Whistles of War and Peace

By Jack D Harrison and Geoffrey Plant

‘Whistles of War and Peace’.©


After watching the Railway Steamers from atop ‘The Mount’, the two boys decide to run away from their homes in the deep-sea fishing Port of Fleetwood. a very special place, where not only the men and their trawler fleet go off to War Service, but during that hot Summer of 1914, two young boys also answer Kitchener’s call- “Your Country Needs You”. Just as 250,000 other boys did during the war to end all wars.

Then during 1918, after many hair-raising and heart-warming experiences, the best friends have to fight for their lives, as the last German Offensive begins and all Hell breaks loose. Suddenly, a German Shell explodes over them and apparently kills their whole Platoon. Each believing the other has been killed - vaporised.

When one of the best friends finally returns home, he discovers that the other has also miraculously survived and returned just before he did; though terribly wounded, inside and out. As they move into 1919 and beyond, the two friends, no longer boys, have to try to pick up the pieces of their lives; now utterly changed. But will they ever return to The Mount?

The story also reminds us, that for many people, wars do not end with an Armistice. Whichever the conflict, many have physical or psychological reminders, which never leave them, or their families; often driving them to insanity or suicide.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Aug 19, 2019
• ISBN: 9781728320700

Jack D Harrison

Jack D. Harrison became a Poet/Author, as part of the process of re-inventing himself. He was a Railway Signalman until back injuries forced him to retire early during 1988. He has always loved writing and composing since boyhood, and his work includes lyrics, poetry and short stories. Apart from previously published poems and articles, his first book [of Verse] was self-published only in November-2017. Rhyming Lines The Poems of Jack D. Harrison, provides some idea of the range and variety of Jacks work, Including works about his home town and port of Fleetwood, along with the former deep-sea fishing fleet and local history, to poems which read like stories, including Poppies in a Field, Remember October, The Boy and The Spider and One Christmas In Fleetwood. www.rhyminglines.com But his second book Memoirs of a Signalman, is Autobiographical and deals with one of his happiest periods; his time on the Railway. So, climb aboard for this new journey, calling at various points along the way. A journey of Jacks time as a Railwayman and the last heydays of the Port of Fleetwood and ultimately, Electrification, and the end of traditional Signalling on the Blackpool and Fleetwood lines.

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© 2019 Jack D Harrison. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 08/16/2019

ISBN: 978-1-7283-2071-7 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-7283-2070-0 (e)

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CONTENTS

Preface

Chapter 1 Escape to adventure. (1914-1916)

Chapter 2 Training and preparation for War

Chapter 3 Crossing the Channel and welcome to the Western Front

Chapter 4 Moving up, to the Front Line

Chapter 5 Life in The Trenches; And the coming of Winter

Chapter 6 Baptism of Fire - Over the top

Chapter 7 After their first battle

Chapter 8 Blighty Leave

Chapter 9 From one disaster to another. (1916-1917)

Chapter 10 The Huns are coming - and ‘Operation Michael’. (Spring 1918)

Chapter 11 Wounded and missing in Action

Chapter 12 A Never-ending Journey

Chapter 13 New Lives for all. (1918-1920)

Epilogue

PREFACE

As the newspapers told of the murder of some Duke and his wife in a far-off Eastern European city, the adults around the two classmates speculate on the likelihood of a big war, and whether it would all be over by Christmas that year; in 1914. As the same scene was repeated in cities, towns and villages across Great Britain, Jack and Albert thought it would be such an adventure to run away to join up for the Western Front. But their relatively sheltered background could never have prepared them for the next five years; or thereafter.

They had been on The Mount, by the Pavilion, watching the relatively new Railway steamer ‘The Duke of Connaught’ on her run down the channel. bound for Belfast. when the idea to join-up came to Jack; though both must have been wondering what lay out there, beyond the port. Coming up the opposite way came the ill-fated ‘Duke of Albany’. She would be sunk by a German U-Boat, off the Scottish Coast, only two years later. Though both boys had only just turned 14, they saw themselves as young, indestructible men, ready to take on the World; and whatever came with it – as boys from five to fifteen often do. And with the imposing image of Kitchener’s poster appearing everywhere from about 4th August-1914, they took him at his word.

This story is told through a series of flashbacks and periods of thinking back to various times. during the Great War and after. And as with many soldiers of either side, and in any conflict, their experiences do not end with the ending of war and Armistice. Like them, this story spills over into 1919 and into the 1920s. They had been separated by the huge Krupp shell during the final great battles of 1918, and The war to end all wars.

Opening scene- Sounds of whistles as troops go over the top. Shouts from officers encouraging and cajoling. Screams and wails of men shot by the German machinegun nest as their bullets scythe and splinter the British parapet; killing men before they even complete the dash up the ladders. And all this surrounded and partly drowned out by shell bursts, and other chaos of Industrialised War.

Soldier [and childhood friend] caught as the huge German shell explodes over them.

[Soldier hears whistles amidst the battle, and losing consciousness. he’s carried off; as though isolated from it all].

CHAPTER 1

Escape to adventure. (1914-1916)

As the train reduced speed for that last bend and then stopping at the small station at Poulton-le-Fylde, the sounds of the whistles to go over the top, and the mayhem of war gave way to the sounds of train and station staff whistles; and that particular flashback faded again, as Doctors said they would. As though in a dream, Jack was guided and pushed to the steps at the exit, handing his used ticket to the Porter without a word from either one. He could well have been leaving the station in any of thousands of local towns in England; but then the familiar local accents began to come through, and he realised that he was back, and nearly home. Fleetwood.

