The Ypres Campaign may have been over, but Ypres was not yet done with the Kiwis. The New Zealand Division was assigned a new sector, just south of the heart of Ypres itself, and were required to continue helping to hold the newly won line through the depths of a bleak and bitter winter.
Ormond Burton says: “The Divisional area stretched back over miles of the dreadful battlefield, from the Polderhoek Chateau to the ruined town of Ypres and the village of Dickebusch. An ugly dreariness was the prevailing feature. The outlook was sordid and revolting. Skies were grey and the damp mists hung low. Everywhere was a sea of mud. The whole atmosphere was dispiriting and distressing. Men lived in comfortless iron huts, in old gun-pits rotting with age, grimed with smoke and swarming with rats and further up toward the line, in the captured German pill-boxes. Few of these had escaped altogether. Even where the walls and roof were secure the foundations had been cracked and the water was rising. Often beneath the floorboards were horrors unmentionable and the stench rising were sickening. Yet these fearful dungeons where the German machine gunners had fought, died and after that been buried were the only shelters in the wide muck of desolation. Men lived in them and so utter was their need that these horrible places were looked upon as homes.”
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It is from these days that Bert writes:
“As I gaze on the sea of mud, that represents Flanders, I am almost inclined to agree with the Maori, whom I heard say, “By Korry! I think it serves the German right, if he win this war!” He meant that the Hun if he won this war, would be obliged to take possession of this desert of mud, bricks & shell-holes, with all the rotten weather chucked in.”
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Of that mud he says: “There is no word in the English dictionary to describe the mud of Flanders”and he recognises the wider toll the war is taking on the French and Belgians: “Flanders is a desolate country now and it is a pity to see large cities and cathedrals all in ruins.”
The struggle bringing supplies to the front caused by the mud.
The letters from this time also contain increased discussion of acquaintances from home who he comes across as new drafts into 1st Auckland – some of whom vanish soon after, missing or killed in action. He notes about one former friend, with a rather fatalistic attitude: “It is rather hard on [his] parents but “C’est la guerre”, as the French say.”
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As the Kiwis grimly held this new, dispiriting sector, each battalion had to take their share of duty in the front-line trenches and the Otago and Canterbury divisions had the misfortune to suffer through one more futile attack to win a few metres more of Ypres mud, known as the battle of Polderhoek Chateau. But for the Aucklanders much of the winter was spent in the reserve zones behind the front-line trenches. Ormond Burton says 1st Auckland effectively split its forces in two and rotated them, half assigned to working parties in the sector, the rest sent to Battalion HQ ‘schools’ for training – which could entail tramping for hours between towns and villages to attend various specialist courses.
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And this is what we see in Bert’s diary. He was sent off to undergo a variety of training:
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Nov 6 Tuesday: “Buzzer work morning. Went to a pigeon lecture to Lumbres in the afternoon. Paid.”
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Nov 8: “Parade 7:15am. Marched 4 kilos to lecture on gas. Battalion drill afternoon. Gas helmets inspected.”
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Nov 15: “Reveille 2:30am, breakfast 3:00am. Left Coulomby 4:00am and marched 10 miles to Wizernes where we took train to Poperinge. We then marched to Dicky Bush arriving about 6:00pm. Very fatigued.”
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Nov 19: “100 men out of the company went up the line further for a working party. Specialists left behind. Instruction in Lewis gun.”
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Then it was his turn to be slogging through work party duties.
Soldiers in working party clearing flooding.
Dec 2: “Left batt school at 6:30am in motor transports and went about 10 miles. Rejoined company. First fall of snow early morning.
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Dec 3: “On fatigues digging drains from 8am to 4pm. Heavy frost. Ditches frozen over.”
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The troops did what they could to make themselves comfortable, the lucky were assigned huts, others, as Burton described above, made what they could of their own ‘bivvies’.
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Burton paints this picture of a working party in their hut at the end of the day, playing cards, chess, doing art, quietly talking: “Sometime during the evening an N.C.O. comes in with ‘orders’ for the next day — and the rum issue. The ‘orders’ are listened to with attention, containing as they do the names of the working parties for the next day, while the rum is received with joy and drunk with eagerness.
New Zealand soldiers pouring rum from a barrel into ceramic flagons for issue to troops. Taken at Dickebusch 2 February 1918. You can see the type of huts the troops lived in at this camp in the background.
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There is nothing now to wait up for. The brazier is smoking abominably, and everyone's eyes are full of smoke. Outside it is freezing hard, and if for more than a moment or two the crazy doors are opened the cold night air rushes in and the pleasant heat vanishes as if by magic. One by one everyone curls up on the wire bunks, or on the floor, wrapped up in all available garments, for before morning and the Sergeant Major's call the cold will be very intense. By nine o'clock all are fast asleep. Gradually the red flames from the brazier die down. The black shadows fall everywhere, and one more day of the war has passed.”
