Authors: Jon E. Lewis
It was late in the afternoon of a day in October. We had done our two raids, and imagined our work was over for the day, when a message came from the wing commander, asking for volunteers to bomb Peronne, the possession of which our troops were stoutly contesting.
Everybody volunteered; we couldn’t refuse. We were assured that it was an easy job, that there would be no ‘Archie’ left in the town, and that we should be back before dark. There was no time to gain height and we must do our job at 2,000 feet, a most unusual thing for us, with our engines specially designed for use at high altitudes.
We approached the lines as dusk was falling. All around us guns flashed incessantly. It seemed that the air must be full of projectiles. I have no idea how high a shell travels, but I went in fear of being knocked to pieces any minute.
Then ‘Archie’ started. At such a range he could be very effective, and we had experienced nothing like it before. Still we kept steadily on, to meet a new horror as we approached the town.
Long strings of balls of fire began to float up. Sometimes slowly, then accelerating, one could not judge their speed. Sooner or later one must become entangled and fall to a hideous death.
Now we were over the town. I signalled to my partner to drop his bombs. As he did so, the engine began to splutter, and the nose dropped. I looked at the revolution indicator: the engine had fallen off to half its speed. Hastily I swung round, so hastily, indeed, that for some seconds my compass card continued to swing and I could not be sure in which direction we were flying. Our only hope now was to clear the lines. We could no longer fly horizontally, the only thing was to glide at as small an angle as possible and trust to luck.
Now we were alone ‘Archie’ recommenced, and so near were his shots that in the disturbed air we were tossed like a leaf in the wind. Tracer bullets pelted from below as we crossed the lines only a few hundred feet up.
We kept up as long as possible, but a very convenient field not badly scarred by shell holes enabled us to make a safe landing. Even then we were not really sure we were among friends until a khaki uniform appeared. My observer was so overjoyed that he wrung the hand of this bewildered artilleryman, then complained of a wound in the head. Gingerly we untied his helmet. Not a scratch! It was a case of shell shock. ‘Archie’ had been a bit too close. ‘
I spent the night with a battery of howitzers near by, and after phoning up my squadron got my engine repaired, it was a minor mishap, and I flew back next day.
As I say, these particular flights were exceptional. The one I remember best was the last one I ever did. It was uneventful, but I was panic-stricken the whole time. I was to go on leave next day, and I could not drive away the fear of catching a stray bullet on this raid, after having done over 100 without a scratch. However, I did come back safely, and next morning, as I waited for the car to take me on leave the C.O. popped his head out of his hut and said, ‘The war’s over!’
It was November 11th.
Harold F. Taylor was commissioned in the R.F.C. in January 1918 at the age of eighteen, and after the usual training was sent in July 1918 to 205 Squadron, operating on the Somme. He flew the DH4 and the DH9 daylight bombing machines, carrying out reconnaissance, photography, and bombing, sometimes doing two and three raids a day, and visiting St. Quentin, Busigny, Namur, and Dinanl among other towns. Richthofen’s famous ‘Circus’ was still lively. Though three observers were wounded when flying with him, Lieutenant Taylor came out unscratched to the end of the War. Moving up after the Armistice, his squadron was engaged: on the earliest air mail, carrying mails from Cologne to the French coast. He was demobilized in April 1919
.
Like so many others when war was declared, I applied at once to the St. John Ambulance, to which I belonged, to know if there was any possibility of their making use of me, my only recommendation being three months’ training in the London Hospital.
I was told that only trained nurses were wanted, and so gave up hope, but three days later the British Red Cross got an appeal for forty nurses to be sent out to Belgium; five St. John Ambulance nurses (V.A.D.s later on) were being sent, and I was asked if I would go. I naturally accepted with alacrity, and August 14th found us in Brussels. Most of us were taken to the Hotel Metropole, where we were to await orders. As there was a big battle expected any day, we should all be badly wanted.
