THE COVENANTER
truck and trailer but no result. I hoped that of them were real characters. When I was
one of the signallers had taken it by mistake at Bordon on the MT Sgts course we spent
or some joker had hidden it because I had a great deal of time on the roads around
left it unattended. Finally I had to admit Hampshire on driver instruction training
that I had lost it and I had no clue as to usually spending lunchtime in some pub or
where I might have left it. We had covered cafe of the instructors choosing ( I think
a lot of miles that day, supplying all the rifle he must have been on commision since he
companies and laying or lifting line. I was in was always well known at these places and
the absolute horrors. We’d only been issued never seemed to pay)
these things just before the exercise. What if
a civilian found it?. Would I be in trouble One day in a roadside cafe we met some girls
with the German Police? How long would of the WRAC doing driver training. One
I get at my Court Martial?. I would be the of them had a newspaper and was doing
first idiot to lose one of the Armys’ brand the crossword on the childrens page. It was
new rifles.I had made my mind up to report one of those nine square crosswords for
to the CSM in the morning but even before kids about seven or eight years old and she
we had breakfast I was required to rush off couldn’t crack the first clue which was “It
with batteries for the COs radios and on the sat on the mat” I said she should put down
way back to go to A Coy. “cat” but she couldn’t get the connection
until I explained that it was from the well
At A Coy location one of the three ton drivers known “The cat sat on the mat” sentence in
came over and said to me “Hullawrer China, the schools first reading book. “Oh That will
Huv you loast ennythin? Cos Ah seem to be right” she says “How do you spell Cat?”.
huv a spare rifle in mah cab”. My jaw really dropped at that one but it hit
He’d seen me leave the rifle against a tree the floor when her mate said “It’s K.A.T. you
while unloading and drive off without it. Of silly bitch, Its written all over those KitKat
course he couldn’t contact me to say he had biscuits on the counter.
it and he didn’t report it because he knew
I would come back to that location. I’d not I’d never met any WRAC girls before so I
had the nerve to report it either so nobody had to ask why she had joined the army.
except he and a few others ever knew I’d lost She said “The judge said I could do a year in
it for twenty four hours. Borstal or three years in the army. You get
He was an old soldier however and he gave paid in the army and they let you go out in
me a bollocking the RSM would have been the evening”.
proud of. For the rest of my service anytime This was her punishment for shoplifting a
I had a weapon in my charge it might as bottle of cheap scent from Woolworths.
well have been welded to my hand.
My next course was the drill course at the
The regimental system is the backbone of Guards Depot where I learned that all the
the Army and a great way to instill loyalty things things you hear about the Guards are
and cohesion into any fighting unit but I mostly true. Certainly there were a couple of
always thought that it made the various very effete officers knocking about and the
units a bit too much like closed societies. bull, bombast and rigid adherence to every
We were Cameronians and that was the petty fogging rule and regulation in the
Army for us. The rest of the army was army was very irritating. The Sgts mess of
out there somewhere but it wasn’t much the Training wing had so many rules about
concern to us. Of course we saw other who could speak to whom and where to sit
people like tankies and gunners on exercises and so on that after the first few days of the
in Germany and when we played them course nobody went there except those who
in sporting competition but I rarely met wanted to suck up to the instructors.
anyone from the South Wales Borderers or Those of us from Rifle regiments just
the Royal Warwickshire Regiment over in wanted to get the course over and get back
Hamelin, except for the time I spent three to normality. The course was required for
days with a platoon of the Warwicks when promotion of course but it was the usual
I was assistant umpire on an exercise and nonsense of the sixties. a ten week course
that was quite a revelation. with the first six weeks being treated like a
new recruit being taught the very basics of
Mostly I met people from the rest of the foot and rifle drill.
army were on the courses I did and some
50
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