Soldier Of The Queen

by Bernard O'Mahoney

  I walked glumly out of court thinking my trump card had been trumped. I was faced with a dilemma: either the army for three years or prison for six months. It was coming up to Christmas and I thought of the misery of being stuck in prison with people as anti-social as I. At least in the army there would be better food, a bit of money and free time. And perhaps the moustachioed sergeant was right: it might open up other opportunities for me in the future. All in all, it seemed the least unsatisfactory alternative.

  The night before I went to St George's Barracks I stayed with my mother. She was pleased I was joining the army. She had never lectured me, but I knew she had been worried about where my life seemed to be leading. I had long hair then, and she was also pleased I was going to have to get it cut.

  6

  Pigs, Fucking Pigs

  "If any of you are lying, you are going to be in serious trouble," said the serious uniformed man seriously. "SER-I-OUS TROU-BLE."

  I had only been in the army for one hour and could not yet distinguish between the different ranks. I was standing in a large gym with around 100 of my fellow new recruits. The serious man's face exuded doom: "So if any of you have a criminal record that you have not yet told us about, then declare it now." Such people would be discharged immediately without being punished for having lied in their application forms. However, he said, people who had lied and did not take this opportunity to come clean would be dealt with severely when the army uncovered the truth. "And, believe me, we will find you out. Our checks are stringent. STRIN-GENT."

  He walked down the line, looking into our eyes. I stared straight ahead as he plodded slowly past me. I felt uncomfortable and knew that if they did carry out any checks I'd be found out. I was still under a Supervision Order for the mugging almost two years earlier - I even had my own probation officer; I had not completed the 240 hours of community service that had been imposed some time earlier for going equipped for burglary; I had a six-month prison sentence for theft hanging over me; and I was on bail for the milk-bottle case — assault, theft, threatening behaviour, possessing an offensive weapon - which had yet to be heard. Telling the army the truth was not an option. As far as I was concerned I had nothing to lose by keeping quiet: if I confessed I would be discharged straight into prison. A few people put up their hands. One had been convicted of dangerous driving after clipping the kerb in his Mini; another had been caught shoplifting when he was 13. They were hardly infiltrators from the criminal underworld, but the serious man told them to step out of line and report to the administration office.

  For the next few days we had to perform written and physical tests. Their main aim was to weed out the seriously unfit and the acutely stupid, but they were also supposed to identify aptitudes that might make you suited for a particular role. I did well in both sets of tests — and was told I might make a good tank gunner. I couldn't see how such a trade would equip me to earn a living in civilian life, but the job did have some appeal. It would mean I could travel everywhere on wheels, rather than having to blunder through countryside on foot carrying a huge backpack and a rifle. So I didn't question their assessment. In any case, I had only joined the army to avoid prison, so as long as I achieved that aim I didn't really care what I did.

  I didn't have much time for most of the other recruits: many of them seemed terribly keen to make the army their life. I came across the term "army barmy" for the first time as a way of describing people who loved being soldiers and adored everything to do with soldiering. The army barmies were certainly the dominant group in this intake.

  There was only one recruit I got on well with. His name was Alan and he was from Rhodesia. He was bright and amusing and had done some strange things in his life. He hated blacks, especially black Rhodesians, and followed intently the progress of the war in his homeland between the whites and the black "commie bastard terrorists". He could not understand why English people seemed to treat blacks — he called them "kaffirs" - as equals. He said that when he had first arrived in England he had taken the underground from Heathrow Airport into central London. Further down the line a black man had got on and sat in the same carriage. Alan could not believe the cheek of the man: he thought blacks were forbidden to travel in the same compartments as whites - as was the case in his own country. He got up and told the man to get out of the carriage. Not surprisingly, the man refused. So Alan pulled the communication cord to stop the train. When the guard arrived to see what was wrong Alan told him to remove "the kaffir" immediately. The conductor explained that blacks in England had the same rights as whites; and he warned Alan that people who stopped trains without proper excuse could be prosecuted. Alan spent the rest of the journey in culture shock. Alan's father was Scottish, so he had no problem getting in to the British

  Army, but his intention was to get an up-to-date military training and then return home to bayonet some commie kaffirs.

  The army barmies would spend most of their time asking: "What do you want to be? Which regiment do you want to be in?" Some of the more crazed ones were desperate to join the Paras. I would tell them there was no way anyone could get me to jump out of a perfectly good aeroplane unless it was going to crash. At that time I had not grasped the meaning of regiments. I just thought we were all in the army and that was that. Alan explained the regimental system and told me he was going to join his father's Scottish regiment. He suggested I went with him, but my experiences in Scotland had left me with a jaundiced view of the Scots. I said: "I ain't going in no fucking jock regiment." So he suggested - because of my Irish background — that I joined an Irish one. He added: "Then you can be a war-dodger as well." I didn't know what he meant. He explained there was a policy not to send Irish regiments to serve in Northern Ireland.

