An Officer and a Gentlewoman (7 page)

One was Officer Cadet Van der Merwe (Merv). She occupied the room at the furthest end of my corridor and had been to Welbeck and Shrivenham, the military university. She was completely unfazed by SSgt Cox and Captain Trunchbull. She didn’t get tongue-tied in the pressure of their glare, she didn’t stumble when reciting her Army number, she could march and halt in the doorway of SSgt Cox’s office. She knew how to fold hospital corners and smiling socks. For her the ironing and folding was effortless, her shoes shone the brightest, and there was never a hair on her head out of place. Because at twenty-three, she was already a veteran of the institution.

As I sprang to attention outside my room and SSgt Cox and Captain Trunchbull disappeared inside scoffing to one another, Merv would play the fool in the corridor outside. She would leap up and down performing an elaborate dance routine, she would lie prostrate on the floor and wiggle like a worm, or tiptoe up the corridor as far as she dared before dashing back, to stand to attention outside her own room again. My blood would race each time she did this, my heart pounding at the wrath she would incur if caught. The brazen risk. Her foolhardy guts. Merv wasn’t bothered.

Before long the rest of us realized room inspections were indeed all a game too and after a few further inspections eventually learned some of the rules which allowed us to play along. The trick, we discovered, was to leave an obvious fault: a hair on a pillow, dust on the windowsill, or frowning pair of socks, thus
allowing the achievement of the real purpose, which was to find flaw in our work no matter what. The army upholds impeccably high standards, and these inspections imbue that at an early stage, encouraging recruits to have pride in themselves and what they do. Poor personal hygiene and slack discipline in the field would be far more costly than in barracks, whilst picking up the pieces each morning and starting all over again also instil a fighting resolve and determination to keep carrying on. Obviously at the time I didn’t recognize any of this and found it all tediously pointless, struggling to appreciate how it was preparing me to command and lead soldiers.

If the turmoil of a pre-dawn start and drama of the room inspection hadn’t yet broken me, then the two hours of merciless drill until lunch would defeat any remaining will I had to continue.

Drill is military marching, in rank and file, and is a seriously big deal at Sandhurst, occupying an inordinate amount of our time. Hours of our lives were wasted pacing around the Parade Square to barked drill commands.

Historically, drill was used as an organized way of moving troops around the battlefield, preventing individuals from becoming mixed up with other units. Drill formed the foundations of discipline in battle, making armies more effective to command. It was all about instilling attention to detail and responding to orders. But at Sandhurst it felt as though it was used as a perverse form of punishment.

Anyone who has watched the Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace will understand the resplendence of a polished drill performance. The soldiers perfectly coordinated and disciplined, marching tall and proud, their movements in unison. Cameras flashing through the iron Palace railings, as guardsmen call out the commands in immaculate ceremonial uniforms, red tunics with bearskins balanced on their heads,
drawing in the tourist dollar. Unfortunately drill during our early days at the Academy was more chaotic car crash than protection of the Queen, as we were shockingly bad at it.

You would think walking along in step with the person next to you would be a fairly undemanding activity, but it isn’t. I had safely got myself through school and university but suddenly on Old College Parade Square my brain couldn’t compute the difference between left and right. My arms and legs fell out of my control, operating independently to the utter horror of SSgt Cox. For drill is when SSgt Cox became her angriest and shoutiest, as our incompetence whipped her into a frustrated frenzy. Because on the parade square Eleven Platoon had the disorganization of an Italian ski lift queue, and the smooth cadence of marching troops became a staccato machine gun clatter when we traipsed up and down in front of Old College. Metal tips on the soles of our shoes were intended to create the melodic earthy rhythm of troops in unison, a satisfying clomp, clomp, clomp, but instead they simply exaggerated our disharmony.

Outside in the shivering cold the platoon would form up as an orderly squad, with the tallest girls at the ends and shortest sandwiched in the middle. SSgt Cox would strut to the front from where she barked the commands.

‘Platoon!’

Grabbing our attention, we stiffened and smartened up ready to go.

‘Platooooon-shun!’

And we snapped to the position of attention, stamping our feet into the ground, chins lifted up and arms locked straight at our sides.

Then, ‘By the right in threes, kweeeeek nah!’ (quick march).

