The Broken Poppy

by Alice Catherine Carter

18th September 1914.

 

  Day Twenty Four,

  I promised myself that I would write in this journal regularly, but once again I have failed. We have been at the Yeomanry for four weeks now and I think we are nearing the end of our military training, with a few more weeks left at most. It is hard work, but it’s more exciting than I thought it would be and Rob loves every single minute of it. Despite his faults and mistakes in the past he is actually an incredibly kind and cheerful person. That is his character but in the past, due to the life he lived, he has had to create a different character, one that you don’t necessarily like. Here though he is completely different, well I suppose he is just not lying about his nature because he doesn’t have too. He is already popular here, everyone knew who he was about a week after we had arrived. People just like Rob; as I said he is light hearted, caring, kind, outgoing and funny in his natural character. He has actually got a great singing voice too, and he sings all the time. I’m glad he hasn’t stopped singing just because of the war, even though he did when we were in prison. Rob entertains us all, uplifts us when we are at our lowest point, when the Corporals are driving us mad and when the training has got the better of us. I know I’m lucky to have him as a brother.

  The amount of things I have learnt while training here has been extensive. I had never really held a gun before my training and now I know every single thing about the weapon, including how a certain part of it is made. I listen to everything I’m taught because you never know when a small piece of information might save your life on the battle field. I am much more attentive here than I ever was in school, but then this is war.

  We have had drills on using a rifle and a bayonet. I remember my very first drill shortly after I arrived here. I was given my own rifle and bayonet, a relatively new one I might add. Most of the weaponry has already been used and is completely covered in dirt. Mine though looks like a brand new one.

  This particular session was to simply understand how to attach the bayonet properly to the rifle and I remember my first conversation I had with Captain Timmark. I was waiting in line with all the other soldiers and I had my back straight and my right hand resting upon my forehead, ready to salute.

  “Alright their Son?” Captain Timmark asked.

  “Not bad thank you Sir” I replied.

  “What’s your name?” he enquired.

  “Thomas Millward Sir” I replied while bringing my hand back down, to place it by my side.

  “Millward? Young Robert’s brother?” he asked.

  “Yes, Sir” I replied promptly.

  “I’ve heard good things about you two and Matthew” he told me.

  “You have Sir?” I asked surprised.

  “Yes, I’m glad you’ve all changed your ways. Now this Thomas is your brand new bayonet and rifle. You must not let it out of your sight. If you want to stay alive that is. Let’s call it your new best friend” he said.

  “It looks very nice Sir” I replied.

  “Indeed. Now all you do is simply attach the bayonet on top of the rifle and push it in until it clicks into place. Then you should have no problem sticking it into a German on the battle field, before he has a chance to stick his bayonet into you. Got it?” Captain Timmark concluded.

  “Yes Sir” I replied.

  Captain Timmark nodded and swiftly moved on his way to talk to the next man. I don’t know why, but this conversation has always stuck in my mind and I think it always will. We have various practise drills throughout the days of the week, but the ones practising with the rifle and the bayonet are relentless. It feels like we are practising with them every second of every waking hour. Sergeant McEvan leads the drills - he is a bit of a bully and he likes to curse, a lot. One day, he was in a particularly bad mood. Around the courtyard wooden poles had been nailed together and there were sacks hanging from them in the middle. The objective of this training exercise was to imagine the sack was a German, an inch away from taking your life and we were basically told to destroy the sack. However, I apparently was not trying hard enough and the Sergeant stormed over.

  “Millward! You lazy halfwit!” Sergeant McEvan shouted at the top of his lungs.

  Before I had a chance to speak and defend myself, he snatched the bayonet from me and almost ‘gleefully’ showed me a demonstration.

  “Don’t tickle it! Kill it! Stick it in the heart! Like this!” Sergeant McEvan shouted, showing me how it was meant to be done.

  Sure enough after he had let his anger out, the sack was reduced to a pile of feathers, that were continuing to pour out of the bag and onto the stone floor. It looked as if a fox had just eaten a chicken and all that remained were it’s feathers. As punishment for my laziness he happily informed me that I needed to do the drill another ten times. I did as I was told, but instead of imagining a German as the sacks replacement, his face was in its place. Well it varied between his face and Roger Wilson’s – things have still not improved between us and I doubt they ever will. Sometimes I almost wish he was a German, along with his brother and cousin.

  Apart from this we are trained heavily and ruthlessly in rapid rifle fire and we are expected to fire 20 rounds per minute. We also have to learn the basics of military conformity. Such as simply accepting orders, a routine of our new life and some manual labour that we have to contribute to, though of course most of us know this basic life skill already. The other main areas of army training are practising with small unit tactics and the basics of war survival. I don’t know how much longer we have to train for, but I think it will be over in a couple of weeks or so.

  ….

  2nd October 1914.

  Day Thirty Eight,

  The time has come. The time to fight. It was a bit sooner than expected, but the men at the front need help and we have no choice but to go. We were meant to have twelve weeks training, but in the end we only got seven weeks. At the very start of the day when we were having breakfast in the makeshift dining hall, General Goldsmith made the announcement.

