March – April - May 1917
“I suppose you've heard by this of Fritz's retirement, it's good to get out in the open country which has not been shelled to any extent. By the look of his old front line I reckon it was a forced retirement - it is one mass of shell holes and the ground has been turned times out of number.
Fritz has blown up a lot of his roads & shifted his railways to hamper our progress, also laid a good many mines so one has to be pretty careful in fiddling about his deep dugouts etc.
I reckon I'll be back for Xmas dinner by the way things are going at present & I have luck. Fritz seems to be well up the pole.”
THE NOISE AND percussion are the worst part, if one is near a big gun when it goes off it gives one devil of a shock and can knock you over. Shell percussion is the most frightening experience I’ve encountered, and the sensation is near enough the same for a shell of ours going out or a Fritz shell landing a few yards away.
Before I arrived in France I believed that I would have half a second or a second to duck or dive, cover my ears or turn away. It doesn’t work like that. You have no knowledge or awareness that it is about to happen, no warning, no noise, no tap on the shoulder to keep your head down, nothing.
In a time frame that is immeasurable, a shell is fired or lands. The explosive noise combined with the instantaneous force of the air attacks your nervous system at the same speed as a bullet between your eyes. You don’t fall to the ground, you are thrown there as if a giant hand has swiped you violently off your feet. You lay there still, like a dead man, unable to move. It takes some time for your senses to readjust, you slowly become aware that you are on your back. You then comprehend how you got there. A mind to limb check that everything is still attached then the effort to roll over and stand up. The process might take ten seconds, it might take ten minutes. One of our shells going out will drop you but it won’t kill you. A Fritz one coming in has the added threat of shrapnel tearing through you at the speed of light. The percussion of a landing shell alone can kill you.
If you have been caught out as I have been on quite a few occasions you appreciate the term “dead before you hit the ground”. To cop the noise, shock and shrapnel in the same hit, it’s all over before you would blink. But I’ve also seen some of our chap’s stone-cold dead without a mark on them, killed outright by the percussion.
There is mild improvement in the weather by March, however the mud is knee to waist deep in many places. The front line and support trenches are almost impossible to move in. Men become exhausted very quickly dragging their body and equipment along. The poor horses that get caught up in the mud, some up to their necks, are a terrible sight. On a couple of occasions, I’ve assisted digging pack horses out, sometimes taking hours. The poor things cannot walk by the time they get pulled out they are so spent.
I suppose the Aussie papers are full of Fritz’s present retirement. We are pretty close on his heels at present, so he is not getting much peace.
The town of Bapaume fell to us quite easily, but it is in a very sad mess, almost as bad as Ypres in Belgium. Fritz even set it alight when retreating. He also laid heaps of mines which has been the death of a good many of our chaps. The town is netted in with barb wire entanglements, so it doesn’t look as if Fritz intended to evacuate. He still shells Bapaume but not to any great extent.
Following up behind Fritz is not as easy as it sounds, road bridges and railways need to be rebuilt as we go forward, and the process is made more difficult by the very long, savage winter we had. I saw a couple of motor lorries and caterpillars get bogged recently which held up two to three miles of transports loaded with ammunition and rations for a whole day.
I worked a couple of days moving supplies forward through the old no-man’s land. I can say it was the most horrendous experience I have had. The area is full of dead bodies thawing out, mostly Fritz ones, ours have been buried. The stench is unimaginable. The smell of rotting meat burns the back of your throat and it’s hard not to gag on it. It seems to get into your clothes and lingers on. You can smell your sleeve a day later and still reel back with the smell. The rain dampens the stench a little but it’s no honey pot out there. It will be horrific when the sun finally arrives.
We lost a few huts the other evening. It was cloudy, and two Fritz came over unobserved in an observation balloon. They had been hidden in the clouds and came swooping down firing petrol bullets all over the place which set the huts on fire. Our chaps fired up at them and what a sight it was to see the balloon catch fire and blaze in the sky. The observers hopped out in parachutes and escaped.
I haven’t had much time to write lately, time is short, camp huts are unlit, and I get tired of writing on my lap. The standard supply of “Field Service Post Cards” come in handy. I can fill out ten of them in ten minutes, ticking the “I am quite well” sentence, put an address on the front and away it goes. You are not allowed to write anything on the card except the address or the censors will tear it up. It doesn’t allow much detail to go home but at least it’s letting them know I’m still kicking.
It is good-o to be away from the river Somme, away from the ground which had been turned and turned again by shell fire and the endless sea of mud.
I spend six weeks working on a light rail supply line from Bapaume up to the front line. Out the back of Bapaume, very few shells have fallen, the snow has gone, and green grass can be seen again for the first time in six months.
