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Dear all
A hundred years ago today… Russia’s
Bergmann Offensive in Armenia against the Ottoman Empire ended in failure (the
casualty figures 40,000 Russian, 14,000 Ottoman); the month-long Battle of
Kolubara River began as the Austro-Hungarians invaded Serbia (and lost,
suffering 30,000 dead, 173,000 wounded, to 22,000 dead, 91,000 wounded); on the
Western Front the first Battle Of Ypres proceeded towards its conclusion on the
22nd; in Mesopotamia the British and Indian Armies continued their attack on
Ottoman Basra...
Meanwhile,
16-year-old volunteer Sam Sutcliffe, his older brother Ted, and their 1,000
mates in the 2/1st City Of London Battalion, Royal Fusiliers,
turned their thoughts from the imminent front-line fighting they’d expected to
the rather different intricacies of settling into polite Tonbridge (alias
Bunbridge in my father’s Memoir – I don’t know why, as Harry Worth used to
exclaim).
FOOTSOLDIERSAM SPEAKS
This blog mirrors WW1
more or less week-by-week as experienced by one ordinary soldier. It turned out
his Battalion was beginning a long – and welcome – stay of execution on their
entry into combat.
Still, everything new every day to the lad from a poor family in
Edmonton, north London. Away from home for the first time in his life – apart
from a few nights at Scout camps – he had to feel his way into the whole
business of billeting; living with a family he’d never met before in an
unfamiliar town suddenly welcoming (or besieged by) a multitude of city-boy
squaddies. I know last week I wrote that this blog would see the Battalion
defending the realm by building trenches around “Bunbridge”, but on reflection
this seemed a part of the story worth excerpting before they get the shovels
out.
I left Sam contemplating a slip of paper telling him his hosts
would be Mr and Mrs Fluter of 12, Leigh Drive (usual note to new readers: at
this stage, Sam still wrote his memoir in the third person and called himself
“Tommy”). He rang the bell once, no answer:
‘Tommy faced
the front door again, considering whether he should ring the bell once more
but, just then, from behind him a soft voice said, “I hope you haven’t been
waiting long”. He turned and a middle-aged woman stood smiling at him. She went
on, “I’ve been gardening and, being a little deaf, I didn’t hear the bell ring.
My friend next door told me she’d seen a soldier standing in the porch. I’m Mrs
Fluter.”
Tommy stated his
name and that he felt very lucky to have been given such a nice billet. “You’ll
have a pal here,” she told him. “The billeting officer asked if we would help
by putting up two lads. My husband and I are pleased to be able to assist.”
She had come
around the side of the house, so the front door was not opened to him then —
nor ever afterwards. Mrs F led him through a side gate and along a gravel path.
Outside the kitchen door, she indicated a boot scraper, just inside it a large
doormat which should always be used. Tommy saw the need if the kitchen was to
remain in its current spotless condition. He removed his heavy boots, which had
nails in their soles, and tugged a pair of far from new slippers out of his
kitbag — which move met with Mrs F’s instant approval.
While she made
preparations for lunch she said, “We shall have dinner each evening at about 7
with Mr Fluter. On Saturdays and Sundays we shall dine at 2 o’clock.” She
looked at Tommy frequently, trying to decide what sort of stranger had come to
live under her roof. She encouraged him to talk about himself and his family...
As was his habit, Tommy carefully observed
the lady whom he was already thinking of as his temporary mum. Black eyebrows
and lashes. Her serious but kindly face beneath fine, grey hair. Strange that
her complexion had that redness which Tommy always associated with an outdoor
life — or possibly a liking for strong drink, as chapel people called it. She’s
a very good woman, he decided, and renewed his resolve to interfere as little
as possible with the life of the couple at number 12...
She said she hoped
they would all get along together. Her husband managed a printing works
belonging to a well-known London firm, she explained. He left the house before
8 each morning, usually came home about 6pm and spent the evenings quietly
reading. Sometimes chapel affairs took him out to evening meetings. Would Tommy
please pass these things on to the other soldier when he arrived, including the
requests for quietness and care of furniture and bed linen?
