The Day Gone By Page 31

  The weather, however, remained idyllic and nearly every day we found ourselves either weapon training on the sunny cliff-tops or carried out by ’bus into the New Forest for tactical exercises, with lunch in a pub. thrown in. This was how we came to see at first hand a fair part of the Battle of Britain. The main battle, of course, was taking place further to the east, but on many days enemy aircraft - Dorniers and Heinkels — flew over Bournemouth and the New Forest and were engaged by our fighters. They flew in formation, sometimes escorted by their own fighters, and the Spitfires would dive upon them, their exhausts leaving long white plumes across the blue sky. The bursts of fire were very short, usually only a second or two, for a Hurricane or Spitfire could use up all its ammunition in about fifteen seconds. Oddly, I can’t remember ever to have seen an aircraft brought down, no doubt because the total length of time during which we watched, although sensed vividly and with great excitement, must have been comparatively short. I recall that more than once the instructor N.C.O.s had to tell us to pay attention to them and not to the air fighting.

  Night alerts - air-raid warnings - were common. Most nights the sirens would sound and soon after, sweating in our stuffy rooms behind the black-out screens, we would hear the Germans coming. They made a distinctive and unmistakable noise, for they used to desynchronize their engines with a view to making it more difficult for our people to locate them accurately. ‘Wow-oo, wow-oo, wow-oo,’ they went, and then we would hear our own anti-aircraft guns barking sharp and quick, like vixens. Soon, however, the Germans would have flown on towards the Midlands or to Bristol. They weren’t concerned to bomb Bournemouth, a seaside residential town with no industry. Towards morning they would return on their way back to France. They would have lost formation by now and there were often a few stragglers. One night, as we lay tossing and turning on our mattresses in a small hotel right next to the beach, a solitary ‘plane unloaded three bombs which it must have been unable, for some reason, to drop earlier. We heard them whistle - a descending glissando, high to low — and then burst in the sea a little offshore. This, except for V1s and V2s in London, was the only time during the war when I personally came under anything that might be called enemy fire.

  I remember the night the Germans went to Coventry: that was the biggest raid so far mounted, and one of the biggest of the war, although later Germany itself underwent far bigger ones from the Allies. The distinctive wow-wowing seemed to go on interminably. Lying in the dark, lit only by the glowing points of our cigarettes, we speculated where on earth such a force could be bound for. We’d heard nothing on that scale before. Next day, we learned of the frightful destruction in Coventry and of how the King, woken and told of it, had driven there from London, arriving as the dawn broke.

  A lot of our time was spent learning about the innards of lorries, under instruction from soldiers who had mostly been drivers in peace-time. I wrote and asked my mother to send me a boiler-suit. It duly arrived, very new and very blue. After parade one morning I put it on and rather self-consciously joined the others in the big garage. My instructor, a nice fellow called Norton, pantomimed brushing me down with a clothes-brush and then blowing dust off my shoulders. I made sure, that morning, that that boiler-suit got well covered in oil and grease.

  My sister came down to see me one week-end, and we went to Poole, to Corfe Castle and to Wareham, where the marble effigy of Lawrence of Arabia lies in the little Anglo-Saxon church. She was soon to take up a war-time teaching place (in lieu of a master) at Tottenham Grammar School, and to become an air-raid warden in Belsize Park. Katharine had a far more dangerous war than I; she served through nightly air-raid alerts in London for more than three years.

  As December drew on, I found myself pondering rather anxiously on the now imminent prospect of becoming a subaltern. Thanks to Mr Arnold, I had never held a position of authority in my life, and had no practical experience of enforcing a moment’s discipline, let alone of carrying responsibility for the proficiency and behaviour of others. Apart from the scouts at Oxford and friends in pubs, I had almost no experience of what are (or were) loosely called ‘working-class’ people. I vaguely supposed that all would be made plain in the fullness of time. Anyway, I reflected consolingly, I would have a sergeant and some corporals. They’d tell me what to do.

