THE STRANGE STORY OF "RUMMY"
HORGAN.
The Ypres Times.
13
This tale will assuredly never meet the eye of Rummy Horgan because he never
was interested in records, and it is doubtful that he could even write his name. Yet he
came to be known to every man in the battalion as Rummy." The name was first given
him somewhere about the Christmas of 1915, and it stuck to him through the varying
fortunes of the years that followed, till he was put into a train for Abbeville and packed
home in 19x9.
Rummy joined up with a bunch of the hard-headed, hard-living miners of
Yorkshire but he never betrayed any of the Yorkshire characteristics, and I always
suspected him of being an Irishman.
He was a reticent fellow except at a certain stage of conviviality, when he was apt
to become loud-spoken, and impulsive but when that stage was passed in the usual
course Rummy usually fell into a condition of lethargy. Another peculiar characteristic
which led to the belief that his connection with Yorkshire was of the slightest was that
he thought nothing whatever of taking French leave when it suited him.
He would casually drop out of a rest camp one pay night, spend a few days
in riotous living in some neighbouring town or estaminet, and then when his resources
were exhausted, present himself again for punishment, which he invariably took with a
stoicism worthy of a better cause. He was eccentric too, and this led to tricks being
played upon him by his comrades. On one occasion, when the battalion had been ordered
to take part in a brigade inspection, Rummy's trousers were reported missing, and in
their place was found a pair of white canvas bags."
These, with the full approval of every man in the platoon, he donned and to make
sure that he should not be deprived of the honour of appearing before his commanding
officer in person, he managed to dodge the minor inspections leading up to the event of
the day.
He waited therefore till his company was on the march, and then slipped into the
middle of it.
So Rummy gained all the notoriety he deserved, for he had to be hauled out of
the middle of a front rank in the presence of the assembled brigade. This shows what
manner of man he was it makes for the understanding of his genius, and serves to
explain the action by which he gained his title. Found entirely unreliable for ordinary
duties in the field, he was sent to help in the company quartermaster's stores shortly after
the battalion went to France in July, 1915 and towards winter one of his duties had
to do with the dishing out of the company's rum ration.
II.
It was a dark, slushy night in the Salient, and the usual conditions of the time
prevailed. Ypres and Zillebeke, the roads leading to and between them, noted points
like Hell Fire and Shrapnel Corners, the cemetery at Hooge, and the little bridge on the
Ypres side of it were receiving the customary amount, of attention from the Boche. It
was the time when you could count the number of guns of every calibrethey were mostly
18-poundersbehind the khaki line when one knew to a shot how many shells each might
fire. It was also before the organisation of the machine gun companies, and only one
machine gun section belonged to each battalion.
The machine gunners of the York and Lanes, had been detached and placed nominally
under brigade orders, though they were really independentand they occupied a post
in the Roulers-Ypres railway somewhere near the front line, and west of Hooge. The
post consisted of a couple of deep saps, which the officer in charge had himself constructed
011 the reverse slope of the railway embankment, and there was neither exit nor approach
