Soldier's Game Read Online Free PDF

position for a cross. Bryson was so enraged by this he charged in from behind with a brutal blind tackle that swept Wilson off his feet. He landed hard on his shoulder.
    Bryson walked off the pitch without waiting to be told. McCartney later suspended him for a week. Wilson rose slowly and Jack jogged over to help him up.
    “That was dirty,” he said.
    But Wilson ignored the outstretched hand and spat.
    “Had worse done to me.”
    “Fair enough,” Jack replied and turned away thinking, Misery guts .
    Wilson missed the free kick but soon took possession again for an attack up the right wing. Jack scrambled for position at the centre and spotted an opening. He shouted though hardly expected to get the pass. In that instant Wilson cut across from the line and lofted the ball just ahead of Jack a few yards outside the box. Jack struck as it landed and the shot rocketed off his boot past the keeper and into the net.
    A hearty cheer rose from the players and Jack turned to find Wilson approaching with a grin.
    “Nice shot,” said the English player.
    “Nicely delivered,” Jack replied.
    And with that very first goal the two footballers formed an effective duo. In the opening match of the season against Raith Rovers reserve team, Jack would score two goals both off the boot of Hugh Wilson. In the next dozen matches it would be much the same.
    Off the pitch Jack soon realised that what he’d first taken for arrogance in the English player was mostly shyness. Hugh had stepped off the train from Newcastle without knowing a single person in Edinburgh. McCartney helped him find a job inthe brewery washing floors. On the little wages he earned Hugh rented a room in a damp basement flat off Dalry Road. Here he subsisted mainly on cold tinned beans and bread.
    Jack’s mother was horrified when he told her this one morning over breakfast.
    “You get that boy around here for a solid meal,” she demanded.
    The next evening Hugh came home with Jack after training and Mrs Jordan made a steaming fish pie with cabbage and tatties. Hugh had three helpings and then steamed pudding and custard.
    “Sorry,” he said between mouthfuls. “It’s just so good.”
    But Mrs Jordan was delighted.
    “So is all your family in Newcastle?” she asked.
    Hugh put down his fork.
    “Well, it’s just me and Dad back home now. My little sister lives in Durham with my Aunt Bell. Mum died two years ago.”
    “How sad for you,” said Jack’s sister Mary.
    “Yeah, considering that Dad must be the worst cook on Tyneside.”
    “I imagine he misses you,” she added.
    “It’ll be a quiet house now – that’s for sure. Buthe wanted me to come. Dad used to play football for Jarrow but had to give it up at fifteen to dig coal. He told me to take my chance while I could – not as though the pit’ll be going anywhere.”
    From that night on Hugh Wilson took most of his evening meals with the Jordans. He tried to offer money for his share of the food but Tom refused. Some nights when Mary’s fiancé George joined the family, there were six around the small kitchen table. On Saturdays Hugh and Jack would go out after tea either to a theatre if they had a spare shilling or to the Palace Dancehall. Here they’d eye up girls across the wide polished floor but rarely pluck up the courage to ask for a waltz or a polka.
    Had either of them picked up a newspaper on 29 June 1914, it’s doubtful they would have given much thought to the headlines announcing that Archduke Franz Ferdinand had been felled by an assassin’s bullet in Sarajevo. Too much else was happening in their busy lives. Nor could they have predicted the sequence of events over the coming weeks and months – the tangle of alliances that later in August would lead Britain to war.

6. The Greater Game
    Hearts first team opened the 1914 season on 15 August with a match against the defending champions Celtic. A crowd of 18,000 spectators packed the stadium at Tynecastle. Jack had managed to