Andrew Cowen
Worthless Men
- the fortunate ones
After one long winter dredging the waterways for Meek’s Steam Navigation
Company, and a second short summer hauling ice for Cyril Greenland to the
wet fish merchants, dairymen and butchers who were everywhere then, in
1914, Walter Barley fancied himself a man, robust enough to withstand the
rigours of the fighting in Belgium and France – whatever those rigours might
turn out to be – and took himself along to St Saviour’s Barracks one afternoon
in the early weeks of the war, where the burly, bewhiskered sergeant on duty
that day took a different view of him, having seen so many other men
clamouring to be part of it – more men than the army had kit for, or barracks
to bed them in, or weapons to arm them with; more men than would surely
be needed to bring the Kaiser to his knees.
‘You need to grow a bit, sonny.’
‘I’m eighteen,’ Walter lied.
‘Nineteen is the minimum. Come back when you’re nineteen.’