The Lost Tommies. Ross Coulthart

88 These men have adopted a local dog.

      PLATE 89 Two British lads or the Royal Field Artillery – friends or perhaps brothers? – send a message home during the colder months on the Western Front – possibly leading into the winter of 1916–17. For reasons of security ‘Somewhere in France’ was all they were allowed to say about their location. They are wearing variations of the animal-skin vests the soldiers used to keep warm.

      PLATE 90 A Royal Engineers private, ‘somewhere in France’.

WE ARE SEVEN

      In 1798, the English Romantic poet William Wordsworth wrote a poem called ‘We Are Seven’, asking:

      A simple Child,

       That lightly draws its breath,

       And feels its life in its every limb,

       What should it know of death? …

      In the poem, the questioner meets a little girl who initially seems to know very little about death because she appears to be in denial about the death of her siblings and she still sings and talks to them. It ends, though, with the notion that maybe the little girl knows more about death than the adult to whom she is speaking. The little girl refuses to be wretched about death or to forget about the dead, and she gets on with her life as happily as she can:

      How many are you, then, said I,

       If they two are in heaven?

       Quick was the little maid’s reply,

       O Master! We are seven.

       But they are dead; those two are dead!

       Their spirits are in heaven!

       Twas throwing words away; for still

       The little Maid would have her will

       And said, Nay, we are seven!

      Perhaps these seven young British soldiers posing in front of this sign simply did not realize the significance of their words in terms of Wordsworth’s poem, but is it possible they were sending a gentle message to their loved ones back home? That whatever happened to them in the war, they preferred their families not to become incapacitated by grief – or ever to forget them, just like the little girl.

      PLATE 91 ‘We Are Seven’ might be a reference by these soldiers of the Machine Gun Corps to a William Wordsworth poem of the same name.

      Early in the war Vignacourt was designated as one of the main rest areas for Allied soldiers. An easy day’s march from the Somme front lines, it offered exhausted troops the opportunity to rest and revive themselves in the local bars, called estaminets, but it was close enough to allow an easy deployment back into the fighting. The town also had a large hospital and the engineers helped build a new railway siding that brought wounded men straight from the front. There was also a small British airfield (but most of the aviation casualties at Vignacourt came from the main Allied base at Poulainville). What made Vignacourt especially popular with the soldiers was that it had large bathing and resupply facilities for the soldiers. The military bath was one of Vignacourt’s main attractions. Soldiers filthy and lice-ridden from the front lines would be issued with a new uniform, which perhaps explains why so many of the soldiers in the images are not wearing the requisite regimental identification – because often they had only just been issued with fresh clothing. In the images below, the soldiers appear to have newly washed and combed hair, ready to have their photographs taken for loved ones back home; or perhaps they have just had a bath and been issued with a new uniform after weeks in the trenches.

      PLATE 92 This private with his clean uniform and freshly combed hair probably wanted a photograph to remind him of this French family who perhaps boarded him as a billet while he was behind the lines. Most of these French villagers never saw their British soldier friends again.

      PLATE 93 A sergeant from the Durham Light Infantry with a French family and a family member or friend from the French navy. Perhaps the sergeant was billeted with them in Vignacourt.

      Vignacourt soon became a veritable United Nations of nationalities from across the British and French colonial empires. As well as soldiers from the French and British armies, including English, Scots, Welsh and Irishmen, there were Australians, Canadians, Moroccans and Nepalese soldiers all passing through, often sharing a glass of wine or two in the local bars.

      The Chinese men in the Thuillier images were all non-combatants; while China joined the Allied nations in declaring war on Germany on 14 August 1917, the French government had earlier contracted their Chinese counterparts in May 1916 to supply 50,000 labourers – sadly, known by a racial slur as ‘coolies’. The British followed suit to form the Chinese Labour Corps (CLC) and the men from that corps are probably the Chinese nationals featured in these images since Vignacourt was a British base. They were prodigiously hard workers, labouring long hours every day digging trenches, transporting supplies and building and repairing roads and railways. They came mainly from Shandong Province but also from Liaoning, Jilin, Jiangsu, Hubei, Hunan, Anhui and Gansu. About 140,000 Chinese labourers served on the Western Front, several winning awards for bravery, and at least 2,000 (and probably many more) died during the conflict, mostly from the Spanish influenza epidemic at the end of the war. All were classified as war casualties and are buried in graveyards on the Somme battlefields.

      PLATE 94 Chinese labourers in a relaxed pose with a local child.

      PLATES 95 – 96 A Chinese Labour Corps soldier with CLC insignia over his breast pocket and (right) the same soldier dressed in civilian clothes.

      PLATES 97 – 98 Chinese labourers in Vignacourt.

      PLATE 99 A Chinese labourer with local children.

      PLATE 100 The Chinese labour camp at Vignacourt.

      PLATE 101 A delightful picture of a child, probably Robert Thuillier, the photographers’ son, with Indian Rajput Cipaye cavalrymen.

      PLATE 102 Gurkhas from Nepal.

      PLATE 103 An Indian cavalryman towers over a local lady.

      PLATE 104 Nepalese Gurkhas fix the camera with their trademark gaze.