by Fern Britton
‘Oh,’ Miss Hampton coughed, hiding her emotion, ‘it’s been fun. I’ve enjoyed it.’
I spun around in a full circle, checking my appearance from every angle. ‘I can’t believe this is happening.’
Miss Hampton pursed her lips and was quiet for a moment. ‘I believe in you. You have a strength of character that will get you through life’s challenges. And if you need any help, you know where I am.’ Her voice was kind and meaningful. ‘Now then. You’ve got everything?’
‘Yes.’
‘Don’t forget to clean your nails every day and brush your hair well.’
‘I won’t.’
‘And clean your teeth. And write. Please. I want to know how you are.’
‘I’ll type you a letter,’ I told her.
‘Ah yes. Very good.’ Miss Hampton began patting her sides in agitation. ‘I suppose we should embrace or something.’
I laughed as I hugged my mentor, and kissed her on her soft cheek. ‘I will never forget you, ma’am.’
‘Likewise.’ Miss Hampton sniffed.
Miss Hampton watched me as I climbed up on the farm wagon that was ordered and waiting to take me on the first leg of my journey out of Kent.
‘Bye Miss Hampton,’ I waved as the cart began to move.
‘Goodbye!’ She waved in return.
I never looked back.
‘Where’re you going then?’ asked the young cart driver, flicking his reins.
‘London.’ I smiled. I had done it. I had escaped. ‘Do you know it?’
‘Maybe, one day.’ He held out an arm and caught a dry stalk of grass from the hedgerow. He put it between his lips, rolling it from side to side for a while.
‘Know London, do you?’ he asked.
‘Of course.’ I didn’t feel as if I were lying. This was the new Miss Clara Carter, after all. I tried another one. ‘I was born there.’
He flicked a look at me, still chewing the piece of grass. Then said, ‘I’m enlisting. Going to France. My brothers are out there.’
I narrowed my eyes, ‘How old are you?’
‘Nearly eighteen.’
I laughed. ‘You’re sixteen if you’re a day.’
‘Well, how old are you then?’
‘It’s very rude to ask a lady’s age.’
‘I wouldn’t ask a lady.’
‘Oi. Cheeky.’ I folded my arms and sniffed. ‘I’m eighteen, if you must know.’
The barrier was broken.
We continued chatting and joshing each other until he stopped the cart and let me down. ‘Your next one is over there.’ He pointed at a smart wagon pulled by two horses. ‘He’s a bit dearer’n me.’
I pulled a penny from my pocket and gave it to him.
‘I only want a ha’pence,’ he said.
‘Well, if you don’t want it?’ I said loftily, holding out my hand for the change.
‘No. You’re all right.’ He pocketed it.
‘Keep it for luck then,’ I told him. ‘If you ever get to France, you might need some luck.’
He handed me down my bag. ‘Good luck in London,’ he said. ‘I reckon you’ll need it more than me.’
It was evening by the time I arrived in Southwark. I had slept most of the journey, waking only as the deep mud ruts of the Old Kent Road jiggled the sleep from my head.
The driver took my bag down for me, and I showed him the carefully folded piece of paper I had kept in my pocket. ‘Do you happen to know where this might be; it’s the address of a lodging house just off Fleet Street?’
The man gave me directions to cross the river and ask again.
Forty minutes later, I found the building I was looking for. Georgian, tall, thin and well proportioned, with square-paned windows and a black front door, over which was painted the words: ‘The Fleet Women’s Dwelling’.
My new home.
Chapter Five
Bertie, Penang, Malaya
28 July 1914
Penang is a world away from the boredom of home. I have never missed my life in the Cornish vicarage with my hypochondriac mother and bitter sister. The only one I truly miss is Pa. The most forgiving and unjudgemental man. I am blessed to have him as a parent. I miss my younger brother Ernest too, of course. He and I have been very close but not so much over the last five years. Sibling rivalry got between us, as it does in many families. I am jealous of the way he winds Ma around his little finger, and he is jealous of me because Pa backed this adventure to Malaya all the way.
I can’t tell you how thrilling it was to wave Callyzion, my mother and my sister goodbye and board the ship at Tilbury Docks to steam south for the Orient.