Next day some of the nurses were sent to hospitals outside Brussels, and others, including M., my cousin (who was a fully trained nurse), and myself, were given posts in the Royal Palace, which posts, however, we never filled, as the next thing we heard was that the Germans were outside the gate of Brussels, and all the allied wounded were to be evacuated to Antwerp.
We were then given the option of returning to England at once; some returned, but we, M. and I amongst others, elected to remain, as we were told we were wanted outside Brussels.
At 3 p.m. next day the Germans marched in; it was a soul-stirring sight, seeing these impassive and tired-looking troops marching in to what seemed like a deserted town, every door and window shuttered and barred, and not a civilian to be seen, or a sound to be heard, save the steady tramping of the German troops, regiment after regiment, guns, cavalry, Uhlans with their fluttering pennons on their lances. One felt that thousands of Belgians were waiting and watching behind their shuttered doors and windows, with bated breath and terrible anxiety lest anyone or anything should cause a disturbance, and so bring down the punishment of the enemy. However, nothing happened, owing to the notices which had been posted up everywhere, and the wonderful influence of Burgomaster Max, who had implored everyone to be careful and to give no cause or excuse for trouble.
Brussels being an unfortified town, he had begged the people to help in a peaceful occupation. His words had the right effect and, after a time, doors and windows were opened, and cafes put their chairs and tables outside again, and the town gradually resumed its everyday life, but with a strong undercurrent of fear and consternation at the terrible feeling that the enemy was really in occupation, and Brussels under German rule.
Panics were easily started these days, and one sometimes met a crowd tearing down a street terror-stricken, crying that the French were outside the gates and a battle beginning, and one had to turn and run with the crowd till the panic was over.
We heard there were a number of wounded lying not far outside Brussels, and M. and I tried to get a car to take us out there to pick them up, but the Germans would not allow a car outside the gates just then, so we took a tram as far as we could, then walked, but could find no trace of them.
On our return from a trip out beyond the gates we heard we had been applied for, M. and I, to go to Charleroi to join a matron and two nurses who had gone there a few days before. We were given ten minutes to get ready, and were very glad to leave the hotel (which by this time was full of German officers), and to feel we were at last wanted. As there had been no fighting in Brussels, there was very little need for nurses.
We were raced off in a car by the Belgian Red Cross, and were dumped down late in the evening at one of the hospitals in Charleroi; but could find no trace of our compatriots, though we searched all the hospitals, nor could we get any news of them. The town was still burning, and most of the houses were shelled, and had gaping windows and large shell holes, and the streets were littered with broken glass and bits of furniture; but every house flew a white flag of some sort, which had been no help to them, as the Germans said they had been fired on.
It was now getting very late, and we were told nothing could be done till the morning, so we gratefully accepted the offer of one bed from a kindly Belgian. We spent a sleepless night. The guns sounded so close and shook the house, and it was with great relief we saw the day break, and we started once more on our search, this time with more success, as we heard they were at a hospital at Marcinelle, five miles out of Charleroi.
We trudged there, leaving our luggage to follow, and found the matron and nurses in a semi-equipped hospital, desperately busy, and worn out with all the wounded who had been brought in a few days before from the battlefields nearby. The German wounded, slight cases and dying, had all been evacuated the day before we arrived, and we took this as a good sign that the Allies were near, especially as we heard the guns so close, but this was not the case, as the fighting was in reality getting further away.
We had plenty of work, though no fresh wounded. The hospital was originally intended for a civil hospital, but before it was finished the War broke out, and it had to be hastily equipped as a front line hospital, and in consequence was very badly supplied, and though we found beautiful electric appliances none of them were in working order, and all water had to be heated on a small stove, and many beds were without mattresses.
Our matron very soon left us to look up some other nurses in Brussels. She took the offer of a seat in a car going there, and that was the last we saw of her. M. had been left in charge.
The wounded were all French, and we found them extremely nice to look after. They were most grateful for all we did, and were much amused at the amount of cleaning and washing required by the English nurses, those of them that were well enough.
We had many exciting incidents and thrilling moments, especially when the German guards came round, as we never knew what they might be coming for. It was sometimes a search for a deserter, or to see that none of our patients were escaping. We never knew that it might not be to march us off, as rumour had it that we should be sent to Germany.
