CORRESPONDENCE.
THE DEATH OF DONALD HANKEY.
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] Sin,—You say you would like to know something about Donald Hankey, particularly in the last hour of his life. I will tell you exactly what I know and saw, and how I had the honour to bury him. I will have to give you the full story, but I do not want anybody to think that I am boasting, as what I did nearly every soldier did while at the front. We were ordered to relieve a London Division at Le Transloy, Somme, where we took over on the night of October 10th, 1916. It was a very warm position, and dead were laying about wholesale. The Germans were blowing down our trenches, which were only just big enough for us to stand in ; so when the shells hit the trench it fell in, as there were no sandbags to support it. That night went off all right, we only had a few wounded ; we buried the dead near our position. The following day we built our trench up, but had to be very careful in case the Germans saw us. In the night time, after stand down (which means that at sunset every man stands on the fire-step for one hour, and the same at sunrise ; after the hour is up you are ordered to stand down), we were told that we were going to make a daylight attack on the following day, October 12th, at 2 o'clock. On the day of attack every man was told by his platoon officer to be in the trench at 1 o'clock. I was told to look after the men's packs as they were going to leave them in the trench. I went and asked Lieutenant D. Hankey if I could go over the top with the boys, and said that an old man named Private Allen could take my place to look after the packs. He went and saw the company officer (Captain Walters), and lie told me I could go with them. We got extended out—I was with the company officer. About 1.30 p.m. Lieutenant Beamish sent down and asked me if I could manage to make the company officers a drink of tea ? I said I would try. The four officers sent their water-bottles down. I got a candle, wrapped some rag around it, and stuck my bayonet into the side of the trench and put my canteen with the water in on it and lit the candle under it. In about ten minutes the water was nearly boiling, when a lot of earth from the side of the trench fell into it. I did not waste the water as it was hard to get, so I let it boil and put some tea and sugar into it. I told the officers what had happened. Lieutenant D. Hankey turned round and said : " Never mind, it looks like milk in it." After they had drunk it they said it was a nice drop of tea. That was the last hot drink that Lieutenant D. Hankey had, and I ant pleased to say that I made it.
At 1.45 p.m. the order was passed down to fix bayonets, and every man get in his place and be prepared. The officers told their men which way to go when they advanced, then they corresponded their watches with the company officer's, whose watch was set by brigade time, after which the officers got back to their platoons. I saw Lieutenant D Hankey ask his platoon to let him give them a prayer. I remember him saying " If you are wounded, Blighty ; if killed, the Resurrection," which is in the book about A Student in Arms. No one knows only the men themselves how it relieved them, as I know from facts that the first thing that comes to a man's mind when he is going over the top is God and the dear ones he has left at home. At 1.55 p.m. the company officer passed down—five minutes to go. Then comes the hardest time for the officers to keep their men in the trench till the word is given to advance. At 1.59 p.m. the officers tell the men to be prepared. At 2 p.m. our barrage starts : the order is given to advance : every man is over the top, eager to get to their goal. The Irish were on our left and the French on our right. We had gone about one hundred yards when we were given the order to lie down. The firing was dreadful, what with the German rifle and machine-gun fire and their barrage from their big guns. Our chaps were falling wounded and killed like ninepins. We could just hear them cry out. We were given the order to advance again : the firing got worse. We had only gone about twelve yards in our second advance when the fatal moment came.
The French started to retire ; the Irish on our left, seeing the French retiring, thought that the order had been given to retire and started to retire too. Our officers saw the
situation ana our men were on the waver. Then I saw the finest act in my life : I saw Lieutenant D. Hankey waving
to his men to carry on. Every man of A Co., and part of C Co., who was with us, went forward. Then the firing got so bad that we could not see in front of us, and that was the last I saw of Lieutenant D. Hankey alive. We were ordered to dig in, which we set to work with all our might ; every man and officer dug a hole deep enough for him to get into.
Then we started to dig to each other so as to make a trench.
We dug a couple of saps for our Lewis guns and wounded. After we had finished digging, one of our men asked if I could dress wounds, as one of our officers was laying near our trench wounded. I went out and found it was an officer named Lieutenant Glika, who was wounded badly in the tipper part of the leg and the right arm. I could not stop the bleeding as the wounds were so high up that you could not get a cord round the leg or arm. Lieutenant Beamish came up and I told him where the officer was wounded, and asked if I could try to get the officer back to our old position. Ire said I could, and sent a man to help me. We made a stretcher out of our two rifles and an oilsheet. We had managed to get about fifty yards when the officer went out of his mind and would not keep still. I left him with the other chap and went to see if I could get a proper stretcher or stretcher-bearers. I managed to find some stretcher-bearers, but when we got to the officer he was dead. We went back to our new position with the stretcher-bearers with us to help us to fetch our wounded down which we had laying in the trench and near about. We wanted to get them away as we were expecting the Germans to make a counter-attack.
