Pat laughed and there were mutterings under his breath about some achieving greatness – and others having it thrust upon them.
I have just complimented him on becoming brigade commander, not having seen him these three months past. We did not exchange compliments in strictly verbal terms. On Pat’s part, these were chiefly reserved for his subalterns and his soldiers. He was usually genial with them, though a man of iron in some ways and, especially so where discipline was involved. Among his intimates, Pat’s dry, acidic humour wrapped up the pleasantries that others indulged in and this was fine, providing one knew him well. Personal magnetism, there was none – nor ever attempted. Pat scorned all flamboyance in leadership and, in spite of it, no one else that I knew could outmatch him in the handling of Irish soldiers.
He owed his success to painstaking thought and preparation – and to the gift of insight too and, while Pat was in saddle, the whole brigade knew that nothing, that could be done, would be left undone in the prelude to battle, nor in the manner of its conduct afterwards. In consequence, the confidence, which we all had, when serving under Pat Scott, had a very solid foundation.
He was not often genial to officers senior to himself, usually less so progressively, according to the rank of the person he was addressing and a distinct rasp was sometimes evident on these occasions.
Nonetheless, they all seemed to like him in spite of the treatment. Some of them looked upon our brigadier with the awe due to a tribal chief – something that Pat knew and deliberately fostered, with the privileges, as of right that went with it. Certainly, he was my chief – and there could never be another.
As the long history of Irish soldiers and their splendid lost regiments was wrapped up in the brigade Pat Scott commanded, these thoughts were entirely proper, though I doubt they were swallowed hook line and sinker by our divisional commander. Charles Keightley knew our brigadier far too well for that to be possible but, fortunately for us, they were close personal friends with all the mutual trust that went with it. This, too, was fully exploited by both of them and it was part of the cement that united the 78th Division.
Pat went silent for a second or two, for both of us knew what this moment signified. Most of my service had been spent with him in one way and another, first when he was adjutant and, latterly, as my CO. I was also his trustee. The bonds of Faughs’ kinship were strong ones anyway and they needed to be, in view of the strains they were subjected to. There were now to be a typical example. Pat’s grin continued. Then he said that his military aspirations had been fully met when commanding his own Faughs, the Royal Irish Fusiliers, the 87th of immortal memory and nothing else could ever equal the distinction, ‘but this, the Irish Brigade, was the next best thing.’
‘Besides,’ he concluded, with that protracted chuckle which sometimes boded ill for the hearer, ‘I would remind you that Nelson sent me off to the Rifles, as soon as it served his turn’ – the chuckle accelerated – ‘and this is precisely what I am doing with you – now.’
‘Christ,’ I said, ‘What have I done to deserve that?’ Thinking of nine years in the Faughs and the impossibility of life without them. I also thought of that night in Africa when the luckless riflemen had dissolved under the tanks of the 10th Panzer Division. There had been other misfortunes too, and the legend of ill luck persisted. Nelson Russell (Brigadier N Russell DSO MC, Commander of The Irish Brigade), another Faugh, was commanding the brigade then and, merciless on those nearest to them, had uprooted Pat Scott from his own regiment and sent him in with James Dunnill to restore our brothers of the Irish Rifles.
Well, I would soon know if he had succeeded or not. Pat went on, ‘I know damn well what you are thinking. Well, you can forget it. They are a splendid lot of chaps and those men of theirs could give us points in the Faughs, once their tails are up. ‘Besides,’ he said. ‘Ion Goff is a charming fellow – but he has no experience of this game and I will hold you personally responsible for all that happens.’ ‘You,’ he added, ‘have no excuses.’
Much had happened since I last met Pat…..and much too had happened to the Irish Brigade, who had been battled continuously since I last saw them after their African adventures. These had indeed ended in victory, but at a cost which even today is scarcely understood by our countrymen. In the course of it, my life appointment to D Company of the Faughs had ended abruptly with the virtual extinction of the company at the climax of the battle.
The survivors duly reappeared from hospital as the months went by and, as the Italian campaign gathered momentum, two out of our three regiments themselves possessed of a granite core of battle hardened and experienced veterans, who would stop at nothing. They also had a superiority complex based on solid achievement, in addition to the innate feelings of exclusive excellence, which the Faughs and Inniskillings had always been prone to anyway.
