Memories of the Great War

The personal account of Alfred Thomas Higginson

The following forms the second part of a personal account of life during the First World War that was written by Alfred Thomas Higginson who lived at New Union Farm, out Rawcliffe. The period covered is from Autumn 1916 until his return to England one medical grounds during the following year.

The original notebook containing the handwritten account and the photograph of Alfred Thomas Higginson are now in the possession of Mr John Higginson, a great-nephew of the writer, to whom we are indebted for his permission to reproduce these items.

The first part of the account can be found in Volume IV of the Over-Wyre Historical Journal.
(Editor)

I was in a ruined town, under German gunfire, with shells bursting around all night. I was one of a party that had brought eight wagons loads of 18 pounder shells and we had to unload them on the roadside and then carry them to the guns which were firing at the Germans, about a hundred yards or so from the guns where we dropped them on account of our horses stampeding. The officer, a Canadian, thought it best.

I was working all night carrying those shells in wood boxes, two shells in a box with wire handles at the end of the box. Myself and another man had the job of carrying them to the mouth of a deep dug-out with forty steps down it where we dumped the shells. There was a long plank on the steps and us two at the top were unlucky to have the job on top in the open with shells bursting all round. The other gunners along with the officer went down to stack the shells up down there and catch the boxes as us two shoved them down on the plank. They soon landed at the bottom. Our hands got raw with the handles being twisted wire and being knee deep in slutch and mud we were soon tired. We carried on all night without a break. Every now and again we went down about six or seven steps at the sides of the plank when the shells were bursting near to us.

A drink of water was what my mate and I longed for as our throats were parched through the sulphur fumes of the bursting shells. We heard a water cart coming up the road, it was bringing water up to the firing line to the infantry and the artillery. We made across to where it stopped, it being pitch dark, and it being a November day one can imagine what the slutch and mud was like. Me and my mate asked the man in charge of the water cart if he would give us a drink, which he did. I nearly ate the water we were so thirsty. I thanked him for it and we went and finished our job.

We hitched the horses to the wagons, the officer wanted to get away before daybreak as the Germans would have seen us and shelled us as it was not far from the German lines. We galloped away as it was just beginning to come light but we got away alright. We stopped at a wayside coffee hut where we had a free cup of coffee and then made back to a place called Becourt, this being the ammunition column's camp. I was attached to it now. This last illustration I have written was not so bad as the ride in the van from Harfleur to Rouen.

Going back to the journey from Le Havre to Albert on the Somme, our first stop was Rouen where we were marched into the town to a soldiers' home where we could get a wash and shave and something to eat. We then proceeded on, but slow. I think the train had a big lot of guns and ammunition on. It was Sunday night when we left Harfleur and it was Tuesday night when we crawled into Albert, a ruined town. We made a stop or two in wooded country and we all got out and straightened our legs. They did not want to land into Albert till it was dark. And it was dark too, and raining. We all got out on to the platform and then into the station. The rain was coming on to us the same when we went inside however, the roof had had a shell on it at sometime.

We were marched through the town. There were buildings standing but a lot were in ruins, some with roofs off. It did seem strange. This was in the morning when I saw this, when it was day-break. We were taken just out of the town to some tents that were pitched. We got down to it, a fair number got into each one and it was pitch dark and raining still. The booming of the guns was clear and the sky presented a fine sight with the bursting of shells. I was tired and soon asleep. We were packed like herrings but were warm. Morning came, fair weather but lots of mud, drivers with gun-limbers and wagons with six horses to each wagon were coming in to Albert for shells. They were clear covered with slutch and mud and I thought, well, this looks rough, but it was nothing to what I saw later on.

After breakfast, bully-beef and hard biscuits, we were marched off to Becourt where the Ammunition Column were. Before leaving Albert I will describe the big bronze statue that was outside the town, close to the tents we slept in. It was a big statue, I think it is the largest I have ever seen, it was of the Virgin Mary and she was hanging her head downwards from her feet. The story was that the French engineers had bent her down so that it was not as good a target for the German big guns. It could be seen for miles, even when we were further up the firing line. Becourt was not far from Albert and we soon got there by marching, but the road being rough it made it bad walking. This time we were lined up and the O/C had a look at us and asked us how much service we all had, whether time serving men or duration of war. Then dismiss and now to look for a place to sleep in and for our small kit.

