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Walter Dawes Recollections – World War I

I arrived back in Australia (from England) round about Christmas time, 1914, only to find that our first crop, let on the share basis, was nil, owing to the only real drought W.A. had ever known.

I decided to see if I could get into the A.I.F. I had two tries and failed, and the next time I was lucky. I don’t know if the doctor spotted me and was a good sport, or not, anyhow he said to me “Bushman, eh?” I said “A bit of one. Am I alright?” and he said with a smile in his eye, “Yes. Carry on.” That was at Christmas 1915, and I was called up 2 weeks later, and became a soldier with the A.I.F., enlisting for active service.

On the first entrance to the camp, they called for volunteers to go away with the 1st 28th, and as I did not look forward to a lot of training, I volunteered, and finally embarked on the ‘Ulysses’ at Fremantle about 3 weeks later. I was still a ‘Jonah’ – as we were leaving the harbour, the coastal ship ‘Kyurra’ was coming in, and rushed us a bit out of course, and we landed on a sand bank pretty hard. We again stayed there until morning. Back to camp we went for 2 or 3 days to the Belmont Race Course, and camped on the Grandstand, while they filled up the bottom of the ship with cement. A few other chaps and I had struck it lucky, as on our first boarding we had been allocated top deck accommodation; but a certain Major who had returned from Gallipoli and the Light Horse, to curry favour (which he badly needed), changed our deck for his Light Horse man; but an old Scotty corporal in our lot woke up to the fact that they could not fill the top deck, and there would be room for some of us, myself included. She was a good ship, and it was the only time I sailed the sea, that I did not suffer real seasickness. We passed through the canal to Alexandria, and were loaded onto trucks for the Tel el Kebit desert, to a pretty big camp. There my instinct told me it was going to be pretty hot work training, so when they called for cooks, I volunteered.

One of the first things that happened in our cookhouse was a change in the Cook Sergeant. Our boss was shifted, and we had a Maltese Cook Sergeant, who was far from popular. He interfered with the usual routine, and was promptly faced with a near strike, when the head cook refused to carry out his order. He returned him to duty, but by the time they got to the orderly room, all the cooks were trailing in the rear – that finished him, and the next thing, the old Cook Sergeant returned. It was afterwards found out that he had been ‘flogging’, (an old army term for selling) our Egyptian fruit ration, and so we saw no more of him.

The washing arrangements were, as far as I was concerned, unique. Huge troughs similar to large horse troughs were situated down close to the road with water laid on; a huge pit was constructed to take all the used water, and this was emptied every day by huge oil tanks evidently brought out from England, as they had their original markings on them. They were each towed by four mules to the pit, and four Gippo’s did the loading. One descended down the ladder into the pit, the next one was on the top of the ladder collecting the buckets, a third stood on the ground and handed up to nigger on the oil van. One day, I was down there having a wash, when a lanky Australian, a bit the worse for wear and tear, stood alongside the nigger near the pit, and started teasing him; the poor old nigger put his hand up to ease him off, and knocked the soldier’s hat off into the pit. Without hesitation, the big digger grabbed the nigger by the legs and shot him straight into the pit. There was a terrible commotion, and eventually the nigger reached the top, but he didn’t wait there – he took to his heels and cleared off like a race horse, and that was the last seen of him. Two or three fellows got on to the chap who had dumped him, but his only reply was “I wasn’t going to let him get away with throwing my hat into that soup”.

All around the camp, the Gyppos erected shelters and sold all sort of stuff; some of them traded in tomatoes, radish and ‘eggs a cook’ (hard boiled eggs). They used to squat with their baskets about 2ft long and 1 ½ ft across, and about 9” deep. When they started, they lifted the lid to their bodies and handed the stuff out that way, but it wasn’t too long before some of the enterprising Australians decided it was no use PAYING if they could GRAB a few tomatoes, etc. without paying. After this, the nigger turned the basket around, and closed the lid on anyone trying that stunt.

There was a pretty big dysentery trouble soon after we arrived, and the M.O. was not too happy about it, and the following is the method he used to dispose of a lot of it. The M.O. said to the Company Captain “I’m not too happy about all this junk around the camp, something will have to be done about it”. The Captain said to the Sergeant “The M.O.’s moaning about the sick parade, you’ll have to do something”. The Sergeant said to some of the troops “The M.O. reckons it’s about time this joint was cleaned up”, and so one night just after dark, the cleaning up process started. All of a sudden, up went a tent in flames, and in about a quarter of an hour, the whole lot was cleaned up. The next day, there were dozens of souvenirs – ties, shorts, and silk handkerchiefs, etc. floating around the camp – everything was not burnt before a bit of foraging had taken place.

Another good producer of revenue for the Gyppo was doughnuts. These were produced from anything they could collect around the camp – blown tins of milk (of which there was a considerable amount) contributed considerably to their make-up. They used to line the big main camp road about 20 of them, at about 4 am. They would put their skips on the ground in front of them and shout “Doughnuts”. I don’t know which particular head got considerably annoyed, but the Military Police had orders to quieten them. One morning, the police invaded the cook-house to wait for the merchants. Sure enough, they arrive about 4 am, and the police moved in, They carried canes and copped some of the closest niggers, who cleared out and left their baskets standing – these were promptly kicked over by the police. But, by the time they got to the end of the line, the niggers were back again, had collected up and wiped the sand off the doughnuts, and started shouting again. After that, I think they left them alone.

