Walter Wood

[Sir John French has repeatedly praised the splendid work of the Royal Artillery during the war and glowing tributes to the courage and resourcefulness of British gunners have been paid by the other branches of the Army. Many a critical battle has been turned into a success by the artillery, some of the batteries of which have particularly distinguished themselves. Amongst them is the 134th, of whose officers and men no fewer than five were mentioned in Sir John French’s list, published on February 18th, of names of those whom he recommended for gallant and distinguished conduct in the field. This story of some of the work of our gunners is told by Corporal Ernest Henry Bean, of the 134th Field Battery, who was severely wounded and invalided home.]

You cannot exaggerate anything in this war. I am of a cheerful and hopeful disposition, but I never thought I should live through the awful business; yet here I am, cheerful still, though shot through both feet, and forced to hop when I want to get from place to place.

I have had some strange adventures during the last few months, and one of the oddest was in this good old Yarmouth. That was when the Germans came and bombed us. But I will tell you about the air raid later. Here are two eighteen-pounder shells, not from the front, but from practice-firing, and it was such shells as these that made havoc amongst the German troops, especially when we got to work on big bodies of them.

The war came upon us so suddenly that even now it seems amazing that I left peaceful England on a summer day and went straight into the very thick of things. There was no waiting, for I sailed from Southampton on the day after Mons was fought, and when we got into action it was at Le Cateau. We had had a short spell in a rest camp, then we had some hard marching. Throughout the whole of one night we kept at it, and soon after breakfast next morning we were in the thick of one of the most terrible artillery fights that has ever been known. For six mortal hours we were under an incessant shell-fire. The experience itself was enough to leave its mark for ever on your mind, but I shall always remember it because of what happened to our horses. They were not used to this awful business and they stampeded, galloping all over the place, and defying every effort of the drivers to control them. The horses bolted with the waggons and tore madly over the country, taking pretty nearly everything that came in their way. The drivers were on the horses, but they were powerless to control the frightened animals.

The battery itself was in action. I was with the teams—on an open road with half-a-dozen of them, and no protection whatever, for the road ran between open fields. We were a fine target for the Germans, and they saw it and began to shell us hell for leather. The fire was deadly and there is no wonder that the horses bolted.

What was to be done? What could be done except make a dash for shelter? I did my level best to get out of the open and seek shelter. But shelter seemed far away, there was nothing near at hand, but in the distance I saw something that seemed hopeful, so I galloped towards it with my teams. We went furiously along, and as I got nearer to the object I could make out that it was a long brick wall which separated an orchard from the road.

For about a mile, under a constant and furious fire, I dashed on; then I got to the wall, and instantly I drew in as many of the bolting horses as I could lay hands on. It all happened so swiftly that it is not easy to tell how this was done; but I know that I was safely mounted on my own horse when the stampede began, and that I dashed at the bolting animals and grabbed as many as I could, and that I hurried them to the shelter of the wall, and I fancy that they were just about as glad of the protection as I was. The gallop was a mad affair, and very likely it would never have ended as it did if all the shells the Germans fired had burst; but some of them did not explode, though I did not know of this till later, when I picked some of them up from the ground.

While I was in the thick of this exciting business Farrier-Sergeant Scott was rushing about and securing other runaway teams, and he did so well and his work was considered so brilliant and important that the French gave him the decoration of the Legion of Honour.

For the best part of an hour I was under cover of the wall, doing the best I could with the horses, and it was a funny old job to keep them anything like quiet with such a heavy fire going on all the time; yet so complete was the protection that practically no damage was done, the worst that occurred being the shattering of a pair of wheels by a bursting shell.

By the end of the hour both myself and the horses were pretty well settling down; then things calmed down a bit. The Germans appeared to be tired of pounding at us, and perhaps they thought that they had blown us to pieces. At any rate we began to get out of it, and we had no sooner started to do that than the firing instantly re-opened.

There was a village not far away and we made a dash for it; but we were forced to clear out, for the enemy’s artillery set the little place on fire and all the stacks and buildings were in flames. There was a good deal of confusion and mixing up of all sorts of troops. I had lost touch with my own lot and was ordered by a captain to join another column for the night, and this I did. I joined the 2nd Brigade Ammunition Column and next day I was with my own battery again, thankful to have got safely through a very dangerous business.

Next day we picked up another position, and had no sooner done that than information came that immense bodies of Germans were on the move in our direction. The outlook was serious, because we were in the open and there was nothing for it except a fight to the death. The Germans were expected along a certain road and we made ready to fire at what is practically point-blank range, using Fuses 0 and 2, so that at 500 and 1000 yards the masses of the enemy would have had the shells bursting amongst them.

We had been through some tough times; but not in any situation which was as unpromising as this. We knew that we could make a long stand, and mow down the Germans as they swept along the open country; but we knew also that in the end vastly superior forces must tell against us; but we held our ground and the stern order went round, “Each take charge of your own gun—and God help us!”

