Soldier's Game (5 page)

Hearts played their second match of 1915 on 9 January against Greenock Morton. The entire battalion attended courtesy of the club. Jack and Ripley stood with the rest of the soldiers in the terraces, their breath steaming in the cold air. But it was a disappointing match. Gracie scored the only goal on a header from Scott, even though he had been unwell for most of the week. Next day the newspapers reported that Hearts looked “sluggish” and questioned whether military life was “altogether agreeing” with them.

Certainly the relentless training was taking a toll – endless drill, daily route marches in the cold wet countryside. A few players had to wear oversized football boots to accommodate the dressings on their blisters. Influenza raged among the recruits and often Hearts were forced to play with a reduced squad. But the team was still neck and neck with Celtic in the
League Championship and hopes remained high.

The next home match was against Dundee. Hearts were two goals down by half-time but Gracie came through again, scoring from a pass off the winger. Bryden then equalised and Gracie made it three to win with a well-placed free kick.

Jack went down to the changing room after the match to look for the trainer and came upon Gracie sitting slumped on a bench by the lockers. His face was ashen.

“Are you okay?” Jack asked.

Gracie shook his head. “Just feeling a bit weedy.”

“Should I get the trainer?”

“No. I’ll be okay in a minute or two,” he replied.

Jack sat down on the bench next to him. “Are you sure?”

Gracie offered a weak smile. “I’m fine. So how are you holding up with all this training?”

Jack shrugged. “Okay. It beats steering a mail trolley around an office.”

Gracie laughed. “Well, I can’t argue with that. I started out as a bookkeeper’s clerk before signing on with Airdrieonians. My father insisted I have a trade.”

“Same as mine,” said Jack.

Gracie reached down to untie the laces on his boots.

“Not bad advice. But I could never stick an office job. For me it’s always been football – that or nothing.”

He then stared a moment at the floor. “Are you ever worried?” he asked.

“Worried about what?” Jack replied.

“Being a soldier; facing the enemy.”

“I try not to think about it.”

Gracie laughed again but without any joy. “Maybe that’s the best thing for it – not to think too much.”

Jack did have plenty else on his mind that winter. Hearts second team also struggled with sickness and exhaustion. In addition to army training they were working out three evenings a week with the club and playing matches most Saturdays. Not even Ripley’s snoring could keep Jack awake the instant his head touched the pillow.

By the end of February the second team had lost only two of their regular season matches. Jack was lead scorer and more often than not on passes from
Hugh Wilson. In one hard-fought match against Hibs, Jack drove in a header off a Wilson pass in the last thirty seconds of play to equalise. Local sports writers began to take notice of Jack Jordan – as did McCartney the manager.

In late March a reserve centre forward on the first team tore a ligament in his knee. That Wednesday the trainer suggested to Jack he check the list for Saturday’s match against Clyde. Here he found his name just under Tom Gracie.

His heart beat wildly as he hurried through the gates at Tynecastle and headed up Gorgie Road towards Fountainbridge. Jack figured no one at the barracks would miss him for the five or ten minutes it would take to pop home and announce the news. Letting himself in the front door he met his father in the hall. Tom Jordan smiled but looked sombre. Jack then heard his mother crying in the kitchen.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

Tom shook his head.

“Your mother got a letter from Aunt Rose in Glasgow. The family received a telegram from the War Office. Dougie is missing in action, presumed dead.”

Jack was stunned. His cousin Dougie was only
two years older and had visited Edinburgh for his holidays every summer Jack could remember. Just out of school he joined the Royal Engineers and had gone to France with the British Expeditionary Force.

“I thought he wasn’t even fighting. Just digging trenches,” said Jack.

Tom shrugged. “The telegram said it was an artillery barrage.”

Jack went into the kitchen and found his mother slumped at the table before a basin of unpeeled potatoes. He sat in the chair next to her and put his arm around her shoulder.

“Promise you’ll take care,” she sobbed. “Promise.”

Tom later saw him to the door but Jack didn’t mention the news about his place on the first team. It seemed trivial now.

That Saturday Jack dressed with the rest of the players in maroon and white but there was little of the usual banter. Wattie had lost his father to influenza earlier that month. Gracie had been ill again all week but had risen from his sickbed to play the match.

Jack sat on the bench during the first half, which
was goalless. The second half was well advanced before Jamie Low scored. Gracie soon made it two but then lost pace and seemed to have trouble breathing.

McCartney shouted back to the bench, “Jordan! Warm up.”

There were ten minutes left of regular play. Jack jogged and jumped in place until McCartney called him to the line.

“Give it your best, lad,” he said and signalled a substitution.

