Youth at the Gate: A young woman’s memoir of life during the First World War

by Ursula Bloom

  I loathed the idea. ‘I’d run away,’ I suggested with female discretion.

  ‘They shoot people who run away. It’s desertion.’

  I liked that even less.

  That was a depressing evening waiting at the station, and my head ached. I had always got a headache easily, but since last year a wonder had been invented in the form of a tablet (sixpence a bottle) and it was called Aspirin. It was a wonderful pain-reliever.

  I kept trying to comfort myself with the assurance that anyway the war was bound to be over before the ‘Terriers’ could get through their training, though this did not intrigue Montie. He had got the urge; the tidal wave of patriotic fervour had stimulated every male in the country. He wanted to stand by a country which was no longer land and sea, but a woman in distress. A beautiful woman, and for that woman gallantry unbelievable was galvanized. This was the greatest thing that had ever happened! Already the Guards were in France, and the Royal Navy were on the High Seas, and winning.

  The headlines in the morning papers had told us that loyal Liége had repulsed tremendous pressure by the invading hordes, though how she could hold on we could not imagine. The headlines were:

  GERMAN DEFEAT BEFORE LIÉGE

  HEROIC BELGIAN ONSLAUGHT

  EVERY GERMAN WHO PASSED BETWEEN THE FORTS WAS KILLED

  Every slide I had sent on to the screen that evening, showing that Liége was still holding on, sent a thrill through the audience. I remember that when she did fall, some days later, I did not have to scratch the slide, for I was at the piano at the time. I had no idea what music I could play for it. When the slide did come on, it was greeted by stony silence, and I began very softly as though out of the distance, ‘Through the Night of Doubt and Sorrow’. Mr. Clements had always been insistent that we must never play hymn tunes because it was sacrilege, but I felt there was nothing else I could play, and apparently I did the right thing, for one old gentleman was so impressed that he got Teddy to bring me round a big box of chocolates, which must have cost him a whole shilling!

  Immediate censorship was established, because, so Montie told me, England was riddled with German spies, and they were simply everywhere. The spies had got to be weeded out, and if the Powers-that-be would not do it, then the populace would. Already spy fever was dangerous.

  Our train came in very late indeed, and walking home everything was just the same. Same moon and stars, same sounds of night, same tiredness in my own body. Same good-night kiss in the shadow of the little rowan tree which never showed the scarlet of its fruit after dark. Yet already we ourselves were different. We were at war.

  I went indoors, and the dining-room light was still on. Odd, I thought, and went to it; there was Joscelyn.

  ‘Hello!’ he said, then: ‘I’ve joined up.’

  When I could speak, I said, ‘You’re too young, and anyway you did promise Mother you wouldn’t.’

  He ignored that. ‘There was a long queue. I thought they wouldn’t have me after all the illnesses I’ve had, but they didn’t bother too much. Most of us were under age, anyway.’

  He was excited, and did not want to go to bed but wished to talk about it, for patriotism had got him too, as it had got at all indignant English manhood.

  ‘Almost the only thing they asked me was whether I could ride. I’ve got twenty-four hours’ leave to settle things, then I fetch my equipment.’

  On the table lay his before-dawn breakfast, put there by my hard-worked mother. The platter waiting for the bread; the tea things, the tea in a Thermos; porridge, too. Joscelyn loved porridge and it took the edge off the appetite, which in our home was important. There was the jam dish I had known since childhood and foolishly loved; it had a ridiculous kingfisher on it. Here were all the associations with youth, strong firm bonds which I had thought inviolable, and the whole lot seemed to be breaking.

  ‘Well, where is it all?’ I asked. ‘I mean where do you go?’

  ‘It’s the Herts. R.F.A. We shall be in camp in the Riding School up on the heath for a few days, then off we go to train; it’s no good asking me that one, because the sergeant wouldn’t say.’

  I said ‘Oh!’

  ‘Spies,’ said Joscelyn, ‘apparently the place is busting with spies everywhere.’

