Read an Excerpt
Harry H. Corbett
The Front Legs of the Cow
By Susannah Corbett The History Press
Copyright © 2012 Susannah Corbett
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-7524-8047-3
CHAPTER 1
On the Road to Mandalay
He is a dear little fellow, and so very clever and bright.
Beatrice Collins
Harry Corbett was the youngest of seven children, six boys and one girl. He was a late, and probably unexpected, addition to the family. His father George was in the regular army with the South Staffordshire Regiment, having joined up in 1904 at the age of 18. George married Caroline Barnsley at St Gabriel's church, Birmingham, on 31 October 1905. Their witnesses were George's sister, Annie, and her husband Albert Williams. Annie would later play a significant part in Harry's life. George and Caroline's first child, Albert Isaiah, was born in January 1907. He was followed fourteen months later by twins Carrie and Willie, but Willie died in infancy.
George and Caroline lived in Birmingham with Caroline's mother Emily, who looked after the children while Caroline worked in a screw-making factory. In May 1911 George was promoted to sergeant and two weeks later James was born.
Another son, William, came along in 1914 (Caroline's grandfather and George's eldest brother were both called William, which might explain why they just couldn't let the name go). Later that year Sgt George joined the British Expeditionary Force in France. He was with the 1st Battalion attached to the 22nd Brigade, 7th Division. He fought at the Battle of Loos, where the British first used poisoned gas, at Ypres and the Somme. He was sent home after being wounded in the ankle in 1916, and early in 1917 forfeited pay for being absent for thirteen days – exactly forty weeks before another son, Francis George, was born. However, by the time of the birth, Sgt George was at Passchendaele and, although he was wounded again (this time by shrapnel in the shoulder), he remained on duty. Two weeks after this Caroline registered the new baby back in Birmingham – but as Beaumont George, not Francis George. There was a fashion for naming children after battlegrounds you'd survived. He was most likely named for Beaumont-Hamel, a place made famous for being the scene of the Hawthorn Ridge mine explosion, captured on film on the first day of the Somme.
At 2.30 a.m. on 25 April 1918, during the Battle of Lys, the German army began their attack on the highly strategic hill, Mont Kemmel. They started shelling the Allied lines with explosives and gas, concentrating on the gun emplacements. At 5 a.m. they bombarded the French troops on the hill. Those French soldiers who had survived the 'wringer of Verdun' later described the shelling as the worst they had gone through. At 6 a.m. the Germans sent in the infantry and by mid-morning the hill was theirs. Today the remains of more than 5,000 soldiers who fell during Lys lie in the French Ossuary on the hill. On the night of the 25th a heavy rain fell. At 3 a.m. the next day the Allied counterattack was launched, hampered by the flooding of the Kemmelbeek River. Sgt George was with the 25th Division as they fought to take the railway line. Under fierce fire, they couldn't hold it. The division fell back to the Kemmel Road and suffered heavy losses in the withdrawal. Sgt George was caught in the open by machine gunners; he saw them strafing down the line of men towards him. Just as the bullets reached him he jumped for his life and was wounded for a third time. But unlike those around him who were hit in the guts, he was shot in the thigh. He was one of 7,700 casualties during that battle; 270 were known to be dead, 3,400 were missing. He was sent home and two months later was posted to the Command Depot. From there he was sent to 3rd Battalion and was with them at Newcastle when the Armistice was signed. He was a lucky man.
A year later, Sgt George was posted to Singapore with the 1st Battalion. Life here was literally and figuratively as far away from the horrors of the Western Front as you could get. One of the highlights of the tour was the battalion winning the Singapore Amateur Football Association Challenge Cup in 1920.
In February 1922 Sgt George was posted to Burma and by September 1923 was in Maymyo, the upcountry summer home of the British in Burma, civilian as well as military. It was a one-time hill fort where they could escape the oppressive heat and humidity of Rangoon. Maymyo in Burmese meant May's Place, imaginatively named after the first commander of the post, Colonel May. It was originally, and is now again, called Pyin U Lwin. It was from here that Sgt George waited for the family to join him, according to some humourous fictitious letters he had published in the journal of the regiment, The Staffordshire Knot:
From: Chief of the General Staff, Married Quarters, Maymyo.
To: Sergt. Corbett, O.B.E., O.B.Z., O Buz Off. Maymyo, September 29th 1923.
Sir,
I am directed to inform you that, in view of the fact that your old woman, with a certain number of followers, is expected to arrive at an early date, arrangements have been made for you to take over No. 24-6 Married Quarter.
I much regret that the electric lighting of the Quarter has not been completed as yet, but no doubt this will be done in the space of a few years.
The hot water apparatus is also suffering from frost-bite, but I take it neither you nor your family require a bath before next Pan-cake Day, by which time you may get caught in a shower, thereby doing away with the need for a bath.
The cookhouse is a torra musty, but as I believe you will have nothing to cook, there is no need to worry on that point.
In case you overlook it on your inspection, the piano is in the cellar, this will no doubt require a pull-through through it before being used; also a bit of whitewash on it to smarten it up; these can be obtained from this department on the usual indent forms.
