The Trick Rider's Greatest Feat
George Gristock was a hard-drinking, plain-speaking cavalryman renowned for his skills as an army ‘trick rider’. But it was as an infantryman that he earned the nation’s highest martial honour at the cost of his life. Historian and journalist Steve Snelling tells a remarkable story of desperate courage against the odds during the dark days of 1940. We are very grateful to Steve, who holds the copyright, for permission to reproduce this article which was originally published in the May, 2016, edition of Britain at War Magazine.
The ‘Miracle of Dunkirk’ was recent history as Captain Peter Barclay lay in an English hospital, marvelling not only at his escape but at an extraordinary act of gallantry during the forlorn attempt to halt the Nazi blitzkrieg sweeping across Western Europe.
As well as undoubtedly sparing his unit “countless casualties”, the actions of his company sergeant major were almost certainly instrumental in saving his own life at the cost of grievous personal injuries.
That much was clear, but since their eventful evacuation three weeks’ earlier he’d heard nothing about the fate of George Gristock. He was still in the dark on June 16, 1940, when he began writing a short letter to Gristock’s father.
“Just a line to tell you how magnificently your Son has done out in France,” he wrote. “From the day I had him appointed my CSM I knew I had got the right man.
“He supported me splendidly and his imperturbability was a fine example to the Coy [Company]. His bravery knew no limits on the day when he was wounded… He should receive a decoration for his action.”
Two months later, with the beleaguered nation fighting for its very survival, the story sketched by Barclay from his hospital bed would be paraded as a glorious example of British bravery in the face of adversity.
But, timely tonic though it was, the air-brushed portrait that emerged in the wartime press was far from being the true picture of one of the country’s most remarkable heroes of the Second World War.
A HELL OF A GUY
George Gristock was a soldier to the core. Born in a military garrison in Pretoria in 1905, he was quite literally a child of the army. His father was a sergeant major in the 2nd Dragoon Guards (Queen’s Bays) and there was never any question about his future career.
But the popular notion of him as a veteran ‘footslogger’ thoroughly versed in the ways of the infantry, as peddled in the press, was demonstrably false. Having enlisted as a boy recruit aged 14 just four months after the end of the First World War, he had spent 16 of his 21 years’ service prior to 1940 as a cavalryman.
Joining his father’s old unit, he rose steadily if unspectacularly through the ranks to sergeant. As befitting the son of the riding master at Sandhurst, he was widely acknowledged to be one of the finest horsemen in the regiment.
His reputation was enhanced by his ‘trick riding’ feats which made him a popular performer at army displays around the country. Famous for his ability to snatch handkerchiefs from the ground while riding at full gallop…
Even when he transferred from the cavalry to the infantry in November 1935 it was as sergeant in charge of the horse transport in the 2nd Battalion, the Royal Norfolk Regiment.
By then, his soldierly virtues were well-known. To officers and other ranks alike, he was dedicated and dependable, loyal and steadfast. But along with his myriad strengths came a couple of weaknesses.
The first was a proclivity to speaking his mind. According to former regimental sergeant major Cyril Brooks, Gristock was an “old school” soldier. “He was a very outspoken character,” he recalled. “He called a spade a spade when, in the army in those days, you’d sometimes be better off calling it a shovel to be diplomatic. People like that didn’t always get on, but George didn’t like being pushed around.”
Problematic though such an attitude was, it was not as serious as his other vice: alcohol.
During his 4½ years in the Royal Norfolks his regular binges were almost as legendary as his equestrian prowess in the Queen’s Bays. Peter Barclay, Gristock’s future company commander, remembered: “He was a hell of a guy. Once a month, he used to go off and have a real skinful. He never seriously misbehaved, but it was considered a jolly bad show for an NCO in the regiment to get drunk in public.
“Anyway, he’d come rollicking back and would end up on a charge. But I knew, when you got down to brass tacks, he would be an absolutely super guy. You can judge a leader and I reckoned Gristock was one.”