The situation with the 2nd London Irish Rifles was rather different to the other two. For practical purposes, the riflemen had been destroyed in those two defensive battles at Bou Arada and, as a bitter consequence, the remnants had been withdrawn for a while from subsequent operations. Afterwards, it had been necessary to nurse the battalion as it gradually rebuilt its fibres but, until recently, it was a long way short of possessing the self-confidence and self-reliance in battle, which were such marked features of the other two and which all concerned took for granted.
However, Nelson had been heard to remark of his own regiment that ‘the trouble with the Faughs is that they always took a damn sight too much for granted.’ And under Nelson’s orders, they had done it once too often – in October last and had been so roughly handled by a German rearguard that Faughs’ attitudes afterwards were like those of Lee’s men after Gettysburg.
Thereafter, no distinctions were possible between any of the three regiments – not on the score of merit, though the spirit and waywardness that marked all three of them persisted to the end of their time.
Pat, himself, was in indifferent shape just then physically, though not in any other way, having broken his ankle at the end of January and been posted in to succeed Nelson while still unable to walk. Apparently, he had extracted an Irishman’s promise from General Keightley to keep the brigade out of the mountains and undue trouble until he, Pat, was able to climb again to his satisfaction. Naturally, there was a quid pro quo for this and other favours on the part of our divisional commander and the indebtedness would be made good later. In the meantime, the good general, too, could have his laughs at the expense of subordinate chiefs and bided his time accordingly.
For a while, all had been peace and the warriors found themselves in comfortable surroundings, which was rather rare on the Cassino front just then. In fact, to use Pat’s own words, he had acquired, temporarily, some unexpected popularity in the brigade, who were quite prepared to arrange another accident to their commander for like results.
In the middle of March 1944, the Irish Brigade, with the rest of our 78th Division, was posted in the Capua area of Italy with the role of spearheading the breakthrough down the Liri valley as soon as the New Zealand Corps had captured the monastery and the town of Cassino. These, as is well known, barred the way to Rome in one of the most splendid and beautiful settings ever misused by mankind for a battlefield. The sector was also probably the finest natural defensive barrier held by either side in the Second World War.
When General Keightley told Pat what was afoot, he had mentioned that we would remain behind the front in our present location until the New Zealand break in had succeeded. Pat’s immediate comment was that ‘in that case, we had a good chance, without any reflection on the New Zealanders, of staying where we were for quite a long time.’
On 14 March, as I re-joined the brigade, the defensive potential of the district was about to be vastly improved for the enemy and the next day, as the third assault on the sector began, the town was subjected to the same treatment as the monastery had been, barely a month previously. Both were now obliterated by the allied air forces. Both, thereafter, were impenetrable and forty eight hours later, this further attempt to force the passes ground to an abortive halt.
After Pat’s welcome that evening, he took me across to the Brigade’s HQ mess and, a little later, James Dunnill came over to join us. James was now commanding the Faughs, having taken the torch on from Beauchamp Butler after black tragedy at San Salvo at the end of October. Since then, he had seen the battalion through the savage fight on the Sangro and the regiment, itself, had shown once more that it could carry disaster in its stride as well as success.
I was glad to see that I knew most of Pat’s staff pretty well, though not the BM until meeting him now. Jimmy Stewart’s position as brigade major was justified by his commander on the grounds that an Argyll and Sutherland Highlander was an essential ingredient, perhaps antidote, in an otherwise all Irish organism. Jimmy was the pure bonnie Earl of Moray from the days of Mary Queen of Scots and straight from the pages of history. An accomplished highland courtier, he added sauce to the nostalgic Jacobite flavour found in most Irish regiments and he never lost an opportunity of referring adversely to Campbell history in this respect. Having such strong views on the subject, he might well have felt repressed in his own regiment and, as the Argylls were serving alongside us in our 78th Division, a little care was necessary, at times, to keep Jimmy Stewart on the leash.
Life was not going to be dull.
