Swimming in The Suez Canal
Rushden Soldier in the Arabian Desert - Egyptian Shylocks
A Coin Worth a Quarter of a Farthing - How Greeks make their Fortunes
The Red Sea Looking Quite Blue
It is doubtful if there is a soldier anywhere amongst the five millions of the British Army who has not something about which he raises a few grumbles! But he generally “grouses” amusingly of his troubles. This is the case with Pte. Hubert Waring, of the ----Northamptons, stationed – one can only guess where. Pte Waring is the son of Mr. and Mrs. J. H. Waring, of Fitzwilliam-street, Rushden, and brother of Lance-Corpl. L. Waring, an interesting letter from whom we published recently. Pte. Hubert Waring says:-

“I don’t know what the weather is like at Rushden but it is ‘strafing’ hot out here. You cannot bear your hand on anything that has been in the sun a couple of hours. The only way to keep cool here is to travel in one of the fastest aeroplanes at top speed; but even then you want a block of ice on your head! However, it is not half as hot as it will be in about two months! Apparently it is cool to the natives, as you see them walking about with blankets round them. For us it is a treat going out bathing. I swam across the Suez Canal the other day.

“I notice that the cost of living in England is very high at present and that beer drinkers are grumbling because the price of liquors has gone up. Out here I should have been willing to give half-a-crown for half-a-pint of water sometimes, but where we are now we can get plenty of it. All the same it never does to waste it, because we never know when we may run short. Our water has to be forced up by pumps worked by engines. The engines broke down one day and we could not get any water until night.

“I was out in the daytime recently and saw some Egyptians with two or three motor-spirit cans full of good drinking water. I asked them for a ‘backsheesh’ (intended to mean a drink for nothing!). Well, they would not give me it for a start – one said ‘Gib it money first’ (the old Shylock!), and actually wanted half a piaster (1¾d) for a drink. I said, ‘Come on then, Ikey’ and had a good drink, and promised to remember him in my will! I would like to sketch the shape of his nose; it is about like a figure 6.

“They are mostly Arabs and Hindoos here, and I am picking up a bit of Arabic language. I am making a collection of coins, too. One I am keeping is worth one sixteenth of a penny, and is made of some sort of white metal.”

In another letter, Pte. Waring says:- “We have had several aeroplanes over here; some were said to be hostile, but they did not do us any damage. We are right away from the Pyramids now, but it doesn’t matter where we go, we cannot get away from the sand. We are on the Arabian Desert. The canteens and such places are kept by Greeks (?) and they are making their fortunes. I asked for a piaster (2½d) worth of figs the other day and they offered me six figs. I kept my money and walked off with the figs! I have seen the Red Sea, but it looked a bit blue when I saw it. I did not observe any of Pharaoh’s chariots floating about, either! Spending money here is like pumping water away; you spend five or six shillings here where you would only spend one shilling in England.” (Publication of the above has been unavoidably delayed).

Rushden Journalist Re-enlists – Mr. Horace Waring – In the Flying Corps
Mr. Horace Waring, sub-editor of the “Tiverton Gazette,” and son of Mr. and Mrs. J. H. Waring, of Fitzwilliam-street, Rushden, has re-joined the Royal Flying Corps (Photographers’ Section), after having been out of the Army for 16 months. Mr. Waring was for some time reporter to the “Rushden Echo.” He joined the Royal Flying Corps in August 1915, subsequently passed as a wireless telegraphist and afterwards received his discharge through heart trouble.

Writing home recently, he says:- “What a change again in these preliminary days of my return to the Army. The tent instead of the comfortable apartments; the menial tasks which one ordinarily finds done for him in civil life; the unrelieved sameness in the dress of one’s colleagues; the staleness which the schoolboy experiences when he enters school after a month’s holiday; the clock-like regularity and punctuality of the military life in place of the work-at-all-hours-and-feed-when-you-can of the journalist; the strict, and perhaps irksome, discipline instead of a free and easy equality; the sharp command, rapped out in staccato phrases, instead of the request from the governor’s sanctum to one’s own department through the medium of an inky office-boy; the giving up of one’s own personality and becoming a unit, a number, a mere machine (perhaps one’s slight knowledge made use of, but with the human element discounted); something on which the man with one extra stripe can make himself felt for good or ill (preferable the latter); a one-millionth part of the British Army!

“All this comes to me with as much reality as do the unending vexations and worries of business when one wakes up after a calm and invigorating sleep of a long quite night. A different set of forces directing my life means certain responsibilities dropped and others imposed; privileges, liberties and plans for the future are all things of the past. Thousands voluntarily chose this in the earlier days of the war, and I have never regretted that I was one of them. Now I assume this mode of existence for a second time, and with hopes none the less high. It is such a little that one man can do in this world-war, and it is some consolation to feel that that little may be the more effectual in the Army than in civil life. When great and peace-loving nations become militarist and pour blood and treasure for years to put down Prussianism (and apparently without success), who is the man who would rest on the laurels that others have gained, unless he be afflicted with an ‘objector’s’ conscience which has warped and weakened his mental powers with false pacifist notions?

“It is a waste of energy to curse one’s forebears for having allowed things to get into a tangle. Enough if a man does his share in unravelling it. When the boys come home (Why was that song so short lived?) we who remained at home, and who were not able to do a great deal for them, or for those for whom they fought, shall share the pride of the glory which is justly theirs. While we had an easy time they were subjected to discomfort, and indignities. Ours the anxious moments; theirs the strain on mind and body. For us, life so conventional and unaltered; for them an experience violently new and unnatural, which will leave its mark on the race for generations to come. Theirs the scars and brunt of the battle; ours a freedom inviolate. We at our ease read of their glorious deeds—they passed through the valley of the shadow. Theirs th fight won; ours the reward. Who could wish for a greater privilege than to take a part with them?

“And therefore one would not ask for ease of mind and luxury of surroundings. Such things are out of keeping with the times. But rather for the nise and clamour, the heat and toil, the stern necessity of military life, with its absence of soft influences, its vigorous demands upon all its members, its sull-unlearned lesson that peace will come only by the sword. One would not seek to shelter in well-paid security, but would try to accept with philosophic resignation the uncertain lot of the soldier with its pittance.

“Now I am once more part (admitted an infinitesimal part) of the Army I take no thought for the morrow. Planning is somebody else’s business—mine if to obey. The experience of the half-year during which I was in the Army before now proves invaluable to me in that I am able the better to adapt myself to the life. But this time, no doubt, new experiences await me—new sights and scenes will be mine. I face the prospect with equanimity.”

The Rushden Echo, 22^nd March, 1918

Rushden Soldier’s Ill Luck - Accident to Air-Mechanic H. Waring
Knocked Down by a Motor Car

  We regret to report that Second A.M. Horace Waring, of the Royal Flying Corps, and son of Mr. and Mrs. J. H. Waring, of 10, Fitzwilliam-street, Rushden, has been the victim of an accident, having sustained a fracture of the leg just above the ankle.  The unfortunate affair happened last Monday about midday, and it appears that Second A.M. Waring, whilst walking along the road, was knocked down by a Ford car, which was being driven by a lady driver.  He is now in the military hospital at Tidworth.

  Second A.M. Waring, who was formerly on the editorial staff of the “Rushden Echo,” has now two periods of service with the Colours to his credit.  He first enlisted voluntarily immediately following the outbreak of war, and after serving six months was discharged through ill-health.  Fifteen months later he was called up for re-examination, and passing successfully, was re-posted to his old regiment, in the photographic section.