The Trenches Read online

  To my wife, Lynne.

  Contents

  Cover

  Dedication

  Carlisle, 1919

  1914

  January–February 1917

  March–April 1917

  May 1917

  June 1917

  July 1917

  August 1917

  September 1917

  October 1917

  November–December 1917

  Epilogue: January 1918 – June 1919

  Historical Note

  Timeline

  Back Ads

  Copyright

  Carlisle, 1919

  It all began just five years ago, but in those five years everything has changed. In that time I’ve lost good friends, and made new ones. I’ve changed from Billy Stevens, the innocent boy from Carlisle, to Billy Stevens, a man whose mind is still filled with memories of terrible sights that I hope no one else has to see or live through. This is my story, told while those memories are still vivid in my mind. But I don’t think they’ll ever go away…

  1914

  My family – that is, me, my parents, my two brothers and two sisters – lived in a part of Carlisle called Denton Holme. It was all red-brick terraced houses and cramped cobbled streets. Other parts of Carlisle were richer, with bigger houses, but I liked where we lived. It was friendly. In Denton everyone knew everyone else, and you’d always find someone to help you out if you were in trouble, or short of money for milk, or coal or anything.

  Rob Matthews and I had been best mates since we started at school together. I suppose we became best pals because we were sat together when we were first in Miss Pursley’s class and we used to walk home together because our houses were round the corner from each other. But there’s more to it than that. You don’t stay best pals with someone just because you live near them.

  Rob was always the dare-devil of the two of us, the one leading the way. He was the one who climbed the highest up the trees to get the pick of the crop when we scrumped apples from Mrs Gardner’s orchard. Me, I was content to pick up windfalls from the ground. And Rob wasn’t afraid to tell our bullying teacher, Mr Dickens, what he thought of him when Dickens picked on some poor innocent kid in our class. It got Rob a beating from Dickens with the cane, but Rob just took it and didn’t let him see that it hurt him.

  Like I say, that was Rob Matthews. He was a hero to the boys – and the girls – at school and around Denton, and he was my best pal. What he saw in me, I don’t know. Although he said once, “You’re clever with your head. I like that.”

  Rob and I were both thirteen years old when the War broke out. There’d been talk about it coming for some time, though I hadn’t paid much interest before because it was all just politics as far as I was concerned, and politicians talking was just boring. But I had picked up things from listening to my dad when he’d sit and read the paper and talk about what was going on about the Kaiser – who was the Emperor of Germany – with my Uncle Stanley when he came round.

  I remember sitting in our tiny kitchen cooking potatoes in their skins in the range, while my dad and Uncle Stanley shared the newspaper, and Dad read out from his bit, the sports pages, and Uncle Stanley read bits out from the pages that had the news.

  “There’s a horse racing at Epsom today called Stevens Luck,” said Dad, rustling his paper. “I wonder if it’s worth a shilling each way?”

  That was the way it was with my dad: he’d check the horses and spend all day thinking about whether to put a bet on or not. I had no doubt that if he’d had spare money he would have, but in our house money was so tight that he never did. This was lucky, because most of the horses he mentioned as likely winners never came anywhere.

  The front page of the section that Uncle Stanley held said “WAR DECLARED” in big letters. “It had to come,” sighed Uncle Stanley. “I could tell it was coming when they killed Franz Ferdinand.”

  “Who’s Franz Ferdinand?” I asked.

  “He was the Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria,” Uncle Stanley told me. “Him and his wife were on a visit to Serbia and they got killed by a bunch of lunatics. Anarchists.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “Politics,” said my dad. “Believe me, son, politics is to blame for most of the troubles in this world.”

  “As soon as that happened, I knew we were in for trouble,” Uncle Stanley continued. That was the way with Uncle Stanley. Once something major had happened he could tell you how he always knew that it was going to happen. However, just like with Dad’s racing forecasts, Uncle Stanley never seemed to be able to tell us what was going to happen before it did.