There were little shacks both sides of the horse lines with ground sheets for roofs and shell boxes for the sides, so we had to set to and start running about for some shell-boxes as it was getting dark now. We had to go a fair distance and steal boxes.
stick out of the trees as there was near by one at each end and I got another chap to join me now so we had two rubber ground sheets at either side of the roof. It was alright. We left one end open and got an old sack and had it like a curtain at the end, it being our creeping in end, and when the two of us got in we were alright. We were a bit pinched for length, our feet were nearly out. We ought to have made it a bit longer, but anyway it was put up and we got down to it, it being full when two of us got laid down. Worst job we had no where to put our boots which were about three times their normal weight through being wet and caked with clay. Morning came with cold feet, it had frozen hard. We had finally put our boots at the foot of the bed and the clay that was on them was frozen hard. We had to knock them against one another to break it. It did seem a cold wake up, and now for dressing and out of it and stables. Poor horses and mules, they were out in the open, tethered to long thick ropes fastened to posts. Nothing but bare ground to lie on.

Becourt, a wooded place, with a rail head station, trains coming and going with war material, a British hospital and cemetery and a chateau. This in the autumn of 1916 was a big cemetery then. Little wooden crosses for tombstones, with soldier's caps and tunics hung on them. The column was comprised of mules, a rough lot they were, Australian. It gets very muddy when it rains with being tethered out in the open. It was here that I went with a party of horses and wagons to take some 18 pounder shells to Martinpuck, my first taste of being in a continuous all night bombardment from the Germans.

My next place was the wagon line, a bit nearer the line, somewhere about Contalmaison. Here observation balloons were up in the sky and aircraft, English and German, were often fighting above us. We could hear the maxim guns and see the puffs of smoke. Sometimes one of either would get hit. If ever the Allerman (German) was getting the worst of it he would suddenly rise to a bigger height above the English. Here we had horses for the gun waggons and limbers to take shells to the guns. We were only just behind the firing line here, but under long range German guns at night. We could hear them passing just over us. We soon got used to it, someone would say "Keep going, Jerry, don't stop here". We used to go in the daytime from here to the guns, taking shells with our gun wagons and limbers.

We saw many unusual sights, dead horses on the roadside, graves of German and English on the roadside with wooden crosses, stumps of trees. Mametz wood, with only the trunks left, the branches all blown away by shells. Just close up to Mametz wood was a big naval gun, I think 15 or 16 in.  There was also Troneswood, Delville wood and High wood.  A length of road past these places was made of sleepers and it was said that a great number of English were buried there. Infantry men used to go right past our wagons when they were marching to the trenches. Once a party of Scotch troops with full kit and trenching tools on were up above the knees in mud and slutch, heartbreaking to see them. All around here were other brigades or artillery, and all of us had one watering trough made of canvas with a pipe-line from somewhere to the large canvas trough. I should think it would be 12 yards by 12 yards and what a mess it was just round about. Knee deep and our sergeant major wouldn't let us ride. If your stockings weren't wet before you went with two horses, they would be when you came back.

Wet! Many a time overcoats used to be heavy at night when it was wet when we got down to it on top of us, with one blanket and a ground sheet (rubber). Shell holes!

The ground was covered with them. We used to wash ourselves and wash our mess tins in the same shell holes. I had my first rum ration here. It being open country here we always carried our iron rations in a small linen bag, some small round biscuits. They got wet many a time. Some used to eat a few if they felt hungry, but they were intended for use only if you got cut off from your mob and in great danger of being captured. There were also gas masks, a satchel always to be worn (I think I had two), a tin helmet always to be worn, if your sergeant major saw you with your soft hat on he would tell you to get your tin helmet on-at once! Boots laced a good way up with 3 straps at the top, a bandolier with 25 rounds always to be worn, they got a nuisance as they seemed to weigh on you always having to wear them, except when you were sleeping.

