Like Father Like Son - Parts One to Five

My wife and I were walking our dogs on the hills above the village where we live. As we crested one brow, we could make out some wrought iron railings on the summit of the next ridge. Vanessa said: “That must be the airman’s grave. Let’s take a look.” So we did. Whoever chose this spot had chosen well. Below us the village slumbered in the afternoon sun. The land fell away on three sides, green and brown and golden. Sheep, like distant puffs of cotton wool in their winter fleece, dotted a distant hillside; a large buzzard circled a patch of woodland that topped one rise, reminiscent of a monk’s tonsure. 

We took in the view and congratulated ourselves once more on our decision to move to the country and then turned our attention to the grave itself. It was nothing fancy, a low rectangle of amber marble almost obscured by a riot of daffodils. Indeed, the flowers were so profuse that I couldn’t make out the black lettering of the inscription. The very last part only was discernible. It read: ‘…Barnes MC RFC.’ Well, as some of you may have gathered from reading one or two of my stories, I am something in the way of an amateur historian. Seeing those letters ‘RFC’ whetted my curiosity. The Royal Flying Corps! At once my mind started to race. I couldn’t wait to get back home and discover the identity of the mysterious airman whose grave lay in such elevated solitude.

I was babbling on like a schoolboy all the walk home. Vanessa, who fortunately has the patience, if not of a saint then at least of a minor candidate for canonisation, indulged me. “Off you go and research him then,” she said. It was about four hours later I returned from the depths of my office. I had been through all my source books to no avail. I turned to the Internet and logged on to the Commonwealth War Graves Commission website. No joy. Eventually I got my first clue on an amateur site dealing with the history of aviation in Dorset. God bless enthusiasts! I had a name. Captain Phillip Worrell Welford-Barnes, MC, RFC. Killed in Action, April 23rd 1917. Born London, 12th August 1894. That made him not quite 23 years old. 

The site added one further snippet. His son, also a pilot, Flying Officer Michael Jonathon Welford-Barnes, DFC, RAF, had been killed in action on 15th September 1940. Both father and son were buried in the same grave atop a hill in West Dorset. The land in which they were interred had once belonged to the family estate. The Welford-Barnes family died out with Michael; the estate was broken up to pay Death Duties. 

That was it. This little double tragedy, this piece of quintessentially English History of the Twentieth Century reduced to a few spare lines on an anorak’s website. It wasn’t good enough! I had to know more. First, I had to tell Vanessa the sad little story. When I finished she gave me one of her special little smiles.

“You ought to tell their story,” she said. “I’m sure there has to be something more to it”

“Of course. There has to be, but where to start?”

“Well, there’s always the village museum.”

I blessed her then and made up my mind to start devilling right away. You see, the dates of their death were highly significant. Phillip had died during ‘Bloody April’ – the nadir of the Royal Flying Corps’ fortunes. Michael had been killed on ‘Adler Tag’ – Eagle Day, the bloody climax of the Battle of Britain. The link between them was incredible. Both had been flyers, that was obvious, both had been decorated with medals of high honour. Both had been just 22 years old.

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Part One

September 1915 – ‘Somewhere in France’

Phillip could never quite get used to the transition from peace to war. One minute you were walking along a dusty lane with crops growing in the fields on either side, the next instant you entered the war. You turned a corner and there it was, waiting for you. The crops vanished, the earth turned from russet brown to grey. Artillery muttered personal threats and the stench rose from the fractured land. The placid scenes of threshing machines pulled by patient horses gave way to a vista of madness: of shell holes and smashed trenches, broken duck-boards and rusting wire. 

He had been in France for a whole year. The anniversary passed without notice. Everyone’s mind was on the ‘Big Push.’ The area around Loos had been selected. Confidence was high. Guns had been assembled in great artillery parks, brought there from all over the Western Front. The Newspapers from home were full of it. His father’s most recent letter had informed Phillip that this time “You’re going to push the Hun back where he belongs, my boy.” He even seemed to know the date of the offensive. Even a humble subaltern such as Second Lieutenant Phillip Worrell Welford-Barnes could work out that the element of surprise was somewhat lacking. 

It didn’t seem to bother the Top Brass, though. The two weeks spent in the Divisional Area training for the offensive had been punctuated by streams of visitors in immaculately cut uniforms with the red tabs of the General Staff prominent upon their lapels. They were full of jovial good humour, eyes twinkling and moustaches bristling with martial fervour. The Tommies were unimpressed. They sweated in the August sunshine and swore and cursed as they practised the advance over and over again. There was much talk about the preparatory barrage. Four hundred guns would be lined up wheel to wheel to pulverise the German positions and smash the dreaded entanglements of vicious wire. After such a pounding, the troops would walk over and ‘mop up.’

