3
All at Sea
There was no choice. I was put in the Queen’s Royal Regiment, an infantry regiment, well known for its fighting abilities. It was wrong of them to give you the idea that you had a say in what happened to you. It was one of the first (and there were to be many later on), examples of the helplessness I felt at being in the hands of authority, powerless to decide your own destiny.
I was assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 7th Company which was made up of regulars, volunteer reservists (territorials) and conscripts. A lot of us, especially the conscripts and the young officers, didn’t have a clue what to do and we never had any real training. It was the Phoney War; and things hadn’t got going properly and we felt as though we were just playing at being soldiers.
I had to report to an address in East Grinstead which turned out to be premises above a furniture store in the High Street. I met another fellow on the train who was going there, and we eventually found it round the back of the building up some stairs. It was musty and damp inside and looked as though the place was used for storage and had just been hastily cleared. There were a dozen or so there already and we joined a queue to register at a desk. Gradually more arrived, until there were about thirty of us by late afternoon. There didn’t seem to be anything else to do except sit and wait. One chap said, ‘I fancy going out for some cigarettes. Anybody want to come?’ A couple put their hands up and were about to leave when we heard the sound of heavy boots coming up the stairs.
The Sergeant Major arrived and stood in the doorway. Nobody moved. He was a ratty little fellow who didn’t look as though he was going to take any nonsense from anybody. Straightaway he laid into us, barking commands to line up, stand to attention and don’t speak until you’re spoken to. He told us in no uncertain terms what he thought of us. He didn’t like the look of us, we weren’t going to be any good or amount to much, all that sort of caper you get from these people. It didn’t sound to me as though we were in for anything good.
It was getting late by then and we were told to bed down there for the night. We slept in our clothes on the floor on what were called ‘biscuits’, a set of three square canvas cushions laid out to make a bed. Hard as nails they were. Better get used to this, I thought, it was probably a sign of things to come. I don’t think I was ever comfortable again at night until I got home to my own bed after the war.
In the morning, after waiting for more recruits to turn up, we were taken by army trucks to the camp barracks to begin our army life. I stuck with the chap I had met on the train and we joined up with another couple of fellows and amused ourselves talking about our families and had a bit of a laugh about the Sergeant Major. I didn’t mind being away from home; it was an adventure for us young lads. That night I had no worries about being in a dormitory with a bunch of strangers because I was used to sleeping in the same room with my brothers and with my pals when I was away on holiday.
We were taken to an army store to be kitted out in our new uniforms. Even though mine didn’t fit properly and my boots felt tight, I didn’t say anything. I would have to put up with it. We went back into town to an army depot and did our first bit of training. We were introduced to various officers and NCOs who told us what their jobs were and how the company worked. We did some running up and down, some marching and tried a bit of basic drill to get us all working together as a unit. I told Lily I had two left feet and this was evident as I tried to keep in step with the other lads.
A few days’ later we were all taken down to the army camp at Horsham in Sussex which was to be our base for the rest of our training until our departure for France. We had our medical and ‘Protective Inoculations’, recorded in my Soldier’s Service and Pay Book: ‘Nature of vaccine, “T.A.B.” Cholera, plague etc.’ and I was pronounced ‘A’ fit for service and therefore able to start the training.
We were out of doors a lot of the time on route marches and exercises. Once we were driven in the back of a lorry at night, dumped in the middle of nowhere and told to find our way back to camp. Marching was hard on the feet all the time and it was very important to break in your boots. You couldn’t afford to have blisters and bunions when you eventually went into action.
One of my early brushes with authority occurred when I had been out in town one night and was returning to camp with a friend. We were walking along the High Street, smoking as we went, when we saw an officer coming towards us. We both slowed down and saluted but my pal had the presence of mind to throw away his cigarette. I was still smoking when the officer, a young chap, came right up to me, and slapped me across the face. He just meant to knock the cigarette out of my mouth but he miscalculated. The blow gave me the shock of my life and I finally got the message. You’re a man now and you’re in the army, Charlie. You’re going to have to learn the rules, obey orders and remember your place.
