The events unfolding at Chailey were not unique but rather serve as a microcosm for Britain as a whole.  In villages, towns and cities throughout the United Kingdom, the same scenes were repeated a hundred fold as voluntary hospitals were mobilized and Kitchener’s volunteer armies hobbled back to be cared for by the country’s volunteer nurses.  ‘Entertainments’ were arranged, songs were sung, poems recited and everywhere, hearty votes of thanks were given to the modest stars for their impromptu performances.  Often, VAD detachments would combine on an excursion, wounded soldiers from local hospitals being entertained by troupes such as ‘The Chocolate Creams’ who travelled from Brighton to do their bit for the war effort by entertaining soldiers from Hickwells and nearby Pouchlands House. 

 

The frenetic opening two days of attack and counter attack at Loos had given way to a succession of secondary thrusts and assaults which were pressed with no less determination than they had been in late September but which met with the same end result.  As battalions added more names of foreign villages to their list of battle honours, so their casualty lists lengthened and the villages in the shires back home listed their own sad toll.

 

Corporal John Dicks, a Boer War veteran who had served with the 1st Battalion of the Royal West Kents in South Africa between 1899 and 1902 was another Reservist recalled to the colours when war was declared.  He had been posted to another of Kitchener’s K1 battalions, the 9th Essex Regiment, and had landed in France in May.  Now he too was back in England, wounded on October 13th when the 9th Essex had attacked a German position known as The Quarries, to the west of Cite St Elie.  The attack had been made across open ground with insufficient smoke cover and the casualties had been heavy.  Around 300 yards of trench at the south western end of The Quarries had been captured but but it would be a further four days before there would be more gains and in the meantime, Dicks was on his way to Chailey via Brighton.

 

There were also casualties from further afield.  Harrogate born William Calvert had already seen service with the 2nd Volunteer Battalion, West Yorkshire Regiment and the 3rd Volunteer Battalion, West Riding Regiment when he attested as a Territorial with the 6th West Riding Regiment in January 1911.  He was then nearly thirty three years old and a master shoemaker.  That year he had been to the annual Territorial camp at Ripon and had repeated the experience the following year at Flamborough.  Then he had moved south to Burnley with his wife, transferring to another Territorial battalion, the 5th East Lancashire Regiment.  When war was declared the following August he had immediately volunteered for overseas service and had been instantly rewarded by a promotion from private to sergeant and appointed master shoemaker.  In October 1914 he was boarding The H S Deseado en route for Alexandria.

 

The 5th East Lancs formed part of the 42nd Division which, with the exception of the artillery howitzer brigade, was comprised entirely of men from East Lancashire.  It was the first complete Territorial Division to go abroad and at first it looked to Calvert and the others that this might, after all, not be such a bad war.  On 25th September 1914 they had disembarked at Alexandria and spent the next seven months there defending the Suez Canal.  In May 1915 the Division had been packed off to Gallipoli.  Calvert had survived the landings at Helles but whilst he was able to avoid the shells and bullets that Johnny Turk sent over, he had not fared so well against some of the more natural pitfalls.  In September he was admitted to hospital with jaundice and on 4th November, just as Private John Allan and Corporal Horace Wood were rehearsing their songs for their perfomance at the Chailey Parish Room the following day, William Calvert was setting sail for England on the H S Mauritania.  A week later he was between clean sheets at The 2nd Eastern General Hospital.

 

Lance Corporal Ernest Ladd of the 5th East Kent Regiment was also back from The Dardanelles.  He had been wounded at Suvla Bay on 1st September and now found a companion in Calvert as the two men travelled north by hospital train to Lewes and then by ambulance to Chailey.  It was all the authorities could do to keep up with the relentless stream of wounded but by now the business of keeping the hospital trains moving and transferring the less serious cases to the auxiliary home hospitals across the south east was becoming slicker.  It was just as well.  Calvert was one of 300 men from the Dardanelles, arriving in Brighton on 11th November.  Four days later, 50 men arrived from France.  The next day, the 16^th, another trainload of 125 men arrived followed on the 21st by two trainloads of 150 and 167 wounded Indian soldiers who arrived direct from the Base Hospital at Boulogne.  “Both convoys,” stated the paper with more than a little hint of pride, “were clear of the station in less than 20 minutes.”

 

Arriving at Hickwells, Calvert and Ladd walked straight into preparations for another concert in aid of the Parish Room building fund.  The last concert just a couple of weeks earlier had proved to be so successful and so popular with the audience that a repeat performance had been requested.  This time there would be more participation from the soldiers.  Some of them, like Corporal Horace Wood, had already left Hickwells, but Jock Allan was still there and new performers were joining the makeshift cast every day.  The local press even sent two reporters, one from the Sussex Daily News and one from the Sussex Express.  Calvert and Ladd watched from the wings.