  We began to busy ourselves with officers’ clothing. We were measured for and in due course fitted with our service dress. After the rough battle-dress to which we had become used over the months, it felt strange. I remember one of our lot, a rather tough Glaswegian called Bill Coutts, saying it ‘felt like wearing bloody pyjamas.’ Then there were our pristine Sam Browne belts, on which we set to work with new-boy enthusiasm to make them glitter like russet glass. By now, of course, we were all completely inured to polishing brass and leather, and could sit companionably over it for an hour at a time, chatting or listening to the wireless.

  There was no formality about our being commissioned. ‘They’ simply wished us good luck and we put up our pips and went off on a week’s leave before reporting to our new units. It felt most peculiar to be continually saluted as you walked down the street. I was at first surprised that soldiers really did salute me; but they did. ‘I’m so sorry for poor Richard’s arm, going up and down like that all the time,’ said Jennifer to her mother. I suppose I should have felt proud to be an officer, but all I felt was rather nervous. After all, we hadn’t had to strive particularly hard over our commissions: we’d joined up, willy-nilly, as ‘potential cadets’ and been put through a system more or less on a conveyor belt. We hadn’t as yet had experience of service in a real military unit in any capacity, let alone as officers.

  My posting was to C.R.A.S.C. Northern Ireland. Only one other member of Brander Squad was down for the same destination, and that was Frank Espley. Espley, a Cambridge man, though of the same age and inexperience as myself, had advantages which I certainly didn’t grudge him, since he was amiable and I liked him and had always got on with him well enough at Aldershot and at the O.C.T.U. His home was on a south country farm, and this had given him, during his adolescence, plenty of experience in dealing with working people, right down to gipsy casual labour. His appearance, dark and rather handsome, inspired confidence and he had a general air of competence and self-possession. Though he had never intended to join the army in peace-time, he was really, by temperament, a born officer. We always remained good friends. I was to see him promoted to captain within a year and to feel that he certainly deserved it. We lost touch, but three years later, right at the end of the war, we met again in unexpected circumstances.

  1941 was the most inactive period of the war, and the inactivity imposed a strain on both morale and discipline. The Germans had chased the British army ignominiously out of Dunkirk before defeating and then occupying France. The United Kingdom was not in land contact with the enemy anywhere, except in the Western Desert. Japan had not yet entered the war. The whole country was full of our soldiers - unit upon unit - who had nowhere to go and nothing to do except ‘training’ - which was just killing time, really. How on earth were we ever to get at the enemy on the European mainland? Our Navy, of course, remained an undefeated bulwark against invasion and Hitler, during the autumn, had lost the Battle of Britain. America was still on the touch-line, uncommitted. It looked like stalemate.

  In spite of all Churchill could say to the nation, morale was inevitably rather low. The men, as a whole, were ‘browned off’ and hadn’t as yet acquired any confidence in our military leadership. There was certainly no wish for peace, but equally there wasn’t much more than a deep, unreasoning faith in our cause. It would all come right somehow; but how, exactly? No one knew, and in the meantime everyone objected to polishing boots and buttons and having nothing worthwhile or constructive to do. A lot of the men were only too ready to ‘take the piss’ out of new and inexperienced officers. I was twenty, and slightly built, with fair hair. I felt apprehensive.

  But I struck lucky. Frank and I were
posted to a relatively large R.A.S.C. unit specializing in petrol supply. It was stationed at Langford Lodge, a big house and grounds on a peninsula half-way down the eastern coast of Lough Neagh. It was a major’s command and there were about fifteen officers in the mess altogether. Frank and I were each given command of a platoon - or ‘section’, as they were called - of some forty men, with about twenty Bedford three-ton lorries.

  This was where I fell in with Sergeant Tuckey - easily the best thing since Corporal Edwards. Sergeant Tuckey was a regular, aged about thirty. He knew the platoon thoroughly and had them in full control. He had the reputation of a bully, but it was only his manner: more bark than bite. The whole unit, or ‘Petrol Park’, as it was termed, had served in France and come out of Dunkirk. They considered themselves experienced soldiers and, as far as I was concerned, they were.