Not everyone was so sanguine though, it seemed. At the main camp at Etaples the soldiers had grown silent as they saw line after line of rough wooden coffins being moved up from the depot. Someone was hedging his bets. Phillip had long ceased to ponder the workings of the kind of mind that could allow the furnishing of such a reminder of one’s own mortality to men who were just about to go into the line. The men seemed inured to it after a time and it wasn’t long before macabre, rough jokes were being traded as the lorries bearing the coffins moved away.

“’ere, Jack, one of them ‘ad your fuckin’ name on it!”

“Yeah, well, they got a biscuit tin for you, you fuckin’ little runt.”

“They ain’t got one big enough to fit Geordie’s gut in.”

“They will once ‘e’s spilled ‘em!”

“Oh, right fuckin’ cheerful you are, Spud.”

Phillip hid a smile. The Tommies were in good heart. He was filled with admiration for these men, the last of the old, pre-war, Regular Army. Their ranks had been filled out now by Territorials and the arrival of the Foreign Service battalions that had been stationed overseas. He recalled the grim retreat from Mons the year before. The anger and bitterness of the men at having to move back. He remembered the frantic fighting at Le Cateau, where they had stood and checked the German advance in defiance of orders. That defiance had ultimately cost Smith-Dorien his job. Philip and his brother officers had been angered and saddened by that. They all considered Sir Horace Smith-Dorien the best General in the Army. 

Back, now, in the assault trenches, the first pre-battle nervousness had begun to tighten Phillip’s guts. He knew he’d be all right once it once started. The waiting was a torture, though. There were only so many letters home one could write, only so many times one could check equipment or study the trench maps. He went through the Orders Group notes he had taken at battalion HQ that morning. He checked his watch; the bombardment was due to commence in a few minutes’ time. 

A voice was counting down to the start of the bombardment. 

“Fifteen seconds…”

“For what they are about to receive…”

“…I ‘opes the fuckers is truly grateful!”

The air seemed to explode around them as the first massed salvo was hurled from the guns. They heard the passage of the projectiles overhead, a rasping, ripping sound that culminated in the brass bellow of the explosions as the shells poured down upon the German line. Phillip eased himself up on to the fire step and watched the fury engulfing the enemy trenches. The very earth bucked and heaved and the bass concussion of the shells could be felt through their own trench walls, which seemed to jump and tremble in sympathy. The noise was indescribable. The stink of lyddite was borne to them on the faint breeze, prickling the eyes and irritating the throat. 

After the initial shock, the barrage seemed to settle down and they could pick out the individual characteristic sounds of the various guns; the flat crack of the 18-pounders as counterpoint to the thunder of the 60-pounders. The tearing sound of the heavy shells and the higher scream of the howitzers rolled and blended into a Devil’s Symphony of pain. 

The fire that danced and played upon the German parapets was terrible but also strangely beautiful. Every colour of the visible spectrum was there in the flash of the explosions. There were some colours Phillip saw that he could not put a name to. It was, quite literally, awe-inspiring. Phillip felt his own humanity reaching out to those souls who suffered a scant five hundred yards away. He knew what it was like to be on the receiving end of such ferocity. One could do nothing but endure. The noise and concussive blasts stunned the senses. It seemed as if one’s life-flame waxed very small and sought to hide as deep within oneself as possible, away from the mechanical insanity that reigned around it. 

At such moments he would fix on a memory of home. It was always the same memory; he was looking down from the unnamed hill to the south of the village. Below him he could make out the Church and the little row of cottages that fronted the lych-gate. He could see the course of the river making its lazy meanders through the valley bottom and if he really strained, he could hear the hum of bees and the faint barking of a dog from the village below. It was thus he could insulate himself from the terror and madness around him. As he watched across the barren stretch of no-man’s-land, he wondered if there, some german boy was picturing his home in Saxony or Bavaria in a vain attempt to keep a grasp on his own sanity.

