Sergeant Nelson of the Guards (10 page)

The Staff Sergeant reaches out, casually, as one might reach for a cigarette; and almost as effortlessly picks up a great Sergeant Instructor in a blue-and-red striped sweater and a Sandow moustache.

“This kind of thing,” says the Staff Sergeant, hurling the striped one to the earth and hauling his right hand back between his
shoulder-blades
, “is useful sometimes. But you have to be
quick,
not necessarily strong, but
quick
to do it, and speed is always useful, in every walk of life.”

The striped Sergeant is black in the face and moaning. The Staff Sergeant releases him. “Sergeant Paul,” he says, “rush me.”

“Must
I, Staff? You’ve demonstrated on me twice already today.”

“Yes, you must.”

The striped one walks twenty feet away, and then makes a desperate rush upon the Staff Sergeant. He hopes to bear the grim one down by sheer weight and vigour. A second or so later he is spinning through the air. “Watch him fall,” says Staff. “If he didn’t know how to fall he’d break his neck. Or maybe an arm.” The striped Sergeant rolls over and over, and finally rises, covered with dry grass and somewhat angry.

The Staff Sergeant turns back to us. He has the calm, languid air of
a man who has just thrown away an empty cigarette packet. “You might go a bit easy on these demonstrations,” says Sergeant Paul. “There was a stone where I fell.”

“Well, the stone had no right to be there. All right. I just wanted to have a word with you. You can’t be good soldiers unless you’re fit. It’s up to me to make you fit, and up to you to help me.” And the Staff Sergeant repeats something we have heard before, and are destined to hear many times again:

“Work with me, and I’ll be all right. Work against me, make things difficult, impede the progress of fitness and the war by any idleness, laziness, insubordination or funny business …” He grinds his teeth, leaving the rest unsaid but hideously implied.

Then he hands us over to the striped Sergeant, Paul, who lines us up and says:

“I’m the best fellow in the world if you treat me right. Work willingly and do your best, and I’m your pal. Play me up, and I don’t mind telling you I’ll make life a misery for you. I’ll soon get that paleness off your faces and put some zing into those limbs. Now, let’s see you run …”

An hour later we go back to the hut.

Sergeant Nelson grins at us.

“Well? Grown any hair on your horrible little chests? Get back into battledress. I,
I
, do you hear me,
I
am going to tell you about the Short Lee-Enfield Rifle.
Hi-de-Hi!”

“Ho-de-Ho!”

Bates says: “Please Sergeant Oi think Oi’ve got a torn muscle.”

“So what d’you want me to do? Darn it? Get going.”

*

The little aches and pains of unaccustomed exercise affect different men in different ways. Some remember what their mothers told them about “overstraining” themselves, and fall into dismal panic. Others—heavy manual workers, and the like—consider them philosophically, without entirely ignoring them. Sedentary men, clerical fellows,
black-coated
workers like Dale, suffer considerably in the first weeks of
Guards training, but suffer like heroes, saying nothing at all except an occasional “Owch,” like the parrot that laid square eggs.

Months afterwards, Sergeant Nelson, speaking to the N.C.O. known as Corporal Bearsbreath, said:

“Bearsbreath, I definitely admit that the wartime Guardsman is not the same as the peacetime Guardsman. In peacetime you can settle down to quiet training. You can chase your man into shape for months; and then again he’s come into the Army because he wants to make it his job for a few years to come. Definitely. In wartime, you get all sorts and shapes and sizes of Guardsmen, within the height limits. But you have to hand it to one or two of them, the way they take it.

“There was a guy called Spencer, some sort of a salesman of some kind of biscuits or some such tack, that had spent his life sitting in a little motorcar driving from boozer to boozer hawking this here stuff. He come in at fourteen-stone-seven, puffy as pastry, carrying maybe three stone of superfluous fat, and dead out of condition. Oh definitely. Built to weigh eleven stone; carrying three stone extra: thinnish in the leg, softish about the thigh, not too good in the feet. Well,
Bearsbreath
, you know as well as I do that the chief trouble with Guardsmen is their feet. There’s practically a disease: ‘Guardsmen’s Heels,’ from excessive stamping. I thinks to myself: ‘With all the good will in the world,’ I thinks, ‘this here Salesman wallah is going to turn out pretty poor … yes, I’m afraid he’s going to be definitely steady.’