I was not present in Cairo when the Australians cleaned up the germ-spreading streets of Cairo, but we got all the information about it. The district was called thewazza, and the cleanup was afterwards called “The Battle of the Wazza”. Australia did not hear of that one! I am not sure what started it, but it was reported that some of the boys got into a fight in one of the houses, and it ended up by the troops invading all the houses and throwing all their furniture into the streets, where it was piled up into the middle of the street and burned, ,much to the satisfaction of the Medical Officers.

After about 6 week’s training in Egypt, the first list of re-enforcements to join the Battalion in France was posted. No cooks were included. Amongst the cooks were two men from the North-West, real good fellows by the name of Coulson, Alf and Fred. They were terribly concerned at not being in the first draft, so four of us approached our O.C., Lieutenant Compton, and he told us that the Australian Base was being shifted to England, and we were to go to England’s Base Camp as cooks. This was not appreciated by the Coulson’s, who told the O.C. they had not joined up to be cooks, and that they were only dodging the drill here. Two days after, the next draft was posted, headed by the four cooks, including myself, which caused a big laugh amongst the rest of our detail.

Well – off to Alexandria to join our boat, and hereby hangs a tale. On my return to Australia in 1914, when we arrived at Port Said, there was a troopship going to India in port, loaded with British Territorials, and the transport was named the “Tunisian” – she was a filthy looking tramp, and I passed the remark at the time, that I would hate to have to travel on that boat. Well, what do you know, there she was in Alexandria waiting for us, and she was just as filthy as I had imagined. We had rotten weather from there to Marseilles. I did 2 hours on and 2 hours off submarine guard all the way over. We spent 3 days in camp at Marseilles, without anything to do, and were quite happy about this. Many strange things happen on a trip like this. We were lined up ready to move off to our train, when two English Tommies marched in. The fellow next to me said “My God, that’s a man I used to lodge with before I left England 7 years ago, and I’m nicking off to see him”. And he did nick off, too. They did not have long together, but he was very happy about it and got all the latest news from his old landlord.

On this trip, a sergeant was detailed to look after and draw rations for 6 men, as the train journey to Eatables in Belgium took four days. We were pretty unlucky, as our old sergeant got very much he worse for wear and missed the trip – so we were stranded with no one to draw rations. We had no tea dixie or rations of any kind, and no one in authority to draw them, so, if we didn’t want to starve, we had to take other means of support – which we did pretty well, and by the time we reached Eatables, we were better off than most of the other details.

My main worry at this stage was the “bull ring”, the physical training centre that all troops had to pass before going to the Line, and it had the record of being very tough. My leg, although pretty good, I did not think would stand up to it, so I looked around again for a way out. As soon as we landed at Eatables, I went to find an old friend who was in the lines next to us. When I got back to our lines, one of the boys said to me “Did you hear about the four men that have been picked out to go up the line with the rest of the re-enforcement?” It turned out that the 7th were four men short, so our O.C. picked out 2 oldish and 2 young ones that were more nuisance than they were worth. The old ones were Andy Johnson, a Dane whose age would not have been under 50; he weighed about 16 stone, and was a bit thick in the head – he had been a sleeper cutter prior to enlistment (but more about Andy later); and the other one was around about the same age and pretty dumb. I thought there might be a chance for me, so off to the orderly tent I went where Fingland was just being fixed up, and asked Mr. Compton if there was any chance for me. He said “No, Dawes, we only want 4”. Poor old Fingland butted in and said “I would sooner wait and go up with my brother later on, Sir, if I could”, so Compton said “Alright, Dawes, you can go”, so that was how I dodged the “bull ring”.

Well, we drew our gear, and then we were lodged in a hut all on our own; by this time it was dark and all the camp and huts were blacked out, but that didn’t prevent one of the camp padres visiting us for a final sermon and prayers for our safety. I can tell you that we didn’t appreciate this too much either.

Well, it was the train next morning, and the first thing to strike me was the appearance of the engine. It was just like a great big steel box, all armour- plated, but the carriages were just simple cattle trucks with no seating. Eventually we got to our train destination, and then had about 3 miles to walk to our unit, who were then at Armentiers. Andy and I went to 2 Platoon, B Company, and I don’t know where the rest went, but when we arrived at B Company, we were met by Lieutenant Jeff, a fine little chap. He said, “Well, boys, I suppose you could do with a feed; you’re too late for rations, but we will see what Joe can do”. Joe was the Company boss cook, so off to the cook joint, where Jeff said “Can you scrounge up a feed for these boys?” “They can have a tin of conochies” was Joe’s reply. “Conochies” was a 2 lb tin of cooked meat and vegetables, and was a prize packet at any time during the war – so Andy and I shared the tin, and a dixie of black tea, and felt quite good after it. Our mob were camped in a shed on the floor with one blanket each, but we didn’t get much rest, as in the middle of the night, the gongs, the bells and the horns, in fact anything that could make a noise, got going. It was my first gas attack, so on with the gas masks – those gas masks were flannel bags with 2 eye pieces in them, strongly disinfected, and you breathed your air mixed up with disinfectant. The first taste was not too good; in fact, they never tasted too good, and after you had donned them for a few minutes, the perspiration was trickling down your chest – but needs must when the devil calls. As soon as the warning sounded, there was a terrific noise outside – all the Artillery and Transport horses were galloped away, to get them away from the gas – but no gas arrived, and it was not too long before the “all clear” went.

