Up at 6 o’clock. Shaved and dressed. Detailed off for water duties. Pump smashed so they had to go to town for water and I got off. Took pay books up for pay. Read a bit. Walked into Vignacourt at night. It rained as we were going up.
Snails†. Big spider. Charlie Ford and the lot of them drunk and had a sing song.
Up at 6 o’clock. Detailed off for fatigue and told to sweep up first and then had to wash out the hospital. Finished about 9 o’clock and did nothing further. Wrote letter in the afternoon. Meals as usual. ASC1 section returned and were pretty full of what they had seen. A lot of dirtiness talked. Went to a service at night in the village with Lee and La Vere2. C of E and enjoyed it very much. Sang “O Jesus I have promised.” Called in at the R.C. church. A soldier playing the organ and played all sorts of things. Pretty organ. Some missionary figures in the church. All coloured. Splendid windows. Big, high church. Met a chap who objects to swearing. Walked back with him.
Up at 6 o’clock. On fatigue again in the morning. Meals as usual. Went to the village1 at night and purchased some things.
“The village”: Vignacourt again? ↩
Up at 6 o’clock. Shaved and washed in a bucket of pond water, – green. Scrambled through breakfast, dinner and tea. Got to know men a bit better . On fatigue in the morning and afternoon. Physical drill first thing in the morning – a short double. Beginning to get to know men better.
Paraded before a Captain Newton and told him that I had been a lance-corporal1.
See note on 31 May about ALL’s possibly mistaken demotion to Private while aboard Karnak. In an interview given in 1976, ALL recalled a conversation with an officer about his demotion shortly after his arrival in France. This may have been the same conversation with “Captain Newton” as is recorded in this diary entry, although ALL did not mention a name during the interview.
ALL said, “When I was made Lance Corporal in the barracks at Sheffield, I was full Lance Corporal with pay. I was moved up to Alnwick. We came back and we were there a month or two before I went to France. Now almost invariably Lance Corporal was acting rank and when he crossed overseas he took down his stripes and when I was on the boat there was a strange officer who didn’t know me at all and said ‘take your stripes down’ and I did as I was told. When we got to the unit in France where I was going to, I remember the officer who saw me, examined you when you joined up. He looked up at me and he said ‘but you were a Lance Corporal and now you are a Private’. He said ‘do you mind acting as a Private?’ I said, ‘no, not at all.’ He said, ‘alright’, but I had Lance Corporal’s pay.” ↩
Arrived Longpré1 and told this is end of our train ride. Had a wash at the engine-filling water crane. Got on to motorcars at about 3 o’clock and arrived at dumping place about 5 o’clock. Walked to ADMS2 office and were detailed off for Hallencourt3. Arrived about 6 o’clock. Had a drink of tea. (Had our rations for tea on the road side.) Were told off to sleep in a barn with the other chaps. Walked to the close† village – Vignacourt4 .
First impressions not very good, but hope for better things. Slept fairly well.
Longpré: Probably Longpré-les-Corps-Saints (A on the map marks the location of the railway station there); 14km SE of Abbeville, on D3; ref D7; written in shorthand, but can’t be anything else; this Longpré is the only one in the gazetteer of the Michelin map (see editorial note on Michelin map), but the nature of the overnight rail journey makes it impossible to confirm it by estimating its distance from Rouen. Consequently there is no way of confirming my transcription (Vignacourt) of the nearby village. The camp with the ADMS office was apparently 2 hours by motor transport from Longpré, but with the primitive nature of both transport and roads, the distance may not have been great. ↩
“ADMS”: probably Assistant Director of Medical Services. ↩
Hallencourt (B): transcription uncertain – but Hallencourt is in the right area – 8km WSW of Longpré-les-Corps-Saints, ref D8. ↩
Vignacourt (C) [14km NW of Amiens; ref F7] is the only identification I can make, reasonably – or remotely – plausible for the shorthand, for the village adjacent to the camp, and the distance could have been up to 20km before the modern roads were built. Vignacourt could be about the right distance from Rainnecourt (see 16 June); 14km as the crow flies, and there seem to be fairly direct small roads – where ALL says an 8-mile march. (DL) ↩
Up at 5 o’clock. Breakfast at 9 o’clock.Paraded for gas helmets. Had dinner at 11 o’clock. Paraded squad 11.45. Left some of the men including Green to follow 1.15. Marched down to station. Had a bit bother about getting into the train. Left at 3.50. Train moved very slowly. Stopped at siding place all night and we left the train about 8.30 and got some tea and cake at a canteen. Tried to sleep at night but pretty uncomfortable and cold.
Received news of the loss of Kitchener1 on the Hampshire.
Field-Marshal Earl (Herbert) Kitchener of Khartoum (1850 – 1916): secured Sudan, 1898; Commander-in-Chief, 2nd Boer War, 1900 – 02; Commander-in-Chief, India (1902 – 09; the Viceroy, Lord Curzon, resigned), then Consul-General in Egypt; Secretary of State for War (1914 – 16); was going to Russia for negotiations in the Tyne-built cruiser HMS Hampshire (which had been present at the Battle of Jutland a few days before: see reference on 31 May.) It struck a mine West of Orkney, in bad weather, on 5 June. K’s home was Broome Park, at Denton near Canterbury. ↩
Up at 5 o’clock. Breakfast at 6 o’clock. Two route marches morning and afternoon. Detailed off for places. Green 12†th Division1 and I to the 19th. All the party hopelessly split up. Walked round camp at night. Said goodbye to Bennett, Metcalfe, Salisbury, Pinkney and one or two more.
This looks something like (figures) 12th, but no 12th Division was there at the start of the Somme (I assume that this RAMC draft had been sent out specially for the build-up of troops for the Somme offensive.) I can’t interpret the characters as shorthand for any of the Divisional numbers which were there. ↩
Up at 5 o’clock. Breakfast at 6 o’clock. Paraded at 9 o’clock and went on to the Moors parade ground where we were lectured on gas attacks and then passed through a test with the helmets on.1 On route march in the afternoon by the forest. Walked round camp at night. Went to Y.M. Route march in the morning.
Deleted by ALL, presumably entered in wrong day. ↩
Up at 9.15 5 o’clock. Paraded for breakfast 6 o’clock, dressed for church parade. Went to church in Y.M. and stayed to sacrament. Enjoyed short service. Paraded for letters. Had walk out at night. Met a lot of the Alnwick lads.
Received some hopeful news of sea fight1. Germans pretty well beaten.
Up at 5 o’clock. Breakfast at 6 o’clock. Paraded at 8.45 and went to the big parade ground. Were lectured on gas helmets, given one each, and put through a gas test. Our buttons nicely blackened1. Very interesting. Heavy shower as we sat. Wrote letter to Mr Inwood in the afternoon. Went to lecture by an Indian doctor at night. Went to bed shortly after 9 o’clock.
Received news of North Sea fight2.
“Our buttons nicely blackened”: Following the first use of gas by the Germans at Ypres, a team of scientists was sent to Belgium to find out what gas was being used. They identified chlorine from the way it had discoloured buttons on soldiers’ uniforms. Given the blackening of buttons noted here by ALL, it seems likely that chlorine was also the gas used for this test. ↩
Presumably the news of the Battle of Jutland reaching ALL. ↩