Somme by Hugh Sebag-Montefiore

Author:Hugh Sebag-Montefiore [Sebag-Montefiore, Hugh]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780141929279
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2016-05-19T00:00:00+00:00

Although Barbour was able to report back to Captain White, thereby enabling White to make arrangements to cover the gap between him and Captain Mills’ group, the cover must have been very thin. Furthermore, filling in the gap on White’s right did not mean the perimeter was secure. If Barbour had probed further to the right, he would have seen that on Mills’ right, there was another wide gap, on the other side of which the equally depleted troops of the 14th Australian Brigade’s 54th Battalion were situated, occupying a drain to which they had retired after a 600-yard foray to their front.6

Their orders emanated from their commander, Lieutenant-Colonel Cass, who had selected a German dugout in a trench just behind the original German front line as his headquarters.7 It was a far cry from what was being endured on the advanced line, containing as it did electric lights and two beds. The walls were papered, and even decorated with gold moulding similar to picture-frame moulding. ‘It had [a] table, armchair, [and] heating stove,’ Cass recalled later.

From this relatively sheltered spot, he attempted to mastermind all movements within the perimeter held by the 14th and 8th Brigades. The messages he sent, and those that came into his HQ from the advanced line, tell us a lot about how Cass went about cheering up his men as well as about the difficulties they were having to endure, details to which Generals McCay and Haking might have been privy had they thought of employing a liaison officer to fill them in on the situation in the front line.8

At 9.15 p.m. on 19 July, using terminology that we would find offensive today, but which was apparently par for the course within the predominantly white Australian Infantry Force of 1916, Cass sent the following stirring words to his officers in the advanced line: ‘Tell the men how splendid[ly] they have done and to hang on like death to a nigger.’ This was followed by an exhortation to ‘work hard and make your position strong, for we shall be counter-attacked tonight. We must not lose one yard of the ground we have taken, and for the honour of the 54th and the Brigade, hang on. What we have, we hold and never let a German come into our line except as prisoner. You have my entire confidence.’

The messages coming back to him were intended to be optimistic, but had they been relayed to the generals, they might have found them disturbing rather than encouraging. Lieutenant Harris reported from the advanced line: ‘We are linked on [the] right with [the] 53rd … Must get sandbags and shovels. Engineers have sent for pump. We are in water to our waists in some places! Have about 450 men. If material comes can make a “fair” position.’

At 12.55 a.m. Harris reported ‘53rd have asked for reinforcements to put where they link up with us. I have sent them about 50 men. Can’t spare another man from our firing line … Still going strong.

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