By the close of February 1917, Chailey could boast that 186 of its men were serving King and Country.  Six men had already been invalided and discharged from the army whilst a further seven men had been invalided and were awaiting discharge.  Private William H Stevens of the 9th Royal Sussex had been languishing in a German Prisoner of War camp since his capture at  Loos in October 1915 and although Charles Wood had actually been killed in action in October 1914, he was still officially listed as missing in The Reverend Jellicoe’s roll of men serving.  Private George Page of The Royal Engineers, a regular soldier who had been serving since the outbreak of war was also listed as missing but would turn up safe and well.  Nineteen men however had been officially reported as killed in action or died of wounds and as each sad report filtered back to the vicarage, the Reverend Jellicoe added their names to his growing roll of honour in the parish magazine. 

 

There were however, also events to celebrate and on a happier note, Chailey men had already distinguished themselves in the Field.

 

Thomas Pateman of North Chailey and RSM with the 4th Queen’s Hussars had been mentioned in despatches and awarded the Military Medal.  A regular soldier and one of the original BEF, he had been mentioned in despatches in July 1916 and awarded the Military Medal the following November.  In April 1917 he would be mentioned in despatches for a second time and would serve right through until the end of the war, somehow managing to avoid injury despite his repeated courageousness in the Field.  His brother Alfred, a corporal with the 4th Hussars when war was declared would also serve right through the war, transferring to The Machine Gun Corps and picking up a wound late in 1918. 

 

Captain Archibald Wright of Ades, now serving with the 4th Royal Irish Dragoon Guards, had been wounded in March 1915 and again two months later.  His regiment had had the distinction of being the first British unit to fire a shot in the war and in February 1917 he too had been mentioned in despatches.

 

Meanwhile, another local man, Lance Corporal Frederick William Yeomans of the 8th Royal Sussex had distinguished himself during the Somme campaign and had been rewarded with the Distinguished Conduct Medal.  His citation, published in The London Gazette in October 1916 outlined the action for which he had been commended:

 

“For conspicuous gallantry in an attack, when, acting under orders of an officer, he organised a bombing party, and, with great courage and skill, bombed his way up a communication trench, facilitating the advance and causing the surrender of about 160 of the enemy.”

 

The Reverend Jellicoe, anxious to trumpet any good news in the wake of the casualty reports coming back from France, had pre-empted the London Gazette announcement with his own the previous month.

 

“Our list of officers and men will have an additional interest this month.  With “noble pride and not national swagger” as the Bishop of London recently put it, we publish under, a special list of distinctions.  The most recent of these is Lance-Corpl F Yeomans DCM.  I had the great pleasure of seeing him quite recently, and after considerable difficulty, for he was very reluctant to say anything about the brave deed at all, I was able to write down at his dictation the following account:  “I was among the second wave that advanced to consolidate a position.  We were held up by Germans in the dug-outs.  As soon as the first wave had advanced, the Germans left their dug-outs to attack us.  I volunteered with three others to clear a number of the enemy from their trenches.  In the execution of this duty I was awarded the DCM.  We took thirty one prisoners and when the rest of the platoon reached us, a further 150 prisoners were captured.”

 

In April there was excitement of a different kind when the quick action of a convalescing soldier from Beechlands averted what could have been a nasty accident.  The Sussex Express covered the story on 17th April.

 

“RUNAWAY HORSE - Excitement was caused at Newick Green on Sunday when, about 10:30 am, a pair horse van belonging to the Army at Maresfield Camp was seen coming from that direction, only a small boy aged about four years, sitting on the dickey.  Private Warner of the Middlesex Regiment, rushed to the rescue, and finding the reins hanging, caught hold of the side of the van and managed to check the horses near to North Lodge without any serious damage being done.  Private Warner, who is a wounded soldier (having been four times wounded) attached to the Red Cross Hospital at Beechlands, sustained a slight injury to his knee, and was much exhausted.”

 

In France meanwhile, the Allied forces were involved in heroics of a more strategic nature.  From as early as June 1916, French and British commanders had conceived the idea of a strike near Arras to support the planned offensive further south on the Somme.  The huge casualties incurred however had caused the idea to be postponed, but now, after the gradual eastwards advance of the British troops on the Somme Front, that plan had been revived.  A strike by the British First and Third Armies on a twelve mile frontage with Arras at its centre would level out the German bulge in the line that had been created by the Allied advance further south and would hopefully pave the way for the complete overthrow of the German Army. The Germans for their part had pre-empted plans to assault their lines by retiring to the sturdier better fortified positions of their Hindenburg Line further east.

 

On April 9th, Easter Monday, the Arras offensive was launched, the Allied forces making immediate gains, advancing three miles behind a creeping barrage which had pinned the German defenders in their positions.  Few Allied casualties had been sustained and over 9,000 German prisoners taken.  Nevertheless, the advance had faltered and the Germans had grasped the opportunity that had been presented to them.  German reserves had begun to appear by the following day and on the 11th the Australians had faltered in front of uncut wire at Bullecourt.  By the time the battle was resumed on April 23rd after a break to allow reinforcements to come up, the impetus had been lost and the battle had reverted to the traditional war of attrition that had characterised conflict on the Western Front since late 1914.

