“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.
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.”
Poor woman! She had cried all over again. What mother wouldn’t?
“You must keep some for yourself, my son.”
“Nope. Not a penny. I done it for you, and you shall get the pay.”
“My boy! Oh, my lad!” She kissed his hands and wiped her tears on his sleeve. “My dear boy. But I fear for you. My heart is heavy. I fear for you.”
She finished the tea, and pulled herself together. The rum helped. The children would soon be in from school, and later the girls from the factory. She couldn’t present a tearful face to them.
“You start getting your things together in a bundle, while I go down to the yard to wash my face. Then we’ll use your shilling to buy some whelks and a loaf, and some real butter and a saucer of jam for the little ones. We’ll have a real feast your last evening at home.”
And that is exactly what they did. The younger boys were over the moon about their big brother’s uniform. Each of them tried on the jacket, and the six-year-old pranced around the room with the jacket trailing on the floor and the sleeves flapping wildly. The sisters were agog with admiration. Suddenly Joe had become a man in their eyes. Only their mother was silent, but she kept a brave smile on her face.