All language subtitles for they.shall.not.grow.old.2018.limited.1080p.bluray.x264-cadaver-en

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(WHISTLING)

'I gave every part of my youth
to do a job

and to go through a savage war.‘

'It was a different war
from year to year

and one's reactions
were completely different.

The intensity changed so much
that anybody who'd been out in 1914

and went home, then came back in 1917,
wouldn't recognise it as the same war.‘

'I could only say one thing:
I wouldn't have missed it.

It was terrible at times,
but I wouldn't have missed it.'

'Oh, yes,
ifl could have my time again,

I'd go through it all over again
because I enjoyed the service life.‘

'I could only say that
l have never been so excited in my life.

This was like a boy going to the play
for the first time.‘

'I never realised there was
anything unusual about it.

There was a job to be done
and you just got on and did it.'

'We were all instilled with that idea

that this was war
and that we'd got to kill the Germans

and this was
how we looked at the thing.’

'I don't regret having experienced it.

| wish I hadn't, but I don't regret it,
because I'm safe. (CHUCKLES)'

'There were good times and bad times
in France,

but you took the rough with the smooth.‘

'l was twice wounded and gassed,
but it just didn't worry me.

| just made the best of it.'

'Just took it in its stride,
like everybody else.

We were glad to be in it
and we expected it to be rough,

and it was rough,
but we didn't complain.‘

'There was no real excitement about it.

You'd seen death so many times,
you'd seen wounded so many times,

blood didn't excite you.

We were professionals
and, to us, it was just a job of work.'

'It would be a fallacy to say
that one enjoyed it,

but one got aften/vards
a nice, warm inner feeling

'It didn't affect me very much,

because I wasn't sufficiently up
in the ways of the world.

l was only a kid,
like other blokes there.

It was more like
a great, big game to be enjoyed,

apart from the actual shelling
and all that sort of thing.’

'It made me a man, yes, it did.

I don't think
I should have ever been the man I am

if it hadn't been for having to serve.‘

'You'd learn to look after yourself

whereas, in your civilian life,
your mother did all the chores.

You've got to learn how to cook
for yourself, darn your own socks,

sew on your own buttons
and all the things like that.‘

'It was just a day's work.

I knew that l was not alone.

I knew that
I wasn't fighting the war by myself

and that what happened to other people
might happen to me.‘

'I had no regrets at all but, you see,
I had no wife, no girl, no nothing.

No regrets and no horrors...

..because, if you survive that,
you can survive anything.‘

(WHISTLING CEASES)

'We were aware there was sort of a nasty
feeling between England and Germany,

as we knew of the Kaiser's ambition
to expand his empire

and all that sort of thing.’

'During that summer,

there was a lot of talk about
trouble going on in the Balkans,

but we were a long way from the Balkans
and it didn't worry us at all.'

'It was that Serbia business, wasn't it?
Serbia, when that chap was shot.‘

'l was paying attention to politics

and I realised there was going to be
trouble between England and Germany.‘

'Well, it was
a lovely August 4th morning.‘

'We were all seated round the table

and we were starting the rugby football
dinner with the German team.

There was a German here
and next to him was an Englishman,

and next to him was a German,
and so on and so on.

And a runner arrived into
the middle of this dinner

with extraordinary news of
outbreak of war.‘

'There was a big placard:
"War declared on Germany."'

'We didn't know what we ought to do,

whether we ought to seize
a knife off the table

and plunge it into the German or what,
but after a little bit of discussion

we decided that,
as far as we were concerned,

the war was going to start tomorrow,
and the party proceeded.‘

'l'm proud of being a Britisher.

I mean, I think we're as good
a country as any in the world

and you've got to be prepared
to fight for that.‘

'There's no doubt about it,
in the First World War,

we prepared for war.'

The Empire was strong.
We weren't afraid of anyone.‘

'Everybody bought little buttons
and waved flags and sang songs.

There was no feeling of despair
about it at all.'

'England couldn't possibly lose,

no matter how many Germans pushed
how many Englishmen into the Channel,

they'd get no further.

We couldn't possible lose.‘

'We were brought up to think that
one Englishman's worth ten Germans.‘

'I thought that any enemy of England

was an enemy of mine
and I wanted to be in it.'

'Oh, six months or 12 months and
it'd be all over and Bob's your uncle.‘

'I went with a friend of mine into
Shepherd's Bush Empire

to see the picture show there and they
showed the fleet sailing the high seas

and played,
"Britons never shall be slaves."

One feels that little shiver
run up their back

and you know
you've got to do something.’

'A friend of mine said to me,
"We're going to join up."

It was from the patriotic point of view

and from the general excitement of
the whole affair, I suppose.‘

'I didn't believe in war to that extent,

but I was prepared to do my part.‘

'You see, in those days,
men weren't to think for themselves.

They just had to do what they were told
and that's all there was to it.'

'Oh, my mother was
very aggrieved about it

but, you know, a young man,
you decide you're going to go.'

'At lunch time, I left the office,
went along to Armoury House

and there was a queue of
about 1,000 people trying to enlist.‘

'Everybody thought
that it would be a civilised war

and wanted to be fit enough to go.'

'Two of us decided to join up together
and when we told the boss

we were going to start training
on Monday, he was very annoyed.

He didn't make any promise that ourjobs
would be there when we got back.‘

'My mother, she said,
"You wait until you're 19."

See, that was the age in those days,
19 to 35. Well, it was supposed to be.'

'We were all lads together, you know,

full of excitement
and all this kind of thing.

I mean,
I just wanted to have a go at Jerry.‘

'| just thought that I'd like to go
and fight for the country.

You were proud of your country
and you'd do the best you could for it

and this was what most of the young
people thought of doing in those days.'

'My mother, she said to me,

"Look, we could stop you doing this
because of your age."

I said, "Yes, I know you could, Mother,
but I'm sure you won't,"

which they never did.'

'| just felt that all the young fellas
of that age were volunteering

and I thought it was myjob
to do the same.‘

'l was desperately keen.

A whole heap of us went.
I said, "Direct enlistment, please."

They were highly delighted
and pushed me in as quick as lightning.‘

'Lots of the lads
were joining the local regiments,

like the Bucks and the Middlesex.

Lads that I knew
and been to school with,

played football and cricket with,
we joined up, hoping for the best.‘

'We were good friends, comrades

and it was a relief from
rather boring jobs at home, you see.‘

'l was walking down
the Camden town High Street

when two young ladies approached me.

"Why aren't you in the army?"
I said, "I'm only 17."

"Oh, they all say that here."

And to my amazement,
she put her hand in her bag

and I put my hand up
to sort of safeguard myself

when this white feather
finished up my nose.‘

'As we marched to the station,
some of the chaps had bowler hats,

some had straw hats, some had
the regulation peaked army cap.

Some would have tunics, some would
be dressed with their ordinaryjackets

with a pair of army trousers.

Some had army boots, some didn't,
and we really were a motley throng.‘

'Some of them were obviously chaps
who had hoped to live in some comfort

and brought suitcases with clothes
with them which they never saw again.’

'We had to all get our hair cut.
"How would you like it, sir?"

And you'd say, "Short back and sides,"

but the answer was straight over the top
with horse clippers

and we looked more like
convicts than soldiers.‘

'As soon as war broke out, there was a
call made for all ex-soldiers to rejoin

and they made 'em sergeants
straightaway,

so you got a lot of instructors
that way.'

'The people
who really carried us through

was the old sweats
who'd had previous war experience

and gave us a lot of wise advise as to
what to look for and what to dodge.‘

'We were ordered down
onto the parade ground

and then we were allotted
to different platoons.‘

'When they came to us, they were weedy,
sallow, skinny, frightened children.

The refuse of our industrial system

and they were in very poor condition
and had to be made into soldiers.‘

'Many of us had given our wrong ages
to join the army.’

'The adjutant walked down the lines
and gave an order,

"Every man under the age of 19
to take two paces fonNard."

Nobody moved.‘

'l was a lad of 17,
and they'd probably see I wasn't 19,

which you had to be to join up,

but they says,
"How long do you want to sign on for?"'

'Everybody else was joining up,
so I went into the recruiting office.

He said to me, "How old are you?"
I said, "17, sir."

"Well," he says, "Go outside
and come back and say you're 18."

So, of course,
I went outside and said I were 18.

Then straight o'er the sea
for Flanders.‘

'The sergeant said, "How old are you?"
I said, "I'm 18 and one month."

He said, "Do you mean 19 and one month?"
So I thought a moment.

I said, "Yes, sir."
He said, "Right, sign here, please."'

'He asked me how old l was
and I said I was 16 in March.

"Oh." he said, "You're too young. You'd
better go outside and have a birthday."'

'l was 16 years old in 1917,
and l was six-foot-two tall

and my father allowed me to go.

So I entered my age as 19 years old,

three years older than
what I really was.‘

'l was 15 years,
just two-and-a-half years short of 18,

and I got before this medical officer
who said, "All right, you pass."'

'l was just turned 17 at the time

and I went up to Whitehall and enlisted
in the 16th Lancers.‘

'l was 15 and I thought I'd have
a better chance than when l were 14,

so I walked into the barracks and
just said, "I'm 18," and that was it.'

'My parents wrote to
the commanding officer

and asked for me, as l was underage,
to be released.

He said, "Your parents want you back.
Do you want to go?"

I said, "No."'

'The chaplain asked me my age
and I said I was 16.

He said, "Much too young.

Would you like me to pray for you?"'

'The clothing came piecemeal
into the quartermaster's stores.‘

The quartermaster said, "There isn't
such a thing as boots that don't fit,

it's your feet,
they don't fit the boots."'

'Some men would find a tunic to fit them
or perhaps a pair of trousers.

And so it went on for nearly
a fortnight. Just one uniform.

l was in the army nearly four years.
| only had one uniform.‘

'We were all issued with
these famous puttees,

which were news to all of us

and I personally could never quite
master the putting on of puttees.‘

'The main reason for puttees were
to support the legs in marching.‘

'l was issued with a kilt,
but nothing to wear underneath it

and l was given a slip of paper to say,

"This man has not been issued
with underpants."

l was given strict instructions that
I couldn't ride on top of a tram car.

I had to ride downstairs.‘

'Now, the pack was for
everything that you owned.

The overcoat had to be folded
very, very neatly and tightly.

