The Story of Michael Higgins: Part I - Aldershot Barracks (771 hits)
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Submitted by Axolotl (View user info) at 2005-10-05 15:39:02 EDT
The following is a true story. There is certainly a great deal of embellishment, but the basic facts are true.
There was a man named Michael Higgins, born in Kilbride Ireland in the closing years of the 19th century, who joined the Royal Irish Rifles and was sent to Aldershot for his training. In December 1915 he was sent to the front lines of the Great War, and fought at Hulluch, the Somme, Messines, and Passchendaele. What happened to him in his last days of combat is true and verified.
It is also a fact that Michael Higgins was my great-uncle. His brother John emigrated to America, and fathered my grandmother. While studying my genealogy, I came across his story.
These are Michael Higgins' experiences in the most senseless conflict in history.
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PART ONE - ALDERSHOT BARRACKS
"Attention! Pick up your ears, you Irish dogs, I'll bloody well be saying this only once!" Captain Rourke roared, his face bright red already. He paced up and down the line, twenty-five men wide and nine men deep, cracking his horsewhip across his hands in a very threatening manner. In other parts of the Aldershot Barracks courtyard, the other battalions were being lectured and disciplined by their respective drill sergeants, and the sound of the barking orders echoed off the barracks walls.
"I suppose I should be happy to see you all managed to bring your rifles over from Belfast," Rourke said. "But I have never seen a worse unit in my entire thirty years of serving in the British Army! If you were in the Boer Wars, you would have been cut to pieces!"
"I will drill you into shape, at least as much a shape as you insignificant blots on creation can possibly be in," Rourke continued. "You will follow my orders down to the very letter. For the next twelve weeks, I am your god. Leave that bloody Fenian popery back in Ireland, you can all now consider yourselves servants of the Crown and the British Church, and enemies of the hun."
Michael Higgins darted his eyes side to side at the rest of the first platoon. He had acquainted with some of the men in his unit back in Belfast over the summer, but they were still nothing more than strangers all together in the same place. Connolly, Clarke, McGuirk, O'Neill, O'Shea, Vesey...
"If I sent you out into the bog as you are," Captain Rourke hissed dramatically, walking past Michael. "Fritz would have a field day on you. You'd be gassed, and shot, and bombed from every direction. That's why it's my job to see to it that the hun won't have its way with you, and it's your job that the hun won't have its way with your wives and children."
Michael Higgins had traveled from the small Mayo town of Kilbride to enlist in the 83rd Regiment of Foot, or as it was known, the Royal Irish Rifles, 7th Service Battalion. Lord Kitchener, before his tragic death, had completely reorganized the British Army and had created many new divisions, including three Irish ones.
The 36th Irish was already deployed to France. The 10th Irish division had been blasted to pieces on the shores of Gallipoli. Michael Higgins had enlisted in Belfast with the 16th, but it had taken a long time for training to commence. Being over five foot, three inches, and having just turned nineteen, he was able to escape the ardor and poverty of his homeland. He didn't expect the war to be any fun, but it was an opportunity for sustenance and adventure, which was more than what he would get back in Kilbride.
From the army camp at Belfast Michael had received his khaki, large-pocketed tunic and trousers, with ankle boots and peaked cap, as well as a spare uniform, a winter hat, and a long trenchcoat. They had done minimal training in Belfast, but Michael had learned to operate his Lee-Enfield SMLE rifle, and his unearthly-looking gas helmet.
"Fritz is waiting out there for you. He's waiting for you to make a mistake, to lose concentration, to doze off on duty. And that is when the German, the hun, the most barbaric of European races, gets you right in the head."
Michael had a hundred and fifty rounds of ammunition in buckles and clips all across his body, as well as a bayonet in a scabbard, a shovel, and a water bottle on his belt. Sixty-one pounds of equipment in total.
"From now on, I am God," Captain Rourke said. "My word is law, by breaking my word and orders you incur my divine wrath."
