THE LIFE STORY OF BODGER SMITH

THE LIFE STORY OF BODGER SMITH
New Short story

KEEP READING IM ADDING BITS HERE AND THERE

"We are all volunteering next week Bodger , should be a bit of a laugh mate , anything better than this here" Said Tom

"Yeh I think this is something that is not just important but could be exciting " Said Harold

Bodger's Mum had already warned him

"You stay out of that till you have to ok, do you understand"?

Bodger walked over the park thinking about what had been said in the pub. Then he thought about what his Mum had said .It was early morning and he was walking through the park towards his job.One he did not like one little bit, he was working in a sheet metal firm, dirty and boring work

.Simply put, the drive to fight for Crown and Country was too irresistible but it was not for Crown and Country it was out of boredom , anything but the hum drum boring life of the poor in London and elsewhere.

Later that night after work and dinner
"I was in the army you know" said Sam as he supped his beer that night in the local pub, yes I was in it , infantry , fought all over the place of course those that joined up knew someone would get killed but did not have enough imagination that it would be them, never underestimate the stupidity of people, not just stupid Bodger but beyond stupid, dont get involved son till you have to, yes someone will die. Maybe millions" Bodger replied "But surely we can beat the Germans"
"Can you" Replied Sam
"Im sure we can " Replied Bodger
"Why are you sure, do you think the Germans will let you walk all over them"?

Of course, some men simply had no taste for khaki. They were uniformly derided as cowards and socially excluded from life. No girl would speak to them until they enlisted, and patriotic committees threw feathers -- the traditional sign of cowardice -- at those who had no desire to die in the shoulder-high mud of Flanders.But that would be later . at the moment it was just a question of kicking a few Germans around.
Britain was, essentially, in a state of irrational euphoria about the war in the pub people started singing patriotic songs and the beer flowed . Men talked about who they would join.
Sam continued "See all these here , well as soon as they get out to France most of em will never be see again"
"How can you be so sure " Asked Bodger
"Well I met Germans , they can fight, they are oganised and they are itching for a fight with us"
By mid-1915, things became much more serious. Unlike the Napoleonic Wars, the First World War was a far more brutal conflict. No one was mentally prepared for the change in warfare. Entire regiments were regularly decimated and men died in horrific ways.
Half a skull Charlie used to be Charles Milton and half skull was one of the lucky ones as he sat drinking his pint in mid 1915 back in the pub.
People began to come back in body bags and entire generations were wiped out in a matter of weeks. Students at Oxbridge suddenly became aware that their classmates were dying at a faster pace than expected.
At home, people began to experience privation. Great Britain had a limited food supply and the disruption of normal shipping channels led to rationing.
Newspapers printed stories of German atrocities in Belgium -- some true, but mostly false -- and suddenly the idea of going to war became far less sexy.

Unlike previous conflicts, officers began dying in great numbers. After the Prime Minister's only son died during the Somme, people were horrified. The war was all consuming and confusing for the Imperial General Staff. Why doesn't cavalry work? Why can't we simply rush the enemy trench? How do we beat the "Huns" back to Berlin?
Slowly, this anger transformed into rage. Suddenly, tossing around white feathers no longer had the tinge of playfulness it once did. Never before had Britain experienced such a great loss due to war, and people were furious. By 1916, men who weren't in uniform complained that they were being assaulted on the street and the War Office had to mint special badges to identify them as civilians essential to the war effort at home. All others were bluntly told to enlist, before they ended up becoming pariahs in their own country. But by this time Bodger was already thinking how not to get killed

"They had all been at it , bloody stupidity , bloody idiots and they are still the fucking same now " Said Bodger sat in the same pub years and years later talking to Ben
" I was lucky bodger after about a year in France this queer nancy boy officer took a fancy to me and asked "would you like to be my batman "?

"I dont know if I would sir" I replied

"Well I have been ordered back to London . Do you want to come and work alongside me"?

"I think I would very much like that Sir" I replied.

Bodger replied "You told me that bout ten times Ben ".

"I know but when I think about it it seems incredible because none of my mates made it back"

"Dont think any of it meant anything A very bitter victory" Said Bodger. Sometimes memories come back , old things you thought you had forgotten, clear as day " He supped his beer . He stopped seeing but was seeing inside his mind .

"I remember his wearing a smart west end trench coat , army an navy shop most possibly . His smart uniform, plus the fact that he was openly putting himself about marked him out as an officer.
As dawn lit up the sky I told him to get inside the barn where we slept . He wouldn't. It was 1914 , Summer day.
Minutes later, he was shot in the bollocks . Took them clean off. I had blood all over me. It was then I knew that my Mother had been right . I had made the greatest mistake.

"You should have pissed off then in that moment " Said ben
"Why in that moment"
"You could have got to the Netherlands"

"Could I "?

