The Day Gone By Read online

  I walked back with Muriel to her place of work and found myself talking to one Captain Proudfoot. (That was not his name.) I explained my situation.

  ‘It’s a pity your unit’s on the point of embarkation,’ he said at length. ‘But never mind: I think I may be able to keep you in the Middle East a little longer. Leave it with me.’

  Next morning, back in camp, I received a summons to the adjutant: not our adjutant — the Base Depot adjutant. I went into his office, stood to attention, saluted and remained at attention. At the other end of the room sat Colonel Sinclair, pretending to be absorbed in some papers.

  ‘You went to Cairo yesterday?’ began the adjutant.

  ‘Yes, sir. I had a day pass.’

  ‘But while you were there you went to see - well, you saw someone called Captain Proudfoot, didn’t you? Who gave you authority to do that?’

  I drew breath. Ho hum.

  ‘Well, sir, may I explain the circumstances?’

  ‘Yes, do,’ he replied, in the tone of someone who would be glad enough to have them explained.

  I told him the tale, conscious of Colonel Sinclair silently emanating ‘not-disapproval’.

  ‘Yes, well,’ said the adjutant finally, ‘that’s the worst, of course, of doing things unofficially.’

  ‘I didn’t plan it, sir: I simply took the opportunity.’

  I can’t remember the rest, but apart from anything else, of course, the adjutant was in the position of dealing with someone who was seeking - well, excitement - while he himself was not. (No doubt he had a wife and children: I entirely applaud him.) I emerged with testicles intact.

  Later, like Falstaff - or rather, not like Falstaff - I was sent for soon, at night. Colonel Sinclair said he was very sorry that they couldn’t help me. They had tried. No way but I must go back with my unit. But he would write a letter for me to take with me.

  Such a letter! It was everything that such a letter can be: gentlemanly, respectful (never know who it might get to), ‘in my opinion’, ‘in my experience’ (very wide, implied), warm, avuncular: implied reference to the Prime Minister’s policy of encouraging people who wanted to pursue the war actively. ‘Have observed on duty and talked to this young officer’, etc., etc. ‘I reckon you’ve cooked your goose all right,’ said Captain MacLeod, with whom I’d always got on well.

  The voyage home was uneventful. All I can really remember about it is that over Christmas - for we had Christmas 1943 at sea - I sang tenor in the drummed-up carol choir. To this day I can never hear what Laurie Lee calls ‘Wild Shepherds’ without remembering that Christmas.

  We disembarked in England and were sent to another depot at Bridgend in south Wales. All I can remember about Bridgend is a church with an eighteenth-century memorial stone to a blacksmith, and an epitaph verse (by the then Vicar, perhaps?) which labours the farrier metaphor in memorable style. ‘My iron is cold, my bellows is (sic) decayed -’ Blacksmiths are, somehow or other, endearing people. ‘Felix Randal’ is one of my favourite poems, and a lot of other people’s too, I suspect.

  A day or two after we got to Bridgend, Captain MacLeod strolled into my billet. ‘There’s a posting in for you, to C.R.A.S.C., 1st Airborne Division. You leave us tomorrow, for Lincolnshire.’

  Chapter XVII

  At this point, reader, there should be something in the nature of a caesura: an induction in the text, an arsis in the voice of the narrator. What is that proximate glow in the sky ahead? No, you need not suspend disbelief. We are, in cold truth and with no hyperbole of my making, approaching great excellence and splendour, common as sunrise, greater than Alexander and his hosts, more glorious, tragic and terrible than Troy or Byzantium: the fury and the mire of human veins.

  When George Orwell wrote that in America in the mid-nineteenth century human beings were free as they had never been before, he meant precisely that. And I am about to write of the bravest men who ever lived. But at that rate, I suppose, I cannot avoid antagonizing readers who have themselves served with men whom they believe - know - to have been unsurpassed. So I will simply call the British Airborne Forces as brave, as great-hearted as any men who have ever lived. Some — I suppose - may have been as valiant, but none more so. I never heard them spoken ill of.

