Made in Myrtle Street (Prequel) (17 page)

I think that perhaps I had better do a little note anyway, just in case.

Love

Laura

***

The Christmas dinner of 1915, eaten on the beach below Gully Ravine, was a welcome treat for the British soldiers. They had roast beef and potatoes followed by plum pudding and rum sauce accompanied by the band playing Christmas carols. Now Edward, Liam and Big Charlie sat in the crispy clear sunshine and enjoyed their special issue pint of beer. They talked about their families at home in Salford, what sort of Christmas they were having, whether it was snowing so that the kids would be out making ice slides on the pavement and where they might finish up if the rumours were true that they were about to move off the Peninsula.

They all had mixed feelings about the idea of withdrawing from the area. They had come to do a job and it hadn’t been finished. They would be leaving hundreds of their friends with whom they had played football and marbles in the streets around the market, lads that they had walked up Broad Street with shouting suggestive remarks to the posh birds from Pendleton, mates that they had drunk with and played crib with in the pubs along Cross Lane and who had later joined up with them as Terriers. Now they lay scattered and rotting around the fields of Krithia and Gully Ravine.

‘Our Laura wrote and told me about Bill Hardcastle’s missus,’ said Edward, trying to formulate words to put into shape the turmoil that he and his friends were feeling, ‘She was lay on the floor in the street, screaming her head off, after she got the telegram.’

‘Aye,’ Liam said reflectively, ‘He was a good bloke. Poor sod will be turning in his grave if he sees us sailing off and leaving him to get covered in Turkish horse shit.’

‘It’s to be hoped that some good comes out of all this. It’s hard to know what, but just something for the sake of all the Bill Hardcastles.’

‘We’re sneaking off leaving the dead bodies of thousands of fellas from Britain, India, Australia and New Zealand,’ Liam said reproachfully. ‘That’s all we’ve finished up with – corpses. What’s the good of all that?’

‘You’ve got to be fair to the Turks, though,’ said Edward. ‘They have always respected the dead and injured. They never fired at any of the first aid posts even though they could see them clearly.’

‘No. Not until some stupid sod put a Union Jack up at the side of the Red Cross flag. Then they started firing.’

‘Yes. But they stopped again as soon as the shells had taken out the Union Jack flagpole.’

‘It’s a funny thing, though, with the Turks,’ continued Edward. ‘You go out there and fight them and kill them but you can’t really hate them. You just feel as though they are all decent lads who are just fighting for their patch of soil.’

‘Aye. We’d be a bit bloody mad ourselves if we heard that there was an army of their lot coming up Regent Road. Mind you, they might do a better job of running things than those Mary Anns that we have down in London.’

‘It’s been a complete farce from beginning to end. Eight months here and we’ve got nowhere.’

‘They couldn’t run a piss up in a brewery,’ Liam said bitterly.

‘I hope that the Turks respect the blokes that we’re leaving behind.’

‘There’ll be a lot of their own laid there with them.’

‘It seems wrong, going without them.’

‘We might not make it ourselves. With those bloody Germans running things, they’re not going to stand on the cliff tops waving us off when they see us packing our bags.’

‘It would be handy if we could get a posting home for a bit,’ Big Charlie said. He had been sitting quietly for a while, staring thoughtfully into his glass, seeing distant memories in the amber fluid.

‘That’s true,’ Edward said. ‘It’s been over a year now.’

‘It’s the second Christmas that we have missed spending with our wives and kids,’ Liam said, wincing.

‘Not in my case though,’ Big Charlie said despondently.

‘What’s not in your case though?’

‘The kids.’

‘Oh, sorry mate. I wasn’t thinking,’ Liam said in a placating tone before adding, ‘But why don’t you just get on with it. Your Dot needs something to keep her occupied.’

‘It’s not always that easy,’ Big Charlie said, reddening slightly. ‘Dot gets a bit nervy like sometimes.’

‘Well, you are a bit on the big side compared to her,’ Liam observed. ‘And let’s be honest, you do look a bit scary bollock naked.’

Big Charlie ran his finger round his collar. It was beginning to feel uncomfortable. ‘Aye, that’s as maybe. But she’s more scared being on her own and I should be with her at Christmas.’