We only stayed a couple of weeks at Armentiers, but just prior to our arrival there, our fellows made the second raid of the war, on the German trenches. The first was made by the H.D.I. Scottish Regiment. The idea was for about 20 men to sneak over to the German trenches after a bombardment, and belt and grab as many prisoners as they could – but they only got one, and all arrived back safely, and were given 10 day’s leave – they had all volunteered for the job. These raids were afterwards carried out pretty often, more pr less for information as to where the different German divisions were, and Intelligence got a lot of information out of them.

We moved out at night to a place called RedLodge – we got in there safely, but if the Huns had known we were on the road, it would have been a slaughter, as at one period, just as we were reaching our position, there was a terrific traffic block – hundreds of men and horses jammed together for half an hour. We were camped in French huts on the side of the hill, with deep French dug-outs alongside. The roof of the huts was like a sieve from shrapnel, and we had not been there very long before the “music” started and we were ordered into the dug-outs. On the way in, two men were wounded, one dying early the next day. He was a game devil, and reckoned he would WALK out, but they carried him out as soon as the shelling stopped. We were doing fatigues, carrying duck boards and iron to the trenches, not a pleasant job, particularly with gas masks on.

One of the most unique goodbyes I ever saw came from a fellow called Stiff Penny, to his mate called Plum. He got wounded on fatigue, and sent his goodbye on the plain side of a cigarette pack “Dear Plum, got a Blighty, goodbye”.

At this time it was raining cats and dogs day and night. One night, a new officer took out a party for Engineers’ fatigue, about a mile along hedges and the road was under observation by Fritz. The boys naturally went single file, although it was pretty well camouflaged. This night, the new lad evidently wanted to show “game”, and kept them in fours – but they didn’t wait for his order for single file, they knew the job better than he did. When they got to the Engineers’ Dump, the Engineer hadn’t turned up, and didn’t do so for about 2 hours; by this time half of the party had disappeared, so the Engineer decided to call the job off. When we got back to the huts, the quartermaster was waiting with the rum ration (a very welcome item when you are freezing cold and wet through), but the officer said “There is no need for that tonight, they have done no work”! Well, when he had disappeared, the quartermaster handed out a double issue. The next morning our new officer and another went off to the line to arrange for our take-over, and our officer got cracked in the process.

A typical remark when we were collecting rations around about dinnertime was “Did you hear about the new bloke getting knocked in the shoulder?” “Yeah, pity he didn’t get his bloody head knocked off”.

Casualties were not heavy during this period, a few men wounded, and an occasional man killed, and the same applied to our next move. to “Dead Cow Farm” – this was all on the Messines Front. On the Front, no trenches could be dug as water was too near the surface, so dugouts had been constructed of sandbags, approximately the size of a sugar bag, with walls about 4 ft thick, and a top not quite so thick. This was good protection for shrapnel, but no good for high explosive. At this stage, we had acquired the not so pleasant company of the Chat, or louse, and the dugouts and the ditch opposite were alive with rats, and they were pretty tame. The boys had a great time, in their spare time encouraging them out with lumps of bread, and betting on how many they could kill. We did not get much heavy shelling, but anti-aircraft was pretty constant.

Now back to poor old Andy. He was doing a pioneering job digging latrine trenches and any dirty job there was to be done. I went out on a job when there was a big scrap going on by two planes, and the anti-aircraft guns were really going from both sides. Andy was out there with his neck stretched that tight he could hardly talk, watching the scrap. “By cripes” he said “that was a close one, Jack”. I said “Yes, and if you don’t soon get inside, you’ll be stopping one”. He stretched his neck to the last limit and said “I don’t think they’d hurt a man if they DID hit him”, and I think he quite believed it.

The next move was further up north, still on the Messines Front, where we did about a week in supports. The supports were in a farmyard, and there were 3 guns, 4.9, in a pit – or there had been the day before we got there, but Fritz blew two of them out and killed the crews. They were English guns and gunners, and I can tell you they didn’t trust the Belgians too much – they noticed that Fritz didn’t shell when there was anyone at home in the farmhouse, only when they went to visit their neighbours, so they promptly stopped their visits and shelled Fritz, and so they had to take their medicine with the rest of us.

This place was the first place where I had seen the part the big dogs played on the Belgian farms. There was a big double-sided wheel, at least 6 ft high and about 1 ft wide, with steps filling the middle, and the dog was tied to the centre pole, and he had to keep going all the time to keep the wheel turning, and he could not stop. I know they used it for churning, but I don’t know what else they used it for, but the day I saw it working, the dog had blood dripping from him where he had been hit by a piece of shrapnel the day before. I told the Madam “Dog, ne bon” but she was not distressed, and said “oui, tres bon” so that was that. They also had a calf hit that day, and they had tears of blood over the calf, but the poor dog was “tres bon”.

