Only a man who could make every component, assemble them, and produce a finished item, ready and fit for its purpose, could call himself a cutler, and Charlie was a cutler with his own workshop, and several men in his employ.
But in1914 when the lamps started going out all over Europe, the lamp in Charlie’s workshop didn’t just go out. It was smashed. Because his name was German, no one would give him any business. He laid off his men. Villains broke into his workshop and wrecked his equipment. The damage was accredited to rats- hence the term, he had been rattened, a punishment usually meted out to unscrupulous employers who used cheap, black leg labour, or took on apprentices at low rates until they had served their time and could claim full rate, then turned them out to live off union aid. These crimes were, in fact, laid to his charge in an attempt to justify the vandalism. As the famous Race to the Sea began through Belgium, Charlie sat by the fire, just brooding.
One day, when the rent collector had called, and found, that yet again, his visit was fruitless, the poor man reluctantly voiced the embarrassing but inevitable conclusion-
“I am sorry, Jane, but I shall have to send the bailiffs”. He was a family friend, and he had held off as long as he dared, but he had his own job to consider. So what he meant was that the bailiffs would be instructed to come and remove anything and everything saleable in the house, to recover part if not all of the debt. The family, of course, would be evicted- literally turned out into the streets with whatever they could salvage, whatever they stood up in. Charlie roused himself and said-
“You can’t send bailiffs to a soldier’s house, can you?” This was true. The family of a serving soldier could not be pressed for debt, but as the rent collector replied-
“No Charlie, but you’re not a soldier”. Charlie rose, indicated his empty chair, and-
“You sit down ‘ere and ‘ave a cuppa tea, and I will be before you’ve supped it”. Then pausing only to take his jacket and cap from behind the door, he stepped through it and set off on the 10 minute walk to the West Street barracks where he enlisted in what was known as Sheffield’s own Battalion- The Hallamshire Battalion of the King’s Own Yorkshire Light Infantry- the KOYLIs.
I still can’t begin to guess what his thoughts could have been. Though born in England, both his parents were German. Until his grandmother, Christiana died the language in the house had been exclusively German, for her benefit, into Charlie’s teens, even. It was a desperate deed, yet the alternative was too harrowing to contemplate. Eviction would surely mean that the family would be scattered, the children fostered separately- with relatives if they were lucky. And what of Charlie and Jane? The Workhouse? That would have meant them separating, and Charlie would have been treated like a common criminal, a filthy Kraut, to be kicked and despised by anyone and everyone, until he was goaded into killing and hanging for it, or being killed, and good riddance?
No, it would not, could not, be allowed to happen. I’ve told this tale hundreds of times, and I’m only just now able to get through it without my voice breaking, and my eyes growing moist. And evidently he decided ‘If I must be a soldier, then I’ll be a bloody good un’ because within twelve months he was a sergeant.
Of course, when he needed a silver top to his swagger stick, what did he do but go round to Freddie Young with a few half-crowns, which still, at that time, had a respectable sterling silver content, for him to melt down, stamp in the Yorks & Lancs crest, and burn it onto the top of a Malacca cane.
Sergeant Eckhardt must have had an indifferent to cool reception in the British trenches, and in fact, he was ostracised, isolated in a fashion, by being placed on escort duty for the recovery of deserters. This involved coming back to England with an armed escort to collect deserters from the police cells in the West Bar cop shop, and take them back to France, to the Regiment, for trial and possible execution. If he came just to recover Yorks and Lancs deserters, just from Sheffield, one wonders just how many there were, generally?
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| Prisoners |
It must have been quite a distasteful and demoralising duty. Can’t you just hear some chinless arsehole of a staff officer braying ‘Give the dem’ job to our pet Bosch, wot? Haw haw!’ However, it did afford Charlie the opportunity of a quick visit home for an hour or so, before collecting his prisoners. On one such trip he had been home, said goodbye, then he reappeared at home, sometime later. Jane assumed they had simply missed the train. No, he said. They were in good time. He had put his prisoners and escort on the train, then just stood on the platform and watched it go. He just couldn’t face going back to the horror of the trenches. Jane sent him off with a flea in his ear, to catch the next one. He watched two more go, returning home after each one, when Jane finally exploded-
“Charlie, I swear if you aren’t on the next train, I’ll report you for a deserter!”
He went. Shortly after that, he was relieved of the escort duty. Perhaps he had requested it. I believe any serviceman on ‘domestic’ duty, in times of hostility, can request immediate transfer to battalion duties, without quoting a reason, and such request cannot be refused. I believe, at one time, this was actually stated in the conditions of service outlined in his pay book, but I may be wrong. However, Charlie did, in fact, spend the duration, with the colours, on more or less continuous active service.