Alan Judd - A Breed of Heroes

‘Thank you, sir.’

‘Did you enjoy Oxford?’

‘Yes, thank you. Very much.’

‘Well, you can put away your James Bond books and Playboys and what-have-you now. You’re back in the real world. Back among the men.’

Charles had never read any James Bond books and the majority of the Playboys he had ever seen were in the bedside drawer of the orderly officer’s room in the Officers’ Mess.

‘You’ll have to start work now,’ continued the CO. ‘Earning your living. Getting up early. How do you feel about that?’

‘I did work at Oxford, sir. And we got up early at Sandhurst.’

‘Don’t try to argue with me, it won’t work. Leadership, that’s what I’m concerned about. Are you a leader? Your Sandhurst report says you weren’t as assertive as you might have been. Well, here you’ll be in command of some of the best soldiers in the British Army. Commando soldiers. Airborne soldiers. Are you up to it? Are you man enough? That’s what I want to know.’

‘I hope so, sir.’

‘So do I.’

The CO looked down and continued reading what Charles assumed was his Sandhurst report. He could see the MC ribbon on the CO’s service dress — won, he had heard, in a particularly heroic and ill-judged operation in Aden. The CO looked up again. ‘I see you’re an atheist.’

‘No, sir, an agnostic’

‘It’s the same difference.’

‘With respect, sir, I don’t think they are at all the same.’

‘Don’t argue. I won’t tell you again. The point is, you’re not a Christian.’ He leaned forward and put his elbows on the desk. ‘Now I’m the last person to dictate to someone what his religion should be, Charles. In fact, the Army doesn’t allow me to do it and a jolly good thing too. None of us has any right to interfere with another person’s private beliefs. But I just want to put two things to you. Two things.’ He picked up an antique and highly-polished bayonet that served as a paper-knife and pointed it at Charles, the point quivering slightly. ‘Firstly, your soldiers. If they don’t have an ethic to combat communism they’ll go under. I assure you communism, whatever else you may say about it, is a great rallying point. It’s a strong, forceful belief that gives ordinary soldiers something to cling to when they need it, quite apart from the fact that they are indoctrinated in a way that we’ve never even dreamed of in this Army. Thank God. Now, how do you suppose you can prevent your soldiers from being corrupted by this evil — because that’s what it is, you know — if all you’ve got to offer them is a wishy-washy, nought-point-one per cent proof agnosticism? Eh? How d’you propose to do it?’

Charles could not take his eyes off the bayonet. ‘Well, sir, I don’t see that my belief —’

‘And the second point, the second point is yourself. How would you — I hope you never have to, but the day may come — how would you bury one of your friends who had had his face blown away, without God’s help? Could you do it?’

‘I hope I could.’

The CO slammed the bayonet on to the desk. ‘You could not. Without belief you could not do it. Could you stand at your friend’s graveside, with your soldiers around you, and lower your friend minus face into his grave and conduct a burial service — without a faith to fall back on? Do you seriously think you could do that and look your soldiers in the eye again? Do you?’

‘As far as I can tell —’

‘As far as I can tell you don’t know what you’re talking about. You would crack up, I can assure you. The Russian soldier has his faith and, fortunately, all the soldiers in this battalion have theirs. They’re all good Christians. Think about it, Charles. I don’t want to interfere with your beliefs, I just want you to think about it. It’s all very well being long-haired, left-wing and atheistic, but when it comes to the crunch up at the sharp end it’s not enough. It won’t do. Now, anything you want to ask me?’

‘No, sir.’

‘Settled in the Mess all right?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Good. Well, if you have any problems you know you can come and see me at any time. This door is always open. Or the padre. Go and talk it over with him. You’ll find he’s very sympathetic and down to earth, a good man. Used to be a private soldier in the Regiment in National Service days.’

Charles stood up to go.

‘One other thing.’

‘Sir?’

‘Hair.’

Charles repeated the word to himself. His hair had been cut the day before and washed that morning. Nevertheless, it seemed likely that the CO had in mind that it needed one or both again. He gave the response that seemed least likely to displease the CO. ‘Yes, sir.’

‘Today.’

‘Yes, sir.’

It was worse than anything Charles had expected. He could not conceive how he was going to survive the remaining two and a half or so years that were expected of him. He would need a faith of some sort for that. He heard again the voice of his tutor, Manningtree, with its lisp and affected weariness: ‘The only excuse I can think of for your joining the Army is that you are experimenting with yourself in a particularly unnecessary, unpleasant and narcissistic way. I hope you fail.’ Manningtree was in no sense a military man and neither, Charles had to admit to himself, was he. He had known that all along, of course, but to have admitted to Manningtree that he might have been even slightly right about him would have offended Charles’s particular brand of undergraduate honour. To have been ‘got right’ by the remote and listless Manningtree was almost a condemnation, and not to be borne. As he left the CO’s office Charles reflected that Manningtree was probably at that moment supine in his leather armchair listening to somebody’s predictable essay and sipping sherry that was almost as dry as his own comments. The faltering student did not know his luck.

Sometime later Charles had related to the padre what the CO had said to him. The padre was a short, square Yorkshireman who smoked a stubby pipe and was universally popular, having boxed for the Army. ‘Silly bugger,’ he had said.

Charles was jolted out of his musings by a particularly vicious bit of continuous welded rail. He realised that the noise of the train and Edward’s voice had merged into an indistinguishable background, each as unvarying as the other. He tried to pay attention. ‘We shouldn’t be in Ireland at all, of course,’ Edward was saying. ‘It’s all political, not our job. Let the bloody politicians fight it out if they must fight over it. I’d rather have a good clean battle any day. I don’t like all this now-you-shoot-them-now-you-don’t stuff. Bad for the Ackies.’ Everyone knew that Edward had never been in a battle, but no one doubted his sincerity.

John, the third platoon commander, was a serious-minded young man. ‘You can’t avoid the political dimension when armies are involved in anything,’ he said. ‘Especially internal security situations. An army is then one among a number of political factors instead of being the decisive one, as in a war. In a place like Northern Ireland everything is political and everything has to be taken account of.’

Edward unfolded and then re-folded his arms, his chubby face perplexed. ‘I daresay you’re right. All you young chaps are so damn clever these days. Too much education, if you ask me. I hope you know what to do with it when we get there.’ The train jolted and lurched suddenly, throwing the four men against each other. Edward’s kit fell off the seat and got mixed up with Charles’s. Edward trod on Tim’s beret, leaving a dirty bootmark on the clean black. ‘When do we get there?’ he asked.

‘0700,’ said John, who always knew times.