I’ve developed a medical condition that had me worried for a while. Many months ago, I developed a pain in my chest, about where my heart is. When it first came on it was quite severe, what I imagine a knife wound would feel like. It was real, not imaginary. After a while it settled down a little, but I constantly felt as if someone was pushing the pointy end of a pencil into my chest and holding it there, the skin wasn’t broken but the constant, unrelenting pressure was aggravating. I could rub it firmly and the pain would ease but not go away. I was deeply concerned that I had a heart disease or was having some form of heart attack. Before I would fall asleep it would be there, when I’d awake, it would be just as severe, maybe worse. Over a period, the pencil pressure would slowly back off but then as quick as a gunshot it would return with vengeance.
It probably took me ten months to self-analyse the ailment.
Grief.
The pain associated with grieving.
It started about the time I heard of Stan Tulloch’s death, then Ben Rawle, then Victor Quinn and a hundred or more men since who I knew and whose company I have enjoyed. It is hard to comprehend pain coming from within without any obvious injury to be seen on the outside.
The hardest part of this ailment is that I cannot talk about it with anyone around here. Everyone standing is carrying the same pain, or they choose not to admit to it. I’m certainly not prepared to discuss it with any doctor or nurse in a dressing station. They have far bigger issues to deal with around here than Ern Hall having a pain in his chest.
The first week of April the Battalion is on the move again, around two miles east to a very small village named Bancourt. The place has been completely blown to smithereens, there isn’t a building intact. Our own living conditions remain unchanged though, still sleeping in dugouts.
Fritz has been pushed back but he’s stubborn, he won’t go away.
While the majority of the 1st Pioneer Battalion are assigned to road repair work around Bancourt, “D” company remain with the light railroad construction gang doing our best to keep supplies up to our front-line chaps. For me, rail work is a far better role than deep trench or tunnelling work. My shift is mainly daylight to dark, levelling ground, laying sleepers and rails to enable the much smaller, light gauge locomotives and supply trucks to travel right up to the front line. A service trench is dug alongside the railroad and lined with corrugated iron and duckboards. The trench is only required to be four feet six inches deep. We are still working out in wide open areas in broad daylight which can be of some concern with Fritz’s long-range artillery and his aeroplanes observing us, but it’s a far better existence than being in a trench under bombardment in the middle of the night.
The night shift chaps spend time running out high hessian “fences” so that old Fritz cannot see what’s going on over our side. It works fairly well during the day but on a good night it’s possible to see the shadows of shady characters wandering around out there trying to sneak a peek at our good work. A couple of rifle shots or a machine gun sweep clears them off like cockroaches.
We still have casualties every day in the Battalion. It’s all about luck, or bad luck, whatever way you want to look at it. If you are in the wrong place at the wrong time and a stray shell lands at your feet then so be it, that’s how it goes, nothing you can do about it.
Working on the light railway has been a blessing to “D” Company, our casualties have been a darn sight less than they were previously.
An artillery shell is full of half inch diameter lead balls (shrapnel). When the shell explodes, hundreds of these lead balls are blasted out at the speed of sound. That’s what does the damage to a man who stands in front of one. The lead pellets can be found everywhere there has been shelling. They are easy to spot and can be found just laying around on the ground. In a couple of villages, I’ve seen the locals melting the lead down and making souvenirs to sell to the troops.
I have my own souvenir, a single pellet, damaged, chipped, and out of round. The little indents are full of mud or clay that seem to be burnt on, I cannot scratch it clean. I picked it up about a week after I arrived in France and have carried it around as a good luck charm ever since.
I’m fascinated watching our pilots at work during the day. Such brave and skilful men controlling those magnificent pieces of machinery. Most of our aeroplanes are two seaters and the chap behind the pilot acts as spotter and machine gunner. The pilot has his hands full, aiming the machine where it needs to be or dodging Fritz. They can turn those machines on a penny at incredible speeds.
I’ve witnessed a few aerial dog fights between our boys and Fritz, we don’t always win though, we’ve lost a few. Fritz shouldn’t be underestimated, he is also very skilled in the air. Win lose or draw, I’m in awe of their skill and bravery.
In late May there has been a massive improvement in the weather and with it comes the very welcomed news that the Battalion is to be rested.
We are pulled back twenty miles south-west to the hamlet of Dernancourt. With every yard put between us and the front line, I can feel the pressure and tension leaving my body. I start to relax the shoulders a little, bounce a few steps on my toes, share a joke, feel the life and soul slowly return to my bones. It’s a good feeling.
Dernancourt is another small town, narrow main street with a few little shops, bakery, café and a small tidy church. The 1st Australian Pioneer Battalion are billeted in a tent camp a couple of hundred yards away from the town centre.
While the pressure of front line soldiering is off, the Commanding Officer is a hard task master. Dernancourt town centre is off limits, only a handful of leave passes are offered at any given time. The daily notice board lists, “Battalion sports, church parade, training and inter-company competitions” to keep our minds and bodies active!