From Ice Floes to Battlefields Page 17

  7. Kelly, Kelly’s War, journal entry 25 March 1915, pp. 64–5.

  8. Sellers (Hood Battalion, p. 56) suggests this was a feint intended to divert the Turks from the Dardanelles.

  9. Hassall, pp. 495–9; Sellers, Hood Battalion, p. 58. It is unclear whether they did discuss poetry or whether Brooke did not want to admit to his friends that Hamilton had encouraged him to accept a staff job (a suggestion which Asquith regularly rejected).

  10. From a fragment written in early/mid-April 1915 and quoted in Sellers, Hood Battalion, p. 62, and the Rupert Brooke Society website (http://www.rupertbrooke.com/).

  11. Kelly, Kelly’s War, journal entry 14 April 1915, p. 71.

  12. The Times, 5 April 1915.

  13. Information on ‘The Soldier’ from various sources including Bridget Spiers (Blandford Forum) and Jeff Cooper (Friends of the Dymock Poets).

  14. As a guide, ‘normal’ temperature in an adult is around 98.4°F (37°C).

  15. Kelly described events in his journal entries of 23 and 24 April 1915 (Kelly, Race Against Time, pp. 381–2).

  16. Freyberg, pp. 54–5.

  17. Page, chapter 5; Sellers, Hood Battalion, chapter 10.

  18. Kelly, Kelly’s War, journal entry of 6 May 1915, pp. 94-5.

  19. Page, p. 48.

  20. Dr McCracken has been suggested as the author of this often-quoted poem (Sellers, Hood Battalion, quotes the poem on pp. 99–100, noting that a copy of it is in McCracken’s papers), but references to him as ‘Doc’ leave the question open; references to casualties place it between 9 May and 3 June (the lack of reference to Freyberg’s wound may be for poetic reasons).

  21. Members of the ‘original’ Hawke, Benbow and Collingwood battalions were still under detention in Holland and Germany.

  22. Sellers, Hood Battalion, chapter 11.

  23. His name is also sometimes spelled Crauford-Stuart.

  12

  Crossing Paths and Keeping in Touch

  William Lashly arrived in Turkish waters on HMS Irresistible in February 1915. He had been ‘discharged to pension’ after arriving back from Antarctica, but had joined the Royal Fleet Reserve.1 On 1 September 1914, at the age of 46, he had been posted to HMS Irresistible. Since then he had carried out patrol and escort duties in the Channel, and taken part in a bombardment of the Belgian coast. During February and early March 1915 Lashly and his shipmates swept for mines, took part in several bombardments of the forts guarding the Dardanelles and assisted with troop landings on the peninsula.

  On 18 March 1915 the Irresistible joined seventeen other ships in a three-wave attack on the forts guarding the Dardanelles. During the early stages of the engagement one ship hit a mine, exploded and sank and others were damaged by mines, but the Irresistible and other members of the squadron kept their guns blazing.

  Shortly after 4 p.m. the Irresistible struck a mine. An explosion ripped through her engine-rooms, killing most of the below-deck crew. As water flooded the holds, she began to list, making it impossible to launch lifeboats. With no engine power and most of the crew still on board, she began to drift helplessly into range of Turkish guns; as shells exploded all around, the Irresistible became engulfed in smoke and spray. When orders to abandon ship were issued HMS Wear came alongside and managed to take over 600 men aboard. HMS Ocean sailed across to take the Irresistible in tow but struck a mine and was forced to withdraw.

  As evening approached, the Irresistible drifted helplessly towards shore. By nightfall, still being pounded by Turkish guns, she disappeared beneath the waters of the Dardanelles.

  William Lashly, who had survived a 50ft fall into a crevasse on Christmas Day 1911 (his 44th birthday), marched for longer than anyone else on the South Pole journey and come close to starvation whilst saving Teddy Evans’ life, was again lucky and was taken off the Irresistible before she sank.

  Murray Levick’s ship, the Bacchante, had been transferred from the North Sea Fleet to assist with landing British troops on the Gallipoli beaches. The Bacchante had remained offshore to provide fire cover for troops and to bombard Turkish positions during Allied offensives. During early summer Levick had helped treated Allied casualties and in August the Bacchante had supported Australian troops during attacks on Turkish positions.

