Shadows Of The Workhouse: The Drama Of Life In Postwar London Page 23

  I knew she was right. Her slow, gentle grin put everything into perspective, and we laughed together as we got our bikes out and pumped up the tyres. District work tends to blow the cobwebs away.

  Mr Collett was smiling and happy when he opened the door. “Welcome, my lassie, and I hope you had a good night’s sleep. Yesterday evening was the happiest time I’ve had for ages.”

  I didn’t tell him that I had been awake half the night, but wondered what his thoughts would have been if I had never come back. He would have suspected something, and supposed that he was to blame. I didn’t like to think of the hurt he would have suffered.

  As I undid the bandage, I remarked: “These ulcers are improving – why did you not have regular treatment before?”

  “Well, I didn’t like to bother anyone. I’ve had them for years, and always bandaged them myself. I had to see the doctor about my eyes, and he saw I was limping a bit and asked to see my legs. Then he arranged for you Sisters to come. I didn’t ask for treatment. I never thought they were bad enough.”

  They were the worst leg ulcers I had seen, and he didn’t think they were bad enough to justify a nurse’s treatment! I asked him how they had started.

  “It was gun wounds during the war. They healed up all right, but there was always a weakness. As I got older, little patches started, and then spread. But I can’t grumble. My legs have been good to me most of my life. You expect these little things as you get old.”

  Little things, I thought, I wouldn’t call these ulcers “little”!

  The mention of gun wounds made me think of the recruiting sergeant, who had been driven from my mind by the bugs. “Last night, before I left, you said you would tell me how you met the recruiting sergeant.”

  He settled back comfortably in his big wooden chair. That morning he began a story that he continued in subsequent visits, often over sherry in the evening.

  “Well, I was fifteen, going on sixteen, and I reckon if I hadn’t met him, it would have been a life of crime for me. There was no work, and I’d met a lad who was into everything. He always seemed to have money. He was younger than me, but quicker and smarter. We palled up together. I’m not going to tell you what we did, because I’m not proud of it, but one day he suggested going up the West End, where the pickings would be better. I’d never been up West before. I remember feeling dazzled by the great buildings, the fine open streets, all the carriages, and ladies and gentlemen in their fine clothes. We went to Trafalgar Square and hung around. My eyes were popping out, especially at the sight of the soldiers in their crimson jackets and black trousers. One of them came over to where we were standing by a fountain. I was so flattered; I couldn’t believe he wanted to talk to us.”

  He chuckled and blew a cloud of smoke across the room.

  “I thought it was a special honour. No one had told me they were at it every day, on the look out for lads like me.

  “‘Nah then, nah then, my fine young man’ (he was talking to me, not to my mate), ‘aint a fine young man like you got nothing to do on a day like this?’

  “I must have shrugged and grinned sheepishly.

  “‘Well then, did you ever see a soldier with nothing to do?’

  “I hadn’t, but then I had never seen soldiers before, and I was struck dumb with the honour of having this splendid figure of a man single me out for conversation.

  “Then he asked me what I’d had for breakfast.

  “Nothing,” I said.

  “‘Nothing!’ he roared, ‘nothing! I’ve never heard nothing like it. Did you say nothing?’

  “I nodded.

  “‘No wonder you’re looking a bit skinny, begging your pardon for the liberty, squire, but one can’t help noticing these things. Look at me, now.’

  “He patted a well-filled stomach with appreciation.

  “‘Bacon and liver, and brawn and kidneys, with fresh farm eggs and field mushrooms. As much bread-and-dripping as a man can eat, with beer if your taste runs to beer at breakfast, or tea and coffee, with fresh cream and sugar from Barbados. That’s the sort of breakfast a man needs to line his stomach for the day. And did you tell me you had nothing? That is unbelievable. Unbelievable.’

  “He shook his head as though he honestly had never heard anything like it before.

  “‘Well now, young man, you come along with me. A special friend of mine runs an alehouse over there. As a great favour to me, I’m sure he can find you something to fill your stomach with. He’s got a kind heart, he has, and when I tells him that my friend – if I can make so bold as to call you my friend – has had no breakfast, it will fair melt his tender old heart, it will . . . No, not you,’ he said to my mate, who had edged forward at the mention of breakfast. He put his hand on my shoulder and led me to the alehouse.

