03. The First World War (Early Experiences)

THE FIRST WORLD WAR (EARLY EXPERIENCES) Soon after my arrival in London in March, 1913, I joined the Civil Service Rifles. Several of my friends at the Y.M.C.A. in Tottenham Court Road belonged to the regiment. Little did I think then that, in a few months’ time, there would be a great world war and that should be involved in it from the very beginning. My first summer training camp was spent with the battalion at Abergavenny in July and beginning of August, 1913. At the beginning of August, 1914, I went with the regiment to Perham Down Camp, Salisbury Plain, for the annual camp training. I thought I was just going for he usual fortnight’s holiday camp. That “holiday camp” lasted for four and a half years! We did not stay at Perham Down very long, only a few hours in fact. Within twenty-four hours of having left London we were back again, and were soon mobilized. The autumn of 1914 was spent in training around the neighborhood of Watford; and during the winter we came right into Watford, where we were given a splendid welcome by the inhabitants. At last, on March 17, 1915, at the age of twenty-two, I embarked from Southampton With the First Battalion Civil Service Rifles, and we arrived at Havre the next morning. My great war adventure had now begun in earnest. 1. IN THE TRENCHES. GIVENCHY, FESTUBERT, AND LOOS My first experiences of the trenches and baptism of shell fire were at Givenchy in April, 1915, and I soon made the acquaintance of “No Man’s Land,” as the territory was called between the British and the German trenches. The very first night I was in the trenches, I had to accompany an officer stealthily creeping through “No Man’s Land” in the dark, visiting some of the advanced “listening posts” near the enemy territory. One night a party of us had to creep around some shattered houses and get across a field under rifle fire. One of my comrades said to me afterwards, “My word, Brockett, I said my prayers last night going across that field.” But I am afraid I did not see any evidence of a change of heart when he was out of danger. A little later on, I was behind the series of sandbagged barricades at Festubert. It was decidedly unpleasant to have to crouch behind these barricades as the shells came bursting over us and around us, as we had no protection for our backs. We had a bad time one afternoon just about tea time, and there were a good few calls for “stretcher bearers, please as somebody got hit. It was here that I first came into contact with some of the stark, grim realities of war. Once I went along a captured trench after the battle of Festubert. What a sight it was! Overcoats, equipment, rifles, all strewn in the utmost confusion! But far worse than all this was the enormous number of corpses and mangled bodies lying about on the ground. One of the companies in the regiment had to climb over a pile of corpses in order to get forward to occupy an advanced position. It has been estimated that the number of dead buried by the regiment in that area during three days amounted to 350. In September, 1915, the battalion was very busily engaged in preparation for the battle of Loos and we were out nearly every night on working or carrying parties, digging and bridging trenches, etc. The winter was spent in rain and water-logged trenches, when sometimes my clothes got sodden and caked with mud. How utterly wearisome at times it all was! First, a turn in the firing line, then back in support or reserve, and then back at rest at the rear of the lines, and then up again in the ring line once more, and so on. Once, I remember, we felt as helpless as animals caught in a trap. We were in the front line subject to intermittent shelling all day. One shell had fallen on a dugout killing some and wounding others severely, but there was no means of removing the dead or wounded until nighttime. Once we were enfiladed by shellfire, and we had to run up and down the muddy wet trenches as best we could, trying to dodge the shells falling around us. 2. AT VIMY RIDGE I was in the trenches on Vimy Ridge in 1916, a year before they were captured by the Canadians. The Germans were then in possession of the Ridge. One lovely afternoon, the battalion was in brigade reserve behind the lines in the neighborhood of Vimy Ridge. Just when tea was over, a sudden order came through, “Parade in full marching order at once.” When we got on the march we saw that, two or three miles away, the Germans were putting up a terrific bombardment of the front line trenches on Vimy Ridge. The air seemed to be just one solid mass of bursting shells. We had to make our way up to the trenches on Vimy Ridge along a very shallow and narrow communication trench through a barrage of tear gas. Then we had to pass through the barrage of the Zouave Valley. Shell after shell came screaming, bursting over our heads into the valley. By this time it was night, nearly midnight, and if anything ever made me think of hell it was the experience of that bombardment. The first company of the battalion to arrive at the Ridge, dog-tired as they were, were ordered to counterattack the Germans practically at once. They bravely went “over the top,” but were met with such murderous and intense fire from enemy artillery, machine guns, and rifles, that the vast majority of the company were killed or wounded. My company was the second to arrive at the Ridge, and we had at once to build up as best we could some of the trenches that had been battered by the bombardment. What a mercy it was that I did not belong to the company just in front of my own! If I had been in the first company instead of the second, humanly speaking, I might have been among the very many killed or wounded on Vimy Ridge. 3. SPIRITUAL LIFE IN THE WAR What about my spiritual life during the time I was in France? Praise the Lord, in the midst of that terrible “furnace,” with all its strain and pressure, the Lord led me to experience the greatest spiritual blessing of my Christian life. I passed through this experience in October, 1916, after I had been nineteen months in France. I wish, however, to make it quite clear that what I passed through then, and the great blessing I received from God, were not in any sense a recovery from backsliding I always carried a little khaki pocket Bible with me, and it was my source of constant strength. A few years be fore, when everything was smooth and quiet at home in peacetime, I could do without the Bible. But when I was facing some of the terrible realities of war and death, my Bible became the most precious possession in the world to me. Whenever the battalion was out of the trenches, I used to try to find quiet spots where I could be alone with the Lord in prayer and study the Word I used to have parcels of gospel booklets and New Testaments sent out to me, which I distributed amongst the troops. I also got in contact with a few other Christians in the brigade, and we had some helpful little meetings together for prayer and Bible reading. Christmas Day, 1915, was spent in some damp cellars underneath a shell-wrecked brewery. My comrades in the platoon listened respectfully while I read aloud a portion of scripture and led in prayer, and we concluded by singing a few carols. In the Somme area in September, 1916, the Civil Service Rifles suffered their most severe losses since they had landed in France. A few days before the battalion went into action on the Somme, a finger of my right hand became poisoned. It was so bad that I had to be sent away, and eventually I arrived at Staples, where I had to remain until I was well enough to return to the battalion. Imagine my circumstances just then. My regiment had suffered very heavy losses, and I was simply waiting to rejoin it, not knowing what further ordeals awaited me. And yet it was just then, when the pressure and the darkness seemed to be so great, that the Lord led me into the blessing of entire sanctification. (I now relate the steps by which I was led into this blessed experience.)