I wouldn’t have minded being given a few more orders or at least some guidance. We were ill-prepared for fighting and for what lay ahead. I don’t think that I fired more than five rounds of ammunition before I went over to France. We spent a day, I’m sure it was no more than that, on a firing range on Salisbury Plain. Inside one of the huts, the Sergeant demonstrated how to assemble and dismantle a Bren gun and then told us to do it. There were three Brens laid out on tables with thirty of us trying to have a go. The Sergeant got annoyed when we couldn’t do it. Some of us barely had time to touch one. Outside on the range, we were given our Lee Enfield rifles – First World War bolt action weapons, and told to lie down on our stomachs and fire at numbered targets allocated to us. I was given Number 6, and the Sergeant tapped my foot when it was my turn to fire. I’m not sure if I hit the target at all because as I fired, the rifle kicked back practically ripping my shoulder off. I was probably firing up in the air for all I knew. I fired a few rounds and then it was time to go back to camp.
And that was it for a while. We carried on doing drills and exercises which I hated. I wasn’t a natural soldier, certainly not a killer, so I was very happy when I was selected to join the company transport unit.
It happened one day when we got back from an exercise. The Sergeant Major called us to attention and read out a list of names of men who were to report to his office. A few weeks ago, an officer had asked our platoon for volunteer drivers. ‘Write your name and number on a piece of paper and put it on my desk in the office.’ There were seven names on the list, including mine, and we were told that we had all got driving jobs. It wasn’t like it is now when every youngster learns to drive as soon as they reach seventeen. I was one of the few who had held a licence for nearly four years. As there was a shortage of drivers, I was a good catch. Licences were checked, papers issued and vehicles assigned.
Hand in hand with a shortage of drivers was a shortage of vehicles. The army was using ones which had been hired or commandeered from local civilians – their contribution to The War Effort. Some people were making a lot of money doing business with the army. Horsham housewives found that they were not getting their laundry delivered and butchers in Tunbridge Wells did not have their waste bones collected. So who was it that got one of those lorries? It was me. I got a bone lorry. It was terrible. My uncle was a butcher and every Monday morning one of them came round to collect his waste bones which were collected in sacks and thrown straight into the back of the lorry which continued on its round until it was full. You can guess what that lorry smelt like over time.
Now the chap who had hired my lorry out to the army did his best, or so he thought, to hide the nature of its cargo. He washed it out and cleaned it but, of course, that wasn’t enough to get rid of the awful smell. So he decided to paint it inside and smothered it with thick brown paint which only made things worse. There was the smell of old bones and the smell of paint mixed together. I felt sorry for the men I was carting about in it. They were standing up in the back, while I sat in the front cab away from the worst of the stink.
I enjoyed being out on the road, driving around collecting supplies, taking the men out on exercise and all that. I learned how to look after the vehicles and do basic repairs. However, one day I was driving in a convoy going out on manoeuvres in town. Everybody had jobs to do as part of the exercise and I decided to help the lads fill sandbags for a shelter they were constructing. When we got back, I was summoned to the Section Commander’s office. What on earth had I done wrong?
I stood to attention while he tore me off a strip for what I had done. ‘You left your f------- vehicle!’ he said. ‘Never leave your f------- vehicle again!’ All the regulars swore like troopers. ‘That’s your f------- job!’ My responsibilities were to drive and look after the vehicle. Nothing else. I don’t know what he would have said if he had known that a few months’ later I abandoned my truck on a road in France and surrendered to the Germans.
You do your best, that’s all you can do. In spite of the rollicking I got, I wasn’t put off. I was happy to carry on driving and looking after my vehicle, pleased to have this particular responsibility in my unit. However, I didn’t know that I was in danger of having it taken away from me and being put right in the line of fire.