  Naturally, as the weeks went by with the trivial round, the common task, Tuckey and I got to know each other well. He ran true to type. He was out of the same stable as Corporal Edwards and the other Aldershot N.C.O.s. You knew exactly where you were with him and he possessed that greatest merit of a colleague, consistency in all circumstances. The regular army, with its injustices and humiliations, had taught him cunning, patience and equanimity. In moments of disappointment or mortification, Sergeant Tuckey would invoke a generic being rather like Santa Claus, Jack Frost or John Bull, known as ‘Sailor Vee’. ‘Oh, well, Sailor Vee, sir,’ he would say, as we learned that two of our lorries had become unserviceable, or that the people supposed to relieve us would be an hour later than we had originally been told. In time, I personally found Sailor Vee a great help in army life, and I continue to feel grateful to Sergeant Tuckey for his gruff but fundamentally kindly indoctrination of a green subaltern of twenty.

  My platoon - ‘G’ section, they were called - had been given to me as a soft option: Frank’s ‘D’ section were a bit rougher, though not as rough as some of the others. ‘G’ section consisted largely of ex-territorials: decent, respectable men, from the London suburbs mostly, with a sprinkling from Sheffield and Shropshire. Any fool could have commanded them, for they gave no trouble. I set out conscientiously to learn their names and something about them as individuals. It wasn’t difficult, for they were ready enough to talk. Indeed, my only handicap was that their previous platoon commander, Billy Moisson, who had brought them out of Dunkirk and was still with the Petrol Park as headquarters subaltern, was an exceptionally nice, kind-hearted young man whom they had all liked very much and whose departure they regretted. I couldn’t hope to step into his shoes, and I spent some time trying to think out how best to make use of my assets (if any). I was supposed to lead this platoon, which meant that they were supposed to feel some sort of regard for me. But on what grounds? They knew quite as much about lorries as I did - rather more, some of them. Games might have helped, but in this sphere the unit was deplorably inactive. It amazes me, now, that in all the months I spent there I never saw an organized game of football or cricket. Yet the situation we were in cried aloud for it, and it could easily have been arranged.

  I arrived at my own answer without any conscious resolve, and the contention I experienced and the way in which I was subsequently justified by events now strike me as rather amusing. This rather egregious, thinking and literate platoon (orderly room lance-corporal types, a lot of them: any old soldier will know what I mean) were short of reading matter, for a start. I lent them what I had - Hemingway, Kipling, E. M. Forster - and discussed it while I was supposed to be invigilating maintenance on the lorries. I lent the Spectator and the New Statesman too (there was nearly always a despatch rider going in to Belfast who could buy them) and discussed the articles in them with individuals. After a bit it dawned on me that soldiers in a democratic army ought to be stimulated to think and to express themselves. They ought to get together to do this: but they had nowhere. The only roofs over their heads were their Nissen hut billets and the N.A.A.F.I. However, there were plenty of rooms up at Headquarters - Langford Lodge itself - including the Padre’s ‘quiet room’. Having obtained the Padre’s agreement, I organized a discussion one evening on ‘The British situation in Ireland’. This was a success, and I was able - though taking care not to overdo it - to score a few unassuming points through knowing a bit about Gladstone, Parnell, the Easter rising and what not. It was certainly a breath of fresh air for ‘G’ section. They revelled in it. By this time I had come to like them and identify with them so much that I was more than ready to defend my notion to anyone from the C.O. downwards.

  The next occasion was a bit more provocative. One of the members of ‘G’ section was a rummy sort of cove by the name of Driver Hopkins. He had been deliberately wished upon us by headquarters (having arrived from God knew where) because they reckoned that he could do least harm in a bunch like ‘G’ section, as opposed to some of the Glasgow/Liverpool/Bolton sections. All I knew about Hopkins was that he had some sort of bad reputation as an agitator. There was a file about him up at headquarters which I wasn’t allowed to see, and even Billy Moisson wouldn’t talk about it. To this day I have no idea exactly why Hopkins was regarded as potentially explosive.