 

Despite the success of the opening day’s offensive, it wasn’t long before news of loved ones lost began filtering back to Britain and Chailey was not to escape unscathed. Owen Plummer had been the first to die on April 5th before the offensive had even got under way.  Six days later, Trooper Alfred Bird of the 3rd Dragoon Guards was also killed although it would be nearly three weeks before his death would be reported in the local papers.  In khaki since September 1914, Alfred had previously been a footman for Robert Blencowe at Bineham.  When war had been declared he had immediately joined up with his brother Harry and both had spent time with the 17th Lancers.  Harry had gone abroad in October 1915, transferring to the 16th Lancers a few months later, but Alfred had not finally had his opportunity to have a scrap with Jerry until October 1916, over two years after taking the King’s shilling.  Now, just five months later he had been killed in action.

 

The day after Alfred Bird was killed, another man with Chailey connections succumbed to wounds.  The Selby family, consisting of Albert Henry, his younger sisters Nellie, Emma and Dolly, and their parents Albert and Lydia, had made Brighton their base but had latterly moved to Holford Cottage, North Chailey.  Albert senior was a career soldier, a serving infantryman in 1901 when the census had been taken, and his son had followed in his footsteps, joining the army as soon as he was able to.  The family had moved wherever Albert Senior had been posted – Dolly had been born in Malta – and perhaps it was the variety that army life promised that encouraged Albert Henry Selby to become a career soldier too.  However, he had chosen not the infantry but The Royal Engineers and as soon as war had been declared he had been pushed straight overseas, taking part in the Mons retreat and the battles of The Marne and the Aisne.  A Lance-Corporal with the Signals Section, his experience then and since had been priceless.  Now though, he had died of wounds and his Colonel had had the difficult, but by now routine, task of writing to his next of kin.

 

“Dear Mrs Selby,” the Colonel began, “I deeply regret to have to tell you your son died of wounds this afternoon (12 April).  I saw him shortly before he passed away and it may be little consolation to know he was not in pain.  He asked me to write to you.  He did not realise that his case was hopeless and so he did not send any messages.  I can’t tell you how much I regret his loss.  His work out here has been invaluable and I was bringing his name to the notice of the Corps Commander, with a view to his getting official recognition.  He set a very high standard by his devotion to duty, and I can only say it is a loss to the Company which will be difficult to replace.  Please accept my sincere condolences…”

 

The Jenners, a South Chailey family, also received news at this time that their son Alfred had been wounded whilst serving with the 9th Royal Sussex and was now in hospital in Dover recuperating.  Four other Jenner boys would also serve on the land and at sea and all would return in due course to see Chailey again.

 

Soon, the familiar flow of wounded soldiers from the Arras battlefield began filtering into the British ports and then to the military and auxiliary hospitals throughout Britain.  Beechlands was no exception and Nurse Oliver was soon adding Arras wounded to her steadily filling album.

 

On July 1st 1916, the Division had attacked with the Fourth Army at La Boiselle and had suffered the highest casualties of the day – 6,380 men.  It is possible that Charles Harrald was a casualty on that day as his surviving records show subsequent transfers to the 10th and 23rd Northumberland Fusiliers before transfer again to the 24th battalion.  He was with the 24th battalion when wounded at Arras but little is known of his subsequent movements after recovering at Beechlands other than that he survived the war and was demobbed in 1920.

 

For the wounded soldiers fortuitously deposited at Beechlands, the contrast between the desolate landscape of the Western Front with its churned earth and blasted landscapes and that of peaceful Newick and Chailey with its wild commons and intact woods and copses, couldn’t have been greater.  In France and Belgium they were filthy with mud and lice, their resting places a trench dug-out when they were in the line and whatever shelter they could find when they were out of it.  As they could readily testify, death or serious injury stalked them at every turn.  You didn’t have to be manning a trench, taking part in a raid or general advance or manhandling artillery pieces in anger to run the risk of being maimed or killed; that could happen anywhere.  Always there was the threat of injury; of a stray shell or a chance bullet finding its mark, of an accident whilst training or jostling through narrow communication trenches.  A simple cut, caused by snagging barbed wire or carelessness when opening a tin of food could turn septic within a matter of hours; waterlogged trenches and boots immersed in them for days on end could lead to trench foot if the men didn’t exercise proper care.  As for the ever present lice which they spent many an hour trying to rid themselves of, running a candle flame along the seams of their shirts to kill their unwanted visitors, thousands of men had already been carted off to base hospital with trench fever, the label PUO (Pyrexia of Unknown Origin) pinned to their chests.

