Bert McCallion was given a thorough dressing down by ‘Old Beardie’ when he turned up at battalion HQ.
But the sealed envelope which the Scottish colonel had given him when he left the Lanark’s sector seemed to strike the right chord with his own CO.
"Don’t get me wrong," he told the inquisitive members of his section later. "The old man gave me a right bollocking but when he opened the envelope and read the letter from the Jock, he went easy on me."
McCallion had been ordered to report
So you can imagine I was not a happy bunny.
I had to ask myself the question – was Broomfield on his way to check which officers were due to collect their laundry and repaired uniforms on the fateful evening?
If Graf Egbert Von Hurgenstein had not spotted a target of opportunity, I tend to think that Broomfield’s methodical nature would have led him back to the Viljoen’s house.
Of course, hindsight is a wonderful thing. Maybe Broomfield would just have cleared McCallion’s name with the
O’Brien heaved something akin to a sigh of relief as the door closed on the last man of no.3 section.
"Well, it seems as though McCallion has a cast iron alibi on this matter," he said.
"Yes. But I will still have to interview him and I’ll have to tell the lad that his girl is dead. Not something I’m looking forward too," replied Broomfield.
"May I ask, what happened to her," stumbled O’Brien. "I mean, not to put too fine a point on it, how was she killed? If you can tell me …"
Broom
Amanda stroked McCallion’s bruised cheek softly.
"It’s alright love, I’ve been hit harder in my time," whispered Bert. He kissed the young Belgian girl on the forehead.
"Why fighting .. with chooms?" asked Amanda in her halting English. McCallion smiled at her pronunciation of chums. It was a pretty perfect imitation of the way the lads spoke in their northern dialect.
"Happen that when the drink is in, the wit is out," he replied.
Amanda looked puzzled.
McCallion hugged the girl
THE vast majority of murder investigations are swiftly solved. Most murders are carried out by a person who is well known to the victim, in the heat of the moment.
And when Broomfield was told that an estaminet girl had been murdered, his past experiences as a detective with the City of London Constabulary led him to suspect a plain and simple crime of passion.
It had taken the Belgian police only a few hours and a short interview with the other members of the Viljoen family to make a lin
Extract from 'As God is my witness - a nurse's war' (personal memoir by Matron Susan Light. First published 1931). In the author's collection.
"Sometimes, in the night, one would hear a soldier sobbing in the darkness. More often than not, the cry would be for mother, even from men who were well into middle-age.
"To this day, I still blink back tears when I hear a youngster calling 'Mam or Mammy' . For, in truth, I heard those words far too many times during my experiences in France and Bel
Stilleto had come up trumps.
The service papers he'd dug out for me from the vaults of the National Archive had answered one question right away.
Bertie McCallion's wounding at Messines explained why he had been unaware of Amanda's murder. The troops had been 'locked down' prior to the battle and he must have gone through the days before and after the attack blissfully unaware of her death.
With a magnifiying glass I deciphered the scrawl which passed for notes on the document. I was hop
"Two wounded, two dead Sir," reported Colour Nulty.
Hartley was studying the dead German, a cigarette between his lips.
"He was a game chap, Sarn't," he remarked casually. "Have to admire a fellow like that, eh?"
"Indeed you do Sir," replied Nulty softly.
"Tried to plug me with his dying breath you know," mused Hartley.
Nulty nodded. Case of 'too late chum' for the German, he thought.
"About the casulaties Sir. McCallion's got a flesh wound but Noble's taken a couple in the legs
"Christ," whispered Bertie McCallion as he watched the immense black cloud rise high over the ridge.
Rivulets of soil streamed down the side of the front line trench as the incredibly powerful shock wave reached the British lines.
"Fix ..." roared Colour Nulty. And the men poised for that split second so beloved of British army NCOs.
"BAYONETS," screamed Nulty. All within earshot snapped home their cold steel and gripped their rifles just a little bit more tightly.
The shrill squea
Account compiled from the personal papers of Lt. Col. Enoch Beard DSO; and "At Messine with the Muddies" an unpublished personal memoir by Captain William O'Brien MC (by kind permission of his estate); and various letters/accounts from the Mudcaster Observer (1917) with thanks to Mudcaster Local Studies Librarian, Terence Reeves MBE.
"Prior to the attack at Messines, I had been impressed by the thorough preparations for the assault. The men had enjoyed a period of much-needed rest before a sti
Conjecture and circumstantial ‘evidence’ .. it was all I had to show for my three days in Belgium.
On the flight home, I’d racked my brains for a source of information which might prove my theory. Contemplation is good for the soul but it can also be damaging to the ego.
A guy called Simpson spoke for all us idiots worldwide when he enunciated our stupidity with a multi-lingual ‘doh’.
Call me Homer.
It was back to the National Archives .. again. That’s where you get the service recor
Back at the Talmer’s house that evening, I kicked off my shoes and stretched out on the bed. To be honest, I was plain tired.
But I knew I would have to take a tip from Bert Viljoen and adopt the Sherlock Holmes approach. With a groan, I sat up and reached out for the documents which the Belgian had given me.
Going by the postmarks, the last letter sent by ‘Erbert to Amanda had been on May 12th. Two days later, the Mudshires had been relieved from the trenches and sent back for a three-da
Account compiled from letters/contemporary documents provided by the Viljoen family of Ieper, Belgium.
Vincent Platteuw wiped his hands on his apron and picked up the huge cauldron of freshly cut chips.
"Amanda," he called. "These are ready for frying girl! You can dream about your Tommy sweetheart in your own time. Hurry now, the English will soon be after their ‘eggs an’ chips twice’."
Vincent’s was a typical estaminet in the salient.