There was a needle, thread,
spare buttons, knife, fork, spoon,

razor, shaving brush, toothbrush,
and also a half-pint mug,

one spare shirt and one spare
pair of socks, and that was your kit.

The army razor with which
we were issued was absolutely useless,

but it came in handy for cutting up meat
and so forth.

The toothbrush,
that came in handy for cleaning buttons.

One of the peculiarities
about the army was,

although it was a crime
to have dirty buttons,

you were never issued with
the materials to clean the buttons with.

You had to buy them yourself.

We were awakened by the bugle
which sounded Reveille.

Wash, shave, pack your bed up
and pack your kit about half-past six

and you would have
an hour PT before breakfast.‘

'Press-ups and physical exercises,
arms upward stretch.‘

'They knew you were fresh
and they tried to take you by stages.

There wasn't any bullying
or anything like that.‘

'Breakfast consisted of bread,

butter,
one rasher of Lance Corporal bacon,

cos it was streaky bacon,
it had one stripe in it.'

'There was jam and they seemed to make
nothing but plum and apple, you know.

If you got any other kind,
it was a celebration event. (CHUCKLES)'

'Well, Bruce Bairnsfather's cartoons
depicted that.

They'd hand him
a tin of plum and apple jam.

"When the 'ell is it
goin' to be strawberry?"

Ooh, he was wonderful, that chap.‘

'Ticklers, the jam manufacturers,

they must have made millions of tins
of P&A: plum and apple.

J‘ Oh, oh, oh, it's a lovely war

J‘ What do we want with eggs and ham
when we've got bags of Ticklers jam? J‘

Then it would be parade time,
then the sergeant would take over

and you would have
a whole morning of marching.

And you would learn all commands,

such as "About turn,"
and all that sort of thing.’

'Having been in the Boy Scouts,
it was dead easy to me.'

'When you get the order, "Right dress!"
you turn your head only to the right.’

'Some of them managed to turn left,
which didn't please the drill sergeant.‘

'We were all youngsters. We'd come from
fairly sheltered lives and so forth.

This sergeant of ours was
the loudmouth shouting-type.‘

'Coming up against military discipline
was a shock,

being chased around from pillar to post
by disciplinarian NCOs.'

'Some of the sergeants were shockers.

They would cause a lot of trouble
if you were out of step,

or if you didn't keep time, or if
you didn't handle your rifle properly.

They were always having a go at you.'

'Most of them were all right,
their shouting meant nothing,

but some of them never lost it.'

'One night l'd gone to bed and
this pot was brought round to my bed

and they said,
"Oh, you want to do a piss,"

so I did the business in the pot.

They'd rested this big, huge pot
which contained gallons on the door

and when this sergeant came along
to see that everybody was in bed,

this thing turned up and he was drenched
from top to bottom in fluid.

(LAUGHS)'

'First of all, l was full of enthusiasm

but, after about the first week,
I wished I hadn't done it

because the discipline was so strict and
l was beginning to get a bit nervous

as to what was in store.‘

'We weren't out dancing,
anything like that.

We were getting ready for a war.'

'The thing was you were in the army,
you had to do as you were told,

you had one master, or dozens,

but you just had to get on with it
and that was it.'

'I did find that right through the army.

If you behaved yourself,
you'd nothing much to fear.'

'This was quite a new world to us,
I mean, you can imagine,

I came out of civilian life
like all the others did

and we weren't in a position
to argue or object.

It was just a matter of
doing what we were told.‘

'I liked it. I liked to be told
what I had to do,

because there was a reason
for doing it.

Later on, I realised that was
the best training you could have.‘

'The first week,
our route march would be ten miles.

The second week, it would be 12,
and so on and so on.

It intensified because
it's of the utmost importance

that the infantry soldier
could march with the full kit.'

'What you had to carry was 109 pounds.‘

'Marching was easy for me,

but quite a lot of chaps who were
in sedentaryjobs found it pretty hard.‘

'lt numbed and cramped
the muscles on my thighs and calves

until they hurt very much indeed.‘

'Oh, those army boots! I could've cried.

My feet and ankles with those heavy
army boots, after civilian shoes...‘

'So, to get your boots made pliable,

you used to urinate in them
and leave it overnight.‘

'Quite a lot of men were clerks
or they worked in shops

and the very nature of their calling
didn't make for fitness.‘

'Well, they sent me to hospital and
they gave me the cure for hookworm

and I found that
I could stand the drill after that.‘

Crowds used to foregather.

And some of the poor, deluded ones
fell for the con trick

and lined up behind us
and we used to march 'em all

down to Chelsea Barracks
where they got signed up.'

'Lunch would consist of inevitable stew.

Now, we must remember that

the chaps in the cookhouse were
by no means experienced cooks,

but anybody can make a stew
and that's what they did.'

'Sometimes, we got a bit of plum duff
and milk puddings and tapioca rice.

It was good, old-fashioned, plain stuff
that l was brought up on.

I had no complaint about it.'

'In the afternoon, it could be a lecture
on Vickers machine guns.‘

'You used to strip the machine gun
right down and put it together again

and, luckily, I seemed
to cotton onto that quite quickly.‘

'We were always told
that man's best friend is his rifle

and it was.'

'Our rifle was a short Lee-Enfield.

A very good rifle indeed.
A real sturdy rifle.

You had your ammunition pouches
on both sides of the chest

and those pouches carried
150 rounds of .303 ammunition.‘

'We were supposed to hold a rifle
with one hand,

but I could never hold a rifle properly.
my right wrist wouldn't hold it up.'

'l'd never fired a rifle in my life
but, on the first day,

we went onto the rifle range and it was
amazing, the bull's-eyes l was getting.

So, the next thing,
I was made a first-class rifleman.‘

'Above all, we learned rapid fire.

Ten rounds, get those ten rounds
onto the target in one minute.

It was known as "the mad minute".'

'l'd never seen a dead man,
or anything of that kind

and I wondered,
if it came to my shooting a man,

whether I would be able to do this.‘

'You'd plunge the bayonet into the sack,
shout like hell.‘

'They would tell you
where to put your bayonet.

Either into his left shoulder,
his right shoulder,

in the chest, or in the body.‘

'We were told to make
as much noise as we could.

I think that was to frighten the enemy.

Didn't seem a likely thing to do,
but we used to shout.‘

'When you've trained as a division,
there's 12 battalions,

that's roughly 12,000 men
who are on the move

and you're a very small cog
in a big wheel.‘

'Saturday mornings we were let off,

but we had to do sometimes
barrack duties.

Then, on Sundays,
we were all marched down to church.

It didn't matter what religion you were,
you all had to go and that was it.'

'Hardly a day passed without
the shout around the barrack room,

"Has anybody here had
any experiences with horses?"

"Can anybody here play
any musical instruments?"

"Anybody had any experience at
so-and-so...?"

So, gradually, the 1,000 men
who joined up as a motley throng,

now became a transport man, a bandsman,
signalman, and so on.'

'You didn't wanna mess about
at the parade ground

with heavy packs on the route marches.

Most of us wanted to go across
and do some scrapping.‘

'After good food, fresh air
and physical exercise,

they'd changed so that their mothers
wouldn't have recognised them.

They'd put on an average of one stone
in weight and one inch in height.‘

'Although we hated the sight and sound
of our disciplinary sergeants,

this reflects greatly to their credit
because they knocked us into shape

as regards to marching and foot drills.‘

'But, far more than that,

they were handsome, ruddy, upstanding,
square-shouldered young men

who were afraid of nobody,
not even the sergeant major.‘

'After six weeks, we were informed
we were gonna be posted overseas.‘

'They said, "You're leaving tomorrow
morning for an unknown destination."'

'You were never told
where you were heading for.’

'| just wanted to fight the Germans
and, as far as that was concerned,

it didn't matter tuppence to me
where we went.‘

'And when we pushed them through

this crash programme of
military training,

they were pushed off to France
in batches.‘

'Before we left, the officer said,

"Well, you haven't had time
to be made sergeants,

so we'll give you a couple of stripes."

So they made us corporals and,
in less than no time,

we were marched down to the station.‘

'In my mind, I wondered,
"Shall I ever come back?"

I didn't think I would at the time.

I didn't worry about it.'

'Oh, they were all full of euphoria.

They were all glad they were going.
Nobody was crying.‘

'I wrote a postcard when l was in
the train and chucked it out the window,

hoping that it would be delivered
to my family.‘

'We arrived at Folkestone
in the evening.

We embarked on one of
the old Thames pleasure boats.‘

'Well, pretty crowded.

Well, of course, it's only 21 miles
from Dover to Calais on the boat.'

'There were talks by officers to us

as to how to behave ourselves
on foreign soil

and that we'd got to respect
other people's modes of conduct.‘

'The biggest number of casualties
were NCOs

and we weren't all too keen about this.

So I went into the lavatory
and my stripes came off

and they disappeared
through the porthole.

And with that,
I went back on deck as a private.‘

'As our horses
were brought down the gangways,

I noticed the expression
on the men's faces.

There were no cheerful, smiling faces
coming down that gangway at all.'

'It was beautiful weather. Very warm.

Every village and town we went through,
people rushed out,

bottles of wine,
yards of French bread, flowers...‘

'The land flowed in every single aspect.

There were farmers going about their
business, the most lovely country.‘

'If we were passing a field of carrots,
we used to raid the field

and walk along
munching the carrots and turnips.‘

'l was dead scared that the war
would be over before I got out to it.

When I got out to France,
l was terribly pleased.

Really keen.'

'You just marched and marched until
roughly 20 miles from the trenches.‘

'We knew we were getting
close to the line,

because the gunfire was becoming
more noisy.'

'I remember the first shell,
I was delighted.‘

'We went through towns, villages,
that were absolutely derelict,

so we never knew where we were,
except that we were in Belgium.‘

'The devastation was something
I never could have imagined.

The whole place gave one
a most eerie sensation.‘

'There were stunted trees
torn to shreds with shellfire

and there were shell holes
all over the place.‘

'We were relieving men of
the 28th Division

and, as they passed us, we would say,
"What's it like up there?"

The reply invariably came back,
"Bloody awful, mate."'

'The old sweats coming back
had got their tails up all right,

but I didn't know what to expect,
just hadn't a clue.‘

'It was deadly warfare.

You were facing the Germans.‘

(DIS TA NT GUNFIRE)

Follow me!

'You got the order: load.

You put nine in your magazine
and one up the spout

and you put your safety catch on

and you always went into the line
prepared to use your rifle immediately.‘

'That's when you got rigid orders.

