The Broken Poppy

CHAPTER NINE

  Loos-en-Gohelle, France.

  24th September 1915.

  Four days have passed since my last entry and more preparations have been made in order for the battle to begin at zero hour tomorrow. As for our new weapon, as a precautionary measure we have all been given a gas mask to wear. They are a hideous design and to be honest when we put them on, we all looked a bit like some extra-terrestrial creature. They are not the nicest thing to wear and truthfully they are rubbish in operation. The material makes it harder to breathe, it itches your skin and the eye pieces fog up whenever you breathe. They are a pointless design, but then if they protected you from the gas, for the sake of feeling uncomfortable it is best to just get on with it and keep it on.

  Earlier today with various commands coming from Roger and Sergeant B. Miller, we were warned to keep the masks on. Due to the fact that our gas was going to be released, to hopefully wipe out or at least hinder the Germans, before the battle with bullets would begin. Many soldiers though could not deal with the mask being as uncomfortable as there are, and forgot that the wind could easily change direction. Giving our weapon back to us and not to the Germans. Needless to say by the end of the day, I think about twenty men near our position had been affected and some were fatal. Rob had also had enough and I saw him trying to take the gas mask off. Instantly I walked over to him and told him off, for acting well a bit like a child.

  “Leave it alone! Do you want to be poisoned by our own gas?” I ordered.

  Rob gave me a look of disapproval for telling him what to do and he went off to sulk in the corner, but I knew he would do as I had said and sure enough, he left the mask alone. Battle will commence in about three or four hours time, but until then I intend to try and get some sleep.

  ….

  Battle has commenced. We began at zero hour and we advanced across no man’s land, one by one. Our numbers were quite extraordinary but I still had a lot of doubts, regarding how these practically untrained men were going to cope facing the Germans and their barrier of bullets. I’ve had almost a year of war to get used to battle. The one thing I’ve noticed though is the attitudes of these men towards the Germans. They appear to view them as complete monsters, rodents of a kind that will easily be wiped out with some kind of rat poison. Of course when I came to war almost fourteen months ago, I had a feeling of anger and bitterness towards the Germans and I definitely was not going to make friends with one. I realised however the concept that we were inflicting just as much pain on them as they are on us. So whenever I come close to thinking of them as monsters, I always remember Christmas day last year, which was without a doubt the strangest day I’ve ever had. I mean I played football with the enemy on no man’s land, almost as if we were friends and not enemies.

  We had been informed that our first mission was to gain control of a town called Loos and as we advanced across no man’s land, poor visibility slowed our advancement. The gas masks we had to wear were in fact useless and you could barely see through the plastic, and a blind soldier in a blind war is never a good combination. Instead of being able to see the bullets, we had to trust our instincts and use our other senses. My ears were on full alert and every inch of sound appeared to be intensified a hundred times. When a rip in the air was made, when a manmade object of death was tearing through the wind, my body reacted in a duck to the ground or a move to the side.

  The war appeared to be going well for us and eventually with extreme determination and loss of lives, we managed to break through the first German defenses. They were relatively weak already and due to the amount of men we had, the Germans were surprised and we managed to take them quite quickly. Soon after we managed to secure a place called Hohenzollern Redoubt, France and the battle continued. There was constant shelling throughout the night, the men and I alike were getting exhausted. Roger tried to keep the men’s spirits high but well Rob did a better job at that than he did. His humour really is a god send during battles. Sergeant B. Miller has just informed us, in a rather depressive tone that we are having communication problems and to make matters worse the extra reserve army has not appeared and supplies are short. Meaning the breakthrough we had made was in fact pointless and we would not be able to hold our position when the Germans arrived to take the town back. As well as this for some unknown reason our artillery was short and I knew that despite our success today, it was going to be a complete disaster.

  With no communication, we had no orders to either go forward or given the circumstances which calculated that we had no chance of succeeding, to abandon the objective. A few hours passed and we still have received no communication from headquarters or the reinforcements, so Sergeant B. Miller made the decision to continue advancing to the next trench. We advanced over the open fields and as soon as we touched the soil we were under immediate attack. It was clear that we were within range of the German machine guns and every single man dropped to the floor. It was hard to tell whether they were dead, or whether they were trying to accomplish the same thing I was and crawl through this war ridden grass. Hours continued to pass and we appeared to be making no progress at all.

  After about seven more hours of hopeless fighting Sergeant B. Miller told us to begin the retreat, until further notice from headquarters or the reserve army came to help - we could not hold them off on our own. The battle continued for another twenty days and it was a tough one. The reserve army finally came about three days later and our platoon, along with other units had practically been slaughtered. We were all physically and emotionally drained. It’s no easy feat watching men drop like flies for consecutive days in a row. As I predicted, the new soldiers were delivered to the harsh but necessary reality of war. It was not something you easily forget, when someone’s hand, a part of their skull, or a leg narrowly misses hitting you in the face. Even if like me you have seen it a hundred times over by now.

  Following our retreat and the short supply of well everything, the Germans had managed to recapture what we took from them and we ended back in our starting positions. When the re-enforcements came some of the men cheered, knowing there was some possibility we could still be saved. Of course the attack was re-launched time and time again and eventually we managed to recapture Hohenzollern Redoubt on the 3rd October 1915. This was subsequently followed by a reverse attack initiated by the Germans, and they were desperately trying to get back the land which they had initially captured.

  Now with more supplies and men, we were able to hold them off and we did have a fighting chance. Time was on our side too and as a darkness came over us the Germans abandoned the attempt. As the sun rose over the destroyed land however, the battle continued and we thought it would be over by the 7th November, but there was another plan for yet another attack. Mother Nature however put a stop to that, and the skies were pouring with the arrival of winter rain. It was almost as if the clouds were tear ducts and they were swelling, soaking the battle ground below.

  It was evident that the battle could not continue and I was so grateful when the news came and that this battle at least had ended. It had been an exhausting one, that’s for sure and certain. At the end of the battle, or at least when the end had been announced, I counted the numbers in our platoon again to see who was still standing and we only lost about seventy men, which given the circumstances was pretty extraordinary. Luck was apparently continuing to come my way and the same applied for Roger, Paul, Johnnie, Tim and Rob. Luck had protected us so far, apart from the untimely death of my brother Mathew and I admit Albert, for whatever disagreements we had, he was still too young to die.

  I had a gut feeling, a terrible feeling in fact that the luck was on its last legs and it was very soon going to run out, but then again you could never be entirely sure.

  Yours,

  Private Thomas Millward.