The surprise of this, our first praise in the Depot, stiffened us so that we worked twice as hard, pumping ourselves dry with too-painstaking a copy of his movements. Seeing it he laughed and broke us into two bands which played tig and subdivided by trick orders, given to deceive us. So had done the other instructors: who when their tricks caught us would rave with anger against our crime. This sergeant laughed at his score off us when we miscarried and so heartened us to match ourselves against his next turn.
Half an hour passed in a long twinkling till the dismiss and the scurry back to the huts, where we fell on our beds to snatch wind. Our willingness had worked us out more than the daily fear: but the first use of our new breath was to make the long roof sound with praise of Sergeant Cunninghame. Only the unfit lay yet silent, panting through distressed mouths against their load of strain. Am I to class myself among these? Till this year my insignificant body has met life's demands. If it fails me now I shall break it; but I hope it may scrape through. I try to excuse its inadequacy by remembering that I am eight years older than the next, and fifteen years older than many in the hut: but there is poor consolation in the first onset of age.
Yet today, despite my pumping chest, I managed the breakfast and was swaggering back from it when my eyes were held by the zinc roofs of the camp which slatted down the opposing slope of the valley from its tree-crest to the bank of the Pinne. The night-chill had beaded dew heavily upon them: and when the sun topped the ridge and vibrated between the fringing trees along the flat angle of the roofs, it silvered their wet steps into a cascade. Just for two minutes M. Section was very beautiful.
The half-hour after breakfast belongs to cleaning and tidying and is consecrated to song. Fifty of the fifty-four men in the hut chant continuously, each his fancied tune. Yet it might easily be worse: for there are no more than three songs in great vogue and their airs are short. 'Peggy O'Neil', 'Sally', 'The Beautiful City of Tears'; sentimental, sobbing things, whose dear girls die or go away for ever. If Sailor or Dickson begins such a song generally it will dominate, for there is an infective loveliness in the voices of these two men. The others then play their helpful parts whether in unison or in variety: the floor-broom sweeps, the boot-brushes brush, even the polishing rag polishes to and fro, in time with the choiring air. For the moment our hut and all of us thrum to a collective rhythm.
13. Vanities
Our fatigue today was as fortunate as our P.T. Saturday is only a morning, and we were set to sweep and dust the Cinema after the Friday night of its glory, which had left the airmen's seats husky with nut-shells and toffee-wrappings and the officers' boxes floored with the silver foil of cigarettes and chocolate. Plain housemaiding seemed fun after our degraded week. So we made a song of it, so loud a song that the Second Sergeant Major, a great but mild star, looked in at the door and asked what we thought we were: the next glee-party, or fatigue men?
Snaggletooth, who was nearest the door (an older fellow, dark-faced, soldierly), gave him a pert answer not knowing him against the light. 'Christ' he called to us after, 'I didn't half drop a bollock then. It was old man Jim himself.' 'Yes,' called back the little S.M. who had left the first door only to peep in at the second 'and' (coming nearer) 'Jim's going to be very rude to you, my lad. I'm going to call you Beaver.' The laugh was on Snaggle, whose chin was indeed black. The sunlight capped our happiness. Was it not Saturday, a half-day: and Sunday, all day, tomorrow?
Good news in the hut, at noon. The tailors had taken pity on our imprisonment, and sent up the breeches and tunics for us all. These rawly blue clothes, littering the brown beds, lent to our mustard-coloured crowd something of the brightness of the summer's sky, outside, upon this noble day. Likewise they promised us the freedom of the gate. Few of us had served before, or experienced servitude. So we lusted for the wideness of the civilian world and burst out towards excess like escaped starlings. Some fellows picked up their 'bits of skin' even at the camp gates, by virtue of the rude maleness which is the service-man's repute.
But first there was a mass trying on and innocent vanity of the new dress, which was to be our best for the next years. If we were not just right the scrutiny of the sentry might know us for recruits, and the guard-corporal come: and then we'd be in trouble. With such a cloak of care for R.A.F. smartness did we hide our curiosity competition, and desire to look well in the sight of 'birds'. These boys, in fancy dress for the first time, went stroking and smoothing their thighs, to make the wings of the breeches stand out richly. The tailors had taken them in at the knees, by our secret request. so tightly that they gripped the flesh and had a riding cut. Dandies put a wire in the outer seams to spread them more tautly sideways. Posh, that is.
Each dressed fellow blushingly accosted his half-section (so ruddy by contrast the high collar and pulled down peak made the familiar face) and said, 'How's this tunic? Are my cap, breeches, puttees right?' Corporal Abner, pestered too much, rose, reached for his cap and lounged slowly through the door, smiling always, gravely. Groups swarmed about the communal mirrors each end of the hut, enjoying the set of their breasts and pockets. It was nearly an hour before the last had trickled out to the open air and left me the hut and mirrors for my own.
These clothes are too tight. At every pace they catch us in a dozen joints of the body, and remind us of it. The harsh friction of the cloth excitingly polishes our skins and signals to our carnality the flexure of each developing muscle or sinew. They provoke lasciviousness, by telling so much of ourselves. Airmen cannot swing along like civvies, unconscious of their envelope of flesh, For them there is a sealed pattern of carriage, of the head, the trunk, the feet, the arms, the hands, the stick.
God's curse on that stick! A slip of black cane with a silver knob. I'd as soon dandle a doll through the street. We were ordered to hold it in the right hand, between thumb and second finger, at the point of balance, ferrule forward, sawing the fingers loosely and easily across it as we walked, so that the stick stayed always parallel with the ground, while the hands swung back and forward, to the height of the belt-line in front and rear at each stride, not bending the elbow, the hand going back as the foot went forward. Try it, someone! and remember that fear is with us when we break this rule. Any N.C.O. or officer, whether in uniform or plain clothes, if he see an irregularity has upon him the duty of taking our names. That the decent ones ignore this duty is to discipline's hurt and does not greatly help us: for every R.A.F. station has its pariahs, its service police, whose commendations are for reporting such minutiae of offence.
14. Holiday
The rare privilege of a half-day made me anxious lest perhaps I miss some shred of its enjoyment. I wandered again into the park, to feel its decaying beauty: but achieved less keenly. My new kinship with the uniformed inhabitants bent my eye to draw longer pleasure from the blueness of a knot of fellows asprawl, gambling, in the grass, than from the greenness of the wild grass itself. I peeped to see if their breeches were shaped the way of ours: and my attuned ear found their gleeful ribaldry more apt than the chirping of the birds.
Tea-time and I cut it, luxuriously making the trumpet sound after me in vain. Our ration meals were plentiful, business-like, unappetising, because of their sameness in look and taste. So a yearning for the liberty of unofficial food conquered me. In my pocket rested a week's pay. I would visit the canteen and please myself.
Already, the days so drew in that they had turned on the lights: and the long wall of windows, which was the canteen, seemed brilliant across the dusk. In the small wet bar were a dozen airmen, cosily drinking. Only a dozen. The Air Force off duty craves food, not