Churniston, whom
Tommy recognised as a member of H Company [Tommy/Sam’s Company], soon appeared
and, after they’d talked for a while, Tommy decided he was a good sort. He
repeated Mrs F’s requests and asked his roommate to call him Tommy. Came the
reply, “I’m Bob and I used to work in a London hospital. Strange job. I had to
look after human remains which had been pickled. If a teaching surgeon required
one of these specimens I’d extract them from the tank and deliver them.” It
seemed to Tommy that familiarity with the gruesome had conquered Bob’s fear of
it...
Mrs Fluter called
them to the kitchen where she sat at the end of a small table and offered them
cups of tea and bread and cheese. As they enjoyed this she told them the
Government would pay her an allowance for supplying meals, but it wasn’t much
and she proposed to ignore it and give them as much good food as they could
tuck away: “We have no children. I’m so glad they sent us you two youngsters. I
shall enjoy looking after you. Are you members of a Christian church?” Tommy
told her of his baptism, life as a choirboy, and confirmation too. This all
pleased the good lady who spoke of the work she and Mr Fluter did at their
Baptist chapel.’
As ordered, after their
snack Tommy/Sam and Churniston returned to the railway station where the
Battalion gathered. Their Lieutenant (Swickenham) told them that the following
day, Sunday, they must fall in at 9.30am to march to morning service at the
parish church – otherwise, no duties until Monday. When the officer dismissed
them, Tommy went searching for his brother and their mates, Harold and Len:
‘Later, when they had been dismissed and fallen out, Tommy
searched for his brother. Soldiers stood around in groups discussing their
billets and general impressions of the town. He soon found Ted and Harold’s G
Company. They were billeted together, they said. It turned out Tommy’s “home”
in Leigh Drive was quite near theirs and Harold said, “Come along to our place.
There’s quite a family: Mr and Mrs Prout and two daughters, 18 and 12. Very
friendly people — told us to come and go as we pleased.”
However, it being
early for an evening meal — they certainly didn’t expect their hosts to supply
tea and supper — the three walked to the main street to find the town’s
pleasure spots. Apart from some pubs, they found two places where, it appeared,
the locals threw inhibitions to the winds and really let themselves go — a
small cinema and a roller-skating rink. They also discovered an old castle
standing in lovely grounds, and two fairly large hotels near the cattle market. As
they wandered along the high street towards the town centre, the size and style
of the shops became bigger and better. But they went on until they passed only
the occasional shop among houses of varying size and finally the town became
countryside, the road bounded by hedges, or a cluster of cottages, or the
grounds of a large house with a sanded drive.
Tommy savoured an
air of prosperity, the sweet smell of late flowers and shrubs, and noted the
absence of the uncouth and depressing sights and odours which go with poverty
or insufficiency of life’s requirements. The friends discussed these
differences from some London parts they knew and agreed it was unexpected that
becoming soldiers should, at first, plant them in a cosy, country town rather
than in a war-blasted battlefield. They told one another even Bunbridge must
have its poor people; but they supposed that, perhaps, living in uncomfortable
conditions was more easily bearable in an environment like this…’
They agreed to get
together again after church parade and Tommy set off back to his pleasant
billet:
‘A new cause for speculation now occupied him: what would Mr Fluter be like? Large or small, cold or kind, so far he had no clue...
It transpired that
Mr F perhaps exceeded five feet in height by one inch; he had a sharp sort of
face, scant hair, a rather penetrating stare, tired eyes, thin lips, many
wrinkles across his forehead and a high bridge to his nose. If ever a lad felt
foreboding, Tommy did on first sight of his host.
But if ever a lad
felt reassured, Tommy did when Mr Fluter smiled, which he did when smiling Mrs
Fluter introduced them. He bade Tommy welcome and said he and his wife would do
their very best to give both lads a happy time while under their roof.’
All the best — FSS
Next
week: Cold baths and digging trenches – a long, long way from the Western front
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