The horses here got into a pitiable state, being tied up in the open. Pools soon formed where they stood and it being chalk soil, when they laid down and daubed their backs and legs in the mornings, if it had dried up a little with a wind, they would be white horses. Grooming had to be done here on active service so our jack knives came into use, it being like cement on their backs. We scraped them, brushing and combing was out of the question. Poor horses, I have seen blood ouse out sometimes when scraped, perhaps hairs would come out with the mud. (P.S. Identification discs, 2 also worn round neck, tied with string.)

Fricourt, La-Boiselle and other villages that had once been thriving places were all in ruins or nearly levelled down. These were all within a mile or so from here. I think at Fricourt it was, where a crucifix of Jesus Christ was intact among all the ruins.  It looked rather extraordinary. There were old German dug-outs, great workmanship must have been used to construct some of them, even hospitals underground. I saw the entrance down to one but didn't go down. Close to here was a grave of a British corporal of a Lancashire Regiment, his hat and stripes hung on to a cross, with his teeth and jaw-bones and his hand and part of his wrist on the grave. A little way from here, in a shallow shell-hole was a dead German, a big chap laid flat on his belly with arms outstretched. He had been there a bit - such is war!

One night we had got down to it when an order came round "All men on parade". We all made off to the guns, taking the quickest way over trenches and duck boards, passing giant howitzers now and again with nets covering them on four posts, the nets being painted, camouflaged for enemy aircraft. When we landed the four 4/5 Howitzers were stuck in a deep shell-hole on the Martinpuck Road. It appears some of our drivers had set off with horses to fetch the guns to the wagon line ready to leave day after for a week or so rest behind the line altogether. I shall never forget that night, the Germans' and our guns going at it. The major was there, stood on a bank of higher ground, shouting and cursing at the drivers, drag ropes were fastened to a ring on the nave of the wheel and the gunners had to get into the mud on each side of the gun and pull, the drivers on horse back whipping and striking at the horses. Some of the gunners were standing looking on while the drag ropes were being fastened and what a curse came from the major, him stood on dry ground, the gunners having to stand knee deep pulling away till at last we got it out. There were eight horses and four drivers, one man to two horses, and the horses were up to their bellies in the mud.

After that we travelled to Perrygot near to Gratiera, I should say about 20 miles behind the firing line. It was a French farm, the men sleeping at night in a barn.

This was my last bit of duty in France. I was put on a sick parade by Bombadier Johny Glen as I was coming off a night guard of the guns. I had to report at 9 o'clock for a bab sick parade, the doctor examined me and I was in poor shape. This was the first sick parade since leaving England. Hospital next - first field dressing station and a diet of tinned milk. Then moved to another hospital during the night. This was run by Catholic women. One night there a very high temperature. Morning after moved again to Rouen on a hospital train with up-to-date beds and sheets. I was put in hospital at Rouen and I have about a month there. It was a Royal Canadian hospital. I was still on a milk diet. George Curwen from Pilling was in the R.A.M.C. in another part of the hospital and he came to see me in bed, but I was fast asleep and he did not want to disturb me. He wrote home to my father and mother, telling them about it, my father had told his father I was at Rouen.

After about a month I was sent home on a stretcher on the Hospital ship, St. George, to Southampton, then by train to Warrington in Lancashire at Lord Derby's War Hospital, Winwick. From there 10 days sick leave and then to Frome in Somerset, then to Charlton Park, a big lot of army huts of men that had been sent home and were now ready for active service again. I stayed a few weeks here. I was unfit for France again so I was put on an Indian Draft to go and replace some old regulars that had not seen war service. They were sent to the Persian Gulf, Mesopotamia. It was very hot there, no shelter from the awful heat. We arrived at Lahore, stayed a few days there and then were sent to Jullunder under the Brigadier, General Dyer.