Authors: Vivienne Dockerty
“It’s me that keeps yer out of the army,” the boss growled at Eddie. “If I can’t rely on yer to keep things going smoothly here, I’ll have to get somebody else.”
Eddie had no one to back him up because his labourer, his eyewitness, had disappeared.
“Right,” he said, his anger getting the better of his judgment at the injustice of it all. “If that’s the way it is, get my cards ready for tonight. I’d rather be in the army than try to get work-shy fellows like this one to do an honest day’s work.”
Then the eyewitness to Flanagan’s attack came back, after directing the ambulance men to where the stricken man lay. He told the boss the story, but Eddie didn’t stay for an apology. By then it was too late for Eddie and his pride; if the boss hadn’t believed him in the first place, then he’d rather not be there in any case.
There were two losers on that day, besides the wounded Flanagan. The boss who would soon realise that without Eddie, the men could do what they liked with him; and Eddie, who through sitting on his angry pride, was destined to fight in the depths of Hell.
As Eddie travelled on the ferry back to Woodside, his heart was heavy as he realised what he’d done. His temper had cooled and as he stood on the top deck looking down the Mersey, he felt full of misery. He’d be leaving all he held dear to fight a war he had no stomach for. Deep down he was a pacifist, a country boy, it was just that sometimes his temper overtook him. He wondered how long it would be before he got his call up papers. Irene was devastated when he told her.
“Well you can just go back to the site and apologise,” she said. “How are me and Gina going to cope without you being here? I’ll have to go and get a job now, we can’t exist on army pay.”
“You’re not getting a job and I’m not going back to apologise,” Eddie replied stubbornly. “You’ll manage, it’s just a question of economising. You’ve got the chickens and they’re laying plenty, and before I go I’ll take one of the pigs to the abattoir and you can put it in a barrel of brine and leave it in the wash house.”
“I’ll have to have my mother back then, I’m not living here with just Gina for company. This is too bad of you Eddie, that job kept you out of the war and now you’ve chucked it away.”
“Well tough,” said Eddie, his temper rising again as he heard her condemnation. “I’m off to my mother’s, she’ll be happy I’m going, anyway.”
Irene sobbed her heart out when Eddie flung out of the house in a fit of pique. It was the first real quarrel that they’d ever had; she usually kept her mouth shut if she didn’t agree with him. But this time he’d gone too far, put his life in jeopardy, possibly putting her into early widowhood if he didn’t return. Gina, who was now three years old and had listened to her parents rowing, flung herself on her mother’s lap and cried along as well.
There was an uneasy truce between the couple for the next few weeks, Eddie not admitting the fear he felt, nor the annoyance with his mother when she had called him a fool. Everything had to go on as normal, keep a stiff upper lip, pretend that what he’d done wasn’t going to ruin their happiness. It would all be over in a year or so, wasn’t Winston Churchill saying that the war was nearly won? He went to work on a local farm, the farmer was having difficulty getting his harvest in, where peace and quiet helped to settle his mind. The words of the boss still rankled though and he still clung on to his pride.
The dreaded Call Up papers arrived a month later, but it was still a shock to Eddie and Irene because they’d tried to push it out of their minds. He was to report to the Chesterfield barracks at the end of the week and a travel warrant was enclosed. That meant they only had three days left together and they carried on as if he wasn’t going away. But the day before he was leaving, Irene broke down in tears.
They decided to have one last happy day together, something that they would remember for the rest of their lives, a day out in the lovely Autumn sunshine, picking blackberries in the fields of Barnston, a twenty minute walk away.
With Gina toddling beside them, they picked basket upon basket of the glossy sweet-tasting fruit from brambles low with the weight of their bounty. They laboured until sunset, picking with stained hands, popping the occasional large berry into their mouths, then back home where they both shared in the making of their meal. Afterwards, with Gina tucked up in her little bed, they set to work making jam, with the hope that it wouldn’t be too long before Eddie was having the results of their efforts on a piece of bread.