Michael's thoughts drifted to the previous year, leaving for the army and talking to his brother for one last time.
"Michael, you can't do this," John Joseph Higgins had begged. "Come to America with me, please, I beg you."
"John," Michael had whispered, embracing his sibling. "You're fourteen years old. Don't you go on leaving Kilbride either. I must do this, I must escape this old kip. I want to see the world, see Europe,"
"Higgins, you animal!" Rourke snapped sharply. "Pull your head out of your arse and pay attention! What in the name of Christ are you thinking about? What did I just say, you bastard?"
"I don't know, sir!" Michael replied, his stomach sinking.
Rourke struck Michael across the face with the back of his hand.
"Do you want to sink into the mud of St. Gond Marshes?" Rourke hissed. "Do you want to get stuck on the wire at Morhange, to get blown into fragments on the shores of Gallipoli, to get seared with gas at Ypres? No? Then pay attention, you ignorant culchy, and put your head on your shoulders where it belongs!"
Rourke passed on down the line, berating and cursing the fellow recruits in turn. "Your training will begin tomorrow. This is your last day without pain, I can assure you that."
* * *
Training at Aldershot Barracks was brutal. The 2nd Company, 7th Battalion, Royal Irish Rifles, about two hundred and twenty-seven men strong, were driven to the limits of human endurance. Every day the battalion ran two miles around the perimeter of the barracks and the countryside beyond.
"Come on, mate," Michael wheezed as he passed Jack Vesey. "We're near the halfway point. Come on, lad."
Vesey was not fat, but a large and strong man. His thick, muscular legs were cramping in agony as the troop jogged through the paths of the Surrey countryside.
They returned down the grassy slopes to Aldershot once more, and at the gate Captain Rourke was waiting with a small watch.
"Fifteen minutes, Higgins," Rourke barked as Michael collapsed onto all fours, his legs shaking. "Not bad. Not particularly good, either."
A few minutes later, Jack Vesey came into the gate.
"Seventeen fucking minutes, Vesey?" Rourke inquired in disbelief. "You corpulent slob. You are a disgrace to the British Crown. This is why Britain has dominated Ireland for the last seven hundred years, because you useless bloody micks can't fight. Say it, Vesey, say you are a disgrace to the Crown."
"I am...a disgrace..." panted Vesey, standing at attention before Rourke, his body trembling.
"Indeed you are, no doubts about that," Rourke snapped. "But finish it! A disgrace to the British Crown!"
"I'm a disgrace...to the British Crown..." said Vesey in defeat.
The battalion began to do attack exercises next. Higgins' platoon, led by one John Relyea, was set to storm a tree just outside the barracks.
"Dig those trenches deep!" Rourke shouted. "The deeper you dig your trench, the longer you live out there in the bog!"
Higgins and the rest of them worked their shovels hard, digging out a long foxhole comfortable enough for the forty men of Platoon Two.
"Where're you from, Michael?" asked Peter O'Neill.
"Mayo, just near the coast," Michael grunted, throwing a shovelful of soil over his shoulder and building up a firing platform out facing the tree.
"Tyrone, myself, Omagh," O'Neill replied.
"Londonderry," said Thomas O'Shea.
"I'm Mayo myself," Jack Vesey said, skillfully digging a perfectly proportioned trench. "Charlestown."
"Keep working, lads," Lieutenant Relyea ordered. He was the officer of the platoon, but was working along with his men.
"Look at this trench!" Rourke said loudly. Michael winced; Rourke was evidently not capable of natural human speech. "Vesey, maybe you're not a bloody disgrace to the crown after all. Look at this beautiful trench, Vesey! Why did you make this trench so spectacular?"
"Sir, you told me to, sir!" replied, saluting Rourke.
"Wonderful!" Rourke said. "Get ready to charge the tree."
"Up to the firing step!" Relyea said lazily. "Prepare to charge, and fix bayonets."