  I soon found out for myself, however, that his general demeanour on parade was unexceptionable. He was as good as anyone else at carrying out the chores of the dismal day. His manner was perfectly reasonable: indeed, propitiatory, for he usually spoke to me or the N.C.O.s with a little smile on his face. He gave no trouble, and I soon perceived that he exercised no influence whatever on ‘G’ section, disruptive or otherwise. Even Sergeant Tuckey couldn’t positively diagnose him as ‘bolshie’.

  Yet he was known to harbour bolshie ideas. That was evidently part of the mysterious label which had been pinned on him. He was some sort of left-winger who was opposed to ‘the system’. In what way, I wondered. I very much doubted that Hopkins, from what I had now seen of him, could either appeal to or defeat in argument honest young bourgeois like Driver Dooley, Driver Hutcheson or Driver Portway. I decided that it would be a good idea to let him have his head in public. It would call his bluff: it would tend to defuse the mystery about him.

  By now my discussion group was attracting a certain amount of attention in the mess. No one ever called me to account officially - neither the C.O. (a rather ineffective man with little influence or power of leadership) nor my company commander, Captain Roope. But Theo Overman, the senior subaltern, shook his head. He disapproved of Other Ranks being encouraged to read the New Statesman. He also thought - which was true - that I was an inexperienced and rather flighty young officer, prone to unorthodox and flyaway ideas. I always got on perfectly well in the mess, however, and no senior officer was prepared actually to forbid the ‘G’ section discussion group in principle. (They couldn’t, really, if you come to think about it.) The distrust was more of what the group might actually be being encouraged to talk about and of how I might be running it. Billy Moisson, out of sheer personal anxiety for his beloved ‘G’ section, attended one or two meetings, and so did Captain Roope.

  The Hopkins meeting turned out a damp squib. The subject was how far the U.K. would be justified in taking invasive action to foil a German invasion of Eire. Hopkins, speaking first, unwisely adopted the line that Eire was capable of defeating a German invasion on its own. He could not be taken seriously. I was disappointed: I had been rather hoping he would at least put up a show.

  In the middle of all this contretemps, the powers at G.H.Q. (London) set up the organization called A.B.C.A. - Army Bureau of Current Affairs. The soldiers were now to be encouraged to learn about, think and talk about the war and its politics. Social affairs, too, they were to be stimulated to discuss, under the guidance of their officers. Weekly brochures were to be issued to platoon commanders, containing information about the Nazis, the Far East, American society, plans for after the war and so on. These would be used as bases for discussion. The whole thing was to be co-ordinated at commanding officer level. What it came down to was that
my ideas were fully and entirely vindicated. I had enough sense, however, to refrain from saying so.

  About this time I also floated and gained recognition for what came to be called the ‘Stranger Prince’ idea. Quite often during these stagnant months, an odd hour or two per week would be spent in teaching groups of our R.A.S.C. men — sometimes a section, sometimes a company - something a bit out of the ordinary; the 36 Mills grenade, it might be; the Thompson submachine gun, or some specialized knowledge that some officer or N.C.O. happened to possess. (We had a corporal who had been invalided out of a Commando unit, and an officer who had worked for Mercedes-Benz in Germany before the war.) My idea, such as it was, was based on my observation that usually the men would listen with more respect, interest and attention to a stranger than to their own officer. As a matter of fact, Frank Espley and I had been using this ploy between ourselves for a while before it caught on. It worked quite well within the unit, but it worked best of all if you could co-opt a real ‘stranger’ - an officer from another unit. ‘Now we’re very lucky to have here with us this morning Dr Morton, who’s come specially from’ (Belfast or Omagh or whatever) ‘to talk to us about tropical diseases, of which he’s had first-hand experience.’ Then next week one of our people would go and talk to Morton’s lot, about the Liverpool docks or something.