I was still only twenty-four and had been lured to Penang by the father of a chum I knew from Cambridge. He owned a rubber plantation there and was having trouble finding someone who would be willing to spend a couple of years, away from family and Blighty, looking after it. As it was, I couldn’t wait to get away, so when he offered me a decent wage, a share of the business and my passage paid, how could I refuse?
It took six weeks on the boat from Tilbury.
Six wonderful weeks where I flirted with the young female passengers and played endless bridge, supplementing my meagre income most satisfactorily.
I have been here for two years now and have settled in well. The workers, mostly Malay or Indian, respect me, and in return I look after them well, seeing to their medical and domestic needs, within reason.
I was beginning to think I might never return to England. Everything I needed was here. Sun, sea, a good life and good society with the ex-pat community. But, as my father was fond of saying, ‘Man plans and God laughs.’
God’s laughter began one day as I was walking the plantation and checking the taps on the rubber trees. I saw my foreman, Nizam, running through the serried ranks of silver trunks towards me. It was a hot afternoon, and being the monsoon season, the jungle floor was steaming from a recent heavy downpour.
‘Slow down, Nizam. It’s too hot to run,’ I shouted to him. In response he waved a buff piece of paper in his hand. ‘Sahib!’ he managed. ‘Important telegram for you. From England.’
Oh God, I thought, what the hell has happened? My mind went straight to my parents. Was father ill? Had mother had another of her funny turns?
Nizam reached me, panting hard. ‘Sahib, the telegram boy say urgent at once.’
He handed me the envelope and then bent double, hands on knees, to catch his breath.
My name, Herbert Bolitho, and my address, Batu Rubber Plantation, were written in a pencilled scrawl.
Nizam, breathing less heavily now, was looking at me, waiting for me to read the message.
I did not oblige him. ‘Would you run up to the house and get some tiffin ready, Nizam? I’ll be there shortly.’
I could see the disappointment in his eyes. Excitement of any kind, especially from thousands of miles away, was to be shared, but trust him though I did, gossip spread, which is why I spoke Malay at work and English only with the other English planters. We made sure the staff never learnt our language.
I opened the envelope and pulled out a single sheet of paper. The same grey scrawl wrote:
AUSTRIA*HUNGARY*DECLARE*WAR*ON* GERMANY*STOP*FATHER
My father’s usual brevity. Telegrams were paid for by the word. His living in the church paid very little so this extravagance was against his nature. He really must be worried.
I could have run back to the house and despatched my own telegram there and then, but I decided instead to finish the job I was doing; checking the trees for their rubber production and marking those that needed to come out. I had twenty acres of them and ninety estate workers. It was a decent living for them, but the system was beset with corruption and fraud. I tried very hard to be a good ‘protector’, as my position was known.
So why had my father sent me a telegram? Did he expect me to come home? Was England going to be drawn into this war? And if we did, would I do the right thing? Did he want me to enl
ist? Face the enemy and get killed in a pointless war?
I stood under the canopy of my trees and weighed up my options. The truth was that if I booked a boat home tomorrow, the chances were that the war would be over by the time I got there. Then I’d have to turn around and return to the plantation, to find it abandoned by its workers and overrun with rats and monkeys.
I worked for a further hour or so – the trees were in very good stead – and returned for tiffin. The small feast of tea and cherry cake looked delicious, but I headed for a stiff cocktail instead.
I didn’t send a telegram that day. I waited to see if the threat of war was real or if my father had overreacted. I heard nothing further, so a few days later I got up early while it was still cool and strolled into town.
The only place to get reasonably accurate information was in the bar of the splendid Eastern and Oriental Hotel in George Town.
The fans on the shaded veranda wafted the early heat around, giving some respite to those customers who were breakfasting outside.
I lifted my hat to them, ‘Morning.’
‘Good morning.’
I bounced up the steps into the bar and handed my Panama to one of the several bar boys. ‘Good morning, sahib,’ they chanted with toothy grins.
‘Good morning, boys. My usual breakfast please.’ I headed to my preferred table.