  “It was dark and smoky inside and, after the sunlight, I couldn’t see anything, but the soldier led me to a table and sat me down.

  “‘Bill,’ he roared, ‘Bill. Does a man have to wait all day for a pint of porter? Look lively, man.’

  “The fat, well-fed figure of the landlord emerged from the gloom.

  “‘A pint of your best for me, and for my friend – er – why, bless my soul, can you believe it, I don’t even know your name. I’ve felt so comfortable with you, like I’ve known you all my life, but I don’t even know your name.’

  “I’m Joe Collett.

  “‘Joe! What a coincidence. My young brother’s called Joe. And a tall, handsome young man he is, just like you. Oh, what a lad he is, my brother Joe. Such larks! Remember the larks we’ve had in here with Joe, eh, Bill? Those were the days. My young brother Joe joined the Dragoons, and now he’s a commanding officer, with a servant and a carriage, and as much money as he knows how to spend. But I was forgetting. Now, Bill, my old mate, my young friend Joe has had a bit of a night of it, and has unfortunately missed his breakfast.’

  “The landlord sounded astonished.

  “‘Missed his breakfuss? A man can’t get through the day without a good breakfuss ’a warm him. That’s terrible, that is.’ He patted his large belly, and looked at me with a sympathetic face.

  “The sergeant winked suggestively. ‘There! I knew as how you’d see the gravity of the sitivation, Bill. I says to young Joe over by the fountain there, I’ll take you over to my mate Bill, I said, and he’ll see you right. Now what have you got out the back there you’ve got a bit of spare of, that would satisfy young Joe? Not nothing too flash, like, because he ain’t got much money on him at present.’

  “I was alarmed. I hadn’t got any money. But before I could speak, the landlord said, ‘Call it on the ’ouse, sarj, on the ’ouse. It’s an honour to entertain a Guardsman any time. And any friend of yours is a friend of mine. Now, young sir, would tripe and faggots, and a good chunk of last night’s pease pudding fried up crispy-like, suit you?’

  “I couldn’t believe my luck. It sounded like a meal fit for a king.

  “‘Oh, an’ do you like bread-and-drippin’, young sir?’

  “I loved bread and dripping!

  “The meal arrived, and it was enough for two kings. I just ate and ate. The sergeant didn’t say anything. He just smoked his pipe and drank his porter, and looked out of the window at the pigeons squabbling on the window sill.

  “When I had finished, he said, ‘You were hungry, squire.’

  “I nodded, and thanked him warmly.

  “‘Don’t thank me, lad. You heard what the landlord said: it’s an honour to entertain a Guardsman. We gets that all the time, we do. We gets used to it. Treated like royalty, we are, wherever we go. No one can do enough for us. Did you ever see a soldier go hungry? Course not.’

  “He puffed his pipe, and called for another pint of porter, saying, confidentially, ‘Between ourselves, the ale in this house is real special. Old Bill brews it himself. If you are a konosser of good ales, young squire – and I am sure you are – I don’t think you will be disappointed. Unless, of course, you prefer coffee after breakfast.
’ What a suggestion to a fifteen-year-old, going on sixteen!

  “Bill brought two pints of porter, and I began to confide in the sergeant. I told him my father was dead.

  “‘Oh, your poor mother,’ the sergeant said huskily, pulling out a handkerchief. ‘My father died when I was a young lad – much younger than you, of course. I was sixteen when my father died, and my poor mother had a life of hard, hard work in order to keep us.’ He blew his nose and dabbed his eyes. ‘What would a man do without his mother? She sacrifices everything to bring up her family, and does without herself. A man can’t do enough to repay his mother, he can’t. My mother’s settled comfortably in a nice little cottage in the country, which me and my brother John got her with our army pay.’

  “‘I thought your brother was Joe.’

  “‘I mean Joe. John’s the other brother I haven’t told you about. Here, Bill, more ale, and look lively.’

  “‘Did you say a cottage in the country?’

  “He nodded.

  “‘Yerse. It was the least we could do for our poor old mum. My brother Joe and me – he’s a good lad, he is – we saves up our army pay, and now she lives like a princess, our old mother does. Wants for nothing.’