  The Bacchante had been recalled to the Mediterranean before the evacuation of Gallipoli, but Levick and his ship’s captain had remained behind to provide assistance at ANZAC Cove.2 Following the evacuation, Levick’s efforts at Gallipoli were recognised with a promotion to the rank of surgeon-commander.

  Edward Atkinson had arrived on the Gallipoli peninsula in late August 1915, when temperatures in the Mediterranean were at their height. On 12 August, the day before he left England, Atkinson married his ‘lady love’, Jessie Hamilton, at the registry office in Rochford, Essex.

  Atkinson had been sent to Gallipoli to investigate and suggest measures to contain outbreaks of dysentery and other fly-borne diseases which were cutting a swathe through British and Allied troops. His daily work involved exhuming and inspecting fly-covered, decomposing bodies and spraying them with large quantities of ‘Liquid C’ (for chlorine). He would then return over the next few days – often in the face of enemy sniper fire – to check and re-examine the bodies, before retiring to relative safety to record his findings.3

  The results of Atkinson’s work were gratifyingly immediate: overpowering stenches abated, bodies became less swollen, swarms of flies disappeared and the few remaining flies appeared to be deterred from alighting on bodies. ‘Liquid C’ also proved effective in killing flies and reducing larvae infestations in and around dug-outs, latrines, dung heaps and in men’s quarters. The fact that Liquid C was highly inflammable, greasy, staining and irritated skin and eyes was, Atkinson concluded, a small price to pay given the potential improvements in men’s health.

  While in Gallipoli, Atkinson received a letter from Cherry-Garrard; his friend had, since collapsing in July, been diagnosed with a severe, possibly long-term, case of colitis. To add to Cherry’s woes, his armoured car division had been disbanded. Atkinson was sympathetic:4

  You poor old thing your luck seems dead out and I am sorry to have such a bad report of you … [I] have been sniped and that sort of thing and it really is queer how callous one gets … Now buck up and get well quick … [Turkey] is not such a bad country after all. It is very sweet with wild thyme and sage and rosemary but they are all getting pounded to dust[;] the flies are going rapidly and the sickness dropped over a 1/3 last week.

  By early December Atkinson had left Gallipoli, but not of his own volition. He wrote to Cherry from Malta’s Tigore Hospital:5

  I have come through paratyphoid and double pneumonia and am now being bothered by successive attacks of pleurisy but I am gradually getting on top of them. They refuse to send me back before I have been to England and so I shall return and apply immediately to go out again. I have been badly bitten by the life and my work was going along splendidly when this d…..d thing happened …

  Hope you are fit and well.

  By the time Atkinson was in a fit state to return to Gallipoli, the evacuation had begun.

  Frank Debenham’s younger brother had been killed on Gallipoli shortly before Atkinson arrived there. Herbert Debenham, a Lieutenant in the East Lancashire regiment had died while leading his men in a charge on a Turkish position.6 Herbert had, like his elder brother, left Australia to further his studies and had won the Gladstone Prize during his first year at London University’s School of Economics. In the army, his evident leadership abilities had resulted in his being promoted to acting company commander; he had already been mentioned in despatches for ‘gallant and distinguished service in the field’.7

  Frank Debenham, who was now a Major with ‘D’ Company of the 7th Battalion Oxfordshire & Buckinghamshire Light Infantry, arrived in France a month after his brother’s death. After a short spell fighting alongside French regiments at Loos, he and his men had been sent to Marseilles, from where
they would sail to Salonika.

  The Greek prime minister had requested assistance from British troops to help defend Greece’s north-western borders against possible attacks by Bulgarian troops. Salonika was not known territory to most of the British troops arriving there, but life promised to be less dangerous than it was on the Western Front or in Gallipoli.

  The fighting at Loos dragged on into November, by which time heavy rains had reduced the battlefields to mud. The casualty lists, which grew by the day, included John Kipling, the 18-year-old son of Rudyard Kipling, and William Brooke, younger brother of Rupert Brooke.