It was not until they lay in bed later, that the enormity of what Eddie had done finally hit them. He was leaving early next morning and might not come back again. This was not a time for sleeping, nor even making love because if Irene was made a widow, she’d have two children then to rear. Instead, Irene lay in her husband’s arms, cherishing each moment together, praying that one day, not so far away, Eddie would hold her in his arms again. If not, their dreams of a happy future would be shattered by the war.
Loneliness was the biggest problem for Irene once Eddie had gone. She was ignored by his family, unless she made the effort to visit his mother to show Gina off, or went to her aunties’ bungalow to help them with work in their house. Nothing could be done in the garden as temperatures had plummeted and the ground was a solid block; rationing had begun to bite and Irene could only purchase what was in the shops. She was glad that the chickens were still laying and there was still a barrel of pork, but money was tight for the first few weeks until she was able to draw on Eddie’s army pay.
Irene decided to invite her mother to come and stay. She’d be company, they could pool their ration books, Lily had a widow’s pension and she would be happy to babysit Gina if Irene got a job. The problem was that Eddie had insisted that she stay home and look after their daughter, but he hadn’t said she couldn’t do voluntary work, so that had become her plan.
The government had built a barracks on the perimeter of Arrowe Park, it housed men from the Free French Army who had come over to help their allies with the war. They frequented the Services canteen in Irby and Irene had heard that volunteers were needed a few hours every day.
The soldiers were charming, courteous and extremely polite to the canteen ladies and Irene tried out her schoolgirl French to the amazement of the homesick men.
She had her favourites; there was Jean Pierre, Grand Pierre and Petit Pierre who gallantly vied for her attention when her shift came around. She felt flattered, skittish, unused to the compliments that were always coming her way, suddenly she felt alive again and not so lonely after all.
Like many of the call up men, Eddie was very unsettled in those first few weeks away from his family. He couldn’t get used to the army discipline and being left-handed he found it awkward drilling and handling the weapons. He had hoped to be put into a regiment where his experience in driving lorries for his father could be put to good use, feeling that he would be more suited to a transport regiment than being assigned to become an artillery man.
One day, a man named Sergeant Miller unfortunately pushed Eddie to his limit, by sniping and picking at everything he did. He was ridiculed because of his clumsiness with a rifle, ridiculed because he couldn’t seem to march in time and told off for not saluting an officer that had passed by.
That day Eddie saw red. His arm was aching with the pain of the injections he’d been given, but as he’d always had a short fuse anyway, he challenged the sergeant to a fight behind the tents. Miller was man enough to take him up on it and they were to meet that evening at seven o’ clock, but some sneak told the Major and Eddie was thrown into the guardroom to cool his heels.
An hour later no one had come to lay a charge against him, the corporal who was on duty had gone for a cup of tea, so seeing the open door and an open gate beyond it, Eddie decided he’d had enough.
He walked until he reached the town of Chesterfield and passed a small white pub where he heard music being played. He was thirsty and thoroughly fed up with the way he was being treated, so in he went, thinking a few pints would make him feel human again and the army could do what it liked.
The pianist was a young lady, a pretty girl with a cheerful face, who was dressed in a green long-sleeved woollen dress and when she saw that Eddie was in uniform, waved to him merrily. “Don’t bother to buy drinks, soldier,” she shouted over, “help me by drinking some of these that have been bought for me.”
He looked at the row of glasses lined up on top of the piano and gave her a broad smile. An hour later the glasses were empty and the world had become a better place.
Two soldiers came in and sat at his table, by this time everyone had become Ted’s friend and he poured his troubles out to them in an inebriated state. They were sympathetic, but horrified that Eddie didn’t know what was in store for him. To go was a great big sin, the penalty would be more than just an hour in the guardroom. They helped him up and, taking an arm each, walked the unsteady rookie soldier back to the camp.
The sergeant was waiting; Eddie hadn’t turned up for their fight, so he sent him back to the guardroom and this time laid a charge on him.