“And I watches him. Well, Bearsbreath, you know as well as I do that the first week or two cracks up quite a few rookies, for the time being … ammo boots on their poor little feet, and stamp, stamp, stamp on the Square; and the Staff Sergeant in the muscle factory; and the change of grub, and so on. This here Spencer drops weight like a Wop dumping his pack on the run. You can
see
stones and stones dripping off of him on the Square. Millions of stones that rook lost; billions. And sometimes, coming in at night to see if everything was hunky-doke, I’d see this here biscuit, or potato-crisp salesman, sitting on his bed with a pair of feet on him—I swear to God, Bearsbreath, they was like barrage balloons
painted red, only bigger. ‘Sore tootsies?’ I says, and he always says: ‘It’s all right, Sarnt.’ Conscientious? I never see such a conscientious rook. And I see him shape, and I say to myself: ‘This rook is a dead cert for the tapes, and pretty damn soon at that.’ What I mean to say is, I run into him the other day, and he’s a lance-jack. I would have sworn he couldn’t have stood the racket, and I wouldn’t have held it against him if he hadn’t, because there’s some fellers that aren’t cut out for it.

“What I mean, Bearsbreath, is; for sheer sand in the belly, grit, spine, nerve, and guts, some o’ these soft-looking civvies take some beating. He went through hell, that rook did. He was over thirty, too. Definitely, Bearsbreath, the war brings out the what-d’you-call-it in some blokes. There’s big buck navvies would have laid down and had kittens at half what this here Spencer went through. Now my point is this: the Army helped to make a man of that geezer. He wouldn’t have known how good he was if it hadn’t been for the Army. But that’s neither here nor there. My point is this: the kid of eighteen has soft bones, and he’s young—he don’t feel the strain much because it’s helping him to grow. The working mug that’s shoved barrows, or handled a pick and shovel,
he
doesn’t notice it so much, because he’s been using his muscles all his life, more or less. But the clurk, Bearsbreath, the clurk, the shopwalker, the pen-pusher, the bloke that’s never used his muscles in his life—he’s the bloke I’m sorry for and take my hat off to at the same time. He sort of feels that he’s got to stand up to it as well as anybody else. And he does. And he won’t go sick unless he’s absolutely
got
to go sick. He’s ashamed to. Toughish; definitely toughish.”

Bearsbreath said: “We was all Civvies once, Nelson.”

“Were we?” said Sergeant Nelson. “To tell you the honest truth, I hardly remember.”

*

That evening, as we come back from tea, Trained Soldier Brand says:

“No talking, singing, or whistling. No smoking. No eating. Shining Parade. Remember, every morning the Officer comes round to inspect this hut. I noticed one or two greatcoats with buttons like old halfpennies
this morning. I’m responsible for you. You land
me
in the muck if you don’t watch out, and that is a serious offence. I want to see you fellers working till seven. Them gaiters have got to be blancoed every night. So’s your belt, and et cetera. Remember, brush the surface of the
webbing
with water, first, then brush your blanco in thinly and evenly. Take your belts to bits and work on them brasses. A thin smear of polish, let it dry, and then rub, damn it, rub. Above all, work on them boots. I don’t mind telling you, they’re ’ot on boots ’ere. You’ll be inspected soon. Say your boots is bad. What happens? The Company Commander hauls me in on Orders and says: ‘Trained Soldier Brand, why is them men’s daisy-roots in muck? Is this ’ere the way you maintain the high
standards
of the Brigade of Guards? Are you a Coldstreamer? Or what the lousy hell are you? Why, you twillip,’ he says. ‘Take three drills just for a warning.’ And if you think I’m going to rush round that Square with a pack just for you, you’re wrong. So let me tell you something—any idle skiver I catch will find himself with such a load o’ jankers he won’t know where he is.”

“What is jankers, Trained Soldiers?” asked Johnson.

