Jarrow to Westminster, a distance of 30 miles or 480 kilometres. They were led by their MP Ellen Wilkinson.

[45] The Communist Party of Great Britain was founded in 1920 from the merger of several smaller Marxist political parties.

[46] The selling of honours became a scandal in June 1922 when Conservative MPs were able to show that Liberal Prime Minister David Lloyd George had been selling peerages and knighthoods to raise funds for his party. This, together with other problems such as granting the existence of the Irish Free State, led to Lloyd George’s downfall as Prime Minister in October 1922.

[47] This is likely to be Bishop Arthur Winnington-Ingram (1858 – 1946) who was Bishop of London from 1901 to 1939. He was a vocal supporter of the First World War and encouraged recruitment. He was affiliated with the London Rifle Brigade and London Royal Navy Volunteers and visited men on the Western Front to serve as a chaplain.