fourteen

At last I was about to begin the glamorous role I had envisaged from my first days in basic training. On the Company Notice Board were the details. My name, rank and number. To report to Hammersley Barracks, School of Physical Training, Aldershot for a course as a part-time instructor.

* * *

The cheerless barrack room, a group of strangers, everyone new and inexperienced, reminded me of when I joined up. But as in training centre we soon made friends.

For the first few days we rose from our beds like arthritic old women. Backs, knees, ankles, shoulders, calves, feet, wherever there was a joint or muscle unaccustomed to strenuous exercise it ached.

Gradually we loosened up. Became supple. Were taught how to instruct. How to referee certain games. Correct poor posture. Recognise flat feet and set exercises to correct them. Our toes remembered their prehensile function, grasped marbles, lifted and shifted them. A cure for fallen arches we were assured.

We attended lectures on hygiene. How to avoid verrucas by avoiding wooden duckboards. Lectures on the beneficial effects of regular exercise. On the bowel, bladder, heart, liver and lungs. We took copious notes. Asked and answered questions. Ambitious girls like me drawing attention to the selves. Hands up. Questioning. Answering. In the spotlight. Initiative being a virtue in the army. Up front and pushy.

There were girls as agile as monkeys who in breaks between lessons did handstands, cartwheeled for yards across the gymnasium and shinned up and down ropes as if they’d served their time on sailing ships. Not me. I couldn’t neither then nor ever do a head over heels. Fortunately acrobatic skills were not part of the course requirements and I passed with flying colours. The result was forwarded to my company along with a recommendation for a course as a full-time instructor and promotion to the rank of Corporal when a vacancy occurred.

I was half way there. Every time I passed the village shop selling stripes and crossed swords, the emblem of the School of Physical Training which I’d wear above my stripes, I was tempted to buy them. But being Irish and superstitious desisted. It wasn’t wise to spit in the wind.

I thought of the extra money. Making my mother’s allowance up to ten shillings a week. Though now the need was no longer pressing. She had a job. As seamstress with the Irish Free State Army. My brother joined the RAF and made her a generous allowance and soon my sister would he leaving school and had a job lined up.

She was on the ‘pig’s back’, my mother, or almost. For there was still a house to acquire. We only had two rooms. Upstairs were two other tenants. One of whom my mother was very fond. A middle-aged laundry worker. Who smoked millions of cigarettes and liked a few bottles of stout. Her face was leathery and brown. Cured like a kipper by tobacco. And from out of the wrecked face shone a pair of enormous brown eyes with always a beautiful smile in them.

She was pro-British. And on her way in from the public house would knock on our kitchen door, come in and regale us with songs of the First World War. In her cracked, hoarse voice she sang ‘Roses are Shining in Picardy’, ‘Tipperary’, ‘There’s a Long, Long Road a-Winding’ and countless others until a fit of coughing overwhelmed her.

The other tenant was young, married and had three children. My mother didn’t object to the children nor the commandeering of the washing line. But when the pig appeared she declared war. Its sty was underneath our kitchen window. Buckets of greasy cabbage water and basins of vegetable peelings were delivered to the door, causing my mother to foam at the mouth.

The young woman fought her corner. Defended her ‘little pig’s right to nourishment’. The war raged for months. The stench in the yard was noxious.

My mother was tearing her hair out. ‘A pig in the yard and next door a shaggin’ chicken butcher. No wonder the place is infested with rats.’

‘Don’t forget the cats,’ said my brother who sat by the window catapult in hand, taking aim at the constant trail of cats padding along the back wall to feast on the innards of the slaughtered chickens. ‘Got him,’ he’d whoop with glee when his shot found its target.

Between the constant rows and my mother’s complaints to the Department of Health, the woman with the pig moved to a Corporation house. My mother scoured the yard with buckets of scalding water laced with washing soda and had a word with the landlord, a giant of a man who’d thrown the hammer or discus at a long ago Olympic Games. And who did his own repairs. Putting the heart crossways in my mother when it was the roof that needed mending. She prayed fervently. Not necessarily for his safety but that if it was God’s will that he should fall let it be anywhere but through the roof.