‘Have you noticed that they haven’t chucked anything at us all day today?’ asked Edward, diverting the direction of the conversation. ‘It’s nothing special for them but they must know that it’s Christmas so they are giving us a bit of peace.’

‘They’ll have a bloody shock after, then, when we start throwing some steel at their lines,’ Liam replied. ‘I’ve heard that we are going up to Eski later so we’ll be putting some Mills over with those catapults. Could do with another pint of this stuff to steady my hand. I always throw a better dart when I’ve had a few.’

The men continued to share their thoughts on the possibility of a withdrawal from the Peninsula and the dilemma that it caused them. Clearly the situation was hopeless but the idea of going without finishing the job, the thought that so many of their friends had been sacrificed to achieve nothing, left a bitter taste in their mouths. They had seen some amazing acts of courage from all the ranks out there in the field and they had shared moments of selfless bravery with mates that they had been to school with. They had, also, all felt the strange detachment as their minds struggled to cope with the noise of battle and the killing for survival and how, for some, this had exposed a darker side to their natures as they had gloried in the mayhem.

***

Sarpi Camp

Mudros West

Lemnos

29
^th
December 1915

Dear Pippin,

Happy Christmas to you and let’s hope that it will be a really good New Year for all of us. I hope that Father Christmas did manage to come and see you even though most of his helpers are away in the army. I think that Uncle Jim could be a good helper for Father Christmas because he is very clever at making things from wood. Have you been helping your Mam with her work at the Assembly Hall? She told me that she was going to be busy with functions and Christmas parties so I’m sure that she would have been glad of your help. Do you still have the milk crate to stand on to wash the pots or are you tall enough to reach now?

Don’t forget about feeding Floppy when the weather gets very cold and make sure that he has plenty of shavings from Uncle Jim.

I am sorry to hear that Mrs Hardcastle was so upset. I was hoping that your Mam might have been able to tell her before the telegram boy got there but my letter mustn’t have arrived in time. Things have been a bit bad out here and most of us have had bad stomachs for a long time. We are packing up now and, hopefully, things will soon be a bit better. I am stationed for the moment on a little island called Imbros and then we will move somewhere else. I will write to your Mam and give her my new address.

I have really missed being with you all preparing for Christmas but on Christmas Day I had an especially strong think to wish you Happy Christmas at dinnertime. I made it a really strong think hoping that perhaps you could feel it come to you in Salford.

The weather here has not been so good recently. A few weeks ago it snowed very hard and we were freezing cold. When it stopped, though, it looked really beautiful and we expected Father Christmas to come riding round the corner with his big sacks on his sledge. The trouble was that the snow all melted in the sun and it made a terrible mess everywhere.

I know the place that you mean on the other side of Ordsall Park. It’s a nice old building but it is getting a bit derelict now. I didn’t know that Guy Fawkes had been making his plans there. We will go and look at it when I come home and we’ll keep our fingers crossed to keep the ghosts away.

Take care of yourself, Darling, and look after your Mam for me.

Love

Dad

Chapter 9

Shallufa, Egypt March 1916

When Edward arrived at the hospital tent, Liam was already in the recovery unit. He was lying on his stomach with his lower torso loosely covered by a sheet suspended over a wire frame to prevent contact with his skin. He had a grim expression on his face and averted his eyes when he saw Edward standing in front of him with an asinine smile fixating his face. ‘Just thought that I had best come and get to the bottom of this story myself,’ Edward grinned.

‘Sod off, Eddie,’ Liam replied through his clenched teeth, ‘I’ve got near fatal burns to my back end and it is not funny.’

‘What had you been eating? You’ve not been trying one of Ahmed’s famous red hot chilli goat dishes again, have you?’ asked Edward, determined not to let it go.

‘Listen, I’ve just had sodding Big Charlie in here almost wetting himself. Is this the support that you get from your friends when you are in agony?’

Edward’s face suddenly grew serious. ‘No. Sorry mate. I just came to tell you that there is a delegation of officers coming down to see you. I heard that they were thinking of developing you as a secret weapon to use against the Turks.’ Tears were now wetting the edges of Edward’s eyes as he struggled to present a straight face to his agonised, and pathologically unsmiling, friend.

