‘As a civilian trainee, sir, you’ll be allocated accommodation in one of the huts, but you’re entitled to use the officers’ mess. I’ll see you’re issued a mess number, and get someone to take you up.’ I noticed that; I’m sure you did too. Out in the land of the free I’d been mate; now I was a civilian trainee, and sir. I wasn’t sure I liked that. I leaned across the counter to him.
‘In the RAF I was a sergeant, Sergeant. I’d be more at home if you could wangle me into the sergeants’ mess instead.’
He paused.
‘I’m sure that your papers said you had been a pilot officer, sir.’ He sounded doubtful.
‘I was, for a short while, but it was a bad mistake. Nobody asked me.’
He sighed. Life is full of difficult decisions, isn’t it? ‘OK. But don’t tell anyone.’ That was the second time we had said something like that: the armed forces were becoming curiously secretive.
I was given a dirty-green boiler suit, like the four other civvies I shared a big hut with, and we were expected to walk from training session to session. As far as I can recall I never saw anyone doubling anywhere the whole time I was there. On the first morning our course leader – a smart young corporal – read us the list of courses we would complete in our time with the Signals. We were all down for W/T Test and Selection, and W/T (Special Communications), and something extra. Each of the something extras was different – to make us feel like individuals, I supposed. Mine was firefighting. Fucking fire-fighting! Someone somewhere had blundered. I knew exactly what the NCOs and troopers of the Light Brigade felt like when they looked down the valley towards those bloody Russian guns. I also knew well enough not to argue. I asked the corp, ‘How do they teach us firefighting?’
‘Not my subject, Charlie’ – it was a nice informal sort of course and we were quickly on first-name terms – ‘but I understand that they fill an old airframe up with aviation spirit and set it on fire. You have to put it out on your own. If you succeed, you’ve passed. If you die you haven’t.’
‘I did parachute training a few years ago – same principle.’
‘It’s always good when our students already know the ropes.’
He tested my Morse receiving and sending. I wasn’t as fast as I used to be, but even so could outperform everyone in the classroom except a talkative little Welsh geezer from the call-up: in Civvy Street he’d been a fully qualified radio officer on a merchant ship. I reckoned he’d have a stripe up before the end of his training. The RX 108 radios they sat us at came as a bit of a shock – larger than the sets I was used to, and with a better range if you had the right aerial array. Providing it was doing so with a signal, I could have heard a fly fart in Shanghai with that kit.
After a week it was obvious that they weren’t interested in my sending speed – I was going to be a listener again. In ’47 I’d listened to the Reds and the Poles before they demobbed me. In ’53 it was the Wogs and the Israelis. Who was I to be eavesdropping on this year? I remembered what CB had said, and just wondered if it was the Yanks.
I learned the Yorkshire Two-Kick Game in the sergeants’ mess at Garats Hay – there was nothing much there to do except congregate in the bar, and it could get a bit boisterous. There was a liberty bus to and from Loughborough every night, but if you’ve ever been to Loughborough you’ll know why we declined the offer.
On the night I learned the Two-Kick Game someone spotted a ten-bob note which had been dropped on the floor of the bar. A burly sergeant and a small Yorkshire civvy went for it at the same moment, and each managed to get half a foot on it. Stalemate. The civvy just about came up the Brown Job’s shoulder. A discreet circle gathered around them.
I offered five bob on the civvy – not because I thought he’d win, but because he looked clever. He produced a tanner from his pocket and spun it in the air. He didn’t withdraw his foot. Everyone’s eyes were taken by the small silver disc, spinning and catching the light.
He told the sergeant, ‘We settle this sort of thing with the Two-Kick Game where I come from, Sergeant.’
‘What would that be, Tiny?’ The sergeant. He grinned around.
‘One of us stands still, while the other takes two kicks at him. Then we swap round. It goes on until one of us gives up.’
‘How do we choose who goes first?’
‘Toss for it – I’ll toss, and you call.’ The tanner was lofted skywards again.
‘Heads.’
The small fellow caught it – ‘Tails. Me first.’ He opened his hand to show us fair was fair. I enjoyed the first signs of uncertainty in the sergeant’s eyes, but he squared his shoulders and said, ‘OK. Your shot.’
The small man immediately kicked him hard on the knee, and the soldier fell; we all stepped out of the way, and let him go. It was like a great tree coming down. He took the second kick in the balls. He rolled onto his side groaning, and holding himself. He had staying power and courage though; he dragged himself first to his knees, and then to his feet. The room was