Any further information on the subject of maternity benefits, charcoal issues, how to lose fowl, or a polite way to borrow things from your neighbours will be gladly supplied by this office.
I have the honour to be,
Sir,
Your obedient Servant,
From: Sergt. Corbett, X Y Z, MUG., ETC.
To: Whom This May Concern. Maymyo, October 9th 1923.
Sir,
Reference my application for Quarters.
The arrangements made by you regarding the arrival of my detachment are quite good, but I should like to draw your attention to the following points: You make no mention of a Tennis Court which is absolutely necessary, seeing that my old woman is always trying to catch someone on the bounce.
I quite expected to have a Skittle Alley for the use of the followers (when off duty). I should feel extremely grateful if you would make the necessary arrangements.
I should be thankful also if you would extend the electric light on to the lawn, as my wife is fond of watching the grass-hoppers make grass, also it would make things better if you could arrange for a small pool in the garden, for summer bathing.
The piano I found hanging on a nail in the cookhouse, I would esteem it a great favour if you could arrange for it to be taken to the coalyard for repairs.
You have overlooked the fact that my old dutch will require transport on arrival; the following will be quite sufficient: – A.T. carts, 30; Tongas, 10; motorcars (not Fords), 5.
In case the monsoons are still in season I should be thankful if you would add a further 30 sampams.
If the above cannot be carried out within the next 24 hours please let me know so that I can make a complaint to the Vice Roy on his arrival at Rangoon.
It's easy to imagine that the men and women glimpsed in grainy footage of nearly a century ago are somehow different from their counterparts today, but if Sgt George were serving now he'd be posting mockumentaries on the internet. Caroline must have joined him by June of 1924, as this is when she fell pregnant for the last time. A convenient pay rise came along in the shape of George being promoted to staff sergeant in October.
Harry was born on Saturday 28 February 1925. Rangoon in those days, if you were British, must have been amazing – even for those born into the working class. It was a relatively minor corner of the Empire, under administration from India. In 1908 a traveller had written:
As we drew near to Rangoon, the first object that lifted itself above the level land about us was the golden spire of Schwe' Dagon Pagoda, and the next distinctive feature were the elephants piling teak logs along the shore. The population is even more cosmopolitan than in Singapore and Klings, Tamils, Bengalis, Punjabis, Sikhs, Ghurkhas, Jews, Chinese, Arabs, Armenians, Malays, Shans, Karens, Persians and Singhalese jostle one another in the noisy streets, where barbers and cooks ply their trades on the curb, and every third shopkeeper is reading aloud out of the Koran. The strange fact is that one man in a hundred is a Burmese – south India has seized the town.
India may have seized the town but the British were ruling it. By the 1920s Rangoon had trams, theatres, sumptuous hotels, parks and every convenience. All this and an oppressed native people to make even the saltiest salt of the earth feel superior. At this time elite Burmese who had been educated in London were returning to effect reform. After all, there had to be some payback for the support given to Britain during the First World War. They achieved more autonomy from India and furthered the Burmese representation in the civil service. But this wasn't far enough or fast enough for most, so in 1920 the university students held a strike in protest. They were worried that a new University Act would ultimately perpetuate colonial elitism and rule. These were the first stirrings of nationalist feeling. They were followed by more strikes and tax protests through the 1920s and '30s. In the early 1930s a Buddhist monk, Saya San, led a rebellion against British rule. The rebellion was easily crushed and thousands of Burmese were killed. But back in the 1920s the well-heeled British still managed to enjoy themselves in their privileged whites-only world.
The Strand Hotel was part of this world. A sister hotel to Raffles in Singapore, its guests at the time included Somerset Maugham, who wrote in A Gentleman in the Parlour that Rangoon afforded him:
a cordial welcome; a drive in an American car through busy streets of business houses, concrete and iron like the streets, good heavens! of Honolulu, Shanghai, Singapore or Alexandria, and then a spacious shady house in a garden; an agreeable life, luncheon at this club or that, drives along trim, wide roads, bridge after dark at that club or this, gin pahits, a great many men in white drill or pongee silk, laughter, pleasant conversation; and then back through the night to dress for dinner and out again to dine with this hospitable host or the other, cocktails, a substantial meal, dancing to a gramophone or a game of billiards, and then back once more to the large, cool silent house. It was very attractive, easy, comfortable, and gay; but was this Rangoon? Down by the harbour and along the river were narrow streets, a rabbit warren of intersecting alleys; and here, multitudinous, lived the Chinese, and there the Burmans: I looked with curious eyes as I passed in my motor car and wondered what strange things I should discover and what secrets they had to tell me if I could plunge into that enigmatic life and lose myself in it as a cup of water thrown overboard is lost in the Irrawaddy.
I think it's fairly safe to presume that he never got out of the car. Another guest was Noel Coward, who drew inspiration for his later song Mad Dogs and Englishmen: 'The toughest Burmese bandit can never understand it. In Rangoon the heat of noon is just what the native shun, they put their Scotch and rye down and lie down, but mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun.'
