Authors: Vivienne Dockerty
A horse was still in the stable. Eddie went to make friends with him and as he was patting the horse he noticed a pile of straw in the corner. He went to get an armful, as the horse must have been starving with the owners running away.
As he moved the straw, there was something hard on the ground beneath and he found it to be a barrel with a tap on it. He turned the tap slowly and a trickle of liquid came out. Lo and behold it was cognac! Not being a greedy man, he filled the water bottle that he always carried with him, and covered the barrel with straw again. It was just his secret (and the farmers).
One of the other soldiers, called Ernie, had accompanied him that day, but had been chasing another horse around a nearby field to get a ride. The horse was being way too smart for him and Eddie shook with laughter as he saw the poor man’s attempts. He gave up trying when Eddie showed him the contents of his water bottle and was a much happier man when he’d had a swig.
On their way back to their billet, they found a lone cottage, again it looked as if the owner had abandoned it. Ernie had his eye on the wooden shutters that covered the windows, thinking that they could be the very thing to cover over their slit trenches, which they often had to dig. He went inside the small gate and pulled out his bayonet in order to tackle the rusty nails that held the shutters in place. He was working away at loosening the shutters when the door of the cottage flew open and out shot a little Frenchwoman. She was in a terrible temper and was shouting away at Ernie in her foreign tongue. He stood rooted to the spot, until she flew at him with raised fists ready to thump the perpetrator and when he suddenly realised her intention, he took to his heels and fled!
Eddie, who had gone ahead, leaving Ernie to his own devices, looked back over his shoulder at the sound of running feet. He turned around fully and began to shake with laughter again, as he saw the soldier pounding away in his army boots, chased by a woman half his size in hot pursuit. She nearly caught him, as her short legs clad in thick black woolly stockings and wearing wooden sabots, made better time than Ernie in his heavy boots and carrying his rifle. When she caught sight of Eddie, she must have decided not to take on two of them and turned back to the cottage much to Ernie’s relief.
An elderly Frenchman went past their billet every morning. Starting as soon as it was light enough he would work in his fields from dawn to dusk. He carried a long loaf, a piece of cheese and a bottle of wine. Eddie watched him, marvelling that the man could work all day on such simple fare, returning only in the evening to his farm house and the meal, which his equally hard working wife had prepared.
As his company were not in action but resting, Eddie had set up an area for haircutting. He had finished his duties and every soldier after his short back and sides, looked neat and trim, when he received special orders to attend the officer billet and give the Brigadier and two sergeants a hair cut. He was cleaning his tools to put them away when the French farmer, who must have followed Eddie back along the country lane, asked one of the lieutenants who spoke fluent French, would Eddie give him a haircut and a shave? He agreed to do this and set to work getting soap and hot water.
He sat the farmer down on a box first and trimmed his hair, then he arranged a cloth around his neck and proceeded to strop an old fashioned razor, before lathering the man’s face. Eddie had never shaved another man before and when he started to get to work the razor wasn’t sharp enough and pulled at the hairs.
The farmer jumped to his feet and shouted, “Nix coiffeur, nix coiffeur.”
The lieutenant laughing out loud said, “He doesn’t think much of you as a barber.”
Eddie apologised and, knowing that his reputation was at stake, ran to his billet where he took out his own safety razor. Returning quickly he shaved the man and was rewarded with his water bottle being filled with cognac again.
On that same afternoon, the farmer’s son, a man of about twenty-two, had left the farm and returned at dusk. He was riding a beautiful black horse, which was sweating from being ridden over a great distance. Eddie was still with the farmer when his son came to speak to him. It appeared that the horse had been sent to a safe place whilst the Germans had been in occupation. Now it was time for the farmer to have him returned again. After the horse had cooled down, Eddie was allowed to feed it and help bed it down for the night. Along with the family, he felt the pleasure that the horse could come back to the farm again.
Eddie was often out at night on reconnaissance patrol as he was extremely good at moving silently though woods and thickets. He was always in his element, as he could walk like a cat at night time and, like them, seemed able to see in the dark.
