Forgotten Voices of the Somme (4 page)

Then I came back to London and talked myself into a musical comedy because I could do a few tap-dancing steps. I was the second juvenile in
The
Dairy Maids
and we played town halls and places like that. I was learning all I could. Then I got a job as an understudy in a play called
The White Man
at the
London Palladium
. I talked my way up the ranks and after a while, they gave me the part. The chap playing Black Eagle got pissed and I took over. By then I was living in Chelsea and earning £3 a week. There were eight or nine of us in the dressing room. The social life for a two-bit actor like myself was nonexistent.

On the day war was declared, I hurriedly took off my make-up, left the theatre and I rushed down to Big Ben. As Big Ben struck eleven, everybody cheered because we were at war. We all sang 'Rule Britannia' and somebody suggested we go to Buckingham Palace so we all marched up Whitehall and down the Mall. It was late now, getting on for midnight, and we stood outside Buckingham Palace shouting for the king. I met a couple of medical students and we climbed up the gates and we stood there saying we were going to join the army the next day. We were full of enthusiasm. The king and queen came out and we cheered and sang. I was young and stupid, full of patriotism and the
Boy's Own Paper
. That's what my childhood was based on. I couldn't get into the army quick enough.

Corporal Tommy Keele

11th Battalion, Middlesex Regiment

I found myself a job in the theatre, in a show at Drury Lane, called
The Whip
. Everyone knew that the
Drury Lane Theatre
was putting on these big racing shows using mechanical horses. Ex-jockeys used to ride the mechanical horses on revolving tracks and I thought that I'd like to do that.

The Whip
was the story of a famous horse that was sabotaged as it was travelling across the country. In the play there was a most frightening train crash that could only have been done at Drury Lane. The stage was equipped for that sort of business. It had hydraulic lifts so that part of the stage could go up and part could go down and it could also revolve. The race scene was wonderful. They set up six tracks on stage. Each horse had its own individual track that was eight foot long and two foot six wide. There were three hundred-odd wheels inside each horse and they were all harnessed on to the track by little wire traces and a steel bar on the offside. It was often a job to get the horses started.

One day, something went wrong with the horse at the back and the stable lads couldn't get it going. The curtain stayed down while they struggled with it and I was on the horse at the front so I turned round in the saddle to watch them. I was an agile little geezer. Suddenly, they got the horse going and the curtain went up and the audience saw me riding my horse backwards. They must have been a bit confused.

I was always in trouble at Drury Lane.
The Hope
was a similar sort of racing show to
The Whip
. The big thing in this play was an earthquake. It was terrifying. All these houses tumbled down and people were shouting for help from windows and falling to the ground. They were acrobats, of course. It was a ghastly sight. The race scene was at the end but there again, silly little Tommy Keele got into trouble. I was supposed to come second in the race but something went wrong on the first night. All of us jockeys had been issued with riding whips over a foot long. On the first night, my whip got caught and it bent and flew out of my hand.

But after the play, there was a big knot of people around my track and I elbowed my way through. The producer was standing there looking black as thunder, with my riding whip in his hand. I wasn't listening to what he was saying and eventually, I said, 'Excuse me, sir, may I have my whip back, please?' He looked at me. '
Your
whip?' 'Yes, sir.' '
Your
whip?' 'Well,' I said, 'if it

comes to that, it's
your
whip, isn't it?' He stared at me. 'You little bugger!' he said. 'I'll kick your arse out this theatre!' What had happened was my whip had flown up in the air, came down through an inch-wide slot and landed across the track of the horse that was supposed to win the race. It acted as a chock and stopped the 'winning' horse from moving forward. So by accident my horse won the race. It changed the whole play, and I didn't even know it had happened.

I used to get twenty-five shillings a week, which was quite good for those days. I was living at home in King's Cross. If we were touring, which a lot of the shows did, we could get into professional digs, which meant bed and full board for twelve shillings a week. If you paid thirteen shillings, you expected them to do a little bit of washing as well. So twenty-five shillings a week was quite good.