  I looked helplessly at him. Suddenly the infinite weariness of the cinema came over me. ‘Oh, Jos, I am so tired, so horribly tired.’

  ‘Well, there’s nothing to stop you going to bed, is there?’ he asked with brotherly candour.

  I wanted to say something, the words I had always felt but which sisters don’t say to their brothers. I love you very much and I don’t want you to be hurt. I don’t want you to go away. But I didn’t say it. I went upstairs to bed, and I thought soon all the men would have gone, we’d be alone, rather helpless, very lost.

  At the far end of the British Isles a young snottie who one day would be very closely connected with me, wrote this:

  At Sea

  Had the middle watch last night in the main top; packed up at 3 a.m. There was an awful spasm in the afternoon. One of the ships sighted a German submarine and we went to action stations, then night defence stations. We remained there for about an hour, but we weren’t attacked, and we lost sight of them, so we secured. Deck hockey in the dog watches. I have the first watch tonight.

  Mother was brave at breakfast and awfully proud that Joscelyn had joined up, but I could see that privately she was worried lest it would turn out to be a mistake. I told her that Montie would probably be in it today. Now it was just a competition as to when the men could get there.

  London was getting down to sheer hard work. On the front page of the Daily Mail the Junior Army and Navy Stores (York House, 15 Regent Street) were advertising that they had revolvers, war kit, and Sam Browne belts for sale. There was also one exciting bargain that took Mother’s interest:

  Sleeping Valise

  Pillow

  Bucket

  Cork Mattress

  Blanket and Bag

  Complete £6. 0. 0.

  She had already sent off for, and was eagerly awaiting the war map; she had decided that no patriot could live without this.

  In London at this time there was a young man whose name was Arthur Denham-Cookes, whom I was destined to marry within a few months, though as yet we had never met.

  He was the gay kind, half Irish, and with that lightly attractive accent (‘Och, begorra, you’ll be asking that of me, will you?’). He was a young man born with a silver spoon in his mouth, and a member of the Inner Temple. Here’s a war, what fun, what fun! was his reaction.

  His left hand was deformed from birth, and his great embarrassment was lest he would not be admitted into the Army with which his dead father had fought at the time of the Sikh campaign. At Umballa in 1846 George Denham-Cookes had entered a battle as an ensign and had come out of it a colonel. That was the sort of thing an intelligent boy could do in those days.

  The Governor would like this one! thought Arthur, and he got the butler at No. 6 Prince’s Gate to polish his late father’s sword (hopelessly out of date) and informed his Victorian mamma that he was now about to join up with the Army.

  His mother declared that if he did it would kill her; for a few hours they argued as they had done before, though never on quite so vital a subject, at the end of which time he managed to precipitate himself into the Territorial unit of the Irish Guards, for God, for King, and Country, and only the Irish Guards M.O. will ever know how!

  I must say the young man had shot round London in a Daimler soliciting every bit of influence he could, and he had by birth a tremendous amount of influence; they must all have helped him.

  When it became apparent that Arthur could not fulfil the essentials as laid down in King’s Regs. (a handy little book which sooner or later most young people came to know well) he went on into the Royal West Surreys (the Queen’s), and became aide-de-camp to an exacting old general (ex-Indian Army). The requirements for this appointment seemed to
be a first-class Sunbeam car, a banking account which never became flustered, and cousins, uncles, and aunts liberally spattered about the peerage.

  Arthur Denham-Cookes could supply all these highly desirable assistances to young gentlemen’s promotion.

  His mother had forty fits. His somewhat low-down lady friends encouraged him. Rigged out in faultless uniform (‘I’m a nice little fellow when you get to know me!’), Arthur was a howling success.

  In that hour recruiting stations were being so stormed that it is little wonder that they almost collapsed under it. Not to have fought in the war which would end all wars would be a disgrace, and each young man was a knight in armour.

  ‘The Government has taken over the railways,’ said Mother when I got down. ‘I only hope that won’t upset the holidays.’

  ‘But surely they can’t do that?’

  ‘It’s called commandeering.’