“It’s a sort of general kind of word meaning punishment. You’ll get to know the call: Defaulters—
You
can
be
a
Defaulter
as
long
as
you
like,
As
long
as
you
answer
your
name.
It might be
Show
Boots
Clean.
It might be
Extra
Drill.
It might be C.B.”

“What is C.B., Trained Soldier?”

“Confined to Barracks.”

“But we’re confined to barracks now.”

“Yes, but only while you’re Recruits. After you’re done here, you’re Guardsmen, and have the right to go out every night, duty permitting. You get a Permanent Pass, allowing you out of barracks from After Duty to Midnight. But if you get C.B., you can’t go out. Defaulters sounds five minutes after Reveille. You’ve got to hustle to the Square and answer your name double time. During the day, Defaulters blows about Dinner Time, and every hour after about five, till ten-thirty. You’ve got to answer your name every time. If you don’t, you’re for it.
Then there’s extra drills, in Fighting Order—small pack, with
ground-sheet
and mess-tins, pouches, braces, belt, rifle, bayonet, full water-bottle. And you’ve got to be spick-and-span, or you might get another few days. The drills, usually, are pretty tough, too. The game ain’t worth the candle. For instance, you’re very likely to get seven days or so for a dirty rifle. Well, a dust over and a pull-through’ll save you all that. Or being late for a parade: two minutes can land you seven days. Or over-staying your furlough, or being in possession of playing cards, or answering back, or not answering back (answering back is
Insubordination
: not answering back is Dumb Insolence), or not being properly dressed, or forgetting to salute an officer, or having a dirty cap star, or a dirty bayonet, or standing idle on parade, or being inattentive on parade, or speaking out of turn, or laughing, or crying, or using horrible—dirty words, or not walking properly, or not getting up at Reveille, or not putting out the lights at Lights Out, or skiving …”

“What is Skiving?”

“The same as Swinging It. Trying to get out of things; dodging a parade, wangling a fatigue, or otherwise chancing your arm. Slipping out for a tea ’n’a wad when on fatigue is, for instance, Skiving.”

“What’s a Wad?”

“Shiver-and-Shake. A Cake. (Get on with that shining!) There’s no need to go round bobbing: just keep calm and do your dooty, and you’ll keep out of trouble.”

“What’s Bobbing?”

“Oh … sort of bobbing; getting nerves, worrying. You, Dale, your boots are very steady.”

“Thanks, Trained Soldier,” says Dale, gratified; for to this good man “Steady” is the highest possible praise of a man or his job.

“Thanks? Thanks for what? In the Guards, son, ‘Steady’ means ‘Absolutely lousy.’ If you want to sort of spit in a man’s eye, call him Steady. If, on the other hand, you want to give him a bit o’ praise, then says he’s Hot. ‘Steady’ means Awful, so get working. I know you’re not used to it yet: don’t get down’earted. Rub your polish well in, then spit
nice clear spit, and rub it in with a circular motion. If you’re using a bone, then bone your boots with a kind of smooth, stroking movement. … D’you hear that bugle-call? That’s ‘Yellow’ … there’s enemy planes about, so be on the alert. ‘Red’—
There
’
s
a
Jerry
in
the
sky”
—he sings it—“means, go to the shelter with your tin hat and respirator. You also take your rifle and bayonet, to get you used to the feel of ’em. There’s hundreds of calls: you’ve got to know them, from Reveille to Lights Out. There’s little pomes to ’em. Frinstance: Picquet:

“Or Officers’ Mess:

“Or Letters:

“Or Commandant’s Orders: After the Brigade Call:

“
or

“You’ll learn, you’ll learn in time. And what is Commandant’s Orders, you ask? Well. If the Commandant wants to say something to you, he orders you to attend Orders, and you’re marched in, first to Company Orders, and ordered to attend Commandant’s Orders, and then you’re marched into the Commandant’s office, and get what’s coming to you. Or say you’ve committed some crime, like being late, or absent. The Company Commander might not want to deal with the case himself. He might send you to the Adjutant for sentence, and the Adjutant might send you to the Commandant. So don’t go and commit no crimes.