  “Once Franz Ferdinand was killed there was only one thing that was bound to happen: Austria and Hungary declared war on Serbia. It was obvious.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  Uncle Stanley ignored my question, and carried on: “Of course, straight away Russia declared its support for Serbia.”

  “There’s another horse here called Archduke,” muttered Dad, still studying the racing form. “It’s 100-1. Now that’s what I call good odds.”

  Uncle Stanley glared at my dad, slightly annoyed because he wasn’t paying attention to all this knowledge unfolding, but my dad just ignored him. He was used to Uncle Stanley.

  “Why did Russia get involved?” I asked. “And why are we at war?”

  “Alliances,” said my dad, still concentrating on his racing page. “Countries sign agreements to back each other up in case they’re attacked.”

  “Exactly,” nodded Uncle Stanley. “In this case, Germany, who are on Austria and Hungary’s side, told Russia to stay out of it. Russia refused, so Germany declared war on Russia. Then straight away Germany set out to invade France.”

  “Which had been the Germans’ plan all along, if you ask me,” said Dad.

  “Exactly,” nodded Uncle Stanley again. “That’s what I’ve always said. It’s obvious. But to do that the Germans have got to go through Belgium. And Britain has got a treaty with Belgium, so that if Belgium were ever attacked we would come to its defence. So, when Germany invaded Belgium, we had no choice but to declare war on Germany.” Uncle Stanley prodded the headline on the paper with his finger. “And that, Billy, is how this war started.” He gave a smile, pleased at having imparted his knowledge of world politics to me. “Mind,” he added, “it’ll all be over by Christmas. The Germans can’t fight a war against proper soldiers like ours. I know what I’m talking about…”

  As you can imagine, as soon as we knew that war had been declared, me and Rob and all the boys in our street all went down to the army recruiting office to join up and fight the Hun. But the Sergeant there just laughed and told us all to go away.

  “Don’t you worry,” he said. “It’ll all be over in a few weeks. We’ll soon kick the Kaiser back to Germany.”

  I was really disappointed. All the way down to the Recruiting Office I’d had visions of myself in my khaki uniform and my tin helmet rushing forward in battle, firing my rifle, and taking loads of Germans prisoners and getting medals. I could even see myself at Buckingham Palace getting my medal for bravery from the King. Instead of fighting bravely we were being sent home and we’d all still have to go to school tomorrow.

  Rob was even angrier than I was. “It’s not fair,” he said. “When there’s a war on they ought to take everyone who wants to go. It makes sense that the more soldiers we’ve got on our side the bigger our army will be and the quicker we’ll win.”

  “Maybe the Germans’ll be harder to beat than the Sergeant thinks,” I suggested. “Maybe it’ll go on for longer and then they’ll want us soon enough.”

  “Maybe,” said Rob. “We can but hope.”

  Well, the Kaiser didn’t get kicked back to Germany in a few weeks. In
fact the weeks turned into months, and then the months turned into years, and all those people who’d been so confident it would all be over in a short space of time were now moaning and groaning about the country going to ruin because of the War.

  My Grandfather Pickles, my dad’s father, told me, “It wouldn’t be going on this long if the old Queen, Victoria, were still alive. She’d have put a stop to it. She’d just have a word with her nephew, Kaiser Billy, and tell him to pack up his soldiers and go back home.”

  I must admit, I was surprised to find out that our king and the German kaiser were cousins. But when I told Rob this he just laughed and said didn’t I know how families were always fighting among themselves. Like his mother and her sister, who were always arguing hammer and tongs.

  As the War dragged on, Rob and I often talked about joining up and going out and fighting. We saw ourselves as the heroes who would go over to Belgium and France and sort those Germans out. Both of us were really eager to get out there, but there was one problem: our mums.

  When my mum found out that I’d been down to the Recruiting Office soon after the War started, she was furious. “Don’t you even think about joining up!” she said. “If you go over to France I’ll never see you again!”

