broken bulk and be
ready to issue to units. You should spend more time on your Field Service Pocket Book, Yanto.’
We arrived at a small, unalluring
industrial town. Once more the Battalion formed up. By now the men were tired. Singing was sombre as
we marched in:
‘My lips smile no more, my heart loses
its lightness,
No dream of the future my spirit can cheer,
I only would brood on the past and its brightness,
The dead I have mourned are again gathered here.
From every dark nook they press forward to meet me,
I lift up my eyes to the broad leafy dome.
And others are there looking downward to greet me,
The ashgrove, the ashgrove, alone is my home . .
Gwatkin was right about being more
like soldiers in these new surroundings. Barracks had been created from a
disused linen factory, the long narrow sheds in which the flax had formerly
been treated offering barrack-rooms stark as a Foreign Legion film set.
Officers were billeted in a forlorn villa on the outskirts of the town, a house
that had no doubt once belonged to some successful local businessman. It was a
mile or more away from the barracks. There, I still shared a room with Kedward,
Breeze and Pumphrey, the last of whom had not yet achieved his RAF transfer.
Another subaltern, Craddock, was in with us too, brother of the girl to whom
Kedward was engaged. Craddock, fat and energetic, was Messing Officer, which
meant he returned to billets in the middle of the night several times a week,
when he would either turn on the light, or blunder about the room in the dark,
falling over other people’s camp-beds in a fruitless effort to find his own.
Both methods were disturbing. There was, in any case, not much room to
manoeuvre round the beds, even when the light was on. Craddock’s midnight
arrivals were not the only inconvenience. Breeze left old razor blades about in
profusion, causing Pumphrey to cut his foot one morning. Kedward talked in his
sleep throughout the night, shouting commands, as if he were drilling a
company: ‘At the halt – on the left – form close column of – platoons …’
Pumphrey, inclined to bicker, would
throw towels about and sponges. A window pane was broken, which no one ever
seemed responsible for mending, through which the night wind whistled, while
cold struck up insistently from the floor, penetrating the canvas of a
camp-bed. Snow had returned. I record these conditions not as particularly formidable in the
circumstances, but to indicate they were sufficiently far from
ideal to encourage a change, when, as it happened, opportunity
arose. This came about through Gwatkin in an
unexpected manner. During the weeks that followed our arrival
in these new surroundings, I began to know him better. He
was nearer my own age than the other subalterns, except Bithel. Even the
captains tended to be younger than
Gwatkin and myself, as time went on, some of the older ones
being gradually shifted, as insufficiently proficient at
their job, to Holding Battalions or the Infantry Training Centre.
‘We’re getting rid of the dead wood,’
said Gwatkin. ‘Just as well.’
His own abrupt manner of speaking
continued, and he loved to find fault for its own sake. At the same time, he evidently
wanted to be friendly, while fearing that too easy a relationship with a
subordinate, even one of similar age, might be unmilitary. There were
unexpected sides to Gwatkin, sudden displays of uncertainty under a façade meant
to be very certain. Some of his duties he carried out very well; for others, he
had little or no natural talent.
‘A company commander,’ said Dicky
Umfraville, when we met later that year, ‘needs the qualifications of a
ringmaster in a first-class circus, and a nanny in a large family.’
Gwatkin aspired to this dazzling
combination of gifts – to become (as Pennistone later said) a military saint.
Somehow he always fell short of that coveted status. His imperfections never
derived from any willingness to spare himself. On the
ready to issue to units. You should spend more time on your Field Service Pocket Book, Yanto.’
We arrived at a small, unalluring
industrial town. Once more the Battalion formed up. By now the men were tired. Singing was sombre as
we marched in:
‘My lips smile no more, my heart loses
its lightness,
No dream of the future my spirit can cheer,
I only would brood on the past and its brightness,
The dead I have mourned are again gathered here.
From every dark nook they press forward to meet me,
I lift up my eyes to the broad leafy dome.
And others are there looking downward to greet me,
The ashgrove, the ashgrove, alone is my home . .
Gwatkin was right about being more
like soldiers in these new surroundings. Barracks had been created from a
disused linen factory, the long narrow sheds in which the flax had formerly
been treated offering barrack-rooms stark as a Foreign Legion film set.
Officers were billeted in a forlorn villa on the outskirts of the town, a house
that had no doubt once belonged to some successful local businessman. It was a
mile or more away from the barracks. There, I still shared a room with Kedward,
Breeze and Pumphrey, the last of whom had not yet achieved his RAF transfer.
Another subaltern, Craddock, was in with us too, brother of the girl to whom
Kedward was engaged. Craddock, fat and energetic, was Messing Officer, which
meant he returned to billets in the middle of the night several times a week,
when he would either turn on the light, or blunder about the room in the dark,
falling over other people’s camp-beds in a fruitless effort to find his own.
Both methods were disturbing. There was, in any case, not much room to
manoeuvre round the beds, even when the light was on. Craddock’s midnight
arrivals were not the only inconvenience. Breeze left old razor blades about in
profusion, causing Pumphrey to cut his foot one morning. Kedward talked in his
sleep throughout the night, shouting commands, as if he were drilling a
company: ‘At the halt – on the left – form close column of – platoons …’
Pumphrey, inclined to bicker, would
throw towels about and sponges. A window pane was broken, which no one ever
seemed responsible for mending, through which the night wind whistled, while
cold struck up insistently from the floor, penetrating the canvas of a
camp-bed. Snow had returned. I record these conditions not as particularly formidable in the
circumstances, but to indicate they were sufficiently far from
ideal to encourage a change, when, as it happened, opportunity
arose. This came about through Gwatkin in an
unexpected manner. During the weeks that followed our arrival
in these new surroundings, I began to know him better. He
was nearer my own age than the other subalterns, except Bithel. Even the
captains tended to be younger than
Gwatkin and myself, as time went on, some of the older ones
being gradually shifted, as insufficiently proficient at
their job, to Holding Battalions or the Infantry Training Centre.
‘We’re getting rid of the dead wood,’
said Gwatkin. ‘Just as well.’
His own abrupt manner of speaking
continued, and he loved to find fault for its own sake. At the same time, he evidently
wanted to be friendly, while fearing that too easy a relationship with a
subordinate, even one of similar age, might be unmilitary. There were
unexpected sides to Gwatkin, sudden displays of uncertainty under a façade meant
to be very certain. Some of his duties he carried out very well; for others, he
had little or no natural talent.
‘A company commander,’ said Dicky
Umfraville, when we met later that year, ‘needs the qualifications of a
ringmaster in a first-class circus, and a nanny in a large family.’
Gwatkin aspired to this dazzling
combination of gifts – to become (as Pennistone later said) a military saint.
Somehow he always fell short of that coveted status. His imperfections never
derived from any willingness to spare himself. On the
Similar Books
