Shadows of the Workhouse

by Jennifer Worth

  His ingenuous simplicity had always charmed me. He looked upon his squalid, bug-ridden flat as comfort, even luxury; he was grateful for a modest pension that enabled him to buy food and coal sufficient for his needs. He saw himself as a wealthy man, who could afford to buy a bottle of sherry and a box of chocolates with which to entertain a young nurse of whom he had grown fond. He was completely content.

  I leaned forward and squeezed his hand with affection. “I think it’s getting late and I must go, but next time you must tell me about re-adjusting to civvy life. I guess your twins didn’t know you?”

  He didn’t reply, but looked dreamily into the fire. “You go, my maiden, you go,” he said, softly. I left an old man to his memories, the consolation of loneliness.

  My next visit to Mr Collett was a morning about three days later. His legs had improved beyond all recognition and the ulcers were now completely dry. It was very gratifying.

  On the mantelpiece, amid all the dingy and faded old photographs, was a gleaming white card, with a gold border and an embossed crown on it, requesting the pleasure of the company of Mr Joseph Collett and lady at the Old Guards’ reunion at Caterham Barracks on a Saturday in June. I remarked on the card. He told me that for several years he had enjoyed going to the Old Guards’ Day, but had not been able to go in recent years, due to his deteriorating eyesight and bad legs.

  Impulsively I said, “Look, your legs are so much better now. It won’t be any trouble for you to get around. Let’s go together. It looks like good fun. It’s not every girl has an opportunity like this, and I don’t want to miss it.”

  He positively lit up. He took my hands and kissed them. “You darling girl! What a wonderful idea. It hadn’t even crossed my mind. We’ll go, and we’ll make a day of it. I can tell you, the Guards do us old soldiers proud. What a day we’ll have! What a day!”

  I requested the day off well in advance, telling Sister Julienne about the invitation, and the plans. The girls were most intrigued; what on earth would it be like? Trixie suggested that a Young Guards’ reunion might be more exciting, but wished me pleasure with my old ones.

  The day itself dawned bright and fair. I was round at Alberta Buildings shortly after eight o’clock. Mr Collett was excited and chatty. He was dressed for the occasion in a faded old suit. His shoes had been polished, and he carried a new trilby hat. Most important of all, and by far the most impressive, he was wearing a row of medals on his chest. It had not occurred to me that he had medals, and I looked at them closely. He was proud and happy, telling me what each of them was for.

  We took the bus from Blackwall to Victoria Coach Station, and then a coach to Caterham, arriving at about ten o’clock. I was excited, having never been inside a barracks before. For a young, inexperienced girl it was a stupendous occasion, and my excitement communicated itself to Mr Collett. We stayed very close together, because of the crowds, and I held his arm all the time as he couldn’t see clearly. I had expected a rather solemn occasion with a lot of old men talking about old times. But it was nothing like that. It was an Open Day, with full military honours and pageantry. The reunion itself was an evening event.

  The day was exhilarating. The British Army really knows how to put on a show. The colour, the flags, the pipes and drums, the drills. The scarlet uniforms, black busbies, the marching, with the pipe major throwing his staff high into the air. I was thrilled. Mr Collett had seen it all before, and couldn’t see it very well this time, but he heard my cheers and was delighted.

  Towards evening, when the marching and the drilling had ceased, and the tired crowds were starting to leave, I thought we would be leaving also. But Mr Collett pulled me back. “Now it is time for the regimental dinner. Come on, my beauty. This way. They’ll see ‘the privates know how to pick ’em’.”

  We went to the great dining room by special invitation. We were a little late, because Mr Collett’s walking was slow. We passed young soldiers, who clicked their heels and saluted. We entered, the doorman took our card, and called: “Mr Joseph Collett and Miss Jenny Lee.” There were about two hundred men and women seated at the tables. Heads looked up, and then a voice called out: “Gentlemen, now here is a really old guardsman.” And everyone in the room stood up and raised their glasses: “To an esteemed old soldier.”

  Tears of emotion sprang from Mr Collett’s eyes. We were led to the Colonel’s table, and placed at his side. The dinner was sumptuous, and the Colonel and his lady so gracious to the old man. They talked about the Boer War, and Africa, and army life sixty years earlier. He was treated with the respect and recognition that he deserved so well.

  FRANCE

  1914-1918

  The joyous day at Caterham Barracks cemented our friendship and I knew then that, come what may, I was bound to Mr Collett for life. We chatted and laughed all the way home, and parted at the bus stop near Blackwall Tunnel. He insisted that he didn’t need me to go back with him, as he was perfectly capable of finding his way in the dark. It gladdened my heart to remember the respect, even deference, with which he had been treated at the barracks by the Colonel. He would not forget that day in a hurry.

  One day, whilst treating his legs, I asked him about his life after leaving the army. I knew that Sally and the twins were living in Alberta Buildings by that stage. Did they continue to live there when he came back?