  “Course you will,” I said. “I’ll be allowed home on leave.”

  “That’s not what I mean and you know it!” she said angrily. “You’re not going and that’s that! So don’t you even think about it!”

  After a few months, I brought the matter up again, but Mum hadn’t changed her mind about it one bit.

  “You’re not going!” she said when I mentioned I was thinking of joining up.

  “He’s only thinking of defending his country!” my dad put in, defending me.

  “Oh yes,” snapped back my mum. “And he’ll come home with bits missing, like Brian Cotterill over in Botchergate. Twenty years old, and no legs now. What chance has Brian Cotterill got of ever earning a decent living?”

  “They don’t all come home injured,” said my dad.

  “No, some come home dead,” snapped my mum. “And some don’t come home at all.”

  With that she gathered up the bundle of washing she’d been packing in a sheet and went next door to use Mrs Higsons’s copper washer.

  Dad looked at me and sighed. “Your mum’s got very strong opinions,” he said. “That’s because she lost an uncle in the Boer War. She doesn’t really mean it.”

  But I knew she did, and it made me feel miserable. I wanted to be out there, fighting for my king and country. Instead I was stuck at home while other boys from Carlisle went off and became heroes.

  January–February 1917

  At the start of 1917, the year I turned sixteen, the War had been going on for over two years. I’d been working as a trainee telegraph operator at the Citadel Railway Station in Carlisle for two years, ever since I left school. Being a telegraph operator meant sitting at a desk and operating a telegraph key. This key sent messages along cables to the other railway stations along the lines. It also received them, printing the messages out in Morse code, a series of short buzzes and long buzzes, each one representing a letter, so the telegraph operator had to be able to understand the code to be able to read and send messages.

  Rob had also got a job on the railway. He didn’t work on the telegraph, though, he worked as a track layer, laying railway lines. He was a big tough lad, was Rob, and he could wield a hammer and drive a spike as good as men twice his age.

  By January 1917, stories were coming back from Belgium about how our troops only needed one last push and they’d break the Germans, but the Germans had dug in tight. If only more troops could be got out there to the Front, which was where the fighting was going on, the Germans would crack and the war would be over. More men were all that was needed. I was getting more and more eager to get out there, and so was Rob.

  “We have to go!” he said to me one day as we walked home from work. “I can’t stand just hanging around reading about the War in the papers. I want to be out there, winning it!”

  But Rob’s mum felt as strongly about him not going as mine did. And so we stayed in Carlisle, getting more and more frustrated.

  Around February time, posters started being put up on walls around Carlisle and leaflets put through letter boxes, all saying the same thing: “Are You A Man or A Mouse?” They were put out by Lord Lonsdale, the local lord, who had set up his own regiment for local men soon after the War started.

  I read one of the posters. It said:

  Are You A Man or A Mouse? Are you a man who will forever be handed down to posterity as a Gallant Patriot? Or are you to be handed down to posterity as a ROTTER and a COWARD? If you are a Man, NOW is your opportunity of proving it. Enlist at once and go to the nearest Recruiting Officer.”

  Rob had also seen the poster. “They’re calling us cowards now,” he said angrily.

  I knew how he felt. Sometimes I felt ashamed, walking to work, and knowing that other boys of my age were already out in Belgium fighting to defend us. Some women had been seen giving out white feathers to young men who they felt should have been out fighting on the Front. I dreaded the moment when a woman might come up and give me a white feather in the street in front of everyone.

  After seeing the poster, I brooded all day at work on the whole business of going off to war. Rob must have been doing the same, because as we met up after work, Rob said suddenly: “Do you still want to join up?”

  “Of course I do,” I said.

  “Then let’s go and do it.”

  I frowned.

  “What’s the problem?” Rob asked. “We both want to go out there and do our bit, stop the Hun. Lord Lonsdale wants people like us.”

  “My mum won’t like it,” I said doubtfully. “Nor will yours.”

