Time passed all too quickly. The laughter, the cheers, the songs, had to come to an end. Joe had a train to catch from Waterloo at ten o’clock that night. He dared not miss it.
ARMY LIFE
Guardsman Joe Collett arrived at Waterloo Station at 9.30 p.m., along with about sixty other young men recruited that day. Each of them thought that he had been singled out for special consideration by a recruiting sergeant. They were all very poor boys and were surprised to see each other. None of them knew that the army was obliged to recruit twelve thousand men each year to make up the numbers, mostly lost through death.
Also at Waterloo Station were around a hundred girls, dressed to kill. Oh, the skirts, the ribbons, the laces, the tucks, the frills and flounces! Oh, the boots with dainty buttons, and the wide-brimmed hats, heavy with fruit and flowers and feathers! And what was that Joe saw? Could it be paint? Joe had never seen rouged lips and cheeks before, and he was enchanted.
The girls clung to the soldiers, two or three to each. Some of them carried a phial of gin or rum in their garters, and these were brought out with much skirt-rustling and mock modesty. There was only half an hour before the train was due to leave, but the girls knew how to use the time to advantage. Much can happen in half an hour, and each girl knew that the recruits had been paid a shilling that day.
Most of the new recruits had gone alone to the station, but some were accompanied by mothers, aunts or sisters. These young men were put to great embarrassment by the girls, who openly sneered at them, and cast bold, contemptuous eyes on their womenfolk. These good women were scandalised by the wanton behaviour of the girls, and tried to protect and warn their sons, which only made matters worse.
Joe, being alone, taller than average, and undoubtedly good-looking, was mobbed. He was offered a phial of rum which, laughing, he swallowed in one gulp. It went straight to his head. He clung to a brunette, who cuddled him, and led him round the station, singing. Joe felt he had never been so happy in his life. Two more girls joined them and led him out of the station into the little lanes. It was a quarter to ten. In the lanes the girls cuddled and kissed him, and fondled him all over. In his intoxicated state Joe felt that more than his blood was rising. It was then that the girls discovered that Joe did not have his shilling on him. They screamed with rage. They kicked him and pushed him and he fell against a wall, hitting his head. They tore his jacket off him, frantically going through the pockets, threw it on the ground – Joe’s beautiful red tunic – and trampled it in the mud. He cried out, but could not stop them. They pulled his hair and scratched his face until the blood ran. They spat on him and then rushed off, with a flick of skirts, around the corner.
Dazed, bewildered and bleeding, Joe leaned against the wall. He tried to gather his senses, but couldn’t think what had happened. His head hurt from the blow. He was sliding comfortably down the wall when a sharp noise penetrated his fuddled hearing. What was it? It was repeated. Dear heaven, it was the train whistle. Aldershot . . . the last train . . . must catch it . . . desertion . . . flogging . . . prison. He snatched up his jacket, nearly falling flat on his face as he did so, staggered towards the station, hurtled towards the moving train, was pushed onto it by a porter and fell into a seat.
“Blimey, mate, you look as if you’ve had a good time,” said his companion, with a sardonic grin.
The train gathered speed, and Joe fell asleep. He was awakened by a rough hand shaking him. “Wakey, wakey, Sleeping Beauty. You’re a soldier now, and we’re at Aldershot. You can dream of her another time.”
Aldershot? What was that? Joe woke to see half a dozen grinning faces above scarlet tunics staring at him, and it all came back. He was a soldier now . . . the recruiting sergeant, that was it. Head up, shoulders back, chest out, breathe deeply, no slouching now. He jerked himself upright, and pain split his head from ear to ear. He groaned.
The men roared with laughter. “He’s only a kid, leave ’im be. He’ll learn. Here, mate, give us yer arm.”
Joe staggered off the train on the arm of his unknown companion, and a staff sergeant stepped forward. “Right men. In line. Roll call. Look sharpish.”
The motley group of raw recruits shuffled backwards and forwards, sideways and hitherways, trying to make a line. The staff sergeant bellowed and swore and brandished his regimental swagger cane, trying to get them into military line. He was not successful, but had to make do with second best.
“Right, you horrible men. You wait till I get you on the parade ground. You’ll damned soon learn how to form a line. Roll call.”
An old duty sergeant stepped forward with two sheets of paper in his hand containing lists of names, which he proceeded to read out. His reading was not very good. No doubt the process would have been quicker if a duty sergeant who could read properly had been sent, but the ability to read was not an accomplishment that was rated very highly in the army.
He got through several simple names without mishap – Brown, Smith, Cole, Bragg – but then was stuck.
“Warrarramb . . . ” he shouted.
No one answered.
“Warrarrnad” Louder.
No response.
“What you say?” yelled the staff sergeant.
The duty sergeant tried to look confident, and shouted “Warrarrandy”
No response.
The staff sergeant strode over to him, his cane swishing, his boots clicking, and snatched the paper. In the flickering gaslight of the station he squinted at the page. “Warrenden,” he shouted.
A man stepped forward. Roll call proceeded in this manner. The duty sergeant did his best, but got stuck on Ashcroft, shouting “Askafoot”. Bengerfield, Willowby, Waterton set him stuttering, until everyone thought roll call would never be finished.
One man was missing. The name was shouted backwards and forwards several times, but no one stepped forward. The staff sergeant struck the calf of his leg with his swagger cane and, with great deliberation, pulled out a stub of pencil and underlined the name.
“It will be the worse for him,” he said menacingly. “Right men, form a column, four abreast, quick march.”
Forming a column for untrained men is as difficult as forming a line. The staff sergeant swore and cursed and used his cane liberally, eventually getting some sort of ragged column together. With a “left, right, left, right” they marched off.
It was four miles to the camp, which did Joe good. By the time he got there, his head had cleared from the effects of the rum, and ached only a little from the crack on the wall. The night air refreshed him, and the men surrounding him gave him a feeling of security.
The sentries at Aldershot Barracks leaped swiftly to attention when they heard the column approaching. An incomprehensible word was barked out by the staff sergeant, sounding something like “Awt”. No one in the column thought it meant anything and continued marching. The four at the front were confronted by a menacing row of guards, each with a bayonet raised at forty-five degrees, and pointed directly at their stomachs. Another step, and they would have been skewered. They halted. The men behind carried on marching, straight into the backs of the men in front. About half the column fell on each other in this way. Being fresh from a sane world where this sort of thing is considered funny, they fell about laughing, but the staff sergeant failed to see the joke. He swore and raged at their imbecility.