"No talking whatsoever!
Keep your head down!

Single file! No smoking!"

The captain would then direct you
right to the front trenches.‘

( IND/S TINC T CHA TTER)

'When a man goes into the trenches,

he usually carries a roll of barbed wire
or bag of bombs,

beside his own equipment.

That's the way they get the stuff
up to the front line.‘

'Now a guide would always be sent out.‘

Extend this part of the trench
over there.

-What, that way?
-That’s it.

'The trenches in France were a maze.

If you didn't have a guide,
you could soon get lost.‘

Smile so your mother thinks
I 'm looking after you.

Now up you go. Double up! Double up!

'The trenches weren't in
one straight line.

They were built on
what they call the traverse system.

The traverse would break up
the shellfire

and stop it spreading
right along the trench.‘

'There was a front line of trenches,

and then there was
a second line of trenches.‘

'The support line would be about
50 yards or more behind the front line.

In between,
there would be communication trenches

so that they could move through
if the front line was underjeopardy.’

'The first impression
I got of the trenches was

they were very much lived in.'

'We had to take 'em as we found 'em.'

'You would see an overcoat hanging
from a wooden peg.

You would see a mess tin
with some tea in it.

A dugout which had
a piece of blanket in it.

A bed made of sandbags.‘

'Our world was divided by no-man's-land,
a sort of iron curtain

beyond which were bogeymen who would
kill you if they ever saw you.'

'As you looked through your periscope

all you could see were
hundreds of shell holes,

your barbed wire
and the German barbed wire.’

'You could see dead bodies
hanging on the barbed wire

and they may have been there
for a long, long time.‘

'It was one of the most
desolate-looking places in the world.

You never saw a sign of life

and yet you knew very well that,
within shouting range,

there were hundreds
and hundreds of men.‘

'A platoon of about 50 men would have
about 100 yards of frontline trenches,

their responsibility.

There were signs all over the trenches:
Piccadilly Circus and Regent Street,

and all that sort of thing,
telling you where the water points were,

and which was the most dangerous part
of land with regard to snipers.‘

'You had to be extremely careful because

a bullet would go through
one layer of sandbags quite easily.‘

'l was talking to a bloke one day
and plop!

His head was smashed in like an egg.

He just happened to be in a place
where a sniper could get an aim on him.'

'We used to do a four-day stint
in the line.

We took with us sufficient food
to last the four days.'

-Got any grog?
-See you later on.

My best to Jerry.

-Mind yourselves. That's it.
-'Your day would start before dawn,

when NCOs would go round this 100 yards
to make sure everybody was alive.‘

'Of a day in the trenches,
you had two hours on, four off.‘

'A third of the people on sentry duty,
a third working and a third sleeping.’

-Wakey—wakey!
-'We just slept where we were.

No beds,
just flopped down on the ground.‘

You're in the pictures, mate.

'The trench was very wet
and, wherever possible,

we would try and get above the water.’

'We were able to dig out
a side of the trench

and that was when we used to steal our
sleep on the two-on four-off stretch.’

'Then you'd have your couple of hours
on the parapet and then rest again.'

'If nothing untoward happened,
there would be perhaps

two or three sentry groups
in the whole company's front.‘

(EXPLOSIONS, SHELLS FIZZ/NG)

'It was a job to keep awake and woe
betide you if you were caught asleep.’

'If you are so tired,
you can sleep standing up,

which I've done many times.’

'The first thing you did when you got
into the line was to have a brew up.'

'There was one thing
about the Vickers gun,

it being a water-cooled weapon,

if you were continuously firing,
you'd find that the water'd be boiling.

You could disconnect the tube
and make a cup of tea.‘

'The water came up in
two-gallon petrol cans.‘

'And we could taste the petrol in it,

cos they couldn't wash it
completely out.'

(CHUCKLES NER VOUSL Y)

-'In every bay was a little fireplace.‘
-Let's get this lit.

'You used tiny slivers of wood because,
if you made smoke in the front line,

-over would come a shell.‘
-I fancy a brew.

'You'd save a drop of that tea
to shave with.'

'Because we had to shave
in the front line.‘

'We used to put a lot of tins out
on the parapet if it rained.

You daren't touch any of
the other water.‘

'We were scooping water off shell holes.

There might have been
dead bodies underneath.

As long as we boiled it for a long time,
all the green stuff'd come off the top.'

-Nice and gentle.
-'Anyway, we made tea with it.'

'That's how I got my dose of dysentery.‘

'Of course,
there were no sanitary arrangements.

They'd dig a trench
and stick a pole across.

You'd get about seven or eight chaps
on the pole.‘

'God! To have a clear out was terrible.

People used to go to the toilet
with no privacy.‘

'Being rather a shy nature, if I pissed
with somebody, I felt a bit nervous

but, when you're in the army,
you got quite used to it.'

'It didn't matter a damn, cos there's
no women or anything like that.‘

'The flies used to crawl all over
your bottom. Most unpleasant.‘

'We had no such thing as toilet rolls.‘

'You had to wipe your behind
with your hand.'

'Your hands might have been in
all sorts, but you never washed.‘

-'Well, you heard a terrific shout...’
-(SNAPPING)

-(GRUNTS) Christ!
-'..and the pole had snapped

and the four men who were sitting
on the bar fell down in the muck.'

'There was always
a humorous side of the war.

(CHUCKLES)'

'We had to put rifles down
for them to hang onto

and they came out like slimy rabbits
and nobody wanted to go near 'em.'

(CHUCKLES)

'We had no spare clothes at all

and you were living for weeks
without washing or getting a bath.‘

'And I personally became
really badly infested

and "chatty" as we used to call it,
with these lice.‘

'Oh, lice was a dreadful problem.‘

'They were funny little things,
like little lobster sort of things

with six legs
and they used to feed ten times a day.‘

'You had to kill the bloody things.
My favourite way was burning them.‘

'You would run the seams
over a lighted candle

and you could hear the eggs going
pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop!'

'The sooner you got
your shirt back again,

the heat of the body hatched the eggs
that you'd missed.‘

'We were just as lousy next day.‘

(LA UGHTER)

-'Each man prepared his own breakfast.‘
-Cheerio.

'Bread and jam. It was about
16 men to a loaf of bread.‘

Eh?

'There'd be a little of bacon, which
would suffice for half a dozen men.'

'You put your rasher of bacon
in your mess tin lid,

put a few more sticks on your fire
and you would fry your bacon...

..and then soak up the fat
with a piece of biscuit.

Then there you are with a breakfast.‘

'Dinnertime was mostly
bully beef cut up and stewed

along with
all sorts of vegetables from tins.‘

'Magonoghie's tinned stew
was mixed up with the bully beef.‘

'l've got into French dugouts

and eaten biscuits which have been left
by the troops two years' previously

and tasted the green mould in them,
but they didn't do me any harm.‘

'This was how it was and anything's
good, you know, when you're hungry.‘

-'And people were always hungry.‘
-(LAUGHS)

'At any given moment,
you can expect to be shelled.

You got very little protection
against that.'

'One would hear a mild pop as
the gun fired five miles away...‘

-Sir, here.
-Very good.

'..and in the five or six seconds
it took for them to come,

you can pass through quite a number of
psychological changes.‘

Steady!

'I can't remember
anything more nerve-wracking

than the continuous shelling,
without stop, day and night.‘

'Well, we were always told that you
never heard the shell that hit you

because most of them
travelled faster than sound.‘

'You could literally feel your heart
pounding against the ground.

The emotional strain was
absolutely terrific.‘

'Although a shell might burst
50 yards away,

you might find a fragment ofjagged iron
really red hot and weighing half a pound

arriving in your trench.‘

'I mean, you'd seen people
blown to little bits.

I've actually had to put a man
in a sandbag.‘

'Every now and again,
there would be a great roar

-like an aeroplane coming in to land.’
-(BOOMING)

'And, in a fifth-of—a-second,
your resolution would break

and you'd throw yourself into the mud
and the other ones laugh at you.'

'The shrapnel shell
would burst in the air

and spray bullets
on the troops below...

..as if they're from a shotgun.‘

'The bullets came down,
whistling like all the hobs of hell.‘

'Another one of the annoyances we had

was that the Germans were
very active with mining.

We crouched down underneath the front
parapet to dodge the debris falling

and I got the men to open up rapid fire

to prevent the Germans from getting into
that crater where they could bomb us.'

'As the front line gets damaged,
it's got to be repaired.

Well, the people who were in the line,
they've got to get on with it.'

'I had in my mind that we expected big
gunfire to light amongst all us cavalry

and absolutely swipe us off
the face of the earth.‘

'l shouted, "Gallop!" like that!‘

'And they dropped 'em
all amongst the horses.

Ooh, a heck of a mess.

The horses were laying down with
their intestines hanging out

and men with matter
hanging out their heads.‘

-Regroup!
-'The boys, they said, "Bloody Germans!"

To lose a horse
was like losing a friend.‘

-Ready!
-'The brigadier turned to our captain.

He said, "See that the boy has
two or three days' rest.

When a boy likes an animal like that,
there's not a lot wrong with him.'"

'Over the whole of the front line,
there was a smell.

It wasn't a complicated smell.

It was the smell of decaying corpses.’

'Nasty, sickly smell.
You never forgot that smell.‘

'It was the smell of death.
If you've ever smelt a dead mouse,

it was like that, but hundreds
and hundreds of times worse.‘

'It seemed to cling to everything.

When you were having your food,
you could taste it.'

'The awful stench
and bits of human bodies lying about,

it became an everyday thing.

YOU thought, "Well, it'll be
Your turn next. What does it matter?'"

(FL/ES BUZZ/NG)

'Wherever there was a grave or a body,
there were rats.‘

-(SQUEAKING)
-'They were all big, fat ones

and we knew
where they got their fat from.‘

'Unpleasant animals, because of
the filtration into the graves.‘

'They used to feed on the dead
and come in the dugouts,

pick up scraps in there.‘

'I woke up at the bottom of the trench
and felt something warm on my face

and a little heart
went bang-bang-bang-bang-bang.

The devil scratched my face with the
claws of his hind feet as he took off.‘

'We'd try and shoot them, hit them,
kill them, chase them, do anything.‘

-(GUNSHOTS)
-'Then you've got gas.‘

'We saw this green cloud
coming toward us,

-just rolling slowly along the ground.‘
-'They'd shout, "Gas!"

and we had to take our mask out and
stick it on in two or three seconds.‘

'Yes, it was phosgene gas.
Later on, there was mustard gas.