Michael swung his rifle to the front, and affixed a long bayonet onto the top. These weren't training bayonets, but the ones that they would be soon using against the Germans.
Relyea blew the whistle, and the platoon charged over the top of the trench, and ran across the grassy field toward the copse of trees.
"Higgins!" came Rourke's grating shout. "Are you on a bloody picnic? Get down to the ground, before you get your head or your nuts blowed clean off!"
The platoon sunk down low, and advanced onto the ground in front of the tree. The tree was surrounded by barbed wire and pits in the ground, and the wire was covered in entrails.
"Pig guts!" exclaimed Vesey vehemently.
The training went on for quite a while, thirteen weeks in the fall of 1915. At firing
practice, Vesey and Higgins excelled.
Michael Higgins shouldered his weapon and sunk low to the grass, and lined up the sights with the small meter-wide target. He pulled the trigger, and the butt slammed into his shoulder, the smell of cordite filled the air. Working the bolt, Higgins fired three times.
The volleys of gunshots were over, and the commanders and privates walked over to examine their targets.
"Fair shot, Vesey," said Rourke. Vesey's three bullets had skirted around the bull's-eye. "But you've got to remember to keep your head down. That goes for you too, Higgins. The German snipers are the best-equipped and best-trained in the world. You put your head an inch above the trench and it'll be blowed off—Higgins, what is this target?"
Michael had two bull's-eyes, which he was extremely proud of, but one of his shots had struck in the outer part of the target, far away from the center.
"This is an insult to me. You are a disgrace to the British Crown," Rourke said with condescension. "Repeat after me. Say you are a disgrace to the British Crown."
Some primal rage that was building up inside Michael came to the surface, and Michael replied, "I respectfully disagree, sir."
"What?"
"I disagree. I do not think I am a disgrace to the British Crown."
The rest of the platoon looked in interest as Rourke, his facing growing purple, stared Michael Higgins in the face; Higgins did not flinch.
Spitting at Higgins' cheek, Rourke walked away.
The training was stepped up; forced marches became a routine part of the exercises, and everyone in the battalion was improving their accuracy with the rifle. Still, Michael Higgins managed to offend Captain Rourke in some way.
"Your laces are untied, you worthless sack of meat," Rourke yelled, cracking his horsewhip across his hands as he pointed down at Michael's feet. The procession halted, the men in the back inquiring as to the reason for the holdup.
"Just a bit, sir," Michael replied unthinkingly. Rourke slapped Michael across the face and restarted the marching drill.
"Don't let it bother you, Michael," Vesey said that night in the bunks. "He just does it to crush our spirits."
"Maybe it'll all be of some use in the trenches," Michael replied. "It had better be, with what we're going through."
Rourke's muffled shouts came through the wooden walls of the barracks.
"He's always out there, patrolling," Nicholas Anderson. "I don't think he ever sleeps."
"Let's go out there," Michael said excitedly.
"What?" Vesey replied.
"Let's go out and trip Rourke up or something, get back at him," Michael said. "Wear your tin helmets so that he won't see you."
"Yeah," Vesey said, pulling on his helmet. "Grab a rope, we'll tie the bugger up."
"Let me go, too," said Conor Tippe, a recruit only seventeen.
Tippe, Vesey and Higgins, clad in helmets to disguise their faces and armed with cords of rope crept to the door of the bunkroom, the rest of the platoon gazing in anticipation.
Pushing open the door of the barracks, Michael looked around; Rourke was walking away from the door down a small passage of the barracks.
"Let's go," Michael said. He, Vesey and Tippe tiptoed up behind Rourke, crouching down low to avoid being seen by any other officers.
"Now!" Vesey whispered. Michael and he darted forward and shoved Rourke down to the earthy ground.
"What—"
Michael wound the cord around his legs, his mind feverish with excitement and delirium.
