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Photo Stories
ALL IMAGES © DAVID CROSSL AND
I
have listened to the bugle call of the
Last Post ceremony in Ypres, heard
birdsong echoing around the gigantic
Thiepval Memorial to the Missing and
seen massed ranks of headstones that literally
stretch to the horizon. But the sight of graffi ti left
by soldiers on cave walls has been the most
poignant experience of my many trips to the
former battlefi elds of the First World War.
A few weeks ago, as part of a photographic
project, I gained access to a rarely visited
network of secret tunnels and caves under the
village of Bouzincourt on the Somme, dug in
the 16th century as a refuge from pillagers.
A passage leads down from the village
church into the tunnels 12 metres below. I was
handed a hard hat because the roof is so low
that you have to crawl in some places.
Our torches pierced the blackness to reveal
scores of names, ranks and service numbers,
intricate regimental insignia and portraits
pencilled into the chalky rock, some so well
defi ned that they might have been written
yesterday – not 103 years ago.
They tell stories of hope, fear, doggedness
and pride. They are attracting increasing
attention from archaeologists, historians and
descendants of the soldiers who fought and
died in the trenches above.
Here, in 1916 during the Somme battle in
which the British army lost almost 20,000
men on the fi rst day alone, thousands of
British, Canadian and Australian soldiers
sheltered, sometimes for days at a time.
‘They knew they might die,’ said my guide,
Jean-Luc Rouvillain. ‘I think they left these
messages so that one day their children or
grandchildren would come and see them.’
One poem written by a soldier from the
Highland Light Infantry starts with the line:
‘Halt the Greys, Steady the Bays and let the
HLI march past.’
Black humour rings out in the proclamation
‘Here’s joy forever’ etched into the wall. One
cave was turned into a chapel with a small
cross carved into the rock. Next to it, the words
‘Welcome Home’ are written.Rouvillain, of the Bouzincourt heritage
society, said 2,100 soldiers’ names have been
found in the tunnels. All have been
photographed and logged.
There was no time to work with a tripod. I
had to rely on a small LED light and put up with
speeds as low as 1/10th of a second, so I shot
series at 8 frames per second to make sure at
least one would be sharp. I had to use ISO- Thankfully, my camera was light enough
to hold with one hand while I moved the light
around with my other to pick out the messages.
Uncovered stories
Like every headstone, each pencil inscription
tells a story, but it does so more vividly because
it was scribbled by a soldier who had dreams of
a future and hopes of surviving the war – and
who was well aware of the odds.
When they wrote them, they didn’t know
how their story would end. We do. Their fate is
coming to light as research into Bouzincourt
and other forgotten places intensifi es.
A rectangle is carved into the wall to hold a
postcard. Inside the rectangle is the number
4612 and the words ‘Pte D. McALPINE,’ ‘2nd
HLI,’ ‘Wounded 3 times,’ and ‘Glasgow’.
Tragically, the website of the Commonwealth
War Graves Commission (cwgc.org) states that
Private Daniel McAlpine of the 2nd Battalion,
Highland Light Infantry, service number 4612,
died on 16 July, 1917. He was 20 years old.
He lies at Woburn Abbey Cemetery in Cuinchy,
60 kilometres north.
Soldiers on all sides left graffi ti. At Naours
near Amiens, hundreds of Australian soldiers
visiting the town’s underground city while on
leave – as tourists, so to speak – wrote their
names. Near Nouvron-Vingré, a French soldier
carved a spectacular bust of the national
symbol, Marianne.
As I handed back my hard hat and dusted
the chalk off my coat, I asked Monsieur
Rouvillain what he found most striking about
the treasure trove beneath his feet.
‘In all the writing and all the sculptures,
there is no hatred,’ he said.Whispering
walls
A long-hidden treasure trove of graffi ti by First World
War soldiers proved to be a poignant photographic
project by journalist David Crossland