The First Hundred Thousand - free ebook by Ian Hay

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The First Hundred Thousand

Ian Hay

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THE FIRST HUNDRED THOUSAND

THE FIRST HUNDRED THOUSAND

Being the Unofficial Chronicle of a Unit of "K(1)" [Illustration: CAPTAIN IAN HAY BEITH] By Ian Hay PIP: A ROMANCE OF YOUTH. GETTING TOGETHER. THE FIRST HUNDRED THOUSAND. SCALLY: THE STORY OF A PERFECT GENTLEMAN. With Frontispiece. A KNIGHT ON WHEELS. HAPPY-GO-LUCKY. Illustrated by Charles E. Brock. A SAFETY MATCH. With frontispiece. A MAN'S MAN. With frontispiece. THE RIGHT STUFF. With frontispiece....

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PUBLISHERS' NOTE

PUBLISHERS' NOTE

The "Junior Sub," who writes the following account of the experiences of some of the first hundred thousand of Kitchener's army, is, as the title-page of the volume now reveals, Ian Hay Beith, author of those deservedly popular novels, The Right Stuff, A Man's Man, A Safety Match , and Happy-Go-Lucky . Captain Beith, who was born in 1876 and therefore narrowly came within the age limit for military service, enlisted at the first outbreak of hostilities in the summer of 1914, and was made a sub-l

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"K(1)"

"K(1)"

_We do not deem ourselves A 1, We have no past: we cut no dash: Nor hope, when launched against the Hun, To raise a more than moderate splash. But yesterday, we said farewell To plough; to pit; to dock; to mill. For glory_? Drop it! _Why? Oh, well— To have a slap at Kaiser Bill. And now to-day has come along. With rifle, haversack, and pack, We're off, a hundred thousand strong. And—some of us will not come back. But all we ask, if that befall, Is this. Within your he

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NOTE

NOTE

The reader is hereby cautioned against regarding this narrative as an official history of the Great War. The following pages are merely a record of some of the personal adventures of a typical regiment of Kitchener's Army. The chapters were written from day to day, and published from month to month. Consequently, prophecy is occasionally falsified, and opinions moderated, in subsequent pages. The characters are entirely fictitious, but the incidents described all actually occurred....

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BOOK ONE

BOOK ONE

The First Hundred Thousand "Squoad—' Shun! Move to the right in fours. Forrm— fourrrs! " The audience addressed looks up with languid curiosity, but makes no attempt to comply with the speaker's request. "Come away now, come away!" urges the instructor, mopping his brow. "Mind me: on the command 'form fours,' odd numbers will stand fast; even numbers tak' a shairp pace to the rear and anither to the right. Now—forrm fourrs! " The squad stands fast, to a man. Apparently—nay, verily—they are all o

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II

II

We have been in existence for more than three weeks now, and occasionally we are conscious of a throb of real life. Squad drill is almost a thing of the past, and we work by platoons of over fifty men. To-day our platoon once marched, in perfect step, for seven complete and giddy paces, before disintegrating into its usual formation—namely, an advance in irregular échelon , by individuals. Four platoons form a company, and each platoon is (or should be) led by a subaltern, acting under his compa

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III

III

We have our little worries, of course. Last week we were all vaccinated, and we did not like it. Most of us have "taken" very severely, which is a sign that we badly needed vaccinating, but makes the discomfort no easier to endure. It is no joke handling a rifle when your left arm is swelled to the full compass of your sleeve; and the personal contact of your neighbour in the ranks is sheer agony. However, officers are considerate, and the work is made as light as possible. The faint-hearted rep

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IV

IV

One evening a rumour ran round the barracks. Most barrack rumours die a natural death, but this one was confirmed by the fact that next morning the whole battalion, instead of performing the usual platoon exercises, was told off for instruction in the art of presenting arms. "A" Company discussed the portent at breakfast. "What kin' o' a thing is a Review?" inquired Private M'Slattery. Private Mucklewame explained. Private M'Slattery was not impressed, and said so quite frankly. In the lower wal

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V

V

"Bring in Private Dunshie, Sergeant-Major," says the Company Commander. The Sergeant-Major throws open the door, and barks—"Private Dunshie's escort!" The order is repeated fortissimo by some one outside. There is a clatter of ammunition boots getting into step, and a solemn procession of four files into the room. The leader thereof is a stumpy but enormously important-looking private. He is the escort. Number two is the prisoner. Numbers three and four are the accuser—counsel for the Crown, as

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SALUTES

SALUTES

The following is the correct procedure for a young officer in charge of an armed party upon meeting— (a) A Staff Officer riding a bicycle. Correct Procedure .—If marching at attention, order your men to march at ease and to light cigarettes and eat bananas. Then, having fixed bayonets, give the order: Across the road—straggle! (b) A funeral. Correct Procedure .—Strike up Tipperary , and look the other way. (c) A General Officer, who strolls across your Barrack Square precisely at the moment when