One night when there was no moon, a fighting patrol had failed to return at the expected time. An hour went by and the officer in charge came to the billet to see Eddie.
Eddie had just returned from guard duty and was lying on the bed after loosening his boot laces. This officer wasn’t on good terms with Eddie because he had refused to take on the duty of being the lieutenant’s bat man and, on this occasion, Eddie was curtly ordered to get out and look for the missing patrol.
So he made his way quietly along the route that he had been given, until some muted voices came into his ears.
“He’s got us lost...” someone began to shout loudly and there came a muttered reply.
It was then that Eddie realised this was the patrol he was looking for and, creeping up quietly, he touched one of the men on his shoulder with his bayonet.
“I’m Eddie, I’ve been sent out to fetch you in,” he whispered, as the small group of men turned frightened faces towards the interloper. “Get word up to your corporal, then come with me.”
Eddie was getting more and more anxious at the noise that the soldiers were making, as they shouted to their comrades that someone had come to take them back.
“Thank God you’ve come,” said the corporal in a relieved voice, when he arrived later after his unit had been rounded up. “We’ve been wandering around for the past half hour.”
“The noise your patrol was making could be heard from some distance. You were lucky not to have been picked off by the Germans,” Eddie couldn’t help but say.
His errand successfully carried out, he received no praise from the waiting officer. Instead he was put on a charge for being improperly dressed in the billet, as his laces had not been done up!
At the next town that they were marched to, Eddie didn’t usually know the names of these places at the time, the platoon was billeted in a grain warehouse. The lieutenant had taken the office for his quarters, so he slept there as well and half of the soldiers had chosen to sleep on the upper floor and the other half downstairs.
Eddie had placed his bedding under the grain chute which ran from the upper floor to the ground, thinking he would have a bit of cover from any possible shelling. This could come at any time, as the enemy was still lurking on the outskirts.
Eddie had arranged with a local baker to heat up a tin of water the next morning, so he could have a bath. In return the baker was given fifty cigarettes for his trouble, but Eddie had to be there early before the man started to make his bread.
He turned in early and it wasn’t long before he fell into a deep sleep. In the middle of the night he was awakened by water dripping onto his face. He assumed that it was raining and began to move his bedding out of the way, then he realised the real reason for the water and began to bawl at the top of his voice!
“You dirty bastards,” he shouted, and went on about the unclean habits of the men upstairs, until the rest of the men told him to shut his mouth and go back to sleep.
He awoke from a fitful sleep at dawn and, remembering the hot water that he had been promised at the bakery, hastily dressed and went out to claim it. It was good to wallow in the warmth of the bath and, feeling refreshed after he had given himself a close shave, he wandered into the street again.
A soldier stood at the top of the street, bleary eyed after a stint on night duty, and jumped at the chance of having a bath when Eddie explained he hadn’t emptied it. They exchanged rifles, as Eddie had promised he would look after his.
The lieutenant came out of the warehouse and wearily walked along the street. He had spent a most uncomfortable night on the office floor, wedged into something like a cubby hole and seeing Eddie, who shouldn’t have been standing on guard, rather he should have been with the others in the grain store, he immediately pounced on the situation to make the most of it.
The soldier, hearing the lieutenant berating Eddie, snatched up his clothes and disappeared leaving Eddie’s rifle by the pump. The officer, seeing the rifle by the pump walked along and picked it up.
Later that day Eddie was ordered to attend the Major’s quarters to answer three charges. “Shouting in the night and causing a disturbance.” “Changing the guard without an officer’s permission.” “Leaving a rifle by the pump unattended.” Eddie felt fed up.
The next time he was told to report to the Major because of another petty thing he was being charged with, Eddie took his hairdressing tools with him. He asked for permission to speak and told his superior.
“With these extra guard duties I am constantly receiving as punishment, I can’t do my duties as a rifleman and my other job as a company barber. I will have to give my job as a barber up.”
The Major took this very calmly.