It was an assessment that would soon be put to the test in the most trying of circumstances.
GREAT CAPABILITY
The 2nd Royal Norfolks were among the first troops to cross the Channel after war was declared in September 1939. Before leaving, Barclay, commanding A Company, was called to a meeting of senior officers to discuss promotions within the battalion.
Among the ranks to be filled was a new one, platoon sergeant major, designed to save on the employment of officers. Barclay’s first choice for one of his platoons was the then Sergeant Gristock in whom he retained the greatest faith despite his monthly “drunken bout”. However, what Barclay regarded as “a minor shortcoming” was viewed as something more serious by Lieutenant Colonel Eric Hayes.
“The commanding officer flatly refused to consider him,” recalled Barclay. “For my part, I flatly refused to have anyone else for this post.”
The result was “a hell of a row” followed by a stand-off before Hayes “reluctantly gave in” and accepted Gristock’s appointment. It was duly confirmed on December 1, 1939, by which time the battalion was fully engaged in digging slit trenches and anti-tank ditches along the Franco-Belgian border as part of a belated attempt to extend the Maginot Line defences from Sedan to the sea.
Named after the British commander-in-chief, the so-called Gort Line was, in Barclay’s opinion, “tactically useless”. Pointless though the work ultimately proved, it did provide further evidence of Gristock’s qualities of leadership.
Having been called away with other sub-unit commanders to attend a course, he gave his platoon detailed orders for a specific trench-digging job to be carried out in his absence. “On his return,” wrote Barclay, “he was far from satisfied with the work that had been done, so he ordered them out to finish it in the dark.
“When completed, he saw them back to their billet in a barn, practically tucked them up in bed, [and] then, on my authority, dished them all up with a liberal tot of rum.”
To Barclay, it was an incident which illustrated perfectly the character of the man.
His confidence in the ex-cavalryman continued to grow as the Phoney War gave way to real war in May 1940. By then the holder of the first Military Cross to be awarded in the conflict, Barclay was impressed enough with Gristock’s performance to make him company sergeant major.
The new role, which Gristock was already carrying out “with great capability”, was confirmed on May 20.
Later that same day, following a swift, short-lived advance into Belgium and an equally rapid series of withdrawals along refugee-choked roads, A Company, 2nd Royal Norfolks found themselves taking up positions along the southern banks of the River Escaut and the tree-fringed Albert-Turnhout canal near the Belgian border city of Tournai.
Together with other units of the 2nd Division’s 4th Infantry Brigade, they formed a hastily organised, thinly spread line. After days of wretched retreat their orders were music to Barclay’s ears: they were to stop withdrawing and stand and fight.
HELL BROKE LOOSE
The battle that lay ahead was a daunting one. As Captain Robert Hastings, an Ox and Bucks’ officer attached to the Royal Norfolks, noted: “The Germans had followed our withdrawal very quickly and were now in Tournai. Their advance during the day had reached the northern banks of the Escaut and was temporarily held up owing to the demolition of the bridges.”
Such was the paucity of men to cover such a wide area that defence in depth had to be sacrificed. In the Royal Norfolks’ sector there were no reserves which, as Hastings pointed out, while “very bad from a military view” could not be helped.
Barclay’s A Company portion of the line ran to about 700 yards which he considered “a lot” for a single company “in close country”. Taking over the position in darkness, they spent an uneasy night strengthening their defences. He recalled: “There were buildings on our side of the canal and there was a plantation on the enemy side… so we had to have a pretty effective system of cross-fire.”
Posting his men in cellars, behind a crudely loop-holed garden wall and in well-concealed positions further back, Barclay carried out a swift tour of his defences to satisfy himself that they were ready to meet the enemy’s impending assault.
Then, in an incredible display of sang froid, he set off with some ferrets and a couple of retrievers found abandoned in a nearby chateau to indulge “in a bit of sport before the fun began”.
His impromptu rabbit hunt lasted about an hour and a half before being rudely interrupted by heavy shelling along the line of the river and the canal. “We came in for a certain amount of this,” he recalled, “and we thought, ‘Well, we’d better pack this up now and deal with the other situation’.”