And off we went, guided by SSgt Cox shrieking behind us, ‘Dufft, dite, dufft, dite, dufft, dite.’ (As ‘left, right’ became in her Hull accent.)

This may all seem fairly straightforward but there was ample room for error: you could stamp with the incorrect foot, set off with the wrong leading leg, have bent arms or, most ghastly of all, tick-tock. Tick-tocking is when arms and legs on the same side of the body move forwards together rather than oppositely. The left leg and left arm swing out mutually in a ridiculous comedy walk that is impossible to correct once entered upon. And on my third day at Sandhurst, in a moment of artless naivety, I was caught in the most horrifying of tick-tocking incidents. Alone in my green coveralls, I was meekly searching for a toilet, bursting from the morning’s water parade. I marched around a corner and, with frightful shock, confronted the Academy and Old College sergeant majors on an inspection, two of the most important men at Sandhurst, both guardsmen and drill masters. My heart instantly doubled its beat as terror set in. I tried to appear confident in what I was doing, but my tick-tocking had diverted their scrutiny and I was treated to an unforgettable lesson.

I was especially dreadful at drill. It all went against the natural grain of my wayward limbs and I moved like an ill-disciplined robot. And, unfortunately, awareness of this insanity did not save me from the disease either, as my intractable legs singled me out, drawing attention, wrath and raillery on the parade square. And to stand out on the drill square was most ill advised. Hiding in anonymity was the tactic for much of Sandhurst in those first few months but my droll drill moves thrust me into the corrective glare and I hated it.

Drill sessions began with the dreaded warm-up. Marching at an accelerated breakneck speed to loosen our limbs, hurtling up and down the parade square in double time, arms and legs swinging madly to maintain the percussive rapidity of SSgt Cox’s ‘dufft, dites’.

‘Dufft, dite, dufft, dite, dufft, dite.’ And then the shrill: ‘ABOUT TURN.’

And we all turned around in a crashing melee.

Left, right. Left, right. Left, right.

Then the complexities of a salute on the march: ‘SALUTE.’

Up, two, three, four, down, swing. Poking out eyes and slapping the person next to you as your right arm shot up to your forehead.

Followed by a hopping: ‘CHANGE STEP.’

And another. ‘CHANGE STEP.’

And another. ‘CHANGE STEP.’

And another. Until we were strewn across the parade square, sweating in the frigid January air, legs sore and heels bloodied from the rasping of leather shoes, begging for the relief of ‘HALT’.

The most feared of drill paces however was the ‘mark time’. This was an entirely pointless punishment, which had us all marching on the spot. Thighs raised parallel to the ground, going up, down, up, down, up, down, legs burning with pain as the lactic acid built up. Expending energy yet going nowhere. Stamp, stamp, stamp. On the spot. Eyes forward, chin up, mouth shut. Stamp, stamp, stamp. Steam would rise from us in the chilly January air as we willed it to stop.

As we were put through our paces, SSgt Cox would strut up and down shouting commands and picking out errors: a dipped chin, bent arms, crooked legs, someone out of step, or someone out of time. With the eyes of a hawk she could spot them all and then would dive in and humiliate the offender. Which far too often was me.

‘Head up, Miss Goodley. Eyes front. You don’t need to look at your feet, they’re still there. Get the back of your neck touching your collar.’

‘What are you doing, Miss Goodley? You lunatic. Get in step with the rest of the platoon.’

‘Come on, Miss Goodley. Left. I said left. All those qualifications and university degree and you can’t tell left from right.’

On the drill square SSgt Cox wasn’t the only demon in our lives. With the entire Imjin Company being ragged around changing step and marking time, the company sergeant major
(CSM) would join the madness and make his presence felt. Company Sergeant Major Porter was a pocket-sized pugilist. A soldier at the top of his game, he was intensely proficient and had years of experience of training clumsy-footed soldiers to march. Shrouded in a long heavy overcoat, pace stick swinging in hand he would peacock around the fringes of the squad scouting for errors and leaping in to correct them.

One morning, as I unwittingly performed a Prussian goosestep, at the halt he swooped in, darting across the parade square as if he owned it, halting sharply in front of me. He swung his pace stick into a hover, a hair’s breadth from the tip of my nose, and forced his scrotum through a mangle as he released the most high-pitched squeal.

