But Alex was not playing football. He was engaged in more serious business altogether. As April moved into May, and then June followed, the evenings drew out and the bogs were allowed to play outside later each night. Alex with his friend Hugh Kane and a few other bogs from the village had decided to undertake a programme of military training. With luck the War would go on a bit longer and then they could go off and join their brothers. Meanwhile they would train themselves up so that they would be ready.
Alex and Hugh were the leaders and nobody dared to challenge them. Alex had paper and pencils from his father’s shop to write down his orders, and he was able to filch supplies which served as army rations. Hugh had a helmet from the Boer War where his father had fought and died. Both boys had letters from their brothers describing the training given at the army camps in England and in France, which they were using to instruct their own recruits.
Upstream from the village they had made an army dugout with old pieces of wood under the large rhododendron bushes which bordered the Stratharden estate. Here they drilled and marched under Alex and Hugh’s critical observance and now knew most of the commands. They stood to attention, presented arms, and enacted the morning and evening ‘stand to arms’ as their brothers had told them was done in the trenches every morning and evening. An old potato sack stuffed with straw hung from a tree and they practised bayonet charges with long wooden sticks. Tea was brewed up over small fires with water gathered from the river in tin mugs.
After the other boys went home Alex sat down with his back against one of the trees. His face, which was longer and thinner than John Malcolm’s, wore a grave expression. He pulled out a notebook and a pencil stub to mark up his own progress. Ten counts to run around the field. This was an improvement on his last time. Five counts to climb the oak tree. This was the same, but he had not felt so sick when looking down at the ground, so that could be marked up as an improvement. He awarded himself another tick. He looked at his body critically. Stripped to the waist most afternoons, his chest and arms were turning brown under the summer sun. He was sure that he looked more mature than he did a few months ago, but knew that his build was still more of a boy than a man.
His boxing lessons with Hugh were not going well at all. Despite Alex being tall for his age, Hugh was a half a head taller still and his reach was longer. Although Alex could hit harder he seldom could get near enough to land the punch. He needed a strategy to help overcome this. Alex thought carefully and then wrote out in his book ‘eat more’. He underlined it twice. It might be difficult as more and more food was being rationed, and there were shortages. He’d heard that the Army no longer turned down men who didn’t pass the medical examination; still, he was determined to be fit enough to enlist as soon as he was old enough. His one great hope was to be put in the same battalion as his brother. You could ask to be put in the same regiment as friends or relations, loads of boys had done that already. Alex marked the date in his notebook, 9 June 1916. He would soon be fifteen. He frowned as he tucked the book and pencil into his trouser pocket. Three years was an age to wait to go to France and fight side by side with his brother. At the moment even his sister, who was a girl, was doing more than him.
Chapter 14
WORKING IN THE Springbank Munitions Factory tired Maggie out. The summer weather was becoming hot and the atmosphere among the machines was stifling. Eight-hour shifts of heavy work left her bones aching, and her muscles groaning for a hot bath and a liniment rub. She had been used to long hours in the shop, but it had always been her dad and John Malcolm who had done the heavy work. They dealt with the delivery and despatch of provisions, loading and unloading the carts and barrows. Maggie now realized what they had been sparing her. She paused for a moment, arched her shoulders and stretched her back.
Clara, who worked the machine beside her, laughed and nodded towards the factory clock. ‘Not long to go,’ she shouted above the noise of the machines.
Although grubby and sore, Maggie smiled back. Even after weeks at the munitions factory her arms and shoulders still ached at the end of each day, and, despite the protective cap and clothes she wore, her face and hair were filmed with fine dust. Yet she was more content than she had been working in her father’s shop, although when she took time to think about this she was unsure why.