  By lunch came the point which brought the war really home to us, for the ancient milkman arrived nearly in tears. Usually his cart clopped down the road where Dollie, the pony, ate our hedge whilst he delivered the milk.

  He said: ‘They stopped me at the corner of the road. They took my Dollie out of the shafts! It’s downright wicked! She’s old, and she won’t know what’s happening to her. It’ll be dreadful for Dollie.’

  Poor Dollie had been commandeered!

  I kept thinking about her as I walked to the cinema, I had the feeling that this war wasn’t going the way we had expected. Anyway it was a man’s war, not a woman’s, and men seemed not to be so shocked at the thought of fighting as women were. It might be thrilling but already nasty things seemed to be happening. Dollie for instance, and even at that moment life moved too fast.

  Montie arrived about nine o’clock, and he said: ‘I’m a soldier now. Tomorrow night I shall be with the boys in the Riding School.’

  I kept brave about it till we got to the lonely station that night, then I wept.

  ‘My word, what a fuss you make!’ said he. ‘The war’ll be over by Christmas if not before. Nowadays no war could last more than a few weeks, this one’ll cost three million a day. Fancy that, now!’

  At midnight we came for the last time to the little rowan tree in the garden, hands interlocked. In distress I said, ‘What will I do tomorrow when I’m all alone?’

  ‘You’ll be all right. You’ll do your bit.’

  ‘I’ll be thinking of you.’

  ‘I’ll come and see you when I get a chance, and I’ll make a chance, you bet.’

  We waited for a distressed moment, then the Abbey clock struck, a sound we heard only when the wind was the right way, and it always meant rain. For no reason at all, I said: ‘Hark at that! It’s going to rain.’

  ‘So it is,’ he said, and kissed me goodbye.

  Saturday morning, the eighth, brought headlines which told us that already 25,000 Germans had been killed and wounded. That there was a request for an armistice at Liége, still battling on. That the French Army were in Belgium, and they gave the list of H.M.S. Amphion survivors. A casualty list. Our first.

  The leading article in the Daily Mail ended seriously with these words:

  Might may be on their side; right is surely on ours. The patriotic ardour which has carried the French into Mulhouse and which has stood so resolutely behind the brave defenders of Liége, will prove a doughty weapon in the hands of the British, and of all the other nations forced into war by the overweening arrogance of a single people.

  Next night I was alone at the cinema, and scratching the slides telling of the weakening of Liége, and its courage in holding on. When I finished I went to the dismal wait at the station alone. Tiredness made me nervous of the lonely walk back past the ghostly prison. I always hated the dark and I was too young for this, and much too tired.

  Joscelyn had left the works, and was with the Herts. R.F.A. in the Riding School where they lay on the floor (and said they never slept a wink). But that was looked upon at this hour to be every young man’s duty.

  When Joscelyn appeared next morning he looked different in an ill-fitting uniform, breeches and the puttees which he said were the devil to wind. The tunic bulged and was creased; it smelt of storage and was crossed by a peculiar contrivance to hold ammunition, called a bandolier. But the boots were the worst thing, and the spurs down-right dangerous, tripping him every time he came down-stairs. The sergeant assured him that he would get used to them, and all he could say was that so far he had not noticed that he was getting any wiser to them.

  Apparently the food had been so bad that they could not eat it, and those who did were sick all night, which had made the Riding School downright jolly! Washing in the open in a bucket of cold water which he had to fetch for himself was horrid. I was aghast that he should have to face such conditions, and ‒ valiant in my affection for him ‒ wanted to complain to somebody and get help, so that this outrage did not continue.

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake shut up!’ said my brother.

  He needed socks. He had come to the conclusion that the ones the benevolent Army supplied were knitted in tin and had served in the Crusades. I said I would knit all night. I thought I could complete a pair in thirty-six hours. I had not reckoned on the fact that when I went to buy the khaki wool it would be almost impossible to get. All the young gents in St. Albans were bothered about their socks, and a glorious army of their mothers and their sisters and their cousins and their aunts, were going from shop to shop to buy khaki wool. It was short. It had also gone up in price, which to me was a calamity.