Our period of duty ended there, so we were informed that we had been turned into a flying column, but all that it eventually involved was a march every day for 10 days, about 20 miles a day around Belgium and France. The marching was not too bad, as we had the band in front, and the songs, although most of them were unprintable, helped us along the road, but one I have remembered was not obscene, so here it is:-

Up to your knees in whitewash, up to your neck in slush,
Using the sort of language, that made the Sergeant blush
Who wouldn’t be a soldier, happy as can be
What’s the matter with bits of onion a-floating around yer tea
Oh! Oh! Oh!, it’s a beautiful (year) war.
What do you want with eggs and ham
When you’ve got Tommy Tiddler’s jam.
Form fours, right turn.
What do you want with the money you earn,
Oh! Oh! Oh! It’s a beautiful year

We had our cookers with us, and dined mostly on tinned dog, until we eventually reached a small Belgian village called Steinwick on Saturday night. Everyone was looking forward to a bit of a change, we had camped in farmyards, and thought we could do a bit of cleaning up, but orders came through “No leave and Church Parade at 10.00 am”. We had marched about 200 miles, had been in the trenches on and off for 3 months, and the first time out of the line – Church Parade! We stood for about an hour and a half in drizzling rain listening to the Chaplain, and if that chaplain had heard 1/10th of the remarks passed about him, if he had any shame left in him, he would have sunk into the ground and never come up again!

Well, after 12 o’clock, the “no leave” orders were cancelled, and we were let off the chain and paid. Two-up was now the order of the day, Sunday or not, but in 2 or 3 hours, practically all the Company’s pay was in the hands of two men, and they spun for the lot, and the chap who collected it all was killed at Poiziers a couple of weeks later – it would be interesting to know who eventually got his money, needless to say none of mine went to swell his coffers.
On Monday morning at 7 am, we were on the road again, and after about a 7 mile march, we arrived at the junction of Hazebrook. We had no breakfast but were issued with Army biscuits and one iron ration. Of course we had no idea where we were going, but we certainly weren’t going up the line, and all the prophets got to work to predict our future. The Irish Rebellion was on at the time, and there was trouble with the Boers – naturally we might be going to one of these joints, or maybe they were going to have another go at Gallipoli. Anyhow, we kept on going, we landed at Eatables (would you believe it?) – and now the seers DID get going. I was not feeling too happy and did not want to have to dodge another spell of the “bull ring”, but all the anticipation proved wrong, and after a stay of a couple of hours in the train at Eatables we moved on in the same train for fresh fields and pastures new. At 12 pm, after being on the train for 17 hours, we landed at Amiens, and there amid great desolation we thought we were going into fresh billets. But we were soon disappointed, and we started to march again. We were en-route to the Somme.

The Somme

We again marched for about 20 miles and arrived at Bertangles, which on the usual route would b about 10 miles away, but the Brigadier told some of our officers that he thought it would be a good thing to let us see what sort of country we would be fighting in. Needless to say that it was pitch dark most of the trip, and you could hardly see the line in front of you.

We had two or three days at Bertangles without much to do, so we had plenty of time for de-lousing, otherwise chat or bug hunting. My hide as pretty tough, but they had caught up with me by now. The days were now nice and sunny, it was July, so out in the sun we took off our trousers, which were the worst trouble, Madam or no Madam, they didn’t seem to care, and started on the job. The most popular method was to fold back the seams, which was the principal hideout, and run a lighted candle along the seams – what didn’t get burnt by the candle flame, got sealed in with the wax. But it didn’t matter what you did, they still carried on – after you got out of the line for any decent period, they collected all your clothes and deloused them, and presented you with another lot that had been treated.

The three days at Bertangles saw the joining up with us by the rest of the boys I had left W.A. with. The first words said to me were “My Gord, you must have known something” – it appeared that after they had done their spell at the “bull ring”, the Heads decided to form a Pioneer Battalion – so they had been doing road making, and any other tough job going for weeks, and they looked like it too.

As I have said before, we did very little in the daytime, and patronised the cafes at night, and there was always plenty of fun going on. Of course, scrounging tucker took first preference; it amused the mob to cut the leather hinges of the rabbit hutches, particularly as the Frog had taken the precaution to buy big padlocks to put on them. The pigeon cotes also contributed considerably, the potato supply was built up too, and the chooks – all sorts of dodges were worked on them. Joe, the boss cook, kept a nice little stick handy in the cooker coal box, for any that were enticed by a trail of breadcrumbs as close as possible to the cook house, and then one smack and into the coal box.

One very amusing incident was afterwards remembered by all troops present as “Mc. St. George and the Chicken”. One evening the mob invaded one of the cafes, where you could always get good bread, pomelos and anything else that was going, and where the chickens mixed in with the mob and collected all the scraps. Mc. St. George spotted a rooster, and promptly grabbed him by the neck. The Madam was too busy collecting the dough, to notice what as happening; Mc. Whipped out his knife and sawed off the rooter’s head, but instead of hanging on to the body, he hung on to the head, and the next thing was a head-less rooster flopping around all over the place! Madam noticed THAT alright, and promptly demanded compensation at a pretty high rate, which the boys were quite happy to pay, for all the fun they got out of it.

Bertangles had not been damaged by shell fire at this stage, being well behind the line, but at night time we realised what we were in for, as away in the north the sky was one mass of light. We could only hear an occasional bang from the heavy guns, as we were possibly 20 miles or more from the front.

We moved out on the third night, and soon saw the result of heavy bombardments. Camping during the day, we moving up at night; on the second night we arrived at Tyra Hill Albert. Albert was a shambles, hardly a house left intact, the beautiful cathedral was protected as much as possible, but the statue of the Virgin Mary on the top of the spire had been badly hit, and the Tommy engineers had had to strut it up. We camped on Tyra Hill all day, and were not bothered by shells, although they were going over the left of us all day.

