Category Archives: Somewhere in France

RMS Walmer Castle – 14th January 1917

02 Thursday Aug 2018

Posted by in Family History, Somewhere in France, Writing about WWI, WWI fiction

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I began this series as Somewhere in France – it looks like I’ll soon have to call it Somewhere in Africa.

This is our tenth day out and as I hear we are putting in at a place en route on the West Coast and I am taking this opportunity of writing. We eventually got away on the 5th inst., after many delays, a goodly fleet in all, comprising eight big ships with some well known liners amongst them, and a strong escort. We scattered during the first night out but reassembled on the third morning on the escorting cruiser, whose flashing signals we picked up in the haze.

We are in two columns with the cruiser ahead and a couple of destroyers in the offing. We occupy pride of place at the end of the starboard column, which honour I believe is due to the rank of our commander, who looks to be nothing less than an admiral with all his gold braid.

We have had very fair weather, although a bit blowy at first, and I had some anxious moments as to the fate of my first breakfast at sea – but all is well; and now in these warmer and calmer waters I feel a seasoned old mariner. There is a big muster of troops on board, drawn from every conceivable unit, and a sprinkling of passengers for South Africa. There is a regular program of sports, concerts and dances which helps to pass the day, but like all voyages it gets a little monotonous at times.

We are on full duty however and the K.A.R. officers [King’s African Rifles] have been attached to other units on board who are bound for other fields of service. Tonight for instance I am on guard duty from 12 to 4 a.m. and again for the same hours tomorrow afternoon.

It gets dark extraordinarily quickly and completely at night in these latitudes and one gets many a barked shin prowling round the ship, visiting the different guards, in the dead of night as of course all lights are forbidden. The men moreover are allowed to sleep on deck, which is an added snare to the unwary. We have not yet crossed the line, but do so soon after our port of call. Any smoke on the horizon is immediately hailed as a raider, but no luck so far! [Perhaps he’s jesting?] We had quite a good joke over the wireless yesterday, which was the British Admiralty repudiating a claim made by the Germans to have sunk in December the cruiser which is at present escorting us.

Letters addressed King’s African Rifles, Base Post Office, Mombasa will find me sooner or later. I will let you have a line from any port we touch at. I am feeling very fit and our physical jerks in the early morning is just what is wanted on board ship to counteract the tendency to eat your head off. You would be greatly entertained seeing a multi-coloured array of pyjama clad figures doing weird contortions by numbers and the final sprint on being dismissed to be first for the limited bath accommodation.

From what I can discover, it seems that many British officers were sent out to Africa in 1917 to augment the leadership of forces there. Henry Tod might have been in this category. We’ll see if subsequent letters support this assumption.

Mombasa is in present day Kenya. As you can see from the map, RMS Walmer Castle would have had to sail around the bottom of Africa to get to Mombasa and British East Africa. 

FOR MORE ON READING & WRITING HISTORICAL FICTION FOLLOW A WRITER OF HISTORY (using the widget on the left sidebar)

M.K. Tod writes historical fiction. Her latest novel, TIME AND REGRET was published by Lake Union. Mary’s other novels, LIES TOLD IN SILENCE and UNRAVELLED are available from Amazon, Nook, Kobo, Google Play and iTunes. She can be contacted on Facebook, Twitter and Goodreads or on her website www.mktod.com.

Somewhere in France – not in France at all

24 Tuesday Jul 2018

Posted by in Family History, Somewhere in France, Writing about WWI

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Henry Tod’s letters home have an unexplained gap of more than six months and unfortunately, there is no one alive to ask for details. We’ll pick up the story in December 1916 and see what happens.

Union Castle Line – RMS Walmer Castle – Devonport, 22 Decr. 1916

My dear Father and Mother,

I received your letters of 2nd December just half an hour before leaving London. We embarked today but there is the possibility of our not sailing before Christmas. This is a splendid ship, almost the latest addition to the fleet, and there is a full complement on board. Further than that I suppose I must not say.

Came down from London last night and what a bustle it was getting on the train at Paddington. There were hundreds of us on this train alone for the same ship, which is taking troops to the various fronts in the east, via the Cape and India, and everybody had a goodly supply of kit. It was very much the same at this end and I have just been putting in a very strenuous time lumping my kit on board, as it was hopeless trying to get anyone to do it for you.