Matching him closely was the staff captain, Paddy Colthurst, a Scot Guardsman from Cork, whose exuberant cheerfulness under extreme conditions was backed by a generous disregard of all interests save those of his rugged master and the brigade he commanded. Far sighted and ruthless in the job, Paddy was a marvellous staff captain and his conscience allowed all measures, providing they served the brigade.
Our regimental QMs, who worked closely with him, regarded Paddy with rueful admiration. He had the disadvantage of being Pat’s brother in law. In consequence, his sins tended to be visited on Pat, himself, and worse from his point of view, Pat’s on him.
John, Captain JD O’Rourke, was the brigade intelligence officer, a quiet man who gave an impression of studiousness until one got to know him well. John was a rifleman with exceptional talents of perception and judgment during operations. Had all our people been like him in the early days, there would have been no bother at Bou Arada or anywhere else. He was Pat’s right arm in battle and regarded as such in all three of our regiments.
Pat was a pretty good picker of men and there were no better examples to be found than in his colourful brigade staff. With their single minded zeal, they were viewed with apprehension in the rest of the 78th Division, though the brigade itself found them fascinating. I think it is true to say that affection for the Irish Brigade staff was not universal in high places just then; there was a strong scent of the clan hierarchy about it – with ancient history of another Irish Brigade always in the background.
I broke the news of my fate to James Dunnill about going to the Rifles. He, like Pat, who was present, exploded with laughter. ‘You will love it,’ he said. ‘Just be yourself. They are super chaps.’ He went on to remark that he would not have missed his time with them for the world. ‘But,’ he added, ‘they are very different from the Faughs and they take everything you say absolutely literally.’ He also said he thought that they were in some respects more easily led than our own regiment. ‘You’ve got to watch it with the Faughs nowadays. They are more wary since you left D Company and San Salvo was an expensive lesson.’
Later, I discovered that James was merely expressing his own feelings and the warriors had not altered a scrap – nonetheless, that black night when we lost Beauchamp (Lt-Col BH Butler DSO, CO 1st Royal Irish Fusiliers from 26 February 1943 until his death on action on the night of 27 October 1943. Beauchamp was actually an Inniskilling) had left its mark. That night, indeed, the Irish Brigade was given a stirring warning never to challenge destiny. There had been a long run of success in encounter actions in Sicily and since, culminating in the dramatic triumph at Termoli where the brigade had collided with the 16th Panzer Division; with both parties equally surprised, the Germans recoiled prematurely, though they fought hard enough before doing so and inflicted heavy damage on the rest of the division. There was nothing of a rout but the Faughs were conscious of splendid achievement when the day had ended – and so were the other two regiments with equal justification.
Nonetheless, Termoli left us an evil legacy and at the next river line, the Trigno, similar results were assumed as a matter of course, with insufficient care taken at all levels to ensure them. There are no two views that ever reached me on that score – all of them contemporary testimonies of officers and others, who survived the action.
Unfortunately, one cannot play tricks with fate and, least of all, take luck, or anything else, for granted when fighting the Wehrmacht. But human nature, being incorrigible, we would do so again under similar circumstances – and again pay the price.
German rearguards are usually dangerous and in the bridgehead battle on the Trigno, they stage managed a trap round their main positions of San Salvo, which dominated the battlefield. There was a vicious counter stroke at the conclusion, the Faughs took the brunt of it and, by daybreak, had suffered bloody repulse.
Beauchamp, true to form, had gone in to the night alone when the forward companies were broken up and so had met his destiny in the manner that he had courted so often since we had known him. Most of his company officers had been hit by then and, perhaps fittingly, his old regiment, the Inniskillings, recovered his body from the battlefield.
One of the Inniskilling company commanders, Major AP Blake Duddington, said:
‘We thought the world of Beauchamp in the Skins….I think most of us realised that the Faughs, as the regular battalion, were there to set us an example…the recklessness…in committing the Skins at Grandstand (the Inniskilling attack of 13 January 1943) could well be applied to that grim night for the Faughs when Beauchamp died. My company, D of course (Inniskillings), were holding the bridgehead over the Trigno and the Faughs SL was just in front.
