by Alan Hackney
“You wrote this,” said Denny, pulling a creased piece of paper from his pocket. “Read it, Ernie.”
The small gunner took the paper and read:
“To you, my darling, a brave soldier far over the sea. How I long to know what you are really like. Are you handsome? Strong? My arms are waiting for you, darling. Do hurry home to your sweetheart soon. Sincerely, Catherine Young.”
“That were in my Balaclava,” said Denny, taking the paper back.
“Good Lord,” said Herbert.
“The boys in the battery all said it’d be the right thing to come here and see you like,” said Denny. “They all talked about it. There’s not all that much to do in Reykjavik,” he added.
“That’s right,” said Ernie.
“Well, I hope it cheered you up,” said Catherine. “I thought it would be a nice idea.”
“You ’aven’t got another girl for me?” said Ernie. “I suppose not. Well, I’d best be goin’. You and Denny’ll want to be left alone. It did say it in my Balaclava as well, but I’ll give Denny best.”
“In yours too?” asked Herbert.
“Oh yes, all the battery,” said Ernie. “Only only Denny and me got leave.”
“Well, well, a budding Sweetheart of the Forces,” said Herbert.
“You’ll find Denny’s a good sort, miss,” said Ernie. “Used to do partner for all the big-name boxers, eh, Den?”
“See you at the Y.M., Ernie,” said Denny.
“Aren’t you off to the Y.M. too?” asked Catherine anxiously.
“Stayin’ there, like,” said Danny. “I thought we might ’ave a quiet evenin’ in, by the fire. This chap your hubby?”
“Er, yes,” said Catherine.
“Not in the Forces,” noted Denny. “On essential work, I suppose. Well, mister, your good lady’s the pride and joy of our battery, I can tell you. It’s nice of you letting ’er write these letters, mister, and I know you won’t object if I take ’er out to the pictures to say I ’ave, eh?”
“Well, as a matter of a fact,” began Herbert, “I’m …”
“Actually he’s very jealous,” said Catherine. “He doesn’t like me to go out at all.”
“Well, that’s not very nice, mister, is it?” said Denny. “I don’t think it’s right.”
He advanced ponderously and slowly waved a huge fist under Herbert’s nose. “My mate Ernie’s read bits from the papers to me about people like you,” he said. “Don’t you lay a ’and on ’er, or watch it!”
“Please don’t start anything,” said Catherine. “I couldn’t bear it. I’ll tell you what, I’ll take you round to the club tomorrow and you can thank them all for the Balaclavas and tell them all about Iceland. How about that?”
“Well,” said Denny, somewhat mollified, “I’ll come back in the morning, only if an ’air of ’er ’ead’s touched,” he added mildly to Herbert, “you’d better watch it, mister.”
*
Catherine wrote to Stanley.
My Pet Private,
Do you get any leave at all? Philip, poor lamb, is in dock with swine fever and being observed and docketed. This is what comes of Answering the Call. Herbert and College Sid (both quite spineless I’m afraid) won’t come near the place, all because of a sweet gunner called Denny who’s been looking in for the past fortnight. I took him to the Lady Ongar and Adele and Marjorie Reigate quite fell for him, but he won’t have anyone but me.
It’s getting a bit of a strain fending him off, and now he says he isn’t going back after his leave, and I daren’t call in the military police because of Herbert and Sid.
If you can spare a minute from your gardening can you tell me what I can do about all this?
Love,
Kat.
“You want to ask for compassionate,” said Cox. “Why, a mate of mine once got seven days’ compassionate because ’e told the comp’ny commander ’is missus was carrying on with the baker, and the padre said ’e ought to investigate and ’e’d made inquiries with the woman next door who’d wrote ’im a long letter about it. Well, my mate’d got this woman to write this letter so’s ’e could get this compassionate and ’e reckons ’e’ll surprise ’is missus on ’er birthday. ’E gets it all buttoned up and off ’e goes, ’appy as Larry, and when ’e gets down their street ’e sees this van outside and says ‘’Ullo’. Goes inside, and there’s ’is missus with the laundry bloke. ‘That’s your lot,’ ’e says to this bloke. ‘You got me in trouble now. I told the padre it was the baker.’ ’E pitches this laundryman out on ’is ear’ole straightaway, no messin’, and tips all ’is bundles of washin’ out over ’im as ’e lays in the gutter so’s ’e gets seven days for causin’ a disturbance, bein’ as ’is missus was only gettin’ a bitta grit outa this laundry bloke’s eyeball ’e got while she was gettin’ the money.