 

“A most enjoyable entertainment” was how The Sussex Express reported the event two days later on 26th November.  “Sergeant Nash next sang, “Somewhere in France” and “Till the boys come home” was rendered by Sergeants Nash and Shepherd.  Driver Bradley was deservedly encored for his inimitable rendering of “My Beastly Eyeglass” and replied with a recitation, “The 11.69 Express”.  He later gave “Christmas Bells” and in response to an encore gave a humorous monologue, “The Single Hair”. Other items were contributed by Private Jock Allan, who sang “For King and Country” and on being encored gave the song, “I Love a Lassie”.  Later he sang “Annie Laurie” and “Roamin in the Gloamin”.  Bombardier Ryan acted as stage manager and his witticisms frequently caused great laughter.” 

“A popular contribution,” recorded The Sussex Daily News, “seemed to be ‘Hickwells Band’ which, though not very tuneful, was certainly responsible for plenty of fun.  Bombardier Ryan announced the items and gave an excellent comic song with tambourine dance.  Sergeant Sheppard gave some bugle calls of the British Army.  Driver Bradley kept the audience in roars of laughter with his comic songs.  Corporal Nash, Lance-Corporal Smith and Private Allen’s songs were much appreciated.”  As an after-thought the journalist added, “The only civilian who took part was Mr Stone, who sang a couple of songs.”  If you weren’t a wounded entertainer there was simply nothing more to be said.

 

The increased numbers of wounded men through the doors of Hickwells kept the nurses of Sussex 54 VAD busy from morning until night.  They didn’t complain, it what was what they had been waiting for.  Many had brothers or sweethearts also serving at the Front and all hoped that should their loved ones be wounded in action, they too would receive the same caring treatment that they were now lavishing on the men arriving at Chailey.  For Nurse Oliver, it also represented the opportunity to fill her autograph album with more entries.  To the contributions of Privates James Sweeney, John Currie, John Allan and John Sheridan were added those of other Loos survivors.

 

William Chadwick of the 7th KOSB, scribbled his name, battalion and the date he was wounded.  The bullet wound to his foot wasn’t serious and before the year was out he would be posted to another Kitchener battalion of the KOSB.  But Loos had opened his eyes to the fragile existence that the British Tommy enjoyed.  The heady days of August 1914 when war was declared, Lord Kitchener’s appeal and the subsequent formation of the battalion at Berwick on Tweed, the non-existent or improvised uniforms and the men’s anxious wait for rifles all seemed another world away.  In just a few short hours in France, Chadwick had seen the same men he had shared hardships with over the previous twelve months, fall in their droves in the face of German machine gun and shell fire.  Twelve officers had been killed, a further seven wounded or missing, and of the men with whom he had alternately joked and cursed, over 600 of them were either dead, missing or nursing their wounds in a dozen other Hickwells throughout the British Isles.  He added just one more line to his entry: “Man’s life is but a dream.”

 

Arthur Reeve of the 8th KOSB and wounded in the thigh at Loos, painted a watercolour in Nurse Oliver’s album.  Borrowing some paints, he hobbled off in the direction of nearby Newick Church.  To his finished execution he would simply add ‘Sgt A. Reeve, 8th KOSB’.

 

Some of the men drew, as John Allan had done, facsimiles of their cap badges.  Here was Stan Collins’s representation of the King’s Royal Rifle Corps badge sketched in pencil with the motto ‘CELER ET AUDAX’ (‘Swift and Bold’) inked in black, and here too, sharing the same page was Sergeant William Calvert’s impression of the East Lancashire Regiment badge, also sketched in pencil with the words EGYPT and EAST LANCASHIRE picked out in ink.  Calvert had also added a little rhyme but Collins had just contented himself with his regimental details and a note of the date and place of his wound.

 

Much beloved of the local critics, temporary stage manager, Bombardier Francis E Ryan who had received such glowing reports for the part he played in the Hickwells entertainment of 24th November, was attached to the Headquarter staff of the 2^nd West Lancashire Brigade of The Royal Field Artillery.  A Blackpool man, his Lancashire humour and wicked mimicry were just the tonic for both the staff and patients alike and Nurse Oliver would later ruefully add ‘Now somewhere over seas’ under his entry in her book.  Now though, hard on the heels of the successful November concert, he was planning another extravaganza and this time the new arrivals from the Dardanelles would also take minor roles.  Lines were rehearsed, costumes improvised and the critics invited.  The date was set for Wednesday 1st December and there would be two performances at 2:30 and 4:30.  Guests were advised to come early in order to avoid disappointment.  Of particular note was to be a waxworks’ exhibition, which would be introduced to the audience by ‘Mrs Jarley’ a strange creature bearing a striking resemblance to Bombardier Ryan.  The Sussex Daily News and Sussex Express packed off their reporters again.