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SPECIAL CASES

SPECIAL CASES

(a) A soldier, wheeling a wheelbarrow and balancing a swill-tub on his head, meets an officer walking out in review dress. Correct Procedure .—The soldier will immediately cant the swill-tub to an angle of forty-five degrees at a distance of one and a half inches above his right eyebrow. (In the case of Rifle Regiments the soldier will balance the swill-tub on his nose.) He will then invite the officer, by a smart movement of the left ear, to seat himself on the wheelbarrow. Correct Acknowledgme

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II

II

From this it is a mere step to— "Butt Pairty, ' shun! Forrm fourrs! Right! By your left, quick marrch !" —on a bleak and cheerless morning in late October. It is not yet light; but a depressed party of about twenty-five are falling into line at the acrid invitation of two sergeants, who have apparently decided that the pen is mightier than the Lee-Enfield rifle; for each wears one stuck in his glengarry like an eagle's feather, and carries a rabbinical-looking inkhorn slung to his bosom. This li

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III

III

The interior of the butts is an unexpectedly spacious place. From the nearest firing-point you would not suspect their existence, except when the targets are up. Imagine a sort of miniature railway station—or rather, half a railway station—sunk into the ground, with a very long platform and a very low roof—eight feet high at the most. Upon the opposite side of this station, instead of the other platform, rises the sandy ridge previously mentioned—the stop-butt—crowned with its row of number-boar

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VIII

VIII

Scene, a village street, deserted. Rain falls . (It has been falling for about three weeks.) A tucket sounds. Enter, reluctantly, soldiery. They grouse. There appear severally, in doorways, children. They stare. And at chamber-windows, serving-maids. They make eyes. The soldiery make friendly signs . Such is the stage setting for our daily morning parade. We have been here for some weeks now, and the populace is getting used to us. But when we first burst upon this peaceful township I think we m

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IX

IX

The Great War has been terribly hard on the text-books. When we began to dig trenches, many weeks ago, we always selected a site with a good field of fire. "No good putting your trenches," said the text-book, "where you can't see the enemy." This seemed only common-sense; so we dug our trenches in open plains, or on the forward slope of a hill, where we could command the enemy's movements up to two thousand yards. Another maxim which we were urged to take to heart was—When not entrenched, always

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II

II

Private Peter Dunshie, scout, groping painfully and profanely through a close-growing wood, paused to unwind a clinging tendril from his bare knees. As he bent down, his face came into sudden contact with a cold, wet, prickly bramble-bush, which promptly drew a loving but excoriating finger across his right cheek. He started back, with a muffled exclamation. Instantly there arose at his very feet the sound as of a motor-engine being wound up, and a flustered and protesting cock-pheasant hoisted

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III

III

Meanwhile M'Snape had reached the forward edge of the wood, and was cautiously reconnoitring the open ground in front of him. The moon had disappeared altogether now, but M'Snape was able to calculate, by reason of the misdirected exuberance of the vigilant Mucklewame, the exact position of the sentry-group on the left-hand road. About the road on his right he was not so certain; so he set out cautiously towards it, keeping to the edge of the wood, and pausing every few yards to listen. There mu

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IV

IV

The defenders were ready. The trenches were finished: "A" and "B" had adjusted their elbow-rests to their liking, and blank ammunition had been served out. Orders upon the subject of firing were strict. "We won't loose off a single shot until we actually see you," Captain Blaikie had said to Captain Mackintosh. "That will teach your men to crawl upon their little tummies, and ours to keep their eyes skinned." (Captain Wagstaffe's string alarm had been an afterthought. At least, it was not mentio

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V

V

Five minutes previously, Private Bain, lulled to a sense of false security by the stillness of the night, had opened his eyes, which had been closed for purposes of philosophic reflection, to find himself surrounded by four ghostly figures in greatcoats. With creditable presence of mind he jerked his alarm-cord. But, alas! the cord came with his hand. He was now a prisoner, and his place in the scout-line was being used as a point of deployment for the attacking force. "We're extended right alon

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XI

XI

Under this designation it is convenient to lump the whole heavenly host which at present orders our goings and shapes our ends. It includes— (1) The War Office; (2) The Treasury; (3) The Army Ordnance Office; (4) Our Divisional Office; —and other more local and immediate homes of mystery. The Olympus which controls the destinies of "K(1)" differs in many respects from the Olympus of antiquity, but its celestial inhabitants appear to have at least two points in common with the original body—namel