When we declared
war on Germany,
I was told 'Your country needs you!' I didn't even know what a soldier was. My idea of the army was from pictures of glamorous soldiers in tight-fitting uniforms with gold braid across the chests and a lovely hat with a feather in the top. I wandered down to Whitehall where all the recruiting activity was. I hadn't been there five minutes before I was grabbed by a recruiting sergeant. 'Hello, sonny,' he said, 'you going to join the army?' 'I've come down to have a look at it. I might join,' I said. 'What do you want to join?' he asked. 'Light Infantry,' I said. So he told me to follow him, and I was about to sign when I said, 'This is a horse regiment, isn't it?' 'Oh no,' he said, 'this is a marching regiment!' So I left him. I wouldn't sign the paper.

But I was grabbed very quickly by another recruiting sergeant. I told him that I'd been a jockey and a trick rider and a show jumper and I wanted to join a horse regiment. 'Horses!' he said. 'The Middlesex Regiment has lovely horses!' So I joined them and for my first year in the army, I never saw a horse. It was a foot regiment.

Sergeant Frederick Goodman

1st London Field Ambulance
, Royal Army Medical Corps

I went to Latymer Upper School in Ravenscourt Park, and after that I worked at Chiswick Council until war came along. I had no idea what war would be like, except the odd bit that I'd learned about at school. I'd heard a bit about
Winston Churchill
during the Boer War, and I knew about the relief of

Mafeking, but I'd never been in the
Officer Training Corps
. But we were all very patriotic. We thought we would do something about this fellow, this Kaiser. We weren't going to stand any nonsense! Of course not! We weren't going to have it! Why should we? And if I'd heard of someone who didn't want to fight, I shouldn't want to know him!

We expected the war to last until Christmas, and we had a special council meeting on October 4, at which each member of staff who'd expressed a wish to join the forces was interviewed by the full council. We were told that our jobs would be kept open, and we would be paid £5 per month for the duration.

I joined the 1st London Field Ambulance, Royal Army Medical Corps, in October. My father and mother thought this was a very good thing. Training was essential for the particular work we would have to do in France. We had time before we went over, and we were sent to the
Royal College of Surgeons
, where we were lectured by very eminent people in the medical profession. We saw many parts of the body pickled in jars, which had to be seen, even if I didn't relish them.

Our training camp was at
Crowborough
. We had a number of fellows detailed off to be 'patients'. They had a number of things 'wrong' with them, written on paper pinned to their tunics, and we were expected to bandage them up and give them first aid. Then the treatment we had given these chaps was examined by the doctors. If we had made a mistake, they would put us right straight away.

And we had basic drill. Forming fours. Our sergeant major was a splendid fellow, in every possible way. I'd been used to a certain amount of discipline for my early days, and I saw what had to be done. I didn't altogether like early morning square-bashing – a bit early for that sort of thing – bit I didn't adjust at all badly. We had a little fellow who would take us for physical jerks at half past six, and then he would run us for ten miles before breakfast.

One day, a fellow joined us. He was a clergyman, and he had decided to join the army. Fine. So he arrived at the local hotel with three or four great parcels of luggage, and we were tickled pink. Anybody would have thought he was going on a cruise. But he turned out to be a good chap eventually.

Our headquarters were at the
Ipswich workhouse
. We didn't like the workhouse master. We didn't approve of the way he treated the inmates. Their accommodation was grim – even for those days. And the food was not good. It was an awful life for these people. They were divided up with men on one side,

women on the other, and they all had to wear an awful uniform. We didn't like this, and we got hold of the workhouse master, and he found himself in the workhouse pond. Bit unfortunate, wasn't it?