That was very effective.

I never saw a "slightly gassed" man.‘

If you couldn't get your gas mask,
you were to pee on your handkerchief

and stuff this round
your nose and mouth.‘

'I don't mind admitting I didn't think
much of urinating on handkerchiefs,

so I went into
one of the trench latrines

and I stuck my head in the bucket.

I'll tell you, I couldn't hold my breath
any more, came up,

took a good breath of air, down again.'

'We were very soon enveloped in
this thick, yellow, filthy cloud.‘

'The more we tried to get rid of the
stinging in our eyes, the worse it got.‘

(INDISTINCT SHOUT/NG)

'I thought deeply of what the effect
of blindness was going to be.'

'But the extraction of clotted blood
and the injection of saline

could alleviate a lot of the trouble

and, as l was gassed myself,
I can speak from experience.‘

'In the winter time,
as the weather deteriorated,

so the trenches got
more and more sodden with water

until theyjust became ditches.‘

'The water was swirling about our feet
and rising higher and higher

until it reached our chests.

Our difficulty was frostbite.

Our gumboots filled with water

and, in the mornings,
we could not strip them off,

because they were frozen to our feet.’

'When you're talking about trench feet,
you're talking about gangrene.

Send him straight down the line.
Hack the legs off.‘

Give us a hand with that.

'When the water
had soaked into the earth,

the floors of the trenches
were just paved with liquid mud

and that became like glue.‘

'It was a curious, sucking kind of mud.

Very viscous indeed.

Very tenacious. It stuck to you.'

'If one had to go
to the rear for rations,

well, that was just a nightmare journey,
slithering about.’

'When it was pouring with rain,
and on slippery duckboards,

the language was really edifying.

You heard words
that you never dreamed existed.‘

'And, if you slipped off the duckboards,
you sank into

the mud of decomposed bodies of humans
and mules, and that was the end of you.'

'The boy was in the middle of
this huge sea of mud, struggling,

and we couldn't do a thing.

There was no hope of getting to him.

The look on the lad's face, and he was
only a mere boy, was really pathetic.’

'l've seen men sinking into the mud
and dying in the slime.

I think it absolutely finished me off.‘

'It was supposed to be quiet, then you
might get some drunken German say,

"I'm gonna give 'em hell,"
open up with all his batteries

and catch hundreds on the wire.

That was what they called
"holding a line".'

'We were in conditions that isolated us
completely from civilisation.

We got so degenerate, so isolated,
living in this mud.'

'And you could sympathise with
how a rabbit must feel,

because we were hunted by mankind
just the same as a rabbit.‘

'You knew your lives were in
one another's hands

and it united you closely and you didn't
let anything interfere with that.'

'You knew what was going on
within your vision.

-Beyond that, you hadn't got a clue.‘
-(MOUTH ORGANS PLAY)

'You didn't care how the war was going,
whether you were winning.

You weren't bothered with that at all.'

'You lived like tramps.
You didn't polish any buttons.

You wore any uniform bits that you liked
and nobody worried.

All they were concerned with was
that you were fit to fight.’

'lf nothing's happened,
you'd chat about life,

where he came from,
where you came from.

Everything was friendly.

There was a terrific lot of kindness
in a way to each person.‘

'When the war was not very active,

it was really rather fun
to be in the front line.

It was not very dangerous.

A sort of out-of—door camping holiday
with the boys

with a slight spice of danger
to make it interesting.‘

'We used to raid the trenches
and get a prisoner if possible.‘

'On a typical trench raid,
there'd be perhaps eight in the party.‘

'If you were going to make a raid,

somebody would cut a passage
through the wire at night.‘

'The only way to do it was silently...

..to rush it,
and that was the arrangement.‘

'We would bayonet the Germans coming out
on their hands and knees out the dugout,

we'd smack them over the head,
and throw in a couple of bombs.

There were three ways of
getting rid of him.

One was to knife him, garrotte him,
or to bayonet him.

The quietest was a quick wrap around
the throat and a knife into the back.’

'I threw the revolver at
poor little Rudolph.

He was only about 18.
I hit him in the face with it.

He screamed and came back at me
and that's when I got him.

Got him with a Very pistol.'

-Well done, chaps! Good raid!
-'| always had a full flask.

I gave him a drink.
I felt very sorry for him.

He said, "Danke schon. Das ist gut,"

and died.‘

Pick up prisoners, lads!

(PROJECT/LE WHISTLES)

'And it was
a very successful little raid.

They got two prisoners,
I think, which was all they all wanted.‘

'By the way, the men who were captured
on the trench raids

were the first Germans I saw
on the Western Front.‘

Right. What else is there?

'A lot of the German troops
were very good, very friendly.

In fact, some of those Bavarians
were damn good, decent people.

The snipers would fire, but not
hit anybody, know what I mean?‘

'They put up a sign: "Gott mit uns,"
in German, "God is with us."

We put up a sign up in English,
"We've got mittens too."

We don't know if the Germans
enjoyed that joke or not.'

'There was a wounded German,
a Wartenberger, I think.

We did what we could for him, we gave
him a bit of food, that sort of thing.

He was cursing
the Prussians like anything.‘

'The Saxons were in front of us
and they gave us the warning

that they were going to be
relieved by the Prussians.

And they said to us, "Give 'em hell!"

They hated the Prussians.‘

'Cos the Prussians were cruel bastards.‘

-This way.
-Schnell! Schnell!

-Here! Watch yourself!
-Come along!

'The Bavarians or the Saxonians
were the more civilised of the Germans.

Part-English, if anything.‘

'After a four-day spell
in the front line, we were relieved

and we had to march back to billet
somewhere a few miles behind the lines.‘

'We were going for
a supposed one-week's rest.’

'Everybody was dead whacked.

We were all pretty knocked up.'

'We extricated ourselves from the mud

to what was somewhat ironically
called "rest".'

'In the front line itself,

-you didn't criticise people.‘
-(CHEERING)

'And if you had a chap who was a bit
dicky, you would keep an eye on him.

It was like being a family but,
when you were out of the line,

you'd want nothing to do with
those people at all.

You can't call it "comradeship,"
exactly, it was the way you did it.'

-Get your mail!
-Welcome back.

'The thing which always took me
as being absolutely stupid

was that the next morning,

every man had to be spick and span,
not a trace of mud on him.'

and clean your boots.

In other words, smarten yourself up.'

(J‘ IT'S A LONG WAY TO TIPPERARY)

'The men would always appear the same:
cheerful under the circumstances,

happy as they could be, and making
the best of everything, you know,

in true British fashion.‘

-What?
-'The Cockney wit was prevalent.

And we were all lads together, you know.
We didn't care a bugger.‘

-(LAUGHTER)
-'We'd make a fuss about nothing.

Little things that didn't matter really,
it was something to fill the time in.'

'We used to have to make
our own amusements.‘

Bloody bastard.

'You laughed at the slightest things.

I think probably it was the general
tension of the atmosphere

that used to make us like that,
you know.'

'My mother sent me a parcel
with a plum pudding of all things

and I had no thought of being able to
cook it, so we used it as a rugby ball.‘

(CHEER/NG)

'We had this regimental sports day

and I won't say
l was the only sober one,

but most of 'em were,
well, merry about it.'

(LA UGHTER)

(INDISTINCT SHOUT/NG)

-Come on. Sock him one!
-(LA UGHTER)

-Come on, mate.
-'You took part in everything,

because you had to fill your time in,
you know, othenNise all you did was

-sit about and smoke.‘
-(CHILDREN'S LA UGHTER)

-Go on, lad!
-Get off!

'The only time
we saw the artillerymen

-was when we were out at rest.‘
-Fire!

(ORDERS ARE SHOUTED)

'They would be, say,
two miles behind the line.‘

-..eight, two...
-Fire!

'We wanted to neutralise
enemy batteries,

so we were registering
our batteries on his.'

-Fire!
-Come on!

'We used to know the line and elevation
because it was done by aircraft.‘

-Once they’re through, go again!
-'|t's pretty ghastly, but the idea was

to kill as many German gunners

-as you could.‘
-Ready!

Fire!

Sir.

'There was no motorised transport then
for guns.

The guns used to be
brought up by horses.‘

'Eight horses to each gun team.
Four horses to each wagon team.

-About 60 horses.’
-(WHINNYING)

'The gunners made a filthy noise,

jingling and jingling and
the horses making noises both ends

and it was always a great concern for
those of us who were going to battle.’

-Heave!
-(WHINNYING)

-Come on! That's it! Come on!
-Heave!

'Each company officer paid
his own company.

Now, it was generally the first morning
after we were out of the line,

you got five francs.

A franc was worth ten pence, so 50 pence
was your pay for a fortnight. 50 pence.

Now, that's a week of riotous living.'

'Every town of any size at all
had a brothel

and that was where most of these boys
learnt a little more about life

than they would ever have done
in normal, civil life.

So, although they were young in years,

it wasn't long before
they were quite worldly men.'

'One of the lads said, "Let's go
and have a look in the White Star!

It's like a pub."

l'd led a very sheltered life

and there were beautiful girls
with just a piece of lace on.

And, ooh, my word! (LAUGHS)
I'd never seen anything like it before.‘

'There was I, a young lad,
knowing nothing about this.

Off we go and these men were going up
regularly to see the girls.

l was very keen. I said to one of these
fellas, "I've only got a sixpence."

"Well, that's no good," he said,
"It's a shilling."

That was
my first experience of a brothel.‘

'Anyway, we looked in there
for a couple of minutes,

when four or five naked girls
came running down the corridor.

We turned tail and ran! (LAUGHS)'

'It was an eye-opener to me.

There she stood, a great big woman
with this little cane in her hand

and she belted my backside
as if I was a little schoolboy.

"Petty sergeant this"
and "Petty sergeant the other! "

Thump-thump-thump-thump! (LAUGHS)'

'Ooh, gambling! Good Lord!
People were gambling all day long.

The Canadians and Australians used
to gamble terrific amounts of money,

more money than I'd ever seen.‘

Beer up!

'The beer was very thin indeed.

It was one-and-nine stuff.
One pint, nine piddles.‘

'Friday was always the issue day
for cigarettes.