“Well, as I say, you ask for compassionate.”
The next day, however, brought a solution to Stanley’s problem.
“As you were,” said a postcard from Catherine. “Denny broke his leg today coming down the Y.M. steps in the blackout. The military hospital will send him back to Iceland later.”
This crossed in the post with one from Stanley to her.
“If you really want him put away for a long time,” he had written after further consultation with Cox, “make sure he sells his kit.”
*
They had been a fortnight with Cogswell now and had developed a flair for leisurely muck-spreading.
“Take the old barrer up the old farm, gessome of the old dung off the old ’eap, put it in the old barrer, come back, spread it on the old cabbages,” Cogswell would say.
Cox and Stanley had been delegated to this, the steadiest of the gardening tasks, by decrying the dryness of the manure brought back by other parties, and by ensuring the rich moistness of the dung they themselves had brought back, as soon as they had a chance to fetch some. Cox had paraded it conspicuously before Cogswell.
“Look at that, my old cocker,” he had said. “Does your ’eart good, stuff like that. You’d grow enough to get in the Grenadier Guards on that.”
Cogswell’s heart had been warmed, and they were on the barrow for a full week.
The barrow itself was a large iron half-cylinder with great waving iron wheels at its ends. A large handle was attached on which they pulled savagely to force it uphill, and hung grimly to stop its running amok on a down gradient. With the wheels wobbling furiously, they dragged it to the rudimentary farmyard of the camp, where they immediately fell out for a ten-minute smoke. After this they would watch the pigs, fill the barrow in a leisurely, careful fashion, trundle it carefully back and strew their precious burden among Cogswell’s cabbages.
The advantage of being on the barrow was that it took them out of Cogswell’s range of eagle-vision. Nothing would disturb him at his weeding or delving except the sight of his assistants having a furtive breather. Even this he only noticed when he had not so far advanced beyond them as to make their behaviour distant and unobservable. Once, Sergeant-Major Sparrow himself came bicycling up and stood for a full minute behind him, oi-ing for attention.
Cogswell continued the prodding with his dibber, but finally turned his head momentarily to snap:
“—— off.”
The sergeant-major leapt slightly and shouted:
“You listen to me!”
“I’m busy,” mumbled Cogswell, dibbing to illustrate.
“You’re not too bloody busy to listen to me!” shouted the sergeant-major.
“Yes I bloody am,” said Cogswell with a tone of finality.
Here the matter ended, and the sergeant-major cycled off.
“’Ear old Musclebound,” said Cox, in admiration at the gardener’s integrity. “Better than the ’alls. ’E’d let old Montgomery ’ave it like that, ’e would, no messin’. Why should England bleedin’ tremble?”
*
The gardening lasted a full fortnight. Then, one day, Stanley and Cox came back from muck
-spreading to see their names on Depot Company detail under the heading:
The following will move their kit into the drill hall immediately under the supervision of Sgt. Piper. They will hold themselves in readiness for transfer to “M” Company, The Camp, GRAVESTONE, to undergo Corps Training under the provisions of A.C.I. 34/22 WOITM/28 of 1943.
“I’m goin’ Tom and Dick,” said Cox.
CHAPTER NINE
THE DRILL HALL was a depressing place, large and ill-proportioned, with girders and whitewashed walls. The draft laid out their kit, repacked it after inspection, walked about and slept, all on the concrete floor. There was not much to do, and it was impossible to sit on beds: their blankets were spread on groundsheets on the concrete.
