And we passed, I suppose because we showed grit, determination, endurance, and all the rest of it. Although with Selection Boards you never could tell. Only the three of us know that what got us through was the loss of my pants, and military history has been made out of stranger things than that.
Silence in the Ranks
The life of the very young officer is full of surprises, and perhaps the most shaking is the moment when he comes face to face with his men for the first time. His new sergeant stamps to a halt in front of him, salutes, and barks: ‘Platoon-presnready-frinspeckshun-sah! ’, and as he clears his throat and regards the thirty still figures, each looking to its front with frozen intensity, the young subaltern realises that this is it, at last; this is what he is drawing his meagre pay for.
In later years he may command armies or govern great territories, but he will never feel again the same power-drunk humility of the moment when he takes over his platoon. It is elating and terrifying – mostly terrifying. These thirty men are his responsibility, to look after, to supervise, to lead (whatever that means). Of course, they will do what he tells them – or he hopes they will, anyway. Suppose they don’t? Suppose that ugly one in the front rank suddenly says ‘No, I will not slope arms for you, or shave in the morning, or die for king and country’? The subaltern feels panic stealing over him, until he remembers that at his elbow there is a sergeant, who is wise in dealing with these matters, and he feels better.
There are young officers, of course, who seem to regard themselves as born to the job, and who cruise through their first platoon inspection with nonchalant interest, conversing airily with the sergeant as they go; possibly Hannibal and Napoleon were like that. But I doubt it. A man would have to be curiously insensitive not to realise that for the first time in his life thirty total strangers are regarding him with interest and suspicion and anxiety, wondering if he is a soft mark or a complete pig, or worse still, some kind of nut. When he realises this he feels like telling them that he is, really, all right and on their side, but of course he can’t. If he did, they would know for certain he was some kind of nut. They will just have to find out about each other gradually, and it can be a trying process.
I have only a hazy impression of inspecting my platoon for the first time. They were drawn up in the sunlight with their backs to the white barrack wall, against which an Arab tea-vendor was squatting, waiting for the ten-minute break. But all I can remember is the brown young faces staring earnestly to their front, with here and there a trickle of sweat or a limb shaking with the strain of standing still. I remember telling one that he was smartly turned-out, and he gave a controlled shudder, like a galvanised frog, and licked his lips nervously. I asked another whether he had volunteered for this particular regiment, and he stammered: ‘Nossir, I wanted to go intae the coal-mines.’
Perhaps I was over-sensitive because I had been more than two years in the ranks myself, and had stood sweating while pinkish young men with one painfully new pip on their shoulders had looked at me. I remembered what I had thought about them, and how we had discussed them afterwards. We had noted their peculiarities, and now I wondered what mine were – what foibles and mannerisms were being observed and docketed, and what they would say about me later.
I don’t know what I expected from that first inspection – a rapturous welcome, three cheers, or an outbreak of mutiny – but what I got was nothing at all. It was a bit damping; they didn’t seem to react to me one way or the other. Maybe I should have made a speech, or at least said a few introductory words, but all that I could think of was Charles Laughton’s address to the crew of the Bounty, which ran: ‘You don’t know wood from canvas, and you evidently don’t want to learn. Well, I’ll teach you.’ It wouldn’t have gone over.
So eventually I watched them fall out, and turn from wooden images into noisy, raucous young men crowding round the tea-man, abusing him happily in Glasgow-Arabic. One or two glanced in my direction, briefly, but that was all. I walked back to the company office, suddenly lonely.
The trouble was, of course, that in the exultation of being commissioned at the end of a hectic training in India, and the excitement of journeying through the Middle East and seeing the wonderful sights, and arriving in this new battalion which was to be home, I had overlooked the fact that all these things were secondary. What it all added up to was those thirty people and me; that was why the king had made me ‘his trusty and well-beloved friend’. I wondered, not for the first time, if I was fit for it.