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II

II

Peter Carmichael was one of the first to enlist in the regiment. There was another Carmichael in the same company, so Peter at roll-call was usually addressed by the sergeant as "Twenty-seven fufty-fower Carmichael," 2754 being his regimental number. The army does not encourage Christian names. When his attestation paper was filled up, he gave his age as nineteen; his address, vaguely, as Renfrewshire; and his trade, not without an air, as a "holder-on." To the mystified Bobby Little he entered

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III

III

" Firing parrty, one round blank — load !" There is a rattle of bolts, and a dozen barrels are pointed heavenwards. The company stands rigid, except the buglers, who are beginning to finger their instruments. " Fire! " There is a crackling volley, and the pipes break into a brief, sobbing wail. Wayfarers upon the road below look up curiously. One or two young females with perambulators come hurrying across the grass, exhorting apathetic babies to sit up and admire the pretty funeral. Twice more

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II

II

So much for the effect of its training upon the regiment as a whole. But when you come to individuals, certain of whom we have encountered and studied in this rambling narrative, you find it impossible to generalise. Your one unshakable conclusion is that it takes all sorts to make a type. There are happy, careless souls like McLeary and Hogg. There are conscientious but slow-moving worthies like Mucklewame and Budge. There are drunken wasters like—well, we need name no names. We have got rid of

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III

III

So much for the rank and file. Of the officers we need only say that the old hands have been a godsend to our young regiment; while the juniors, to quote their own Colonel, have learned as much in six months as the average subaltern learns in three years; and whereas in the old days a young officer could always depend on his platoon sergeant to give him the right word of command or instruct him in company routine, the positions are now in many cases reversed. But that by the way. The outstanding

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I

I

The last few days have afforded us an excellent opportunity of studying the habits of that ubiquitous attendant of our movements, the Staff Officer. He is not always a real Staff Officer—the kind that wears a red hatband. Sometimes he is an obvious "dug-out," with a pronounced embonpoint or a game leg. Sometimes he is a mere stripling, with a rapidly increasing size in hats. Sometimes he is an ordinary human being. But whoever he is, and whatever his age or rank, one thing is certain. He has no

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II

II

Most of us, in our travels abroad, have observed the closed trucks which are employed upon French railways, and which bear the legend— Hommes …. 40 Chevaux …. 8 Doubtless we have wondered, idly enough, what it must feel like to be one of the forty hommes. Well, now we know. When we landed, we were packed into a train composed of fifty such trucks, and were drawn by a mighty engine for a day and a night across the pleasant land of France. Every six hours or so we were indulged with a Halte

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III

III

We have been "oot here" for a week now, and although we have had no personal encounter with the foe, our time has not been wasted. We are filling up gaps in our education, and we are tolerably busy. Some things, of course, we have not had to learn. We are fairly well inured, for instance, to hard work and irregular meals. What we have chiefly to acquire at present is the art of adaptability. When we are able to settle down into strange billets in half an hour, and pack up, ready for departure, w

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XV

XV

This town is under constant shell fire. It goes on day after day: it has been going on for months. Sometimes a single shell comes: sometimes half a dozen. Sometimes whole batteries get to work. The effect is terrible. You who live at home in ease have no conception of what it is like to live in a town which is under intermittent shell fire. I say this advisedly. You have no conception whatsoever. We get no rest. There is a distant boom, followed by a crash overhead. Cries are heard—the cries of

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XVI

XVI

Last week we abandoned the rural billets in which we had been remodelling some of our methods (on the experiences gained by our first visit to the trenches), and paraded at full strength for a march which we knew would bring us right into the heart of things. No more trial trips; no more chaperoning! This time, we decided, we were "for it." During our three weeks of active service we have learned two things—the art of shaking down quickly into our habitation of the moment, as already noted; and

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II

II

We have been waiting for the best part of two days and nights listening to the thunder of the big guns, but as yet we have received no invitation to "butt in." "Plenty of time yet," explains Captain Blaikie to his subalterns, in reply to Bobby Little's expressions of impatience. "It's this way. We start by 'isolating' a section of the enemy's line, and pound it with artillery for about forty-eight hours. Then the guns knock off, and the people in front rush the German first-line trenches. After

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III

III

Next morning has arrived, and with it the news that our services will not be required. The attack, it appears, was duly launched, and succeeded beyond all expectations. The German line was broken, and report says that four Divisions poured through the gap. They captured the second-line trenches, then the third, and penetrated far into the enemy's rear. Then—from their front and flanks, artillery and machine-guns opened fire upon them. They were terribly exposed; possibly they had been lured into

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II

II

The day's work in trenches begins about nine o'clock the night before. Darkness having fallen, various parties steal out into the no-man's-land beyond the parapet. There are numerous things to be done. The barbed wire has been broken up by shrapnel, and must be repaired. The whole position in front of the wire must be patrolled, to prevent the enemy from creeping forward in the dark. The corn has grown to an uncomfortable height in places, so a fatigue party is told off to cut it—surely the stra