 ‘Look, it’s no joke,’ Liam said, elevating himself then wincing at the pain from his blisters. ‘I take my responsibilities as captain seriously. You don’t realise what sacrifices I make to get a decent team together.’

‘Well, it looks as though it has backfired on you this time,’ Edward said, now failing woefully in his attempts to suppress his glee. ‘What were you doing in the toilet that’s got anything to do with the rugby team anyway?’

‘I was trying to find a replacement prop for Big Charlie. He’s out for three weeks and we’ve got the 5th Manchesters on Saturday.’

‘It’s not the most obvious place to go recruiting.’

‘I saw Cyril Shitehouse going down there,’ Liam said, feeling slightly irked by his friend’s clear lack of sympathy for his painful plight. ‘You know him, that big brickie from Ellor Street.’

‘Oh, you mean big Cyril Whitehouse, drinks in the Craven Heifer? Breaks chairs over policemen’s heads?’

‘Yeah. That’s him. Well he’s built like one, anyway. Someone had told me that he’d played at Swinton Park until his wife put a stop to it, so I thought I’d try and get him to turn out for us.’

Edward struggled to contain himself. ‘It must have been an explosive discussion. Did it all blow up in your face?’

‘No it bloody didn’t. It’s those stupid sods on Latrine Duty. They had poured petrol in the middens ready to burn it out, then they’d gone off and left it when they heard Parade Call,’ Liam said, grimacing as he tried to shout. ‘I sat down next to Cyril and gave him a cig, you know, just being a bit friendly to smooth the way. But the big daft bugger threw the match down the bog. There was a terrific flash and a bang and all five of us flew up in the air.’

Eventually, Edward rose up from his knees where he had collapsed in a fit of giggling, prostrated by the vision of the five soldiers, trousers round their ankles, flying through the air with their exposed bottoms blistering even as they flew. He wiped the tears away from his eyes with his shirt cuff. ‘Anyway, did he say that he’d play for us or not?’

‘You can ask him yourself. He’s over there having his backside painted with calamine,’ growled Liam ‘There’s no chance now, though. The bloody RSM said that we have got to clean up the mess afterwards ourselves – even if we have to do it just wearing our shirts.’

Edward glanced over at the big, hairy man lying uncomfortably on his stomach, his ruddy face full of apprehension and fear as he submitted himself to the attentions of the male orderly that he had always had his doubts about. ‘Maybe it’s not a good time just at the moment. You ask him yourself later,’ Edward said as he reached into his bag and took out the two dresses – one large and one small – that he had borrowed from the theatre company’s props wardrobe. ‘Thought that you might both be needing these. You could play a hooker instead of scrum half.’

He turned and left quickly.

***

The withdrawal from Gallipoli had gone smoothly and without casualties. The expectation had been that the Allies might lose up to half their soldiers as they withdrew but the plans had been carefully thought out and the men thoroughly prepared. Various tactics had been employed to create the impression with the Turks that the Allied soldiers were still manning the trenches, including home-made devices that fired off unmanned rifles at the Turkish lines. Similar devices, with small candles in tins that would ignite a trail of oil and waste as they burned down, were set to ignite the dumps of ammunition and equipment that were left behind after the last soldiers had left.

Edward and his battalion had boarded HMT ‘Ermin’ at Lancashire Landing on the 27th December 1915 and headed for Mudros on the Greek island of Lemnos. They were tired and traumatized, they were distressed to be leaving unfinished the job that they had come to do and they were grieving for their dead comrades who they felt they were letting down by withdrawing from the Peninsula. But they also felt an overwhelming sense of relief to be escaping from this nightmare of the Dardanelles. As the ship pulled away from shore and the rolling mists of the Straits wrapped up the spirits of 100,000 lost souls, it was hard not to feel bitter about what might have been if only things had been done differently. So many had been lost and so little achieved.

They had had two weeks of rest, rehabilitation and training in Sarpi Camp at Mudros West and then on the 14th January 1916 they had boarded the HMT ‘Egra’ for the three day trip to Alexandria in Egypt. Of the 14,000 men of the 42nd Division that had embarked there only eight months before over 8,500 had been listed as killed, wounded or missing.