It had seemed to go well on the day of my arrival. The very sound of Scottish voices again, the air of friendly informality which you find in Highland regiments, the sound of pipe music, had all been reassuring. My initial discomfort – I had arrived with two other second-lieutenants, and while they had been correctly dressed in khaki drill I had still been wearing the jungle green of the Far East, which obviously no one in the battalion had seen before – had quickly blown over. The mess was friendly, a mixture of local Scots accents and Sandhurst drawls, and my first apprehensions on meeting the Colonel had been unfounded. He was tall and bald and moustached, with a face like a vulture and a handkerchief tucked in his cuff, and he shook hands as though he was really glad to see me.
Next morning in his office, before despatching me to a company, he gave me sound advice, much of which passed me by although I remembered it later.
‘You’ve been in the ranks. Good. That’ – and he pointed to my Burma ribbon — ‘will be a help. Your Jocks will know you’ve been around, so you may be spared some of the more elementary try-ons. I’m sending you to D Company – my old company, by the way.’ He puffed at his pipe thoughtfully. ‘Good company. Their march is ‘The Black Bear’, which is dam’ difficult to march to, actually, but good fun. There’s a bit where the Jocks always stamp, one-two, and give a great yell. However, that’s by the way. What I want to tell you is: get to know their names; that’s essential, of course. After a bit you’ll get to know the nicknames, too, probably, including your own. But once you know their names and faces, you’ll be all right.’
He hummed on a bit, and I nodded obediently and then took myself across to D Company office, where the company commander, a tall, blond-moustached Old Etonian named Bennet-Bruce, fell on me with enthusiasm. Plainly D Company, and indeed the entire battalion, had just been waiting a couple of centuries for this moment; Bennet-Bruce was blessed above all other company commanders in that he had got the new subaltern.
‘Splendid. Absolutely super. First-class.’ He pumped me by the hand and shouted for the company clerk. ‘Cormack, could you find another cup for Mr MacNeill? This is Cormack, invaluable chap, has some illicit agreement with the Naafi manager about tea and excellent pink cakes. Mr MacNeill, who has joined our company. You do take sugar? First-class, good show.’
I had been in the army quite long enough not to mistake Bennet-Bruce for just a genial, care-free head-case, or to think that because he prattled inconsequentially he was therefore soft. I’d seen these caricature types before, and nine times out of ten there was a pretty hard man underneath. This one had the Medaille Militaire, I noticed, and the French don’t hand that out for nothing.
However, he was making me at home, and presently he wafted me round the company offices and barrack-rooms on a wave of running commentary.
‘Company stores here, presided over by Quartermaster Cameron, otherwise known as Blind Sixty. Biggest rogue in the army, of course, but a first-class man. First-class. Magazine over there—that’s Private Macpherson, by the way, who refuses to wear socks. Why won’t you wear socks, Macpherson?’
‘Ma feet hurt, sir.’
‘Well, so do mine, occasionally. Still, you know best. Over yonder, now, trying to hide at the far end of the corridor, that’s McAuslan, the dirtiest soldier in the world. In your platoon, by the way. Don’t know what to do with McAuslan. Cremation’s probably the answer. Nothing else seems to work. Morning, Patterson, what did the M. O. say?’
‘Gav
e me some gentian violent, sir, tae rub on.’
‘Marvellous stuff,’ said Bennet-Bruce, with enthusiasm. ‘Never travel without it myself. Now, let’s see, Ten platoon room over there, Eleven in there, and Twelve round there. Yours is Twelve. Good bunch. Good sergeant, chap called Telfer. Very steady. Meet him in a minute. No, Rafferty, not like that. Give it here.’
We were at a barrack-room door, and a dark, wiry soldier at the first bed was cleaning his rifle, hauling the pull-through along the barrel. ‘Not like that,’ said Bennet-Bruce. ‘Pull it straight out, not at an angle, or you’ll wear away the muzzle and your bullets will fly off squint, missing the enemy, who will seize the opportunity to unseam you, from nave to chaps.’ He tugged at the pull-through. ‘What the hell have you got on the end of this, the battalion colours?’
‘Piece of four-by-two, sir,’ said Rafferty. ‘An’ a bit o’ wire gauze.’
‘Who authorised the gauze?’
