Tales of London's Docklands (15 page)

‘I think it was 1899 that we embarked on a White Star liner at Liverpool docks, bound for the Cape. I remember there were other regiments aboard – the Gloucesters and the Scottish Rifles and a field hospital of the RAMC. If I remember correctly, we were at sea for three weeks before arriving at Cape Town. When we had docked Lord Kitchener came aboard to inspect
his
troops before we were allowed to disembark. Do you remember? We were drawn up in ranks of four on the quay, and then we were marched to a transit camp, where we spent several days before being entrained at Cape Town railway station. Our destination, we thought, was to be the Orange River where we were supposed to arrive after two days' travelling.'

‘Yes,' piped up Harry. ‘What a bloody horrible journey that was, Sid, wasn't it? But at least it had one consolation.'

‘Did it?' said Sid in utter surprise. ‘What was that?'

‘Now who's a silly old sod,' said Harry. ‘Because we didn't have to march all the bloody way there, did we?'

‘No, I make you right there, Harry,' said Sid reluctantly (apparently Sid never liked Harry to be one up on him). ‘Anyway,' he continued, ‘we were dropped off the train at a station somewhere along the railway line to join Lord Roberts's forces, just as he was preparing to close in on a place called Paardeberg, wasn't we, Harry?' said Sid, seeking confirmation as to the factual contents of his tale. It was a statement to which Harry nodded his agreement, although I'm not sure he had heard one word Sid had said, and Sid himself was obliviously lost in his past as he continued talking about the events that culminated in the battle of Modder River.

‘We was with a troop of mounted infantry, not far from Paardeburg Drift, when the Boers began sniping at us. But they couldn't have known we were within the sound of gunshot of the 6th Division, who instantly came to our assistance when they heard gunfire. When the 6th Division came up to us the Boers took off, and we waited about for some time before our CO, Colonel Stephenson, marched us (the 1st Battalion, Essex Regiment and the 1st Battalion, Welch Regiment) right out onto the veldt, and had us deployed opposite the river below Koodoosrand Drift. There were some of the best fighting soldiers on this earth in the 6th Division – the West Yorks, and the Highland Brigade who had come down onto the veldt from of the Kliproal Road. We were ordered to spread out on the left of General Knox's brigade with the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders on the right, the Black Watch in the centre, and the Seaforth Highlanders on their left. The Highland Light Infantry was left at Klip Drift to protect the lines of communications.'

‘Tell them about Kitchener's bold plan, Sid. You know, his Iron Fist theory.'

‘Oh, yes,' said Sid, ‘the Iron Fist theory; well, that's what the army lads chose to call it. In fact the object of Kitchener's plan, if it could be called a plan, was to throw all his available infantry into a battle. The Boer commander was a bloke we called Old Cronje, and unbeknown to us, the old sod had almost got his Boer Army encircled. Lord Kitchener wanted to close the only gap through which the Boers could escape, but of course we Tommies weren't privy to Kitchener's plans. What's more he wasn't too concerned how many of us Tommies he got killed in the process. From our experience of fighting the Boers, we all knew it was going to be blood, flesh and bone against well-aimed bullets from their Mauser and Martini-Henry rifles.

Captain Davis (right) taking over as the river pilot from Captain Brown, the sea pilot, of the RMS
Highland Brigade, c
. 1938.
(Author's collection)

‘The 1st Essex and the 1st Welch were part of Stephenson's 18th Brigade, and our job was to hold the Boers with a frontal assault from the veldt to the south, but as far as we infantrymen were concerned, we wasn't sure whether we were holding them down, or they were just using us as target practice. Whatever it was they didn't escape past us, that's for sure. Wasn't it, Harry?'

‘What's that you said, Sid?'

‘It doesn't matter, Harry. Give it a miss.' Then he said, ‘The bloody deaf old sod. He's been like that since the Boer War. Deaf as a post in his right ear. God only knows why.'

‘Could it have been due to the constant firing of his rifle alongside his right ear?' I tentatively suggested to Sid.

‘Why should it have been?' Sid barked at me. ‘I'm not like it.'

‘Aren't you,' I said, lowering my voice to almost a whisper.

‘What did you say, sonny,' Sid grunted, his eyes lighting up with indignation.

I raised my voice a couple of decibels and repeated. ‘Could it have been that firing his rifle from his right shoulder brought about his deafness?'

‘Why should it have been?' said Sid. ‘I'm not deaf like him.' Then he went on, ‘Anyway, what was I saying?'

‘Something about crossing the veldt,' I reminded him.

‘Yes, the open veldt. We were ordered to press on across the open veldt. We were tired, hungry and thirsty. We had been on half-rations for days on end, and we'd been on the march since five o'clock (1700 hours) the previous day without even a chance to fill our water bottles. Then, as we came over a rise, below us in a great circle was Old General Cronje's wagon train. The sight of those covered wagons bucked us up no end. We thought that once we got down among them, we'd at least get some fresh water and grub. Didn't we, Harry?'

‘Oh, yes,' Harry agreed, as he prepared to set his jaws in motion for another concerted attack on his almost impregnable sandwich.

‘Why don't you dip that sandwich in your tea, you stupid sod?' one of the other old grousers suggested. ‘At least it will soften up the bread and lubricate those teeth of yours.'

Harry appeared not to hear the remark (or chose not to), and he continued to gnaw away at the slowly diminishing sandwich in his hand; a sandwich that had started out as two slices of bread and something, but was now a round ball of what appeared to be dough and something. He was gnawing away as though his life depended on it. The spectacle was enough to make any weak-stomached person vomit – including me.