Rourke roared and lunged out blindly at the attackers, knocking off Tippe's tin helmet. Covering his face, Tippe retreated back into the bunker. Michael tied a loose knot, and him and Vesey ran as fast as they could away.
They stormed back into the barracks, and leaped into bed; the rest of the platoon murmured in interest. For minutes they waited in fearful anticipation for Rourke to come bursting in through the door.
But he did not come. There was no mention of the incident until the next morning. The second platoon was woken up early in the morning at five, and lined up outside the barracks, Rourke standing before them looking eerily calm.
"Last night around one in the morning," Rourke began, caressing his horsewhip. "I was ambushed by a group of three or more recruits. They pushed me down, and one of them tied a pitifully poor knot around my ankles. I escaped from it within seconds. I decided against raiding their barracks, as I already knew the culprit."
Rourke held up the tin helmet, and turned it over, saying, "Our good friend Conor Tippe wrote his name on his helmet—an act forbidden, by the way—and then promptly left it behind at the scene of the crime."
"I'm sorry, sir!" Tippe bawled, falling to his knees. Michael and Vesey shot a quick glance at one another, praying that the young Tippe wouldn't give them away.
"Lieutenant Relyea!"
"Yes, captain?" Relyea replied, saluting laconically.
"Did you see Private Tippe—or anyone else, for that matter—out of bed last night?"
Relyea smiled inwardly; of course he had seen Vesey, Higgins and Tippe leaving the barracks, but he was a fair enough officer that he wouldn't say anything. Unlike most of the other commanders of the 16th Division, Relyea was an Irishman himself.
"I went to sleep right after lights-out, sir," Relyea lied. "I did not see anything."
"I am fairly sure that Tippe did not act alone. I expect Higgins led him along with it. Higgins, what do you have to say for yourself?"
Michael replied, "Sir, I did nothing, sir."
"You're a despicable liar, Higgins," Rourke said. "And I know it was you. Do you fancy me an idiot, Higgins?"
"No, sir."
"Do you believe that I would think that Tippe acted alone? Do you consider me below you. Answer me quickly, or I'll lash you into oblivion, which I just might do anyway."
"It was me, sir," Vesey stated simply. "I led Tippe. It was me."
His attention drawn from Michael, Rourke turned on Vesey and said sharply "Was it now? Field punishment number one; the rest of the platoon can go out on a five-mile run, and I want it under forty minutes or there won't be any water waiting when you get back. Higgins, Tippe, get out of my sight."
The platoon was universally able to finish the run under forty minutes, even so Rourke had not provided any water at the end. All that was there in the barracks was Rourke standing over the bleeding form of Jack Vesey, naked to the waist and tied to a field artillery piece. Other battalions were watching the scene that had evidently ended recently. Vesey had been whipped dozens of times with Rourke's horsewhip, and long streaks of blood ran down his torn back.
"We leave in one week for France," Lieutenant Relyea said to the platoon as they walked down the long barracks square. "I'm sorry for what happened to Vesey, but this will not be tolerated in the field."
"Vesey, you are a walking rubbish heap!" Rourke shouted, cracking the whip against the muzzle of
the cannon. "You are a disgrace to the Crown!"
"I am not," Vesey said in a low mumble.
Rourke kicked Vesey in the ribs, and said, "You can stay there all bloody day, then!"
The rest of the platoon did their exercises. It was a cold early December afternoon, and the English wind was biting at Vesey's unclothed skin. At sundown, Rourke ordered Relyea to release Vesey.
"Thanks, Jack," Michael said. "I'm really..."
"Don't mention it," Vesey smiled, shivering as Relyea put a trenchcoat over his shoulders.
The last week of training was a little more relaxed. On the tenth of December, the training was officially over, and the 16th Division was moved in a large convoy of lorries and trains to Portsmouth, where a ship was waiting to move to Etaples, France.