On a typical night it would be packed with sold
I was downing my second coffee and complimenting Lesley Talmer on her superb breakfast spread when the telephone rang. Brian answered it between mouthfuls of croissant.
He held out the handset and indicated with a nod of his head that I was required.
"Des?" said Aurel. "I have someone you will want to talk to. Can you meet us at the Menin Gate in an hour?"
Bert Viljoen’s grandmother, it seemed, had been the sister of Amanda Viljoen, the first victim mentioned in Mackay’s briefing.
Au
"Richard Mackay .. doesn't sound like a local name?" I said shaking hands with the tall figure, who rose from behind the desk.
He laughed: "I see Aurel has not told you? My great-grandfather was a Scottish soldier who came back here after the war as a gardener for the cemeteries. I still have many relatives in Stranraer where he came from."
Aurel settled into one of the three chairs which surrounded a glass topped coffee table.
"Please, sit down. You are here as a researcher, so Aurel h
It was raining. Surprise, surprise. I was in Belgium after all.
The Talmer's B&B on the outskirts of Ypres was pretty famous on the forum. They'd moved over to Belgium in the late 1980s when property prices were rather more inviting than they are today. The Euro seems to have made quite an impact on the cost of living on the continent.
Brian Talmer greeted me at the door: "Glad to meet you at last. I'm just glad you were able to follow my directions OK. Let's get you in and settled down
I'd already assumed that Bertie McCallion's death was down to Lt. Hartley in one way or another but the story about the girl stopped me in my tracks.
Tommy Swinton may have taken me a little further along the trail, but I was now well and truly gobsmacked.
Mark coughed and broke my train of thought: "That lot making any sense to you?"
I struggled for an answer.
"I'd guessed that Bertie McCallion had fallen foul of Hartley in some way or another but as for the rest ...not a single clue
August 16, 1917
Billy studied the muddy wasteland in an attempt to pin-point the weak voice which had called for help. Squirming along on his stomach, he laboured through the slime until he reached the lip of a stagnant shellhole.
In the stinking pool of water at the bottom lay a British soldier, his uniform sodden and torn. Dried blood was caked amongst his filthy hair and his face had a doomed, almost skeletal appearance.
Billy prodded the water with his bayoneted rifle. It was only a
Tommy Swinton's 'home help' loaded a bucket of smokeless onto the glass fronted fire and pulled on her coat.
"There ye are, Tommy love. That'll do the fire until tonight. I'll be round about eight o'clock to give it a shake," she said. "Right youse are, boys, I'm away on. Nice to meet youse."
We both murmured our thanks for the mugs of tea and scones which she'd rustled up in Tommy's kitchen.
"She's a great wee girl," declared Tommy, as the door closed.
And then he began ...
"Me Da
Queasyjet suits me fine. So what if they don't give you sawdust flavoured sausages delicately positioned on a yellow coloured glob which is reputed to be eggs?
They get you there. Cheap. Whether you get to your desitination on time, every time, is a completely different philospohical argument.
Having made a sizeable dent on Mrs. Wills's dosh with my soujourn to London and the subsequent trip to Edniburgh, I reckoned it was time to save some pennies. Thus, when I downloaded Mark's message,
Extract from case file JH/7s Bn/16
CraigLockhart Hospital Discharge Report
To Chief Medical Officer, Scottish Command Depot.
2nd Lt J Hartley, 7th (s) Bn. R. Mud. RIF.
Lt Hartley was admitted to this hospital on 13th August 1916, having received treatment at East Grinstead Royal Hospital for shrapnel wounds to the leg and a gunshot wound to the back. The medical staff at EGR hospital had observed that whilst Hartley was making a good physical recovery from his wounds, he was extremely wi
The Collie was nice. But I draw the line at bestiality.
"Get down Shep," said Prof. Malcolm Fergusson. "Don't mind old Shep, he's a good boy, aren't you?"
I managed to free my leg from the Collie's affectionate grip.
It was 24 hours later, I was cold, scarred for life by a bic razor (so YOU never forgot your shaving tackle?) and Edinburgh was a long way from home.
It was however, the stamping ground of the United Kingdom's foremost historian of the condition known as 'shell shock' -
I ventured out of the hallowed halls of research and purchased a cup of warm liquid which was described as coffee. Anyway, it was hot, but it lacked the punching power of my two spoonfuls of instant back home.
I gazed out the window, lost in thought about the document I’d just read.
And one phrase kept coming back to me in large print. By the end of their little shove in the overall scheme of the ‘big push’, the Muddies had virtually ceased to exist as a unit.
Sipping the coffee, I turn
Ch 14
From a ‘History of the 7th Royal Mudshire Rifles. Chapter 4, page 39.’
"It was a sorry remnant of the battalion which formed up for roll call on July 3rd. Those officers and men who had been left ‘out of battle’ were horrified at the losses."
War Diary (National Archive) 7th (s) Bn. R. Mud. Rif./July 7, 1916. (D/40/32RMR)
The bombardment, which had lasted seven days without ceasing reached its climax at 6-25 a.m. on the morning of the 1st July, and from 6-25 a.m. until 7-30 a.m. th
"June 18th 1916 – Martinsart. Btn. in reserve. Draft of 20 ORs and one officer received. ‘A’ and ‘C’ coy. Provided work parties for RE engaged on road mending. ‘B’ coy. engaged on maintenance of comm. trench C3 between ‘Paddy’s Post’ and ‘Church Street’.
All details back in billets 1800 hrs for well deserved rest. Btn. warned for new tour comm. June 24th. Rfn. Lonergan, who had recently featured prominently in the Divisional Magazine provided officers of HQ coy. with a delicious supper which w
