Sergeant Nelson of the Guards (13 page)

The idea is, that by the time you leave the Camp you will be capable of translating things on your own, if need be.

And where is this Camp?

A balloonist found himself in this place, early in the nineteenth
century
. An old lady, looking out of her bedroom window into a pale pink sunset, saw a great white bubble drifting down on to the Common. Hastily putting on her bonnet, she ran out. A hundred yards away a billowing mass of silk rippled among the gorse. As she watched, a man struggled out of a basket. He said:

“Where am I, my good woman?”

Falling on her knees and whispering in a voice compounded of joy and terror, the old lady replied:

“Pirbright, please you, God Almighty.”

A century later, an Austrian refugee in Pirbright village, hearing a thunder of engines shaking the sky, ran into his landlady’s
sitting-room
and cried: “Listen, please!”

Ancient and frail as rare porcelain, the landlady quavered:

“Why, don’t you recognise them engines, sir? Don’t upset yourself; they’re only Hurricanes.”

It is still the same old Pirbright. Only times have changed.

*

Here, N.C.O.s sleep in the same huts as the men. The beds are of iron: like Antæus, they are strong while they stand on their own feet; but lift them, and they disintegrate. The coir-fibre mattresses look exactly like what they are called, biscuits. There are three biscuits to a bed. At night, they are laid end-to-end upon the wire bedframe, which, like the true-blue British institution that it is, has never bent or broken, or given way an inch under pressure. Hut No. 40, Z Company, contains thirty such beds, with their full complement of ninety biscuits; two six-foot benches of scrubbed deal; a galvanised iron coalbox, a tub, four galvanised iron basins, buckets zinc and buckets fire, a bass broom, two hair brooms, two scrubbing brushes, one long scrubber, a slab of yellow soap as cold-looking and uninviting as imported Cheddar cheese, and a stove. No luxury here; none of your Depot pampering. When you rise in the morning, you grab yourself an iron basin and rush out to the washhouse with it. One man who keeps his own little enamel basin is greeted, every morning, with derisive yells: “Where’s your water jug, Darling? Where’s your soap dish and slop pail? Ain’t you forgot somethink? Where’s your wardrobe and Jerry?” Sergeant Crowne fills a basin before he goes to sleep, so that he may shave in nice cold water the moment he gets up. He shaves with scrubbing soap. “Cold water, good rough soap and a bluntish blade,” he says, “and you
know
you’ve
’ad
a shave.” Sergeant Hands, however, goes in for
brushless
cream, and washes in a bucket, so that Crowne calls him Ramon Novarro.

Both Hands and Crowne wear the Palestine ribbon. We ask them if they ever met Nelson.

“One-Eye Nelson?” asks Sergeant Crowne, reflectively. “Once upon a time we used to call him Lipstick. Why Lipstick? Well, when he was a Guardsman, he used it, once. No, I don’t mean on ’is mouf, silly. ’E got a stain on his best tunic—scarlet, you know—so ’e thought ’e’d cover it up with some lipstick. So ’e borrowed some lipstick from a nurse called Pinkie.”

“No,” says Sergeant Hands. “The nurse’s name was Jenny. We used to call her The Vest-Pocket Drill Sergeant. Pinkie was engaged to Ding-Dong Bell.”

“That’s right. Jenny. ’E borrowed a lipstick from Jenny, and smeared it over the spot. That scarlet used to stain as easy as anything: rain ’d spot it. Well, Nelson smears this ’ere stuff over this spot, and it turns out to be tangerine colour. So we called ’im Lipstick. Was old Nelson your squad-instructor? One of the best. ’E threw a plate of stew in my face once, in Egypt. Remember that, Hands? Best pal
I
ever ’ad. ’E didn’t like to be called Lipstick.”

Hands says: “You asked for that stew, Crowne. You would keep on calling him Gloria Swanson.”

“Clara Bow. So ’e lets fly with this plate o’ stew. ‘Now am I Clara Bow?’ ’e says.”

“And what did you say, Sergeant?” asks Bates.

“I said: ‘Of course you’re Clara Bow.’ After that we were best of pals.”

Bates, who listens to everything with open mouth, says: “Oi bet it was noice in Palestoin, Sergeant.”

Sergeant Hands replies: “A snare and a delusion. We was doing a kind o’ police job. Oranges was cheap. We got them every dinnertime.”

The giant, Hodge, with bated breath, asks if they saw Bethlehem.

“Certainly,” says Crowne.

“What is it like?” asks Hodge.

“Little,” says Crowne.

“Hot,” says Hands.

“And Jerusalem?” asks Hodge.

“Pretty much the same,” says Crowne.

“And what’s all the trouble about?” asks Barker.

“Trouble?” says Crowne. “Well. The Yids make orchards and blocks of flats. And the Wogs want to cut in. So now and again a Wog shoves a knife into a Yid. Then a Yid goes and shoves a knife into a Wog. Then the Wogs get ’old of some live rounds and shoot a couple o’ Yids. Then the Yids get ’old of some live rounds and shoot a couple o’ Wogs. Then we come in and tell ’em to turn it in.”