  I was not one of those valiant: but I was with them in a subordinate capacity; I wore their uniform and - largely because criteria were not exacting in all the exigency, haste and commotion of the war - was never sent packing. My leaky, ill-trimmed little craft fell in with the most heroic and glorious fleet that ever sailed, and for two years it was granted me to limp along with them, at least tolerated and undismissed. You should have known them. I have never felt more proud, fulfilled or happy before or since.

  ‘There’s a posting in for you, to C.R.A.S.C., 1st Airborne Division.’ When MacLeod said this, my heart turned over in real apprehension. They had taken me at my word! I had for long insisted that I wanted to do it and at last someone had said ‘Very well.’ This was real. There was no going back on it now. The roller coaster had started and I was on it.

  My trembling resolution was saved by two things, both of which I now know to have been illusions. First, at this time in my life, graded physically A1 as I was, I genuinely believed that what one man could do, another man, given the determination, could also do. Granted the physique, it was all a matter of purpose, will and intent. And I was determined all right.

  Secondly, I supposed, with an inward qualm, that the discipline would be a prop and support. Presumably I was now on my way to a division in which firm discipline was the order of the day. I’d been in the Army for three and a half years, but no doubt I’d seen nothing yet.

  I couldn’t have been more mistaken. There was unbounded group morale but very little formal discipline in Airborne Forces. If they didn’t like you, they didn’t waste time in discipline: they didn’t have to. They just got rid of you. They could pick and choose - officers and N.C.O.s anyway, and all parachutists, for they were volunteers. What I was going to find out was whether they wanted to keep me.

  What was my real motivation? I can’t, in all honesty, say whether or not it was the same as everybody else’s, for truth to tell, one thing I have never heard talked about by parachutists is their motivation. There was a bit more pay but not a lot, and in any case I doubt whether anyone’s motivation can ever have been financial.

  What had allured me from the start, back in 1942, had been the red berets and the flamboyant blue-and-maroon shoulder flash - Bellerophon riding on Pegasus to kill the Chimaera. These men must be a special band - couldn’t not be - for the authorities had conferred upon them a uniform to tell everybody as much. I coveted that uniform, that distinction.

  But as 1942 and then 1943 wore on, I came to have another reason. On the whole I didn’t like the company I had to keep. Roy, Paddy and Piggy had been, of course, another matter - they were unique - but by-and-large I didn’t terribly care about my colleagues and in particular about my commanding officers. Other ranks, of course, differ little from one mob to another. As General Montgomery said, there are no bad soldiers, only bad officers. I’m bound to say, though, that on the whole the N.C.O.s in No. 2 Petrol Depot had been no great shakes. Like Kent, I had seen better faces in my time than any I beheld about me there.

  I had come to believe that if only I could get into Airborne Forces, both officers and N.C.O.s would be of an altogether different quality. I proved to be entirely right: they were. But where did that leave me?

  It was January and very cold after the Middle East. I made the usual slow, disagreeable rail journey northwards, and at the end of it reported to Divisional Headquarters at Fulbeck, some eleven miles south of Lincoln. With no delay at all I found myself talking to Lt.-Col. Michael Packe, C.R.A.S.C., 1st Airborne Division.

  Within a few minutes I felt that I was breathing a new air. I need only say here that I got on very well with Colonel Packe, then and throughout the next eighteen months. After we had chatted for a time, he said
he was going to post me to the Light Company -250th Light Company, R.A.S.C. (Airborne).

  At this point I had better explain that, in those days at any rate, an Airborne Division’s R.A.S.C. (who were divisional troops) consisted of three companies - two heavy and one light. The two heavy companies (each a major’s command) were equipped with 3-ton Bedford lorries and did not differ essentially from any motorized R.A.S.C. company. Their job in action was to follow up an airborne attack together with the relieving ground troops, to bring in the division’s heavier equipment and then assist it in its ground role.

  The light company was different in function and kind. It consisted of three parachute platoons and three platoons of glider-borne jeeps. Each parachute platoon was commanded by a captain, with a subaltern 2 i/c: the N.C.O.s and men were all volunteer parachutists. Their role in action was to drop with the division, and thereupon to have the responsibility for collecting and distributing all subsequently dropped supplies; medical, food, ammunition (and conceivably petrol). They might well find themselves required to fight for possession of these supplies: if, for instance, containers happened to be dropped outside the area controlled by the division, or if the enemy attacked the dropping zone. They were equipped and trained accordingly.

