From the Viewpoint of a Trumpeter

by

Capt. Essex Lewis DCM

On the 22 November 1859, the Gloucestershire Volunteer Artillery was formed, making it's headquarters at the Artillery Ground, Whiteladies Rd. Clifton, Bristol. The unit started with five batteries with a sixth added later.

Starting in 1906, the Secretary of State for War Richard Haldane's Reforms were designed to better prepare the armed forces for future wars and involved a reorganization of the regular, volunteer and militia forces. The Territorial and Reserve Forces Act of 1907 saw the formation of the Territorial Force which consisted of fourteen infantry divisions, fourteen cavalry brigades, and a large number of support units including fully established divisions, provided with field artillery, companies of engineers and crucial supply services, including medical provision.

The Gloucestershire Volunteer Artillery became the 1st (South Midland) Brigade RFA (T) in 1908, with a further change of name in 1915 to the 240th Brigade RFA (T), under which it served throughout the First World War.

Writing without data, and after a lapse of 17 years, the first thing one realises is that the meshes of the net of memory are wider than one imagined and that certain facts, dates and places once so important, have slipped through into the limbo of things forgotten, temporarily at any rate. So what follows here must of necessity be open to correction from more detailed sources.

Unlike the other Territorial units of Bristol, the 1st S.M. Bde R.F.A. had completed it's training on Salisbury plain at Whitson 1914, and was not assembled when War was declared.

All ranks reported at once to Artillery grounds and beyond the immediate strength of the brigade, there appeared officers and men of the National Reserve, former members of the Brigade, and of it's predecessor, the old garrison Artillery - Volunteers, Soldiers of Regular Reserve reporting to the Brigade as the nearest Artillery Unit, men on furlough doing the same, and a leaven of the old hard-bitten, battery-terror-barrack-room-lawyer type of old soldier whose past service caused him, in many cases to abandon its history, and hope that fate might be kindly as to include none of his former associates in the unit to which he sought to belong. One can recall the antagonistic glances that one saw between two men who swore when questioned that they "didn't know no one in the unit".

Horses, recruits, stores accumulated rapidly, but not uniforms, and the Brigade was a sight to see with certain of it's members wearing, say, an old pattern dress cap, a tweed jacket, corduroy breeches and possibly stockings and boots, or as a variant, the blue overalls of full dress with brown shoes. What we lacked in uniformity we more then made up in variety. The battery from Gloucester joined us and billeting, as far as one can recall, was in the drill hall and Victoria Rooms. One remembers, too, weary journeys with a led horse on either hand to Temple Meads Station and back to Hqrs, through the purpose of these journeys is forgotten.

The Brigade finally entrained at Pylle Hill and thence to Plymouth, Its appointed war station in the event of mobilization. What followed is described from the point of view of a trumpeter.

Plymouth seemed to be the allotted war station of half the Mobilising Army. It's streets were full of the returning Reservists and Militia men All going back to rejoin their old Regiments, many thankful for the prospect of a bed, board and pay as and when required after a none to successful bout with civilian life- "A man of five and twenty as 'asn't learned a trade, with 'Reserve' as well agin' 'im, 'E's better never made"

Add to this crowd for at least for at least three Regiments of Foot, the returned naval ratings of the Plymouth Division Reserve and the caught on leave soldiers and sailors, and it will be realised that Plymouth could have spared the 1st S.M. Bde R.F.A. its appearance on the scene. Raglan barracks and the Brickfields stand out as the landmarks of that hectic period, with nights in the Plymouth streets and suppers at the fish and chip shops, or strolling back to barracks consuming the same fare from newspaper and crooning, "You made me love you, I didn't want to do it".

The warm, and mercifully fine August days went far to help us shake in to soldiering, and at least once the battery took horses swimming.

Then the move to Crownhill and tents. 16 in a tent (to hold 8) obtained for a time and the number never fell below 12, one believes.