Kit inspections were frequent, and were the main device employed by Sergeant Piper to keep things moving. When he had carried out one inspection to check on deficiencies, he would carry out another later the same day to see whether the deficiencies had been remedied, stand the draft easy for ten minutes, and get the officer who spent most of his waking hours inspecting the kit of the constant stream of in-comers and out-goers to Depot Company. This man, a tense little fellow with a twitching eye, would hurry in, and with no ceremony would shriek: “Hold-’em-up-when-I-call-’em-out! Shirts - three - drawers - cellular - pairs - two - drawers - woollen - pairs - two - socks - woollen - pairs - four …” at a breakneck pace.
He was universally known in the barracks as “Kit Check Charlie”.
A number of those on the draft were men with three or four years’ service, like Cox, who had somehow drifted to the Depot and were at last being ferreted out and sent on their ways. Most of the items of kit issued to them which had some extra-military value, such as P.T. vests, grey socks and gym shoes, were by now partially or wholly deficient, and a good deal of frantic subterfuge went on in the drill hall as kit was rapidly transferred from one to the other during inspections. The practised eye of Kit Check Charlie fastened quickly on the lacunae, however, and thirteen of the draft were haled before the C.Q.M.S. and had pay stopped.
“It’s an impo-bloody-sition,” complained Cox, outraged, to Stanley. “Fourteen and fivepence. I’ve got along all this time without them vests and shoes and they make me buy a new lot. I don’t bloody want them. A bloody waste, that’s what it is.”
Sergeant Piper was a tremendous man, at once paternal and fussy, given to constant explanation and repetition.
“Listen carefully,” he would boom down the drill hall. “I’m going to inspect trousers, battledress. That’s serge, not denims. When I say an article like ‘Trousers, battledress’ I want you to hold them up. Got it? Right, trousers, battledress.”
Close control was the keynote of his organisation. At every opportunity he would pin up carefully worded notices. One such read: “THESE LAVARATORY’S IS NOT TO BE USED BETWEEN HOOR’S OF RE-VIELLE AND LIGHTS-OUT.”
Where verbal instructions seemed more appropriate his cry was ever: “Got it?”
On the day before the draft marched off he announced: “Now listen. You’re being marched to have a lecture by the M.O. on V.D. Got it?”
On the fourth day the draft was cancelled and the draftees dispersed to their huts. By the next evening three had gone absent, two never to be seen again. Within a couple of days, however, the initial draft order was again in force and the major part of the body reassembled itself painfully in the drill hall.
There were two further kit inspections by Sergeant Piper, and then they were paraded for a final inspection by Major Hitchcock.
“Now you’re off to do ten weeks in George’s company, but remember, after that you’ll be coming back to me for posting. So God help you if I have any complaints from George. You mind you bloody well behave yourselves. I’ve been waiting for a long time to catch up with some of you people, I can tell you. You think I’m a shit, don’t you? Eh? You at the back, for instance. Yes, well, I am. If I weren’t I wouldn’t be the Company Commander.”
Major Hitchcock fell silent and ran round them cursorily, telling one man to take a pace to the rear and blow his nose. Then he came back to his station in front of them.
“All right,” he said cheerfully. “I wish you the best of luck. Carry on please, Sergeant.”
Sergeant Piper’s drill commands lacked the clarity of his more normal orders. They were strangled and unintelligible.
“WEET AR!” he ordered. Some of the draft construed this as a command to slope arms. Others, however, turned left, some turned right, others still executed perfect about-turns. A few right-dressed.
“SHWAR!” called Sergeant Piper, but Major Hitchcock was immediately disheartened at the spectacle and retired to his office, one hand clasped to his brow and shouting in his refined voice: “What a bunch! What a bloody shower!”
Sergeant Piper marched them rapidly away before he reappeared.
*
The draft arrived at the camp within ten minutes of leaving the barracks.
“It’s all go, innit?” said Cox. “Marchin’ with all this kit.”
On arrival they were shown to their hut in “M” Company lines.
“Looks too bloody clean for me,” said one of the old-stagers gloomily.
Stanley was one of the first inside, and took the opportunity of putting his kit on one of the few single beds in the hut. The others were all double-tiered bunks.
The old-stager who had commented on the cleanliness of the place warned him off.
“Prob’ly one of the platoon corp’rals sleeps there, mate,” he advised.