I had seen little of Beauchamp lately and we sat and talked….until he had to go. He told me that he had just heard from home that he had become a father. An hour later, we brought his body back and it lay in my Coy HQ until the Faughs could get across to get him…
Tommy Wood (Major RLG Wood, The Royal Irish Fusiliers) tried to reform the remnants from my slit trench as they drifted back….’
Blake, himself, was left prostrate on the battlefield for seven hours at the conclusion.
David Bartlett, another of our pre-war veterans, was CSM of D Company of the Faughs at the time. First over the river with the company at the outset of the action, he was hit in the early stages and so lived to fight another day – as did his company commander, Denis Hayward. No one had twisted the arm of fortune as those two had done, for Denis was the only company officer left when the African battle drew to it bloody conclusion in the rocks of Kef el Tior.
Tommy wrote to me after San Salvo, just a few days before his own death:
‘The regiment had been doing well….until that night….we did what we could. Of course, there was only supposed to be the usual two men and a boy. We are ok again, now with James in command and Hugh Holmes as second in command. Three very good company commanders and self, the only survivor of the old days. Morale is very high…so don’t worry if you hear alarming rumours of our being wiped out.’
The following morning, I walked across to the Faughs’ lines with James, after breakfasting with Pat and, again being informed that I would be held responsible for the actions of my CO and anything else that happened in the Rifles that he, Pat, disapproved of.
As the commanding officers in the Irish Brigade frequently did things, which their brigadier and others disapproved of, I thought my immediate future was likely to be interesting. Instructions like this were typical of Pat’s more endearing tricks and, if they did nothing else, they illustrated the extraordinary liberties that Faughs were capable of talking with each other.
Hugh Holmes, second in command of the regiment just then, was operating under similar instructions in the vain hope that he would prove a restraining influence on James. Hugh had graduated in my own D Company but, unfortunately, his capabilities as a staff officer were too well known and he had been stolen from us by our Corps HQ half way through the Tunisian campaign. He was a natural first choice by Nelson to pull the Faughs together again after San Salvo but he had his hands full now. James had been long in the saddle and, like a number of others, was inclined to be fractious both in and out of the line.
Greetings by Hugh were rarely emotional and this one was no exception. Moreover, the streaks of Sherbourne and school mastering had by no means been abated by his recent experiences. ‘I am glad you’ve come, dear boy – pity you didn’t come sooner,’ Hugh remarked brightly and went on about the shortage nowadays of old Faughs. ‘Things aren’t what they were and you’ll have a few shocks,’ he had said, but I soon discovered that he thought the world of our new boys despite his lament for things that were past.
What Hugh was really saying – and spent the whole of that day and the following night saying – was that this was now the spring of 1944 and it was not surprising that our surviving warriors having travelled so far, now wished to travel further. Earlier, they did not often give the impression that safety was ever a paramount thought. Nor was it so now. But they were veterans and because they were, they could hardly be blamed for taking a second look at their problems before plunging in. James clearly thought that the Faugh sword was rather a blunt one nowadays but I think his remarks on the subject were really the expression of his own feelings with underlying fatigue at the bottom of them. I soon realised that these, in no way, reflected the attitude of our soldiers. Pat warned me on these matters and, as usual, had the fighting capacity of his regiments perfectly assessed. This also I discovered for myself and I knew, that whatever Pat asked of them, that they would be sure to do – just as they always had done.
Talking to Pat and Hugh, and a good many others that day, left one thing crystal clear at the end of it – the intense spirit that existed in the Irish Brigade itself and the pride of achievement. It was clear too that these thoughts were tending to dwarf regimental feelings and, later than evening, I was able to put it to the test on recovering Clanachan from D Company.
I had not seen Clanachan since we were both removed with the debris off Kel el Tior on 23 April last. He then had several machine gun bullets in him but now appeared to be none the worse and had been back with the company since the outset in Italy. There was the faintest flicker of a smile from my late bodyguard as we greeted each other and this was the nearest that we ever got to indicating pleasure. ‘Clanachan.’ I said, ‘I am posted second in command of the Rifles. Are you prepared to suffer the indignity of coming too?’ Hastily removing any further sign of emotion from his face, Clanachan said that if that was where I was going, he thought he had better keep an eye on me ‘among that lot,’ and ‘anyway, sorr, it’s not the brigade we’ll be leaving.’