There was the gratifying knowledge that you were contributing directly to the war effort. A tally of their output was displayed on boards, and there was fierce competition among the machine shops to better each other’s totals. But factory work was monotonous, noisy and dirty, far removed from the genteel respectability of the shop. Being among hundreds of people and hearing the familiar wag the men and women joked with each other had been a difficult adjustment for Maggie to make. Even now she did not feel completely part of this collection of chattering girls, older women, men and young lads, with varieties of ways of dress, speech and manners. Coming from a rural village where things moved more slowly and old customs were kept, to a more modern environment which itself was changing swiftly, was strange and confusing.
At first Maggie was slightly shocked by the sights she had seen when travelling through the town. In the main railway station where many women stood saying goodbye to their menfolk, she had seen a couple who were obviously unmarried kissing each other on the mouth! – in public! – apparently unconcerned about the stares they were attracting. In the city also, women’s clothes were different. There were still plenty of older working-class women wrapped in plaids, ‘shawlies’, her mother would have called them. But each day more and more ladies, in all walks of life, were wearing dresses swept up at the hemline, with wider fuller skirts, which revealed their ankles and stockings. Young women were beginning to move about more freely on the streets. Quite elegant women were seen chatting and shopping, unescorted by a man or an older woman.
Not long after Maggie had started working, as she and Clara had waited together one afternoon at the bus stop, there had been a woman ahead of them in the queue, smoking. Clara saw Maggie staring. She nudged her. ‘Takes a bit of getting used to,’ she said.
‘There is a lot to get used to,’ replied Maggie. ‘I feel like such a country cousin.’
‘It’s not so much to do with being from the country,’ said Clara. ‘Things are changing so fast, you can hardly keep up. My mother is not happy about me mixing with the opposite sex without her there. She thinks that talking to a man is equal to becoming engaged.’
‘I saw a woman and a man kissing each other,’ said Maggie, ‘right in front of everyone. I suppose,’ she added slowly, ‘that it was in the railway station … and he was a soldier going off to war.’
‘If I got half a chance I’d kiss a soldier,’ said Clara, ‘whether he was going off to war or not.’ And she giggled with laughter.
Maggie smiled in spite of herself. This was a subject that both her mother and father had lectured her on when they realized her mind was made up and she was going to work in the city. She had to beware of ‘loose morals’ among certain types of people. Her mother had given her grave warnings about ‘losing her character’. As far as Maggie could see, the morals of one type of person were pretty much like those of any other. Although perhaps those with more money were more adept at concealing their misdemeanours. ‘My mother constantly nags me about keeping bad company,’ said Maggie.
‘I don’t tell my mother all that goes on during or outside working hours,’ said Clara.
And Maggie soon found that she was doing the same. At home there were things she didn’t mention. The gossip in the girls’ cloakrooms or the after-hours socializing, when little groups of girls would go with some of the young lads into the nearby public houses. Her parents would sometimes comment on how tired she looked; her mother in particular often asked her when she intended to give it up, and come back to the shop where she belonged: Maggie tried to avoid answering questions like this because they invariably led to arguments.
‘I don’t belong in the shop,’ she on
ce told her mother sharply.
Her mother was astounded. ‘Of course you do, dear. Your father owns the shop,’ she added, as though that fact logically explained her first remark.
‘I should be able to choose what I want to do,’ Maggie said.
‘Only the very rich can choose what they want to do,’ her mother replied. ‘The rest of us occupy our set station in life, and you should be grateful to have one which feeds and clothes you.’
Maggie ground her teeth and said nothing more, but when she told Clara of this conversation her friend became quite serious.
‘That’s one thing this war has done which is for the good. There can be no more talk of keeping to your place. I won’t live my life at someone else’s beck and call.’
It was a subject that Maggie often heard discussed in the factory. Without the munitions industry most of the working girls would have become maids or something similar. The factory had attracted people from all walks of life, many former domestic servants who had left a life of drudgery.
‘Never again will I run when I hear a bell,’ one of the older women said.
