“I’ve read a lot of history in my life, and bad leadership seems to crop up time after time in the British Army. Of course, we had some good colonels, and generals as well, but it was always a lottery.”
Mr Collett spoke with some bitterness about the effect in those days of the class system when, as he put it, only the aristocracy and upper classes could hold a commission, and they bought their rank. Working-class men could not afford to buy a commission. This meant that a young man with money, however stupid he might be, however lazy, or indifferent to army life, could buy a rank and be put in charge of other men. The tradition of an easy life for the officers, with nothing but parties and races, was well entrenched, and any friendship between officers and other ranks was forbidden. “They did not think of us as human beings,” said Mr Collett. “We meant nothing to them. We were just ‘the scum of the earth’, utterly disposable.
“I don’t know how it was that I wasn’t killed. In my regiment, more than three-quarters of the men who went out to South Africa died, either in battle or in the military hospitals. Yet somehow I was spared.”
Another killer was disease. Mr Collett had suffered slight leg wounds in one skirmish, and had a short stay in hospital. While he was there he saw a constant stream of men being brought in with what was called dysentery. It was, in fact, typhoid fever, due to infected water, and it spread like wildfire. At one stage it seemed to be out of control. He commented: “I don’t know if anyone who caught the disease recovered, but I know that I never saw a man walk out. I only saw the bodies carried out – ten or twenty a day from one ward – and they were quickly replaced by as many new patients with the same disease. The small hospital that I was in had been built for three hundred patients, and it was carrying two thousand. There were nowhere near enough doctors or nurses to treat all those men, so most of them died. Three times as many men died in the hospitals as died on the battlefields. I don’t know how it was that I didn’t catch typhoid. I was spared for something worse.”
I wondered what could be worse, and imagined the heartache and frustration of trying to nurse sick and dying men under such impossible conditions.
“Somehow I survived and had to take part in what was called ‘the bitter end’. After two and a half years of fighting we were no closer to victory than we had been at the beginning. We couldn’t engage the enemy. They were always hiding and attacking our lines, our communications, our stores, always surprising us. So our generals decided to attack their food supplies. This meant attacking their farms. A ‘scorched-earth’ policy was approved and we private soldiers had to carry it out. We hated it. Most of us felt degraded and emasculated, attacking women and children. We turned them out of their homes and burned their farms and barns. We killed their animals and burned their fields. Nothing was left after we’d finished. They were turned out to wander the veldt with no water, no food, prey to wild animals. I remember one young Boer woman with two little children and a baby. She was sobbing, begging us to spare her. I wanted to, but refusal to obey military orders is unthinkable. It would have meant execution by firing squad if I had done so. Perhaps I would have risked it if I had been single. But my money was going to Sally and the boys, and to my mother for the rent. What could I do? And even if I had disobeyed orders, it would have done no good. Other men would have carried out the job.” He looked very grim and bitter.
“It was humiliating to us, and to our commanding officers. We were sent out to fight men, not defenceless women and children. We should never have done it. Never.” Mr Collett clenched his hands tightly.
“It was a black time for the British Empire. Thirty thousand women and children died, mostly young children, and we were disgraced in the eyes of the world. We outnumbered the Boer fighting men by twenty-five to one, yet even then we couldn’t win without attacking their homes, their womenfolk and their children.
“In the spring of 1903 I sailed for home, and I was discharged from the army in 1906.”
“Did you regret your army years, or do you look back on them with pleasure?” I asked.
“Mixed feelings. The army certainly educated me and broadened my mind. I mixed with men from other backgrounds and experienced other ideas and points of view. Without the army, I would have been a casual dock labourer, mostly unemployed, so I am grateful for the work. With my army record, I was able to get a good job as a postman. And a postman I remained for the rest of my life until I retired with a pension to keep me comfortably in my old age.”
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.