The King's Speech - Mark Logue [27]
Bertie spent much of the rest of the year ashore, initially at Abergeldie, but then at Sandringham, alone with his father, where the two of them became close. During this time Bertie was to learn a lot about what it was to be a king in time of war – an experience that he would be able to draw on when he found himself in the same position two decades later.
In mid-May 1916 he made it back to the Collingwood, just in time to take part in the Battle of Jutland at the end of the month. Although again in the sick bay (this time, apparently as the result of eating soused mackerel) on the evening the ship set off, Bertie was well enough to take his place in ‘A turret’ the following day. The Collingwood’s part in the action was not significant, but Bertie was glad to have been involved and, as he recorded, to have been tested by the ordeal of coming under fire.
Much to his relief, his stomach problems appeared to be receding. But then that August they struck again, this time with a vengeance. Transferred ashore, he was examined by a relay of doctors who finally diagnosed his ulcer. In May 1917, however, he was back at Scapa Flow, this time as an acting lieutenant on the Malaya, a larger, faster and more modern battleship than the Collingwood. By the end of July, he was ill once more and transferred ashore to a hospital in South Queensferry, near Edinburgh. After eight years of either training or serving in the navy, Bertie realized reluctantly that his career in the service was over. ‘Personally, I feel that I am not fit for service at sea, even after I recover from this little attack,’ he told his father.24 That November, after much hesitation, he finally underwent the operation for the ulcer, which went well, however this sustained period of ill health would continue to affect him both physically and psychologically in the years to come.
Bertie was determined not to return to civilian life while the war was going on and in February 1918 was transferred to the Royal Naval Air Service, which two months later was to be merged with the Royal Flying Corps to form the Royal Air Force. He became Officer Commanding Number 4 Squadron of the Boys’ Wing at Cranwell, Lincolnshire, where he remained until that August. During the last weeks of the war, he served on the staff of the Independent Air Force at its headquarters in Nancy, and following its disbanding in November, he remained on the Continent as a staff officer with the Royal Air Force.
When peace came, Bertie, like many returning officers, went to university. In October 1919 he went up to Trinity College, Cambridge, where he studied history, economics and civics for a year. It was not immediately clear why he, as the second son, would need such knowledge, but it was to prove more than useful a decade later.
Although Bertie was doing all that was expected of him, his speech impediment (and his embarrassment over it) together with his tendency to shyness, continued to weigh on him. The contrast could not have been greater with his elder brother, who increasingly basked in the adulation of press and public.
Yet all was not quite what it seemed. By the time the two brothers were in their twenties, their relationship with their father began to change. David was already conducting tours of the Empire with great success but those around began to feel that he was enjoying the limelight rather too much for his own – or the country’s – good. The King was becoming concerned about his eldest son’s almost obsessive love of the modern – which George despised – his dislike of royal protocol and tradition and, above all, the predilection for married women he seemed to have inherited from Edward VII. Father and son