‘What the fuck was that, Miss Goodley? If you can’t sort out your shagging legs, I’m going break them both. Then I’ll ram this pace stick up your fucking nose and use it to flick you into the lake. You useless idiot.’

I hated being this useless. As the spittle of his anger landed on my cheeks I felt my bottom lip curl. I wanted to cry. I wanted to run away from it all. I wanted to be anywhere but this godforsaken miserable wet parade square. I wanted my easy London life back.

With drill over it was non-stop to lunch.

Each meal time at Sandhurst involved a mass stampede to the dining hall to get to the front of the 270-man queue in order to make the most of the preciously brief time allocated for feeding. Manners and chivalry were forgotten, as people tore along the corridor to queue impatiently boot to boot, craning their necks to see what was available on the hotplate.

The dining hall, known in the army as a ‘cookhouse’, was the largest room in the College and could comfortably accommodate over 300 people at the long dark oak tables, seated on tall-backed chairs worn smooth from years of bottoms. Around the room, the walls were covered with deep scarlet glazed tiles and adorned
with plates of armour, swords and portraits of royalty. Chandeliers hung from the elevated arched ceiling, where lofty narrow
stained-glass
windows allowed thin shafts of light to reach the diners below. And, for a reason I never quite understood, a glass cabinet took pride of place in the centre of the room containing a large sprawled tiger skin.

Mealtimes were short and there wasn’t time to be fussy about dietary needs, as people grabbed whatever was available and wildly wolfed it down as the sergeants stood by the entrance counting down the seconds to summon you back to the servitude. Unfortunately for me, I am a very slow eater and could barely manage a few mouthfuls before SSgt Cox would call us all back out on parade. And at this blistering pace I struggled to consume enough calories to get me through the long days, leaving me perpetually hungry until my grandmother’s contraband chocolate parcels arrived. The food was generally good, but quantity was the priority with carbohydrates in abundance and potatoes with everything: new potatoes, roast potatoes, mashed potatoes, sautéed potatoes, boiled potatoes, potato croquettes and chips, chips, chips.

The frantic tempo of training meant we burned up calories fast and the normal three meals a day were simply not enough sustenance so an additional fourth evening meal was provided to get us through the late nights of ironing and polishing.

After lunch there was no let-up. Having already been on the go for eight hours we would gather outside in Chapel Square to be marched off to another lesson in our crash course introduction to the military; there were classes in fieldcraft, map reading, first aid, foot care and weapon training, which was called ‘skill at arms’.

In Old College the armoury was tucked away in the basement, and here we would queue in alphabetical order again, me again sandwiched between Gill and Gray, under the hot water pipes in a dimly lit neglected corridor with peeling blue paint, waiting for the armourer to appear with his bunch of keys to unlock and
hand out our personal weapons. I clearly remember the first time I was issued my rifle; I held it with great care, like a new parent with a baby, unsure what to make of it. It was designed to kill people and I wasn’t especially keen on being part of that. In the army everyone is a trained soldier first, from chefs to doctors, pilots to postmen, and all are required to learn skill at arms in training and pass mandatory weapon handling and firing tests, as anyone could be required to fire their weapon when at war.
8
And standing there awkwardly holding my rifle in my arms brought the reality of this threat a little closer. But first I would need to learn how to use it.

These impossibly important, potentially life-saving skill-at-arms lessons populated much of those early weeks at the Academy, but with cadets working twenty-hour days we were all far too exhausted to comprehend or absorb them. Heads would loll and nod as people battled hopelessly to keep their eyes open and minds focused in the warmth and comfort of the classroom, zoning out as sleep deprivation won over.

When it comes to skill at arms, safety is paramount. I stood awkwardly in the classroom going through the motions of handling the weapon as our instructor barked out commands until the weapon safety drills became ingrained in my muscle memory, like David Beckham taking a penalty kick. I had no deep comprehension of what I was doing: cocking the weapon, peering inside, releasing the working parts forward, firing off the action. I didn’t understand the motions but this technique has successfully taught generations of soldier and an understanding of how the rifle actually goes bang is not necessary to safely use it.