Shadows of the Workhouse

he muttered “no wonder it wouldn’t draw.” Then he said, “Fill my glass, will you dear?”
    I sloshed more brandy in, not knowing how strong it was. He took a sip and rolled it on his tongue, then said: “That is a dreadful story. It will remain with your uncle for the rest of his life. War brutalises a man. It is not surprising he was moody and violent. But you must remember two things: running away from battle has always been punishable by death. Military discipline must be harsh, or every soldier would run away; and secondly in a firing squad of ten men only one held a rifle with live ammunition – nine held blanks. So every man had a nine out of ten chance of not being responsible for the death of his colleague.
    “I don’t know what to think. I suppose it’s as you say – military discipline must be harsh – but it’s dreadful all the same. I find it almost unfathomable.”
    “Of course you do, my dear, you are in a profession that is devoted to caring for life, not destroying it. ‘War is hell’ – General William Sherman said that about the American Civil War a hundred years ago. It always has been hell and it always will be.”
    “My grandfather told me that his uncles had been in the Crimean Wars and never came back. The family never knew what happened.”
    “No they wouldn’t. The common soldier was completely expendable, not even named. Did you know that after the battle of Sebastopol the bones of the dead were collected up in sacks and shipped back to Britain to be ground down into fertilizers that was sold to farmers for a profit.”
    “That can’t be true.”
    “It is true. Perfectly true.”
    “It’s disgusting! I think I’ll try a shot of your brandy.”
    “Be careful. It’s strong stuff.”
    “I’m not worried, I can take it.” I boasted.
    I poured some, and took a gulp as I had seen him do. It didn’t just take the roof off my mouth; it set fire to my throat and gullet and windpipe. I started coughing and choking violently. He laughed. “I warned you.”
    When I had recovered, I said, “But that was a hundred years ago. They can’t have been so callous after the First World War.”
    “Beautiful cemeteries were built all over Northern France, the graveyards of millions of young men. They rest in peace.”
    “Have you been there to see the resting place of Pete and Jack? It would be a comfort to you.”
    “No, they are not buried there.”
    “Where then?”
    He sighed, a sigh so deep that all the sorrow of the world seemed gathered into it.
    “We don’t know what happened to them. A telegram, “missing presumed dead”, was the message from the War Office. This was at the end of war. They had lived through three and a half years at the front, only to go missing presumed dead during the last few months. My Sally’s heart was broken. Little Shirley was the only thing that kept us going.”
    He sat silent and still for a couple of minutes, sipping his brandy and sucking on his pipe. I did not care to interrupt his thoughts. When he spoke his voice was dull and resigned.
    “About a year later we were informed that their bodies had never been found. Thousands of families received the same letter. You see men were just blown to pieces and nothing identifiable could be found. Or a trench wall might have collapsed and buried them alive; or they could have fallen and sunk into the mud and been sucked down, and the mud closed over them. We don’t know. Millions of boys, on both sides, died and were never found. And millions of families are grieving still.”

LONDON

    1939-1945

    I saw more of Mr Collett after that, but we never again mentioned the twins. He told me that Shirley, the pride of his heart, had had a good education, and passed the School Certificate, an achievement attained by very few East End girls in those days. This enabled her to go into the Post Office to be trained in accountancy and bookkeeping, to work as one of the counter staff. She also studied telegraphy and Morse code.
    “It was two years of study,” Mr Collett said. “The system was based on long and short sounds, or flashes of light. We spent many hours, the three of us, tapping and flashing messages to each other. Sally and I picked up some of the code, enough to learn the alphabet, but Shirley became a real expert. She had to be a touch-typist as well and could sit blindfolded, listening to a message being tapped out and typing the words with never a mistake. Then we darkened the