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Bert in a letter home to his brother Frank gives a more irreverent view of the efforts taken to ease life in the reserve bivvies:
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“How to make oneself comfortable under adverse circumstances has become a fine art here, but it does not do to have too many scruples about conscience in the army. With the aid of a tin of bully, and a few biscuits, we can make anything from an omelet to a pork pie, and it is just a matter of a few minutes to convert a few sand bags, a sheet of iron, and a few pieces of timber into a palatial residence. In our bivvie (not in the trenches but just at the back of the line), we have a lovely little stove, which we ‘borrowed’ from an officer’s hut, (I believe he is looking for it) and the sack mattress I sleep on once belonged to a sergeant major, but I found it necessary to confiscate it. The boots I wear I salvaged a couple of days ago, in an army
padre’s hut, that he had left. There was also a couple of empty whiskey bottles under the chaplain’s bunk, but that is another matter.”
New Zealand soldiers pouring rum from a barrel into ceramic flagons for issue to troops. Taken at Dickebusch 2 February 1918. You can see the type of huts the troops lived in at this camp in the background.
By mid-December 1917, Bert received orders to yet again head back to Battalion HQ across the Belgian border at Morbecque in Northern France, where he was to spend the rest of the month in more training, this time at specialist signals school. It coincided with a bout of illness, as he notes in his diary:
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Sun 23: Weather very fine, but cold. I visited Hazebrouck in the afternoon. The town knocked about by shells. I am feeling sick.
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Mon 24: Xmas Eve. Parade as per usual. Lecture on cells, buzzer, flag drill, reading lamp, flags etc. Not feeling well.
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Christmas was celebrated there, though calling it a celebration may be a stretch. Breakfast consisted of bacon and army biscuits, followed later by a dinner he grudgingly admitted was “not so bad” even if the portions were not overly generous:
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“We were issued with a piece of pudding, the size of which would not allow a mouse to make a glutton of himself.”
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He was also annoyed the soldiers had to pay for their Christmas treat out of their own pocket. Clearly Christmas spirit only went so far amongst the parsimonious army paymasters. But Bert knew he was luckier than some.
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From another letter to Frank:
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“As you see by the date it is now Xmas day, but it feels more like Sunday than anything else. For breakfast we had cold bacon and Anzac wafers, or in other words hard army biscuits, not a very nice thing to put on the menu for a Christmas meal, but the dinner (which we paid for out of our own pocket) was not so bad. It reminded me of that poem entitled Xmas Day in the Workhouse. However, I am lucky not being up the line for this Yuletide. It is very cold now, and instead of a wash we have to shampoo with a chunk of ice.”
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Battalion school ended mid-January and Bert rejoined 3rd Company, though it took him two days trying to track down where they were camped. His diary carries a hint of weariness and annoyance:
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January 18: “Spent the day tramping all around Belgium with full pack looking for the company. Discovered them at Walker’s camp at Dickebush. Received order to proceed to Scottish lines. Arrived night.”
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More road making followed, peppered with muster parades in the ‘bull ring’ – including what was probably far from a thrilling treat for the kiwis:
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January 24: “Bull ring etc morning. Went to see a 'Tommy' model platoon give a demonstration of ceremonial drill.”
Kiwi signallers, 1917.
Barely a week later, he was off again, returning to Battalion HQ once more, having been given orders to relieve a Battalion signaller. It was a tribute to his abilities, being temporarily promoted from Company to Battalion sigs, and he knew it was an advantageous posting. He wrote in a letter to his mum:
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“I am at present at Brigade transport lines attending a phone receiving and sending messages; it is a good job but I expect it is only temporary.”
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However, you also get the sense that he chaffed at the monotony. His diary entries reduce to sparse notes:
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January 28: “Running with messages and attending phone, receiving and sending messages. Fine day.
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January 30: “Duties as per usual.”
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January 31: “Programme same as yesterday.”
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February 3: “Work as usual.”
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February 4: “Ditto.”
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February 18: “Nothing of interest.”
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He kept a keen eye on what 1st Auck was doing, noting when they once more went into the front line. On February 16 he managed to get away from HQ to at least visit 3rd company and catch up with his comrades, who had just returned from the trenches. Burton says it was an attitude seen in many of the Aucklanders: “The best type of fighting man, however much he may appreciate a good refresher course, is never desirous of a long stay away from his unit.”Eventually Bert was freed from HQ duties and rejoined 3rd Company full time on February 22. But again, he was there less than a week before once more being called away.​​​
Back to Blighty
Portrait Bert had taken while on leave in London.
