Soldier's Game (4 page)

The first Jack heard of it was one evening after training at Gorgie Road. McCartney called all the players together into the dressing room. He stood up on a bench and removed his hat.

“There’s no need for me to remind you all of what the newspapers are publishing these days about the professional game,” he said. “Rot – pure and simple. I don’t like it and neither does the Board.”

A roar of agreement filled the room. McCartney raised his hand for silence.

“Well, in the past few days an opportunity has arisen to do something about it. Edinburgh already has one battalion preparing to join the British Expeditionary Force in France. Now a second city battalion is being raised by a long-time Hearts supporter, Sir George McCrae. He needs to enlist over a thousand men and has approached the directors with the idea of appealing for volunteers under the banner of Heart 
of Midlothian – a battalion of Tynecastle supporters to train and fight together.”

The men cheered and McCartney waited again for quiet.

“But to make the plan work,” he continued, “Sir George needs players to rally support. So the Board has agreed to keep paying full wages to anyone who enlists, as long as he’s able to play football in the regular season, and half wages when unable due to military service. This comes with an agreement to re-engage any player on original terms if fit and well upon return from the conflict. So I’m here to ask: will you join and serve king and country?”

Jack rose to his feet without hesitation, along with most of the other players. Hugh had been sitting next to him on the bench and looked up white-faced.

“Come on – a Hearts battalion!” urged Jack.

Slowly Hugh stood up as well.

That night over supper Jack said nothing to his parents. He knew how his mother would react – anger then tears, a dozen reasons for not going. He saw no point in arguing about it now.

Next day at training Sir George sent along a physician to check that all the volunteers were fit for service. Jack waited his turn in the line but decided not to mention his childhood asthma as the doctor listened to his heart and chest. Certainly if he could play football he was fit enough to be a soldier.

An appeal was published that week in all the local newspapers along with the announcement of a grand rally to be held on Friday night at the Usher Hall.

Jack read that morning’s
The Scotsman
sitting out by the canal eating the sandwich his mother had packed. A hero’s death, he thought to himself. It sounded like something out of Greek legend – the Spartan borne from battle upon his own shield. Except there were no shields now, only a telegram from the War Office notifying the family that a son or father had been killed or was missing in action. A
few families in Fountainbridge had already received such telegrams.

Yet the newspapers still spoke of a quick end to the war. Jack figured chances were he wouldn’t even see action – though he hoped not. Otherwise what was the point of being a soldier?

Staring into the murky water of the canal he tried to imagine his mother receiving such a telegram. Sitting with her cup of tea at the kitchen table, the knock at the door, her opening it to the uniformed boy, envelope in his hand… but here he pushed the image from his mind. Lunchtime was over and the chief clerk would already be looking for him to distribute the afternoon post.

Jack had never been inside the Usher Hall before – the massive ornate concert venue in the shadow of Edinburgh Castle. That Friday night it was filled to capacity with a crowd of over 4,000. Young men upon entering the doors were presented with an enlistment form and a copy of the appeal. Jack sat up on the stage with the rest of the Hearts players and a host of Edinburgh dignitaries, listening to speaker after speaker. Lords, MPs, professors – all of them
urging the young, strong and fit “not to stand back from the fray”.

A mighty cheer arose for the last speaker to approach the lectern – Lieutenant Colonel Sir George McCrae. He was in his fifties then, a distinguished looking man with greying hair and a thick moustache. Sir George had been born in poverty to a housemaid but had earned his fortune in Edinburgh as a “hatter and hosier” before being elected an MP to Westminster. He had also been a soldier with the Royal Scots.

As the Colonel reached into his jacket for the sheet bearing his speech, someone in the audience shouted, “Well done, Sir George.”

But he didn’t smile, just stared out over the audience and said, “This is not a night for titles. I stand before you humbly as a fellow Scot. Nothing more and nothing less. You know I don’t speak easily of crisis, but this is what confronts us…”

He then set out in simple terms his commission from Lord Kitchener to raise the battalion and his pledge to lead it in the field.

“I would not – I could not – ask you to serve unless I share the danger at your side,” he said. “In a moment I will walk down to Castle Street and set my name to the list of volunteers. Who will join me?”