How long that awful strain lasted I cannot tell. It could not have been long, but it seemed an eternity. While it lasted the strain was almost unendurable; then it suddenly snapped, an immense relief came over us and even the bravest and most careless amongst us breathed more freely when we knew that the prospect of almost sure annihilation had passed, for the German hosts, instead of coming by the expected road, had gone another way.

With lighter hearts we limbered up, and day after day, night after night, for eleven days, we kept hard at it, marching and fighting, and whenever we got into action it was against very heavy odds. I was with my own special chum, Sergeant Charlie Harrison, and often enough, especially in the night-time, we would walk alongside our horses and talk as we dragged ourselves along—talk about anything that came into our minds, and all for the sake of keeping awake and not falling down exhausted on the road; yet in spite of everything we could do we would fall asleep. Sometimes we would continue walking while practically asleep—we wanted to save our horses as much as we could—and more than once, when I was riding, I went to sleep and fell out of the saddle. There was one good thing, however, about the shock—it acted as a very fine wakener-up. As for sleeping, when we got the chance of it, we could do that anywhere—in ploughed fields, deep in mud and water, and on the road itself.

All sorts of strange and unexpected things happened. While I was with the Ammunition Column the Engineers were putting all their smartness and skill into the building of a pontoon, and the Germans were specially favouring them with “Coal Boxes.” This was my introduction to these big brutes of shells, and it was not pleasant, especially as the column was not more than twenty-five yards from the spot where they were exploding with a terrific roar.

I was standing by my horse, feeling none too comfortable, when a big shell burst and made awful havoc near me. A piece of it came and struck me. I thought I was done for, then I looked around at myself, and found that the two bottom buttons of my greatcoat had been torn away, but that no further damage had been done. I was glad to have got off so easily, and just as pleased to find that the horses had escaped.

At this time we were wanting food pretty badly, so that every ration became precious. We were bivouacked when a file of infantrymen brought in a German prisoner. Of course we gave him a share of pretty well everything there was going, hot tea, bread, biscuits and bully beef, and he did himself well. The prisoner was not exactly the sort to arouse compassion, for he looked well fed and was dressed in a very smart uniform. An officer came up, saw the captive, and said, “Do you think this fellow looks as if he wanted anything?” Truth to tell, the fellow didn’t, and as we did want things badly, he was sent somewhere else, and we were not sorry to see him go.

After being kept so constantly on the rack, we had a welcome and remarkable change—we became cave-dwellers. We spent five days and nights in some of the famous caves at Soissons, and had a thoroughly comfortable and happy time. We had a fine chance of resting and enjoying ourselves, and we made the most of it.

Originally these caves were occupied by very primitive people; lately they were used as a French hospital, and the French made all sorts of interesting pictures and carvings on the outsides, by way of decoration, then the British took them over as billets. By nature the caverns were queer gloomy places, but a good deal had been done to make them habitable, such as fitting in doors and windows. There had been a lot of fighting near the caves, with the result that there were graves at the very entrances of some of these uncommon billets; but this had no effect on our spirits. We did not allow ourselves to be depressed. What is the use of that in war-time? The British soldier has the happy knack of making himself at home in all kinds of odd places, and so we did in our billets in the rocks and hillside. We called one of our caves the “Cave Theatre Royal,” and another the “Cave Cinema,” and many a cheerful performance and fine sing-song we had. The only light we had came from candles, but you can sing just as well by candle-light as you can by big electric lamps, and I don’t suppose that ever since the caves were occupied they rang with more cheerful sounds than were heard when the British soldiers were joining in a chorus of the latest popular song from home.

Another great advantage of the caverns was that they gave splendid cover to our guns, and protection to ourselves, so that these five days and nights gave us a real rest and complete change, and we were very sorry when we left them and resumed the work of incessant fighting and marching. We were constantly at the guns, and by way of showing what a fearful business the artillery duels became at times, I may tell you that from a single battery alone—that is, half-a-dozen guns—in one day and night we fired more than 4000 rounds.

It was a vast change from the comfort and safety of the caverns, where never a German shell reached us, to the open again, but we got our quiet times and little recreations still, and one of these intervals we devoted to football. We were at Messines, and so was a howitzer battery, and as we happened to be rather slack, we got up a match. I am keen on football, and things were going splendidly. I had scored two goals and we were leading 3-1, when the game came to a very sudden stop, for some German airmen had seen us running about and had swooped down towards us, with the result that the howitzer chaps were rushed into action and we followed without any loss of time. We took it quite as a matter of course to let the football go, and pound away at the Germans, who had so suddenly appeared. It was getting rather late, so we gave the enemy about fifty rounds by way of saying good-night. We always made a point of being civil in this direction; but our usual dose for good-night was about fifteen rounds.

Talking of football recalls sad memories. On Boxing Day, 1913, when I and an old chum were home on leave, I played in a football match, and at the end of the game a photograph was taken of the team. On last Boxing Day, if the roll of the team had been called, there would have been no answer in several cases—for death and wounds have claimed some of the eleven. Little did we think when we were being grouped for the picture that it was the last muster for us as a team.