The nurses in Ipswich were a very fine lot. We had dances to keep us going. We had to have something to keep us going, didn't we? We had one lady – her father and mother kept the Cross Keys pub in Henley – and I got to know her. She used to invite me to lunch at the pub on Sundays.
One certain officer
tried to pinch her from me. He wanted to dance with her. She said she was very sorry, but it couldn't be – she had arranged it with Freddie Goodman. Pleased me no end. And when I was in France, she kept me going with
letters
. She knew how to write the right sort of letter to keep my morale going. It meant an awful lot to me.

Lieutenant Duce

1st Battalion, Royal West Kent Regiment

I was in India with one of the merchant banks before the war, and during my five years there, I had joined the equivalent of the Territorial force. We were fully trained, to the extent that we were better armed with the
Lee-Enfield rifles
than the British Army in England.

When the war started, after a little while a notice came in the clubs from the
Inns of Court Officers Training Court
, asking if we would come home and join, and be commissioned into the British Army. I asked the bank if I could go, and they told me that there were other people, senior to me, who should have choice before me. I pointed out that these people weren't going. They said that I couldn't go, but I was going to go, anyway.

I didn't expect to come out of the war alive. I had been living on the northwest frontier, up near the Khyber Pass, and I had a lot of nice books and various other things, and I gave them all away. I had the idea, as did a lot of my friends, that I shouldn't come through it, but I was of a very religious turn of mind, so it didn't bother me.

I went down to Karachi, and I shipped on board a Japanese boat as a purser. There were forty-nine Chinese crew, six Japanese officers and an English captain. I paid the captain six shillings a day for my food, and I got one shilling pay when I got to England. The bank sent my resignation after me. Just after I arrived in England, I was stopped, and asked, 'What about
joining up
, young man?' I said, 'I've just come six thousand miles! Give me a chance!'

In the end, I didn't join the Inns of Court: I joined the
Artists Rifles
. I was fully trained, so myself and three others, one from India and two from South Africa, were put on as orderlies in the sergeants' mess. We waited so well on the sergeants that they were delighted. But we wouldn't take that on permanently. Next, I was made an officer's servant. Considering that I'd come from India where I'd had eleven servants myself, it was rather amusing. In due course, I was commissioned into the Royal West Kent Regiment.

Private Thomas McIndoe

12th Battalion, Middlesex Regiment

I used to see that picture of Kitchener – from any position that you took up the finger was always pointing to you. It was a wonderful poster really. And I think it assisted recruitment very much. I went to the recruiting office at
Harlesden
. And when I confronted the recruiting officer he said that I was too young, although I'd said that I was eighteen years of age. He said, 'Well, I think you're too young, son. Come back in another year or so.' He didn't believe what I said.

I returned home. I never said anything to my parents. And I picked up my bowler hat which my mother had bought me, and which I was only meant to wear on Sundays. And I donned that, thinking that it would make me look older. And I presented myself to the recruiting officer again – to which, this time, there was no queries. I was accepted. My mother was very hurt when I arrived home, that particular night, and told her that I had to report to
Mill Hill
next morning.

Private Frank Lindlay

14th Battalion, York and Lancaster Regiment

I have a watch that was presented to my brother by my father and mother. It says on it, '
Harry Lindlay
, 19th Year, 1910. From Father and Mother, with love.' My brother Harry, nine years older than me, was an able seaman. He went out to the Mediterranean with the fleet for several years. When he came back home on leave he'd got the watch twisted, so we put it in a shop to be repaired. He'd only been home a few days when the war started. He went back to his depot and he was put on a cruiser, and dispatched to the North Sea. His cruiser was torpedoed, and he went down with it in October 1914. I got this watch, and it's been with me ever since. It cut us up, I'll tell you that. It broke

our family up, and I was so incensed that I thought I'd do something about it. I shot off, gave a false name, and I joined the artillery at the age of fourteen, but that wasn't a fast enough job for me; I wanted to get somewhere, so I deserted and joined the infantry. I joined the 2nd Barnsley Pals Battalion.