‘Eh, Ah got it fae the store,’ said Rafferty uneasily.
‘Take it back,’ said Bennet-Bruce, ‘and never, never use it without the armourer’s permission. You know that, don’t you? Next time you’ll be in company office. Carry on. I really do despair, sometimes. Morning, Gray. Morning, Soutar. Now, let’s see.’ He stopped at the company notice-board. ‘ “Team to play A Company”. Good God, you’ve got me on the right wing, Corporal Stevenson. That means that Forbes here will bully and upbraid me through the entire game. I don’t really think we’re the best thing since Matthews and Carter, do you, Forbes?’
‘Just stay on yer wing,’ said the saturnine Forbes. ‘Ah’ll pit the ba‘ in front of you.’
‘Well, I rely on you,’ said Bennet-Bruce, passing on. ‘That chap Forbes is a marvellous footballer,’ he went on to me. ‘Signed by Hearts, I understand. You play football? Good show. Of course, that’s the great game. The battalion team are district champions, really super team they are, too. Morning, Duff . . .’
And so on. Bennet-Bruce was at home. Finally, he introduced me to Sergeant Telfer, a sturdy, solid-looking man in his mid-thirties who said very little, and left us to get acquainted. This consisted of going over the nominal roll, meeting the corporals, and making polite remarks on my part; obviously if I didn’t make the running we would have long silences. However, it seemed to be going well enough for a start.
Next day came that first inspection, and after that the routine drills and exercises, and learning people’s names, and getting into the company routine. I worked rather cautiously, by the book, tried a joke or two without response, and told myself it was early days yet. They were a better platoon than I had expected; they were aged round about twenty, a year younger than I was, they were good on drill, did a fifteen-mile route march in five hours without any sign of distress, and on the rifle range were really impressive. But they were not what could be called forthcoming; off parade they were cheery enough with each other, but within my orbit they fell quiet, stolid and watchful.
As I say, I don’t know what I expected, but I began to feel depressed. There was something missing; they did what they were told smartly – well, fairly smartly; they took no liberties that I noticed. But if they didn’t dislike me they certainly didn’t seem to like me either. Perhaps it was my fault; they were happy enough with Bennet-Bruce and any other company officers who came into contact with them. I envied Macmillan, the subaltern of Ten platoon, who had been in the battalion about six months and abused his platoon good-naturedly one minute and tore strips off them the next; they seemed to get on with him. I wondered if I was the Tiberius type (‘let them hate me so long as they fear me’), and concluded I wasn’t; it seemed more likely that the Selection Board who took me out of the ranks had just been wrong.
In the mess things went fairly well until one evening I knocked a pint glass accidentally off the arm of a chair, and a liverish major blasted my clumsiness and observed that there were only about half a dozen of those glasses left. I apologised, red-faced but faintly angry; we looked at each other with mutual dislike, and the trivial incident stuck in my mind. Other things were prickling vaguely, too; my service dress wasn’t a good fit, and I knew it. I suspected (wrongly) that this gave rise to covert amusement and once this tiny seed had taken root I was half-way to seeing myself as a laughing-stock.
This can be a dreadful thing to the young, and not only the young. In no time at all I was positive that my platoon found me faintly ridiculous; occasionally I caught what I thought was a glint of amusement in an eye on parade, or heard a stifled laugh. I would tell myself I just imagined these things, but then the doubts would return.
One morning there was a platoon rifle inspection, and I must have been on the down-swing, because I went on it half-conscious of a resolve to put somebody on a charge for something. This, of course, was a deplorable attitude. I had never charged anyone yet, and I may have felt that I ought to, pour encourager the platoon in general. Anyway, when I came to a rifle in the middle rank that seemed to have dirt in the grooves of the barrel, I nailed its owner.
He was a nondescript man called Leishman, rather older than the others, a quiet enough character. He seemed genuinely shocked when I told him his rifle was dirty, and then I turned to Sergeant Telfer and said, ‘Put him on a charge.’ (Six months later I would have said, ‘Leishman, did you shave this morning?’ And he, dumbfounded, knowing his chin was immaculate, would have said, ‘Yes, sir. I did, sir.’ And I would have said, ‘Of course you did, and it’s all gone down the barrel of your gun. Clean the thing.’ And that would have been that.)