So that was that. I spent most of the night up with James and Hugh and Basil Kentish, who was now commanding HQ Company. Basil was a pre-war regular and looking round, it did not seem that there was such a shortage of old Faughs, after all. I noticed, too, Jimmy Clarke, now commanding D Company, with a legendary reputation behind him since the Tunisian days – and his namesake, Brian Clark, the adjutant, whose views on discipline, and the rigid enforcement of it, reminded me of my late Sergeant Major Good. Both, fortunately for us, were tarred with the brush of Ludendorff and the Faughs would have been unmanageable without a few such characters in their midst.
Another point immediately noticeable with all three regiments was the appearance of their soldiers. Polite and respectful, nothing was lacking. Faint traces of aloofness were perhaps apparent when addressing strangers, certainly in the Faughs, and the old impudence was still lurking there too, even though the regiment nowadays was full of Sassenachs as well as true born Irishmen. The turnout and behaviour of the sentries also attracted attention and so I soon came to the conclusion that nothing had changed much during my protracted absence.
The following day, I wrote to father with the news of my new job and ‘…James and Hugh are filling me full of dreadful advice. I now have the dignity of wearing a caubeen with a blue hackle, which caused excessive ribaldry when I went to see the boys. However, Clanachan suffered worse when he went down to D Company.’
James took me over to meet Ion Goff and, a few hours later, we found ourselves in the Rifles’ sergeants’ mess where, as in all regiments, the key to most mysteries was to be found. Ion, Lt Col IM Goff, had been commanding since the beginning of the year and I could see quite well that he already knew his senior NCOs and the happy atmosphere in that mess spoke for itself.
Ion was a lot older than the rest of us and was a pre-war regular several years beyond Pat’s vintage. Aged forty two he had had, I think, the wretched assignment of being on the staff in Malta until recently and, in consequence, had missed the experience so far of more active operations. He was a very charming man and no one could have given a kinder welcome that he did to me that evening. In his person, he possessed the ideal temperament for coping with our riflemen. I did not think that anyone would ever shift him when set on a given course and, underneath all, he had rugged qualities which the London Irish badly need just then – and had not always been given in the past. This was no doubt why Nelson had picked him.
Providing Ion could get through his first battle successfully, I thought that all would be well… but, in the meantime, there was the handicap of living with company commanders and other officers, who had considerable battle experience – and wills of their own, as a consequence of it.
The next day was sacred to all the Irish regiments – St Patrick’s Day. Crammed in to it was a brigade ceremonial parade followed by a cocktail party, a mock football match between the Faughs and Rifles and concluding with a massive party with the Inniskillings, where I met Bala Bredin, their CO.
Bala was a rifleman by birth and he had been second in command of the London Irish until his elevation to the Skins a few days previously. Before that, he had been second in command of the Faughs. Members of the Irish Brigade were getting used to this kind of treatment, but Bala also held down his pluralism with that of paratrooper as well.
Bala said that his accession to the Inniskillings had a dubious note to it.
Ion Goff had apparently suggested, a day or two previously, that his second in command might like to take the company commanders in to Naples for a party – he thought that the change might do them good. Bala said later that if Ion believed that, he would believe anything, ‘and really I was quite worried about him.’
The consequent party apparently began in the officers’ club on a diet of champagne and brandy, and escalated during the afternoon to such an extent that the district military police chief had to be summoned. I believe he was swept aside and tossed over the bar – and the party concluded with chariot races with Italian hansoms, after the removal of the occupants.
The next morning, Bala was summoned to Brigade HQ and went in to Pat’s office with some diffidence, fully expecting the sack. However, evidently ‘last night’s news hadn’t reached him yet,’ and, instead, Pat told him he was now giving him command of the Skins – as he couldn’t find any regulars of that ilk of suitable standing. Bala was struck dumb, said he only mumbled something futile in reply and, as he was usually loquacious, it was Pat’s turn to be surprised. ‘Anything wrong? Can’t you speak?’ Pat queried.
