The 20th Division would take part in the subsidiary attack, supporting the Meerut Division of the Indian Corps on its right at Mauquissait and the 8th Division, attacking the German line at La Boutillerie and Le Bridoux on its left.  The attack, designed to distract the enemy’s attention away from the main battle front further south, would take place half an hour to two hours before the main attack near Loos.  The 20th Division would play its part in the offensive by making a smoke screen along the whole front, cutting wire and providing covering fire.  They were also to be prepared to assault the enemy’s line on the right or left and, depending on the progress made by the divisions on either side, to press forward in the centre.

 

At 4.30am on the morning of the 25th, waiting in his trench, Rifleman Stan Collins of the 12th King's Royal Rifle Corps cannot have failed to be aware that the sudden cessation of the four day bombardment of the enemy’s lines over to his left meant that the attack by the BEF was being pressed home.  This fell to men of the 8th Division and within half an hour they were in the German trenches.  Half an hour later, in support of the Bareilly Brigade of the Meerut Division to their right, it was the turn of the 60th Brigade.  Two battalions, (The 12th Rifle Brigade and the 6th King’s Shropshire Light Infantry), attacked the enemy trenches whilst Collins and the 12th KRRC held the front line.

 

Whilst it was always the intention to increase the extent of the British breakthrough south of the La Bassee canal should the subsidiary attacks around Laventie prove to be successful, lack of artillery power and sufficient manpower reserves meant that they would never be decisive thrusts if the principal activity around Loos were to founder.  In the event, both attacks by the 8th and Meerut Divisions ended with the assaulting troops being forced back to their starting divisions by dogged German defending.  Rifleman Collins had not even left the front line trench but this did not prevent him from becoming a casualty.  “During the day,” states the Divisional history, “the enemy shelled the front trenches heavily, and caused a considerable number of casualties among some of the battalions that were not actively engaged.  Of these, the 12th KRRC suffered the most.”  The battalion war diary puts the total casualties at three officers and 63 other ranks whilst the divisional history gives a total of three officers and seventy five other ranks.  Rifleman Collins was hit in the leg, presumably by shellfire, and for now his war was over.  Ten days later The Sussex Daily News would report that he was recuperating at the 2nd Eastern General Hospital in Brighton and shortly afterwards he would travel the few miles north to Chailey.

 

Frederick Harding of the 4th Middlesex, (8th Brigade, 3rd Division), was involved in a third subsidiary attack further north still at Bellewaarde Farm.  Harding, a recalled reservist; was another old hand who had arrived in France the previous year.  He had missed the action at Mons where his battalion had claimed the first shot of the Great War fired by an infantry regiment, but the battalion had subsequently been decimated in the desperate rearguard actions that followed and had suffered 467 casualties. Arriving in France as part of a replacement draft on the 9th October, Harding had been in action just three days later, fighting with them at Vielle Chapelle and again on the 13th October at Croix Barbee.  The rest of the year had followed a similar pattern with attacks and counter attacks during which time the 4th Middlesex was slowly bled dry of its regular soldiers.

 

Harding had joined the colours in November 1900, giving his occupation variously as labourer, park keeper and gardener and his age as eighteen years and one month.  He had had a love/hate relationship with the army and less than a year after enlisting with the 3rd Middlesex he was in trouble, forfeiting three days’ pay after absenting himself from the Military Tattoo at Woolwich in November 1901.  That Boxing Day he was confined to barracks for ten days for not complying with an order but had broken out of Barracks on New Years’ Eve and remained at liberty until the 7th January when he was again apprehended, confined to barracks for seven days and deprived of eight days’ pay.  From March to September 1902 he had been stationed on the island of St Helena where he had again been in trouble for not complying with an order, insolence to an officer and absenting himself from another Tattoo. 

 

A three month spell in South Africa followed, followed in turn by a posting to India in December 1902.  Despite a further transgression – insolence to Sergeant Greenaway – in January 1903, Harding must have liked life in the British Army because in June 1904 he extended his service to complete eight years with the colours.  He was granted second class service pay at four shillings which was extended the following March to 1st class service pay at six shillings.  In March 1905 he was granted his first Good Conduct Badge but eighteen months later he was in trouble again.  In October 1906 at Mandalay, he was charged with conduct to the prejudice of good order and military discipline and violence to his superior officer.  His penalty was 56 days imprisonment and the loss of his badge (which however, was restored in December 1907).  On 6th November 1908, after nearly six years in India, Frederick Harding returned to England and 15 days later was transferred to the Army Reserve. 