  Victor Campbell’s Drake Battalion had sailed to Gallipoli with the RND’s 2nd Naval Brigade. Like other RND units, it had suffered heavy losses at Krithia, but Campbell had been awarded a Distinguished Service Order for:8

  conspicuous ability and initiative during operations between May 5th and 10th, near Krithia, Cape Helles; owing to his judgment and skill as Officer Commanding the forward line, losses, though heavy, were less severe than they would otherwise have been.

  In August Campbell had returned to London, where he resigned from the RND and rejoined the navy. He enrolled in a gunnery training course, following which he would be qualified and eligible to command armed vessels. He spent Christmas Day 1915 in Dover in the company of Teddy Evans, Francis Drake and Thomas Williamson.9 The news in London was that General Sir John French, who had been Commander-in-Chief of the British Expeditionary Force since the beginning of the war, would be replaced by his deputy, General Sir Douglas Haig. French, who had been suffering from ill health, would remain in Britain, in charge of home-based troops.

  Teddy Evans had spent most of 1915 on the destroyer HMS Viking (where he kept a toy penguin mascot on the bridge) but was in the process of exchanging commands with Commander Williams of HMS Crusader. As the latter ship was currently in dock undergoing repairs, Evans was able to take the ‘rest cure’ which had been prescribed in an effort to bring an end to a recent series of migraines.

  Francis Drake, who had come out of retirement to join the Terra Nova expedition, came out of retirement again to serve as a paymaster. Williamson (now a chief petty officer), who had recently transferred to the Viking from another ship, would remain there under Williams.

  On Saturday, 22 January 1916, Campbell and Drake were guests at Teddy Evans’ wedding at Christ Church, Broadway (which lay a few hundred yards from the expedition’s Victoria Street office), and a reception at St Ermin’s Hotel.10 North Sea storms had almost caused Evans’ bride, Elsa Andvord, to miss her wedding. Her preparations in London had been rushed, but newspaper reports confirmed that she looked elegant in an ankle-length ivory-white silk taffeta dress with chiffon sleeves, small plumed hat and white fox fur neck-stole. Evans had presented the bridesmaids with Terra Nova cap-ribbons to tie round their wrists and brooches in the form of Norway’s Order of St Olaf.

  Other guests with Antarctic connections who attended the wedding and reception included Kathleen Scott, Mrs Oates, Lady Shackleton, French explorer Jean-Baptiste Charcot and John Mather; Birdie Bowers’ mother had sent a gift from Scotland.11

  On 29 January, exactly a week after Evans’ wedding, HMS Viking hit a mine in the Channel. The explosion ripped through the mess quarters of the ship killing Evans’ successor, Commander Williams, and most of the officers, who had been in the midst of eating their lunch. Thomas Williamson survived but was badly injured.

  The following day, 30 January, Sir Clements Markham died in a fire at his home, which had started after the cigarette he had been smoking in bed set fire to his bedclothes. Markham, who had been Scott’s constant supporter, had travelled the world and championed the exploration of Antarctica, but had never seen the frozen continent.

  Edward Atkinson saw in New Year 1916 in the infectious diseases wing of Haslar naval hospital. With time on his hands for letter writing, he began the first of a stream of letters to Cherry-Garrard:12

  A very happy New Year to you and to your people. They have sent me here for 3 weeks isolation. I have been so sorry to hear of your illness and I hope that things are going better … the Dardanelles … has been the most damnable affair that we have ever had and the Public have not the smallest inkling of what happened …

  What I hope is that they send me out to the [Royal Naval] Division if they are going to Serbia or Egypt as I think there will be some fairly tough work there and I should like to be in at a fairly open scrap as this Trench warfare is the most ungentlemanly game ever invented.

  The sickness from Gallipoli is absolutely appalling and the hospital ships come rolling home absolutely full.

  By the first week in January, the Gallipoli adventure was clearly at an end:13

  The troops that came from Suvla have recently gone to … Lemnos and Alexandria … and Salonica. The Australians are going temporarily to Tripoli but I expect after a while they will all be collected again in Egypt for I think the big show will come off there at first and Serbia afterwards. I am longing to get back to it and to some work … The Lord keep me from the Grand Fleet again.

  [Edward] Nelson is well and so far has come through without a scratch. He has come out well in this show.

