elongated figure made of teak wearing a Guards cap and with a high-pitched falsetto scream that made his hair stand on end was a very different matter.
As they were formed up, scared stiff by the precision marching going on about them, the figure with the Guards cap addressed them. ‘Now gentlemen,’ he said. ‘While you’re ’ere, I’m “sir” to you, sir, and you’re “sir” to me, sir. Do you understand, all of you? Even if I address you as “sir”, you will also address me as “sir.” Got it?’
His bark was worse than his bite while his parade-ground patter, learned from generations of instructors, was worth putting in a book. ‘Idle’ covered everything from an untidy appearance to an improperly laced boot. ‘Idle on parade’. ‘Idle boot laces’. Even the bugler, suffering from a sore on his lip, had his name taken for blowing an ‘idle horn’.
In some ways it was a bit like joining a penal battalion. The cadets wore pink and white striped blazers with pill-box hats, a form of headgear that hadn’t been in use in the army since the turn of the century, and on parade the senior under-officers wore as much braid on their sleeves as Hungarian hussars. Though the instructors never missed a thing, they were also full of an underlying sense of humour and mutual loyalty that sprang from years in the army. Training was hard because the cadets had to learn everything that was likely to be needed by an army officer. ‘You’ve got to do it proper,’ they were told by the instructor. ‘And, since you ain’t been away from your mothers for long, you got to rely on me.’
There were a lot of familiar names on the doors of the long blank corridors of the old building – Maxse, de Salis, Lowe, Vandeleur, Luard, Paget – some even that Josh had heard his grandfather mention from as far back as the Crimea. Tradition and duty had brought them there. Josh had already read parts of Clausewitz and followed the campaigns of Stonewall Jackson, Lee, Napoleon, Wellington and Marlborough, poring over maps with his grandfather as he did so. Noticeably, few leaders from the recent war were mentioned, save his father’s old commander, Allenby, though there was a lot of talk about a man called Fuller – a serving soldier, no less – who was preaching blasphemy in the Royal United Services Institute Journal where he was claiming that, although cavalry was still needed, it was only of any use in tanks.
Once more, the drill came easily and he was eyed askance by the sergeant instructor. They spent weeks on general infantry training before moving on to more sophisticated instruction under a major of the 17th Lancers who’d been severely wounded in France. He had one eye, one hand and walked with a limp. Caught by a shell as a subaltern in 1914, when told he was unlikely ever to be fit enough to fight again, he had found a civilian surgeon who had patched him up and, despite his disability, had gone back to France in time to take part in the holocaust on the first day of the Somme. By the end of the war he was commanding a battalion of infantry but, after the Armistice, had dropped back to the rank of major and been given an instructor’s job at Sandhurst. Nobody seemed in the least surprised and, as the sergeant instructor said, ‘’Course he didn’t get no medals, sir. It was what he was trained for.’
Somehow, at Sandhurst, it made sense.
Josh was sorry when the course finished. It taught him a lot and for the first time in his life he began to see what soldiering was all about and that there might be some sense in all the relentless drilling. After passing out, he was kitted out by the regimental tailor, who remembered his father and his grandfather, but his return to the Regiment was very different from his enlistment. Instead of being cleverer than everybody else, now he was considered the lowest form of animal life in the mess.
A few of the older officers eyed him sideways, wondering what they’d
As they were formed up, scared stiff by the precision marching going on about them, the figure with the Guards cap addressed them. ‘Now gentlemen,’ he said. ‘While you’re ’ere, I’m “sir” to you, sir, and you’re “sir” to me, sir. Do you understand, all of you? Even if I address you as “sir”, you will also address me as “sir.” Got it?’
His bark was worse than his bite while his parade-ground patter, learned from generations of instructors, was worth putting in a book. ‘Idle’ covered everything from an untidy appearance to an improperly laced boot. ‘Idle on parade’. ‘Idle boot laces’. Even the bugler, suffering from a sore on his lip, had his name taken for blowing an ‘idle horn’.
In some ways it was a bit like joining a penal battalion. The cadets wore pink and white striped blazers with pill-box hats, a form of headgear that hadn’t been in use in the army since the turn of the century, and on parade the senior under-officers wore as much braid on their sleeves as Hungarian hussars. Though the instructors never missed a thing, they were also full of an underlying sense of humour and mutual loyalty that sprang from years in the army. Training was hard because the cadets had to learn everything that was likely to be needed by an army officer. ‘You’ve got to do it proper,’ they were told by the instructor. ‘And, since you ain’t been away from your mothers for long, you got to rely on me.’
There were a lot of familiar names on the doors of the long blank corridors of the old building – Maxse, de Salis, Lowe, Vandeleur, Luard, Paget – some even that Josh had heard his grandfather mention from as far back as the Crimea. Tradition and duty had brought them there. Josh had already read parts of Clausewitz and followed the campaigns of Stonewall Jackson, Lee, Napoleon, Wellington and Marlborough, poring over maps with his grandfather as he did so. Noticeably, few leaders from the recent war were mentioned, save his father’s old commander, Allenby, though there was a lot of talk about a man called Fuller – a serving soldier, no less – who was preaching blasphemy in the Royal United Services Institute Journal where he was claiming that, although cavalry was still needed, it was only of any use in tanks.
Once more, the drill came easily and he was eyed askance by the sergeant instructor. They spent weeks on general infantry training before moving on to more sophisticated instruction under a major of the 17th Lancers who’d been severely wounded in France. He had one eye, one hand and walked with a limp. Caught by a shell as a subaltern in 1914, when told he was unlikely ever to be fit enough to fight again, he had found a civilian surgeon who had patched him up and, despite his disability, had gone back to France in time to take part in the holocaust on the first day of the Somme. By the end of the war he was commanding a battalion of infantry but, after the Armistice, had dropped back to the rank of major and been given an instructor’s job at Sandhurst. Nobody seemed in the least surprised and, as the sergeant instructor said, ‘’Course he didn’t get no medals, sir. It was what he was trained for.’
Somehow, at Sandhurst, it made sense.
Josh was sorry when the course finished. It taught him a lot and for the first time in his life he began to see what soldiering was all about and that there might be some sense in all the relentless drilling. After passing out, he was kitted out by the regimental tailor, who remembered his father and his grandfather, but his return to the Regiment was very different from his enlistment. Instead of being cleverer than everybody else, now he was considered the lowest form of animal life in the mess.
A few of the older officers eyed him sideways, wondering what they’d
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