 

In April 1911 Harding married Emma Orange at Dalston in London and the couple moved to nearby Tottenham.  The following February a son, Henry William, was born.  Still on the Army Reserve, but now nearing the end of his term and perhaps yearning for more adventure, Harding had re-engaged with The Middlesex Regiment three months later.  One day after war was declared he had been mobilised at Mill Hill, a few miles away from his home in North London.

 

Initially posted to the 6th (Reserve) Battalion of the Middlesex on 11th August, he was transferred to the 4th Battalion on 7th October and two days later was in France.  Now, almost a year later, the 4th Middlesex were supporting an attack made by sister battalions of the 8th Brigade. 

 

The Brigade would attack German positions north of Sanctuary Wood along a front of 1500 yards.  The attack would have a Scottish flavour and be carried out by the 2nd Royal Scots and two battalions of The Gordon Highlanders: the 1st (Regular) battalion and the 1/4th (Territorial Force) Battalion.  The 4th Middlesex and 2nd Suffolk would be held in reserve.

 

Like the 4th Middlesex, The 1st Gordons had suffered heavily at Mons, losing 500 men as prisoners in the first month of the war.  Temporarily ordered to join General Headquarters as Army Troops in September, the battalion had barely had time to recover its strength before being sent back into the fray with the 8^th Brigade at the end of the month.  Further heavy casualties in October and November had followed with the battalion reduced to ten officers and 430 other ranks at the end of November. 

 

The 1/4th Gordons had been spared that ordeal at least and Private John Thomson Allan was one of them.  A Territorial from Aberdeen, he had quickly volunteered for overseas service and arrived with a draft in March 1915, scarcely more than a month after the battalion had landed at Havre.  Three months later, on 16th June 1915, the 3rd Division had taken part in a disastrous diversionary attack on Bellewaarde Ridge, which aimed to deprive the enemy of observation and at the same time straighten out the British line between Hooge and Railway Wood.  Although some ground had been won, and quickly held by battalions of the 8th Brigade following up behind, the cost had been high.  Heavy and concentrated German artillery fire, well directed onto lines until recently held by their own troops, cut swathes through the attacking British forces and by the end of the operation the 3rd Division had lost 140 officers and 3,391 men.  The 9th Brigade suffered particularly heavily, losing 73 officers out of 96 and 2,012 men out of 3,663.  On that occasion the 1/4th Gordons had been spared the brunt of the attack but here they were, just three months later, staring at the same ridge and this time preparing to take part in the main assault of another diversionary attack.

 

The British bombardment began at 3.30am on the morning of 25th September and fifty minutes later two mines were exploded under the German trenches facing the 2nd Royal Scots.  Two further explosions followed almost immediately and as the debris settled, the attacking troops moved forward.  At first, the going was good.  The War Diary for the 1/4th Gordons reports that the men reached the German front line trench and met with little loss, finding “many Germans in it, many of whom bolted.” Their success though was to be short-lived. Between 4.50 and 11am the German artillery responded with whizz bangs before collecting north of the Menin Road and launching a counter attack.  Their bombs expended, the Gordons were forced to retire to the trenches held by The Royal Scots line, the diary reporting that, “The men of C and D companies who were in the German 3rd line are cut off and missing.

 

Frederick Harding and his pals in the 4th Middlesex now moved forward to bomb up the communication trenches and relieve the 4th Gordons but Private Allan was already making his way back to the casualty clearing station.  They may have even passed each other.  Little could either realise that they would share a common destination in a remote Sussex village.  Harding’s turn would come the following year but for Private Allan, the Ridge had claimed him second time around.  The 1/4th Gordons sustained 15 officer and 319 other rank casualties that day.  John Allan was one of 148 men wounded.  Nearly one month later, on 23rd October, resting at Hickwells in his hospital blues he would carefully draw the Gordon Highlanders’ cap badge in Nurse Oliver’s autograph book.  It was an intricate design; the antlered head of the stag framed within a crescent of ivy stared out above a jewelled crown and underneath on a scroll, the word ‘BYDAND’ meaning watchful.  It would take time to capture the badge perfectly but time was what John Allan had.  He took up his pencil and began to sketch in the centre of the page.  When he was finished he would add the date and a few simple words.