And the cigarettes were Three Witches,

which soon became "Three Bitches",
or Red Hussars.

I think they were made
from stable returns.

But, generally, in good-sized villages,
you could get Woodbines and Player's

and they were far preferable
to the issue cigarettes.‘

'Of course, we were always bartering
with the Frenchmen.

We used to barter some of our
under-clothing and get a loaf of bread.‘

'We used to swap our British cigarettes
for their French wine.‘

'It could be just as tiring
out of the line

as in the line
and it was sometimes worse.’

'If you were chosen for a fatigue,
you'd have to go on the working party.‘

'You collected stores from a big dump
three or four miles back.

Enormous bundles of sandbags,
ready made-up duckboards

and, worst of all, barbed wire.‘

-That’s that.
-'It was always hard work.

You were a bonny, labouring boy
more than you were a fighter.‘

'All the chaps were very tired,
but it made no difference.‘

'And they were mentally tired out.

They'd come out of a trench tour
for a rest

and this was the rest
they were getting.‘

Tuck it down now.

'You would be carrying stuff up
on a light railway.‘

'Yes, they laid
a narrow-gauge light railway track.‘

'It was the simplest of things,
just platforms on wheels,

driven by light locomotives.‘

'Light railways, well, they were
always a blooming nuisance,

because they were always
coming off the track.‘

'They lost control of this truck
going down a slight incline

and it barged into the one in front,

scattered duckboards
all over the place.‘

'We used to take our mess tins
up to the engine driver

and get some boiling water
for our brew up of tea.'

(GRUNTING)

-Stop messing around.
-And another.

Second line there.

'The Germans could see the steam
and smoke from the steam engine,

so then it was mostly petrol engines
which used to run up to the trenches.’

(CHA TTER AND LA UGHTER)

'The light railway only went
as far as the communication trench

and then we had to push the thing
along by hand.'

Now, then...

'Somebody came along and said,
"Oh, this is it!

We're gonna be home by Christmas."
"Oh?"

"Well, just go down the road and look
in a field there, you'll see."

Wouldn't tell us why.
Anyway, we went down.‘

'They were on the roadside
covered with tarpaulin sheets.

You could see nothing
except a square outline.'

'And then the officer said,
"These are supposed to be hush-hush."'

'When we asked what it was,
the simple reply was, "Tanks."

Knowing the shortage of water,
we naturally assumed water tanks

and thought we were getting
reserve supplies.

It was one of the best-kept secrets.‘

'We were delighted as these wonderful
machines were going to win the war...

..and soon everybody'd be home again.

Of course, it didn't happen like that.'

Wahey!

'We were taken out of the line
and had intensive training.’

'Plunge the bayonet into the sack,
shout like hell.‘

'It was to get used to plunging them
into somebody's body.‘

'Then we fired our rifles
on the rifle range.‘

'Firing rifle grenades was
a specialist job.’

'But they were clumsy.

ldidn't like them much.‘

'Forced marching,
marching without a rest

and also frontal attack,
right flank attack, left flank attack,

both flanks attack, night attack

and we wondered what the devil
all this training was for.‘

(BA GPIPES PLA Y)

'The corps commander said
that he had just received instructions

to go ahead with an operation

-to break through the German lines.‘
-Come on, Wellington!

'We were told to parade, full marching
order. We had to go back up the front.

We'd only been out of the line
a couple of days.'

'We could see streams of supplies,

mostly ammunition columns
going up towards the front.’

-(WHISTLING)
-'We didn't have a lot of notice,

but we knew
there was gonna be a big advance.‘

(WHINNYING)

'So, batteries pushed fonNard,

fonNard positions filled up
with ammunition.‘

-Let's get these ladders up!
-Righto.

'As our great push drew nearer,
the line livened up,

it began to get much more dangerous
and not nearly so much fun.’

'We learnt that a bayonet charge was
to be made on German machine guns.‘

"I wish it to be impressed on all ranks,

the importance of the operations
about to commence.

The Germans are now outnumbered
and outgunned

and will soon go to pieces
if every man goes into the fight

determined to get through whatever
the local difficulties may be.

I am confident that
the brigade will distinguish itself

in this, its first battle.

Let every man remember
that all England is watching him. "

'We marched all through the night
and it got so bad

that officers at the side
were pushing men back into line

who were straggling out and your legs
seemed to go automatically fonNard.

I had a feeling that
we were walking in our sleep.‘

'More men were brought into the line and
regiments were crowded closer together.‘

'We were filling up the trenches,
packed in like sardines.‘

'Our captain was a splendid man.
He would never bark an order at you.

He would give an order in
a conversational way.

"We don't know how far this trench is,
but it's between 200 and 300 yards.

I will go over in the first wave
and you'll be in the second wave

and as soon as the curtain fire starts,
we move.

Now, go along
and tell your men to be ready."

And this is the sort of order we got.’

'Our two assaulting companies
were ignorant of

what their conduct would be
when they got into action.

Captain Neville thought it might be
helpful if he could furnish each platoon

with a football and allow them
to kick it fonNard and follow it.

I think myself that it did help them
enormously. Took their minds off it.'

'We had an extra bandolier of ammunition
around our necks

and if you didn't have a shovel,
you had a pick.‘

'We got in the trenches
and we waited for zero hour.

All the watches are synchronised.‘

'l was what is called
a first bayonet man,

which meant I carried the rifle with
the bayonet in the attacking position

and the rest of the men
carried bags of bombs.‘

'And we warned to be ready
to advance at any moment.

"Any moment" was
quite a long time coming.

Of course, that added to
the tension that we were feeling.‘

Mind the wire!

'My platoon had been told
to go out and test the fire.

We had to get out and walk
towards the enemy.

We went about 200 yards
and then they called us back again.'

'There was to be no preliminary
bombardment the days beforehand.

There was only one short, sharp barrage
just before the battle.‘

Fire!

'You've got to have the artillery
preparation to smash their wire down.'

Fire!

'I ordered fire on possible enemy
assembly and forming-up positions.‘

-'The bombardment started...‘
-Ready! Fire!

-'..and the ground shook...’
-Fire!

'..and we could see the hundreds
and hundreds of gun flashes.‘

Ready! Fire!

Fire one!

Fire two! Fire three!

Fire four!

'As soon as the bombardment started,
the Germans' retaliation came.

For four hours, we had to sit there
and take everything he slung at us.'

'And, first of all,
a large number of tanks went in.

We could hear them
rumbling and rattling.‘

'320 tanks crawling along.‘

'We waited for the signal to move off.

Already, everybody was anxious to go,
but we waited and waited.‘

'We got no sleep that night, owing to
the noise of our artillery barrage,

which was continuous the whole time.‘

'We were asked to hand over any personal
belongings to our company officer,

such as photographs
and letters that we valued.’

'I heard soft voices
talking to one another quietly

and I wondered how many
were going to live to see the sun rise.‘

'In a man's pay book, there was
provision for making a valid will,

if they were going into action for
the first time, but I didn't bother.

I had nothing to leave anybody.
(LAUGHS)'

'The fellow next to you, he was
your best friend. You loved him.

You perhaps didn't know him
the day before

and then an hour to go...

They were the longest
and the shortest hours in life.‘

'We had unlimited time for thinking

and I know I found myself
thinking much more deeply

than I had ever thought before.‘

'Some people might
be incapable of thinking.

They might have regarded
the situation as being such that

-they were incapable of thought.‘
-'I don't think there was any fear.

It was just that we were doing a job
and if it came, it came.‘

'We realised that, sooner or later,
we were going to get the chop.

You were either going to be killed
or wounded.‘

'l was not in the least frightened
of being killed,

but I was terrified
lest I should lose an arm or a leg.'

'Waiting for an hour for an attack
is not a very pleasant thing.

We sort of chatted away,
trying to keep the spirits up, you see.

We told dirty stories
and made crude remarks.‘

'We had 1,000 guns massed
on a mile front behind us.

Well, you imagine
all this stuff coming over you

with the German stuff
coming the other way.'

'The noise rose to a crescendo
such as I'd never heard before.‘

'You wouldn't hear a word.‘

'The shells were passing over you
probably three foot, four foot,

and the air, it was an inferno
and your mind was another inferno.

Reason was completely blast out of it.'

'The bombardment created
a sort of hysterical feeling.‘

'All of a sudden, one of our fellas
started crying, screaming and crying.

The officer in charge,
telling the sergeant,

"Find that man and shoot him!
Shoot him!"'

'lt's difficult to explain the reaction
of a man when he's in a bombardment.‘

'He thought that
this man's screaming and crying

would be a danger
to the rest of the men.'

'As soon as it was light, we were given
rum, as much as you could drink.‘

'And we got the order to fix bayonets.‘

-Fix bayonets!
-Bayonets fixed!

'It was a beautiful day the way
it dawned after a rainy night.

A beautiful day.‘

'Then, five minutes to go,
I remember those lads standing there.

Dead silent, couldn't make a noise.‘

'l was more frightened
sitting waiting to start.

l was very frightened then.
Very frightened indeed.‘

'And an officer shouted along the line,
"ls everybody ready?"

And I called out, "I can't get
my bayonet on my rifle, sir!"

He said, "Damn you, mate!
Well, hurry up!"'

'I sent back a message to brigade
headquarters to say we were all ready

but, unfortunately,
a slight mistake occurred.

The first thing they knew was
this terrific tremor in the ground.

We blew a mine which should've been
under the German trenches, but wasn't.

It was in no-man's-land and that gave
the Germans five minutes

to occupy the crater, which they did.'

'Sergeant Moore,
he was standing behind the trench.

He'd got a revolver in his hand,
he said,

"Anybody going back, I'll shoot 'em!"

So that, if we didn't go one way,
we wouldn't go the other.‘

'There wasn't a reluctance
to go over the top,

not with people l was with.'

Fire!

-Fire!
—'They put a curtain of shells over you

and you advance.

-That was the theory of the thing.‘
-Fire!

-Fire!
-'I realised that this was the moment

of the assault.‘

-'And then zero hour.‘
'Somebody shouted, "There they go!"

To the left were the London Scottish
running fonNard.'

'I gave the order of,
"Up the ladders! Over the top!"'

(WHISTLE BLOWING)

'And after this, we lived in a world of
noise. Simply noise for hours.‘

(GUNS BOOM/NG)

'As soon as you get over the top,
fear has left you.'

'We didn't run.
There was no shouting, nor cheering.