I settled to watch the street market below and to view the ships in the harbour. Two warships were docked. One British. I felt a small stirring of unease. Good or bad news?
The arrival of my scrambled eggs and mango juice, with a pot of tea, chased thoughts of the presence of Royal Navy warships from my mind.
‘Bolitho, old man.’ I looked up.
‘Duncan. Come and join me.’ Duncan was protector of a much larger plantation a couple of miles from mine.
His Scottish accent rich and rolling. ‘Have you had news from home?’
‘About the war? Yes. My father sent a telegram.’
‘I had one last night. My father reckons we’ll have to step in, the German government haven’t responded to us telling them not to take Belgium or else.’
‘Oh God.’
‘Aye, quite so.’ Duncan pushed his thick spectacles further onto his nose and turned his attention to the waiting bar boy. ‘I’ll have the same as Mr Bolitho but add a large glass of Scottish whisky to the order.’ The bar boy nodded smartly and despatched himself to the kitchen.
‘So,’ Duncan said in a quieter tone, ‘what do you think it’ll all mean?’
‘The war? God knows. It seems all very foolhardy. What happened to diplomacy and peace at all costs?’
‘You get a couple of madmen sabre-rattling and the monkey is out of its cage,’ Duncan replied. He frowned at the tablecloth and then, lifting his eyes, asked me, ‘Would you go home?’
‘You mean enlist?’
‘Aye.’
I finished the last mouthful of my eggs and pushed myself out from the table, crossing my legs in what I hoped was a casual and relaxed move. ‘Well now. I’m entirely unsure. Are you?’
‘It would be the right thing to do if we were needed.’ He swept his hand across his large ginger moustache.
I had been afraid he might play the ‘right thing’ card. I lit a cigarette as if I were considering his answer. ‘Yes, there is that, but for God’s sake, the whole ballyhoo will be over by the time we get home. Surely?’ I fervently hoped this would be true.
‘Will it?’ His eyes looked into mine, searching for some reassurance. I looked away and down at the busy market, blowing two smoke rings to puncture the tension surrounding us.
‘I don’t honestly know,’ I said. ‘But look here, wouldn’t we be better off staying? Surely if we continue to keep our plantations supplying rubber for boots, tents, mackintoshes …’ I was ticking them on my fingers, ‘all those things badly needed in wartime, wouldn’t that be better?’
‘Mebbe.’
I was grateful when the bar boy appeared with Duncan’s breakfast. Political debate on an empty stomach is never a good thing. I stubbed out my cigarette, lit another, and asked the boy for two large whiskies.
When they came Duncan and I raised our tumblers. ‘To us,’ Duncan intoned.
He ate and I drank in silence. The food was always good here and the tea excellent, but the Scotch was better. I felt it hit my bloodstream without apology.
‘Anyway,’ I gestured with my glass, ‘how the hell do we know if any of this is true? It may be rumour. The folks at home may be the victims of scaremongering by—’
‘By who? The Germans? The Russians? The French?’ grunted Duncan. He wiped his moustache and said quietly, ‘But what if it isn’t?’
We sat in tipsy, silent gloom.
I stared out to the harbour. ‘There seem to be warships in,’ I said after a while.
‘Saw them this morning,’ Duncan replied. ‘One British, the other French, I think.’
‘Is it? Resupplying, I suppose,’ I said.
‘Yes.’ Duncan drained his glass. ‘Want another?’
I held out my glass and the bar boy rushed forwards, knowing what we wanted before we asked.
‘The thing is,’ said Duncan, watching the boy run to his errand. ‘The German Navy is technologically superior to ours and is said to be spreading itself around harbours of importance.’
I snorted, ‘Since when the bloody hell has George Town been a harbour of importance?’
‘It’s close to Singapore. Too close to Singapore for comfort.’
‘Well why don’t they bugger off to Singapore then?’
Duncan, who could take his drink better than me, said simply: ‘Take George Town, you can take Singapore.’
‘No,’ I said. ‘They can’t just come in here and take over. We are a British Crown Colony.’
‘Exactly.’
A creeping realisation stirred in me. ‘Bloody hell.’