Maggie thought of Stratharden House, known to the villagers as the ‘Big House’. Maggie knew several of the people employed there as servants, but apart from small grumbles she had not heard many complaints about their working conditions. Mrs Armstrong-Barnes was considered remote but gracious, Charlotte unassuming, and Francis had always just been … Francis. Maggie had never really thought out before the consequences of having a domineering or unkind employer. It must be truly awful to be so financially dependent on someone as to have to tolerate personal disrespect. Her position in the shop was not that of an equal but she knew that her father, even though he expected it as a duty, did value her contribution. But the work she did now was completely different. The employers demanded hard work, but the workers were paid for it in cash, not in bondage conditions where you could be tied for food, and accommodation.
‘After the War is over, they won’t need us here,’ one of the girls said. ‘And then we’ll have to go back and do what we did before. At the moment they’re desperate, but wait until the War ends.’
‘It doesn’t need to be like that,’ said Clara. ‘Every day the newspapers carry columns of advertisements for all kinds of help. Workers are needed to keep the country going, so if they join together then they would have power. We can’t have proper representation here because they’ve put the factory under military law. But after the War I’m going to join a trade union. That way you have someone to speak up for you about wages and conditions.’
Maggie had only vaguely thought about this. The fact that there was a war to be fought and won made it seem slightly disloyal to be thinking about yourself.
Clara laughed at this. ‘That’s the wag they want you to think. Then you’ll keep on working without complaining. This place is not too bad but there are other factories where the equipment is unsafe and there have been explosions, and some of the chemicals cause poisoning.’
Maggie realized that these topics were similar to those that Francis Armstrong-Barnes talked about. She had always thought of his conversations as some kind of elevated theoretical discussion, not in any way practically applicable. Now that she could see where it might involve an actual struggle for power, she had a disturbing fleeting moment of fear. These were the politics of dissension. This was dangerous. Strikers on Clydeside had been arrested for obstructing the production of armaments. It was yet another subject that she could not comfortably discuss at home. On her bus journeys she often read the pamphlets Clara gave her, but tucked them deep down in her bag before reaching the village.
She was reading one in early summer on her way home when the bus halted outside Springbank Hospital and Charlotte got on.
‘May I sit with you?’ she asked Maggie.
Maggie moved to make room on the seat.
As if to explain herself Charlotte said, ‘I worked later today. The wards are so busy. There seems to be no end to the wounded.’
The younger girl’s face was pale. She looks as tired as I feel, thought Maggie, and she could not help asking Charlotte why she had left the easier life of the Cottage Hospital.
Charlotte shrugged. ‘The same reason that you are in munitions work, I suppose. One is trying to help as best one can.’
Maggie was curious. ‘Didn’t your mother object to you going to work in the city?’
‘Not so much as she might have …’ Charlotte hesitated and looked at Maggie. She was John Malcolm’s sister. She should be able to speak freely about Francis to her, and the village probably talked about him anyway. ‘Because of my brother Francis, you understand. His not being in any of the armed forces makes my mother … uncomfortable. Everyone else is doing so much, I think my mother is glad that I am contributing.’
‘Your brother has convictions which prevent him from fighting,’ Maggie said at once.
Charlotte blinked at her intensity, and Maggie realized how quickly she had rushed to defend Francis.
‘He has had discussions with me …’ Maggie went on awkwardly, ‘… and with my father, in the shop, talking about the rights and wrongs of the War.’
‘Yet your brother, John Malcolm, believes in it absolutely.’
Once again Maggie felt irritation at Charlotte’s familiarity with her brother.
‘He is quite taken up with it all,’ Charlotte continued, ‘and I must confess, his letters do make it sound very exciting. But many of our soldiers are being killed or wounded.’
‘Yes,’ said Maggie, thinking to herself that perhaps she had misjudged this girl. Charlotte’s joyous youth masked a more thoughtful person. ‘Your hospital work must let you see that we are not always victorious.’