One of the most spectacular fights I have ever seen took place on the hill, while the shells were going over the top. A digger pinched a blanket from an A.S.C. wagon, and was caught in the act. They fought naked to the waist, like a pair of roosters until they were both finished, and were cheered on by hundreds of diggers.

At the chalk pits of Sausage Gully, we had really walked into it. This was the starting place of the Somme offensive, started on 1st July 1916. The chalk pits were where the Tommies and the Huns vied with each other in mining – the Tommies won and blew their mine to start the offensive. The huge crater that the mine displaced must have been at least 100 yards across and the depth can only be judged by the fact that they collected all the dead, and dumped them into the crater, and you could only just distinguish what they were. We went into holes like rabbits, as thousands of troops had done before; the German dugouts for at least a mile long just simply collapsed, and thousands of men were buried in them. Only one night we spent there, and in the middle of the night, the naval guns mounted on the railway line, four x 12” naval guns, fired one round each into a special objective picked out the day before – when they went off it seemed to lift the ground about a foot under you, so what happened at the other end, you must guess. I think we must have been about 3 miles from what was supposed to be the front line. At about 5 pm we started for the line; the whole of the area was one mass of shell holes, but the engineers or pioneers must have leveled off a track for us, and we moved slowly up. The German guns were too busy on the front line to worry about us; all the way up, German guns, horses and artillery lay all over the place, caught by our bombardments. Halfway up, we met a detail of engineers coming down, and their sergeant called out “Good luck to you, boys, we have done our best to help you”. They had been digging a hopping-off trench, between the lines (what was left of them), and the Huns blew it nearly as fast as they dug it.

It was dark when we reached the line, and the 27th Battalion were holding it; casualties were heaped up one on top of the other as we went through to our jumping-off trench. The least said about what happened in that trench the better, and what happened afterwards also. We went over 5 minutes before our time, and caught all our own artillery fire besides the Hun machine gun fire; we lost 870 men killed or wounded out of 1000, and did not take a foot of trench. Some bright boy at Headquarters thought it would be a good idea if we had tin discs on our back instead of patches, so that the artillery could see how far forward we were, and that was the cause of a terrible lot of our casualties. I was blown up by an exploding shell, and my old leg got a big battering from either a lump of dirt or a lump of wood, but otherwise I was O.K. This happened just before we reached the German line, and when I woke up the boys were going back, on the order of every man for himself. I looked around; everything was lit up by Very lights, and it was as bright as day when they were up. It did not take me long to wake up that the tin discs were acting like a mirror, so I promptly turned my disc in front before moving back. Scotsmen, Tommies, Germans were lying dead in all the shell holes, as it was not possible to bury them under fire. The German Very lights made “no man’s land” like day, but I was like a rabbit; I waited for the shadow to come in front of me, and eventually got out of machine gun fire.

The First Aid Post – the first one I came to was crowded so I moved on to the next one, and there I came across Fred Coulson, who was looking for his brother, and to ease his mind I told him there were a lot more coming down behind us, and Alf could be in that lot. I shall have more to say about this incident later.

We were picked up by an ambulance, but before going on, each man had to have an injection for lock-jaw, and we were decorated with a cross on the forehead to show we had had the injection. Our first stop was at Bertangles clearing station, but that was full up; but I saw our Colonel, old man Collett, going in. Every man in that stunt was either killed or wounded, with one exception. (Enough said.)

I don’t remember the clearing station we finally reached, but they were preparing cocoa and eats there. In the meantime, I fell asleep for about 2 hours, and nearly missed catching the Red Cross train. The train was loaded, and one chap created a sensation by producing a German knock-out stick – it was a handle about 6” long, with a heavy spring about 6”, and on top of that a nice little square lump of iron. The nurses on the train nearly went mad when they saw it, but no one told them of OUR knock-out stick (those we used in raids), which was a nice little cog wheel, fitted onto a trenching tool handle about 1 ft long. All war is brutal.

Our compartment left the train at Boulogne, a camp hospital, and very pleased was I to get into a decent bed. There were no seriously wounded in this lot, I suppose there would be about 20 of us, and only the Matron, but she was a real nice person. We had plenty of laughs, and the old soldier stunt was tried out pretty often. One night, they brought a very limp object into the bed next to me, deaf and dumb, not a word, not a sign until about 9 o’clock in the morning, and then he made a great discovery and yelled, “Jesus Christ, I lost my pay book”. Without a pay book, he could get no pay until he got back to his unit, so of course that dissolved the deaf and dumb stunt! Another chap got there looking about the same; he was in for shell shock. The next morning the doctor came in and “What’s the matter with you?” “Mineshock, Sir”. “Shell shock, you mean”. “No, mine shock, sir”. “All right, turn over”. “I can’t, sir”. “All right, get out and walk up the middle”. The poor chap staggered up the middle of the tent, and the doctor said “Alright, you can get back into bed, but I want to see you walking about in the morning”, but this time he got the break, as the doctor didn’t turn up in the morning, so he stopped in bed. I left just after, so I don’t know how he got on. One chap who was marked out to leave with us, put it over at the last minute. He collected his clothes, and then went and lay down with a very flushed face. The Matron came along and ordered him back to bed – he gave us a great smile as we were leaving – he had swallowed a soap pill!