 

It did not matter that he had spelt the name of the place incorrectly.  One Flanders village appeared much the same as another and in any event, ‘Houdge’ was a good deal easier to pronounce than Bellewaarde. 

 

Since the doors at Hickwells had opened for business in March, the papers seemed to have been full of news about nothing but attacks and counter attacks coming one after the other.  The German offensive against Ypres in April had been repulsed and met in turn by the attack on Hill 60.  British action at Aubers Ridge had followed in May and hot on its heels, the battle of Festubert towards the end of the month.  June had seen further action in the Ypres salient around Givenchy and Bellewaarde and in July, liquid fire had been used at Hooge.  Further afield, British and Australian troops had been fighting in Gallipoli and now, as the summer drew to a close and the fires in the grates at Hickwells were lit earlier, came news of a major British offensive launched in the mining district around Loos.

 

Nurse Oliver and the ladies of Sussex 54 VAD scanned the pages anxiously for news of local casualties whilst the men recuperating under their care looked for news of familiar regiments and the battalions they had so recently fought with.  And all the while, the hospital trains kept coming.

 

On September 3rd, The Sussex Daily News reported that 358 ‘cases’ had been distributed amongst various hospitals in Sussex.  This was followed the following day by a list of wounded soldiers sent to the Military hospital at Dyke Road in Brighton.  Two weeks later there was another report of  77 “sitting” and 42 “cot” cases soldiers who had arrived at Brighton the previous night and on the 25th, the day on which the Loos offensive was being launched, a further 207 wounded landed including 90 “cot” cases. The local papers catalogued an increasingly grim roll call of war’s detritus as the men who had left England fit and healthy were returned to her hospitals broken and dispirited.  Many arrived still caked in mud from the battlefields.

 

It had all been so different a year ago.  Before war was declared, nearly 2,000 British Red Cross Society Detachments were already established with a further 400 supplied by The Order of St John.  Many had played a vital role providing medical aid to the new armies of recruits who found themselves transported to camps where hospital accommodation was often inadequate.  In several counties, the VADs had opened temporary hospitals, formed rest stations, organised dressing stations and generally assisted the Territorial Medical Officers.  They had also been advised, wherever possible, of the movement of ambulance trains so that they could provide refreshments to the wounded soldiers who stopped en route to their final destination. 

 

However, perhaps forewarned by the enthusiasm with which the young men of the British Empire were flocking to the recruiting stations to play their part in the unfolding drama, and mindful perhaps of the wastefulness of an uncoordinated army of nursing personnel all trying to do their best, the Army Council issued a directive on August 23rd.  No voluntary aid detachment was to mobilise until its services were actually required and asked for by the General Officer Commanding-in-Chief.  The authorities of private hospitals were advised by the War Office to use the experience of the VADs in their locality but the detachments were warned against equipping and staffing temporary hospitals themselves.  Nor would the nurses be permitted to sail to Flanders in the footsteps of their sons and brothers.  In October 1914 the Director General, AMS issued a circular to the effect that all voluntary aid detachments should hold themselves in readiness for mobilisation at short notice and should not leave the country without permission.

 

Sussex 54 VAD bided its time.  It was providing a useful service to the convalescent soldiers recuperating from their wounds but the growing numbers of casualties now flooding back from the battlefields around Loos meant that the military hospitals were stretched to capacity.  Even nearby Brighton Pavilion had been converted into a hospital for the benefit of soldiers from the Indian divisions.  Perhaps they felt more at home there within its ornate, domed architecture reminding them of their homeland.