 

“WOUNDED SOLDIERS ENTERTAIN THEIR FRIENDS AT CHAILEY

The soldiers at Hickwells Relief Hospital at Chailey were ‘at home’ to their friends on Wednesday afternoon and by way of amusing them gave two excellent entertainments.  The bugle called the performers together and when the screens were withdrawn a nice little group of waxworks was disclosed, Bombardier Ryan shewing off their ‘beauties’ in his usual amusing way.  Corporal Nash (as St George) and Private Allen sang the ‘Tin Gee Gee’, Private Wise and Sergeant Calvert making two fascinating ‘Little Dolly Girls’.  Rifleman Collins, still on crutches, made a splendid broken doll.  Lance-Corporal Smith was a Japanese Lady, and, later on, although only having the use of one arm, cleverly ‘vamped’ some accompaniments.  While dresses were being changed, Private Hume and Private MacBride sang and danced, and then to the tune of ‘Here We Are Again’, Hickwells’ Pierrot troupe appeared and gave a spirited entertainment.  Driver Bradley and Private Allen made excellent ‘Corner Men’ and Bombardier Ryan was capital as the ‘Master of Ceremonies’.  The troupe included, besides those already mentioned, Sergeant Calvert, Sergeant Sheppard, Corporal Nash, Lance-Corporal Smith, Privates Wise and Holleran, Driver Cleary and Corporal Dicks, many of whom sang and recited.  Two of the nurses helped at the piano.”

 

Not content with running a bustling auxiliary hospital, Margaret Cotesworth also found time to devote her energies to other matters, all of course for the benefit of the war effort.  Perhaps mindful of the nursing role her friend Frances Blencowe was playing in the Balkans, she found time in early December, to act as the regional organiser for Serbian Day, The Sussex Express reporting that the ladies, “metaphorically speaking, stuck to their guns.  The collection was a good one.” 

 

Frances meanwhile, had been working with Rear Admiral Troubridge’s staff at the Belgrade Military Hospital in Serbia.  Troubridge came from a prominent line of English naval officers but in August 1914, as one of the commanders in charge of blocking the exit of enemy ships from the Adriatic to the Mediterranean, he had let one of the German ships – The Goeben – slip through unnoticed.  As a result of his indecisiveness he was court martialled and although he was exonerated on the grounds that he had correctly followed orders not to engage a superior force, he would never again hold a post at sea.  Instead, he was appointed head of the Naval Mission to Serbia.

 

For the first couple of months that Frances was in Serbia, everything had gone according to plan.  Typhus, which had been carried in by the Austrian army in 1914 and had swept through the country affecting nearly a third of the population, was largely under control by October 1915. But then Bulgaria had declared war early in the month and this was followed by simultaneous attacks from the Austrians in the north.

 

Frances remained in Belgrade until November when, with the enemy troops entering the capital, she had taken part in the mass retreat of the Serbian army organised by Troubridge.  In recognition of her humanitarian care of wounded Serbian soldiers, she would later be awarded the Serbian Cross of Mercy and would be personally presented with it by no lesser dignitary than the Crown Prince of Serbia himself.

 

Meanwhile, closer to home, whilst the troops chattered with cold in their waterlogged trenches along the Western Front, the continuing war of attrition on the Western Front ensured that Sussex 54 VAD was kept busy.  Although there had been no major Allied offensives since the battle of Loos had finally petered out in the middle of October, the random nature of trench warfare ensured that there were a thousand different ways a man could suddenly find himself transformed from an active soldier to another statistic on a hospital train.  A casual shell pitched into a trench, a mine exploding under a sap, a sniper’s bullet scoring a hit through a well-aimed gap in the parapet, or pockets of gas lingering in dug-outs all added to the daily toll of casualties who were routinely fed back to the casualty clearing stations and then to the hospitals in France and England.  And if German ordnance and chemicals failed to make their mark, there was always a good chance that sickness and disease might.  The local newspapers methodically reported the arrival of the ambulance trains and the dispersal of their contents to hospitals in the area. 

 

On December 10th, The Sussex Daily News reported that a trainload of 91 other ranks and six officers had pulled into Brighton, following this with another report on December 30th of a further contingent of 170 men, 89 of whom had to be transferred on stretchers.  “They had all come from France and were all Britishers,” reported the paper.  “They landed at Dover and were conveyed by a Great Western Red Cross train via Norwood Junction to Brighton.  A large number were sent to the 2nd Eastern General Hospital in Dyke Road where the Christmas decorations will provide a bright and gaily coloured environment.” 

 

Private W H Baddock of the 3rd Grenadier Guards and Lance Corporal Edward Burnage of the 7th Royal Sussex, shortly to be leaving their marks in Nurse Oliver’s book, were among these latest arrivals. 

