I Had Prospects

“They told us it would be all over by Christmas, said it would be an adventure, something that we could tell out kids about. We would see the world and do something good for mankind. They told us it was for King and bleedin’ country… Not that either had done much for us in the past you understand... but that wasn’t important. They told us that we had a duty to perform, and like the loyal blokes we all fancied ourselves to be, we believed their lies...we come up for their old flannel wholesale.” The man smiled a sheepish, almost resigned smile, shaking his head in the bewilderment of it all. Lighting his old cherry, he breathed in the comforting smoke. “I was the top of me class at me schooling down in Cheshire Street you know. I could write me name and knew me way home without having to ask anyone. In my old school, that made me something close to being that of a bleedin’ genius. Me teacher, Mr, Wiggins said that I had prospects, though at what he never did venture an opinion. But when all is said and done, he’d said that I had prospects, and that ain’t something to be sniffed at.” He rubbed his right knee, kneading it slowly with his muddy hand. “Bleedin’ damp mornings…play hell with me joints it do, it’ll be the death of me one day,” He swilled the liquid that passed loosely as tea around in his old mug before daring to throw it down his neck in one huge gulp. He pulled a face as the bitterness of the leaves attacked his taste buds. “If this bleedin’ tea doesn’t kill me first that is. Me old man don’t paint the outside lav with stuff as bad as this.” He relit the now dormant cherry in an attempt to dull the lingering taste, before continuing. “They come out in their droves they did, out of the tenements and the slums...cor they couldn’t get down the office quick enough. The brass band played and like it was the bleedin’ Pied Piper they followed it down the road. You know, I actually watched Bobby Basham put down the basket of bread he was supposed to be delivering and like a first class chump march off behind the band. With his arms swinging and his old chest puffed out, he fell into line and done a quick step down to Shoreditch Town Hall, signed his John Hancock on the form…and that was that. Mind you, Bobby was never the brightest of sparks in the first place. He came from a long line of chumps, that could be traced back right to that of William the Conqueror. Poor sod… didn’t last much longer than the loaves of bread he’d left on the pavement. Commercial Street ain’t no place to leave swag like that about…you know they even nicked the basket. Well, it weren’t much good to anyone once it was empty, was it?” He rubbed vigorously at his unshaven face, stretched his leg again and attempted to make himself comfortable. “They didn’t get me though. Well… not right away, I was top of me class weren’t I? The school genius…with prospects no less, I weren’t going to be taken in easily. It took over a month before I marched meself off to the office and signed on the dotted line, and why did I do this I bet you’re thinking? Why did I mug meself off in no uncertain manner? Well, I’ll tell ya… Because all me mates ‘ad gone and done the deed…I didn’t want to be left on me own. I knew it was out of order, but well…they were me mates weren’t they,” He shrugged his dilemma away and continued to suck on the cherry. “It didn’t help that Sylvie Weisman had put a stop to me weekly fun and games until I’d signed up. Said she weren’t doing it with a coward…very persuasive that Sylvie, especially when me rations were being cut. Gawd she was a hard hearted cow that one,” There was a near sigh in his voice just at the mention of the girl’s name. “Anyway, I signed up a bit smartish like, and they took me off to the camp and before I even got the chance to show Sylvie me new suit they had shoved a bundle in me hands and a tin ‘at on me head and began to teach me things that I never thought I would need to be taught in the first place. They taught me how to carry me bundle and how to march in step with all them other mugs who’d signed up with me, taught some of them their left from their right. But not me, I was the bleedin’ school genius, I knew me left from me right. But I didn’t know me way home though. Not from that place, otherwise I would have been out of there as quick as crap through a goose. One geezer…Brandon, didn’t know his right from his left, so our smartarse Corporal thought it would be a jolly, to stick a Daisy behind his right ear and said ‘From now on, he would be a right Daisy if he got it wrong.’ Brandon weren’t too chuffed with this and swore the first chance he got he was doing a Daisy on Corporal Bellingham. And believe you me; Arnie Brandon weren’t a bloke you messed with lightly. Came out of Hoxton and he was as ‘ard as nails. The weeks passed and I was shown how to load and unload me bundle, and then how to shoot the bleedin’ thing, making sure it was tight against me shoulder and all that malarkey.” The man laughed quietly to himself, and nodded his head as if agreeing to something, though just what, he wasn’t telling. “I got used to the routine after a short while I suppose. Well, at least I got three meals a day, which was two and maybe three more than I got back home. I was keen to show Sylvie me all dressed up and looking altogether tony, and couldn’t wait for a spot of recreational. But that was nothing but a spiel, ‘cos next thing I knew they were putting a size ten up our jacksies and shoving us all on a train at Waterloo…next stop, France. If I was truthful I was a little excited, you see I’d never been further than Silvertown before, and there were some blokes who hadn’t even been that far. We all sung songs and chucked some banter about, like kids going on a beano, and we got all excited when we heard stories about the young Frenchie girls from Sergeant Meadows, and I even began to forget Sylvie Weisman and think of me nights in some French bar wiv a Frenchie doll on both arms. Cor what larks eh?” Warming to his yarn the man slowly recharged his pipe; he had time for another bowl. There was always time for another bowl. “Some hopes of that happening,” He spoke ruefully. “Shoved us straight into the line they did. We were as green as the newly mown grass but that was of no concern to them. ‘Butcher’ Haig just wanted numbers and numbers was what he got. Young kids from the slums of the big cities. Country boys straight off the farms it made no bleedin’ difference to him so long as he had numbers in the line. I reckon we might have done ourselves a favour if we had shot him in the first place and been done wiv it. It was at a place called Mons, and it was the first time we got to see the enemy, all in their grey uniforms and pointy hats. They come marching like guardsmen, shoulder to shoulder, towards us like they didn’t have a care in the world. Then we were ordered to open fire and that put paid to their little game. We were trained you see in the art of rapid firing and our Lee Enfield bundles were deadly accurate in the right hands, and what wiv the marvellous target presented before us, cor even Albert Jennings, our platoon’s worst shot couldn’t miss. They went down like wheat under the scythe, it was something to behold I can tell you, and it weren’t long before those arrogant so and so’s had turned tail and scarpered speedily back from whence they’d come. We cheered like fools, thinking that it was all over and we would be going home again, find a little Frenchie café and a couple of them Frenchie mademoiselles and have a right old knees up before getting back on the ships,” He gave a short ironic laugh at the thoughts of going home. “We didn’t know the ‘alf of it. The weeks turned into months, we dug in and they dug in, they charged us and we shot ‘em down. Then we charged them and they shot us down. The officers meanwhile sat out of harm’s way thinking up new plans to break the deadlock, but they all come out the same. We charge their lines and we get shot to shit. No matter where, it’s always the bleedin’ same. Ypres, the Somme or Paschendale it makes no difference. We bombard them for an hour or so, then the whistles blow and we go over the top and… “He sighed”, well you don’t have to be a genius like me to know that ain’t quite right. I arrived in this God forsaken place back in nineteen fourteen as a seventeen-year-old kid. I have been shot at and bombed. I have been gassed and mortared and watched nearly all me mates disappear one way or another. The hard nut Arnie Brandon took a tumble down on the Sunken Road, Bobby Basham, the prize chump of a baker’s boy took one in the ’ead his second day on the front…brown bread, ironic, if it weren’t so tragic…you would have to have a heart made of stone not to laugh your socks off. But here we are now in nineteen eighteen; a lifetime later and we are being told that it will all be over in matter of hours. And it makes you wonder just what it was all about…millions dead and maimed, a whole generation mullered just for a few people’s greed and stupidity. It’s a crying shame,” He sucked hard on his pipe staring quizzically at the young bloke squatting before him, listening with intent to every word being said. ”How old are you chap? I bet not much older than sixteen,” He answered his own question. The youth nodded his head in concurrence, his face still baring the look of innocence…and of hope. “I’m twenty one mate, in the prime of me life or so I’m led to believe. And I look older than me old man back home. Gawd knows what Sylvie Weisman would think of me now, not much I’ll be bound. Oh well, I can hear the barrage coming to an end. We’ll be going over the top shortly. The officers do like to give the Hun time to come out of the shelters and get ready for us before we go in.” He smiled without much humour at the trembling lad before him. “Your first walk is always the hardest, but don’t get feared by it. It will be over before you know it. We’ll be given orders to fix bayonets onto our bundles and then there will be the officer’s whistles to tell us to make ready, them chinless wonders do like blowing their whistles. Then it will be as easy as falling off a log. A piece of cake, stand by me, I’m a bleedin’ genius ain’t I; I always find me way ‘ome,” He smiled reassuringly at the youth. “We have nothing to concern ourselves about, other than getting up these little wooden steps, going over the top and then ….er, did I tell you they said I ‘ad prospects...”