The same [I think he means his kit] comprises 2 cabin trunks, 2 wooden cases, 1 valise, 1 tin box containing pith helmet and my gun case. [I love finding details like this when I’m writing a story – adds such a ring of authenticity.] I bought a sporting rifle and shot gun, and this together with my service rifle and revolver, should surely account for something. I am thinking more of sport than Germans this trip, wherever that may be.

I am sharing my cabin with a man, also from a Scottish regiment, who has been serving in Egypt and also bound for East Africa. He seems to think the climate in E.A. will be more salubrious than Egypt, but I ha’e ma doots. It is possible that the destroyer on which young Noel Grabowsky is a lieutenant and presently in these waters, will form part of our escort.

I left them all well at Stirling. I think I told you that Chris has put herself on the active service list and expects to go overseas shortly. I took a run out last week-end to Norwich and saw cousin Lizzie, now Mrs Dr. Colonel Ogston, and they seem to be enjoying life pretty well. There was quite a dinner party followed by a visit to the theatre.

Wilson’s peace proposals arrive when I was in London, but no one seems to appreciate his interference and we all feel the same about it. It is time the Americans realised what we are fighting for but that seems to be beyond people of their kidney. [I didn’t make that up!!] Shall probably let you have another line before sailing.

Well, now we know … he’s on his way to East Africa. So that resolves the question of his wounds. But what will happen there?

I found this introductory comment about the East Africa campaign – a diversionary tactic by the Germans – on a site called The Centre for Hidden Histories.

“The Campaign in East Africa during the First World War was of a totally different kind to those on the Western Front, fought over immense distances without roads, over unexplored and unmapped areas, in deadly swamps and on remote mountains, in a tropical climate where malaria was rife. One of the more extraordinary aspects of this extraordinary campaign was the number of different ethnicities and cultures that were involved.  Sikhs, Punjabis, Arabs, West Indians, Nigerians, Rhodesians and South Africans (both black and white), Sudanese, and members of many East African tribes fought side by side in the Allies’ comparatively small army.”

Apparently, in 1916 the campaign required reinforcements.

And here’s a map from Wikipedia showing Africa at that time. Attribution: By Professor Delbruck, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=778443

And here’s an article offering a perspective on Woodrow Wilson’s 1916 peace proposal, which many referred to as ‘peace without victory’.

FOR MORE ON READING & WRITING HISTORICAL FICTION FOLLOW A WRITER OF HISTORY (using the widget on the left sidebar)

M.K. Tod writes historical fiction. Her latest novel, TIME AND REGRET was published by Lake Union. Mary’s other novels, LIES TOLD IN SILENCE and UNRAVELLED are available from Amazon, Nook, Kobo, Google Play and iTunes. She can be contacted on Facebook, Twitter and Goodreads or on her website www.mktod.com.

Somewhere in France – 28th May 1916

28 Thursday Jun 2018

Posted by in Family History, Somewhere in France

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27 Berkley Square today

Henry Tod writes to his family from London with what must have been a jarring update. He’s at 27 Berkley Square.

Here I have come to anchor at last, in hospital, after being a week on the way from the trenches. I sent you a card from Calais but I expect you heard before that from the War Office that I had been wounded. It is a slight affair and just sufficient to get me packed off here for a few weeks out of the turmoil. It was a bomb which got me, hip and thigh, and I am punctured in half-a-dozen places. They are all flesh wounds and I think they have all the metal out of me by now. Dressing the wounds is rather a painful process but I don’t think it will be very long before I am up. Otherwise I am quite fit and as you can imagine enjoying the change of surroundings to the full.

This is a big private house converted into a hospital and the extraordinary thing is that I know the owner, Mr Salisbury-Jones, who is what they call “something in the city.” I know of him in Russia where he has oil interests, and I met him when I was last over on leave at a dinner party at the Carlton with Mr Grabowsky and our London manager. When I discovered where I was, I sent word by one of the nurses and Mr and Mrs S-J came up to the ward to see me. Mrs S-J resplendent in the blue uniform and gold stripes of the commandant of the hospital, and we had a long confab, somewhat to the wonder and admiration of the other fellows.

27 Berkley Square dining room

There are twenty beds here of which eighteen are occupied, as are all six in my ward. We are very comfortable and the general contrast to the last eight months could not be more marked.