He let my mother have the vacant room. Sadly she soon had possession of the other one. Jessoe, the laundry worker, got severe bronchitis and went into heart failure. While waiting for the priest and doctor my mother sat by the bed, holding her hand and whispering to her the Act of Contrition.

She mourned Jessie. We all did. Nevertheless we welcomed the extra room. My mother blossomed, for at last she had achieved her two ambitions.

* * *

Breda’s chic hairstyle and uplifted breasts belied the sweet naive girl she still was. One night when Steve was on guard duty she and I went to the NAFFI for supper. It was Thursday, not the best night to choose. Thursday was pay day and soldiers who didn’t fancy the walk to the village drank there.

We found a table that wasn’t too littered with empty cigarette packets, overflowing ash trays and had the minimum spillage of tea, coffee and beer. The coffee was as usual foul, the chips welded together with grease and the pie a lucky dip. Being young, healthy and ravenous we began eating.

A soldier played the piano. He was good. I loved ‘Stardust’ and listened. He changed his tune to ‘ Bless ’Em All’, to which the crowd gathered round him sang the words, ‘Sod ’Em All’. Not very offensive. But Breda’s standards were high. She turned to glare. Although in their state of intoxication it would have been lost on the sweaty-faced, bleary-eyed men. Then she exclaimed in a horrified voice, ‘Will you look at that!’

‘What? Where?’ I asked.

‘Around the piano.’

I turned to look. Saw nothing out of the ordinary. Turning back I said, ‘It’s pay day. Someone’s always drunk on Thursday night.’

‘I know that but this is different.’

‘Why?’ I asked, undoing my lucky dip which appeared to be filled only with burnt onions.

‘Because they’re Pioneers.’

‘So they’re in the Pioneer Corps.’

‘I know that but they’re not supposed to drink.’

‘Since when?’

‘Are you trying to be funny? You’re Irish. You know well Pioneers don’t drink. They’ve all taken the Pledge. Drink mustn’t pass their lips.’

‘You’re not serious?’

‘Of course I am.’

I laughed. Out loud and couldn’t stop for a few minutes.

‘There’s nothing to laugh at,’ Breda said as huffily as it was possible for her.

I controlled my laughter. Well, almost. Then enlightened her.

‘Breda, Pioneers in the British Army, most of them anyway, are manual labourers. They dig ditches and drains. Do the rough work. They can get stocious every night of the week. Legless so long as they dig the following day. They know nothing about the Pledge. Maybe a few who are Irish may have heard of it. But they’ve absolutely nothing to do with any abstinence movement.’

‘Honest to God?’

‘Honest to God.’

‘Well, amn’t I the right eejit.’

You are, I thought, but the nicest eejit I’ve ever known. And I want to be your friend all my life.

I couldn’t wait to get back to the billet and tell Katy.

* * *

I stood in for the PT Corporal on mornings when she couldn’t attend. On the first occasion I was nervous. But after that I revelled in taking classes. The clerical staff exercised before breakfast. Mumbling and grumbling, only half awake. But the majority came to and before the lesson ended showed signs of enjoying it. When on duty cooks and orderlies were up at dawn and when on their rest days or late shift had PT later in the morning. I would go to their barrack room, rouse and warn them that the lesson would begin in half an hour. Once on a bright summer’s morning, invigorated after the earlier session, I bent over an orderly, touching her gently awake. A young girl wearing her khaki turban under which I could see the shapes of her curlers. She was snoring softly. I bent again to rouse her and then recoiled in horror. Her face was crawling with lice. I had seen lice before. Many times on the faces of corpses. Seen them tumble from heads including my own. Raked out before the teeth of a fine comb. But never on the face of a living person. My stomach churned. I went out to breathe fresh air and calm myself. My skin crawled. I lit a cigarette while deciding what to do.