  “I thought of my mother, sitting up half the night, mending for a rascally second-hand-clothes dealer, going out at five in the morning to clean offices, and then toiling all day over the wash tub. I said, ‘How do you get into the army?’

  “He looked surprised, and raised his eyebrows.

  “‘Oh, was you thinking of an army career, then?’

  “I nodded. ‘But how do you get in?’

  “He drew his chair closer to mine, and lowered his voice. ‘It’s not easy. I can tell you that for a start. You needs hinfluence. It’s not what you knows, but who you knows, as the saying goes. It’s a lucky day for you, squire, that you met me, because I’ve taken a real fancy to you, seeing as you are like my young brother Joe. How old are you, Joe? Seventeen, eighteen, eh?’

  “‘Seventeen,’ I said. It was a lie, I was fifteen.

  “‘I thought as much. A good judge of age, I am. It’s lucky for you you are seventeen, because you couldn’t get into the army if you was only sixteen.’

  “He leaned closer, and muttered out of the side of his mouth: ‘Is your health good? No nasties, nothing like that, I take it?’

  “I said my health was good.

  “‘Are you a Christian? The army won’t have none of them heathens and hatheists.’

  “I said I was Church of England.

  “‘Now, you’re an intelligent lad, I can see that. Can you write your name?’

  “I said I had been at school full-time until I was thirteen.

  “‘A scholar, my word. With your edifaction, sir, you will rise to the rank of brigadier general, you will.’

  “He stretched out his hand, took my porter from me, and drank it himself.

  “‘If you are going to put pen to paper, young sir, you will need a steady hand. All the edification in the world aint going to help if your hand is shaking, on account of too much strong porter before lunch. Where was you planning lunch, by the way? Perhaps I can join you?’

  “I said I hadn’t any plans, but I was thinking about joining the army, and how could I do it?

  “He leaned closer, and tapped his nose. He looked all around, before whispering, ‘It’s your lucky day, lad. I reckons as how I can help. I knows where the recruiting office is sitivated, and if I recommends you to the company’s commanding officer – I’m very well thought of in higher command, I am – I reckons you would be in with a chance. Without me you haven’t a hope. They’d turn you away as soon as look at you, they would. Come on, let’s go.’

  “Out in the sunlight, I blinked, and lowered my head from the glare, but the sergeant turned to me.

  “‘Right now, Guardsman Joe – what did you say your name was? Collett I must remember that – Collett. Guardsman Collett, stand up straight. Throw your head and shoulders back. Breathe deep, chest out. The soldiers of the Queen don’t slouch around the place. Now, pick your feet up. Left, right, left, right. Eyes straight ahead. Left, right.’

  “We marched across the square at a cracking speed. People fell aside. Everyone looked at us. I felt so proud. We passed my mate, who just gawped. I didn’t turn my head to look at him.

  “We entered the recruiting office, and the sergeant snapped his heels together with a crack like a whip, and shot his right arm up in salute to the officer who stepped forward.

  “‘Sah. Mr Joseph Collett, sah. Aged seventeen. Good health. Good education. Father dead, sah. Wants to be a soldier, sah. Highly recommended, sah.’

  “There was a lot of saluting and ‘sah-ing’, and heel snapping, and the sergeant said, ‘Right, young Joe. I’ll leave you with the commanding officer. I’ll be off now. Good luck, lad.’

  “And I never saw him again.”

  With bewildering speed Joe had been hustled into the medical room, and asked to stick his tongue out and drop his trousers. A doctor gave him a quick look over, and passed him as fit. He was taken to a desk and told to write his name and address at the top of a printed form, then to sign his name at the end of the page. Confused but confident, Joe did so.

  “Guardsman Collett, you are now a soldier in Her Majesty’s Scots Guards. You will receive full uniform, full rations, full billeting, and a shilling a day. Here is a travel warrant to take you from Waterloo to Aldershot, which will be your first camp. You may go home now to tell your mother and collect your personal belongings. The last train from Waterloo goes at 10 p.m. If you are not on it, remember: you are now a fully enlisted guardsman, and failure to report at barracks will be counted as desertion, which is punishable by a flogging and six months in prison on bread and water. Here is your first day’s pay of one shilling. Now follow the uniform sergeant downstairs, where you will be fitted with boots and uniform. Stand to attention, Guardsman Collett, and salute when you are leaving a superior officer.”