It was around 0440. To the right in B Company’s sector an SOS signal spluttered skyward as mortars and machine-guns joined the fray. Not long afterwards, battalion headquarters was bracketed. One mortar shell struck the porch of the house, wounding three officers, including Major Nicolas Charlton, who had taken temporary charge of the battalion just three days earlier.
While 37-year-old Major Lisle Ryder assumed command pressure began to build on the forward sections. In C Company’s area tragedy added to the suffering as shells from a defensive barrage fell short.
To Private Ernie Leggett, a 20-year-old battalion drummer serving in A Company, it felt as though “all hell broke loose”.
Having rejoined Gristock at company HQ, Barclay was watching and waiting for the softening up process to end and for the assault to begin. Eventually some Germans were spotted approaching the far bank. An officer was observed poring over a map and giving out orders while, behind them, trees were being felled to help straddle the gaping hole in the demolished bridge nearby.
“They were totally oblivious of our presence in the immediate vicinity,” recalled Barclay, “and I told my soldiers on no account were any of them to fire until they heard my hunting horn.”
The tense wait lasted “until there were as many as we could contend with on our side of the canal” at which point he blew his horn and the slaughter began. The leading parties of Germans, standing about in small groups as they waited for the rest of the force, hardly knew what had hit them.
“They didn’t take cover,” recalled Leggett, who was positioned in an abandoned cement factory between the canal and a railway track. “They were… coming towards us like a flock of sheep as if we couldn’t do anything to hurt them. But, by God, we did. They kept coming on, running over their own dead… and with a bren gun you can do a lot of damage very quickly.”
With what Barclay described as “consummate accuracy” his men soon disposed of all the troops that had made it across the canal and several more on the far side. There then followed a brief lull before the enemy’s surprise gave way to violent retaliation.
Now it was A Company’s turn to suffer.
SITUATION RESTORED
Having disclosed their positions no amount of camouflage could protect Barclay’s men from the deluge of shells and mortar bombs. Several casualties were inflicted before one missile landed close enough to pepper him “amidships” with shrapnel.
Painfully wounded in the stomach, back and arm, he was unable to walk. With all the company’s stretchers in use, it appeared his active role in the battle was over until his batman fashioned a makeshift stretcher out of a door which he ripped off its hinges.
With his injuries roughly dressed, and “forcibly tied” to the door, Barclay was carried round his embattled position. The place was an inferno of shot and shell, but while being ferried about on this strange contraption he realised, worryingly, that the heaviest fire was coming from the same side of the canal.
“I was suddenly all too clearly aware that the Germans had effected a crossing to the right of our position,” he later wrote, “and were creating a major threat to our right flank.”
It was the crisis point of his company’s fight. Barclay instinctively knew that if the incursion went unchallenged it would only grow stronger and eventually force him to pull back or risk being enfiladed and then encircled.
With his sorely-depleted company already heavily engaged, he turned to George Gristock and the only reserve available: eight men from company HQ including a wireless operator, a cook and two runners.
Their main objective was an enemy machine-gun position which Gristock quickly located behind a heap of rubble near the canal bank. There wasn’t much time for a complicated plan. Thinking fast, Gristock positioned some of his men to give initial covering fire while he and the others worked their way closer.
A little further on, he dropped off the wireless operator and cook to provide support as he prepared to make the final attack alone.
It was a journey fraught with hazard. The ground was flat and exposed with scarcely a scrap of cover. And, while his approach had thus far been undetected by his quarry, the movements of his small party had been seen from the other side of the river where another machine-gun post was established.
From the upper storey of the cement factory, Ernie Leggett watched Gristock’s progress without knowing who it was or what he was trying to do. “It was too far away,” he said, “but I could see him crawling along on his elbows, a rifle [in fact, it was a sub-machine-gun] across his arms, taking care to stay as flat as possible because there wasn’t much cover.
