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Dear all
A hundred years ago… this week, on
all fronts what some called the fighting season got going and the casualty
figures told the story… In summary:
– at Gallipoli the Second Battle Of
Krithia saw British, Anzac and French
attack repulsed, partly through bad planning which carried through to
poor provision of stretcher-bearers, wagons and hospital-ship facilities (May
6-8, 6,300 Allied casualties, Ottoman unreported)
– on the Western Front “Second
Ypres” continued (April 22-May 25, French, British Empire and Belgian
casualties 70,000, German 35,000) via the Battles Of St Julien (ended May 5),
Frezenberg (8-13, German attack held back by British and a Canadian Battalion
who lost 550 of 700 men) and the Second Battle Of Artois, a French onslaught in
the Vimy Ridge area which eventually gained three kilometres in all, began
(9-18, French casualties 102,000, British 27,000, German 73,000)
– a German U-boat sank the Lusitania off Kinsale, Ireland (1,198
passengers and crew lost out of 1,962), an event marked by legalistic debate
between Governments about whether this was correct within the laws and rules of
engagement; Germany argued it was OK, given the liner sailed under a false
neutral flag, was registered by the British as an “armed merchant cruiser”
under orders to ram any submarine that surfaced to request passengers and crew
to take to the lifeboats, and that it carried munitions (denied by the British
at the time, later confirmed – 50 tonnes of ammunition apparently).
Meanwhile,
to their continued surprise and carefully unspoken pleasure the 2/1st
City Of London Battalion, Royal Fusiliers, trained on in Malta – not
unnecessarily considering it had taken the Army six months, since their
enlistment in September, 1914, to provide them with rifles and they still
awaited instruction on how to shoot them. My father, under-age volunteer Private
Sam Sutcliffe (still just 16), his older brother Ted (18),
and their pals from Edmonton, north London, sweated at their work and then
enjoyed the unanticipated tourist aspect of Army life – quite something given
that Sam, like most of his working-class generation, would never in their lives
travel abroad again…
FOOTSOLDIERSAM SPEAKS
Last week, Sam and a friend essayed a teenaged
walk through Valletta’s Red Light district and the women roundly abused them
for their voyeurism. Given the temptation that inevitably came a young soldier’s
way, it’s worth looking back to the childhood section of his Memoir to see the
advice and instruction he and his friends received from their vicar, Scout and
choir master, Mr Frusher, back home in Edmonton (NB, new readers, in this first
part of his Memoir – through to these early days in Malta, in fact – Sam wrote
in the third person and called himself “Tommy”). This is Sam a recalling a
discussion group the vicar organised for the church’s adolescent boys:
‘On these occasions, Mr
Frusher even led discussions of men-women relationships. Discouraging romantic
notions without deriding them, the elderly, bachelor teacher continued where
the school lessons in anatomy and physiology left off. “Frankness in these
matters kills morbid curiosity,” he would say. He explained the sex organs —
particularly the female genital parts always omitted from the school’s
anatomical charts.
In a sensible way, he described the feelings contact between the
sexes could arouse, the actions and the results that would follow: the girls in
trouble, the unwanted babies; the worry, regret, fear; the difficulties which
beset a young man who has fathered a bastard. He drew this picture so
impressively the lads were never likely to forget. In fact, he constantly
impressed upon them that sexual intercourse before marriage was wrong, a crime,
it must never even be considered, let alone indulged in.’
Sam took his mentor’s words very seriously, as
you can see in his comments here and a further story of a bemusing encounter with
a young Maltese woman – presaging many related events later in the Memoir:
‘Glimpses into the lives of these dark-skinned strangers
excited in him a feeling of participation in things which escaped the interest
of most of his fellow soldiers — so far as he could judge from the accounts of
their outings he heard whenever one of his louder comrades held forth to him
or, more likely, a group of mates. Bars, booze and women were the subjects on
which they vied with each other to arouse envy of their frolics.
In the brothel tales, their skill in gaining a price-cut from
the madame by means of threat or persuasion must be admired by him, their manly
performance with the prostitute duly purchased must merit applause. And when it
came to drinking, three pennies bought a glass of fiery wine and two bob’s
worth of the stuff might turn a normally mild fellow into a raving fighter — by
their own account, certainly. This was, indeed, the stuff of wild, reckless
living about which Tommy had only read stories, never daring to hope that he
would one day live with men who really did these things.
Nonetheless, he found their tales could not inspire him to
emulate their swashbuckling conduct. The one occasion when he wandered into a
situation involving alcohol and sex led only to an embarrassing contretemps.
On a hot Saturday afternoon, after the karozzin arrived in Sliema, he bade farewell to his travelling
companions at the Valletta ferry quay. The boat moved off and he stood alone, the
dockside soundless, nothing and nobody moving. Siesta time for the Maltese, of
course.
He strolled, then entered a drink shop. The very dark-skinned,
moustachioed barkeeper asked him to sit and, having the place to himself, Tommy
selected an old armchair and felt like Lord Muck himself when a pleasant girl
appeared, collected his beer from the proprietor — obviously her father — and
brought it to him. She sat in another armchair beside him, they chatted and he
probably bought another beer.
Later, Papa suggested that they move into a room at the back —
just an ordinary living room it was. Tommy spent some time with the girl and
what seemed unbelievable in later years occurred, namely nothing of note. But a
certain awkwardness gradually overpowered him; conversation became impossible
and no help came from the girl, kindly and patient though she was. What role
was he supposed to fill? A stolen kiss, a cuddle, a hand on her knee then
further exploration? This and more would have cost money, he suspected, and he
had little. Or was it supposed to be the start of an orthodox romance followed
by marriage? He never found out. Given no other customers entered the bar
during the whole time Tommy spent there, perhaps Pop was just desperate,
business being so bad…
Still, his awkward agonising over that uneasy encounter faded
after a few days, and he could always find his own kind of romance in just
lying on his mattress at 10pm each night when a bugler played the long and
beautiful Last Post — until the Orderly Sergeant spoiled the moment with a
raucous shout of “Put them bloody lights out!”.’
All
the best –
FSS
Next week: More Boy Scout connections – Sam gets chosen to be a
Signaller
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