  “No. I got a job in the Post Office you see, and so we had to move near to the sorting office in Mile End.” He went on to tell me about his new life. Postmen had to sort their own mail in those days, and had to be in the sorting house by four o’clock each morning to receive the night mail. Sorting took a couple of hours, then they would be out on the road delivering until about 1 p.m. After a couple of hours off, they went back to sort and deliver the evening mail, which finished about 7 p.m. Mr Collett thought it was a good life.

  “The twins were getting bigger. Pete and Jack were about six or seven, and the spitting image of each other. No one except their mother could tell them apart and even she got it wrong sometimes. They were lovely boys.”

  He bit his lip and swallowed hard, choking down the emotion.

  “You’ve heard, I suppose, that identical twins often seem to live for each other. Well, I can tell you how true that is. They were two people, but I often thought that neither of them could be quite sure where one ended and the other began. They were always together, you couldn’t separate them. They didn’t seem to need anyone else. They even spoke their own language. Yes, it’s true! We would listen to them playing, Sally and me, and they used different words with each other than they used with everyone else. It was a mixture of ordinary English and their own language. They could understand it, but we couldn’t. You can never be quite sure what’s going on in a child’s mind, and identical twins are more of a mystery than other children. Pete and Jack lived in a world created by their combined imaginations, filled with giants and dwarves, kings and queens, castles and caverns. They didn’t really have any friends. They didn’t need them. They had each other.”

  “Didn’t their mother feel left out?”

  “You’re right there, she did. The boys weren’t lacking in affection, or anything like that. They were just totally self-sufficient. In fact, Sally once said, ‘I reckon you and me could die, Joe, and they wouldn’t notice. But if one of the boys died, I reckon the other would just fade away.’”

  Tears glistened in the corners of his eyes, and he murmured, “Perhaps it was best, all for the best. The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away.” He fell completely silent, lost in thought.

  I had heard of two sons being killed in France, and looked at the picture of two handsome little boys on the wall. I asked, “Did you have any more children?”

  “Yes, we had a little girl, and Sally nearly died in childbirth. I don’t know what went wrong, and the midwife didn’t know either, but my Sal was near to death for weeks after the birth. Her sister took the baby and wet-nursed her for the first three months, and the boys went to my mot
her. It frightened the life out of me, so I never let her go through it again. That’s one thing you learn about in the army, if nothing else: contraception. I never could understand these men who let their wives have ten or fifteen children, when they could prevent it.

  “But Sally recovered, thank God, and the children came home. We called the little girl Shirley – don’t you think that’s a pretty name? She was the loveliest little thing in all the world and a blessing to us both.”

  I did not need to see Mr Collet professionally more than once a week, because his legs were nearly better, but our sherry evenings continued, and during one of them he told me the story of Pete and Jack.

  Young girls are not usually interested in war and military tactics, but I was. Wartime had shaped my childhood, but really, I knew little about war itself. The First World War was a mystery to me, and we were taught nothing about it in our history lessons at school. I knew that vast numbers of soldiers had died in the trenches of France, but so great was my ignorance that I did not even know what “trenches” meant. Later I met people who had suffered in the Blitz, and heard their first-hand stories, so when Mr Collett mentioned his sons’ experiences I encouraged him to talk.

  Pete and Jack had been sixteen years old when the war started. They had left school at the age of fourteen, and for two years had been Post Office telegraph boys, racing around London on their bikes delivering telegrams. They were known as “the flying twins”. They loved it, were proud of their work, proud of the uniform, and were both healthy from all the fresh air and exercise. But in 1914 war started, and a national recruitment campaign was launched. “It will all be over by Christmas” was the government’s promise. Many of their friends joined up, lured by the thought of adventure, and the twins wanted to go too, but their father restrained the boys, saying that war was not all adventure and glory.

  1915 saw the launch of the famous poster of Lord Kitchener, pointing darkly out of the frame and saying “Your country needs you”. After that, young men who did not join up were made to feel that they were cowards. Hundreds of thousands of young men volunteered, Pete and Jack among them, and marched off to their graves.

  The men were sent for three months’ military training in how to handle a gun and a grenade. Also how to care for horses and sword fighting for hand-to-hand combat were part of their training. Mr Collett commented wryly: “That just shows you how little the military High Command knew about mechanised warfare with high explosives!”

  Men, boys and horses were packed into a steamer that stank of human sweat and horse droppings, and were shipped across the Channel to France. They were sent straight to the front-line trenches.

  I said, “I’ve heard about this, front lines and trenches and going over the top and the likes, but what does it all mean?”

  He said, “Well I wasn’t there – I was too old. I suppose I could have gone as a veteran, but the Post Office was vital work, because all communications were handled by the Post Office, so I don’t think I would have been released. However, I have met several men who were there at the front and who survived, and they told me the realities we never heard about back home.’

  “Tell me about them, will you?”

  “If you really want me to I will. But are you sure you want to hear? It’s not the sort of thing one should discuss with a young lady.”

  I assured him I really did want to hear.

  “Then you had better get me another drink. No, not that sherry stuff. If you look in the bottom of that cupboard you will find half a bottle of brandy.”

  I filled his glass, and he took a gulp.

  “That’s better. It upsets me, talking about it. My two beautiful boys died in those trenches. I reckon I need a bit of brandy inside just to think about it.”

