A slim volume reveals the reality of Gill Guest’s grandfather’s time with horses
as a driver during World War I. Here she reveals some of its poignant moments
AS the centenary of the ending of
World War I approaches, by a
strange quirk of timing, I inherit
the war diary of one J. W. Ward
(Driver). Generally known as
Wilf, J. W. Ward was my grandfather. His
diary is a slim, red, “ruby” notebook. Written
in pencil, the front of the book contains
dates and an account of what happened in
the conventional way. The back is altogether
more unexpected. It contains recipes. Not for
inspiring things to do with the notoriously
dreadful World War I rations, but for
battlefi eld horse remedies — cooling powders,
colic drenches and foot poultices.
Wilf’s war was spent with horses. He served
in the Royal Field Artillery (RFA), which was
a more muscular version of the Royal Horse
Artillery — imagine the King’s Troop at the
Horse of the Year Show, dazzling with their
skill in handling teams of six horses pulling
gun carriages in the confi ned space of the
arena, before deafening us with cannon blasts.
The RFA was similar, but with bigger guns, less
gold and glitz, and more mud. Lots more mud.
The diary opens with him being called up
in 1917, just short of his 26th birthday, and
posted to Newcastle for training as a “driver”.
He quite enjoys it: “January 20th 1918. We had
about a month’s riding drill in the school in
bad weather and out across the moors in nice
weather and had some lovely canters over
the brooks.”
By May he is less enthusiastic, complaining
of endless inspections and gas drills, and a
horrible-sounding route march across the
moors at midnight with gas masks on. Training
has taken on a new and grim urgency since
Wilf’s Brigade — 24th Brigade, 43 Battery
RFA — is preparing for deployment.
ARRIVING at Le Havre on 13 May,
Wilf is immediately sent of up the line
to Tilques, near Saint-Omer, where
he experiences his first air raid: “My first
experience of Jerry’s bombs and he put the
wind up us proper.” This was hardly surprising.
He was a farm labourer used to extreme peace
and quiet — the rhythmic clomp of the horses’
feet, birdsong, the jingle of harness, and the
steady slicing of the plough. The noise of
“Jerry’s bombs” must have been terrifying.
He has to wait until 16 June before being
given his own horses: “Cleaned a set of
appointments and had two horses given me,
Driver Rusk being under arrest for being three
months absent and doing 90 days for it.”
“Appointments” are the non-pulling parts of
the horse’s tack — saddle, stirrups, headcollar,
rope, reins and so on. Only the pulling parts,
like the breast, breeching and hip straps, are
referred to as “harness”.
Cleaning appointments might not seem
like a job worth mentioning, but in muddy
conditions it could take up to a staggering 12
hours to clean battlefield horses and their tack.
Nevertheless, Wilf would have kept his two
new charges well groomed and ready for battle
at a moment’s notice. Thorough grooming
prevented chafing from harnesses and saddles,
and so kept the horses in better condition
for longer, and gave Wilf the chance to spot
anything that needed treatment with one of his
home-brewed remedies.
Surprisingly he now spends most of his
time not driving his shiny new team, but
using them as pack animals. Shifting ammo
up the line, the heavy shells for the battery’s
4.5-inch howitzer guns dangling along the
horses’ sides like organ pipes. He writes that
it’s rather warm and I’m fairly certain that he’s
not referring to the weather, but to the enemy
shells dropping like confetti all around them.
HE’S in the thick of what we now call
the “The Hundred Days Ofensive”.
This turned out to be the final,
climatic, campaign of the war — 95 shell-
spattered days which saw the Allies make
enormous advances on the Western Front,
a 400-mile stretch of land weaving through
France and Belgium from the Swiss border to
the North Sea.
By September, Jerry was retiring and Wilf’s
section is ordered to follow him up with the
guns. This means harnessing three pairs of
horses to the “limber”, the light two-wheeled
cart that supports the stock of the gun. The
limber is in turn hitched to the gun, which
also has two wheels, giving the appearance
of a four-wheeled vehicle overall.
Wilf and two other drivers ride postilion
on the nearside mounts. This gives the best
control of the horses and allows guns to be
moved at speed across the battlefield — as Wilf
and his pals are about to discover.