AN ENGLISH CUBIST

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WILLIAM ROBERTS:

Brigade Headquarters: Signallers and Linesmen

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Image: IWM (Art.IWM ART 1888). Catalogue information based on the catalogue raisonné by David Cleall. For this and full details of the exhibitions cited, see the links below. Any auction prices quoted may not include all fees and taxes, such as VAT and Artist's Resale Right charges.

Brigade Headquarters: Signallers and Linesmen, c.1918 (signed)
Ink and wash, 15.2 cm x 25.4 cm
Inscribed ‘The Line Disc’

An important part of a signaller’s work is to see that contact is kept between the batteries, and also with the headquarters of the brigade; in addition there is the wire to the artillery observation post in the front line. The infantry also had their telephone cables. These thin insulated cables of different colours, with their identity tags, crisscrossed the ground in all directions. They were continually getting broken or cut by shell bursts. When this happened, the line was said to be “diss”, and this meant signallers turning out. Putting the broken ends together again was hard enough in daylight, especially with “Jerry’s” shells dropping around. However, it was far worse to leave your dug-out at night and grope about in shell craters and mud, searching for the damaged wires with the “D Battery 51st Brigade” label attached, while the enemy’s guns did their best to destroy them again.

(Roberts, Memories of the War to End War 1914–18)