  The three platoons of glider-borne jeeps were not volunteers, although in 250 Light Company everyone was positively motivated. (If not, they were posted.) The rules were that any soldier at all could be ordered to travel in a glider, but only qualified parachutists could be ordered to jump from ‘planes. Each platoon was organized in seven sections of about six or seven men, each under a corporal, and there were two sergeants to each platoon. The role of these platoons was to go into action with their jeeps in gliders (two jeeps to each Horsa glider) and then make themselves useful either in co-operation with the parachute platoons or as otherwise required by Divisional H.Q.

  As I was to discover, the O.C. of 250 Company preferred all his officers to be parachutists, whether or not they were members of a parachute platoon.

  That same evening I was driven to Lincoln and reported to Major John Gifford, commanding 250 Company.

  It would be wearisome - and not really helpful - to give a character sketch of each officer in the company. There were about twelve or thirteen altogether, and they comprised a very strong team, much stronger than any I had yet come across. Apart from that, collectively they have importance to this book, since later, from my memory, they provided the idea for Hazel and his rabbits in Watership Down. By this I do not mean that each of Hazel’s rabbits corresponds to a particular officer in 250 Company. Certainly the idea of the wandering, endangered and interdependent band, individually different yet mutually reliant, came from my experience of the company, but out of all of us, I think, there were only two direct parallels. Hazel is John Gifford and Bigwig is Paddy Kavanagh. I cannot really avoid a description of John Gifford - although he will hate it and may even be angry with me, though I very much hope not - because he has had as much influence on my life as James Hunt or Richard Hiscocks, if not more. Yet of all things he always hated any kind of flourish, ostentation or - well, bullshit; so I apologize to him.

  John Gifford was at this time, I suppose, about thirty-three or four. He had been an architect in civilian life before the war; and he was a bachelor. He was about five feet nine inches tall and had a rather high colour and black hair. He was pleasant-looking without being spectacularly handsome, and he wore glasses. He moved well and had a quiet, clear voice which he never raised, except when giving commands on parade. He seldom exclaimed and he never swore.

  Everything about him was quiet, crisp and unassuming. He was the most unassuming man I have ever known. When giving any of his officers an order he usually said ‘Please’, ‘Would you like to -?’ or ‘Perhaps you’d better -’. He could be extraordinarily cutting; at least one sensed it like that, because a rebuke from him was so quiet and so rare, and because everyone had such a high regard for him that you felt his slightest reproof very keenly.

  He was an excellent organizer. One of his strongly held principles was that it was important to get the right person into the right job, and the wrong person out. This went right down to the level of Private. I had never consciously thought about this principle before (‘Anybody can do anything’), but I realized it all right after I had been under John Gifford’s command for two or three weeks, when he gently pointed out to me that the reason why my platoon administration was in such a mess was that Lance-Corporal Tull was entirely the wrong sort of person to be trying to do what I had told him to. Since then I have needed no further telling.

  John Gifford was brave in the most self-effacing way. One morning a few months later, when I had learned my way around in the Company and knew what was what, I missed the O.C. at breakfast and, since no one else happened to be near by, asked the mess waiter, Ringer, if he knew where he was.

  ‘Oh, the Major went out early, sir. He heard last night that some of the gunners were jumping this morning and fixed up to join them.’

  No one else knew about this. Jumping is a frightening and unpleasant affair. John Gifford was not in command of a parachute platoon, but he made it his business to do as many jumps as anyone else in the Company and to say nothing about it.