I went from there to Causie Sur Mur, on the coast, to a convalescent camp, and while there I got a wonderful surprise. One afternoon, the rain was teeming down (There were 6 of us to a tent), when I heard the Line corporal shouting my name. I peeked out of the tent, and there was my brother Sam. I had written home and told them where I was, and they had written to him. He was in the 8th Hussars Horse Regiment, and after a big stunt in the Somme, they had been travelling through France giving horsemanship exhibitions to build up the morale of the French people, and to swim their horses in the sea. As they were riding past our camp, he noticed the sign, and after they reached a new camp about 3 miles away, the old Sergeant Major, who he was on good terms with, let him out. We had two other afternoons together, and then he disappeared, but I can assure you it was very nice.

While at the tent hospital, we used to watch the Sausage Balloons escorting the shipping going to England, and also the marching of the French coast guards past the camp. They were all old men, anything up to 60 years, and as soon as they reached our camp, the boys used to whistle “The Marsaillase”, and the old chaps used to bring up their knees and stick out their chests, and you could nearly have poked their eyes out with a stick.

After about 3 weeks at the rest camp, it was “up again and the best of luck”. The Battalion were at Steinwick again, building up their numbers; my Company only had two Platoons (and they were not at full strength) instead of four. Our O.C., who was not very popular, called for volunteers for the Bombers and Machine Guns, but it didn’t amount to much, as I was away again a few days later.

Now I will try to give you a description of poor old Andy Johnson’s return to the Battalion. He was “missing” when I returned, and I was told he had a pretty bad wound in the calf of his leg. Well, we were just breaking off parade, when the O.C. said “Hell, here comes Andy – let’s go and welcome him”. I think I told you he was well over 50, weighed about 16 stone, and not too bright in the upper storey, but he was a very willing soldier. Craig, our O.C., said “Hello, Andy, back again? And how’s the leg?” Andy did a couple of lisps, and said “Ah, well, das not too bad and das not too good either. I’ll show yer”, so he pulled off his putty, which was just wound around his leg, and disclosed a very nasty looking, and pretty green and inflamed wound. Craig got pretty wild and said “They’ve got no right to send you back with a leg like that”. Old Andy did a couple more lisps and said “Well, they don’t exactly SEND me back, but dey only pay 10 francs a fortnight down dere, and dat’s no ……… good to me”. Poor old Andy, all he knew was work, no idea of discipline – instead of going on parade the next morning, he went on to his old job, so Sergeant Emmett promptly sent a man to get him, and he came running up, quite hurt about it. We were just having inspection of arms, poor old Andy knew nothing about arms inspection, but he eventually got his rifle so that Emmett could look down the barrel (or try to). Andy had been issued with a new rifle, and of course the barrel was full of grease. Emmett started to roar him up for not cleaning his rifle, so Andy says “Das don’t want no cleaning. Das a ……. new rifle”. Anyway, Emmett finally decided to let him go back pioneering, so Andy was very happy about that.

Ypres

We had only been back 3 or 4 days, when we were informed that we had had a great honour bestowed on us – we had been allocated to take over the key position at Ypres. Ypres was the scene of some of the most terrible fighting of the war. The British had hung on to it from the start, and kept it right through to the finish, but it stood some terrible bombardments. Well, up we went in the night and into the trenches; 5 others and myself went through the trenches into an outpost about 70 or 80 yards from the Fritz line. It was an old German communication trench, joining up with their line. We were all dead beat, but no one was supposed to sleep – 2 on watch and 4 lying down. Myself and a fellow named Properjohn were on guard; anyhow I dropped off to sleep, and I think it must have been a rat that ran pretty close to my nose that woke me up. I looked up and everyone was asleep. I woke them up and told Proppy to search ahead while I looked back behind, along the sap. Proppy reckoned he could see a fritz and wanted to go out and get him, but we had been told not to go out but to warn the trench. It was a false alarm, anyway, but when my searching got me back to the sap, I saw the tip of a helmet sticking up. We all dived for the bombs in our post, but as luck happened, we spotted another couple, and they were a machine gun crew that had been posted behind to cover us, and we had been told nothing about it. We had 60 bombs in the bay, and would have cleaned them up pretty lively, if we hadn’t seen the extra helmets, so they were lucky.

Three days we spent in that sap, and on the 4th night we were relieved, and taken to the support line to rest, and to make ready for a raiding party the next night. Proppy and I got a dugout, and it was the same sort as I mentioned before, built of sandbags the whole line – I would say it was about 12 ft high and 12 ft deep, and the dugout stayed up in it. Fritz was belting the front line as hard as he could with “minie wurfers”, 60 lb bombs and eventually we got it. I had just stopped a trench mortar gunner to ask him how the “minies” were – you could see them coming down, they were like a 4 gallon drum – and he looked up and said “Oh, I think they’ve just about had it”, and sat down on the step for a yarn, when we got it. I think my poor old Mother’s prayers must have saved me, as I was the only one to come out alive from that dugout.

The Sergeant Major saw me in the stretcher-bearers’ dugout and said “Did you come out of the P.V.O. hole?” and I said “Yes”. He said “You’ll be going home now – take a ticket in Tatts and you’ll win it!” Well, the stretcher bearers were busy, so one of the old shrewd heads offered to carry me down to the dressing station, but the Sergeant Major made it a condition that he would be back for the raid that night – but the old boy was too shrewd for that. He carried me for a bit, and then I hopped for a bit, then we rested for a bit until we eventually got there, but he took care that he would not be back in time for the raid. That night, I got moved on to the casualty clearing station, they cleaned up my foot after giving me a spinal injection, and I think that night was the worst night I ever spent in my life.

