Stories from my grandfather's World War One journal

The Promise

It was a cloudless summer's day but the men of the Royal Field Artillery's 40th battery were listening to what sounded like thunder as their wagon line approached their assigned artillery position. Each man knew that it wasn't thunder they heard but the sound of heavy artillery shells bursting over the town of Mons, Belgium. It was August 23rd and the summer's heat turned both men and horses into mud figurines as the dust from the roads clung to their sweat soaked bodies. When the wagon line reached its position, the men released the six inch Howitzers from their limbers and rolled them into position. The guns were manned ready and the gunners anxiously waited for the order to fire. Perhaps it was only five or ten minutes before the order to fire would be given, but for those waiting, each minute seemed an eternity. There was time enough for soldiers to think about their loved ones back home, but for most it was time for them to project their thoughts and feelings of what events were about to unfold.

Each man seemed focused on the moment, and at this moment it was fear. Asking themselves, what would it feel like to get shot? Would they have the courage to stand their ground when shells were exploding all around them?  Would they turn and run when they saw men around them fall and cry in pain? All rhetorical questions without immediate answers. Some of these thoughts filled the minds of Fred Coxen, George Bramwell, Pudgie Taylor, and Bobby Glue while they stood together waiting. They were together, but each absorbed within his own thoughts, unaware of the intensity generated by the men around them that were preparing for war.

Fred's thoughts returned to the present solemness, and how different it was from the previous day when everyone in the battery was filled with the excitement and enthusiasm of being involved in a real scrap. He mused about how interesting the difference was between anticipation and participation. How the anticipation of a new adventure creates so much enthusiasm and how that excitement fades as participation becomes reality. Fred knew that each soldier in his own way tried to grapple with the possibility that one, if not all of them, might be dead by day's end.

Facing the possibility of death, Fred and his three chums voiced their concerns of how their loved ones in England might be informed of their passing. Of course the news of a soldier's death is always tragic, but would the military answer their families questions of "how", "when", and "where" they died? They knew the answers to these questions, so together they developed a plan that whoever made it through the war would find the families of those that didn't, and explain the details of their death. The promise seemed a logical solution and gave each of them an inner peace. What they didn't know that day is that it would take almost 100 years for the promise to come to fruition.