  In the wardrobe room Joe had been fitted up with full uniform and boots. He looked exceedingly handsome in the scarlet jacket and black trousers, and he gazed at his reflection with barely suppressed joy. He put the shilling and his travel warrant in his pocket, and was given a brown-paper parcel containing his old clothes. He was given directions to Waterloo Station and, with dire warnings about prison and flogging if he failed to turn up, was sent on his way.

  Joe marched all the way back to Poplar, his newly acquired military swagger getting stronger with every step. His buttons gleamed, his boots shone, his red tunic dazzled the eye. People stood aside. Older men touched their caps. Small boys marched beside him, imitating his step. Best of all, young girls giggled and whispered and tried to attract his attention. But “eyes straight ahead”, as ordered by the recruiting sergeant, was Joe’s rule, and never once did he glance back, however enticing the female attentions. Girls had never looked at him before. “A soldier’s life is the life for me” – and his young heart sang in tune to his step.

  He marched into the court of Alberta Buildings, round to the washhouse, and flung open the door. The chatter stopped and a gasp of admiration went up from the women at the wash tubs. But his mother had her back to him. Turning round, she gazed uncomprehendingly at the figure in the doorway for a few seconds, as though she didn’t recognise him. Then a low moan escaped her lips, rising to a terrible scream, and she fainted.

  Joe rushed forward in alarm. Women crowded round. Water was splashed over her face and neck, and she opened her eyes, which, seeing Joe in his scarlet tunic, flooded with tears. She sobbed uncontrollably, unable to speak. A woman said, “You best get her back to your place an’ all, Joe. Poor soul. She’s that took she can’t hardly stand, poor lamb. Oh Joe, you didn’t never oughta’ve done it, you never.”

  Alarmed and bewildered, Joe helped his mother across the cobbled court and up the stone stairway to their flat. Doors opened, and women came out onto the balconies to witness the drama.
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  A neighbour brought in a cup of tea, and handed it to her with the words, “I’ve laced it with a drop o’ somethin’ soothin’, Mrs Collett, to keep yer strength up. Lor’ knows, yer goin’ ’a need it,” and she gave Joe a reproachful stare.

  His mother drank the tea, and the sobs diminished. When she could speak, Joe asked her why she was crying.

  She clung to him, and rubbed her swollen face on his sleeve. “A soldier, Joe! My eldest son, my comfort, my hope, a soldier. They draw them in, young men, thousands of them, every year. Cannon-fodder, they calls them, ‘the scum of the earth’. They draws them in to die.” Tears again flooded her eyes, and she wiped them away with her shawl.

  “Go and ask Mrs Willoughby three doors down if I could have another cup of that tea, will you, dear? She’s a kind soul, and won’t mind, I know that. She feels for me. She’s lost sons in the army.”

  Joe was not merely deflated. He was shattered. He had expected a hero’s welcome. He took his jacket off, not wanting to step onto the balcony in scarlet, and fetched another cup of tea, laced with a drop of rum, which many good Poplar housewives kept for moments of crisis.

  While gratefully sipping the tea, his mother said: “I ’ad four older brothers, and they all died in the Crimean War. I was only a little girl, and ’ardly remember them, but I remember my mother crying, an’ ’ow she never recovered. The grief seemed to cling to ’er for the rest of ’er life. My older sister was engaged to be married to a young man who died at Sebastapol. The suffering was terrible, by all accounts – just terrible.”

  “But the Crimean War was ages ago,” Joe protested; “it’s all over and done with. The Empire’s strong. There are no wars now. No one would dare attack the British Empire. And I’m a soldier of the Queen Empress, and proud of it.”

  She forced a smile. “You’re a good lad, my son, and your mother’s a silly old fusspot. She’s not going to spoil your last afternoon with tears. When do you have to report to barracks?”

  He remembered the travel warrant and the shilling in his tunic pocket. He pulled it out and laid it proudly on the table beside her. “I’m paid a shilling a day and it’s all for you. I get my billet and my food and my uniform, so I don’t need money. I’ll bring it all to you, and you won’t want no more.”