  “Silence please” he ordered standing up, and once he was greeted by the appropriate response he continued.

  “The time has come when you finish your training, all of you. It may not seem as though you have had as long as other soldiers and you would be right in thinking that. However, the men at the front need our help and I’m sure each and every one of you here will not give a second thought of staying at home when our brothers are in need of help. After you finish here all of you are to collect your belongings and then congregate in the main courtyard. You already know your regiment but today you will be told your platoon and battalion. After this, you will have a few days leave and I suggest that you go home and spend time with your families. After that some of you, not all, will head to France, while others will head onto further specialised training. For those who this affects, you will have been notified already. Enjoy the rest of your breakfast and your meals when you go back home, as you may not get another one so good for a while. We will meet back at this Yeomanry on the 9th October and on that day you will head to France. Thank you” General Goldsmith said concluding his speech.

  After his short speech, he sat back down and breakfast continued with new conversation filling the room of eager soldiers. Rob of course was very excited and in his mind he was ready to fight. In my mind though he was still my little brother and not a soldier, it was the same with Matthew. We ignored the fact that we were given leave of course, for we had no home to go back too.

  “Do you think we’re really going to France? On a ship!” Matthew said enthusiastically, almost like a child.

  “I suppose so, there would be no point in going to Germany now would there” Croaky said.

  “Not really. I’ve never been on a boat. Never even seen one, only the picture of the Titanic. What’s travelling on sea like? Does anyone know? I heard you get something called sea sickness? Is that true?” Matthew said and his childlike questions of excitement and
wonder made me laugh under my breath.

  “My grandfather was a fisherman in the village of Boscastle in Cornwall before they moved up north. I remember the fishing stories he would tell me as a boy about the sickness. It was Christmas Eve 1891 and I was six years old when he told me this story. I remember my mother had just put my little sister Lilly to bed; she must have been about three at the time. My grandfather and I had just finished off the last mince pies and we were waiting for the fire to heat up the water so we could have some tea. No one was talking and we sat listening to the fire crackling and the outside wind that was knocking at the walls, threatening to break through. The wind must have reminded him of the cold winds at sea because he told me the story in quite a random way” Louis said.

  Louis was such a great story teller and he remembered every detail so explicitly, but he always managed to lose himself in the memory so much that he would forget to mention the point of the story itself.

  “What was the story?” Rob pressed.

  “Oh right, sorry” Louis said coming out of his memory and continuing with the story.

  “My grandfather said ‘I remember another night as cold as this one. I was about twenty five years old and I was out at sea with several other men. We had been meaning to head back to shore before darkness but the tide had turned on us, I suppose Poseidon the King of the sea was angry at something. The waves rocked us around like we were puppets, dancing on the end of a string, destroying our catch and snatching away our oars. At one point there was a five foot wave that came over me and forced me out of the boat. I remember getting stuck under the force of the wave, not being able to breathe and I was sure that I was going to die. But then with the strength God had given me, I pulled myself back onto the boat and once every man had been accounted for we used the little strength we had to fight against mother nature. That’s another thing you should remember in life Louis. Humans might be able to fight one another with weapons made of steel and money made of gold, but we can never match the power of mother nature. If any man is foolish enough to ever try and have her power, he will have one hell of a fight on his hands and he will most definitely lose. Don’t ever get too big for your boots boy. Anyway, back to my story. We forced our way through the waves and we finally got back to shore just before dawn, it had been a long and tiring night. When we got home, all of the men that were at sea that night including myself, were struck by a terrible sickness - a sickness that crept up on you whenever we went back out to sea in the following weeks. Our legs would wobble, our stomachs would churn like the waves and sick would pour out of our mouths. We called it sea sickness and it was not a sickness of fear but a sickness of nature. Remember that my boy, remember that’” Louis finished.

  By the time Louis had finished the story, even though we were all grown men we felt like children again and it was as if we were being read a bedtime story. We did not want the story to end, but before anyone had a chance to speak one of the corporals, I forgot his name, ordered us all to get a move on and do what General Goldsmith had instructed. We followed his orders and went back to our ‘quarters’. We collected the few belongings we had and put them on our backs, everything fitting into a single bag. I only have a couple of things aside from this journal. We followed the rest of the instructions and Matthew, Rob and I said goodbye to Croaky, Harry, Louis and Herbert as they are all having specialised training. When we gathered in the courtyard, more bad luck followed us once again. Roger and Paul Wilson along with Albert Bradford were in the same regiment as myself, Rob and Matthew. It irritated us all but we had to grit our teeth together in order to stop ourselves from saying something that we would probably suffer for.

  About an hour after we had assembled, I noticed various men walking up and down each line, checking our paper work and I’m assuming telling each individual man the various information we needed to know. My prediction was right and once a man came to us he gave us our platoon and battalion. For Rob, Matthew, Albert, Roger, Paul and I, we were all in the same regiment and platoon. We were platoon 87 of the 12th division.

  Yours,

  Private Thomas Millward.