Cricket Witness No 5 - Whites on Green

53 Swansea at war good work. But as the target drew near, there was the clatter of wickets. O’Bree departed for 199, whilst Tommy was caught, and although Archie Pritchard, the Swansea fast bowler, used the long handle to strike a couple of lusty blows, he became the final man to depart as Carmarthenshire secured a narrow victory by five runs. Tommy’s nimble and athletic fielding had impressed the watching officials from Glamorgan who were contemplating their teams for further games, but with the country already on a war footing, August 1914 saw Tommy join the Public Schools Battalion, rather than remain in South Wales and take part in further matches of cricket at St. Helen’s. He subsequently trained at RMC Sandhurst, before securing a commission as a Second Lieutenant in 7 th Infantry Division of the 1 st Battalion of the Royal Welch Fusiliers. Also in the Regiment were the famous writers Robert Graves and Siegfried Sassoon, with whom Tommy became close friends. Each wrote poems about the young Welshman with the following being Sassoon’s description of their first meeting in May 1915: “He had unpacked and arranged his belongings, and was sitting on his camp-bed polishing a perfectly new pipe. He looked up at me. Twilight was falling and there was only one small window, but even in the half-light his face surprised me by its candor and freshness. He had obvious good looks which go with fair hair and firm features, but it was the radiant integrity of his expression which astonished me. While I was getting ready for dinner we exchanged a few remarks. His tone of voice was simple and reassuring, like his appearance. How does he manage to look like that? I thought; and for the moment I felt all my age. His was the bright countenance of truth; ignorant and undoubting; incapable of concealment but strong in reticence and in modesty.” 1 Early in 1916 the Battalion were involved in manoeuvres which were part of the Battle of the Somme, with Tommy and the others enduring bitterly cold temperatures whilst in the trenches. By early March, they were in the vicinity of Fricourt of Picardy and Tommy’s mood must have been uplifted by the receipt of a food parcel from his former friends at Christ College. He duly wrote a letter of thanks back to the school, but tragically, it proved to be the last letter he wrote back to Brecon. On the evening of 18 March, Tommy accompanied a party from C Company out into no-man’s land near a building known as The Citadel to check the barbed wire defences, to repair anything that was damaged and to repair any gaps where the Germans had been trying to cut through. This was routine work at night for the Allies, but it was fraught with danger as the Germans were also busy in the dark. If a flare went up the men would remain motionless – instinct was to duck or fall to the ground, but the slightest movement would draw fire from German snipers or from a machine-gun placement. Sometimes they would fire shots at random into the darkness hoping to hit one of their foes. This was the case that fateful night for Tommy as around 10.30pm he was