 

In Belgium the men seemed to be constantly wet, the earth permanently grey.  When they took a spell in the trenches of the Somme they came out covered in a thin layer of chalk dust in the summer and French clay when it had rained.  Chailey was a world away from the monotony and punctuated horror of trench warfare.  Here they were looked after by an efficient army of nurses and orderlies.  Their beds were proper beds with crisp linen sheets changed every day.  Their rooms were light airy wards where the sun streamed in through large windows and birdsong could be heard outside.  And everywhere they went, even at this late stage in the war with the country cowed by nearly three years of fighting and families coping with their own individual tragedies and losses, they were lauded as heroes and treated with revered dignity, respect and admiration by the local people they had been thrust upon.

 

Those men who spent more than a few weeks at Beechlands were able to notice the subtle changes in the countryside around them.  In France, the battle of Arras had been launched at a time of unseasonably appalling weather.  Rain, sleet and snow had turned the battle area into a morass and plunging temperatures which knew no favouritism and had seen British and German troops alike chattering with cold in their sopping trenches.  In Chailey, in the wetter low-lying areas of Pound Common and Romany Ridge, the amateur naturalist would have noticed that cuckoo flower and lady’s smock were in bloom while on Markstakes Common and other wooded areas, the masses of white wood anemones would soon be followed by a sea of bluebells.  Skylarks, swifts and swallows would be nesting while around Chailey’s various ponds, damselfly and dragonfly would be stirring and the water voles preparing to mate.

 

May would herald the arrival of more wild flowers on the Common.  Blue bird’s eye or germander speedwell joined by mouse-eared chickweed and forget-me-nots; the sparrows, thrushes and blackbirds flying backwards and forwards to feed their recent hatchlings in a thousand hidden nests. For those men fit enough to explore, there were walks aplenty from their base at Beechland House assuming they even wanted to leave the spacious grounds they found themselves quartered in. 

 

Faded photographs in Nurse Oliver’s album depict a posse of smiling soldiers, one with an eye patch, another with his arm in a sling; all of them squinting into the sunlight at the unknown photographer while behind them, sepia lupins and sunflowers provide what must have been a picturesque and colourful backdrop against the sturdy walls of Beechland House.

 

The war however, was never very far away.  The unending stream of men arriving at and departing from Beechlands was evidence enough that the war, now approaching its fourth anniversary, was consuming men with the same voracious appetite.  The regular newspaper lists of casualties supported that evidence and  there was always the dread knock of the postman to be feared and the handing over of a stark telegram conveying news of the death in action of a father, son or husband.

 

Private John Ford was killed on 3rd May in the struggle for Arras.  Exactly one month later, Private Charles Lee was also killed.  Both men were from Chailey.  John Ford, born in Chailey, had attested under the Derby Scheme at Chichester in March 1916 and by October he was in France, posted to the 8th battalion of the East Surrey Regiment.  The news that greeted his relatives the following May was not that he had been killed but that he was missing.  The Reverend Jellicoe duly noted the fact too in his monthly roll call published in the Parish Magazine but it would not be until a year later that Ford would be officially listed as killed in action.  Like so many though, his body would never be found and in time he would be commemorated on the Arras memorial.

 

Charles Lee was 31 years old when he was killed in action, leaving a widow, Florence, to mourn his loss.  Like John Ford, he had been on active service for under a year when he was killed whilst serving with the 11th Royal Sussex.  He is buried in Vlamertinghe Military Cemetery near Ypres.

 

In June 1917, a new convalescent hospital opened at Brook House on Chailey Green.  Its owner, Lieutenant Magnus Robertson, had been serving his country since 1914 and was now with the 12th Essex Regiment in France.  Wounded the previous November he had rejoined his battalion and been only too pleased to help out with the loan of his home for the purposes of a convalescent hospital.  Unlike Hickwells and Beechland House which were hospitals for ‘other ranks’, Brook House would be used exclusively by officers of The Royal Flying Corps and could accommodate between 25 and 30 men.  Its commandant would be none other that the indefatigable Miss Frances Blencowe and a full time Matron, Miss Jackson, was also engaged, other local ladies coming forward to offer whatever assistance they could, just as they had rallied when Hickwells had first opened its doors over three years ago.

Brook House opened for business on June 13th and in less than a fortnight the new residents were competing with the other ranks from Beechlands.  Major William Wilson Grantham’s Balneath Manor provided the venue for a stool ball match between the officers of Brook House and the men of Beechlands, the officers winning easily by 50 runs and Mrs Grantham entertaining all those present to tea.  There would be further matches over the coming weeks, each one dutifully reported in the local press.

 

Towards the end of the month, local man, Percy Pateman, a Gunner with the RFA who had been serving his country since November 1914 and had been wounded in January 1916, married his sweetheart, Alice Page, at St Peter’s Church, Chailey.  Her father, Sam Page, had been killed serving his country and although the papers didn’t dwell on such matters, the happy occasion must have been tinged both with sadness and with fears for what the future would hold.  The couple were married on 25th June and on the 27th Gunner Pateman left for France to rejoin his battery, his new bride returning to London to resume her duties at a munitions’ factory.  Both were sorely needed for on the Western Front a new offensive was being prepared around the battered town of Ypres and this time, so the Generals hoped, the move would prove decisive.