There was silence between them for a while, and then Charlotte spoke. ‘I have heard you speak with my brother, and I know that you read a lot and keep up with what is happening.’ She turned to Maggie. ‘Do you think that what we hear is true? That there will be one great battle this summer and then it will be finished?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Maggie. ‘There are those who are very confident, and there are those who say it cannot happen all at once, because Germany has prepared so well for any attack.’
‘It’s just that …’ Charlotte continued slowly. ‘I am very proud that John Malcolm is in the Army, and glad that he is doing what he wants to do, but … now I wish it was all over and that he was home again.’
Maggie heard the unspoken fear in what Charlotte had just said. She too was concerned for her brother’s safety. She smiled, and said, as much to reassure herself as Charlotte, ‘Perhaps what you hear is true. It may be that this coming battle will be the one that ends the War.’
Chapter 15
THERE WAS NO doubt in the mind of the Commanding Officer of John Malcolm’s company, newly promoted Captain Tim Bradley. This next engagement would be the one in which he would lead his men to glory. A volunteer like most of his men, he was a replacement for an officer killed at Gallipoli, and was thrilled that he had reached the Front in time to take part in the coming battle. After a short introductory spell in a quiet sector of the forward lines the 1st Battalion was now back behind the lines and engaged in training or helping with preparations for the big push.
Where they were stationed, north of the river Somme, was crowded with men and equipment, the roads thronged with lorries, gun limbers, food supply wagons and ammunition carts. Every possible army service was being set up over a wide area: mining, signalling, air reconnaissance, accompanied by scores of administration units. Chinese and Indian workers hurried about and the soldiers marched on fatigues, digging gun pits, laying lines for narrow-gauge railways to transport enormous masses of food and fuel to the Front.
There was a huge training ground, part of which had been set up to resemble No Man’s Land and the German trenches, where officers and men were briefed on their objectives. As they waited behind the lines John Malcolm Dundas and Eddie Kane trained with the r
est of their company and watched soldiers and workers from every part of the British Empire. The air throbbed with the sound of the guns. In the last days of a hot June an unceasing bombardment pounded the enemy. By night the earth glowed and flashed with the crack of exploding shells, by day the sky shook like hammered tin.
In a mood of expectancy and happiness John Malcolm wrote home:
On the last day of June Captain Bradley read over his own notes taken from the orders for the battalion:
Dawn tomorrow – mines will explode, gun barrage will lift. All along the line the infantry will conduct a measured, considered advance. Necessary for each man to carry full kit as not envisaged that there will be any retreat from the forward positions which will be occupied on the first day of the advance. Our bombardment will have thrown the enemy into turmoil, destroying their defences and disrupting their supplies. Resistance may be encountered beyond the first line of defence, but not before. Led by their Commanding Officer, the soldiers will advance in line formation, walking slowly.
Chapter 16
JOHN MALCOLM STOOD with his fellow soldiers waiting for the signal to go forward. The trenches were full, crushed with the dense pack of men brought up from the rear in readiness for the dawn attack. In front of his battalion were the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers who were going in as the first wave, and on their right to the rear the men of the Essex’s who were to follow after. John Malcolm knew that along mile upon mile of the Front, regiment after regiment of the Army was in a long line ready to engage. They had been told that history would be made today, and he was aware of his own place here with men from Newfoundland and South Africa, from India and Australia and New Zealand, men from Tyneside, Northumbria and Wales. His exhilaration at being part of it ran through his whole being, his mind fired with the words the Corps Commander had addressed to them before the night march from the wood at Acheux. The sense of dislocation that he had experienced on his first tour of duty in the trenches was gone. To begin with, walking in these deep angular fissures of the earth, with the only fixed constant being the narrow running strip of sky above, had made him feel at once remote and insignificant, yet at the same time as if at any moment he could be plucked out and up into the cosmos. All that had now dissipated. This morning he was clearly fixed in time and space, with a deep sense of identity and purpose. He stood with the absolute firmness of spirit that comes with certitude of resolve, his heart singing with confidence.
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