"well the he Germans who occupied Belgium later erected an electric fence on the border between occupied Belgium and the (neutral) Netherlands. They put 2,000 Volts on it, to prevent bordercrossing.
Nevertheless numerous refugees tried to get through. Many got electrocuted. But in the first days of 1914 you could have got through"

"I know of a few who ran , it consisted of flight towards neutral countries (Germans towards Denmark or The Netherlands, Frenchmen towards Spain, Switzerland being a central destination).
most didnt do it because It was an extreme and rare undertaking, as it meant almost certain judicial sentencing (in absentia) and renouncing one’s entire social ties and past." Replied Bodger

The 2,000 Volts wire ran almost 200 Km (125 Miles) long through villages, orchards, meadows, woodland, over brooks - even over the river Meuse. 

He continued
"As soon as that officer got killed in that way I remember one day just before getting out to France standing at a busstop and asking this woman if she knew what time the bus come . She told me but then said listen I only live round the corner fancy a cup of tea"?

"Old tart "? Replied B

"Yeh she was about 47 48 , kind of faded beauty . So I went round her house. I was about 18 . I remember getting her drawers down and getting her on the bed. She didnt want money or anything . Anyway I lost my virginity there and then . When the officer copped it I thought about that great day and then thought about where I was , what I had let myself in for . I thought about sex with that woman and what seemed to me the reverse image of that officer getting his bollocks shot off . They actually lay there on the ground a pair of bollocks. Then I thought I had to get out of it."

The Treaty of Versailles confiscated 10% of Germany's territory but left it the largest, richest nation in central Europe.
It was largely unoccupied and financial reparations were linked to its ability to pay, which mostly went unenforced anyway.
The treaty was notably less harsh than treaties that ended the 1870-71 Franco-Prussian War and World War Two. The German victors in the former annexed large chunks of two rich French provinces, part of France for between 200 and 300 years, and home to most of French iron ore production, as well as presenting France with a massive bill for immediate payment.

"But in the end I got to Holland .I got out of it .I would have got killed so I had to choose life as a social outcast from England or being blown to pieces on the \Western Front .I got leave and went home, the first thing I did was go to Hulll and the second thing I did was meet up with one of the blokes who had been invalided out .He was a fisherman and I kept in touch with him since he had been wounded, he had been terribly disfugured but he could go back to his old job fishing . I gave him some money for his time and he took me out fishing on his boat but took me nearly all the way to Holland .I jumped out of the boat and waded ashore.I was in Holland"

"Really"?

"Yep and as soon as I pulled myself together I headed for the nearest town and got myself taken in "

"So you stayed there"

"yeh stayed there until the end of the 20s"

In March 1917, 3,000 German deserters in Holland were officially registered. But this number should be multipled, as many Germans stayed in Holland illegally. The deserters themselves estimated their number at 80,000 in 1918. Many of them started their residence in Holland in one of the four quarantine stations set up to disinfect refugees that were established near the border. The deserters were imprisoned while police researched their legal status (should they or should they not be treated as military men?).

In Bergen in North-Holland a special detention camp was built for this purpose. The Germans who were freed settled in Rotterdam and the province of Limburg. Der Kampf and Michel im Sumpf newsletters, which were edited by the deserters themselves, were both printed on the press of the Dutch communist daily, De Tribune. They complained bitterly about their miserable treatment by the Dutch government.

"People say now that a whole generation of men were duped by the powers that be but that is not the truth because people too lazy to think at the end of the day get what they get . To be honest I was not very political but I started to think amongst all the slaughter that no I wasn't going to get killed for some high up argument . All of us got to the state where we could not care who won, Im talking about the Germans as well. They fucked off in droves whenever they could but that is the working classes for you, no back bone , real back bone would have meant masses of us telling the ruling class no ! We are not going to get killed for you. The Russians turned it in, killed their commanders and pissed off home"

When I got to Hull I went to see my old friend , as I said he was horribly disfigured , no nose left so they had made him a kind of mask in a flesh colour, think it was made of wax  or something like that . I knew how angry he was with what had gone on because even before his disfigurement from shrapnel he had seen his brother blown to pieces in front of his eyes >I told him I wanted out and if he couldtake me to Holland and he agreed , said we would have a good chance of getting caught but he would do it . well it was good weather and it all went ok ,after I waded ashore I went to this small Dutch town and turned myself in to the head policeman. He said that I should stay in the police station, make out I was working there because he didnt know what could happen to me. Hesaid if I helped out the he would feed me and I could sleep in the cell . He said this thing over there is coming to an end so lets see if it finishes soon. One day after a few weeks I asked him if I could becomea Dutch citizen and he replied

"What will you do when we go to war .Will you run again like now"

His question was deep but profound. Yes I had run away because I was scared to die .Teh he said.

"But that is the point, you should forget about belonging top nations because in reality you are only born in that country, do you owe them anything ? And who are them? They certainly are not fighting with you "

"Some are " I replied . "Many officers of high class families have died ,I saw one blown up"

"Yes that might be true but the people who started this ridiculous war started it to sell arms. They wont be here"

The Bolsheviks, a faction of Russian socialists, centered around Vladimir Lenin. Following the outbreak of the war, Lenin was stunned when the large Social Democratic parties of Europe (at that time predominantly Marxist in orientation) supported their various respective countries' war efforts. Lenin (against the war in his belief that the peasants and workers were fighting the battle of the bourgeoisie for them) adopted the stance that what he described as an "imperialist war" ought to be turned into a civil war between the classes.