Gracie smiled as they passed on his way back to the bench. His face looked deathly pale. Jack took up position, feeling small and exposed in the centre of that vast arena with its roaring crowd.

Play was mostly defensive, the score being two-nil to Hearts. Much of the action now centred around the Hearts goal, as Clyde tried to get something on the board. Then one of the forwards took a shot from far outside the box, which was saved easily by the Hearts goalie. He cleared it with a long low kick. Jack raced under the ball towards the Clyde goal. A defender checked the ball and fumbled about looking for a pass. Here Jack saw his opportunity. He charged in and tapped the ball between the Clyde player’s
legs. An excited cheer burst from the crowd.

Dribbling forward, Jack looked right and saw Wattie being held back by another defender. To the left was empty pitch. Ahead a lone centre back rushed in for a tackle. Jack raced left and then cut right, wrong-footing the man. Ten yards out he took the shot, which blistered past the goalie’s out-stretched hands just inside the right post.

The crowd roared its appreciation, though it mattered little to the score. Everyone loves a debut goal. The rest of the match was a blur for Jack and at the final whistle Crossan and Wattie lifted him jokingly onto their shoulders.

Back in the changing room the trainer waited to tell them that Tom Gracie had been taken by cab to the Royal Infirmary.

That next evening after tea, Jack paid Gracie a visit on the respiratory ward of the hospital along with Hugh and Ripley. It was a long airy room with high ceilings and a dozen beds down each wall. Tom was sitting up, reading a newspaper.

“What – no flowers?” he called.

Jack thought he looked ghastly: skin grey, cheeks sunken, eyes hollowed.

Ripley laid a chocolate bar on the bedside table.

“Thanks – you’re a lifesaver,” said Gracie. “The food here is inedible even by army standards.” But he left the chocolate unopened.

“Have the doctors said when you might be getting out?” asked Jack.

“No one’s said anything,” he replied. “But I’ve never been more poked and prodded in all my life.”

“Maybe some rest will do the trick,” said Ripley.

“Maybe,” said Gracie, and turned to Jack. “Glad to hear you didn’t lose the game for us in the last five minutes – and a goal no less. That was some debut.”

“I was lucky,” said Jack.

“You have to make your luck,” replied Gracie. “So did you enjoy it?”

Jack tried to answer but felt the words catch in his throat.

“I think it was maybe the best moment of my life.”

Gracie smiled.

“I still feel a little like that every time I step out onto a pitch.”

The sister in charge chased them out of the ward after about half an hour and all three left the grim
Victorian building in silence, feeling oddly haunted by the visit.

Gracie did not score again that season, although he still managed to tie with an Ayr United player as top goal scorer of the 1914–15 season. Three weeks later Celtic won the league by only four points with Hearts having drawn one and lost two of their remaining three games. The
Evening News
summed up the feeling in Edinburgh over the dashed expectations of the club:

Jack made the bench as substitute in the final matches and saw some play but managed no more goals. He finished his trial uncertain of having done enough to convince McCartney to keep him on for another season. He could only hope – but of course the hopes of any one man are of little account in a world at war.

The 16th Royal Scots – the Hearts Battalion – paraded one last time in Edinburgh on 18 June. Jack and over a thousand men assembled on the playgrounds at Heriot’s in uniform with full packs. The pipers struck up
Miss Drummond of Perth
and the soldiers marched down the Mound and along Market Street to Waverley Station. Here a vast crowd spilled out onto Princes Street, blocking traffic.

Families and relatives crowded the southbound train platform to see off sons, brothers, fathers. Jack pushed through the throng trying to find his parents and sister. It seemed unreal to think they were finally heading off to war. All around him were men saying their farewells. Jack saw Ripley stiffly shake hands with his father. Annan Ness held his baby girl as his wife clutched at his arm. Pat Crossan stood chatting with Harry Wattie and his parents, holding hands with a pretty girl who turned out to be Harry’s little
sister Alice. Pat had given her an engagement ring just the week before, to the surprise of everyone. Hugh Wilson had already boarded the train, not wanting to see all the turmoil.

Jack spotted his sister and waved. Behind her stood his mother, clinging for support on the arm of Tom Jordan. This was his small family, his world for the last eighteen years. And now they were to be pulled apart. For the first time Jack felt real panic.

They had only minutes but no one could think what to say. So Jack hugged his mother and sister each in turn and turned to his father.

“I’d better go and find Hugh,” he said.

Tom Jordan shook his hand.

“We’re as proud of you as we can be,” he said, heavily. “Take care now.”

Jack dared not look him in the face.