I stayed there for a couple of days, and they took me to the Red Cross train and away to the coast. Eventually we landed again at Bologne and this time I was taken to a huge residence right on a hill overlooking the sea. It was like a huge old castle. Imagine my surprise when the first person to greet me was the Matron from the old tent hospital. “Hello, Dawes” she said “Has your leg come bad again?” I said, “No, Matron, but we got a Blighty this time” and she said, “Well, I hope you have”. She had been shifted from the tent hospital to take charge in the big one. After a good feed, I was put to bed, and in the middle of the night, the Matron came along with a young M.O., and she introduced me as one of her old patients from the tent hospital, and he says “He’s got a Blighty”. “Ah, well, you won’t want to part with him then” and she said, “Oh, you’d better let him have a trip home” and they had a good laugh about it.

Blightly

Very early in the morning, with some more of the boys, we were carted down to the harbour, and loaded onto a transport, and away. Blimps and sausage balloons sailed overhead, and two destroyers dashed backward and forwards, until I again spotted the white cliffs of Dover. We were carted into a big shed and given a good feed, as we had had no breakfast, then they came around and wanted to know whether you would like to go to the north or south of England. Of course, I promptly chose the south, so off we set again, not knowing in the least where we were going. Every now and then we stopped at some station, and the platforms were packed with people, all eager to give you something, or to do something for you. Eventually, in the middle of the night, we landed at Eastbourne. Volunteer orderlies loaded us into ambulances, and off we went.

As soon as the train had stopped I asked one of the orderlies where we were, and he told me, and said, “You are going to one of the nicest places possible” and he was quite right. Fairfield Court, Eastbourne, was one of the Duke of Bedford’s countryseats, and it had been handed over to the Red Cross, and it was a beautiful place.

I don’t remember the exact number of staff, it could possibly be about a dozen permanent, only one of which was paid – the Matron – the rest, nurses and helpers included, were all volunteer workers. Even the barbers in the town used to visit us three times a week to shave anyone unable to shave himself. The first morning there, the old Colonel, a real old English country doctor had a look at me, and all he recommended was fomentations. I stuck this for 3 days, and as I knew the toe bones were smashed up, I thought it was time to say something. When I was in the casualty station in France, I asked the doctor what damage had been done, and he told me thre of the metatarsals had been smashed up, so I said to the Matron, “Do you know what the metatarsals are?” and she got terribly confused – she didn’t know, so I helped her by saying, “Aren’t they the bones of the toe?” After a bit, she said, “Yes, they are the toe bones. Why?” so I said “There are three of them fractured in my foot”, and she said, “How do you know?” so I told her the Clearing Station doctor had told me. Next morning she mentioned it to the old doctor, just as if she had known all the time what they were called. Anyhow, the old chap did a couple of grunts, and ordered me for X-ray. They were smashed up alright, she showed me the photo next morning, but I had already seen the plate when they took the photo – so into plaster of Paris I went.

After I had been there a few days, I had a visit from my brother, Sergeant Major Harry Dawes, and he was a real smart sergeant major on Home Service – he had been discharged medically unfit from the army years before. He went home and told my sisters a terrible tale, and they came down to see me, and were very much relieved to know there was nothing much wrong with me.

Now, a description of the boys in the ward, as I remember them after just about 50 years. There were 2 King’s Liverpool’s, 1 Scottie, 1Staffordshire, 1 Artilleryman, one poor badly wounded fellow (I don’t know where he came from) and myself.

Take the two King’s Liverpool men first – Ginger and Sammy were the only names I knew the by. Ginger was the real tough “egg”, he had been a pre-war soldier in the Liverpool’s, and had deserted and gone to sea, but as soon as war was declared, he came home and gave himself up to the Army, and went straight to France. Sammy was a Liverpool’s soldier, but had been a Liverpool canal boy – he could neither read nor write, but he was tough. Ginger had a very bad whitlow, and Sammy had bad piles, but they were wonderful mates. One morning there was great excitement among the nurses – it had been discovered that Ginger had won the D.C.M. Of course, they wanted to know all about it, but Ginger hung his head, so they asked Sammy – but Sammy said, “Let Ginger tell yer”. After a lot of coaxing, Ginger suddenly said, “Killing Germans”, and they had to be satisfied with that. Sammy told us afterwards that the Battalion had been surrounded on one of the retreats and the command had been “Every man for himself”. Ginger had hidden up for 3 days behind the German line and while there had compiled a plan of anything worthwhile, gun positions and trenches and had eventually got back, and H.Q. were very pleased with him. Another tale he told of Ginger was that they had taken some trenches, and their shelling had knocked a lot of dugouts. Their officer had heard noises from one of them, and on investigation found there were quite a few live Germans in it. Ginger was a bomber, and the officer ordered him to tip his bombs into the dugout. Ginger refused, and said it was murder, but he had a look in to see. One of the Germans spat in his eye, and that finished Ginger – he emptied the lot in and then went down to see if there were any live ones left.

Poor old Sammy had a “Mary Ellen” (Sweetheart) in Liverpool, and his only communication with her was through Ginger. It was the fun of the world listening to Sammy’s instructions, and how Ginger carried them out. Ginger made up most of the letter, and every now and again Sammy would say “No. No. Dinna want you put that in” but Ginger was a wonderful letter-writer, and every now and again threatened to pinch her when he went on leave.