By the following day, the news of the Naples outrage had reached GHQ and Bala found himself summoned by his general to a different kind of interview. Charles Keightley observed severely, ‘If I knew that you had such habits, Bala, I would never have agreed to your brigadier’s recommendation.’
I haven’t the least doubt that Pat knew all right and knew too that the entree would have instant appeal to his rugged Inniskillings. No one had to tell our brigadier truths of that kind.
Pat remarked that, during St Patrick’s Day, the brigade was at four hours’ notice for its spearhead role down the valley but he had made a secret pact with the general that nothing short of calamity would induce him to move us before they day was over. Pat also said that he had kept the pact to himself and was glad he had, ‘having observed what could happen to our troops in this land of unlimited and potent wine.’ General Keightley, by then, knew what had happened to the New Zealand attack on Cassino and knew too that the German 1st Para Division had effectively prevented the pre conditions that were necessary for our role in the battle. Perhaps it was just as well that they had, for I do not think the 78th Division could have pierced the Gustav Line on its own and stayed in existence afterwards.
The companies of 2nd London Irish Rifles were designated E, F, G and H, the regiment’s 1st Battalion using the preceding lettering.
F Company was commanded by Colin Gibbs, the senior of the company commanders, and he, with a handful of riflemen, was largely responsible for disrupting Koch’s onslaught on the Irish Brigade in February of 1943. Mervyn Davies commanded E Company and Desmond Woods H Company. All three of them had carried the Rifles through Termoli and San Salvo and they had been embattled ever since. Between them, on the solid basis of their experience, and their personalities that matched it, they provided a nucleus which, in my opinion, held the whole battalion together just then.
Geoffrey Phillips had the remaining rifle company – G. Rather older than the others, Geoffrey was unassuming and kept few of his goods in the shop window. In consequence, he tended to keep out of the limelight and was unassertive outside his company. However, nothing was lacking there either and Ion’s company commanders were a team that most regiments could envy at that stage of the war.
I spent the whole of the next day, the 18th, with them, visiting the companies in turn and attempting to memorise the key characters, knowing all too well that there was not much time left to do it in.
It was also necessary to engrain somehow in to one’s mind the topography of the battlefield – and here, Frank Lyness and the CO himself were an enormous help. Frankie was on loan to Brigade HQ at the time for liaison duties and was just about to become our intelligence officer in the Rifles.
Writing home on the subject I had said,
’My first impressions of this land are very favourable. It is picturesque and green as opposed to the bleak greyness that comprised the colour scheme in Tunisia. The view is simply marvellous, almost awe inspiring, and the weather is springy but very cold. Orange and lemon trees grow all round us, though only the latter have fruit on at the moment.’
The letter ended with, ’….and vino seems to be the only buyable products in these parts and is made up in various strengths and colours but is very palatable when diluted with rum.’
The Irish Brigade at the time were positioned slap behind the battlefield of Monte Cassino and I now had my first view of the scene in company with Frankie.
Monte Cassino was the proper name for this holocaust of a battle, as the Mont itself dominated all, though it had glowering over its shoulder the huge and sinister bulk of 5000 foot Monte Cairo – shaped in its splendour rather like our own beautiful Schiehallon. Away to the right, curving round in ever ascending majestic array, were Castellone and the other hills, which earlier on had been wrenched by the French out of the German paws, but which had done no more that take them up a blind alley.
At the top of the Mont lay the shattered dragon’s teeth of what had once been the monastery and, at its foot, sprawling in to the valley, was the inundated wreck of the town, where the blitz had been total. To crown all, the bombing had broken up the river course of the Rapido, sending it coursing through the ruins, creating thereby a sea of utter destruction and morass. Here was impenetrable man made jungle and one might wonder, after the Ides of March, why we ever bothered to persist in the sector.
Leftwards, to the south, partly hidden under smoke and glinting in the sunshine, the Rapido (Gari) stretched away across the entrance to the Liri Valley like a streak of silver. Here, to the west, beyond the river with its low and boggy approaches, the ground had been long prepared by the enemy with a maze of concrete defences fully up to their Somme standards of 1916 – and here they lay waiting for us.