It was winter and very cold and the system was two hours on and four hours off – dressed in full order. Battledress trousers and tunic, webbing belt and gaiters, boots, greatcoat, a gas mask satchel strapped to the chest, rifle and ammunition pouches and, literally, to top it all, a steel helmet. Clumsily clumping off to the sentry position in that lot was bad enough, but then standing in one spot for two hours of freezing night-time monotony was purgatory. But worse was yet to come. When you thankfully returned to the barracks room for an enamel mug of tea and four hours off, you had to sleep on the floor, or try to, without removing any of your kit – including your steel helmet – only to be woken for the Orderly Officer’s inspection just as you’d dropped off.
Eventually, as a result of all this marching, cleaning, running, jumping, parading, sentry-going, weapons inspecting, church parading and general hammering into shape I was ready to move onwards and upwards to Stanley Barracks. Not now as a humble Army Private but as a very proud Trooper to the 58th Training Regiment of the Royal Armoured Corps. Still at Bovington – but the first hurdle had been cleared.
Psychologically the 58th Training Regiment was on another planet because now I felt as though I was really on my way to the commissioned rank to which I had always aspired. My army ambition was geared to it and I would have been gutted and ashamed if I hadn’t made it. Life was at a higher level and altogether more specialized, in that it was more mechanically and ‘tank’ oriented with six months of driving, gunnery, wireless and crew commanding instruction.
Learning to drive was great. I was already proficient on a motor cycle, thanks to the 1928 250cc Ariel Colt my father had given me, but driving on four wheels was something new. We had to learn in a Ford 15cwt truck, which had a V8 engine and whose clutch was either in or out; nothing in between and a bit like a Vincent-HRD 1000cc motor cycle. Get it right and you went: get it wrong and you stalled. By the way, I’ve never taken a driving test in my life, because when I came out of the Army in 1947 you didn’t have to – all you needed was a certificate of proficiency from your Regimental Technical Adjutant. As I was the Technical Adjutant I didn’t find that too difficult!
So in the 58th it was not just more assault courses, physical training, marching, drill, belt and gaiter blancoing and ghastly sentry-going, although there was still plenty of all of those, but also getting to grips with the rudiments of being a ‘tank man’ – gunnery and maintenance, tactics and wireless, weapons handling, and enemy tank recognition. I’ll never forget the first time I drove a tank. It was a 20-ton Crusader and I can still feel the thrill as I hunkered down into the driver’s compartment, with its 340bhp 12-cylinder Liberty engine thundering away behind me. Rev it like mad, clutch up and – GO! With the crash gearbox in top it could do 40mph in the right conditions and, believe me, that felt more like 400mph. In the Crusader you steered by pulling two metal bars like pencils that braked the appropriate track and made the tank turn one way or the other. You felt invincible as the whole thing noisily bucked and plunged, ripped and roared its way ahead. Magic! I’ve always been grateful for the fact that I was one of the lucky ones: my tank was never hit by an armour-piercing shell from the Wehrmacht’s awesome 88mm anti-tank gun, my turret never penetrated by the blast from a terrifying Panzerfaust and I was never hit by mortar fire.
I loved it all at the 58th except two things: Morse code and Corporal Coleman. Morse code was my bête noire. I could never get my head round having to tap out electrical sound messages, machine-gun-like, in the form of dots and dashes with a key that moved only a fraction of an inch. But I beavered away at it and became just about good enough to get by. Corporal Coleman was something else though. At the 58th you may have been potential officer material but you certainly weren’t yet an officer cadet – or likely to be unless you played your cards right. Officers were gods and Non-Commissioned Officers (NCOs) were all-powerful. A bad report from an NCO could ruin your chances and they all knew it.
Well into my time with the 58th I got a simple cold which I ignored. With all the assault courses, getting sweaty, swimming icy rivers in battle order and other physically demanding things, it rapidly got worse. Like everyone, the last thing I wanted to do was to report sick, because if you had to go to hospital you were automatically retarded. So I didn’t … until ultimately I could hardly stand up and simply had to. Sick parade meant you had to assemble your kit for inspection by the Orderly Corporal – in a specific way to a very specific pattern. Highly polished boots with their soles upward. Highly polished mess tins alongside them. All your clothing folded and arranged a specific way, millimetrically precise and faultlessly creased. Blankets folded and gas mask, webbing equipment and cutlery all present and correct and spotlessly clean. Then you stood, alone and ramrod-erect, to attention at the end of your bed whilst the Orderly Corporal gave it his minutest attention.
Enter Corporal Coleman. Not, in my admittedly biased opinion, one of nature’s charmers at the best of times. Unsurprisingly my kit hadn’t been laid out as army-approved as it might have been and it didn’t go down well with Corporal C, who swept the whole lot on to the floor, kicked it round the barracks room and shouted, ‘Now do it all again – and properly!’ Or rather less refined words to the same effect.
Remember what I was saying about army discipline? There was no point in protesting and anyway I was in no state to, so I did as he said. And, having made his point, it was to his satisfaction this time. Then I dragged myself off to see the MO, who said, ‘You’ve got pneumonia. You’re going to hospital.’
I’m not a chap who holds grudges but for many years I dreamt of meeting Corporal Coleman again in circumstances where I held the upper hand. But I never did and in spite of my long hospitalization I returned to the 58th, completed my training successfully enough to be selected for my War Office Selection Board (WOSB) and appeared before it. I made the grade and, to my unbounded pride and joy, was told to report as an Officer Cadet to number 512 Troop Pre-OCTU (Officer Cadet Training Unit), Blackdown. Yes! Yes! Yes!
It was at Blackdown that Sergeant Major Hayter of the Coldstream Guards and I had a parade-ground encounter that taught me a lesson. Never was a man better named. Picture the 18-man 512 troop, now sophisticated and hardened veterans of drill parades, expertly marching and halting as one, symmetrically wheeling, turning and rifle-bashing their way around the vast black tarmac acreage of Blackdown’s drill square, fearlessly and faultlessly responding to the stentorian commands of Sergeant Major Hayter.
‘By the left, quick march! Left, right, left, right, left, right, left.’
‘Squad ’alt!’
‘Quick march! Left, right, left, right, left, right, left. Aybout turn! Left, right, left, right, aybout turn! Left, right, left, right, LEFT TURN! Left, right, left, right, LEFT TURN! Left, right, left, right, RIGHT TURN!’
And who turned left? I did.
‘SQUAD ’ALT!’
‘Officer Cadet Walker come ’ere, SIR!’
(All Officer Cadets had to be addressed by NCOs as ‘Sir’, which was usually done with great emphasis and heavy irony.)
‘We got it all wrong didn’t we, SIR?’
‘Yes, Sergeant Major.’
‘Shall we show them how to do it properly then, SIR – just you and me?’
‘Yes, Sergeant Major.’
‘Right then. Officer Cadet Walker only. Quick March!!’
I think you’ve got the drift now and he had me sweating round the square performing obscure drill manoeuvres by myself for a solid 10 minutes. And the lesson it taught me? Listen out, stay sharp and don’t assume that everything is going to be as it used to be.
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