“And do they turn it in?”

“Yes and no,” says Crowne.

“Who wins?” asks Bates.

“Order is kept,” Crowne replies. “Order is kept.”

John Johnson grins, and says: “Oi bet you ’ave a noice old toime, with all them Arabian dancing girls.”

“No,” says Crowne, “I can’t say I ever did, not actually. They’re fat. It’s part of their religion to be fat. They ain’t sort o’ particular about soap. Their best friends are just the same, so
they
won’t tell ’em. They ain’t ’ygienic. Zmatter o’ fact, I never saw a Arabian dancing girl. Beer cost about a bob a boll. I don’t believe Arabian girls
can
dance: I never caught one of ’em at it. I ’eard one sing, once. It sounded like somebody was twistin’ ’er arm. I got a nice sun-tan, though. Yes, I did get that …”

“Ha!” says John Johnson.

“What d’you mean, Ha?” says Crowne. “You’re from Brummagem, aren’t you?”

“Yes, Sarnt.”

“I thought as much. A fly boy. Okay, fly boy. Let me tell you one thing. Don’t you get too fly with me. Got it?”

“Oi never said anythink, Sarnt!”

“You said Ha. It’s the way you said it. I can smell a chancer at five
’undred yards …” Sergeant Crowne looks around and his keen glance falls on Thurstan. “What’s your name?” he asks.

“Thurstan.”

“’Ow d’you like the Army, Thurstan?”

“I dunna lak it.”

“Oh, you don’t, eh?”

“Na.”

“Why not?”

Thurstan struggles for words, finds none, and shrugs.

“Oh, it’s like that, is it?” says Sergeant Crowne. “Look, Geordie. I’ll tell you something for your own good. Don’t get tough with the Army. People ’ave tried it. You can’t do it, specially in wartime. I’m not saying you will, mind you. But fellers get browned off
sometimes
, and some of ’em try going absent. They always come back, most of ’em of their own accord. Make the best of it, Geordie. A man that goes absent is a mug: ’e can’t get away with it. Besides, it’s a sign of yellerness: a man that goes absent ’as no guts. Say you go absent. After three weeks you’re posted as a deserter; and then the police of the ’ole country are on your trail. You can’t get identity cards, you can’t do a thing, except perhaps lie low in somebody’s ’ouse. And if you do that you lay them open to prosecution for ’arbouring you. You live like a rat in a ’ole. In the end, you come back. Then you go to the Glass ’Ouse, and you wish you ’adn’t done it. Glass ’Ouse is tougher than a Civvy jail, Geordie.”

Thurstan finds a few words. You can see them struggling to get out. Each broken phrase comes away from his white face like a limping, bedraggled, dazed chick from an egg.

“Civvy jell … Glass Oose … Ah’m no fred o’t. Ah … Army, too. Ah’m no fred of nowt; life a deeth …”

Then Thurstan does something shocking.

He rises out of his condemned-cell crouch, crosses the room in two or three springs, and strikes the iron stove a terrible backhand blow. His bare fingers make it ring like a cracked bell. We leap up. Thurstan
strikes it again. Then he comes back and sits down on his bed. A trickle of blood crawls from under one of his bitten nails.

“Ah can’t be hurt,” says Thurstan. As Sergeant Crowne lays a
restraining
hand on his shoulder, he shakes it oil and mutters: “Let me gang.”

I hear Sergeant Hands murmur: “There’s going to be trouble with that geezer.”

*

We are all a little nervous. If the Depot filled us with the shyness of boys at a new school, the Training Battalion finds us exhilarated but diffident, like boys in their first job of work.

Saturday morning finds us trembling on the brink of our first C.O.’s Parade. It is Sergeant Crowne who reassures us:

“It’s a bit of cush. It’s a slice of pie. The purpose of a Commanding Officer’s Parade is mainly to see that you keep yourselves up to scratch. They are raising a stink in some of the comic papers about ’ow silly it is to blanco your equipment. Well, we’re still ’ot on cleanliness and tidiness ’ere, just the same. Say you blanco every bit of web you’ve got—big pack and straps, little pack, braces, pouches, belt, sling, and gaiters—’ow long does it take you? I say half an hour. You do it once a week. Praps you go over your gaiters twice. And you’re neat and tidy. That’s better than going about like Franco’s Militia, ain’t it? You feel better if you’re neat and clean. In Civvy Street, you wouldn’t go about your business with a filthy face and a ten-day beard and fluff all over your coat, would do? No. Well, no more you do ’ere. All these grousers do is shout. ‘There’s a war on.’ Well, so there is. Certainly there’s a war on. But that’s no excuse for going about with your backside hanging out of your trousers and mud on your daisy-roots. War on! They’re telling me there’s a war on!

