1915_ The Death of Innocence - Lyn Macdonald [188]
When we got home we settled down to make swabs for the hospital while we all chatted to Jock. What we gleaned was this. On May 19th Sir John French inspected three Battalions of his Brigade and congratulated them. He said they had been subjected to the most intense shell-fire ever known in the history of war. He would not have blamed them, nor been at all surprised, if he had found them on the other side of Ypres and if it had not been for them saving Ypres Italy would not have come into the war. Ypres was to be added to the names on their regimental colours. Jock says there are only seven officers left in his Battalion and he is second in seniority now. He told a tale about one of the men who said, when he was bayoneting a German, This is for the Lusitania’ – prod – ‘And there’s another for me’ – prod. Laughed and talked until very late.
Saturday May 22nd. Jock slept on till eleven o’clock and then had breakfast in his dressing-gown. Meanwhile we went out to buy him sweets and fruit. He ate nearly the whole lot before dinner! In the afternoon we took him up to tennis and tea at the club and Mother came to watch, but Jock got weary soon so we all went home. A few more tales came out. One sergeant sang ‘Here we are. Here we are, Here we are again’ all through a bayonet charge and he has been recommended for the VC. Glorious day. Supper in the garden.
The warm May evening, the gentle pleasures of a quiet Cambridge garden, were in sharp contrast to the miseries of battle in the Ypres salient and, in the bosom of his admiring family, with teenage sisters hanging on his lips avid for ‘tales’, a soldier who had endured its privations could be forgiven for feeling that mild exaggeration was preferable to the truth.
Jock Macleod had a glorious leave. He dined with his father at Caius College, picnicked with his mother and sisters on the river, showed off to admiring friends and acquaintances, consumed gargantuan home-cooked meals and still found room to eat fruit and sweets galore. On the last full day of his leave the whole family went up to stay with his grandmother in London.
Miss Betty Macleod.
Tuesday May 25th. We travelled in state – First Class! – and went straight to 22 Harley Street, then went out a little walk with Jock who bought an electric torch. A great family dinner, all of our lot and Grannie and aunts and uncles. About 9.30 Mother, Uncle Arnold, Jock, Mollie and me went in a taxi to the West End Cinema and spent an interesting three-quarters of an hour. Saw pictures of the Italian Army, cavalry and artillery, coming down mountains etcetera. Everybody cheered!
The news that Italy had declared war on Austria, if not yet on Germany, was almost the only cause for satisfaction in the whole dreary month. In German-occupied Brussels, where for obvious reasons the population was not able to celebrate openly, grocery stores packed their windows with mountainous displays of macaroni and their customers demonstrated their patriotism by purchasing large quantities. In London, where there was a sizeable Italian community, crowds of flag-waving expatriates paraded through the streets, scooping up so many Londoners as they went that the police had to be brought in to control the march to the Italian embassy where the ambassador obligingly appeared on the portico waving an outsize Italian flag. The following morning Victoria Station was mobbed by hordes of excited straw-boatered Italians bound for Italy to join the Army, each with a large excited family to see him off. The shrieking, the cheering, the unrestrained weeping, the shouted farewells, almost raised the roof. There were women with babies in arms and a brood of dark-eyed children at their heels, there were stout mothers and moustachioed fathers, aged grandmothers