  Turn-out was important in the Company, as throughout the whole Division. I recall that once a directive was included in Company Part I Orders that for the future people would not wear airborne smocks (camouflage jackets) off duty and particularly not in pubs. A couple of days later, I was with John Gifford and one or two other officers when we went into a local pub. The first thing we saw was my sergeant, Smith, together with two of my corporals, drinking at the bar; all were wearing airborne smocks. Nobody said anything, since the O.C. was the senior officer present and the matter was therefore at his discretion. John Gifford led the way to the further end of the bar and ordered a round. Next day, he happened to be looking informally over my platoon location when we encountered the sergeant, who came to attention and saluted. ‘Good morning, Sergeant Smith,’ said John pleasantly. ‘I hope your beer tasted equally good in airborne smocks?’ Nothing ensued. Having dwelt on this, I perceive that it was really a communication from one comrade to another. ‘Unfortunately I happen to have the job of commanding you: I’m sorry.’ That was how it worked on Sergeant Smith, too: he didn’t forget it. He did not.

  Everyone in the Company was an individual, known by name and ability to the O.C. I remember now, particularly, the quartermaster sergeant, Greathurst. Greathurst was a personality in the Company, gentlemanly, light-hearted, buoyant and amusing, extremely good at his job, with a wheelbarrow full of surprises (as any good quartermaster should have) and his own little coterie of assistants, including Lance-Corporal Goodfield. Goodfield, amongst other things, was a brilliant pianist and, together with Greathurst, splendid company in a pub. Particularly memorable was their dual rendering, prestissimo, of ‘Susie, Susie, sitting in the shoe-shine shop, she sits and shines and shines and sits and sits all over the shop.’ (Anyone who got it wrong had to buy a pint.)

  Sergeant-Major Gibbs was like a sergeant-major in a music-hall sketch. Almost illiterate himself, he was a veritable scourge on parade and would bawl out his victims mercilessly, until they, standing to attention before him, were deeply relieved to receive at last his customary conclusion: ‘Right! On yer way, on yer way! Outa me sight! Yer idle, yer idle.’ It once fell to my lot to read the first lesson on church parade, about the oppression of the Israelites in Egypt. This was from Exodus and included Genesis, Chapter V, verse 13. It was only our respect for the O.C. which enabled most of us to keep straight faces.

  I remember John Gifford once telling Sergeant-Major Gibbs that he should communicate something or other in a letter to Div. H.Q. ‘Me, sir?’ said Gibbs. ‘Write a letter, sir? Got ’ighly trained staff do that, sir.’

  After Arnhem, it was one Corporal Wiggins, rather than any of the officers, whose death John Gifford seemed to feel most keenly. We
were all equal in his sight.

  At one time the Company had wished upon it one Lieutenant Cordery, a big, burly man who before the war had a been a regular soldier in the ranks. Though not yet qualified as a parachutist, he was appointed as subaltern to Captain Kavanagh’s platoon. Cordery soon made himself unpopular. He was forever telling the men (he customarily addressed a man as ‘sonny’) that he was no war-time soldier; that if they thought they were smartly turned out then he, Cordery, could inform them otherwise; that he could show them hills in comparison with which they would call that a valley, etc., etc. ‘Oh, they must love him!’ remarked Kavanagh one day to John Gifford.

  However, after a short sojourn, Cordery was no longer to be found among those present. He had been posted. No one said anything at the time, or during ensuing weeks. At least, I heard nothing. Much later that year, when we were in Normandy, his name came up.

  ‘Oh,’ said John Gifford, ‘there was nothing wrong with Cordery. He was just too good for us, that’s all. He was a soldier: we’re not soldiers.’

  John was always very selective indeed about accepting officers into the Company. Anyone who came was very much on approval. Some time during 1944 we received a young officer called Dale, who was sent to me to see how he made out. Dale was keen as mustard: nothing was too much trouble for him. Perhaps - I think now - he may have been a little too eager for approval: I don’t know. One thing not his fault nor yet in his favour was that he was physically small - an unusually short man. My stated opinion to the O.C. was that, while Dale lacked charisma and was not likely to make people exclaim ‘Gosh! There’s an Airborne officer if ever I saw one!’, he was nevertheless a good little chap who deserved to be taken on. But John Gifford wouldn’t have it. ‘I don’t think we really want him, do you?’ he said to me in his quiet way. Now Dale, whatever his merits, was not worth contention with so experienced and able a commanding officer. So I knuckled under, and Dale disappeared too. I know he thought I must have reported against him: he was terribly hurt and disappointed. Still, I suppose John Gifford was right: he nearly always was.