  I have never been easily deterred. I got the wool, and I knitted half that night, and Mother did the same thing.

  I had concocted one of my more scatter-brained girlish plans; if I went to the Riding School at dawn, I could perhaps hand my personal breakfast to my brother, but Mother thought I was mad. She said that there were hundreds of other girls’ brothers wanting breakfast, and I must learn that when any young man joined one of the Services he had to abide by their rules.

  She was wiser than I was.

  Chapter 4

  The charwoman who came to us for an hour twice a week for one shilling, told us that two spies had been caught in St. Albans and were shot that morning behind the Riding School on the heath. ‘And serve ’em right!’ said she, for the spy bug was spreading. She told us with enthusiasm that her son said the Tower of London was so full of German spies that they could not accept any more prisoners for the present.

  Hideous rumours of German atrocities in Belgium were everywhere. We wanted to know the truth from Joscelyn and Montie, for as they were in the Army they must know, but for twenty-four hours we saw neither of them, and when we did they said no spies had been shot near the Riding School. Lots of talk was going round.

  Another story began. It was that we could not hope to get our Army to strategic positions in France as quickly as required (the Germans were advancing with horrifying speed and had now invaded Lorraine), so the Government had hatched a better plan. There had been good reasons for the darkened trains which had vibrated their noisy way through Harpenden station when I waited there at night. The Cossacks were going to their appointed places in France. They had been recognized by their fur caps and some had the snow of Siberia still on them! The Cossacks were the chaps to win this war in no time and by the sheer weight of numbers.

  Suddenly there broke a deep-rooted anxiety about the fact that Germany was making a major attempt to prevent our food imports; with this came the staggering realization that our glorious island was not self-supporting. We, always so sure of being best in everything, had believed that it was. The Land of Hope and Glory was showing a chink in its armour. Although I had been living with starvation nudging my elbow more or less most of my life, my mother pointed out that when there was nothing for sale in the shops it was a much nastier story.

  On the tenth of August I went out shopping and had trouble at the grocer’s. Ever since Pheasant margarine had slipped a sample packet through our d
oor we had used it and had given up butter. Margarine was fivepence a pound, an agreeable price, but on the tenth it had gone up to tenpence! Sugar at twopence had advanced to fourpence-halfpenny. Naturally I refused to buy it for I thought I was being swindled.

  ‘There’s going to be a shortage, miss, you should lay in something,’ said the friendly grocer.

  On his advice I took my savings book to the P.O. and drew out a pound on demand. With it I bought two 7 lb. jars of marmalade at two-and-three each, four sixpenny tins of the best salmon, and a few other little trifles. It was alarming when the evening paper defeated my triumph by announcing that the Government was going to take action against food hoarders!

  ‘But it’s our money? Surely we can buy for ourselves?’ I said, wretchedly.

  Mother explained that when the country was under martial law, we could not. Even the buying of a tin of food from the grocer came under that law, and could present its own problems. I began to wish we had never started it. Everything in these few days had become so different that I was bewildered.

  The changing pattern of our living, all of which we had never thought could possibly happen but which had happened, and at an alarming speed, was complex.

  The British landing in France was complete by August the eighteenth, and had been done without a single casualty, which gave us a certain sense of pride. The Kaiser’s heir was now reported to be seriously wounded and lying at Aix la Chapelle where it was said that the Kaiser was by his side. It gave us a sense of thrill to think that Little Willy had come to grief, for we had of course no idea that there was such a thing as propaganda. That word was not in our dictionaries.

  It was at the same time alarming that the leading articles in the morning paper kept insisting ‘We want more men’.

  This country calls them with no uncertain voice; they are Englishmen and we can trust them to answer her call.

  It had been something in the nature of a horrid surprise to find that when the thousands of oh-so-willing young men enlisted, Lord Kitchener had ordered it to be ‘for four years or the duration’. I told my brother that was bosh.