“All the time I could hear the unmistakeable rattle of a Spandau. It sounded like a kid brushing a stick over corrugated iron. Then, all of a sudden, I saw this soldier raise his rifle [sic], fire and then, shortly after, he threw a grenade. Bodies and stuff went up in the air.
“But what he couldn’t see. But I could, was another machine-gun set up on his right flank and that opened fire and the next thing I saw was him lying still.”
Barclay saw those final moments differently. According to his account of the action, Gristock was raked by fire from the second machine-gun before he was able to attack his objective.
“Both his knees were smashed,” wrote Barclay. But Gristock refused to quit. By sheer willpower, he forced his pain-wracked body on. “From my ‘observation platform’,” wrote Barclay, “I saw him drag himself - still unobserved by the first and most threatening machine gun, till he got within grenade throwing range.
“Rolling over on his side, he threw a grenade straight into the road-repair stone pile that harboured the menace: three German soldiers bolted from behind. Twisting himself over again, he opened fire with his tommy gun, knocking out the trio.
“The situation had been restored.”
PAINFUL BEYOND WORDS
The fighting around Tournai raged for another two days, but Gristock’s part in it was over although it took him a little while to accept the fact. “Although his knee[s] must have been painful beyond words,” wrote Barclay, “I’m told he never stopped smiling and tried to return to the Coy after it had been dressed.”
The destruction of the machine-gun post also marked the end of Barclay’s command. Shortly afterwards, he passed out. The next thing he remembered was being in a first aid post with his even more seriously injured company sergeant major.
“[He] was in a very bad state,” recalled Barclay, “but not too bad to appreciate some jellified brandy pills we were both given and which cheered him up no end.”
There then followed a frantic journey by truck, train and hospital ship back to England which was every bit as hazardous as the fighting itself.
During the course of their eventful evacuation, they had to divert to avoid a German tank blocking the road to the coast, were temporarily marooned on a railway embankment in no-man’s-land outside an invested Calais and were bombed by Stukas as they were being ferried into the harbour.
The delays proved costly to Gristock. “The train journey was expected to have taken no more than four hours,” recalled Barclay. “They were equipped with enough dressings and medicine to last about 24 hours, but we were about three days trying to get out.
“Consequently, they ran out of dressings and pain-killers. The stench was terrible as men’s wounds became gangrenous. Gristock was one of those who suffered. He was in acute pain, aggravated by gangrene, but his courage, tenacity and humour never left him.”
Landed at Newhaven, the two men who had shared so many hard times together were separated. While Barclay was taken with other officers to Berkhamsted, Gristock eventually wound up in the Royal Sussex County Hospital in Brighton where his fellow patients included Ernie Leggett.
The young drummer had been badly wounded by shell fragments the day after Gristock’s gallant action and was among the last batch of wounded from the battalion to get away.
His escape was doubly fortuitous. After being forced to withdraw from the Escaut, the survivors of his section were posted to HQ Company. Four days later, they were among nearly 100 men massacred by German SS troops after a rearguard action near the French village of Le Paradis.
As the only other Norfolk in the hospital, Leggett paid a visit to his company sergeant major. “He’d had both legs amputated,” he recalled, “but he was in good spirits. I thought something was seriously wrong though when I saw a row of 15 bottles of ale lined up alongside his bed.
“I couldn’t understand how they could allow him to drink in his state. But then I realised it was because they knew he didn’t stand a chance of survival.”
A GREAT LOSS
George Gristock succumbed from his injuries on June 16, the same day that his company commander had begun the letter to his father. Uncertain about how to address it, Barclay delayed posting and in the interval learned of Gristock’s death.
Adding a fresh note, he wrote: “I am greatly distressed to hear the news. You had a son to be proud of indeed. He will be a great loss to the Regiment in general and to the old company in particular. The result of my recommendation for his decoration is not yet out. I put him up for the VC.”