The train took them to Ripon in Yorkshire. On arrival they formed a long column and marched three miles in oppressive heat to an army camp near the ancient ruins of Fountains Abbey. Here they joined two other battalions from Lincolnshire
and Glasgow to form the 101st Brigade. They were housed in twelve-man tents, and a lottery was organised among the men to determine who would share with Ripley.

“This is bigotry pure and simple,” he complained. “I may snore but have you smelled Crossan’s feet?”

Over the weeks to follow Jack took part in “brigade manoeuvres” which involved digging trenches and fighting mock battles with the English soldiers. He learned how to rapid-fire his rifle and thrust a
twelve-inch
bayonet into a sandbag dressed to resemble an enemy soldier.

“Fine as long as the sandbag isn’t trying to stick you back,” Hugh had said.

Each morning the sun beat down upon the dusty training ground and some afternoons tremendous thunderstorms would roll in over the hills. One day lightning struck one of the tents, killing a man. But it was the heat and exhaustion that took the greatest toll among the men – including Tom Gracie.

He had never been right again after that winter at Heriot’s, and when the weather improved and the battalion left Edinburgh he seemed little better. A slight man anyway, he grew even more scarecrow-like.

One hot afternoon the brigade set off on a fifteen-mile march in full packs. Tom had only gone a couple of miles before he collapsed on the road and had to be taken back to camp on a farmer’s cart. Returning that evening Jack learned he’d been admitted to the field hospital.

Jack visited Gracie later after supper. He lay under a wool blanket though the room was stifling. He appeared even more emaciated, if that was possible. Jack sat on the edge of the bed. Gracie smiled.

“Looks like you’ve got an open shot at centre forward,” he said.

“Not a chance,” Jack replied. “You’ll be up again by tomorrow.”

“No. They’re sending me to Leeds Infirmary this time,” said Gracie. “More poking and prodding.”

“Maybe they’ll find out what’s wrong this time,” said Jack.

“Maybe,” he replied.

But Gracie evaded the topic and asked about the latest rumour that the 16th was bound for Egypt. Every day it seemed a different story circulated the camp. Jack shook his head.

“Muir says it’s still France.”

“Too bad,” said Gracie. “I always fancied a ride on
a camel. Maybe next war.”

Jack stayed the full hour and just before leaving he reached out to shake Gracie’s hand. The once firm grip was now weak and bony.

“Keep your head down, Jordan,” he said. “Looks like you might ship out before me.”

“Don’t be daft,” Jack replied. “I’ll be back to see you tomorrow.”

But that next morning an ambulance took Gracie away.

In September the entire brigade moved to Sutton Veny on Salisbury Plain for divisional training – mock assaults on imaginary German trenches, more tactical route marches and weapons practice.

On 23 October Jack played centre forward in the Divisional Football Championship. McCrae’s battalion defeated the 18th Northumberland Fusiliers – Jack scoring one of his team’s six goals. Just after the match Sir George gathered the players together and announced that Tom Gracie had that morning died of leukaemia at Stobhill Hospital in Glasgow.

Gracie had known of the diagnosis since that March day Jack subbed for him in the Clyde match but had told no one apart from his manager. He’d stuck to his football and army training hoping for the best. On 26 October he was buried at Craigton Cemetery within sight of Ibrox Stadium.

Jack was stunned by the news as were the rest of his team-mates – and even in all the death that was to follow, he never forgot Gracie and his quiet endurance.

Two months later the battalion broke camp again and entrained for Southampton. Here they boarded a paddle-wheel steamer called the
Empress Queen
. It had been a pleasure craft before being converted into a troop carrier and painted a dull grey. The Channel crossing was choppy and Jack stood up on deck most of the journey feeling seasick and nervous of German U-boats.

Hugh joined him as the steamer approached the coast, and the lights of the French port of Le Havre drew nearer. Jack felt as if it were time itself ploughing ahead through the water, bearing him
towards some unseen fate. Nothing he could do would stop that progress. Hugh spoke quietly at his side.

“Will you write to my sister Emily if anything happens to me?”

“Nothing’s going to happen,” said Jack.

“Just in case then.”

He gave Jack a slip of paper.

“If you lose it just remember my aunt’s married name – Nandi. Not many of those in Durham.”

“I won’t lose it,” said Jack.

Hugh stared across the water to the harbour lamps.

“She’ll take it hard – having already lost her ma and all.”

Jack nudged him with his shoulder.

“Come on – I wager this time next year we’ll both be back scoring goals at Tynecastle.”

The ship docked at midnight. Dawn broke over a bleak winter landscape, fields brown and damp, trees bare of leaves. Smoke rose from the chimneys of the distant town where a train awaited to carry them east towards the rumbling guns of the Front.