Everybody was deadly quiet.’

'Just as I stepped into no-man's-land,

somebody was shot through the head
and his skull was splintered.

It wasn't a good send-off,
I can assure you.'

'The barrage proceeded
into the enemy lines

-in steps of 100 yards at a time.‘
-Fire!

'The line of British troops, fixed
bayonets, walking quite steadily

behind the barrage.

It was a sight I shall never forget.‘

'To start with, we'd had
the odd machine-gun firing,

but remarkably little, and it seemed
almost too good to be true.

'And we then realised the
Germans had been retaining their fire

until they saw how far
the attack was developing.‘

'Unknown to us, there was
ten to 20 German machine guns.‘

'Then all hell broke loose.’

'And, my God, he really opened up
and he let us have it.

-It just swept us.'
-(MACHINE—GUN FIRE)

Keep back! Keep back!

Keep moving, laddie!

(GUNFIRE CONTINUES)

(ARTILLERY BOOM/NG)

'Machine-gun bullets came at us
like hailstones.‘

'I didn't realise that
the swish-swish were bullets.‘

'I looked round
and people were dropping all round you.

I mean, theyjust faded away, you know,
on either side of you.'

'And I thought, "What are they
shooting at me for?" (CHUCKLES)'

'I hadn't gone more than a few yards
before I was shot in the thigh.‘

'There was a captain alongside me
with his revolver out

and, all of a sudden, he dropped.

And then another chap,
he was hit in the leg,

but he continued with great bounds,
hopping on one leg.'

-(CLANKING)
-'When the bullets hit the tank,

the metal flakes were whirring around
like razor blades inside the tank.‘

'You could see men dropping,
but you didn't take any notice.

If you didn't get hit,
you carried on.'

'I found myself with a terrible pain
in my left hand

as if somebody had caned me
and I found a big hole in it.'

'A man was running across the front of
me and he was shot through the body

because the contents of his wallet
were flung out fonNard of me.'

'I felt a terrific pain in my right arm

and the blood started running off
the end of my hand.'

'| just didn't think that this German
machine-gunner would fire at me

but, the next thing, I felt
a shock of quite a number of bullets

hitting the right side of my body.‘

'A hare crossed my path
with eyes bulging, in fear,

but I felt that it couldn't have been
half as frightened as l was.'

'You could see your mates
going down right and left.

You were face-to-face with the stark
realisation that this is the end of it.'

'The two in front of me went down,
wounded in the head and chest.‘

'These bloody bullets got me in the leg
and blew a great big hole at the back.

It didn't hurt.‘

'Well, life was
very, very hazardous indeed

and we proceeded in this fashion, some
getting hit and others carrying along.‘

'You hadn't got time to deliberate
upon things.

Machine-gun bullets might be coming
over, but they weren't hitting you.'

-(BA GPIPE PLA YS)
-'They say your past comes up

when you think you were gonna die,
but I hadn't got very much past at 19.

When I saw these bullets coming along,
all I thought was, "Am I gonna live?"'

'Of course, if the thing hits you fair
and square and you die immediately,

you don't feel anything at all,
nothing to it.'

'The first wave were all
absolutely wiped out.

Everybody was either killed or wounded.‘

'There were so many dead laying about,
it was hard to avoid treading on them.‘

'l was trying to step over them.
The sergeant behind me said,

"Go on! You mustn't take
any notice of that. Keep going!"'

'And we were literally walking over
the dead bodies of our cobbers.

The carnage is just indescribable.‘

'I had in my path about 2,000 dead,
British and German.

An attempt to clear any dead man
from our path was impossible

because of the shelling
and we ploughed over the lot.'

'Any shell bursting
within a few yards of the tank

seemed to lift it up in the air

and you felt a tremendous
back pressure.‘

'The noise of the battle
when you're out in the middle of it

is so terrific that you don't hear
any individual shots even.‘

'And we had to stop in front
of the German wire.‘

'It was quite impossible to advance
any further

because of the barbed wire
and the machine-gun posts,

which were about 50 yards further on.'

'The wire in front of us
was quite uncut,

despite the intense bombardments.‘

'You couldn't see anything
but this wire,

it seemed to be acres and acres of it.'

'It was just black with rust

and I don't think a rabbit
could have got through it.'

'Then, our own artillery started
dropping shells amongst us.'

'Obviously, they hadn't got the range,
or they didn't know where we were.‘

'I heard the first shrapnel shell
burst above my head.'

-'There was a terrific whiz.'
-(CLANGING)

'That was the disappearance of my steel
helmet. I never found it again.'

'I got a bit off the cheek of
my backside, a piece in my hip,

a piece in my leg,
and a piece right through my leg.'

'The fellow to my left took
the full blast of the shell

and had half his head blown away.‘

'Bullets were catching us and
shrapnel was coming down overhead

and we had all
the German artillery banging away at us

and our own artillery going over.‘

'The shells were exploding
all round you

and it was a real, good, old battle
and it got hold of you, sort of.'

'One had no sanity at all

because the inferno was so blasting
that you had no time to think.'

'That din, that numbing din

seemed to stop one doing the things
that one would normally do,

no matter how well-intentioned one was.'

'You don't look, you see.
You don't hear, you listen.

You taste the top of your mouth. Your
nose is filled with fumes and death.

The veneer of civilisation
has dropped away.'

'l was literally blown about
12 or 14 yards

and all that I could hear was the cries
and screams from the survivors,

sometimes in two,
sometimes in three parts.

Legs, arms, all strewn over the place
and that arid smell of explosion.‘

'Well, all my romantic ideas of war
completely vanished.‘

'A shell had hit this man,
it knocked off his left arm,

knocked off his left leg,
his left eye was hanging on his cheek

and he's calling out for Nanny.

His bleeding eye was hanging on,
pulsing.

So I shot him.

I had to. I had to shoot him.

He'd have died in any case
and it put him out of his misery.

(SOBBING) And that hurt me.'

'I knew there was no hope
of getting any orders

cos there was nobody to give any.'

'All officers were killed and wounded
and most of the NCOs.'

'I jumped into this big shell hole.‘

'You dropped down anywhere,
shell holes, anywhere at all

just to take cover
until the barrage lifted.‘

'l'm not one of those heroes who want
to take the German Army on my own,

so I went to earth and I got down
behind the lip of a big shell hole.‘

'Fortunately, I was able
to drop into a shell hole.‘

'We used to call them shell-hole
droppers, they would drop down

into a shell hole because of the barrage
and seeing a few of the men killed.'

'lt's a pity they didn't all drop
into shell holes.

Before the barrage lifted,
they were dead.‘

'And the bullets were hitting
the back of the shell hole where l was.

It was raining bullets.
I don't know how I got missed.‘

'From behind the lip
of this shell hole,

the dirt was spraying down
the back of my neck.‘

'There were three chaps in
the shell hole and one of them said,

"They're firing
at your bloody shovel!"

We looked round to see a bullet
go right through his head.

-So that was the end of that.'
-'A sergeant came down

into the shell hole on top of us, he was
dead, he'd got it through the neck.

Anyway, he had a lovely pair of
field glasses round his neck

and | nabbed them,
because things were so scarce,

if there was anything like that,
you'd collar it.'

'Jerry slapped shell after shell into us

until one shell penetrated
the fonNard part of the tank.

What happened then,
I cannot tell you,

but I believe there was an explosion.’

'We were fully-trained soldiers,
we always had the rifles loaded,

but we stuck in the extra five rounds
to make it a ten for rapid-fire.‘

'The Germans got up in
their own trenches and fired at us.

In my opinion, they were very brave,
very brave men indeed.‘

'There was a German standing up
on his parapet and flinging bombs,

so I shot him.'

'The officer gave us orders,
"Open immediate rapid-fire!"

We all opened up as fast as we could go,
continually firing.

It was a real mad minute,
I'll tell you.'

'They stood up and l was picking
the Germans off because I was a sniper.‘

'l was trying to pick the shot
and something hit me

between the eyes
like a Sledgehammer.

l dissolved into unconsciousness
with no pain,

but with millions of golden stars
in a dark-blue heaven.‘

'After l'd used up
a whole lot of bullets,

I got down, I says,
"You have a go, Bill."

He didn't even fire a shot,
he was killed immediately.

That's how things were.

You felt grief, it was a pal of yours,

but you took it casually because
I suppose you become battle-hardened.’

'We kept up rapid-fire there
as long as our rifles would work.

-They got too hot to fire any more.‘
-'Fat was pouring out

the woodwork of the rifles.

The muzzles were beginning to extend.’

'Then we got an order from the captain:

We must make a barricade of the dead -
the German dead and our own dead.‘

'My captain, at that time,
was anxious to go on and keep it up,

but I'm afraid he died.‘

'I had three men loading up rifle
grenades and l peppered the whole line.

Judging by the shouts and the screams,
I'd taken a very good tol|.'

'There was a machine gun spraying
on the lip of our shell hole.

I waited until
the belt of that gun had fired

and immediately carried on the advance.‘

'The sergeant, he says, "Follow me.'"

'I had managed to crawl under the wire,
a lot of us got through in that way,

and gathered together
on the German side of the wire.‘

'All the shells screamed over our heads
onto the German posts and stopped.

"Come on, lads, give them he!!!"
And we just got up and rushed fonNard.'

'In the bayonet charge,
the majority of us always had

a round up the spout,
besides the magazine.‘

'There was an exultation that with
a rifle, bayonet and Mills bombs,

we were going to be able
to get stuck into the bastards

-that had been killing our mates.‘
-'And we went like hell,

-straight into the Germans.’
-(SCREAMING AND GUNFIRE)

(GUNFIRE AND SHOUT/NG)

'And we fired at anything that moved.’

'I dropped down to my knees

and the sergeant fired over my shoulder
and hit the German.

He was on the ground but still firing,
so he went up and killed him.'

'There was only one method
of bayonet fighting:

to shove your bayonet in
as hard as you could.‘

'There was this German
on the floor of the trench,

the poor bugger was dead scared.

While I'm wondering
whether to stick him or shoot him,

a German jumped out away to my left,
another one on the right,

so I pinned this German down,
then shot the German on the left.

I put another one up the spout and
shot the German running on the right.’

'Quite a number of Germans came in
a rush and we shot them, one by one.

We probably killed the lot.'