Two months later, based solely on Barclay’s eyewitness account written from his hospital bed in Berkhamsted, the King granted the posthumous award of the Victoria Cross to CSM George Gristock “for most conspicuous gallantry”.
The hard-drinking, plain-speaking cavalryman famed for his skill as a ‘trick rider’ had repaid his company commander’s faith in full measure.
The ‘Miracle of Dunkirk’ was recent history as Captain Peter Barclay lay in an English hospital, marvelling not only at his escape but at an extraordinary act of gallantry during the forlorn attempt to halt the Nazi blitzkrieg sweeping across Western Europe.
As well as undoubtedly sparing his unit “countless casualties”, the actions of his company sergeant major were almost certainly instrumental in saving his own life at the cost of grievous personal injuries.
That much was clear, but since their eventful evacuation three weeks’ earlier he’d heard nothing about the fate of George Gristock. He was still in the dark on June 16, 1940, when he began writing a short letter to Gristock’s father.
“Just a line to tell you how magnificently your Son has done out in France,” he wrote. “From the day I had him appointed my CSM I knew I had got the right man.
“He supported me splendidly and his imperturbability was a fine example to the Coy [Company]. His bravery knew no limits on the day when he was wounded… He should receive a decoration for his action.”
Two months later, with the beleaguered nation fighting for its very survival, the story sketched by Barclay from his hospital bed would be paraded as a glorious example of British bravery in the face of adversity.
But, timely tonic though it was, the air-brushed portrait that emerged in the wartime press was far from being the true picture of one of the country’s most remarkable heroes of the Second World War.
A HELL OF A GUY
George Gristock was a soldier to the core. Born in a military garrison in Pretoria in 1905, he was quite literally a child of the army. His father was a sergeant major in the 2nd Dragoon Guards (Queen’s Bays) and there was never any question about his future career.
But the popular notion of him as a veteran ‘footslogger’ thoroughly versed in the ways of the infantry, as peddled in the press, was demonstrably false. Having enlisted as a boy recruit aged 14 just four months after the end of the First World War, he had spent 16 of his 21 years’ service prior to 1940 as a cavalryman.
Joining his father’s old unit, he rose steadily if unspectacularly through the ranks to sergeant. As befitting the son of the riding master at Sandhurst, he was widely acknowledged to be one of the finest horsemen in the regiment.
His reputation was enhanced by his ‘trick riding’ feats which made him a popular performer at army displays around the country. Famous for his ability to snatch handkerchiefs from the ground while riding at full gallop…
Even when he transferred from the cavalry to the infantry in November 1935 it was as sergeant in charge of the horse transport in the 2nd Battalion, the Royal Norfolk Regiment.
By then, his soldierly virtues were well-known. To officers and other ranks alike, he was dedicated and dependable, loyal and steadfast. But along with his myriad strengths came a couple of weaknesses.
The first was a proclivity to speaking his mind. According to former regimental sergeant major Cyril Brooks, Gristock was an “old school” soldier. “He was a very outspoken character,” he recalled. “He called a spade a spade when, in the army in those days, you’d sometimes be better off calling it a shovel to be diplomatic. People like that didn’t always get on, but George didn’t like being pushed around.”
Problematic though such an attitude was, it was not as serious as his other vice: alcohol.
During his 4½ years in the Royal Norfolks his regular binges were almost as legendary as his equestrian prowess in the Queen’s Bays. Peter Barclay, Gristock’s future company commander, remembered: “He was a hell of a guy. Once a month, he used to go off and have a real skinful. He never seriously misbehaved, but it was considered a jolly bad show for an NCO in the regiment to get drunk in public.
“Anyway, he’d come rollicking back and would end up on a charge. But I knew, when you got down to brass tacks, he would be an absolutely super guy. You can judge a leader and I reckoned Gristock was one.”
It was an assessment that would soon be put to the test in the most trying of circumstances.
GREAT CAPABILITY
The 2nd Royal Norfolks were among the first troops to cross the Channel after war was declared in September 1939. Before leaving, Barclay, commanding A Company, was called to a meeting of senior officers to discuss promotions within the battalion.