At this point there arrived from Bristol the first draft of recruits to fill up holes. For, though at this distance of time the old discussions, objections and quarrels are dead, the brigade had been cleft in two by a refusal of certain of its members to serve out of England. Time has shown those who volunteered for Imperial Service, and wore the silver badge on the right breast, that they were no more free in there choice than whose who, on paper, refused to go overseas, but the cleavage left the batteries short of I.S. men and the vacancies were immediately filled from Bristol with men, some newly joined, some of previous service, and all ready to go anywhere at once.

Speaking again from the point of view of a trumpeter one recalls that at Crown Hill the Brigade began to throw off the spirit of a long camp and to realise that it was to be at this job for more than a 14 days.

We hardened to the over crowded life of 16 (or 12) in a tent, and an early essay was that of inoculation against typhoid. A tent crowded beyond it's capacity is at the best difficult to bear with, but add to this a collection of swollen and tender left arms, and the tortures of the dammed come within understandable distance.

Our days were very full. Early Reveille, Stables, Breakfast, Boot and Saddle, Squad parades. And then move off to training on Dartmoor at the Yelverton end. Memories of comfy wagon lines behind gorse and amongst bracken and heather, the drivers lying down and the teams cropping at the short moorland turf to the clink of bits, snatches of song, and of grousing. The short throaty growl of the men, whose horses were chafing at the delay and attempting to kick each other, the warning shout and the scramble to get mounted. The trot to the guns in action a few hundred yards ahead. Limbering-up, reforming and getting away again and the frequent curt "Put that cigarette out", for civilian habits are not likely broken.

One recalls one thrilling morning when the guns were in action in the heather, seeing the Argyll and Sutherland highlanders rise suddenly from the bracken and charge with fixed bayonets. That it was a dummy action and a D.P. charge mattered not at all. That was the spirit of those days.

In September the Brigade furnished Depot parties for the landing of the Canadian Army. The writer was on Plymouth Hoe and saw the troopships arrive from Canada with her first contribution to the Mother country. The escorting destroyers turned out at the breakwater and the troopships passed through.

That night was a riot in Plymouth and one saw the Silent Service demonstrate, yet once again that it can be most things to all men, especially whose who have fallen by the wayside.

On October 20th, the Brigade was moved to join its division at Chelmsford in Essex. We occupied the village of Broomfield, and arrived there in the early afternoon. A memory sticks out of autumn tints, fallen leaves all along the hedge bottoms and gutters, and an old - world village green flanked by the "Quality" houses, the vicarage and the church.

On this green we erected the Brigade water troughs, so that within an extraordinary short time we had furnished with our first imitation of the conditions overseas which we were to encounter at first hand later. Clothing had arrived and at last we looked more like the thing we should be. The rains and high winds of November saw us attacked by ringworm among the horses. Case after case broke out, and as each one was reported a man, with its nosebag and grooming kit moved it to a village called Little Waltham, which became in fact one huge sick line. Organised training suffered in consequence and guards and flying pickets seemed to be the order of the day. The open lines in fields were abandoned and the hoses stabled in barns. This meant that the command "right Turn-stables" bought with it a walk of perhaps a mile to certain subsections.

In early December the first leaves came through and we returned to Bristol for a few days to sun our lean selves in the smiles of our old city.

Christmas brought such festivities as our officers could manage and they worked wonders. The writers own battery sat down in the village school to a Christmas dinner such as is seldom imagined and never described. The impromptu concert, which followed included "Gunga Din" and "The Fatal Rose of Red" rendered by the Major's groom.

March saw us free from ringworm and with stores arriving almost hourly; Rumour was abroad. Nor was the necessity for secrecy forgotten, One incautious corporal having been told that Solar Topees had been seen going into the stores, led his sub-section in singing "Egypt, my Cleopatra" and was rebuked on the grounds that German spies might hear him.

The last days in England had been reasonably fine and one recalls lying beside a river with a pal on a curiously warm Sunday and wondering where one would be next Sunday. It was a flash of early spring, and warm sunshine left a cheery little memory of the final contact with our training ground.

On March 28th we left Broomfield for Southampton and embarked on the S.S. Huanchaco. It was an exciting moment when one led one's horse to the steeply sloping gangway and was told to "give him plenty of rope" A Cut of the whip and one raced up the ridged gangway fairly dragged by the frightened horse to a deck whitewashed and baled for stabling, harness and saddlery were kept on, bits removed and girths loosened. The crossing was uneventful as was the train journey up from Havre to Hazebrouck where we arrived after dark.