“Do you realise, Dockerty, if you went into action tonight and I lost you in that action, I would have to replace you. I would have to find another barber and he might not be as good as you, but he’d learn, as you did.”
Eddie’s sergeant was upset. He had become aware of the tension between the two men after his private had refused to be a bat man for the newly arrived officer. As Eddie had remarked that it took him all his time to look after himself, he was after all a trained rifleman and first class marksman.
A week later, much to Eddie’s relief, the lieutenant was transferred to another company and the Major gave him his hairdressing tools back.
It was a bitterly cold day, one of the coldest in wartime. Eddie was on guard duty and blew constantly on his hands in an effort to warm them. He wished he had a glass of cognac or a tot of rum to drink. He walked around the area that he was guarding, up and down, stamping his feet, trying to bring some feeling back. He checked his army pocket watch, he’d be relieved from duty in five minutes time.
A few minutes later as Eddie saw the relief guard in the distance, he heard a child screaming from one of the cottages nearby. He quickly handed over to the hurrying soldier and ran to the cottage as fast as he could. Smoke was billowing from the open door and, as Eddie rushed through it and into the foggy front room and beyond to the kitchen, he noticed an open door that had steps going down to the cellar. The smoke was coming up from the cellar. Coughing and choking, Eddie landed at the bottom of the steps to find an old lady with her clothes on fire, too helpless to move from the overturned oil stove.
He took off his greatcoat, rolled her into it, thus smothering the flames that had enveloped her thin body. He carried her to safety, then went back to the cellar to stamp out the flames. The oil had been used up by then, so it had been quite easy.
Leaving the old lady and the trembling child in the care of concerned neighbours, Eddie carried on to his billet to find that his army greatcoat was beyond repair. It took a while and a little soft soaping for the store man to give a replacement for him to wear.
A few days later, when his platoon was in line in readiness to move out of the area, an elderly Frenchwoman ran along the line of soldiers. She stopped when she recognised Eddie and pressed a small item into his hand. He slipped the small tissue wrapped object into his jacket pocket and forgot about it until night time. He was surprised to find a small gold cross, obviously one of the woman’s most treasured possessions and decided to give it to Gina when he got home.
The company was now in Belgium on the outskirts of the city of Louvain. The store man had gone on leave and Eddie had been ordered to mind the store while he was away. They were not in action, but behind the lines at the time, so Eddie combined his duties as the company barber, cutting hair for the H.Q. staff that were billeted nearby. The villagers who lived around the area were very friendly and Eddie cut the hair of an elderly Belgian and was rewarded with a pretty lawn and lace handkerchief from the man’s wife.
After the store man came back, Eddie was given a forty-eight hour leave. He took the money he had been saving and went to Brussels, as he planned to take home a pair of Continental shoes for Irene. There were lots of girls in the city as Brussels had not suffered the effects of the war, as the King of Belgium had given in without fighting and allowed the German Army through the land without hindrance.
The city was a Mecca for all leave parties who wanted to enjoy city life and buy from the well-filled shops. Over a cup of coffee in a busy café, Eddie talked to a couple of the friendly locals and told them he was going to buy some shoes for his wife. They offered to help and Eddie found himself in a shoe shop, where one of the girls who had a shoe size the same as Irene’s, chose a beautiful pair of black calf leather with wedge heels and sling backs.
It was in Brussels that Eddie met up again with Charley. Charley was a coloured soldier who was born in Liverpool and Eddie had first met up with him at the battle for Caen. The platoon had fought their way towards the city and were waiting for more ammunition at a crossroads when Charley, who was the driver of the truck, turned up with it. He was a big man and extremely handsome, he seemed to be completely without fear, standing there laughing and kidding as if there wasn’t a horrible war on, the wind blowing through his black curly hair, whilst he had watched them unloading. “Come on you fellows, move it!” he had shouted when the soldiers didn’t seem to be putting their backs into lifting off the heavy boxes. “Get this stuff off my carrier. This isn’t my war, mine starts when we coloureds takes over.”