Among the ranks to be filled was a new one, platoon sergeant major, designed to save on the employment of officers. Barclay’s first choice for one of his platoons was the then Sergeant Gristock in whom he retained the greatest faith despite his monthly “drunken bout”. However, what Barclay regarded as “a minor shortcoming” was viewed as something more serious by Lieutenant Colonel Eric Hayes.
“The commanding officer flatly refused to consider him,” recalled Barclay. “For my part, I flatly refused to have anyone else for this post.”
The result was “a hell of a row” followed by a stand-off before Hayes “reluctantly gave in” and accepted Gristock’s appointment. It was duly confirmed on December 1, 1939, by which time the battalion was fully engaged in digging slit trenches and anti-tank ditches along the Franco-Belgian border as part of a belated attempt to extend the Maginot Line defences from Sedan to the sea.
Named after the British commander-in-chief, the so-called Gort Line was, in Barclay’s opinion, “tactically useless”. Pointless though the work ultimately proved, it did provide further evidence of Gristock’s qualities of leadership.
Having been called away with other sub-unit commanders to attend a course, he gave his platoon detailed orders for a specific trench-digging job to be carried out in his absence. “On his return,” wrote Barclay, “he was far from satisfied with the work that had been done, so he ordered them out to finish it in the dark.
“When completed, he saw them back to their billet in a barn, practically tucked them up in bed, [and] then, on my authority, dished them all up with a liberal tot of rum.”
To Barclay, it was an incident which illustrated perfectly the character of the man.
His confidence in the ex-cavalryman continued to grow as the Phoney War gave way to real war in May 1940. By then the holder of the first Military Cross to be awarded in the conflict, Barclay was impressed enough with Gristock’s performance to make him company sergeant major.
The new role, which Gristock was already carrying out “with great capability”, was confirmed on May 20.
Later that same day, following a swift, short-lived advance into Belgium and an equally rapid series of withdrawals along refugee-choked roads, A Company, 2nd Royal Norfolks found themselves taking up positions along the southern banks of the River Escaut and the tree-fringed Albert-Turnhout canal near the Belgian border city of Tournai.
Together with other units of the 2nd Division’s 4th Infantry Brigade, they formed a hastily organised, thinly spread line. After days of wretched retreat their orders were music to Barclay’s ears: they were to stop withdrawing and stand and fight.
HELL BROKE LOOSE
The battle that lay ahead was a daunting one. As Captain Robert Hastings, an Ox and Bucks’ officer attached to the Royal Norfolks, noted: “The Germans had followed our withdrawal very quickly and were now in Tournai. Their advance during the day had reached the northern banks of the Escaut and was temporarily held up owing to the demolition of the bridges.”
Such was the paucity of men to cover such a wide area that defence in depth had to be sacrificed. In the Royal Norfolks’ sector there were no reserves which, as Hastings pointed out, while “very bad from a military view” could not be helped.
Barclay’s A Company portion of the line ran to about 700 yards which he considered “a lot” for a single company “in close country”. Taking over the position in darkness, they spent an uneasy night strengthening their defences. He recalled: “There were buildings on our side of the canal and there was a plantation on the enemy side… so we had to have a pretty effective system of cross-fire.”
Posting his men in cellars, behind a crudely loop-holed garden wall and in well-concealed positions further back, Barclay carried out a swift tour of his defences to satisfy himself that they were ready to meet the enemy’s impending assault.
Then, in an incredible display of sang froid, he set off with some ferrets and a couple of retrievers found abandoned in a nearby chateau to indulge “in a bit of sport before the fun began”.
His impromptu rabbit hunt lasted about an hour and a half before being rudely interrupted by heavy shelling along the line of the river and the canal. “We came in for a certain amount of this,” he recalled, “and we thought, ‘Well, we’d better pack this up now and deal with the other situation’.”