  He finished the glass, and handed it back to me for a refill, then continued his narrative.

  The things he told me that evening were deeply disturbing. The trenches, I learned, were a series of massive dugouts intended as temporary camouflage in flat countryside that offered no natural protection for an army. In the event, they were used for four years of continuous warfare, and provided living accommodation for soldiers.

  For months on end men were camped underground in trenches that were always damp, and sometimes waterlogged. Conditions were so cramped, and the men so tightly packed side by side, that the only way to sleep was to stand with their heads and shoulders learning over the parapet. Trench-foot (rotting of the skin caused by a fungal infection), frost-bite and gangrene were rife. The men endured filthy clothes, unchanged for weeks, and lice, millions of lice, that spread from one man to another and were impossible to eliminate. There was no sanitation, and drinking water was contaminated by mud and sewage. Hot food was an infrequent luxury. The rats were everywhere, thriving on an unlimited supply of human flesh as men died in such numbers that the living were unable to bury them.

  Both armies were entrenched in their dugouts, often in a line only a hundred yards apart, and both sides were ordered to blow the other to smithereens. Men were being blown to pieces all around; arms, legs, heads were blown off; men were disembowelled, faces torn open, eyes shot out. If the men were ordered to leave their trenches (“go over the top” as it was called) and advance on foot towards the enemy line they would be heading straight into the line of fire and as many as 100,000 men could die in a single day.

  And all the time, the cold, the damp, the hunger, the lice, and the stench of decomposition as rats gnawed at the corpses of the dead, drove the men stark raving mad.

  “It’s worse than I had thought, far worse,” I said. “I can’t even imagine it. I think I would have gone out of my mind in such a situation.”

  “Many did. And there was precious little sympathy for them.”

  “It is surprising that men did not simply run away. What was to stop them?”

  “Desertion was punishable by death by firing squad.”

  In that instant I remembered my Uncle Maurice. He was a strange, withdrawn man subject to violent passions and irrational behaviour. He was potentially dangerous, and I had always been very afraid of him. My aunt told me that he had spent four years, the entire war, in the trenches and somehow miraculously survived. “Don’t provoke him dear,” she would say, and I could see that her entire life was devoted to trying to ease his mind and bring tranquillity to his life. She was an angel, and I thought at the time that he did not deserve her – but without her he would have been a nervous wreck, and probably even certified as insane.

  She said, “He hardly even talks about the war, he bottles it up. Occasionally I can get him to talk about it, and I think it helps. But he still even now, thirty years afterwards, has dreadful nightmares. He screams and thrashes around the bed, and shouts to people in his dreams.”

  Having heard Mr Collett’s descriptions of trench warfare I began, for the first time, to understand my Uncle Maurice, and my aunt’s saintly devotion.

  One day she told me the most dreadful story of all. Her husband had been ordered to join a firing squad of ten men to shoot one of their companions who had deserted and been captured. The victim was a boy of nineteen who had been so terrified by the noise of guns and the death happening all around him that his mind had snapped and he had run away screaming. He was quickly arrested, for he had not managed to stumble more than half a mile, then was court-martialled, and sentenced to death for desertion. All the men knew the boy and each one hoped and prayed he would not be ordered to join the firing squad. Ten men were selected and ordered to shoot the boy in cold blood, and my uncle was one of them.

  I told the story to Mr Collett. For several moments he said not a word, but was busy cleaning out his pipe with a murderous-looking weapon, scraping and gouging the nicotine and tar from the encrusted bowl of his old friend. Then he blew hard down the stem and bits of black stuff flew into the air.

  “That’s better,” he muttered “no wonder it wouldn’t draw.” Then he said, “Fill my glass, will you dear?”
r />   I sloshed more brandy in, not knowing how strong it was. He took a sip and rolled it on his tongue, then said: “That is a dreadful story. It will remain with your uncle for the rest of his life. War brutalises a man. It is not surprising he was moody and violent. But you must remember two things: running away from battle has always been punishable by death. Military discipline must be harsh, or every soldier would run away; and secondly in a firing squad of ten men only one held a rifle with live ammunition – nine held blanks. So every man had a nine out of ten chance of not being responsible for the death of his colleague.

  “I don’t know what to think. I suppose it’s as you say – military discipline must be harsh – but it’s dreadful all the same. I find it almost unfathomable.”

  “Of course you do, my dear, you are in a profession that is devoted to caring for life, not destroying it. ‘War is hell’ – General William Sherman said that about the American Civil War a hundred years ago. It always has been hell and it always will be.”

  “My grandfather told me that his uncles had been in the Crimean Wars and never came back. The family never knew what happened.”

  “No they wouldn’t. The common soldier was completely expendable, not even named. Did you know that after the battle of Sebastopol the bones of the dead were collected up in sacks and shipped back to Britain to be ground down into fertilizers that was sold to farmers for a profit.”

  “That can’t be true.”

  “It is true. Perfectly true.”

  “It’s disgusting! I think I’ll try a shot of your brandy.”

  “Be careful. It’s strong stuff.”

  “I’m not worried, I can take it.” I boasted.