“Listen. War or no war, any man with dirty boots or dirty web or dirty flesh goes in the report. Now then. Grumble as much as you like, but wash! Moan your ’eads orf, but clean your boots! Grouse, but brush in that blanco! It takes a extra ’alf-hour. Alright. Let it. God strike
me dead this minute—if I ’ad to walk out this very second to be shot against the wall, I’d prefer to die with clean ’ands and boots. It’s our way. It’s our style. Like it or lump it, by crackey you’ll foller it. Do you get me?

“Look at young Sergeant Butts. You’ve seen ’im. ’E looks like a kid.”

We have seen him. He does. He is very tall and lean, like the man in the O. Henry story who, if he carries any money with him has to carry it in one note folded lengthways … a man of six feet two, and no other dimensions worth mentioning. His face is round and innocent. He is all elbows and knees. When he walks fast he seems to have as many legs as a spider. There is such vigour in his skinny arms that he can draw a pair of new boots at five o’clock, and have a six-months’ polish on them by a quarter to seven. Though fully twenty years old, he has not yet started to shave. Though merely twenty years old, he is already a Sergeant. His nickname is “Greengage,” nobody knows why. He is purer than a girl in a convent school—he hasn’t even any
theoretical
naughtiness. Sergeant Butts doesn’t smoke. He says he enjoys a glass of beer, but nobody ever saw him drink one. All women, to him, are sisters. If he was born in sin, it doesn’t show; or, like an
unsuccessful
inoculation, it never took. On the first blast of
Lights
Out
he is asleep. One second before Reveille he is awake, ready to levitate rather than arise. He glows with soap and inner health. Upon his round pink head, with its Demerara-sugar-coloured hair, the cocky little S.D. Cap looks too ferocious. You feel that he needs a Scout hat and a pole. If a passing A.T.S. girl happens to say “Morning, Sergeant Butts,” he blushes like a neon sign and grins like the Negro on the Euthymol poster, and says “He-he!” He finds it difficult to frown at new recruits, for he has no eyebrows. He has one accomplishment of which he is proud—stroking an imaginary dog. Sometimes, for the amusement of tired soldiers in his hut, he pretends to be coaxing a dog across the floor; fighting with it, tugging at it—he can lean back at an angle of something like forty-five degrees without falling over—and finally
falling
, overwhelmed by the dog’s caresses. Sergeant Butts is scrupulously
neat in his dress. His S.D. tunic is tight as an umbrella cover; it makes him look eight feet tall.

Young as he is, he has already had his baptism of fire and blood. He was in France when things cracked. The corporal they call “
Bearsbreath
” told us the story—that sour, hard-cased, gloomy corporal who always sits, tough and self-contained as a Brazil nut.

Bearsbreath tells of the retreat. “Roads choked. Civvies running. Bundles. Furniture. Everybody scramming; women, kids, and all. Once in a while some dirty Fifth Columnist yells ‘Gas!’ and starts a stampede. Kids trampled. I wish I could have got hold of one of those Fifth Column boys. I’d of shot him in the belly and let him dig his own grave wriggling. You know that our mob was the last to go. Covering the withdrawal. Jerries dive-machine-gunning, women and all. I saw the body of a boy of about five shot through the face. His mother was still carrying him: couldn’t put him down. That’s the kind of people you’re fighting. Nazis. They’d kill anything. Kill your kids, too, as soon as look at ’em. Well, Greengage was cut off; him and about six men.

“He had about twenty-thirty miles to go to the coast. So he started out. His boots was pretty well scruppered even then. He dumped ’em, and slogged it barefoot, still carrying his equipment, till he found
another
pair. He polished ’em up, even then, just out of habit, whenever they stopped to rest. Two of the blokes with him, taking him for an example, shaved, honest to God, with bits of broken mirror to look in. No soap. But they had the habit of living or dying clean. Got me?

“Going was rough. Jerry came down from time to time,
machine-gunning
. Our blokes tried to get one or two of ’em with rifle fire. Got one. Slogged on. Jerry got four of Greengage’s men. The other two,
dog-tired
, had to dump their equipment. Feet conked out. Greengage hung on to his bundook and about fifty rounds. Every time a Jerry dived, Greengage had a go. Not a hope in hell. But he had a go. And every time it came to a rest, Greengage swabbed his boots and tried to clean up a bit. Another of his men copped it. Greengage went on with one bloke. Bloke’s feet conked out. So did Greengage’s. But he couldn’t
give up. He was a N.C.O.: it’d look bad. Besides, it wasn’t in him to say ‘die’. He helped the other bloke along. They come to a wounded feller from Birkenhead. Greengage and the Guardsman carry him. Birkenhead feller dies on the way, so they dump him. Slog on. Get to coast. Guardsman says to Greengage: ‘Go on, Sarnt. I’m not coming. Can’t swim.’ ‘I can,’ says Greengage, and tows the feller out. Three miles. Gets him to boat. Climbs aboard. Salutes the officer and passes out. It wasn’t the tiredness. He had two ounces of shrapnel in his back, and some more in his leg. So there you are. He’s a good soldier, Greengage. All that way, under what they might call trying circumstances, he did his best to keep neat.”