Jack walked from the station and then along what were still country lanes, then over Bourne Hill; all now covered or surrounded in Autumn shades. Reds, Browns and yellows. Home again. He mused that the lanes were all covered and lined by the fresh greens and yellows of spring, when he had last walked these lanes, with his best friend on the way to Sign-up. Four years ago. Albert and he, thought it was a huge and daring adventure to run away from their busy, and still prospering town in 1914. The money they earned from ‘Baling’ and other work on the nearby farms just paid for their train fares, five Woodbine smokes, and the pint at the Station Refresh Bar; always known as the best pint in Fleetwood. But in the end, they decided to walk to Poulton-le-Fylde, to avoid being recognised, and stopped from travelling – a poor start to their grand adventure indeed. Having both raised their ages up, the Recruiting Sergeant grinned knowingly at the two fourteen-year-old boys. What did the Army care? It later became known that the youngest recruit ever, was only twelve. All of these boys had been raised on stories of the Boer War, and Kitchener’s desert campaigns. When War was conducted on horses, in fast moving and exciting raids upon Dervish tribesmen in the heat of Sudan.

But the war these boys got, was quite different to anything ever known; either to The High Command or two young lads from the Fylde Coast. No desert heat and rarely any movement, except when being urged "Over the top lads", by officers not much older than themselves it seemed. Jack had awoken many times, shouting and screaming in the Field Hospitals and at various times; for his friend Albert. It just didn’t seem fair that they managed to struggle through the Great War together, only to be separated like that in the final year; and during the last desperate offensive of the Germans. The central Powers had already been considered as a spent force, because of the effective blockade by the Royal Navy. And so, here he was, walking home alone, the sole survivor of his Platoon.

The soldier approached the outskirts of Fleetwood, and thought he would take a pint or two at the pub favoured by their Fathers, The Victoria on Dock Street. Both spent their lives on or around the docks and Railway sidings; and were known to like a couple, following work; discussing which of the Port’s trawler fleet had made it home [or not] in time for the market. He wanted to be served with a pint by Sally, the girl who had been at school with his older brother. He recounted his favourite daydream during long marches, or in a freezing trench during Winter; of swaggering proudly into the pub, the returning hero in uniform. How he would drink his beer, and tell tales of "beating The Hun’ into defeat". That same daydream brought some relief as they lay in the sun after listening to the last of the original ‘Regulars’ tell how they had first stopped and held the German steam roller, with the famous 15 aimed rounds a minute rifle fire; which the enemy thought had been from machine guns; such was the carnage and death-toll. But then they told of that long retreat towards Paris, from ‘The Marne’; or after yet more trench repairs in the flooded fields of Passchendaele. The war would swallow up Britain’s original tiny standing army during the first year, and so too, the various Reserves, Territorial, and other similar units; and even the hopes and experience of Field Marshal Sir John French; soon replaced by another Cavalryman Douglas Haig.

Jack had even thought of Sally and those pints, as his Ambulance Train was again derailed, just outside the relative safety of the Channel port. Then those thoughts were all he had, as the pain came through again as jolt after jolt reminded him that his war was probably over, because of the injuries he had; both outside and visible, and those within. The ones the Padre had told him he would also have to bear, but may fade over time. Even in those more ‘Enlightened Times’, some of the army Staff did not recognise, let alone understand ‘Shell Shock’.

The walk from Poulton had given him a thirst. The same thirst which tormented him as he lay in that shell hole, those two days in No-Man’s-Land. His friend had pulled him into the hole as German Shock troops scoured and scorched the ground with flame-throwers and machine guns to repel yet another pointless attack.Then the huge Krupp shell came, and as though in slow motion, they followed it in, and the beast exploded overhead. As often happened, the shell fragments struck indiscriminately and horribly.

Again, the Soldier tried to block these flashbacks from his mind, but he’d been warned to expect them from time to time; perhaps forever. So, determined to have that pint he promised himself all that time ago, he made his way into town and along Dock Street. He could have chosen to enter Fleetwood along Lord Street, the main route, and centre of shops and other activity. Jack knew he would be recognised and quizzed about the past four years, but he wasn’t quite ready for that yet. When it came to it, he almost sneaked into the small, friendly, pub, the oldest one in Fleetwood, and dropping his large kitbag onto the floor by a table with chairs, he quietly asked for two pints of Mild; as though he had done every day. Then not seeing Sally, he took his pints, and sat at the table, thinking nobody had recognised him. Still in Army uniform, he would still have merged with many others at that time. The war was days from ending and he was sorry they had not seen the whole thing through, but this particular soldier had done ‘his bit’, and so had his best friend Albert. After a silent toast, his first pint barely touched the sides going down, and after draining the glass, he lit a Woodbine, moved onto his second glass, and simply sat there thinking gloomily about the friend he had run away to war with. The friend he thought was no longer around, or able to share that table with.

Then coming out from the rear of the pub, stood Sally. She noticed the usual murmurs, or sometimes lively chatting and laughing had hushed to almost silence and seeing the old retired Regulars at the bar were whispering and following their gazes, she realised they were staring at an obvious stranger; the soldier at the table, alone. Something inside told her she knew him, and being the warm, friendly pub that ‘The Vic’ always was, Sally saw his uniform, and his empty first glass. Then she noticed his walking stick, and the all too obvious scars; and the tab on his tunic, marking him as being ‘Wounded in Battle’. The Landlord nudged Sally’s arm with a fresh pint of Mild, and motioned her to take it over to him.

Go on lass, take it to him; you know Soldiers and Seamen are all welcome here. This one looks like he’s had quite a war. And he looks familiar somehow. Go and see what his story is.

Taking the pint, she went slowly over to the Soldier and as soon as she stood opposite him, she knew exactly who he was; as he came out of his thoughts, their eyes locked onto each other, and both were watched intently by the regulars; now all in a tight group in expectation.

The atmosphere was heavy with that same expectation as the whole World seemed to miss a couple of