Death's Men by Denis Winter

Author:Denis Winter
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780241969212
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2014-08-18T04:00:00+00:00

Added to this deeper motive was the fact that the infantry were largely working men and it was part of the working-class ethic that good health required a regular lay. By convention, much sexual experience was available at home to lads between the ages of thirteen and eighteen. Now, in some areas of France, there was wider opportunity than even in England. In the base area were many refugee girls as well as prostitutes who invested themselves in this deprived community of homeless young males. Even on leave a change in established moral codes eased relationships between the sexes. The slogan ‘There’s a girl for every soldier’ was welcomed by many soldiers, while main-line stations acted as a magnet for women who had never had so constant a supply of unattached, disoriented young men.

The flesh trade can be exaggerated. For most front-line men the biggest town they ever knew was a semi-deserted village with a few cellars and perhaps a wrecked cottage producing eggs and chips for the men. Gibbons complained loudly that there was little chance for vice. Nevertheless 27 per cent of all diseases for which men were hospitalized were venereal of various types. By the end of the war some 416,891 men had been treated for VD.

The Official History reckons that about one-third of the cases were contracted on leave. Certainly Cloete describes being accosted sixteen times between Piccadilly and Berkeley Street, while the promenade of the Empire theatre – a notorious rendezvous for the highest class of prostitute – had to be closed after many complaints about the quality of the ‘fairies’. No occupation, it seems, was safe from the dilution of labour in wartime. Back in France each base had its semi-institutionalized brothel open from 6 pm to 8 pm. The men would queue up patiently with military police ordering the line. Madame serving behind the bar would take the money, which seems to have been about two francs but might go up over ten and up to thirty if the more highly paid colonials were about. Drinks anyway would be about five times normal price. The girls involved were reputed to make up to 6,000 francs a week, but, with a working life of one month at most and the division of 6,000 by two, this suggests the myth of disappointed men. With so few francs in his pocket and the long queue behind, the relationship was of the most fleeting, hence the bitterness.

As far as the army was concerned, syphilis meant the loss of a man for thirty-seven days and gonorrhoea for twenty-nine days. In the old days the army had been better prepared, with Indian brothels checked twice weekly by doctors for towel, vaseline and Condy’s fluid. In France the problem was greater and the time shorter to establish a system. The official line was that ‘efforts to attract officers and men to pleasing and health-giving recreation huts, fields of sport and places of healthy amusement during their off-duty hours or during leave in a town should be re-doubled’.

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