  Atkinson was also thinking about Cherry-Garrard’s health:14

  Look here old chap in my usual interfering way I have been worrying around. I believe a change of scene and taking your mind off things completely would very likely benefit you … with your motor [car] … you could plan out a tour or something like it. With this in mind I wrote to Lillie at Cambridge and he would be willing to help as far as he could … I would like to see you well and about again and am certain some such change would hurry it. If you think fit write to Lillie at St John’s College Cambridge. I expect you will be angry at this but I can only urge that I think it right and I want to see you better again. If it will relieve you, write and tell me to be damned.

  As his own health improved, Atkinson began considering his options. He could return to the Admiralty’s laboratories as a bacteriologist or accept command of a new RND hospital ship.15 But he was reluctant to miss ‘the naval affair’ which he was sure was imminent, so decided to wait until Haslar hospital doctors signed him off for active duty.16

  After that happened, Atkinson had to decide between going to France ‘with the Heavy battalions’ or waiting for a suitable opening at sea.17 He initially turned down the French option, but then changed his mind and decided he would be ‘happy as a peacock’ just to be back on active service. He had some news (or in some cases rumours) for Cherry-Garrard about ‘Antarctics’: ‘Silas came to [London] after I had left. I had an idea that he had been wounded but apparently not. Also Williamson tells me that Nelson was reported killed but I do not lend any credence to this.’

  Atkinson would, he admitted to Cherry, be in ‘a devil of a state’ until he knew when he might be going to France and when the ‘big show’ might happen.

  Battle of Jutland, showing (inset) overview and opening movements and (main map) progress of battle. Map originally published in Gresham Compact Encyclopedia, 1928; image © private.

  Notes

  1. George and Valerie Skinner’s website and books provide full details of William Lashly’s career (see https://sites.google.com/site/lashlyantarcticexplorer/).

  2. Guly, ‘George Murray Levick’.

  3. Atkinson’s report of 13 October 1915, WO95/4290 (from RND Journal), Guly, ‘Edward Leicester Atkinson’.

  4. Atkinson to Cherry-Garrard, 30 September 1915, SPRI/MS559/24/18.

  5. Atkinson to Cherry-Garrard, 4 December 1915, SPRI/MS559/24/19.

  6. Sydney Morning Herald, 18 August 1915.

  7. University of Sydney remembrance book, available at www.beyond1914.sydney.edu.au.

  8. London Gazette No. 29214, 2 July 1915, Gallipoli Campaign.

  9. Evans to Daniel Radcliffe, 25 December 1915, Cardiff Central Library, MS3.781.

  10. The church was bombed in 1941 (and not rebuilt). St Ermin’s was, like many Lond
on hotels, partly used as government and related offices during the war.

  11. Some newspapers list Rennick as being present; his widow lived in London, so she may have been there.

  12. Atkinson to Cherry-Garrard, 1 January 1916, SPRI/MS559/24/20.

  13. Atkinson to Cherry-Garrard, 6 January 1916, SPRI/MS559/24/21.

  14. Atkinson to Cherry-Garrard, 1 February 1916, SPRI/MS559/24/24.

  15. Atkinson to Cherry-Garrard, 17 March 1916, SPRI/MS559/24/27. The ‘ship’ was the luxury yacht Liberty. Originally built for millionaire American publisher Joseph Pulitzer, it had been purchased in 1913 by millionaire Courtney Morgan, Viscount Tredegar, from whom the government had requisitioned it.

  16. Atkinson to Cherry-Garrard, 20 March 1916, SPRI/MS559/24/28.

  17. Atkinson to Cherry-Garrard, 21 April 1916, SPRI/MS559/24/29.

  13

  The ‘Big Show’ – and a Great Loss

  On Friday, 17 December 1915, Harry Pennell settled down to write some Christmas letters from his cabin on HMS Queen Mary. Since the previous Christmas Henry Rennick’s widow had given birth to a son; no other members of Pennell’s afterguard or close friends had died, but some had been injured or had lucky escapes.1 The ‘Antarctics’ were by now scattered all over the world and Alf Cheetham and Tom Crean had not yet emerged from Antarctica.

  But Pennell knew that a letter addressed to Lamer would always find Cherry-Garrard:2

  Dear Cherry

  It is ages since I heard of you this is to prove that I am still alive and kicking.