It being that time of year, it's only right to pay homage to that soldier son of Clontarf, Arthur Samuel Buchanan Tutty, details of whom appear in James W. Taylor's The 1st Royal Irish Rifles in the Great War; and no, this is not another tale of gallant but forgotten Paddys at the front. This is a story of the most craven poltroon ever to leave Ireland's shores. This a tale of cowardice at its most heroic.
Arthur was educated at Howth Road School, Dublin. He was a Methodist and, clearly, an ornament to his religion. When he joined the British army in 1915, he was 5ft 6ins, weighed eight stone, and had a chest size of about 33 inches. He was, in brief, a weed.
Yet stay: are not small men often brave men? And they often are, when they're bantam cocks. But our Arthur was actually more of a bantam hen. Indeed, almost the very first thing he did upon entering barracks was to go AWOL: fined, two days' pay.
When, as a young trumpeter, he was ordered to Salisbury Plain from Clandeboye outside Belfast, he simply "lay in bed, saying unfit to travel". He was then forcibly escorted to Salisbury, but promptly made a break back for Ireland before being found again and arrested. He was then sent to France, and almost immediately, was fined three days' pay for late reporting for duty.
Officer training
If you want proof of the ruthless efficiency with which the British army can identify and groom a man's talents, here it comes. For now it sent Trumpeter Tutty for officer training, from which he emerged, astonishingly, with a commission and, less astonishingly, with "sickness, vomiting, abdominal pain and diarrhoea". He promptly went AWOL again, and was recaptured.
It was now July 1918, and with the war reaching its climax, Lieut Tutty decided to offer his resignation, because - as he told the War Office - he had to mind his new wife's shop in Newtownards. Well, quite. When this request was rejected, he sought a temporary demobilisation. "I simply throw myself on the mercy of the WO in granting this. It means everything to me. I have the honour to be, Sir, your obedient servant."
An obedient servant was one thing he was not. An incredulous War Office, not quite sure where he now was, telegrammed to France and Ireland, asking for any trace of 2nd Lieut Tutty. Nope. No trace. Tufts of hair are despairingly tugged from War Office scalps. They seek him here, they seek him there. . .
A fuming WO memo noted: "This officer appears to be a slippery customer. . .we have wired the Assistant Provost Marshall in Ireland to arrest him and return him to his unit." But the Provost Marshall reported that Tutty had somehow got his hands on a "legal" telegram extending his leave, though of course, he'd never had leave in the first place.
Life in danger
His unit now in France, Lieut Tutty was declared AWOL from the front, which could have led to the firing squad. Yet Tutty next turned up at the War Office in London, wondering if he might resign, please, or at least have six months' leave. After all, the army could easily spare him, "seeing that things are going so well at the front". Moreover, he added rather tellingly, if he went to the front, his life could well be in danger. Yes, of course, you can just see War Office heads nodding sagely, and murmuring: By Jove, the chap has a point there, y'know.
Still "on leave", our plucky hero was admitted to Holywood Hospital back in Ireland, from where he finally was sent to the front. But instead of posting his platoon in different positions around the trenches as ordered, he gathered his men in a dense group around him. When asked by an incensed senior officer for an explanation, he replied that he felt nervous, and could he see the doctor please? Soon he was back in hospital, suffering from "shellshock and neurasthenia". Col Jack Hunt, later to train the Irish Free State Army, now had him under command. Hunt, who had been promoted from the ranks, and knew a thing or two about soldiering, described our Arthur as "absolutely inefficient" and utterly incapable, and wondered rather acidly who on earth had given him a commission. Another officer recalled that he had once found Tutty grovelling in a trench, "calling on his men to save him, as he was an only child and had a wife." Meanwhile Tutty - naturally - had written to the Ministry of Pensions, demanding a pension because of his perfectly terrible experiences.
"Miserable creature"
By early 1919, an exhausted British army could see that it had met its match in 2nd Lieut Tutty. A WO note wearily reported of his discharge: "He was a miserable creature, we saw him frequently in this passage trying to get extensions of leave. . ." Never court-martialled, and still, incredibly, an officer, Arthur Tutty thus departed military life. The papers quoted above were all deliberately kept on file "in case the question of a pension ever cropped up" and are quoted in James W. Taylor's outstanding history of the Royal Irish Rifles, published by Four Courts.
Footnote: The Dublin Street Directory for 1935 records an A. Tutty living in 16 Belgrove Road, Clontarf. No doubt regulars in the local pub would listen in rapt silence as Col Arthur Buchanan-Tutty, VC, DSO, MC & Bar, nightly regaled them with a few modest tales of the days in the trenches when he'd given the beastly Hun a good biffing. . .