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III

III

It is six o'clock next evening, and peace reigns over our trench. This is the hour at which one usually shells aeroplanes—or rather, at which the Germans shell ours, for their own seldom venture out in broad daylight. But this evening, although two or three are up in the blue, buzzing inquisitively over the enemy's lines, their attendant escort of white shrapnel puffs is entirely lacking. Far away behind the German lines a house is burning fiercely. "The Hun is a bit piano to-night," observes Ca

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II

II

As already noted, our enthusiasm for our own sphere of activity is not always shared by our colleagues. For instance, we in the trenches frequently find the artillery of both sides unduly obtrusive; and we are of opinion that in trench warfare artillery practice should be limited by mutual consent to twelve rounds per gun per day, fired by the gunners at the gunners. "Except, of course, when the Big Push comes." The Big Push is seldom absent from our thoughts in these days. "That," observed Capt

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III

III

So much for the alleviations which professional enthusiasm bestows. Now for a few alleviations proper. These are Sleep, Food, and Literature. Sleep is the rarest of these. We seldom get more than a few hours at a time; but it is astonishing how readily one learns to slumber in unlikely surroundings—upon damp earth, in cramped positions, amid ceaseless noise, in clothes and boots that have not been removed for days. One also acquires the priceless faculty of losing no time in dropping off. As for

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IV

IV

Besides receiving letters, we write them. And this brings us to that mysterious and impalpable despot, the Censor. There is not much mystery about him really. Like a good many other highly placed individuals, he deputes as much of his work as possible to some one else—in this case that long-suffering maid-of-all-work, the company officer. Let us track Bobby Little to his dug-out, during one of those numerous periods of enforced retirement which occur between the hours of three and six, "Pip Emma

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V

V

One more picture, to close the record of our trivial round. It is a dark, moist, and most unpleasant dawn. Captain Blaikie stands leaning against a traverse in the fire-trench, superintending the return of a party from picket duty. They file in, sleepy and dishevelled, through an archway in the parapet, on their way to dug-outs and repose. The last man in the procession is Bobby Little, who has been in charge all night. Our line here makes a sharp bend round the corner of an orchard, and for sec

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XX

XX

When this war is over, and the glory and the praise are duly assigned, particularly honourable mention should be made of the inhabitants of a certain ancient French town with a Scottish name, which lies not far behind a particularly sultry stretch of the trenches. The town is subject to shell fire, as splintered walls and shattered windows testify; yet every shop stands open. The town, moreover, is the only considerable place in the district, and enjoys a monopoly of patronage from all the surro

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II

II

Twenty-four hours later, a little group of officers sat in a roomy dug-out. Major Kemp was there, with his head upon the plank table, fast asleep. Bobby Little, who had neither eaten nor slept since the previous dawn, was nibbling chocolate, and shaking as if with ague. He had gone through a good deal. Waddell sat opposite to him, stolidly devouring bully-beef out of a tin with his fingers. Ayling reclined upon the floor, mechanically adjusting a machine-gun lock, which he had taken from his hav

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III

III

By midnight on the same Sunday the Battalion, now far under its original strength, had re-entered the scene of yesterday's long struggle, filing thither under the stars, by a deserted and ghostly German boyau nearly ten feet deep. Fosse Alley erred in the opposite direction. It was not much more than four feet in depth; the chalky parapet could by no stretch of imagination be described as bullet-proof; dug-outs and communication-trenches were non-existent. On our left the trench-line was continu

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IV

IV

Highlanders! Four hundred yards! At the enemy advancing half-left, rapid fire ! Twenty minutes had passed. The regiment still stood immovable, though its left flank was now utterly exposed. All eyes and rifles were fixed upon the cluster of cottages. Through the gaps that lay between these could be discerned the advance of the German infantry—line upon line, moving towards the trench upon our left. The ground to our front was clear. Each time one of these lines passed a gap the rifles rang out a

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V

V

So ended our share in the Big Push. It was a very small episode, spread over quite a short period, in one of the biggest and longest battles in the history of the world. It would have been easy to select a more showy episode, but hard to find a better illustration of the character of the men who took part in it. The battle which began upon that grey September morning has been raging, as I write, for nearly three weeks. It still surges backwards and forwards over the same stricken mile of ground;

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VI

VI

And here I propose (for a time, at least) to take leave of The First Hundred Thousand. Some day, if Providence wills, the tale shall be resumed; and you shall hear how Major Kemp, Captain Wagstaffe, Ayling, and Bobby Little, assisted by such veterans as Corporal Mucklewame, built up the regiment, with copious drafts and a fresh batch of subalterns, to its former strength. But the title of the story will have to be changed. In the hearts of those who drilled them, reasoned with them, sometimes al

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