  My mind had been so focussed on avoiding prison that I had not until that point properly considered the most unpleasant implication of joining the army, namely, that I might have to serve in the North. Alan's suggestion of how I could dodge the war struck me as excellent. I asked him if there was an Irish tank regiment. He said there was: it was called the 5th Royal Inniskilling Dragoon Guards. Towards the end of the selection process I was interviewed and asked which regiment I wanted to join. I told them I felt drawn to the 5th Royal Inniskilling Dragoon Guards. They asked me why. I said: "Because my parents are Irish."

  From Sutton Coldfield I was sent to start my seven weeks of basic training with the Royal Armoured Corps in the

  Yorkshire garrison town of Catterick. A childhood of verbal and physical abuse had prepared me well for the training regime. Indeed, some days I used to feel my childhood was being repeated as pantomime farce and, unlike most of my fellow recruits, I found a lot of the extreme behaviour extremely funny. None of the instructors ever talked normally: they barked, shouted or screamed every instruction and, perhaps through fear that you hadn't heard them, would often supplement their words with punches, slaps or kicks.

  My pre-existing prejudices against Scots became intensified by my encounters with the instructors, many of whom were Scottish. There was one small-arms instructor, in particular, whom we nicknamed McPsycho. He was about 6ft 1, broad-shouldered, muscular and intimidating - a real Action Man. Even his eyes moved. He lived in a state of unceasing rage, at times even frothing at the mouth, like a rabid dog that had just had its bone stolen. You dared not commit a misdemeanour on the firing range. If your weapon jammed or you fired after he had ordered you to stop or you failed in some way to follow the correct procedure he would bear down upon you, ranting hysterically, spit falling from his mouth or bubbling on his lips. The man was a health hazard. As you lay on the ground facing the targets he would stand on your back and shout about fucking idiots who did not want to listen. Then he would say something like: "Maybe they don't want to listen because their lives are so miserable they'd sooner be dead. They'd rather be buried underground so people could walk over them." At this point he would walk on the spot on the wrongdoer's back. Then as he squeezed almost the last breath from
his victim's lungs he would scream: "Is your life so fucking miserable you want to die?"

  "No, corporal."

  "Then listen! Fucking listen!"

  He would also throw handfuls of gravel or dirt at those he thought were not paying attention. You never walked anywhere with him, you always ran. If he was not alongside you shouting insults, he would be behind you kicking your arse - especially on the forced marches. They called them marches, but you spent most of the five miles running with a full kit on your back, a sub-machine-gun in your hands - tank crews did not train with rifles - and a pair of new, ill-fitting boots on your feet that rubbed your skin raw. You would run for three miles and then be ordered to walk, but not at normal walking pace, because this was a forced walk with instructors barking, "Left, right, left, right, left, right," as you lost your rhythm and co-ordination. Then you would go back to running before arriving at an assault course which you would have to cross in groups of six carrying a telegraph pole. As I was taller than most - a lot of people in the tank regiments are quite small so they can fit into the confined tank space -1 had to carry the pole on my shoulder. The smaller recruits in the middle did not have to bear so much of the weight. As I crossed the course the pole would be bouncing and smashing into my head and shoulder, giving me a red-raw shoulder to complement my red-raw feet.

  The training was so intense that you were physically exhausted all the time. On a good day you would fall into bed at 11 p.m. and crawl out at 5 a.m. But you did not usually have much time to sleep, because just as you fell into blissful oblivion around 3 a.m. the doors would be flung open, the lights would be switched on and a group of psychotic Scottish instructors would be standing there screaming. You would leap six feet in the air to land at the side of your bed in your underclothes. At first some people tried to be smart by wearing their uniforms in bed to save having to change swiftly. A few punches in the head and the instructors' observation that "Only pigs wear clothes to bed" put an end to that ruse. Others would sleep on the floor so as not to have to make their beds. But the instructors knew all the tricks and they dealt with that one by dashing unexpectedly into the room, grabbing the feet of their victim and dragging him across the floor into the corridor where he would be kicked about.

  As you stood to attention by your bed you would be ordered to run downstairs to play the instructors' favourite game -Changing Parades. They would order you to change into a bizarre combination of clothing which you had to wear in the stipulated order. They would say things like: "On your feet you'll have plimsolls, on your legs you'll have lightweight trousers, then your number two uniform jacket, then I want you to wear a metal helmet and your towel round your neck." Then they would shout: "Go! Go! Go!" and you would run back upstairs to change, then run back down as fast as you could. The first three downstairs would be allowed to go back to bed; the others would be ordered to change into another combination, which invariably involved wearing a gas mask. Nine times out of ten you had to keep your gas mask on for the whole exercise — sometimes running upstairs backwards — and as you got hotter and hotter you could hardly breathe, nor could you see out of the steamed-up visor.