 

By October 1915, 123 men from Chailey Parish were serving overseas.  The East Sussex News printed a roll call and a roll of honour also appeared in the local parish news.  October also saw the marriage of Dr William Orton (Sussex 54 VAD’s medical officer) to Miss Lilian Green, sister to Helen Marian Green of Sussex 54 VAD and Bernard Bachan and Edward Wilson Green who were serving their King and Country.  The happy couple were presented with a clock which bore the inscription, “Presented to Dr Orton on the occasion of his marriage, October 7th 1915, by the staff of Hickwells Convalescent Home.”

 

Six days later came the order that Sussex 54 VAD had waited for since August 1914 and one they been expecting for the past few weeks: mobilise!  That same afternoon, their first batch of soldier patients arrived.

With mobilisation came re-classification.  Hickwells was now officially an Auxiliary Home Hospital, reporting directly to and taking in men from the 2nd Eastern General Hospital at Dyke Road in Brighton.

Every auxiliary home hospital was attached to a central military hospital, which directed the movements of the patients.  They remained under military control and could be returned to the military hospital in the event of insubordination.  Most of the men however, new better than to risk such a fate, all being aware of the benefits of recuperation in homelier surroundings where the discipline was milder and the conditions more generous.  To be returned from an auxiliary home hospital to a military establishment was regarded very much as a punishment by the men. 

 

For its part, The War Office took its responsibilities seriously, providing commandants with a guide entitled Orders For Patients.  On admission, patients were to hand to the Pack Store Keeper, the clothing they were wearing except their forage cap and boots.  Items such as razors, combs, toothbrushes and hairbrushes could be kept but valuables would have to be surrendered and a receipt issued.  All patients were to obey the instructions of the matron and the nursing staff and were to accord them due respect and assistance.  NCOs in particular were to assist in maintaining good order and discipline and in the absence of nursing staff, the senior NCO present would be held responsible for any ‘irregularity.’ Patients were also categorised.  Those marked ‘Up’ were to shave, wash and dress before breakfast and to assist with light duties.  Those marked ‘Up from ---- to ---‘ would only get up for the time stated.

 

All patients were to wear shoes in the building and boots in the grounds and all were reminded that smoking in the building was a privilege.  Anybody found discarding used matches and cigarette ends on the stairs or along the corridors would cause the concession to be withdrawn.

 

For the moment though there were more pressing matters to worry about than cigarette ends flicked onto floors.  The Loos casualties were streaming back to England and with an almost audible sigh of relief, Hickwells opened its doors to them.  The Scottish regiments were well represented.  James Sweeney, John Currie and William Chadwick travelled the few short miles from Brighton as did Arthur Reeve and John Allan.  Horace Wood and John Sheridan came too, so did Stan Collins, hobbling in on crutches after receiving his wound in the subsidiary attack at Laventie.  Between them they pieced together the action of the Loos offensive, each with his own story to tell of successes and failures, of friends missing in battle.

 

They entered a world as far removed from the trenches as they could possibly imagine, and for many of them too, a world of comfort they had been unaccustomed too even in civilian life.  After weeks or months of snatching a few hours’ sleep in trenches and dugouts, here were beds with the sheets crisp and starched and with the folds so sharply creased it looked as though they might almost cut themselves on them.  From being soaked through to the skin by the chill driving rain that had fallen on them more mercilessly than the enemy’s shells, here was a comfortable country house set in beautiful surroundings that provided each of them with adequate shelter and warmth from the fires crackling in the grates.  Were it not for their ‘hospital blues’ uniform, the regular dressing of their wounds and the pain and discomfort that they caused them, the men might even have imagined that they were taking a well-earned rest in the countryside; and with pretty young nurses looking after them to boot. 

 

Patients sent to the auxiliary home hospitals were generally those suffering from less serious wounds or ailments and this was mostly the case at Hickwells.  The 2nd Eastern General Hospital, (previously the Brighton and Hove Grammar School until February 1915 when it was converted into a Military Hospital), was far better equipped to deal with the more serious surgical cases and it had room for 520 beds.  Hickwells, with just 20 beds, took mainly ‘walking wounded’ but there were exceptions.  The Sussex Express recorded a particularly tragic case:

 

‘BULLET IN THE BRAIN - A pathetic story is that connected with Private Hale, who is now at Hickwells Convalescent Home and who has a bullet lodged in his brain.  The bullet lies in such a vital part that the doctors, up to the present, deem it unwise to operate.  When Private Hale, who is only 22 years of age, was leaving by train for the seat of war, his sweetheart was seeing him away at the station.  As the train was moving out, however, the unfortunate girl, before her soldier lover’s eyes, was somehow caught by the train and mangled between the footboard and the platform.  To crown his ill-fortune, however, he was notified, while fighting at the Front, that his father and mother were both dead.’