And with that Sir George left the stage and walked up the aisle and out the door, bound for the battalion recruitment office at the Palace Hotel. By midnight over 300 men had been added to the ranks.

Jack made his way home after the Usher Hall emptied and when he entered the flat he saw a light still burning in the kitchen. Both his parents sat grim faced – a copy of the
Evening News
open on the table. Above a large group photograph read the headline:

His mother’s eyes were red and bloodshot. Tom Jordan just looked dead tired, almost defeated.

“I suppose you meant to tell us sometime,” he said and rose to put the kettle on the range.

Ross heard the familiar toot of the car horn outside. His mother would be waiting at the front gate to collect him.

“So what happened next?” he asked. “Did Jack go to war?”

“Sorry,” said Pat. “I’ll finish the story another time.”

Ross groaned and made her promise to tell him more next Saturday. Saying goodbye at the front door Pat handed him back the clean leather football boots without comment.

Sunday evening after dinner Ross lay on the floor of the sitting room watching TV with his sisters. During the adverts he turned to his father who sat in a chair reading
The Times
.

“Can you remember your grandfather?” Ross
asked.

“Which one?” Frank Anderson replied without looking up from the newspaper.

“Pat’s dad – Jack.”

“No. He died the same year I was born.”

“And that was 1960?”

“Yes.”

“Did you know he enlisted in the army during World War I?”

Frank sighed and lowered his newspaper. “Most men in his generation did.”

He then peered over his reading glasses. “Have you and Granny been making more forays up in that attic?”

“No,” said Ross.

“Good. Glad to hear it,” he replied and sank back behind his paper.

Ross grew bored and went upstairs to his room. He sat down at his desk and turned on the lamp. Jack Jordan gazed out as always from his spot on the wall by the Hearts calendar, but there was something different about him. The face in the photograph seemed somehow transformed, brought to life by Pat’s words. Behind those grey eyes now lay hopes and fears and ambitions before absent. Ross found it
both curious and sad.

That next morning he awoke early with the idea already in his head. He reached under the bed for Jack’s chest and found the cardboard jewellery box containing the silver badge. Pulling a jumper over his pyjamas he quietly slipped out his bedroom door.

No one would be awake for another half-hour at least. Ross sneaked down the stairs and into the small room that served as his parents’ study. In the dim light he found the switch to the desktop computer. The monitor bathed the walls in a green glow.

Ross laid the box next to the computer and opened the internet browser to Google. In the prompt he typed the inscription from the badge: “For King and Empire – Services Rendered”.

The search returned dozens of hits. He clicked one near the top from the National Archives. Here he found both an image and description of the badge. The text said it dated from World War I, 1914–1918, and was called the Silver War Badge. It was given to “all military personnel discharged as a result of sickness or wounds contracted or received during the
war”.

His great-grandfather had been a soldier in the First World War. And this medal meant he had been injured. Why hadn’t Pat mentioned this before?

He heard the bathroom door upstairs creak and the splash of water in the shower. Switching off the computer, he put the badge back into the box and tucked it under his jumper, unsure why he felt the need to hide his discovery. He had so many questions for Pat next Saturday.

Later that morning going to school, Ross again dreaded the grief he’d get over his performance at Saturday’s game, but nobody mentioned it all day. Not, at least, until he and Ying were heading back from the shop after school for badminton practice.

Walking down the broad avenue towards the front of Bruntsfield Primary he spotted Craig Muir and two other boys approaching in the opposite direction. It was too late to cross the road.

“Well, look here. It’s our star striker, Anderson,” Muir called. “Sorry we didn’t get a chance to shake hands after the game on Saturday.”

The three older boys blocked the pavement with Muir in the centre.

“So why did you run off so quickly?” he asked.

“I had somewhere to go,” Ross replied.

“Home to cry in your pillow?”

The boys laughed. Ross grabbed Ying and tried to push past them.

“Hold on,” said Muir, catching his jacket. “I only wanted to congratulate you on that amazing missed goal.”

“Much appreciated,” Ross replied. “But we’re late.”