Sid, in the meantime, had continued with his narrative: ‘We (the Essex and the Welch) were the first to be sent into the attack, but the Boers were ready and waiting for us, and we suffered heavy casualties from their snipers who pinned us down on the open veldt, picking us off one by one – that's when Harry and me stopped a bullet each. Didn't we, Harry?'

Harry looked up from his bread and something through half-closed eyes, eyes that now glowed with menace and hatred. ‘Yes, Sid,' he replied. ‘Those bloody generals were so intent on winning the battle, they didn't give a damn about how many of their own men they got killed. We were lucky though, weren't we, Sid? We were shot in the chest, both of us. We've both shunted along on one lung ever since. Generals they called themselves; assassins more like. They were so keen on winning battles, didn't care how many men they got killed, did they, Sid?'

‘No, old mate, they didn't,' Sid said.

After Harry's verbal tirade there was a deep silence. It was a silence occasionally broken by the sound of tea being slurped from refilled PLA mugs and the rumbling of ancient stomachs. There was also the painful creaking of old bones that were soon to be reactivated when the old grousers returned to the tedious task of unloading more baggage from more railway trucks. Until then, all was as quiet as the graves these old grousers would soon be occupying.

I couldn't help but look along the line of them with admiration. What terrible sights they had seen and been party to. What privations they had been through in wars, and the old sods would still take you on in a fight. Here they were, still working in the docks, all because there was no occupational pension for them and the state pension was insufficient to live on. A hymn that I sang during assembly in my school days came into my mind:

What heroes thou hast bred, England, my country,

I see the mighty dead, march in line,

Each with undaunted heart, playing his gallant part,

Made England what thou art, Mother of mine.

Now England had deserted them, her sons, left them to work out their last years doing hard labour till the day they died. There was no Elizabeth Fry of the Society of Friends (the prison reformer), or Jeremy Bentham (the eighteenth/nineteenth-century Utilitarian philosopher) to argue their case for socio-economic justice. There was a trade union, but that organization was under continuous attack by the press and other media for trying to improve their lot. So, like the old soldiers they had been, and the old grousers they had become, they worked on and on till in God's own good time, one by one, they faded away.

I shall always remember Sid and Harry. The thing I recall most vividly about them is that after their long tirade about the Boer War, the two old fellows, sitting side by side, began to sing this song, which had been written by a couple of their comrades in Carnarvon Hospital, South Africa. They called it ‘It Takes a Lot to Make a Fellow Smile', and it went like this:

I don't go in for sentiment, it isn't in my line,

'cause it only makes a fellow get the hump.

Especially when he's fighting and a-bobbing up and down,

Lucky not to get a Boer bullet in his rump.

But sometimes I get to thinking, of the missus at the tub,

Where I guess as every day she can be seen.

A-washing shirts and such like, to buy a bit of grub,

To feed our kiddies, the children, of the soldiers of the Queen.

Chorus

No! It isn't the blooming fighting, or the laying out at night,

With ants a-crawling all around your blooming dial.

But it's wondering if the missus and the kids can be all right,

That's why it takes such a lot to make a fellow want to smile.

Now here's a letter from my Sarah, of about a month ago,

And it seems as if she's writing in a blooming tiff.

For she wants to know the reasons, why they're making such a fuss,

And how she'd like to talk to this 'ere ‘
Lady Smith
'.

She was always kind o' jealous, but she's still a proper mate,

And when I writes explaining to her what is what.

And tells her there's no ‘Lady-Killing' out here at any rate,

Why, with joy she'll go clean fairly off her dot.

Chorus

No! It isn't the blooming petticoats, they're things we never see,

And to go a-courting of the locals isn't just the style.

But when I think as how the missus might go divorcing me,

Why, it takes a lot to make a fellow want to smile.

Now she tells me that the people, living round our show,

Have started calling me such nasty names.

And they says that I'm an absent-minded beggar, which of course,

Makes her up and want to know their little games.

Why, I'm always thinking of her and our chubby little kids,

And I'll write and let her know I'm just as straight.

As the day that we were married, and I'll send her home some quids,

Just to show her I don't forget my dear old mate.

Chorus

Course it kinds of hurts my feelings, and a lump gets in my throat,

To say I'm absent minded isn't quite the style,

And when it comes to thinking, I may never make the boat

That's due to take me home, why it takes a lot to make a soldier smile.

Sid and Harry's venture back into memory lane was soon ended by the arrival of a lorry carrying the heavy lift that I had been sent to deal with. It turned out to be a vintage car in a wooden crate and it weighed about 2 tons. It took me no more than a few minutes to climb up the three flights of steel ladders into the Stothert & Pitt quay crane, slew the jib over the wooden crate, and lift it off the lorry and lower it onto a low-loader ready to be put aboard the SS
Arcadia
. I then, without so much as a by-your-leave to the baggage gang, made my way to Scrutton's office and retrieved my attendance book. I never ever saw the old grousers again. But over the years I've often thought of Sid, Harry, Jack and the other old fellows I worked with, and of what they had gone through in their long lives; of how much their country had taken from them, and how little it had been prepared to give them back in return, to its everlasting shame.

14

G
EORGE
'
S
L
AST
W
AGER

‘I
s it still raining, George?' The question came from Bert, the ship's down-hold foreman, and was addressed to one of the bargehands to Bert's ship's discharging gang. George was standing inside a transit shed doorway, leaning against one of its steel support stanchions, holding his docker's hook in his left hand, swearing and cursing the weather, as he watched the raindrops falling in an almost continuous sheet across the quayside, running in a stream down the ship's derrick before bouncing off the deck and the hatch covers of the SS
Ebo,
a vessel owned by the Elder Dempster shipping line.