As to the manner of my wounding it is a sorry tale and I have little zest in the telling of it. I was taking out a patrol to discover and plot on the map a new crater, which was not visible from our lines owing to the other craters extending along our front and generally to find out what the Bosche was doing behind this miniature mountain range. It wasn’t really our company’s job, as we were in support at the time, but two attempts had been made by other companies, with negative results. The patrol that went out the previous night were spotted trying to get through our own wire and badly strafed by machine gun fire. The Colonel asked if I would take it on and advised me to take a strong patrol, say a bombing squad of seven men and an NCO. I thought it too many for reconnoitring purposes be he thought we might be able to cut of one of their patrols or working parties. Moreover, if we found the new crater occupied by the enemy we were to try and bomb them out of it.

Plaque commemorating WWI hospital

At about 1 a.m. we set out and left our trench at a point well to the left of our objective where the row of craters ended. There was an unfortunate moon shining but we could not wait any longer as it gets light soon after 2 a.m. We cut our way through our own wire and got clear of that and bore away to the right, wriggling on our stomachs Indian file. I was at the head of the line and had just got abreast of our old friend the Munster Crater when I saw trouble looming ahead in the form of a sap running out from the German lines and converging in the same direction I was going and which I would have to cut very fine if we were to make further headway. We could scarcely hope to get round it unobserved but there we were and something had to be attempted.

I moved on a bit and could hear the Germans talking and moving about in the sap, which I could now see was well protected with wire. There seemed to be a good number of them and I wondered what they were so busy about at that time of night. We wriggled on a bit further and I was within a yard or two of their wire, when we were spotted. I heard their excited “yah, yah” and one man started to count us. We could not have been caught in a worse place.

I passed down the word to throw our bombs and run for it, but where to run with a mountainous crater behind us? I had just got rid of my first bomb when their lights went up and a machine gun opened on us and bombs were flying in all directions, but we had no show [not sure what this means or if perhaps it’s a mistake] at all in the open and the chalky soil of the crater made a bad background for us. I had provided most of the men with revolvers, as a handy weapon in an emergency, and these were emptied at almost point blank range.

But they soon mopped us up. A bomb landed between me and the man next to me and I felt a burning sensation down my back and legs. He got it down the front and indicated he was through with it, pointing to his throat. I told him to stick it and we would try and get into the crater behind us. I hauled him up the bank of loose chalk somehow and how we ever got to the top I don’t know.

I wasn’t hit again except for a bullet which grazed the inside of my thigh but it is more than likely my friend stopped some more. From the top we simply rolled down anyhow into the bottom of the crater which had some water in it. I propped the man up but he was dead. I couldn’t make out what had happened too me; my breeches were in tatters and I could feel the warm blood on them, but I wasn’t waiting there any longer. I scrambled up the inside of the crater and was nearly blotted out by one of our own men at the top, who thought I was a German. I roared at him in pure Glaswegian, as there was a terrific racket going on from both sides, and he and some others soon had me back in the trench. I found three others had got in, all wounded. This left five unaccounted for and I could only take it the worst had happened.

I was taken into a dug-out and had first aid from the battalion doctor. When it was light, the stretcher bearers carried me to the dressing station where the doctor gave me an anti-tetanus injection and patched me up for the next stage to the village, where an ambulance took me to Bethune. It was during these operations I realized I had lost a good deal of blood, and of course I could not move – being all trussed up. At Bethune I was put under an anaesthetic, x-rayed, and the wounds thoroughly cleaned and after three days treatment here, I was put on a barge, fitted up like a hospital, and floated down the La Bassee Canal to Calais. [A distance of roughly 90KM or 56 miles.]

The case next to me was the adjutant of the Royal Scots whose headquarters dug-out I think I told you got a shell all to itself. He was hopelessly mauled and practically unconscious and died in Calais. I was three days in Calais before being shipped to Dover and thence to London.

This is a long winded effort and has taken days to write. I was glad to learn from the balloon that two others of my patrol got back to our lines the following night, after spending about 24 hours in a shell hole.

Will close now and duly report progress.

I can tell you I had no idea of Henry Tod’s wounds. He has such an understated way about him. My husband remembers from family stories that Henry Tod was connected with Russia in some business dealings, but the details are lost.

FOR MORE ON READING & WRITING HISTORICAL FICTION FOLLOW A WRITER OF HISTORY (using the widget on the left sidebar)

M.K. Tod writes historical fiction. Her latest novel, TIME AND REGRET was published by Lake Union. Mary’s other novels, LIES TOLD IN SILENCE and UNRAVELLED are available from Amazon, Nook, Kobo, Google Play and iTunes. She can be contacted on Facebook, Twitter and Goodreads or on her website www.mktod.com.