The ride on the English Channel was short, just a day's journey at a fair pace. The ship docked in Le Havre, and the soldiers were unloaded onto the large French port. Another day was given to moving the several thousand soldiers from the 16th Irish to the camp at Etaples.
All around the camp soldiers marched and trained, and queued up in long lines for orders and food.
"Last week Major General William Hickie took over our division," Relyea said as they got to the camp. "He's a good man."
"Get your sleep in, men!" Rourke commanded. "We'll be heading out soon to Loos."
The eighteenth of December was D-Day for the 16th Division. That day they moved out, taking lorries and cars down the abandoned French roads to the Western Front.
The first elements of the Irishmen arrived on Christmas Eve on the front near Loos and Hulluch. Michael's battalion was coming up in the middle; he was fascinated by the foreign countryside that passed by going through in automobiles. The French citizenry looked gloomy and depressing wherever the convoy passed a populated area.
"We're finally in France, Jack," Michael said to Vesey as they debarked the convoy in the town of Loos. The small village was mostly deserted, except for English and French military walking about in squadrons.
"Aye, we are," Vesey replied. There was a hint of anxiety in his voice. "Some of the forward
battalions are out on the line already."
"Maybe tomorrow they'll have a truce between the Germans and us," Michael said. "After all, it's Christmas. That's what they did last year."
Michael's battalion spent the night in Loos, and Michael wrote a small Christmas card to his family back at home. There was a fine layer of white snow on the ground, and it was freezing cold outside.
"Wake up, you rats!"
They were so accustomed to Rourke's voice that they all clambered out of their bunks and stood at attention within ten seconds.
"You'll be going out onto the reserve line today," Rourke said. "By the way, at four in the morning today, the division suffered its first fatal casualty. Jeremy Tyler, from Wexford. He didn't duck down far enough, and Fritz blew the top of his head clean off. On the double, get your gear and get out!"
For Michael, the war had begun.
User Reviews
Submitted by MyNameIsTim (user info) at 2005-12-15 09:42:56 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
ABSOLUTELY PHENOMINAL.
you should win the 'best new writer' award at the ubergrammys
Submitted by chmoXzero (user info) at 2005-11-21 17:49:09 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
that was really good
Submitted by loki (user info) at 2005-11-21 17:22:10 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
nicely done
Submitted by pen_name (user info) at 2005-10-17 13:01:25 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by HadToBeDone (user info) at 2005-10-17 12:39:00 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Most Awesomely.
Submitted by theroo (user info) at 2005-10-11 10:14:27 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Fantastic!!
Keep it up
Submitted by Yes (user info) at 2005-10-10 16:48:54 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Brdn_Nkd (user info) at 2005-10-10 16:28:14 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by BLITZKREIG_BOB (user info) at 2005-10-10 16:00:44 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I'm going to read all of your posts now.
Submitted by GodChicken (user info) at 2005-10-06 18:10:38 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by jack11058 (user info) at 2005-10-06 14:58:29 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Axolotl (user info) at 2005-10-06 10:09:27 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Maybe so, but the only negative review on this one was from an alter.
Part two coming soon...
Submitted by kaos-king (user info) at 2005-10-06 09:54:03 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Fucking Brilliant! You really captured the essence of the time and the characters. Ax, I don't think people read your work because it forces them to realize their own work is shit. Absolute +2
Submitted by jack11058 (user info) at 2005-10-06 05:50:26 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
i'll come back and read this later, but for now, here's a +2 to balance out the asshole. they're coming out of the woodwork today.
Submitted by Axolotl (user info) at 2005-10-05 16:24:34 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
You've got to be bloody kidding me with these alters...thank you to the two real people who reviewed this.
Submitted by JMG114 (user info) at 2005-10-05 16:18:33 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Wow. This is great.
Submitted by Smack_Fuck (user info) at 2005-10-05 16:16:31 EDT (#)
Ranking: -2
not reading all that.
Submitted by JonnyX (user info) at 2005-10-05 15:53:59 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
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