The One O’clock Brake:

How our Patients See the Sights of London

Around the main entrance, in no semblance of military order, were gathered familiar hospital figures – a score of patients in blue. The sun shone intermittently through the racing clouds, and as the wind blew with a shrewd tang the men had the forethought to array themselves in great coats. Rumbled up the drive the punctual brake – a pair of iron-grey horses driven by an iron-grey coachman.

The presiding deity with consummate tact, precision, and firmness, arranged the armless, the legless, and the variously invalided, to the accompaniment of the following chorus:

“Come on, ‘Orace, ‘ere’s your plice… Is it a the-ayter this time?…Drive rahnd the city, wot?… Never bin through the city afore?… There’s a treat in store for yer!… Now, then, Cocky, down’t sit in that seat, that’s the orderly’s plice. ‘E wants to sit there, y’see, so’s ‘e kin brush the kids off the back step as we drive through the tahn.”

COCKY: But I want to sit ‘ere along o’ Cyril. Cawn’t ‘e sit up aside Driver Tin-ribs?”

CYRIL: “I wouldn’t offend the orderlies in this ‘Orspital, O’ pal, if I wos you. For all you know he’s a decayed nobleman.”

COCKY: “Well, dammit, let ‘im decay somewhere else; this is my plice.”

Precisely as the chimes of the clock tower tinkled out the wee sma’ hour, the brake got under way, and facetious pleasantries were bandied between the men in the vehicle and those left behind disporting themselves in the grounds.

A Burly Australian, espying the sturdy Gate Policeman: “I tried to pinch out into the world lars Sunday, but that bloke’s too cute. Pretendin’ I was a kid going through a stile and disguisin’ my voice – ‘Will you punch my ticket Mr. P’liceman,’ ses I. ‘I’ll punch your blinkin’ ‘ed,’ ses ‘e; ‘sling your bloomin’ ‘ook.’ And they’ve gorn and made ‘im a Corporal. Full pay, too. Gawdlummy! Wot next!” (Murmurs of strong disapproval and resentment at such unwarranted promotion.)

The early stages of the journey were spent by many of the patients encouraging and exhorting such of the male population visible in the purlieus of Wandsworth and Clapham to adopt khaki as their only wear, not by eloquent address or witty badinage, not by direct appeal or fervent expostulation, but by skilful use of the popular innuendo, “What abaht it?” punctuated with the scornfully pointed forefinger. A passing football team of youthful stalwarts was made to appear extremely small by the general vociferation from the brake, “What abaht it?” much to the amusement of admiring young ladies in the immediate neighbourhood.

As the vehicle jogged its steady progress through Battersea Park, a recumbent figure upon the sward was picked out for special attention. The cry of “What abaht it?” clove the welkin. Turning his startled head, the reclining figure disclosed to the occupants of the brake the haggard visage of an old man with a beard of patriarchal snow. Not a whit abashed, our heroes cried with one voice, “Kitchener wants YOU! Your country needs YOU!”

The ladies, too, naturally came in for a great deal of attention, and it was curious to mark the effect produced by flung kisses and other manifestations of the Life Force on the coy, the indifferent, the supercilious, the effusive, and (at rare intervals) on the bolder members of the opposite sex. The uninitiated may be perplexed at the shout “Some bird!” directed at the passing fair, but he may take it from the writer, who was in charge of the brake, that it is merely a tribute of admiration from the ardent convalescent to London’s exquisitely complexioned and delightfully modelled types of maidenhood.

The sight of the Thames, as the brake crossed Chelsea bridge, stirred, like wine, the men who had fought in Gallipoli, in Flanders, and in France, and who now saw it, in full flood, for the first time. To them it had merely been a geographical name, a crooked trickle upon a map, but here it was, at once a concrete fact and a stirring symbol of what they had dared hell and shed their blood to save from German pollution. Traversed in quick time was Buckingham Palace Road, and the Imperial residence, with the Royal standard straining at the mast, was scanned with the greatest interest. But one Anzac declared it was not so imposing as the Flinders Street Railway Station in Melbourne.

Naturally, reminiscences of the Royal Family became the chief and absorbing topic among the party at this juncture.