Despite having been promoted to colour sergeant (Company Quartermaster Sergeant), the second most senior NCO in the company, I doubt George and Caroline would have been taking tiffin with Noel Coward or Somerset Maugham. But they would also not have been encouraged to fraternise with the natives. They lived in a cantonment, a permanent military base that covered a large swathe of the city, containing homes, shops, schools, hospitals, administration buildings and law courts. The stiff upper lip would find no excuse to wilt in the heat. The family, along with the rest of the white ruling classes, no doubt had access to the British Club and would have had Indian servants. From back-to-back houses in the industrial heartland of England to the twilight of the Empire must have been a surreal step. As a baby Harry would have seen more of local life than his parents when he was being taken out by his ayah, an Indian nanny.
George Orwell was a policeman in Burma in the 1920s; he described the Burmese market scene in Burmese Days:
Vast pomelos hanging on strings like green moons, red bananas, baskets of heliotrope-colored prawns the size of lobsters, brittle dried fish tied in bundles, crimson chillies, ducks split open and cured like hams, green coconuts, the larvae of the rhinoceros beetle, sections of sugarcane, dahs, lacquered sandals, check silk longyis, aphrodisiacs in the form of large, soap-like pills.
Orwell also pointed out that: 'If a European woman went through the bazaars alone somebody would probably spit betel juice over her dress.' Millions in South-East Asia enjoy Betel chewing: the nut of the Areca palm, along with lime as a catalyst, is wrapped in a leaf of the Betel vine, and when this is sucked between cheek and gum the chemical reaction produces an invigorating pick-me-up that also stimulates the saliva glands. The overflowing juice causes heartburn so one must spit, not swallow. In Asia the streets are as covered in this spittle as Western pavements are covered in gum. The spittle, teeth, mouth, and any passing European dress, are stained a dark brick red.
I expect life for Caroline centred on the house and garden, with its neatly clipped suburban hedges in the cantonment, and the children who were with her. The two eldest children were back in Manchester under the eye of Sgt George's sister, Annie. Albert was by now 18 and Carrie 17; both would have long finished their schooling and be in the workplace. As was James, who in 1925 had travelled from Rangoon to Bombay to enlist in the South Staffordshire Regiment as a bandsman – he was 14 years old. But William at 11, George at 8 and Harry at only a year were too young to be separated from their mother. For the boys it would have been a paradise. George remembered their dad catching snakes in the house; you can imagine the fascinated revulsion shared by small boys worldwide as a snake's head was cut off.
It's hard to say how much the unrest in the country attached itself to them. It certainly attached itself to Orwell who wrote in his essay Shooting an Elephant:
I had already made up my mind that imperialism was an evil thing and the sooner I chucked up my job and got out of it the better. Theoretically — and secretly of course — I was all for the Burmese and all against their oppressors, the British. As for the job I was doing, I hated it more bitterly than I can perhaps make clear. In a job like that you see the dirty work of Empire at close quarters. The wretched prisoners huddling in the stinking cages of the lockups, the gray, cowed faces of the long-term convicts, the scarred buttocks of the men who had been flogged with bamboos — all these oppressed me with an intolerable sense of guilt.
Did the Corbett family have time for such musings? They were not as close as Orwell to the dirty underbelly of the setting Empire. They were probably too busy, in the way of most young families, getting through the days of work, play and school. But for Orwell and Harry one of the most dangerous aspects of life in the tropics was to send them both home, Orwell with the contracting of dengue fever, and Harry with the death of his mother.
Caroline died of dysentery on 4 August 1926. I doubt Harry knew much about it. He was, after all, barely 18 months old and Caroline would have been in hospital for weeks. It was not a pleasant way to go and at that time there was nothing to be done but wait and see if you survived it – antibiotics were not discovered until 1929. Dysentery is highly contagious. The rest of the family, especially Harry, were incredibly lucky not to catch it.
Apart from a photograph or two and a small mourning locket containing his mother's hair, the only thing Harry had from his time in Burma was a letter written to his Aunt Annie in Manchester following Caroline's death. It looks as if it has been read a thousand times.
39 B Budd Road
Cantonment
Rangoon
9 – 8 – 26
Dear Mrs Williams,
You will probably be surprised to hear from me, I am Mrs Collins and I live next door to your Brother. I feel I would like to tell you how very deeply I sympathise with you all in your very sad bereavement, but it is all God's divine will, and though it is a fearful blow, time will heal the wound, and I must tell you that I was numb with sorrow when Mr. Corbett brought us the news. Please tell you that I was numb with sorrow when Mr. Corbett brought us the news. Please tell Albert and Carrie not to grieve too much but they must bear up for their mother was a good woman, and her soul is happily released from its prison house. I say this, because to me she does not seem dead, for her soul still lives on, and I feel sure she is happy
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Harry H. Corbett by Susannah Corbett. Copyright © 2012 Susannah Corbett. Excerpted by permission of The History Press.
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