Eddie spent an uneasy night feeling trapped and bewildered, his head ached from all the beer he had drunk and his arm throbbed from the injections he’d had. Not for the first time he realised how foolish he had been, he could have been home with Irene, home and free.
The next morning after Eddie had been given his breakfast he was escorted to the parade ground, where he joined six other men on a charge like himself. They were marched in single file down a steep hill to a school house that had been taken over by the army. The other men were taken in first, leaving Eddie to cool his heels with a corporal in charge. The man was sympathetic, hadn’t he been a raw recruit like Eddie, confused and bewildered, not knowing any of the rules?
Sergeant Miller appeared, with a nasty sneer on his face, he grabbed at poor Eddie’s forage cap and threw it on the floor. Then he yelled very loudly at him. “Quick march, quick march!” Eddie pretended to have a limp, which made the sergeant mad again.
In the bare room where three officers sat at a long table by a wall, Eddie was told to stand at ease. Ease was about the last word Eddie was feeling, his case had already been fully discussed; he was there to hear his punishment. He was told that he would be returned to his own country.
“Permission to speak, Sir?” Eddie addressed one of the officers.
The officer gave a nod.
“Which country would that be, Sir, I was born in England and this is my country?”
“You will be sent to Ireland, Dockerty, you will finish your training there with the Irish Fusiliers. That is our decision and there is no right of appeal.”
He was quick marched out of the school room, wondering as he did so what kind of looneys did they have in charge?
A few days later he was in Ireland, but in a state of total collapse due to a high fever as his body fought against his inoculations. The sergeant took in the situation at a glance, dismissed Eddie’s escort, then put his new recruit to bed in his own quarters.
Sergeant Mannion was a compassionate fellow who had served in the army since the First World War, though his men had to be brought up to the best standard of training, he treated them as human beings. Next morning Eddie was given a superb breakfast and began to feel he could face the world again.
He did well in his training, he worked hard at being the smartest man in battle dress and the best at weapon drill, he was given special duties and made the ‘stick man’ for the day. When a soldier won this distinction he had to report to the office for any special messages or duties. Most days it was a mere formality and then he was free for the day.
In his leisure time he went to help one of the local farmers, who found Eddie to be a capable and willing man who also loved working in the farmer’s fields.
In all this time he had not been given any leave to go home to his family. Christmas had come and gone, Spring was nearly over, so in desperation, Eddie volunteered to go on a draft which was going over to England. When he arrived in Ringwood, Hampshire, feeling low from an infection that he had picked up on the way back over, he intended to ask for permission to go on leave.
He decided to surprise Irene, thinking that a telegram coming out of the blue would cause her alarm at the sight of a telegraph boy. He was tired and very hungry when he got off the bus with his kitbag, so began to walk to his mother’s house where he could be sure of a plate of rib-sticking stew. His spirits lifted at the thought, as he walked along the leafy tree-lined Acorn Drive to reach his mother’s semi on the corner.
“Eddie!” his mother cried with delight, as he walked unannounced into the kitchen where she was washing the plates from supper. “Why didn’t you say you were coming? Does Irene know, ’cos she didn’t tell me when I saw her this morning out with the child?”
“I thought I’d surprise you all,” Eddie answered as his mother threw her arms around him and hugged him to her, like she had when he was a little boy.
“Where’s Rosaleen and Sam? Have Terry and Mickey had any leave, or am I the first one home?”
“Put your kit-bag in the hallway first and then I’ll bring you up with the news while you eat some dinner, Eddie. You look as thin as a rake, what’s the army been feeding you? Mind you, you’ve never had much weight on, not like our Caitlin. You should see her now. Come, sit here at the table, I must have known you were coming because as usual I made too much stew. I got so used to cooking for seven children and me and your father that it’s difficult to cook for just Rosaleen and Sam.”
“How are you managing, Mum? I thought with all the rationing and the supply routes being knocked out by the Jerrys, that people were having it hard.”
“Not when you live in the country, Eddie, not when there’s so many farms around and of course we’ve all turned our gardens over to growing veg. Did you not notice my cauli’s when you came up the side of the house?”