‘Indeed.’
I sat toying with my drink and thinking.
Duncan was the first to speak. ‘Which service do you fancy? Army, Navy or the Flying Corps?’
‘If it comes to it, I suppose the Army. It’s what my father would want. His father fought in Crimea. You?’
‘Same. My mother’s grandfather was killed in 1814 in America. He’s a kind of hero in our family. One we all have to look up to, even though we never knew him. When we were small and had done something wrong, my mother would tell us that the ghost of Grandfather Ewan would haunt us all our days. She said he despised naughty children and loathed cowardice. It has been an enormous weight to live up to.’
‘Good God.’
‘Something like that.’
We had another large Scotch each and changed the conversation to the general gossip of employees, the price of rubber, and when we’d next have dinner together.
After an hour or so I looked at my watch. ‘Better get back, I suppose.’
‘Aye, I’d better go to the telegraph office and send a reply to my father.’
We said our goodbyes. Duncan plodded off into town and I strolled down to the harbour to check out the warships.
I was stalling for time. I wanted to stay where I was. I loved the plantation and enjoyed the company of the workers who relied on me. They were almost like family.
It was on the evening of 4 August when my hand was forced. Duncan and I and a couple of friends had spent a convivial evening at the Eastern and Oriental. The squabbles in Europe seemed a long way away. We were buoyed up by cocktails, convinced that our lives would remain uninterrupted. Smoking fine cigars on the veranda under a starry night, any war felt impossible. I was in a hibiscus-scented tropical heaven far, far away from any reality back home.
As I looked down on the street below, I heard, then saw Nizam pelting towards us. ‘Nizam!’ I shouted. ‘What the hell are you doing out this late? Has something happened on the plantation?’ My biggest fear was fire.
Gasping at his exertion, Nizam came to a stop below the hotel balcony. �
��Telegram for you.’ He panted. ‘Urgent.’
‘Come up here and give it to me, then.’ And on a whim, I shouted down, ‘I’ll get you a drink, old boy.’
A minute later he was standing awkwardly next to me. A bar boy returned with a tray carrying an ice-cold beer. Nizam hesitated. ‘May I take, sahib?’
‘Of course. You need it.’
Duncan murmured to me in his deep Scottish brogue, ‘Servants are not allowed to be served in the hotel, old boy.’
‘For God’s sake.’ I took the bottle from the tray and handed it to Nizam. ‘There, now I have served the beer. Blame me.’
The bar boy looked at me with fear. ‘Sahib. I will lose my job.’
‘I will make sure you don’t. Now leave us, and Nizam, drink that bloody beer.’
Nizam handed me the envelope and gratefully gulped the drink.
Opening the telegram I read:
ENGLAND*AT*WAR*WITH*GERMANY*STOP*FATHER.
I handed the envelope to Duncan and the other pals.
We looked at each other, each silently asking ourselves the unbearable question. Should we go home?
I returned to England nine months later. It was not cowardice that prevented me from going home earlier. My mind was made up way before I witnessed the terrible sinking of an Imperial Russian Navy cruiser and a French destroyer in George Town harbour. A German cruiser had masqueraded as a British naval ship and torpedoed them both; the war was on my doorstep all these miles from home.
I booked my passage home in the early May of 1915. Not on an ocean liner but a spice boat, taking her cargo to Tilbury Docks.
Six fraught weeks at sea followed. The crew were constantly on the lookout for German hunter boats and cruisers. Mines were a fresh threat and the captain received daily, sometimes hourly, radio messages with information on where the enemy lay and how to avoid them. To calm our nerves, I taught many of the crew to play bridge. The Chinese who ran the ship’s laundry – the dhobi-wallahs – were keen gamblers, and I quickly learnt not to bet more than a few shillings when playing them.
We were due to dock early on a Friday morning and I was up before the sun. My things were mostly packed and, after a quick shave, I bade my farewell to the cramped cabin that had been my home. I went up on deck and waited for the white cliffs of Dover to appear like spectres on the horizon. I surprised myself with the emotion I experienced when they finally materialised from the early gloom. It was not yet seven o’clock in the morning but I was ready to come home.