As Captains trumpeter, the writer was the last to leave the station riding behind the battery Capt A. E. Stone. We trotted some little way when Capt Stone turned in his saddle and held up a forefinger. We were hearing the first rumble of gunfire and felt that we were on Active Service at last.

Night saw us at Rouge Croix, a village behind the messiness front. It was Easter Sunday. On moving up towards the line, we passed our old friends the 4th and 6th Gloucester's on the march.

Late afternoon found the batteries in action in positions behind the ridge overlooking Messines. It rained hard, as it had indeed, all day, and we felt that this was the real thing. Guns were in front of Neuve Eglise village and wagon lines behind it.

In the light of what followed, one looks back on Neuve Eglise days as a very gentle breaking into the job. We built or planted foliage about the guns for concealment and each battery seemed to have a farm at the end of it's position to which the subsections repaired for morning coffee served by Madame. This was the period of shortage of ammunition, and the writer remembers carrying an ever - increasing sheaf of papers to and from bridge and divisional R.A. at Nieppe. Which attempted to explain why four rounds had been fired during a single action in response to an S.O.S. from the infantry. The figure may be incorrect but the correspondence grew and grew.

Spring came on us here. Primroses appeared almost on the battery position, and there were still enough trees in the country to collect bird's eggs. These were blown and given to the Major whose small daughter collected them. At a cottage not far away lived Madame Zeppelin, who, said rumour pinched chocolate and cigarettes from our parcels out from home, and sold them to 'C' battery at war prices.

The evenings lengthened and as the nights became warmer, song parties used to gather and give tongue. One recalls how, when taking a message one evening to C battery one saw the black silhouettes of the guns against a moon-silvered sky and heard the notes of a violin playing "There's an old mill by the stream, Nelly dear". Presently the men joined in and sang with such fervour that they seemed to be wallowing in the most acute misery.

In June, a new Army division came in for a short period of training beside us, and our personnel withdrew to wagon lines where sports were held. The Major's groom, mounted on a mule, and fantastically garbed, was a splendid clown and kept the show in a roar of laughter.

July saw us marching south as a division to take over a portion of the line hitherto occupied by the French.

The trek was a wonderful experience and seemed to put the seal on our indentures as soldiers. One felt that the Brigade was real active service at last and up to it's job. Various halts were made but the longest stay was at Ferfay outside Lillers.

The Brigade was in a private wood with an open space in the centre and 4 clearings. Each clearing took one battery and the Brigade Hqrs the men built bivouacs of twigs and groundsheets and some little ingenuity was displayed in the construction of these. Water was very scarce and had to be brought from a long distance away. The chateau housed the officers, and as each battery had collected at least two goats as mascots, a special line was erected for these against the chateau wall. In choosing the sites, no one seems to have remembered that directly above the line was the window of the Brigade Commander's room. At his urgent representation the line was removed, and the mascots disposed of.

During the stay at Ferfay, we saw our own Indian Cavalry and admired their physique and turn out, which contrasted oddly with that of the French Moroccan troops who were also in the district. Here too we spent an evening in an Astiminet with the men from the French 75 battery and found that music forms a wider international currency than even beer! Both batteries rendered samples of their national songs, sometimes simultaneously.

From here we also dispatched details to Mazingarbe for a special show. They rejoined us later but had not fired a round.

Finally we entrained Lillers and came to Thievres where after two nights (one in a blinding thunderstorm) we trekked to up through Authie, Coigneux, Sailly-Au-Bois to Hebuterne on the August Bank Holiday 1915. Here we relieved the French and saw dugouts for the first time.

And this sector became to be looked upon by us all as particularly our property, for it was manned by us the 48th division for the next eleven months.

H. Essex Lewis
1932

Sources and Resources

Derek Driscoll's original pages

From the viewpoint of a Trumpeter by Capt. Essex Lewis DCM
From the viewpoint of a Trumpeter by Capt. Essex Lewis DCM