Shaun Clarke - Guerrillas in the Jungle

Though already exhausted from their last exercise, Dennis the Menace, Boney Maronie and Alf Laughton had to quickly break apart while swinging their weapons up into the firing position.

‘The patrol now has the option of advancing on the enemy or withdrawing,’ Lorrimer continued. ‘Should they choose the latter option, two of them will lay down covering fire… Go on, then !’ he bawled at Dead-eye and Dennis the Menace, now forming a couple. ‘ Get on with it !’ When they had done as they were told, dropping into the kneeling position required for covering fire, then pretending to fire, much to the amusement of the onlookers, Lorrimer continued: ‘So while these two are laying down covering fire, the other two will withdraw a distance… Come on, you two, withdraw !’ he bawled at Boney Maronie and Alf Laughton. When they had done as ordered, withdrawing a few yards and taking up firing positions, he went on: ‘The second two, as you can see, are now in a covering position, allowing the first pair to fall back – Come on, fall back, you two ! – and so on. They keep repeating this movement until they’re out of range of the enemy. You got that?’

‘ Yes, boss !’ the men bawled in unison, some breaking into applause and laughter when the four returned sheepishly to the main group.

‘You, you, you and you,’ Lorrimer said, jabbing his finger at another four troopers. ‘Get up and let’s see you do it.’

That wiped the grins off their faces.

* * *

Every day was a relentless routine of early Reveille, hurried breakfast, the two-hour language lesson, ten-minute tea break, two hours on the firing range, an hour for lunch, two hours of battle tactics, both theoretical and physical, a ten-minute tea break, another two hours of Close Quarters Battle (CQB) and hand-to-hand combat, an hour for dinner, then an evening filled with map-reading, medical training, signals training and demolition.

Second best was not good enough. They had to be perfect at everything and were pushed relentlessly hard until they were.

Sergeant Lorrimer was a former Dorset Regiment and Force 136 NCO who was scarcely interested in drill and uniform, but hated sloppiness where battle discipline was concerned. When one soldier accidentally opened fire with a rifle, Lorrimer took the rifle off him, removed the safety-pin from a hand-grenade, then handed the soldier the grenade.

‘Carry that for the rest of the day,’ he said. ‘By which time you should know how to handle a rifle.’

Lorrimer was also of the school which believes that discipline can be imposed in the good old-fashioned way – with fists – instead of with the rule book. More than once, instead of placing insolent troopers on a charge, he told them to ‘step outside’ to settle the matter with fisticuffs. So far, no one had managed to beat him and all of them, even when making fun of him, respected him for it.

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