One poor lad, I have forgotten his name, had been there for months – he had 3 bad wounds in the shin and they wouldn’t heal. Afterwards, they sent him away, I think to a T.B. hospital. He really looked TB. The fellow in the next bed to me was a Tommy Artilleryman – he was suffering from severe headaches, and they WERE severe too.

It appeared (whether there was any truth in it or not) that the first time the Gordon Highlanders were in the trenches in the First World War, their quartermaster dropped a Dutch cheese and it rolled down the trench. It seems they had never seen a Dutch cheese before, and they thought it was some kind of a bomb, and they opened fire on it!

One morning, old Jock told me he could hear a little out of one of his ears, so I told him to forget about it – he had only his mother and he had been wounded 4 times, so I reckoned he had had his issue. Well, it was funny. The old Doc came one morning to give him a going over; he had a great big old English watch, and he stuck it into old Jock’s ear, and shouted out “Can you hear that?” and old Jock’s expression never changed; he had been used to staring into people’s faces to try to find out what they were saying. The old Doc said to the Matron, “I can’t understand it – there is absolutely nothing wrong with his ear drums”. I was the only one who knew he could hear slightly. I don’t know how he got on eventually, as he was shifted to another camp in Eastbourne, and I only saw him 2 or 3 times after. But he told me he was having a terrible time when he was eating his food at the mess table. Another chap, thinking he was properly deaf, kept making fun about him to the rest of the boys, and it took old Jock all his time to stop getting up to crack him, but he managed to stick it out.

Another time, he was late in, and had to go before the O.C. The Orderly Corporal marched him in and called “Halt” right in front of the office, and old Jock said he only just remembered in time, and the corporal took hold of the back of his tunic and fetched him back. The O.C. read the charge, and asked him if he had anything to say, and the corporal said, “It’s no use, sir, he’s stone deaf”. The next thin was, the corporal ordered him to “Left turn” to march him out, but by this time, he was well on his guard! As I said before, he disappeared, and I should think he most likely was put in the Home Guard, as he was absolutely deaf in one ear.

There were very great preparations for Christmas, and we had a whole lot of young students from a neighbouring college, come to give us entertainment. A couple of weeks after, they formed a concert committee for the hospital, and invited all the big nobs of Eastbourne to it. I was in a couple of items, and the whole lot was quite good. We had a great feed for Xmas Day, and a present on every bed for the occupant. During the evening we had indoor sports, and amongst them was one trying to see how quickly you could eat a treacle bun – this caused quite a lot of fun, until one chap put his jaw out of joint, and they had to send hurriedly for a doctor – but he was soon alright.

There was a beautiful lawn out in front of our ward, where they used to carry out those poor devils who were bed-ridden. One poor Gish lad had lost one leg, his hand and had shrapnel in his head. He was getting on quite nicely, when all of a sudden he took sick out on the lawn – he had developed tetanus. One of the sisters never left him for 3 nights and 3 days, and finally they pulled him through. It was a wonderful place.

Anyhow, all good things must come to an end, and I was marched out and sent to the Australian Hospital at Harefield. Well, I hate to have to say it, but as far as I was concerned, it was the worst hospital I was ever in. In the ward I went into, there were about 20 wounded men, some of them with legs off, some with arms off, and plenty of others with pretty bad wounds. One sister attended in the ward about half an hour before the doctor arrived; most of the work cleaning up and bandaging was done by other occupants of the ward, who had probably been in there a long time. The meal arrangements for a hospital were terrible. We had to line up on a kind of verandah about 3 ft wide, and as it was raining pretty often, we generally got wet getting our meals. The worst cases were looked after by the other boys, who drew their meal for them, and took them into the hut. I have heard men who were at Harefield say what a wonderful place it was, but that certainly was not my experience.

I may have misjudged them; they may have spent most of their time looking after the wards for the most serious cases – they certainly didn’t spend any in the ward I was in. I was only there 3 or 4 days, and then I was sent to the Monte Villeaux Camp (Convalescence) where I was granted 3 days leave and 3 days extension, and as it took me a day’s travel each way, I was only home for 4 days. They were very pleased to see me, and I will never forget it – it was the last time I saw my poor old Mother and Sister Min alive.

Before I start on my way home, I must go back again to Fairfield Court. While I was there, the Zeppelins were pretty busy, and everyone wondered what was going to happen, but they did very little damage.

And now I must go back again to the time when I tried to ease my mate’s anxiety about his brother, Alf Coulson. He evidently misunderstood me to say I had SEEN him, and when Alf didn’t turn up, he got on to the Red Cross to track me down, and they found me at Eastbourne. I got a letter from them, saying they understood I was the last man to see Alf, and could I give them any particulars, so I had to reply that I couldn’t. But that was not the last I was to hear about poor old Alf. Many years after, probably about 1960, I was in Perth, when another old 28th mate showed me a cutting from the Dailey News, and in it was a report of a French farmer ploughing up what was left of an Australian soldier. It was Alf; I knew his number, which was all he could be identified by. So I got the soldiers’ paper to circularize the report, in the hope of finding his brother Fred, but could get no trace of him at that time. Sometime after, while corresponding with Lieutenant Compton in Kalgoorlie, I mentioned the case, and he wrote back and told me he had seen Fred, who had been in Alice Springs for years, but he did not know where he had gone to by then. Afterwards he told me that poor old Fred had gone too, so I never knew whether he found out his brother’s remains had been found.