  Rob laughed. “Then we won’t tell them till we’ve done it,” he said. “Once we’re in, they won’t be able to say anything about it. And I bet you that secretly your mum will be pleased to have a soldier in the family.”

  I thought about it and hoped Rob was right. Maybe once I’d joined, Mum would accept it. She wouldn’t have a choice.

  “Right,” I agreed determinedly. “Let’s do it.”

  So that very afternoon, instead of going straight home, we went to the Recruiting Office the Lonsdale Battalion had set up in the town centre. A Recruiting Sergeant was standing guard at the door, looking very smart and straight, his boots shining, his uniform smelling of starch.

  “Yes, young men,” he boomed. “What can I do for you?”

  “We’ve come to join up,” said Rob.

  “Good!” beamed the Recruiting Sergeant. “How old are you?”

  “Sixteen,” said Rob.

  The Sergeant looked at Rob and said, “Sorry, son, you’re too young. Come back when you’re nineteen.” Then he gave Rob a wink and said, “Tomorrow, eh?”

  Next he turned to me and said, “And what about you?”

  “I’m nineteen,” I said, thinking quickly.

  “Good,” smiled the Sergeant. “Come on in. Your country needs you.”

  Rob looked at me, his mouth open. For the first time in our lives I had beaten him to something. Then his face broke into a grin and he said: “I’ll see you tomorrow, Billy. When I’m nineteen.”

  With that, he gave me a wink, and then hurried home.

  “Don’t tell your mum!” I called after him. “She might tell mine and I want to tell her myself!”

  “Don’t worry,” he called back. “I won’t.”

  When I got home, Mum was looking worried.

  “Where have you been?” she demanded. “Your supper’s been in the oven this whole hour, waiting for you.”

  “I joined up in the army,” I said. “I’m going to fight in the War.”

  Mum looked at me, shocked, and her mouth dropped open. Then she almost fell backwards on to one of the kitchen chairs so hard I thought she’d break it. Then she began to cry.

  At that moment my d
ad came home from work. “What’s up?” he asked.

  “I’ve joined up,” I said. “I’ve joined the Lonsdale Battalion. I start my training the day after tomorrow.”

  Dad gave me a big smile. I could tell he was proud of me. “Well done, son!” he said.

  “No! You can’t go!” sobbed my mum. “Harry, tell him he can’t go! He’s too young! He can’t join up! He’s under age!”

  “I wasn’t the only one who was under age,” I protested. “About half of the recruits who were in the Recruiting Office were under nineteen. In fact they let William Chambers join up, and he’s only thirteen.”

  “That’s criminal!” said my mum angrily, and she burst into tears again.

  “There, there,” said my dad, and he went to her and put his arm around her to cuddle her. He then gave me a wink and a nod of his head to say, “Leave this to me, son. I’ll take it from here.”

  I went out and round the corner to Rob’s house and told him what had happened.

  “Your mum’ll get over it,” he assured me. “When do you start your training?”

  “Day after tomorrow,” I said. “I’ve got tomorrow to tell them at the Citadel Station what I’m going to do, and get packed.”

  “Well don’t go off to France without me,” said Rob. “You may have joined up first, but I’m going to be there with you, and I bet when we’re there I get more Huns than you do.”

  I don’t know what Dad said to Mum, but although it didn’t make her change her mind, it quietened her down. Or maybe it was just that she accepted my going. She still sniffled a lot and wiped her eyes whenever she saw me the next day, but on the whole it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be.

  My brothers and sisters thought my going off to war was very exciting, and John asked me if I’d bring him back a Hun helmet as a souvenir. I promised him I’d do my best.

  Rob enlisted the next day, claiming to be nineteen, and persuaded the Recruiting Sergeant that he and I needed to start our training together because we were best friends. Because the army was keen to get friends to join up together, they agreed. I had to smile at this. It was typical of Rob, being able to talk the army into letting him start training a day earlier. Anything, rather than miss out and let me be ahead of the game.