  There was one recruit who lived in dread of Changing Parades because he always ended up going to bed last. He was from south London, of slight build with short dark hair, parted at the side. Sometimes he wore glasses. He did not mix well

  and rarely spoke. He spent most of his time sitting alone reading war comics or books about the Waffen SS, which obsessed him. Even his civilian clothing was Second World War replica or original: brown leather USAF flying jacket with fur collar, green German paratroop trousers and Afrika Korps camouflage fatigues. Around his bed space, instead of photos of his family or pornographic posters, he had pictures of Nazi tanks. We nicknamed him Rommel. He knew everything there was to know about Waffen SS panzer divisions, especially their soldiers' clothing and weaponry. He wanted to join the Royal Tank Regiment because their tank crews were the only ones in the British Army who wore black overalls - like his SS panzer heroes. Members of other tank regiments wore green. He would also listen to tapes of the "Speak German in a Fortnight" variety, although he claimed this was because we were likely to be posted to Germany. We used to take the mickey out of him and sometimes he would play up to us, goose-stepping up and down the room with his right arm outstretched in a Nazi salute. However, although he was clearly army barmy, his military enthusiasm did not translate into military efficiency, which was why, among other things, he feared Changing Parades.

  One night as we frantically changed into the latest bizarre combination of clothing he could not find a particular item and said: "Fuck. I'm going to be last again." I suggested that if he wanted to be first down he ought to jump out the window. As we were twenty feet up on the third floor I thought he would take my suggestion as the joke it was meant to be. But in his desperation it must have seemed like a good idea, because the next second he was clambering out the window. The image that remains in my mind is of him looking back at me, eyes flickering madly, as he launched himself into the air. I heard a crunch and a piercing "Aaaaarrrggghhh!" and I ran to look out. Rommel was writhing on the ground; instructors were standing over him shouting, "What are you doing? What are you doing, you silly cunt?" Miraculously he did not break any bones - although he could hardly walk -and once the instructors had established that fact they forced him to crawl back upstairs to continue the game.

  Throughout this time my major anxiety was that the army's stringent checks for hidden criminals would result in my exposure. During training they often called out my name and ordered me to report somewhere. The shout "O'Mahoney! Get here now!" would send the adrenaline pumping through my veins and push into my mind the vision of a dank prison cell. I would run to my fate only to be met with the scream, "What's your doctor's name?" or some other petty administrative query. With hindsight I needn't have worried about being booted out for lying. Either they never checked my record or they decided to ignore what they found. I was not the only person to conceal his past: during my three years in the army I came across many people - at least 20 - with undisclosed criminal records, often involving crimes of violence. I only heard of one instance where they confronted someone over a discrepancy in his application. This concerned a soldier who had not mentioned his Polish relations. The Cold War was still being fought and they were worried about being infiltrated by spies from behind the Iron Curtain. But after a little hoo-ha even he was allowed to remain.

  While I could tolerate, even enjoy, the physical and mental challenges of the intense training regime, there were many petty idiocies that I loathed. Supreme among these was the fetish for perfect cleanliness and order in all aspects of your military existence. Toothpaste tubes had to be tapped square. Everything in your wardrobe had to be perfectly presented and perfectly placed. Shirts had to be folded exactly with the use of a piece of cardboard, then placed in a particular spot; hats had their own space; boots went in three inches from the wall - no closer, no farther — and they could only be put there after you'd spent any free time at night cleaning and polishing them to a mirror-finish, which you would achieve by melting candle wax in a spoon, rubbing it into the boot and polishing in small circles, often for hours. At those times I'd experience a boredom so mind-numbing that it was almost like a spiritual experience.

  Everything was done with a view to inspection. The corporal would come in wearing white gloves. You would be standing by your beds (blankets boxed and precisely measured with a stick). He would put his white-gloved hand behind a radiator and if when he took his hand away there was even the slightest speck of dust on his glove he would scream: "You fucking pigs!" I'd find it hard not to laugh. One time he went in to the room next to ours and after a few seconds I heard him shouting: "You fucking pigs! You fucking animals!" Then I heard the window being opened violently and the words: "If you want to be fucking pigs, then be fucking pigs." With that, various items of clothing began being thrown out of the window while his voi
ce became increasingly hysterical. He threw the entire contents of their wardrobes onto the grass below, all the time screaming: "You fucking pigs! Pigs! Pigs! Pigs! Pigs! What are you? Pigs!" For the whole weekend the four occupants of that room had to live in a tent outside the block because, being pigs, they weren't fit to live in the same block as us. Every time I used to look out the window at them I used to crack up with laughter. I used to go to breakfast in the morning and they would come crawling out of the tent, looking very unhappy. Even during drill the four pigs would be singled out for humiliation. The instructor would say to one: "What are you?"