A WHILOM PRISONER FROM GERMANY: “Yus, old Ted lives at Gos Blowk (Gospel Oak) now… ‘E was a rum old cock, ‘e was. I remember when the King and Queen came to the ‘Orspittle larst August, we wos all a-sitting in rows along the drive, decked out in our bluest duds, like a lot o’ bloomin’ charity kids. Up comes the Queen along with the C.O., the King and the Matron a-follerin; in their wake. ‘Where did you lose your arm, my man?’ and ‘How did they treat you in Germany?’ ses the Queen – quizzing us nice and friendly like. Some of us wos bashful and as timid as startled rabbits; but ole Ted warnt a bit like that. ‘Where were you captured, my pore man?’ ses the Queen. And, bold as brass Ted ups and ses, ‘Wypers, mum,’ ses ‘e. ‘Eep!’ ses the Queen, pronouncin’ it like them furriners do. ‘Blimy, Bill’ ses Ted, turning’ to me and diggin’ me in the ribs, ‘if she aint got the bloomin’ hiccup!…Just like an ornery mortal!’ And he loved her from that hour with a devotion passin’ the love of your average loyal subject, I can tell yer!”

Along the Mall we jogged, and the Orderly in charge dilated on the architecture and the history of St. James’s Palace and the whereabouts of Marlborough Hours.

A BRAW SCOT: “Ye dinna say! The Hoos o’ the Prince of Wales, is it no?… A wee bit laddie like him leevin’ in yon muckle biggin… Man, man! I thocht he wad dwall wi’ his Paw and his Maw in the conseederable mansion which we passed a wheen meenits syne… There’s room for the threesome, surely!”

The sight of the National Gallery started the elusive hare of Art among the several topics that were raging in the conveyance at the time. It is remarkable, in any assortment of Tommies from the 3rd L.G.H., the number of skilful exponents and intelligent appreciators of Science, Literature, and Art with whom one comes in contact. One man in the course of the journey gave us a brilliant dissertation on th works of Turgenev, Tchekov, and Dostoieffsky. A violinist, who, alas! Will fiddle no more – his right arm was shot away at Loos – hummed the syncopated passages from Caesar Frank’s Sonata for violin and piano, cleverly fingering the same on the Orderly’s “swagger stick.”

The majority of the Tommies who enjoy these periodic airings are, frankly, uninterested in art of architecture, though on this occasion, as the brake was passing a famous London terminus, a patient who had noted during his recent service the imposing magnificence of Continental railway centres, was heard to declare that “If the blarsted Hun dropped a bomb from one of their Zepps on Charing Cross Station – provided, o’ course, that no lives wos lost – it wouldn’t be an unmixed evil.”

The N.C.O. in charge pointed out from time to time many historical buildings, and dilated upon incidents connected therewith. “One snowy morning in January, 1649, upon a scaffold erected in front of the third window of the building we are about to pass, Charles I was beheaded. His lineal descendant, Kaiser Wilhelm II, suffering from the same hereditary complaint, we fervently trust, has a similar fate in store for him.” Two or three were thrilled at the sight of Whitehall, but the attention of the many was riveted on the passers-by – “Some hat, Liza!” or “What abaht it, Johnny?” The Houses of Parliament, Westminster Abbey, Somerset House, and the Temple were all treated with unequal amounts of deference and indifference, according to the temperament of the Tommies.

The wind had fallen and ominous clouds betokened a sudden downpour. The brake was now on it’s homeward journey, and as we passed Cleopatra’s Needle the unwelcome inundation overtook us.

‘ORACE: “You remember when we wos in Cairo, ‘Arold?”

‘Arold admitted with unnecessary vehemence that he wasn’t likely to forget it, and recalled the sanguinary weather with a suitably incarnadined vocabulary.

‘ORACE, agreeing with him: “’Ot it was. Well, I met an Egyptian who had travelled a goodish bit and who could ‘spik Englees.’ Quaint cove, ‘e wos. ‘Englan’, luvly contree, be-you-ti-ful climate!’ ses ‘e, rapturously, a-rollin’ his eyes like a sixpenny doll; ‘why, it rains there every blessed day. It must be ‘Eaven!’” (General hilarity.)

The rapidly darkening streets were enlivened with the strains of all the vocal numbers known to the patients, and, seeing that they are all assiduous in their attendance at the Hospital concerts, the “melodies” were many and varied. Accompanied by the thunderous rain on the tarpaulin overhead and the ubiquitous mouth organ, in quick succession, we were regaled with “Tipperary,” “Keep the ‘Ome fires burnin’,” “When Oirish Oyes are smilin’,” “A Different Girl Again,” “Australia will be there,” and “Blue Eyes.” A special article could be written on “Tommy’s Taste in Music,” and volumes on his want of it.

As we entered Spencer Park the rain ceased, the sun swam low in the sky, a dull orange, and ere we turned in at the gate it had disappeared. The sky was barred with solemn colours, and the grey pile of the old Hospital building stood out against it like a Scottish baronial castle amang hills splasht with wine.

Sergt. Noel Irving