'Some chap said, "Poor old Dick got it,"

and I looked around and saw him lying
with the top of his head off.‘

'On our right flank came
a German with a canister on his back,

squirting this liquid fire
out of the hose.‘

'I looked towards jets of flame
coming across the trench.

We'd never heard of flame-throwers.‘

'Burnt 23 of our chaps to death.
I plonked one into his chest,

but we didn't stop him, he must have had
an armour-plated waistcoat on.'

'I got a bang in the arm
and found I was bleeding.

I could bomb pretty well with
my left arm as I could with my right.’

'Somebody threw a Mills bomb
and it burst behind him.

He wasn't armour-plated behind,
he went down.'

'One German came
running out of this trench,

screaming his head off,
he nearly knocked me over.‘

'Three Germans came out
with their hands up

and they were young chaps
about our own age, about 19 or 20.‘

'lf Jerries came up with their hands up,
we just waved them on,

we didn't fire at them, obviously.‘

'Prisoners were a nuisance!

We were shooing them back,
you know, get rid of them.‘

'The only Germans we were really
fighting were the machine-gunners.‘

'They were firing belt after belt at us
and they never stopped firing.

The bloody cartridge cases
were piled up in a heap.‘

'They'd got all their best men
on machine guns

and they fought to their deaths.‘

It popped open,
there was three Jerries there

in front of the machine gun
and the bloody gun was pointing at me,

and ljust swung the Lewis gun
and I opened fire first.

It was split-second stuff.

Thankfully, I moved on.'

'As the war progressed,
it was inevitable that

we developed
the animal characteristic of killing.’

'Well, we'd got some young
Lincolnshire lads, the 18—year—olds.

Machine-gunners
were putting their hands up.

It didn't make a difference.
They were killed.'

'l'm afraid there was
a little bit of slaughter going on,

until we got in some sort of order.‘

'Everybody was screaming,
laying down, moaning and groaning

and eventually there was silence.‘

'I found a German officer
with his lung hanging out.

He was still alive,
but he wasn't conscious.

You could see his lung was expanding
and contracting as he was breathing.

It was the nearest I came to ever
shooting a man point-blank,

but we had to go on.'

'One dead German leaning
against a shell wall.

He was a handsome bloke,
he reminded me of my father.

A shell had dissected him nicely

and it had taken the whole of the front
of his chest down to his stomach,

neatly cut aside.

What a fantastic exhibition of anatomy.‘

'The real shooting was over
in about ten minutes.‘

'There was about 100 of us coming
out, instead of 600 who'd gone over,

and a band came to meet us.

It was a wonderful feeling.

I've been in a battle!
And I'm so very proud about it.'

Hang on!

(GRUNTING)

-You got it?
-Yeah.

'And if you'd anybody
wounded or killed,

if you didn't get 'em out straightaway,

they went down in the soil
and disappeared, it was so bad.‘

That's it.

'Well, you had to ascertain
whether a man was alive or not.

If he was dead,
then he was no trouble, medically.‘

-(FLIES BUZZ/NG)
-'I can't put that any clearer.‘

Keep him level!

Give us some room!

'I felt some pain, I suppose,
about an hour later.

l'd got these thigh boots on
and the bullet had gone in sideways,

all the way down the leg,
in, out, in, out,

and hit the ankle bone
and turned upside-down.'

-All right, Sir?
-Oh, God!

Jesus! (GRUNTS)

'The sergeant major brought me
a dixie of hot tea,

which was just what I needed,
it went down beautifully.‘

'And casualties started coming back,
walking casualties,

men with their arms smashed up,
legs trawling,

and they got back to different dressing
stations the best way they could.‘

'The walking wounded,
they were coming down in droves.

Some were holding one another,
some were walking on their own,

a light wound in the hand or arm,
some were hobbling along,

some were looking quite cheerful
as they'd been free of something.‘

-Hello, Mum!
-(CHUCKLES)

'My officer had said,
"Are you all right, Kane?"

And I said,
"Oh, yes, sir, I can still walk."

He said, "But you've been hit
in the back of the head,"

and he handed me quite a dose of rum.'

I got a whack on the tin pot.
I thought my head were coming off.

'The worst cases were those
who were shot through the chest.

Well, the difficulty of breathing,
you see,

you only had field dressings,
which every man carried.‘

-Yeah, we 'II have a better look at it.
-Who'S waiting, boys?

'You got a bottle of iodine
and they'd tip it in the hole.

Oh, the pain was terrific.‘

How about that for luck, chum?

They Shot right through it.

'l was not in very good shape at all,

and l was getting somewhere near
the end of my tether.

I don't think
I could go on much longer.

Every soldier, I suppose,
had this breaking strain.‘

The medics will be waiting for you.

Well done, lads. Well done.

That's it.

'We had some remarkable doctors
who worked day and night

in various stations on the British front
looking after the wounded.‘

-Nice cup of Rosie Lee.
-You all right, Jack?

'They seemed never to need any sleep

so, what they hadn't got in numbers,
they made up in effort.‘

We need a Shell dressing.

'Both my officers, all my sergeants

and three-quarters of my men
were killed or wounded.‘

-Blighty wound.
-'Their ranks were made up

with lads of 18 from England
who'd been pushed out of factories.‘

-Easy. That's it.
-(COUGHS)

(SQUA WKING)

Bloody birds! Get offi GO on!

GO on, then.

'My mob were helping
the battalion to bury these,

only little kids, they were,
17 or 18 years of age.‘

"In sure and certain hope
of the resurrection to eternal life

through our Lord Jesus Christ. "

'A lot of those kids,
that was their first action

-and they never knew any more.'
-Bring ’em over there!

'So we'd wrapped 'em up in blankets,

dug a little shallow grave
and put them in there.‘

'l was putting a dressing on a German,
and he was very, very shaky

and fearful of what
we were going to do to him.'

'But they were more frightened
than we were

and we were frightened,
I don't mind telling you.'

'Mostly, they were just boys,
as we were.

They seemed glad to be captured,
they were out of it.'

-lS this yours?
-Mine.

-ThiS is his.
-Ah, it's yours.

Put it in your pocket.

'There was a little German fella.

I gave him a cigarette
and he was terrified,

and l was very sorry for him,
really, you know.

He was only about 16.

And we had a chinwag
and ljust took his pocket watch.

You know, it was a normal thing.
We used to rob them, you see.‘

Right, let's go. Pick him up!

'Yes, they were underfed
and they were in very poor shape.‘

Come on now, lads. Pick him up.
Come on!

'And, funnily enough, five or six
German prisoners came along

and they helped carry me
and I got another six watches

because I robbed these fellas
who helped me down.'

'Every time we captured prisoners,

a number of German prisoners would
immediately take up stretcher duty.

Now, I'm sure the Geneva Convention
never required them to do that.'

-There you go, lads.
-l've got him. Steady.

-Feet up.
-You're all right, chum. That's it.

-Come.
-Keep going.

'I took about a dozen prisoners
back with me,

who were all unarmed
and ljust had my old gun.‘

'In some cases, there were
a whole lot of Germans

without even a Tommy with them.‘

'Oh, they were really cowed they were,
yes, they were very subdued.‘

Come along now!

'I slept next to a German man
who'd been wounded in the arm...

..and, to my amazement,
he started talking to me in English.

And he said he'd been
a waiter at the Savoy.‘

'I mean, I don't think
the average British soldier ever had

any deep feelings
regarding revenge against a German.

He admired him and respected him.'

GO on, Show him.

'As the war went on, I felt as much
sympathy for them as I did for myself.‘

'The German, | always thought,
was a good fighter.

l'd sooner have him on my side
than on the opposite side.‘

'Some of the Germans thought
we ought to be fighting

with them against
the French and Russians,

but none of them thought
we ought to be fighting each other.‘

-Keep on moving forward!
-'You see, the German had been

an unknown horde

with their coal-scuttle helmets,
and then we met them.‘

'Well, the German soldier,
he was a very nice fella as a rule.

I think he was really a barber
or a shopkeeper or something

and, the same as us,
he was stuck in uniform.‘

-You're too tall.
-Get you next time, Jerry!

'We got on very well together, actually,

and they used to mix in with us.'

-Want your hat back?
-Give it him back!

-What do you reckon?
-'They were decent sort of family people

and thought
a great deal of their children.‘

-Let's try yours.
-(RIPPLES OF LA UGHTER)

'They didn't seem to bear
any malice against us.

They'd had to do what they were told,
like us.'

GO on, go on tracking.

'I couldn't speak German, but some could

and the Germans,
some of them could speak English.

Anyhow, we could understand each other.‘

'The general agreement
when we were talking to Germans

was how useless war was
and why did it have to happen?‘

-Taking our photos.
-Hey! Here!

'When you're passing bodies
all day long,

it's bound to have an effect
on whoever it is, isn't it?'

'This big, fat German
was lying in a street, you know,

-his stomach was all gassed up.'
-(FLIES BUZZ/NG)

'His intestines were lying out
on his belly

and somebody had stuck
a pipe in his mouth!

Yeah, we all told him to get up!
(CHUCKLES)'

Jerries come through this way.

'German troops were very brave
and very stubborn.‘

'The Germans fought rearguard actions
almost back to the Rhine

and regiment after regiment
was smashed up and out about.‘

'We had an idea that
they were beginning to crack.‘

-(SHOUTING IN GERMAN)
-'l'd say that they were, if anything,

rather despondent.

They knew they had lost the war.'

'We, as front-line soldiers,
knew they were giving up.'

'Quite frankly, the Germans were
fed up with the whole thing.‘

'And, gradually, that is how
the war itself came to an end.'

'I got the impression that most of
the German soldiers couldn't care less

who won, as long as the war finished.’

'Of course, that's what everybody was
thinking about then. We'd had enough.’

'And after a time,
perhaps, nobody cared.‘

All right, boys, here it comes.

-We're in the pictures! (LAUGHS)
-Shush.

'There was a fella in
the war called Rumour,

he knows everything, you see,
and Mr Rumour told us that

the Germans were also
negotiating for an armistice.‘

'There was a huge poster.

"All hostilities will cease
on the Western Front

at 11 o'clock on 11th November, 1918."

So we said to each other,
"What day is it?"

And somebody discovered
it was November 11th!'

Smile for the camera!

'Then we had to shine our boots
and clean our buttons.

-We knew the war was over then...‘
-(CHEERING)

'..and we were quite confident that
we would be there when it ended.‘

'This proclamation was read out,
stating that the hostilities would cease

from 11 that morning, and actually
there wasn't a cheer of any kind raised

when that was read out.'