The guns snarled and thundered on and on. A quarter of a million shells fell on the German defences over four days. The barrage was less even now, the pace slackening and rising as the tired gunners served their steel masters. Phillip became aware of the first whooping noise of gas shells and he shuddered. Gas had first been used against them at Ypres that spring. He hated it. He could still picture the first gas casualties and groaned aloud at the vividness of the memory. Then it started to rain. He cursed. It wouldn’t take much for the pulverised earth to turn to the strength sapping mud that was perhaps the greatest horror of all. You couldn’t do anything about artillery; you either lived or died; or you were driven mad by the noise and pain and terror. The mud you had to live with. It drew your strength as though you were being bled. It rotted your feet and filled your soul with the deepest misery. He uttered a silent prayer: ‘Oh God, don’t let there be mud.’ 

A hand tapped his knee and he slid down off the fire step to face Captain Redbourne, his company commander. Redbourne’s face wore a fixed grin and he was clasping a football. 

“Here, young W-B, you’ve a healthy kick on you.” He was bellowing to make himself heard. “ I want you to boot this into no-man’s-land when the whistle blows. It’ll give the boys something to chase.”

Phillip stared at him uncomprehendingly. This had to be the final proof that Redbourne was Dhoolali. Nevertheless, he took the ball and placed it on the fire step. Redbourne grinned again, patted his shoulder and roared “ Good Man!” He hurried off down the trench. Phillip watched his retreating back and shook his head slowly.

The bombardment rumbled and churned on through the night unabated. Phillip stood on the fire step and watched the explosions, his head cradled on his forearm. He dozed occasionally but proper sleep eluded him. He could feel it now: the slow but steady tightening of every nerve fibre. He felt sick. His mouth felt dry yet was filled with saliva. He wanted to spit but forced himself to swallow. His head ached abominably from the pounding drumfire and his eyes felt raw and scratchy.

Soon after dawn, the barrage rose to a final crescendo and seemed to reach a new peak of intensity. It seemed impossible that anyone could have lived through the torment. Phillip could feel the explosions through the trench wall. It was as though someone was kicking him in the chest and stomach. It grew so violent he had to pull back and drop into the bottom of the trench. White-faced Tommies stood waiting the rum issue. Every tenth man clutched a scaling ladder of crude construction. He tried to give a reassuring smile but his facial muscles were frozen. He saw the same blank, rigid expression reflected back at him from a score of faces. He pulled out his watch, alarmed at how his hands were shaking. This was the worst time of all. 

Unexpectedly, the bellow of the artillery ceased. One final desultory crack echoed in the sudden calm then all was silence. Phillip heard Redbourne’s voice, a scream of fury:

“The bastards! Oh, the utter, stupid bastards! They’ve stopped too soon. There’s still ten minutes to go!”

It was true. The Tommies looked at each other with foreboding. The premature end would give the survivors time to recover. Time to get out of the surviving dugouts and man what was left of the parapets. Time to drag up the hated, deadly, machine guns. Time to call up support from the back areas, to arrange for a counter-bombardment. There was some tense muttering. Phillip sensed a crisis and called to Redbourne.

“Captain Redbourne, why shouldn’t we be early too? Early bird catcheth the worm and all that. Why don’t we go now?”

There was a rumble of assent but Phillip saw Redbourne hesitate. He understood the senior man’s predicament. To go early was to disobey orders, to depart from the ordained plan. The hesitation stretched out, one minute, two. Then they heard the shrill blast of whistles further down the trench system and shouts and distant cheering. Someone had decided to go. Phillip saw the relief wash over Redbourne like a breaking wave and he put his whistle to his lips and began to blow like Joshua. He paused for breath and to bellow at Phillip to kick the football. 

Phillip jammed his service cap firmly in place and pushed himself to the front of the queue for the ladder. He tucked the football under one arm and pulled himself over the top of the parapet with the other. He could hear sporadic firing from the German positions. At least one machine gun was still in action and was beating out its deadly tattoo. He paused for a second to collect himself and then, just as Redbourne emerged from the trench to his left, he tossed the ball into the air and gave it a massive punt towards the enemy lines. He heard the NCOs roaring orders to keep the dressing as the platoon formed up. Phillip took his place in front and waved the men forward. 

“Come on, Boys! Ten shillings for the next man to kick the ball!” 

They were cheering now and covering the ground at a shambling trot, weighed down as they were by rifle, haversack and gas mask holder. Steel helmets had not yet come into service and Phillip noticed one or two men had lost their forage caps or else had preferred to take them off. He was conscious of the leather band of his own cap biting into his forehead but he could do nothing about it. It was at that moment he realised that he had not yet drawn his revolver and he fumbled with the flap of the holster as he ran.