1915_ The Death of Innocence - Lyn Macdonald [229]
The Orderly Sergeant came round at night. He says, ‘Jack, you’re for orders in the morning. Belt and side arms,’ he said. ‘Do yourself up well.’ So, next morning’s Orderly Room, before they saw the prisoners, I had to go in. Colonel Pretor-Pinney sat at the table and he looked at me straight. He said, ‘I’m very pleased with what happened yesterday and the way you conducted the guard as His Majesty passed by.’ I said, ‘Thank you, sir.’ He said to me, ‘What is your rank now?’ I said, ‘Paid Lance-Sergeant, sir.’ So he said, ‘From now on, I promote you to full Sergeant,’ and that come out in Battalion Orders that night. So I went to France as a full Sergeant.
Jack Cross’s comrades of the 13th Battalion, the Rifle Brigade, had been gratified by the King’s visit, but the visit of Duggie Jones’s mother had given even greater pleasure to at least a dozen of his particular chums. They thought it was particularly civil of her, for Duggie was only sixteen, although his large bulk and his height of six feet had easily deceived the recruiting sergeant. Unlike many mothers of under-age boys, she had sportingly connived at the deception, and even more sportingly arrived two days before their departure to give Duggie and his friends a memorable send-off. Mrs Jones was rich, her son Douglas was a public schoolboy, but he was ‘one of the lads’ – and what a night the lads had! Duggie’s mother had reserved a private room in a local hotel and treated the boys to such a dinner as they had seldom enjoyed. There was smoked salmon, there was caviare, there was turbot followed by a joint of beef large enough to go round half the battalion. There was trifle, there was ice cream, there was even a savoury of roasted cheese. There was good wine to wash down the meal and, as if that were not enough, Mrs Jones presented each of the dozen guests with a half-bottle of whisky to take away with him. It was a wonderful evening. She had also had the tact and foresight to charm Colonel Pretor-Pinney in the course of a personal visit and to beg his acceptance of a case of champagne for the officers’ farewell dinner, thereby ensuring that there were no recriminations when the merry diners returned to camp, long after lights out.*
Kitchener’s Army had basked in the glory of the first weeks of the war, when the flags waved and the bands played and every volunteer was hailed as a hero, but the euphoria had evaporated over the weary months of slog and marching and training – and waiting, waiting, waiting. Now, on the eve of their departure, now that they were real soldiers at last, and now that they were on the brink of the long-awaited adventure, there was a new sense of bravado in the air and it came through proudly, if a little selfconsciously, in farewell letters home.
Rfn. J. Hoyles, 13th Bn., Rifle Brig., 37th Div.
My Ever Dear Mother and Father,
I started writing a letter this afternoon, dear Mother, but in the meantime I have been so busy drawing ammunition (a hundred and twenty rounds) and other jobs.
First of all dear Mother I wish to thank you for the cake and socks. The cake was ripping and I thoroughly enjoyed it. My chief news, dear Mother, is to tell you we are going tomorrow morning after breakfast either to Southampton or Folkestone and we embark on Sunday for the front. The King sent a message down, which the Colonel read out on parade, in which he wished us every success in the future and by the grace of God his protection over us, at which our Colonel broke down. He is such a nice gentleman, a man liked by everyone, and we cheered him to the