Muir looked down.

“I see you’re not still wearing the lace-up granny boots. What was that all about? Are they your lucky boots? Hate to break it to you pal – they don’t work.”

“Well, at least I managed to get past you,” said Ross.

Muir’s face darkened.

“I tripped.”

“No,” said Ross. “I tripped – in front of the goal, having left you behind.”

“Are you calling me a liar?” said Muir.

“Not unless you’re telling a lie.”

Ross never expected the punch – a swift jab to the nose. Pain exploded in a burst of red before his closed eyes. He bent over double and felt he might
be sick.

Ying shouted and then there was another voice. A young woman had come out into the front garden of one of the flats.

“Stop that now or I’ll call the police.”

When Ross looked up again Muir and the other boys were already hurrying off up the pavement. He pulled his hand away from his nose and saw blood. The woman went into her flat and came back out with a wad of paper towels.

“Will you be okay?” she asked. “Can I call your parents?”

“No, thanks,” said Ross. “I’m fine.”

But he wasn’t. When he and Ying got to the school gates Ross decided to skip practice that day.

“Think I’ll head home and get cleaned up,” he said.

“Can I chum you?” asked Ying.

“No. You go on in.”

“What if you meet them again?”

“I’ll run.”

But Ross managed to avoid Muir and his pals on the walk home. Reaching the front door he pulled out his key. All the windows were dark as both his sisters had after-school clubs and his parents wouldn’t be
back from work for hours. Ross felt he couldn’t bear the silence.

Pat opened her door and peered out first in surprise and then shock.

“What happened to you?”

Blood had crusted around Ross’s nose and stained his white school shirt.

“Come in,” she said and gently pushed him down the hall into the kitchen.

Here Pat soaked a dishcloth with warm water and wiped the blood from his face. She insisted he remove the shirt for washing and found an old bathrobe for him to wear. Ross then told her what had happened with Muir.

“Will I call the high school?” she asked.

“No. It’ll just make things worse,” Ross replied.

“Okay. But you’ll have to tell your parents about it.”

“Why? Dad won’t care – at least not about me,” said Ross. “He’ll just go mental: ‘Nobody punches
my
kid!’”

Pat sighed.

“I know it might seem like that sometimes, but he cares more than you imagine. Trust me – I’ve been putting up with his bluster for the last thirty years. Maybe he could be a little less grumpy some of the time but sadly you can’t choose your father – or your son.”

And they both laughed.

Pat then placed a saucepan of milk on the gas ring and brought out a dish of digestive biscuits. But Ross wasn’t hungry.

“I went onto the computer and found out more about the silver badge in Jack’s box. Was he wounded in the war?”

“Yes,” Pat replied.

“Was it bad?”

She took a deep breath.

“Not as bad as some.”

“Could you maybe tell me more?” asked Ross. “Seeing as I’m here.”

Pat turned away to the stove and said, “I can tell you what I know.”

A vast crowd blocked George Street that December morning. Jack stood in one of two long columns of men over 1,200 strong, all in heavy overcoats as it was bitterly cold. He carried with him a holdall with extra shirts and underwear and also a shaving kit he barely had need of. Dozens of police constables made futile attempts to keep the crush of family and well-wishers away from the men. Jack had long lost sight of his father.

Sir George McCrae surveyed the chaos from a tall chestnut horse. He was in full uniform with a holster and pistol at his belt. He kept check of the time with a pocket watch and at the stroke of noon signalled to his sergeant major. Two bands from the Royal Scots struck up
Scotland the Brave
and the battalion set off towards Charlotte Square with the men shuffling to the beat of the drums. As they marched back down the broad thoroughfare of Princes Street, a mob of
young boys ran to keep pace with the pipers.

Upon reaching Waverley Market the men fell out and were provided a free lunch. Jack joined a long queue of men before a row of tables where waiters in white aprons served warm steak pies and cups of tea. Reaching the front he met up with Hugh, mouth stuffed with a pie, another in his hand.

“Not bad, this,” he said.

“See you saved one for me,” replied Jack.

“Don’t worry, there’s plenty.”