We had got through the tail end of summer and were well into autumn, and soon the gloom of November was upon us, then came my change of luck and I was knocked out. It was November 2, and almost as soon as it was daylight we were in the thick of an uncommonly furious artillery duel, one of the very worst I have seen. The Germans seemed to be making a special effort that morning. They had got our position pretty accurately, and they fired so quickly and had the range so well that we were in a real hell of bursting shrapnel, indeed, the fragments were so numerous that it is little short of a miracle that we were not wiped out.

We had not been long in action when a shell burst on the limber-pole, smashed it in halves, penetrated through the wheel, blew the spokes of the wheel away and shot me some distance into the air. For a little while I had no clear idea of what had happened, then I found that three of us had been wounded. My right boot had been blown to shreds, and there was a hole right through the left boot. So much I saw at once—a mess of blood and earth and leather; but of the extent of my wounds I knew very little, nor did I trouble much about them at the time. The first thing I did was to get into the main pit by the side of the gun, the captain and one or two chums helping me, and there, though the pain of my wounds was terrible, I laughed and chatted as best I could, and I saw how the battery kept at it against big odds.

Number 1, Sergeant Barker, who was in charge of the gun, had been struck by a piece of shrapnel, which had fractured his leg; but though that was quite enough to knock him out of time, he never flinched or faltered. He held on to his gun, and went on fighting pretty much as if nothing had happened. Number 2, Gunner Weedon, had been wounded through the thigh, a bad injury about three inches long being caused; but he, too, held gamely on.

I tried to crawl out of the pit; but could not do so, and I passed the time by trying to cheer my chums, just as they did their best to help me to keep my own spirits up.

The sergeant found time occasionally to turn round and ask how I was getting on.

“It’s all right, old Bean,” he shouted cheerily. “Keep quiet. We can manage without you.” And he went on firing, while the officers continued to give orders and encourage the men.

I was getting very thirsty and craved for a drink; but I saw no prospect of getting either water or anything else at such a time.

The sergeant noticed my distress and gave me the sweetest drink I ever tasted, and that was a draught from his own canteen. He managed to stop firing for a few seconds while he did this—just long enough to sling his canteen round, let me take a pull, and sling it back. I learned afterwards that throughout the whole of that day, in that inferno of firing and bursting shells, the sergeant stuck to his gun and kept it at. For his courage and tenacity he has been awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal, and no man has ever more fully deserved it.

I was lying in the gun pit for about an hour, then a doctor came and my wounds were dressed, but there was no chance of getting away for the time being, so I had to wait till the firing ceased. At last a stretcher was brought, and I was carried into a barn which was at the rear of our battery. One of the bearers was

Sergeant E. Leet, the right-back in our battery team. He left the fight to bear a hand with me, and as soon as I was safely in the barn he returned to his post. He had no sooner done that than he too was struck down by a wound in the ankle and had to be invalided home.

When I was carried away the major and the sergeant-major said good-bye, and I rather think they expected that that was the last they would ever see of me. I certainly felt bad, and I daresay I looked it; but I was quite cheerful. I particularly felt it when I passed my chum, Charlie Harrison, because for more than six years we had kept together without a break. We shouted good-bye as we passed, and I did not know whether I should ever see him again.

When I reached the barn I wanted to get back to the battery, to be at my own gun again, to bear a hand once more in the fighting that was still going on and seemed as if it would never stop; but when I tried to stand up I collapsed, through pain and loss of blood. Soon after this I heard that Charlie Harrison too had been wounded. He was struck on the neck just after I was carried away from the gun pit and had shouted good-bye to him; but he bandaged himself and refused to leave the battery.

What became of him? Why, he got home from the front a day or two ago, and you’ve just seen him. There he is. And let me show you this shattered foot, to let you see how it is that I’m forced to hop when I want to get about.

And now to get back to the air raid on the East Coast, which to me and other soldiers from the front who saw it, was an extraordinary experience, though I fancy that we took it more or less as a matter of course, because you so soon get used to that kind of thing.

I had scarcely settled down at home when one night there was a fearful commotion, caused by dull explosions. I was a bit taken aback, for I knew what the sounds meant, and thought that I had done with the Germans and fighting for a spell at any rate.

As soon as the sound of the explosions was heard, people rushed into the streets—the most dangerous thing they could do—to see what it all meant, and there were cries that the Germans had come.

So they had. They had come in a gas-bag or two, and were dropping bombs on the good old town, which was lighted as usual, though that was soon altered.

I hopped into the street—hopping is the only thing I can do at present—and there I found that there was intense excitement and that women in particular were badly scared. But really the thing did not upset me at all—it was mere child’s play compared with what I had been through, so I made myself useful, and hopped away and bought some brandy, which suited some of the scared people very well—so well that there wasn’t a drop left for myself.

The raid was soon over, and so was the scare, and I hopped back to the house. There have been several frantic alarms since then, and more than once I have been shaken out of my sleep and told that the Germans have come again; but all I have said has been that it will take something far worse than a German gas-bag raid to make me turn out of bed in the middle of the night.