Reluctant to report her. Then realizing there was nothing else I could do went to the Company Sergeant’s Major’s office. Miss Long was a diminutive Scotswoman. Silver-haired, quick moving. She reminded me of a fox terrier. The welfare of her girls she constantly reminded us was her great concern.

Many times at night I had seen her, torch in hand, wandering through the camp keeping an eye on her girls. Katy and I often warned Sylvia that one night Miss Long might pay a visit while she was entertaining the men Sylvia boasted visited her.

I reported the girl with lice. ‘Come with me.’ It was an order. I led the way. The girl was still sleeping. The lice crawling. Miss Long shook her roughly, ordered her to dress, not remove the turban and report to the medical inspection room. She dismissed me with a ‘Thank you’. I flew to the NAFFI. Only Katy and Sylvia were there. Neither were squeamish. They listened while eating doughnuts, though both began to scratch. Katy finished eating, then exclaimed, ‘Yesterday she served my dinner.’

Sylvia shuddered. ‘Mine too. The stew was probably swimming with them.’

We shrugged our backs against the chairs trying to relieve the imaginary itching.

‘You know, if there’s a dance or a date coming up some orderlies keep their curlers in for days. Wearing turbans all the time they get away with it,’ Katy said.

‘Not anymore they won’t. There’ll be head inspections left, right and centre. Miss Long will see to that.’

Katy went to get more coffee and Sylvia continued talking. ‘Their hair wouldn’t see brush or comb for days on end. What a ball the lice would have had.’

When Katy came back she had news of the orderly. ‘I’ve just been talking to Vera from the MI Room. Guess what?’

We couldn’t. She enlightened us. ‘They set about delousing her. Made her take out the curlers and discovered she has septic dermatitis. She’s being sent to hospital this afternoon. Hindhead in Surrey. And along with treatment she’s to have her head shaved.’

‘God, I wonder how many more there are like her? I’m not going to the cookhouse until the head inspections have been done. Can you believe it—in that condition serving our food.’ I felt sick. I kept seeing what I’d seen when I pulled the sheets and blankets from the girl’s face.

Later we heard that the orderly, after being discharged from hospital, was sent home on sick leave. Until her hair grew we assumed. She didn’t return to the camp. And the head inspections found no one heavily infested. We began eating in the cookhouse again. Lack of money forced us to.

* * *

I became more confident taking the PT lessons. Confident and conscientious. Spending part of evenings preparing the following day’s lesson. Though occasionally if I’d had a late night I’d take the lazy way out and order ‘a run’. Once out of sight of places where Miss Long might spy us I slowed down the pace. So that until we neared the camp again it had become a walk. I got on well with male instructors and though strictly speaking the gymnasium was their territory was free to wander in and out at any time. They flirted and teased in a pleasant way. Displayed their superb bodies. The gymnasium smelled of their clean sweat which I liked. Vaguely aware that it was disturbing. Sexually, I know now.

I liked watching them working on the parallel bars, vaulting over the horse, practising complicated turns and twists. One, a wiry, low sized Geordie I remember balancing on the horse. His body straight as an arrow supported only by his little finger. Years later, long after I had left the forces I saw him again. On television. A display of gymnastics performing the same feat.

But as is the case amongst any group of people there was a horror. Sandy, a cock of the walk. An ex-miner from Nottingham. Ugly but a fabulous body. Who always within my hearing boasted of his conquests. More than implying what a gift he was to women. Lewdly winking at me. I pretended not to hear or notice. But once I did overhear a remark of his. He was swinging on a rope and shouted to another PTI working out on the mat, ‘Last time for the one I had last night Jack.’

‘How’s that?’

‘Like shoving your arm up a bloody flue it were,’ Sandy replied.

Katy told me what it meant and went on to say, ‘She was lucky he didn’t put the ferret up.’

‘The ferret?’

‘Didn’t you know he goes ferreting? Supposed to carry it around in his trousers.’