Andrew Wareham - Falling into Battle

Baker had reported to the Admiralty and penetrated no further than the first reception office.

“Midshipman Baker, sir. Late of St Vincent .”

A boy at the front had taken him across to the cubicle occupied by an ancient civilian clerk who had made him wait while he finished reading and then signing a letter. He made it clear that Baker was utterly insignificant to the Navy.

“Mr Baker. You are to go to leave now. You will then report to the Naval Wing of the First Company, the Air Battalion, at Farnborough. They have balloons. Here are your orders. You will remain in the rank of midshipman. Report on December 1 stat nine o’clock in the morning, unless your father chooses to send in your papers first.”

The clerk made it contemptuously obvious that the Navy would benefit from his resignation from service and that his posting to an enclave of cranks, well inshore, was no more than a sign of his seniors’ distaste for him. Even though he had no desire to remain in the Navy, Baker was upset by this - they were cruel to him, it was not his fault that he did not fit into the Navy and its demands and didn’t like the sea and, particularly, he could not help having the wrong sort of parents.

His resentment was further fuelled by his treatment at the Admiralty – bloody Navy! If he had the chance, perhaps, he might show them they were wrong to spurn him. Most of them were no better born than him, just spoke with a toffee-nose accent and pretended to be little lords of creation.

He sat on the train to the Midlands rehearsing his grievances, and wondering just what his father would do to him…

He reached Kettering, once huge in the iron trade and still active, in mid-afternoon. He took a cab the mile from the station to his father’s big house on the outskirts of the small town, within sight of the ironworks that had made his money. The housekeeper had expected him and had his room made up for him.

“Mr Baker will be back at six o’clock as ever, Master Richard. Thy mother and the two misses are at Weymouth in Dorset for a holiday and will be back next week, so they plan.”

His two sisters, one a year older than him, the other just sixteen, were both out, had left school and were young misses in search of a husband. There had been a hope that the genteel naval friends he would make might supply the gentlemen in question – that now seemed, at the very least, unlikely.

Baker was not best pleased that his mother was absent from his homecoming. He had hoped she might provide a buffer to his father’s wrath. He doubted the old fellow would beat him – he was too old for that now, surely – but he would be forthright in the expression of his anger, that was a certainty. He would, Baker, expected, bring his naval existence to an end and find a place for him in the firm…

He wandered up to his room to enjoy a daydream – an office of his own soon with a secretary, a young man to do the actual work while he made the decisions, told him what to do. It would not be too unpleasant an existence as the young master, waiting the inevitable day when he took over the business. He might well sell out then, he suspected. He could live as a gentleman in proper comfort, possibly on a small estate, with a farmer to look after the land and a comfortable wife to run a house for him. He had not enjoyed the Navy, was glad to be done with it; he would settle into a civilian existence.

He doffed his uniform and put on more comfortable clothing. Trousers and jacket still fitted him – he had grown a little taller but had lost circumference aboard ship. That sort of hardship was part of his past, he did not doubt.

His father was as irate as Baker had feared and expected.

“I have sent your papers in and it is clear that the Navy will be only too glad to wash their hands of you! I quote Captain Ironside – ‘Baker is idle and is possibly incapable of absorbing instruction. He has made no attempt either to present himself as an officer or to learn the ways of the sea. He is barely fit to join the wardroom of one of His Majesty’s ships. I cannot even recommend him to the merchant service. I must, sir, suggest that you withdraw your son from the Royal Navy.’ That may be the most humiliating letter I have ever received, boy!”

Baker said nothing.

“The Commandant at Dartmouth said that you had barely scraped by there but that two years at sea might make a man of you. He was wrong!”

Baker fought back the tears – it was so very unfair. He had never wanted to be a sailor.

“Now, I have to do something with you until you come of age. You are not going into the firm – I need workers there! So, until you are twenty-one, you are my responsibility at home, unless you choose to run away. The day you come of age, I can throw you out, and I will if you are still useless! My brother has three boys, younger than you but hard-working lads. I brought his eldest into the firm eighteen months ago when he turned sixteen. He has shown himself willing to make an effort, and he’s brighter than you as well. The other two seem his match and they will have places if they want them. They can keep up the name and make a job of running the firm, so I don’t need you. Don’t get the idea that you are Lord Muck, the son and jolly heir with rights to the inheritance. You’re bloody useless and you get nothing if you don’t earn it!”

It was too much – the tears flowed unchecked.

“Jesus, and now you’re standing there blubbing! At your age! Bloody disgusting! What did I do to be cursed with a son like you?”

Baker had no answer.

“Right! Listen! You are to become a second lieutenant in the Territorial Army. Not the Northamptonshire Yeomanry – you’re no bloody use on a horse! The foot soldiers. It’s part-time soldiering but you will learn the ways of the Army. There’s a war coming and you will go off to fight it. Get yourself promoted when the fighting starts – it won’t last long from all they say – and make the rank of captain and get yourself transferred across to a regular battalion and you can be useful to me. Captain Baker can talk to the nobs, what I can’t; you learned the right way to speak at Dartmouth, if nothing else. If you don’t make a job of that, then you’re out. Last bloody chance, boy! A few hours a week down at the Drill Hall and make yourself useful as a Terrier so that they take you across to France when the war comes. Take it or leave it. If you don’t like the idea, here…”

Mr Baker held his hand out, dropped ten gold sovereigns into his son’s palm.

“That’s your choice. Nine o’clock in the morning, get out of the front door. Either you go to town to the solicitor’s office where he will organise your commission in the Territorials or you go to Hell under your own steam. Don’t come back to this house except as a Territorial officer. Now bugger off out of my sight. You can eat in your room.”

Baker fled to the seclusion of his bedroom. An hour later he heard noise at the front door and saw his father leave the house, going out to his carriage, evidently off for the evening. He crept downstairs and found the housekeeper and silently ate the plate of dinner that had been kept warm for him.

He left the house in the morning, wrapped up against a cold rain. He walked into town, puffing a little with the exertion of a mile on his feet; exercise was limited aboard ship and he still carried some fat, he knew. He stood in the square outside the old church, looking across the narrow valley of the River Ise to the railway station. Left would take him to the trains, to London or north to Sheffield. To the right was Gold Street and the solicitor’s offices.

Two minutes of final pondering confirmed his decision made overnight. He knew no way of making a living, had no useful skills, no trade; he slouched along the roadway to the solicitor.