Life was one continual series of shocks; strange noises made us think we were being shelled; the electric light going out one night made us vividly imagine we were going to be blown up. Many of these scares ended in laughter, the Frenchmen ragging us for our
crises de nerfs
, but they did not quite like it themselves, lying helpless in bed.
We had a very busy time, but our patients were being gradually taken to concentration hospitals in Charleroi or to Germany as soon as they were fit to move, and we realized that our work before long would come to an end, and we began to wonder what was to become of us.
We had had no news for a long time, all means of communication having been stopped. We had no idea what had happened anywhere, or what the English nurses in and around Brussels were doing, so thought we must try and get news somehow from Brussels. We found a Belgian who had means of going there, and we asked him to put our case before the American Minister, who, we knew, had been asked to look after British interests. We wanted some money advanced on our cheques, as we had practically nothing left, and for help to return to Brussels or England.
The only answer we got to our appeal from the U.S.A. Legation was that we were on no account to go to Brussels; that they could give us no money, and that we were to ask the German Commandant in Charleroi to give us a pass to England or Maastricht via Germany.
This answer completely nonplussed us, as we did not want to advertise the fact that we were four English nurses alone in a hospital inside the German lines, especially as we had heard a rumour that some of the nurses who had been in and around Brussels, and who were supposed to have been sent to England by the Germans, were last heard of in Russia.
All these reports made us very unwilling to apply to the German Commandant for passes; so we decided to wait till our last wounded had been taken, hoping something might turn up.
Food was getting beautifully less and less, meat very occasional, and we lived for the most part on beans and potatoes and soup made of the same, flavoured with many fryings in the frying-pan. This, by the way, got me into severe trouble with the old cook, Mme. Gustave, because when I, on night duty, had to warm up our scanty meal, washed and scoured the frying-pan, I was told next day that I had completely ruined the soup and beans for ever, as we now would never get enough meat or onions to bring back the flavour of so many fryings. I never heard the end of that flavouring. The bread was black and sometimes so hard we couldn’t eat it, and other times so doughy that when thrown at the wall it stuck. We very, very rarely, as a great treat, had a mouthful of white bread given us by some kindly Belgians.
By now our last man had been taken from us, and we felt that something must be done at once, so, much against our feelings, we bearded the German Commandant, who kept us waiting for a very long time, and we heard the orderly we had spoken to first, and who spoke English very well, telling the Commandant that we wanted passes to England via Germany or Maastricht. This he flatly refused, saying we must remain in Charleroi; nothing would move him, and so we returned crestfallen to Marcinelle.
Having now no work to do, we spent our days making definite plans to escape. Our only anxiety was to get away quickly before the Germans could get any inklings of our efforts. We had been cheerfully assured by the Belgians that, if they did get wind of them, we should undoubtedly be shot. This we were more than ready to believe, and many a time had visions of being lined up against the wall.
We managed at last to get a small sum of money lent us by our Belgian friends, and after many hours of talking we finally came to the conclusion that our best plan would be to accept the offer of a Belgian mine-owner, who offered us the use of his coal miners’ ambulance to take us part of the way. We were advised to leave in the dead of night, and we arranged to dine with our friends the following night, telling the concierge at the hospital, whom we did not trust, that we should be spending the night with them. This we did, taking only a string bag with toothbrushes, etc., and dressed in mufti, with our Red Cross brassards sewn in the bottom of our skirts.
After a marvellous dinner to speed us on our way, the ambulance picked us up at 2 a.m. Two Belgian women accompanied us, as it was thought safer to go, in a party. We had many nerve-racking moments when we met sentries and guards, especially crossing the bridge out of Charleroi, the driver explaining that we were a miners’ ambulance; after a few words he passed us on. In the early morning we arrived at Fleurus, where we took the tram to Namur, and where we arrived in a snowstorm, and then on to Liége, partly trams, partly trudging. These last two towns, as well as villages along the route, were in ruins.