Jack had not taken his first bite when the officers began blowing whistles. All the men were reassembled in lines and marched across town to George Heriot’s School. Here temporary battalion headquarters had been set up in the grounds, with the examination hall and art classrooms fitted out as barracks along with four floors of an abandoned brewery building adjacent to the school playground.

Chaos again ensued as the men crowded before a large bulletin board with lists detailing where they had been assigned. The battalion was organised into four “companies” with men serving alongside pals and workmates – distillery and brewery men, bankers and civil servants, students and teachers, printers and typesetters. Jack and Hugh were assigned to “C
company” along with other sportsmen, including Hearts players and professional and junior footballers from Hibernian, Raith Rovers, Falkirk, Mossend and numerous local clubs. All were to share a billet on the third floor of the brewery building, which had been furnished with trestle beds along with communal sinks and flushing latrines.

Tea was a noisy affair in the large exam hall. Jack sat with Hugh and Crossan and a few other players on a bench eating large plates of salty Irish stew.

“Looks like they at least intend feeding us,” grumbled Crossan.

“Cheer up, Pat,” said Annan Ness. “Just think how irresistible you’ll look in uniform.”

“Well, there is that,” he replied. “Maybe a smart red tunic.”

Harry Wattie shook his head.

“Good thing you can pass a ball, Crossan, because you couldn’t pass a mirror if you tried.”

It was an old joke but everyone laughed.

Later that night Jack had trouble sleeping on the lumpy straw mattress. The air was stale and someone in one of the adjacent beds snored loudly. He had only ever spent a few nights away from home – a week with the Scouts in Pitlochry, a choral festival in
Glasgow. This time he didn’t know when he might sleep in his own bed again.

At 6.00 am they were roused by a bugle call and a bawling sergeant: “Come on – show a leg.” A few jokers obliged by sticking a foot out from under their blankets and had to be turfed out of bed.

A quick wash at the sinks and breakfast was followed by assembly on the Heriot’s playground. Here the men were instructed in the basics of drill. Jack and the footballers had an advantage from the evening sessions at Grindlay Street. But the rest of the men formed at best a disordered rabble, despite much shouting and abuse from the drill sergeants.

After lunch the entire battalion set out on a route march through Swanston Village into the Pentland Hills. Again the footballers performed well, being in top fitness, but other men struggled.

Climbing a steep section of path, Jack and Hugh passed a boy throwing up in a clump of gorse. Jack recognised him – a fellow named Albert Ripley who was also in the sportsmen company, though he looked a most unlikely athlete: short and slight with thinning straw hair and thick round glasses.

“You okay?” Jack asked.

Ripley gasped for breath. “Must have been
something I ate.”

“Obviously,” said Hugh, trying not to laugh.

They helped him up and waited as he caught his breath.

“Better get a move on,” said Jack. “That sergeant will roast us otherwise.”

Soon the three reached a high ridge overlooking Edinburgh below. Jack had never seen the city laid out like this at his feet: Castle Hill and the jumble of churches and stone tenements stretching down the Royal Mile to Holyrood Palace and the grassy slopes of Arthur’s seat and Salisbury Crags; beyond that the blue sea of the Forth.

“Not a shabby view,” said Hugh, catching his breath.

“Not at all,” replied Jack.

Ripley could only manage a wheeze. But on the way back down the hill he felt much better and kept up a steady chatter. He told Jack and Hugh about his schooling at George Watson’s College and how he’d been training to be a lawyer before the war broke out. He didn’t play football but was Hearts daft and claimed to have never missed a match in the last seven years. Ripley could quote almost any Hearts statistics in any season you could name – ranking,
win-loss-draw, even who scored what against which opponent. He had somehow convinced his father – a city councillor – to pull strings to get him in the sportsmen company just to be near his heroes.

“Hard to imagine that I’m just three beds down from Tom Gracie,” he gushed. “Did you know he was a reserve for Scotland in 1911, the year they faced England at Goodison Park? That’s how he was spotted by Everton and then Liverpool before making the transfer to Hearts…”

And so on, all the way back to the barracks.

“Not a healthy interest,” Hugh muttered to Jack that evening as they washed for tea.