This sounded so convincing and reasonable that Stanley removed his kit and searched for one of the bunks. By this time, however, there were only lower bunks left, and Stanley, cursing his impatience, commandeered one of these. When he looked round he saw the old-stager in possession of the single bed, drawing a friend’s attention to it with great enthusiasm.
The arrival of the platoon sergeant cut matters short.
He was a dapper little man with, they were gratified to note, a good crop of wavy hair. Clearly he would not be too insistent on regular visits to the ferocious regimental barbers.
“Here’s the dope,” he said. “Following things to be cleaned and shone up bright.”
They listened, depressed, to the recital.
“’Ere, sarge,” interposed the old-stager Fred, who had acquired Stanley’s bed. “Is that right, what I ’ear, we got to blanco our water-bottle strings?”
“Thassright,” said the platoon sergeant.
“Cor,” said Fred faintly. “And I thought that was only a load of old knackers.”
“Now get a look at a specimen kit lay-out,” said the sergeant.
In the little green lockers, screwed to the walls above the beds, there were two shelves. A lance-corporal had laid out a specimen kit on a shelf. Shirts, P.T. vests and cellular drawers were folded into a square column on one side, with tightly folded battledress making a symmetrical column at the other end. In between were socks, made into little grey logs.
“Where does your personal kit go, sarge?” asked Cox dubiously.
“It doesn’t,” said the sergeant. “What d’you think you’re on, anyway—a garden-party? … You’ll have to put it behind the rest,” he added, after reconsideration.
“I don’t like it, personally, meself,” said Cox simply.
“It’s not my idea,” said the sergeant defensively. “It’s a new one of the C.O.’s.”
“Bloody terrible, ain’t it?” commented Cox.
“Yer, well …” said the sergeant.
As they were unpacking, a sunburnt lieutenant came in and said he wanted to address them. They all sat on their beds while the lieutenant read out a confused list of crimes from the Army Act. He kept forgetting the amendments and harking back to fit them in. When he had finished there was an awkward pause and he left.
“That was Mr. Bootle, the platoon officer,” said the sergeant. “I’m Sergeant Leggett, by the way.”
“Chri
stian name?” asked Cox imperturbably.
“Eh?” said Sergeant Leggett. “Well, Len.”
“Ta very much,” said Cox. “Only I like to know. Is that Mr. Bootle the one they call Tootle?”
“Why?” said Sergeant Leggett.
“We’re supposed to know the names of all the officers and N.C.O.s, aren’t we?” said Cox.
There was a slight pause.
“Yes, he is,” admitted Sergeant Leggett.
“It’s always best to know,” said Cox.
*
The first day of training was, as Cox commented, dead cushy. They were first of all marched to the Medical Inspection Room for an F.F.I.
Here the same medical officer who had pronounced them free from infection the day before, on their leaving the barracks, pronounced them to be still free from infection on their arrival at the camp. He cycled between the two establishments daily and held sick parades at both.
In the afternoon there was the weekly period of recreational training. The majority of the platoon went on a swimming parade at the Gravestone Baths, but no sooner had they arrived than the P.T. corporal who had marched them down began urging them to hurry up and get out.
“Come on, you geezers,” he called through the steamy, echoing hall. “Mixed bathin’s due in five minutes.”
“That’s all right, Corp,” said the old-stager Fred, floating voluptuously without his false teeth. “Don’t you trust us?”
“It’s against A.C.I.’s,” said the corporal. “Everybody out!”
As they dressed, the word was passed round that the corporal had already gone and that they could make their own way back.
Within three days, however, the training proper had started. Of all the training periods the most popular were the A.B.C.A. and Citizenship hours.
“What a waste of a lovely day, eh?” Cox would say, above the hammering of rain on the tin roof. “Just suppose it was route-march day over the blinkin’ downs. Instead of that, we got the birth-rate man with ’is wallpaper samples.”
This analysis of the A.B.C.A. periods had indeed some justification. They were taken largely by an Education Corps sergeant, whose arrival was preceded by that of a minion carrying home-made charts and graphs on population trends. The British Constitution was quickly dealt with, but questions of economics and war aims were always considered in a setting of population trends. The discussions were invariably cynical and furious and the birth-rate man was hotly accused of being responsible for ten million unemploved.