 

Charles Chambers had been destined to take part in the battle of Loos but he had been wounded before the offensive had even got off the ground.  Now, sharing a ward with men recently returned from the Loos battlefield, he must have thanked his lucky stars that he had been spared the ordeal they were describing to him.

 

Chambers, a farm labourer, had joined up at Norwich in August 1914.  Just twenty years old, five feet nine and a half, and with a character variously described as ‘very good’ and ‘honest and sober’, the prospect of donning an Army uniform and journeying overseas had thrilled him and there was no question in his mind about which regiment to join.  Born in the village of Morningthorpe, living in Fundenhall and having spent his childhood and working life in Norfolk, it would have been an act almost akin to betrayal to think of joining any regiment other than his own county one.  He attested on the 27th August and was posted to the 7th Norfolks, shortly to form part of the 35th Brigade of the 12th (Eastern) Division.

 

Although the Division was as yet incomplete, training in the form of drill and route marching began immediately, the men apparently unperturbed by the fact that they were drilling with wooden rifles.  By the end of May 1915, having re-located from Hythe to Aldershot (where four other K1 Divisions were also going through their final paces), the men were ready to embark for France.  Divisional advance parties left on the 25th followed by the men, artillery, horses and transport.  By 4th June, all units of the 12th Division had reached their concentration area.  The following day the Division joined III Corps.

 

By August 1915, the 7th Norfolks were in trenches at Ploegsteert; ‘Plug Street’ to the troops.  Making themselves at home, or perhaps by now wishing they were back at home, the men set to improving and completing a brand new trench which they named ‘Norfolk Avenue’.  “Nothing of importance happened during these days” the battalion diarist commented on the period 5th - 9th August; the men were simply formed into working parties to work on the trench and the wire entanglements in front of the subsidiary line.

 

For Chambers though, something of importance did happen.  On 8th August he was ‘severely wounded’, according to the battalion war diarist (who at this early stage of proceedings for the battalion was still diligently recording the name, number and Company number of all 7th Battalion casualties regardless of rank).

 

Chambers had been hit by shellfire in the feet and left arm and was immediately taken first to Number 88 Field Ambulance at Pont de Nieppe and then to the 2nd Casualty Clearing Station at Bailleul.  The following day he was moved again, this time to the 2nd Canadian General Hospital at Le Treport where he remained for three weeks, too ill to be moved.

 

On 2nd September he was stretchered onto the hospital ship H S Newhaven bound for England and bade farewell to the Western Front.  He would not be returning.  On 30th August 1916 he was discharged from the army as no longer physically fit for war service.  By then he had served two years and 18 days in His Majesty’s forces and a little over three months of those abroad.  In October 1916 he sent a gentle reminder to the District Infantry Record Office that he was owed a Silver War Badge.  It wasn’t that he particularly coveted one but at least if over-zealous patriots saw it on his lapel they wouldn’t rush to present him with a white feather or an army button to sew onto his khaki jacket when he joined up. 

 

For many of the men returning wounded from the front or recovering after illness, the new environment offered by Hickwells was as much a tonic as the care lavished upon them by the Red Cross nurses. Soon the soldiers were taking part in activities and impromptu concerts organised, at first by the nurses and the villagers of Chailey, and later by the men themselves.

 

On November 5th, just six weeks after they had been wounded at Loos, Private John Thomson Allan and Corporal Horace Frank Wood were amongst several soldier performers who took part in a fundraising event at the newly opened Parish Room in Chailey.  The proceeds of the evening’s entertainment were in aid of the building fund and Corporal Wood and Private Allan gave a rendition of ‘The Sunshine of Your Smile’, Horace Wood later taking centre stage again to recite ‘The Wreck of the Hesperus’.  Each time the men got up top perform their pieces they were cheered by an appreciative and patriotic audience.