Twelve Days on the Somme
Sidney Rogerson was a young lieutenant in the West Yorkshire Regiment when he was posted to the Somme in November 1916. Long after the slaughter that took place when the attack began on the 1st of July. His company was ordered to hold a line of the British trench. And that’s what it did. It did not go over the top. It did not walk into a blizzard of machine-gun bullets. It did witness a diversionary barrage in No Man’s Land before it and a few of its men were killed by random shells. But that’s about it. Mostly what it did in those twelve days was this. It cleaned up and strengthened the trench and made it habitable. It kept its weapons clean and well-oiled. It endured rainstorms and biting cold with little shelter. It waited around for orders – in the rain again. It drank tea that tasted of petrol because the old petrol cans the tea was brought up to the line in hadn’t been properly cleaned. It put up with lice. And next to no sleep. Then, when its assignment was over, it packed up an...
