Hussars in their brilliant blue tunics as they performed such intricate drills on
their gleaming high horses, and always, he recalled, there would be a guard
at the gates – not necessarily armed or even correctly attired – including from
time to time a tubby old boy in shirt sleeves and braces who would give them
the lend of a couple of smokes and stand and pleasantly natter as the horses
turned through their figures of eight: a recruiting sergeant, no doubt. Walter
realised that now, for nothing about the army was straight, and as he made
his way there in early September, determined to enlist at the second attempt,
he imagined returning to Riverside Road amid a scene of celebration such as
accompanied the men who crossed the market most mornings on their way to
Crag’s Meadow for their hour of physical jerks, marching almost in step in
their hombergs and caps, bowlers, suits and bowties, their coats slung over
their shoulders, and a solitary drill sergeant setting the pace alongside them
while crowds of well-wishers gathered to applaud and offer them cigarettes
and chocolates, including a little old chap by the name of Charlie Champion,
who often dressed himself in the style of a soldier, with regimental whiskers
and a fading blue uniform that might once have come from the circus, his
chest decorated with more medals than there have been campaigns in the last
fifty years – which is how long he usually claimed, saluting, to have served
his Queen and King and Country – and besides Charlie, all puffed up and
saluting, any number of women as well – sweethearts and sisters and mothers
- since it seemed that every female in England (excepting Walter’s own
mother) was fully in support of the war.
Certainly they were more enthusiastic for the cause than the men he had the
misfortune to join that day in the hall at the cavalry barracks, most of them
servants from one of the numerous estates on the coast, who had been
delivered by train that morning at the expense of their employer, a peer of the
realm, who considered it his patriotic duty to sacrifice his butler and footmen
and numerous gardeners and estate workers to the needs of the nation
(though not his horses, he was firm about that). This at least was the story
the servants gave Walter when he joined them in a queue so much less
animated than the one at St Saviour’s, and while every one of those men was