“Fred was not at all well the last time he was here; it seems that his nerves are gone.
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Fred himself, in a letter to Nellie in November 1918, just eight days before the end of the war, and eight months after Bert’s death, said:
“I am once more in France but not with the boys. I do not expect to join my unit for two or three days yet, and I do not want to either, as they are in a pretty hot spot. I do not want a repetition of what happened to Bert especially now peace is so near. I see by this morning’s paper that both Austria and Turkey have surrendered and now we have only Germany to fight I feel confident we can soon finish things. The sooner it is over the better for there are more going under out here nowadays than there ever has been before. The fighting is very desperate and terrible, and it makes a fellow so anxious as no one wants to be knocked out at this stage of the game.”
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Despite the Dinks and Aucklanders often fighting closely together, the two cousins met just once while they were both in the army. Bert said in a letter from April 1917:
This time however, he was detached from 3rd Company for leave – a long awaited trip back to the UK, for almost a month. He had known the furlough was coming and had been expecting it since late January. As a cold March began he was waiting at Calais for a steamer, with three days of false starts due to bad weather. Finally, on March 4 he made it across the channel. In London he enjoyed typical tourist activities. Visiting Trafalgar Square, the Tower, Madame Tussaud’s, Regent Park zoo, theatre in the evenings and he even got lost on the Tube. On March 8 he had his photo taken, both full length and portrait. We have copies of those photos, which we can identify to this day by his 3rd Company collar badges.
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It seems his delay in London was also caused by endless army bureaucracy. He wrote to his mum:
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“Just a line from Blighty to say that I have got my leave at last. I am stopping at the NZ Soldiers Club before going to Brum. I have one or two things to fix up with regard to pay etc before I can go to Birmingham. I could have had my leave before now, but a chap has to have 10 pounds credit in his pay book, which takes a long time to get, before he can go on leave. Well I had better finish.”
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And in a letter to Nellie he confesses to providing a little unorthodox assistance to the army of army administrators to get himself past yet another inspection – filling out his own lice ‘ticket’ to declare himself free of vermin rather than risking an inspector using it as an excuse to hold him up:
“Before embarking on the boat we go through a lot of tedious parades etc inspecting lice tickets (I had to make my own out), sugar tickets, passes etc, and search a few here and there to see that they carry no souvenirs over to England. After the boat (when we did finally board it) had finished doing all sorts of antics coming across the Channel, as it was a very rough sea, we finally landed at Dover, where we took train to Victoria Stn London and then by omnibus to the soldier’s club Russell Square where we managed to get a clean change of clothing bath etc. London is not in darkness, the streets are all lighted up, and altogether different from Birmingham which is in total darkness. Food is dear, and it costs half-a-crown to wink in these restaurants.”
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Then on March 9 he finally made it to Birmingham to spend time with family. In the last letter we have from Bert, when he was once more back in France, he tells his sister Amy:
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“I enjoyed my leave and had good weather over there ... Uncle Alf invited me to stay at his place. ... I think I visited all my relatives this time but this does not include second cousins, grand aunts etc which number in thousands.”
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On March 17 his leave was over, and he began the trek back to France. In what was a kindly gesture, Uncle Alf and Aunt Laura (Laura Green nee Cashmore, the sister of Alf and of Bert’s mum Annie) took the train keeping him company all the way back to London. Alf knew, all too well perhaps, the importance of supporting a young man heading back to the front line. His own son, Fred Cashmore, who had emigrated to New Zealand in 1911 as a 16-year-old, was serving with the NZ Rifle Brigade - a Dink. Fred too was a signaller with his unit. He was a year older than Bert and had been in the service since 1915. He had been promoted to Sergeant, had fought and been wounded at Passchendaele on October 12, and was awarded the Military Medal for Gallantry.
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Bert says from that last trip ‘home’ to Birmingham:
Fred Cashmore
“I meet many old acquaintances, but have not seen Fred yet, although his battalion relieved us in the trenches, and I saw them as we were about to go out. For all I know he may have passed within a few yards of me.”
Then in August 1917, while in the reserve camps just behind the trenches in Ypres, he records in his diary:
Thurs 9: Instruction in wiring etc. Met Fred in the evening.
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As discussed earlier, it is possible it was that catch-up between the two cousins which lead Bert to switch specialties and trade in the LMG to become a signaller.
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Fred survived the war and died in Auckland in 1976 aged 81.
A day after leaving Birmingham, Bert was back in France and on March 19 rejoined 3rd Company.