I went off parade feeling vaguely discontented, and ten minutes later, in the company office, Cormack the clerk observed that I had shaken Leishman, no mistake. He said it deadpan, and added that Leishman was presently in the armoury, cleaning his rifle. Puzzled, for I wondered why Cormack should be telling me this, I went off to the armoury.
Sure enough, there was Leishman, pulling the cleaning-cloth through his rifle, and crying. He was literally weeping. I was shocked.
‘What’s the matter?’ I said, for this was a new one to me.
He snuffled a bit, and wiped his nose, and then it came out. He had been five years in the army, his discharge was coming up in a few weeks, he had never been on a charge in his life before. He was going to have his clean sheet marred almost on the eve of getting out.
‘Well, for God’s sake,’ I said, relieved more than anything else. ‘Look, don’t get into a state. It’s all right, we’ll scrub the charge.’ I was quite glad to, because I felt a warning would have done. ‘I’m certainly not going to spoil your record,’ I said.
He mumped some more, and pulled his rifle through again.
‘Let’s have a look at it,’ I said. I looked down the barrel, and it still wasn’t all that good, but what would you? He was obviously badly upset, but he muttered something about thanks, which just made me uncomfortable. I suppose only born leaders don’t find authority embarrassing.
‘Forget it,’ I said. ‘Give it another few pulls-through, and keep your eye on it until your ticket comes through. Okay?’
I left him to it, and about ten minutes later I was passing the door of Twelve platoon barrack-room, and heard somebody laughing inside. I just glanced as I went by, and stopped short. It was Leishman, sitting on his bunk at the far end, laughing with a bunch of his mates.
I moved on a few steps. All right, he had made a quick recovery. He was relieved. There was nothing in that. But he had seemed really upset in the armoury, shaken, as Cormack said. Now he was roaring his head off – the quality of the laughter somehow caught the edge of my nerves. I stood undecided, and then wheeled round and shouted:
‘Sergeant Telfer!’
He came out of his room. ‘Yessir?’
‘Sergeant Telfer,’ I said, ‘stop that man laughing.’
He gaped at me. ‘Laughing, sir?’
‘Yes, laughing. Tell him to stop it – now.’
‘But. . .’ he looked bewildered. ‘But . . . he’
s just laughin’, sir. . .’
‘I know he’s just laughing. He’s braying his bloody head off. Tell him to stop it.’
‘Right, sir.’ He obviously thought the sun had got me, but he strode into the barrack-room. Abruptly, Leishman’s laughter stopped, then there was what might have been a smothered chuckle, then silence.
Feeling suicidal, I went back to my billet. Obviously Leishman had thought I was a mug; I should have let the charge stick. Let someone get away with it, even a good soldier, and you have taken some of his virtue away. On the other hand, maybe he had been laughing about something else entirely; in that case, I had been an idiot to give Sergeant Telfer that ridiculous order. Either way, I looked a fool. And my service dress didn’t fit. To hell with it, I would see the Adjutant tomorrow and ask for a posting.
I didn’t, of course. That night in the mess the liverish major, of all people, asked me to partner him in a ludo doubles against the Adjutant and the M.O. (In stations where diversion is limited games like ludo tend to get elevated above their usual status.) In spite of the M.O.’s constant gamesmanship, directed against my partner’s internal condition, we won by one counter in a grandstand finish, and thereafter it was a happy evening. We finished with a sing-song – ‘Massacre of Macpherson’ and ‘The Lum Hat Wantin’ the Croon’, and other musical gems – and the result was that I went to bed thinking that the world could be worse, after all.
In the morning when I inspected my platoon, Sergeant Telfer did not roll on the ground, helpless with laughter, at the sight of me. If anything, the platoon was smarter and faster than usual; I inspected the rifles, and Leishman’s was gleaming as though he had used Brasso on the barrel, which he quite probably had. I said nothing; there was no hint that the incident of yesterday had ever happened.