 

Shot in the leg on the opening day of the battle of Loos, Edward Burnage, then with the 2nd Royal Sussex Regiment, had been returned to Blighty four days later.  By December though, his wound had healed sufficiently for him to play an active role in hostilities again and on December 10th he was posted to the 7th Royal Sussex Regiment which formed part of the 12th (Eastern) Division.  The same day, the Division moved up to relieve the 33rd Division in the Givenchy sector.  The Divisional historian takes up the story:

 

“If the last front was bad, this one beggared description.  In the Festubert section, the country, principally water meadows, was intensely wet and water logged, the rain had filled the trenches, and pumping had not overcome this trouble.  Along a large portion of the front line the parapet appeared in the form of islands above the water.  These islands became small defended posts holding from five to ten men, and were called keeps.  They could not be approached during daylight, and life was so intolerable on them, that reliefs took place every twenty four hours under cover of darkness.”

 

Under such conditions, infantry assaults and trench raids were, to quote the Divisional historians ‘at a discount’ but the appalling conditions did not prevent hostilities altogether.  Whilst the artillerymen on both sides ensured that the men holding the outposts kept a wary eye on the sky, tunnellers snaking towards opposing lines underground prepared the way for explosive charges which would blow the defenders sky high. 

 

On 21st December, the Germans exploded a mine north of Givenchy.  Two days later Burnage and his colleagues in the 7th Royal Sussex moved into the right sector of the front line, relieving the 7th Suffolk Regiment.  They had hardly had time to settle in when, at 7.15 on the morning of the 24th, the Germans exploded a further mine. The battalion war diary takes up the story.

 

“Germans blew up defensive mine between their line and ours opposite Saps ‘G’ & ‘H’, blowing in the end of their two saps and causing considerable damage by burying men and subsequent shell fire.  In afternoon the Germans occupied this caret temporarily and could not be got at owing to the depth of mud around the newly blown up crater.  Sap ‘H’ was rendered untenable except for 15 yards.  Rifle grenading began on both sides.  Trench mortars were either out of gear or could not be found to reply and turn enemy out of crater.  Machine-gun enfilade was of some use.  Much artillery fire both sides day and night.  Casualties 3 killed 23 wounded.”

 

Burnage, back in France for precisely a fortnight, was one of the 23 wounded.   Five days later he would be in Brighton and this time he wouldn’t be coming back.

 

Meanwhile, across the Channel a few miles further north, the 3rd Grenadier Guards had been having a relatively quiet time of it.  They had begun the month resting in good billets at Laventie and had spent a couple of days in well-boarded trenches with firm parapets.  The enemy facing them “seemed idle” according to the battalion war diarist, which meant that reliefs were effected with little difficulty.  It was just as well, because the general conditions here were little better than those faced by the 7th Royal Sussex.

 

Towards the end of December, the Germans became more active, a fact put down by the Grenadier’s diarist to their damaged moral as a result of frequent raids made upon their lines by Grenadier patrols.  Although raids were made almost every night, the raiders “did not have the fortune to encounter any opposition” and returned to their trenches to spend their days in routine occupations which included perfecting the drainage schemes.

 

If Baddock thought however, that he would be celebrating Christmas in the line with his companions, he was to be disappointed.  The diary reports, “On the last day of this tour [December 24th] the enemy artillery which had only indulged previously in desultory fire and usually ill-directed fire, shelled the front trenches hotly for two periods of an hour.  The battery in question a 77mm one enfiladed our trenches from left to right within a degree.  Providentially only two casualties were inflicted.”

 

Baddock, in France for just over two months, was one of the unlucky duo, hit in the head by what he would later describe in words and pictures in Nurse Oliver’s book as a rifle grenade. Thus while the men of the 3rd Grenadier Guards celebrated their Christmas day with a pint of beer each and a Christmas pudding, Baddock was nursing a sore and heavily bandaged head as he bumped his way across France in an ambulance towards the coast.  He too would arrive with Edward Burnage at Brighton on December 29th and the following day he would have an operation. 

 

So 1915 ended as it had begun: stalemate on the Western Front and a steady trickle of wounded men returning to Great Britain to be patched up.  British Red Cross Society records show that there were 753 Auxiliary Home Hospitals operating at the end of the year, providing just under 30,000 beds with nearly 19,000 of these occupied on any one day.  As the war progressed there would be more hospitals, more beds and fewer of these left empty but even so, the nurses had played a hugely important role.  In twelve months they had treated over 177,000 wounded men; the equivalent of nearly nine British Army divisions and a figure greater than the combined weight of the original British Expeditionary Force which had set sail for France 16 months earlier. 

 

For its part, the Mid Sussex Division of The British Red Cross Society could boast two men’s VADs and 16 women’s.  Of these, one and nine respectively had been mobilised.