Most of the men in the barracks with Jack were well into their twenties, yet the atmosphere was more like a Scout camp with all manner of childish jokes and pranks. One morning Pat Crossan awoke to find he’d been stitched into his bed. But it was inevitable that Ripley would become the favourite victim. He proved a constant annoyance to the footballers with all his questions and helpful statistics.

One evening Crossan was arguing some trivial
point with a rival Hibs player and called out to Harry Wattie, “How many goals did you have in home matches last season?”

Wattie replied, “How should I know? Ask Ripley.”

And of course Ripley had the answer in an instant – along with total career goals scored both home and away.

“How do you know all this stuff?” Wattie asked, incredulous.

“I just do,” said Ripley. “Ask me my mother’s birthday and I couldn’t tell you.”

Jack also soon discovered that it had been Ripley snoring that first night – and every night thereafter. It was a marvel to think anyone so small could make so much noise. He kept all the men awake.

One night Crossan and Wattie had enough. Ripley had fallen into an exhausted sleep and began his usual loud rhythmic snore. There was much whispered recruiting, and eight men took hold of Ripley’s bed and carried it down three flights of stairs as he slept. That next morning he awoke shivering and found his bed in the centre of the parade ground. A sentry stood over him along with Regimental Sergeant Major Muir.

“Seems your bed’s gone a wandering, soldier,” he
said.

But of course that didn’t stop the snoring.

The only player who spared Ripley grief was Tom Gracie. Certainly he was the most sensible man in the barracks and the one Jack most admired. Age 25 he had come to Hearts on a £400 transfer fee from Liverpool but had grown up in Glasgow. He was a talented and clever footballer – a top scorer – but, unlike most of the other first-team men, modest about his skill.

The first time Gracie shook hands with Jack he said with a wry smile, “McCartney tells me I’d better keep an eye on you if I want to hold onto my job.”

“Not a chance,” replied Jack.

“Don’t undersell yourself,” said Gracie. “I’ve watched you play.”

Jack shook his head but thought it just about the best compliment he’d ever been paid.

Christmas approached and hard as Jack found the early training, neither he nor any of the other men suffered any shortage of food or warm bedding. One thing the battalion did lack though was uniforms.
Most of the men were still training in the civilian clothes in which they mustered – marching in street shoes, climbing hills in thin wool overcoats. The clothes were growing ragged with hard wear and repeated soakings in the cold rain.

“We’ll be down to our pyjamas by the time we get to France,” Crossan grumbled.

McCrae and the rest of the officers were all too aware of the problem but there was a nationwide shortage of khaki. Other units had been waiting even longer. It seemed ridiculous that they should be defeated by a simple lack of proper shoes.

Two days before Christmas the entire battalion was invited to attend the pantomime at the King’s Theatre – a special performance of
Jack and the Beanstalk
. Parts of the script had been rewritten with references to the war and there was much cheering and shouting. Jack sat with Hugh and Ripley near the back of the theatre and could barely hear the actors saying their lines.

Halfway through the second act there was a scene where the character of Jack, having climbed the beanstalk, raps with his sword on the portals of the giant’s castle. The doors swung open revealing Sir George in full uniform. A roar of approval rose from
the audience. In his hand the Colonel held a slip of paper from which he read the verse:

McCrae then thanked the men for their hard work and promised a special surprise for that next day. During the morning drill two lorries appeared at headquarters. One of the sergeants yelled to the assembled men, “Father Christmas has come early, boys!”

Inside were over 2,000 uniforms and 4,000 pairs of boots. Later a rumour circulated that senior officers under McCrae’s leadership had used a crowbar to break into a North British Railway supply depot. Here they stole a consignment of khaki cloth and other gear bound for a unit in the south, from which uniforms had been manufactured in record time.

On 25 December crowds gathered along Princes Street and, to the beat of pipe and drum, McCrae’s battalion marched out in their crisp new tunics. This was followed by a traditional turkey dinner in the mess hall.

Later, as Jack tucked into Christmas pudding along with the rest of the sportsmen, he heard Crossan comment to Harry Wattie, “You know this army lark ain’t all bad.”