'At 11 o'clock, the noise
of the gunfire just rolled away,

like a peal of thunder in the distance.‘

(GUNFIRE AND SHELL FIRE FADES)

( IND/S TINC T CHA TTER)

'Never heard it being quiet.
Now it was dead silent.‘

'You were so dazed that you could
stand up straight and not be shot.‘

'It was eerie.‘

'There was a feeling of
relief and gladness,

I suppose, but no celebration.‘

'The staff officer shut his watch up
and said,

"I wonder what
we're all going to do next."'

'There was no demonstration of any kind,

nobody said a word,
everybody just slumped away.'

'The only way we could have celebrated
as regards to a liquid

would have been tea, that's all.'

'It was one of
the flattest moments of our lives.

We just couldn't comprehend it.'

'We had that sort of feeling as though
we'd been kicked out of a job.'

'To some of us, it was practically
the only life we'd known.

What was one going to do next?‘

'It was just like being made redundant.‘

'That was very much
the feeling of everyone.‘

'We were thoroughly upset,
we'd all got no work to go to.

"I don't want to go back."'

'There was no cheering, no singing,
we were drained of all emotion.

We were too far gone,
too exhausted to enjoy it.'

'All things come to an end
and even a drama can go on too long.

It didn't end with a whimper,
but something very much like one.'

'l was very happy to leave.

I'd had enough, you know.

After a time, it begins to wear on one,
you know.'

"'Thank goodness the bloody thing
is over," that was all.'

'As far as l was concerned, I was out
of it and now the next step in life.‘

'The first thing we did was write home,
say we were all right,

making sure we got the date
on the envelope right.‘

'To someone like myself,
who was interested in nature,

after the horrors
that man had made of the battlefront,

l was immensely delighted to find
shell holes in which I picked

lilies of the valley and larkspur.

And | pursued CambenNell Beauties
and swallowtail butterflies

along the banks of the Aisne River.‘

'We went to Boulogne.

By the way, we came home with full pack.

The only thing we left behind was
the bullets, we had to discard those,

but we still kept our rifle.

We went over to Folkestone,

and there were long trestle tables
with very kind ladies.

They gave you a sausage roll, or a bun,
and a cup of tea and that was welcome.‘

'We entrained to Victoria
and there we broke up.'

'We went to the barracks
and we just dumped rifles,

bayonets and everything and there were
a lot of suits on display, hats, shoes.

You could tell her which one you wanted,
style and colour and they measured you.'

'l was horrified by what I saw
when I came back here

and when one tried to get a job.'

'There was mass unemployment.
I thought, "This isn't much of a life."'

'It was a difficult thing to realise
you're of no commercial value.'

'It was a shame, the way ex-servicemen
were treated. You weren't wanted.

Some places said,
"No ex-servicemen need apply,"

and that was the sort of attitude
you were up against.‘

'One of my pals was killed
and, when I went home,

the first thing that I did
was go to his mother,

who, if she'd had a frying pan,
she'd have hit me.

Her son had been killed
and I'd come back alive.

She was very bitter.‘

'The first night I came home,

I got into my old bed, the first bed
l'd laid in since ljoined the army.

When Mother brought my cup
of tea up in the morning,

she found me fast asleep on the floor.‘

It was a thing that had
no conversational value at all.

Most people were
absolutely disinterested.‘

'When I got home, my father and
my mother didn't seem interested.

They hadn't any conception
of what it was like.'

'And there was no reason why any one of
us millions should have been favoured

with a "thank you very much"
for having got a little bit muddy

and out of touch with good manners.‘

'And on occasions when I did talk about
it, my father would argue points of fact

that he couldn't have known about,
because he wasn't there.‘

'Every soldier I've spoken to
experienced the same thing.

We were a race apart from the civilians,

and you could speak to your comrades,
and they understood

but, the civilians,
it was just a waste of time.‘

'However nice and sympathetic they were,

attempts of well-meaning people
to sympathise

reflected the fact that
they didn't really understand at all.'

'I think the magnitude
was just beyond their comprehension.

They didn't understand
that people that you'd known

and played football with
were just killed beside you.

My friend who enlisted with me lay there
like a sack of rags until he went black

before anybody troubled to bury him.'

'They knew that people came back
covered with mud and lice,

but they'd no idea of
the strain of sitting in a trench

and waiting for something
to drop on one's head.'

'You couldn't convey
the awful state of things,

the way you lived like animals
and behaved like animals.

People didn't seem to realise
what a terrible thing war was.'

'I think they felt that the war
was one continual cavalry charge.

They hadn't any conception.
And how could they?‘

'Well, it started off
in a reasonable manner,

it was people fighting
on horseback with swords,

but it developed
into something ghastly.

People don't realise
the potential of military equipment.

A man's life wasn't worth
anything at the end of the war.'

'We were none of us heroes, you know.

We didn't like this business
of being killed at all.'

'When we were talking among ourselves,
we used to say,

"Christ! They won't have
any more wars like this!"'

'How did we endure it? The answer
must be partly the fear of fear,

the fear of being found afraid.

Another is belief in human beings,
your colleague,

and there's no letting him down.'

'There may be right on both sides,
but I think war is horrible.

Everything should be done to avoid war.'

'I still can't see
the justification for it.

It was all really rather horrible.

I think history will decide, in the end,
that it was not worthwhile.'

'The only thing that really did annoy me
was, when I went back to work

after I'd got demobilised,
I went down the stores,

and the bloke behind the counter
was a bloke who I knew.

He said, "Where have you been?
On nights?"'

(MAN WHISTLING
MADEMOISELLE FROM ARMENTIERES)

J‘ Mademoiselle from Armentieres

J‘ Parlez—vous

J‘ Mademoiselle from Armentieres

J‘ Parlez—vous

J‘ Mademoiselle from Armentieres

J‘ She hasn't been kissed in 40 years

J‘ Hinky dinky, parlez—vous

J‘ Mademoiselle from Armentieres

J‘ Parlez—vous

J‘ Mademoiselle from Armentieres

J‘ Parlez—vous

J‘ Our top kick in Armentieres

J‘ Broke the spell of 40 years

J‘ Hinky dinky, parlez—vous

J‘ Mademoiselle from Armentieres

J‘ Parlez—vous

J‘ Mademoiselle from Armentieres

J‘ Parlez—vous

J‘ You didn't have to know her long

J‘ To know the reason men go wrong

J‘ Hinky dinky, parlez—vous

J‘ Mademoiselle from Armentieres

J‘ Parlez—vous

J‘ Mademoiselle from Armentieres

J‘ Parlez—vous

J‘ She's the hardest working girl in town

J‘ She makes her living upside-down

J‘ Hinky dinky, parlez—vous

J‘ Mademoiselle from Armentieres

J‘ Parlez—vous

J‘ Mademoiselle from Armentieres

J‘ Parlez—vous

J‘ She sold her kisses
for ten francs each

J‘ Soft and juicy, as sweet as a peach

J‘ Hinky dinky, parlez—vous

J‘ Mademoiselle from Armentieres

J‘ Parlez—vous

J‘ Madame, you've got a daughter fair

J‘ To wash a soldier's undenNear

J‘ Hinky dinky, parlez—vous

J‘ I didn't care what came of me

J‘ Parlez—vous

J‘ I didn't care what came of me

J‘ So I went and joined the infantry

J‘ Hinky dinky, parlez—vous

J‘ Mademoiselle from Armentieres

J‘ Parlez—vous

J‘ Parlez—vous

J‘ Went in her bed, she sure was fun

J‘ Working her arse like a Maxim gun

J‘ Hinky dinky, parlez—vous

J‘ Mademoiselle from Armentieres

J‘ Parlez—vous

J‘ Mademoiselle from Armentieres

J‘ Parlez—vous

J‘ I had more fun than I could tell

J‘ Beneath the sheets with
Mademoiselle

J‘ Hinky dinky, parlez—vous

J‘ Mademoiselle from Armentieres

J‘ Parlez—vous

J‘ Mademoiselle from Armentieres

J‘ Parlez—vous

J‘ She'd give a wink and cry, "Oui, oui!

J‘ Let's see what you can do with me!"

J‘ Hinky dinky, parlez—vous

J‘ They say they mechanised the war

J‘ Parlez—vous

J‘ They say they mechanised the war

J‘ Parlez—vous

J‘ They say they mechanised the war

J‘ So what the hell are we marching for?

J‘ Hinky dinky, parlez—vous

J‘ Mademoiselle from Armentieres

J‘ Parlez—vous

J‘ Mademoiselle from Armentieres

J‘ Parlez—vous

J‘ Mademoiselle from Armentieres

J‘ She hasn't been kissed for 40 years

J‘ Hinky dinky, parlez—vous

J‘ The officers get all the steak

J‘ Parlez—vous

J‘ The officers get all the steak

J‘ Parlez—vous

J‘ The officers get all the steak

J‘ And all we get is a belly ache

J‘ Hinky dinky, parlez—vous

J‘ You might forget the gas and shells

J‘ Parlez—vous

J‘ You might forget the gas and shells

J‘ Parlez—vous

J‘ You might forget the groans and yells

J‘ But you never forget the mademoiselles

J‘ Hinky dinky, parlez—vous

J‘ Mademoiselle from Armentieres

J‘ Parlez—vous

J‘ Mademoiselle from Armentieres

J‘ Parlez—vous

J‘ Many and many a married man

J‘ Wants to go back to France again

J‘ Hinky dinky, parlez—vous

J‘ Mademoiselle from Armentieres

J‘ Parlez—vous

J‘ Mademoiselle from Armentieres

J‘ Parlez—vous

J‘ Just blow your nose and dry your tears

J‘ We'll all be back in a few short years

J‘ Hinky dinky, parlez—vous

J‘ Mademoiselle from Armentieres

J‘ Parlez—vous

J‘ Mademoiselle from Armentieres

J‘ Parlez—vous

J‘ I fell in love with her at sight

J‘ And wet myself for half the night

J‘ Hinky dinky, parlez—vous

J‘ Mademoiselle from Armentieres

J‘ Parlez—vous

J‘ You might forget the gas and shell

J‘ You never forget the mademoiselle

J‘ Hinky dinky, parlez—vous

J‘ You might forget the gas and shell

J‘ You'll never forget the mademoiselle

J‘ Hinky dinky, parlez—vous J‘