It was around 0440. To the right in B Company’s sector an SOS signal spluttered skyward as mortars and machine-guns joined the fray. Not long afterwards, battalion headquarters was bracketed. One mortar shell struck the porch of the house, wounding three officers, including Major Nicolas Charlton, who had taken temporary charge of the battalion just three days earlier.
While 37-year-old Major Lisle Ryder assumed command pressure began to build on the forward sections. In C Company’s area tragedy added to the suffering as shells from a defensive barrage fell short.
To Private Ernie Leggett, a 20-year-old battalion drummer serving in A Company, it felt as though “all hell broke loose”.
Having rejoined Gristock at company HQ, Barclay was watching and waiting for the softening up process to end and for the assault to begin. Eventually some Germans were spotted approaching the far bank. An officer was observed poring over a map and giving out orders while, behind them, trees were being felled to help straddle the gaping hole in the demolished bridge nearby.
“They were totally oblivious of our presence in the immediate vicinity,” recalled Barclay, “and I told my soldiers on no account were any of them to fire until they heard my hunting horn.”
The tense wait lasted “until there were as many as we could contend with on our side of the canal” at which point he blew his horn and the slaughter began. The leading parties of Germans, standing about in small groups as they waited for the rest of the force, hardly knew what had hit them.
“They didn’t take cover,” recalled Leggett, who was positioned in an abandoned cement factory between the canal and a railway track. “They were… coming towards us like a flock of sheep as if we couldn’t do anything to hurt them. But, by God, we did. They kept coming on, running over their own dead… and with a bren gun you can do a lot of damage very quickly.”
With what Barclay described as “consummate accuracy” his men soon disposed of all the troops that had made it across the canal and several more on the far side. There then followed a brief lull before the enemy’s surprise gave way to violent retaliation.
Now it was A Company’s turn to suffer.
SITUATION RESTORED
Having disclosed their positions no amount of camouflage could protect Barclay’s men from the deluge of shells and mortar bombs. Several casualties were inflicted before one missile landed close enough to pepper him “amidships” with shrapnel.
Painfully wounded in the stomach, back and arm, he was unable to walk. With all the company’s stretchers in use, it appeared his active role in the battle was over until his batman fashioned a makeshift stretcher out of a door which he ripped off its hinges.
With his injuries roughly dressed, and “forcibly tied” to the door, Barclay was carried round his embattled position. The place was an inferno of shot and shell, but while being ferried about on this strange contraption he realised, worryingly, that the heaviest fire was coming from the same side of the canal.
“I was suddenly all too clearly aware that the Germans had effected a crossing to the right of our position,” he later wrote, “and were creating a major threat to our right flank.”
It was the crisis point of his company’s fight. Barclay instinctively knew that if the incursion went unchallenged it would only grow stronger and eventually force him to pull back or risk being enfiladed and then encircled.
With his sorely-depleted company already heavily engaged, he turned to George Gristock and the only reserve available: eight men from company HQ including a wireless operator, a cook and two runners.
Their main objective was an enemy machine-gun position which Gristock quickly located behind a heap of rubble near the canal bank. There wasn’t much time for a complicated plan. Thinking fast, Gristock positioned some of his men to give initial covering fire while he and the others worked their way closer.
A little further on, he dropped off the wireless operator and cook to provide support as he prepared to make the final attack alone.
It was a journey fraught with hazard. The ground was flat and exposed with scarcely a scrap of cover. And, while his approach had thus far been undetected by his quarry, the movements of his small party had been seen from the other side of the river where another machine-gun post was established.
From the upper storey of the cement factory, Ernie Leggett watched Gristock’s progress without knowing who it was or what he was trying to do. “It was too far away,” he said, “but I could see him crawling along on his elbows, a rifle [in fact, it was a sub-machine-gun] across his arms, taking care to stay as flat as possible because there wasn’t much cover.
“All the time I could hear the unmistakeable rattle of a Spandau. It sounded like a kid brushing a stick over corrugated iron. Then, all of a sudden, I saw this soldier raise his rifle [sic], fire and then, shortly after, he threw a grenade. Bodies and stuff went up in the air.