As we went across the sunken road to fetch some wounded in we came across C Co. C.S.M. Ire told us he was on the point of going back, as he thought that he and his men were the only ones there. They came to our trench and helped to enlarge it, and they made our strength up to about 150. On top of the trench we found the body of Captain Harrison, C Co. ; then we found the body of Captain Somers, B Co., and Lieutenant D. Hankey's servant, Pte. Woods, came and told us that his officer had been killed. Captain Walters went with some men and fetched the body in. Lieutenant Beamish said to me : " You are one of the happy-go-lucky sort, will you dig a pit ? " Lieutenant D. Hankey's servant gave me a hand with it ; we dug a pit on top of our trench about 6 ft. by 5 ft. by 3 ft. We put the four officers into it, and there was a funny thing about it that Lieutenant D. Hankey was tall, Lieutenant Glika was short, Captain Somers was tall, and Captain Harrison was short, so if ever the bodies are found it will not be a hard job to tell who they are. We gave them the highest honour a soldier can have on this earth, where there is no difference made between a private or a general—" a soldier's grave " on the field of battle. Nobody knows how glorious it is to die for your country only those who have been on the border of life and death, which I have experienced as I laid out in No Man's Land for three days, with the bone in the upper part of my leg shattered.
I will give you a few incidents of Lieutenant D. Hankey's life with his men, and why they loved him so much. (1) When the battalion was on the march, on leaving the trenches you would always see Lieutenant D. Hankey with full pack and rifle the same as his men, cheering them up, and telling the while that we had not got much further to go. (2) We were at Hill 60. One day the transport sent up a bit of fresh meat and potatoes for the officers. I got to work as I was officers' cook, and made up my mind to give them a good hot feed, which was to be composed of boiled beef, carrots and potatoes. I made a fire with charcoal and coke, and I had just put the " dixie " on with the meat in when I heard a loud report. I looked up and I saw a Minnie " in the air.
I made a rush for a mine gallery which was near ; we heard the explosion and then I came up. The first thing that met my eye was my fire and " dixie " laying in the bottom of fife trench, where they had been blown by the explosion. That made me downhearted, when up came Lieutenant D. Hankey to see if we were all right ; he saw what had happened. He said : " So I suppose there will be no dinner for us to-day." I had a look and saw that I could wash the meat, as there was plenty of water in our plantation, so I said I could get them some steak and bread and a drop of tea. Where we were lucky was that all of our small rations were safe, as I dug a hole in the side of the trench to put them in and they had not been touched. Lieutenant D. Hankey could hardly believe that I could get them something to eat. I set to and made another fire, and finished up with a nice dinner for the officers, which was composed of steak, potatoes and a nice drop of tea. I shall never forget the day when Lieutenant D. Hankey came out and thanked me on behalf of the officers for getting them a dinner.
I do not want you to think that the men loved Lieutenant D. Hankey because of his position in life, as I think there were not ten men in the battalion besides the officers that knew who he was or had seen his books. It was only by chance that I saw one of his books ; that was when his servant showed one to me. When his men lost him they lost a comrade or, putting it in the soldier's slang, " a mucking-in chum."
I will give you proof why I am the only one of the burying party left. Captain Walters was killed the day I was wounded, October 23rd, 1916. Lieutenant Beamish was killed later in the War, which I was told by Miss H. Hankey. Pte. Woods was killed, which I was told by some of my company mates whom I saw in Ireland recovering from their wounds.— P.S.—I hope I have not wrote you a lot of rubbish ; the times in this letter are not correct to the minute but near as possible.
[Except for a few alterations in punctuation we have printed this vivid letter as it reached us. Donald Hankey's friends and admirers among the readers of the Spectator will, we feel sure, like to read this account of his last hours. How little the British private soldier changes through the centuries! Corporal Trim might have written what Mr. Crudgington writes. Dr. Johnson describes exactly this spirit in his essay on the English Common Soldier. Hankey would have wanted no better memorial than this plain and yet deeply moving proof of what he was to his men.—En. Spectator.]
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