“But what he couldn’t see. But I could, was another machine-gun set up on his right flank and that opened fire and the next thing I saw was him lying still.”
Barclay saw those final moments differently. According to his account of the action, Gristock was raked by fire from the second machine-gun before he was able to attack his objective.
“Both his knees were smashed,” wrote Barclay. But Gristock refused to quit. By sheer willpower, he forced his pain-wracked body on. “From my ‘observation platform’,” wrote Barclay, “I saw him drag himself - still unobserved by the first and most threatening machine gun, till he got within grenade throwing range.
“Rolling over on his side, he threw a grenade straight into the road-repair stone pile that harboured the menace: three German soldiers bolted from behind. Twisting himself over again, he opened fire with his tommy gun, knocking out the trio.
“The situation had been restored.”
PAINFUL BEYOND WORDS
The fighting around Tournai raged for another two days, but Gristock’s part in it was over although it took him a little while to accept the fact. “Although his knee[s] must have been painful beyond words,” wrote Barclay, “I’m told he never stopped smiling and tried to return to the Coy after it had been dressed.”
The destruction of the machine-gun post also marked the end of Barclay’s command. Shortly afterwards, he passed out. The next thing he remembered was being in a first aid post with his even more seriously injured company sergeant major.
“[He] was in a very bad state,” recalled Barclay, “but not too bad to appreciate some jellified brandy pills we were both given and which cheered him up no end.”
There then followed a frantic journey by truck, train and hospital ship back to England which was every bit as hazardous as the fighting itself.
During the course of their eventful evacuation, they had to divert to avoid a German tank blocking the road to the coast, were temporarily marooned on a railway embankment in no-man’s-land outside an invested Calais and were bombed by Stukas as they were being ferried into the harbour.
The delays proved costly to Gristock. “The train journey was expected to have taken no more than four hours,” recalled Barclay. “They were equipped with enough dressings and medicine to last about 24 hours, but we were about three days trying to get out.
“Consequently, they ran out of dressings and pain-killers. The stench was terrible as men’s wounds became gangrenous. Gristock was one of those who suffered. He was in acute pain, aggravated by gangrene, but his courage, tenacity and humour never left him.”
Landed at Newhaven, the two men who had shared so many hard times together were separated. While Barclay was taken with other officers to Berkhamsted, Gristock eventually wound up in the Royal Sussex County Hospital in Brighton where his fellow patients included Ernie Leggett.
The young drummer had been badly wounded by shell fragments the day after Gristock’s gallant action and was among the last batch of wounded from the battalion to get away.
His escape was doubly fortuitous. After being forced to withdraw from the Escaut, the survivors of his section were posted to HQ Company. Four days later, they were among nearly 100 men massacred by German SS troops after a rearguard action near the French village of Le Paradis.
As the only other Norfolk in the hospital, Leggett paid a visit to his company sergeant major. “He’d had both legs amputated,” he recalled, “but he was in good spirits. I thought something was seriously wrong though when I saw a row of 15 bottles of ale lined up alongside his bed.
“I couldn’t understand how they could allow him to drink in his state. But then I realised it was because they knew he didn’t stand a chance of survival.”
A GREAT LOSS
George Gristock succumbed from his injuries on June 16, the same day that his company commander had begun the letter to his father. Uncertain about how to address it, Barclay delayed posting and in the interval learned of Gristock’s death.
Adding a fresh note, he wrote: “I am greatly distressed to hear the news. You had a son to be proud of indeed. He will be a great loss to the Regiment in general and to the old company in particular. The result of my recommendation for his decoration is not yet out. I put him up for the VC.”
Two months later, based solely on Barclay’s eyewitness account written from his hospital bed in Berkhamsted, the King granted the posthumous award of the Victoria Cross to CSM George Gristock “for most conspicuous gallantry”.
The hard-drinking, plain-speaking cavalryman famed for his skill as a ‘trick rider’ had repaid his company commander’s faith in full measure.