Alan Judd - A Breed of Heroes

The CO’s briefing for his new job took place over dinner that night. The Mess was a small room adjacent to the ops room, from which the mush and crackle of the radios never ceased. Meals were eaten at a table behind a partition and were served from a hot-plate, as the cookhouse was at the far end of the building.

‘Good to have you with us, Thoroughgood,’ the CO said as they helped themselves to soup. ‘Makes a change from the Factory, doesn’t it?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘If only the public knew what a pittance we pay our soldiers and what these blasted car-workers and miners and what have you get for kicking their heels and complaining because they have to work at all. Eh?’

‘Yes, sir.’

They sat and the CO called for some wine ‘Must have some plonk to wash it down with. We take it in turns to buy every night. Your turn tomorrow, Charles.’ He laughed and the others at the table laughed with him, except Colin Wood, who raised his eyebrows at Charles and shrugged discreetly. When he had finished laughing the CO continued. ‘Reason I picked you for this job — which is a vitally important one and is becoming more so every day’ — his stomach hardened and he held his chest for a moment’s indigestion, before continuing to pour out the wine — ‘God, it’s an important job. This PR business is taking us all over, you know. We’re fighting a politician’s war now, not a soldier’s war, as I keep saying till I’m blue in the face. Not even a decent shooting war, nothing to get stuck into. Aden and Borneo were different, of course, farther away, much easier. Government doesn’t like shit on its own doorstep but that’s its problem, not ours. We’ve got them over a barrel this time. They can’t pull out of this one. But we must keep our noses clean, which is why I chose you, Charles. Bit of tact. The soft touch. Besides which, you’re the only one of my subalterns whom I was sure could read and write. No names, no pack drill, but some of them graze their knuckles on the ground when they walk — not that they won’t make good officers, mind, in time. First-rate some of them, what the regiment needs. And I imagine you must have met some of these journalist types at university, or something like them anyway. Same sort of animal. What’s-his-name — old doings — Philip Lamb — gave you a decent briefing, did he? Good. Well, you’ll have your own vehicle, one of my escorts, so you can swan around and deal with these people when you’re not out with me. Keep them off my back and off the backs of my soldiers, that’s the main thing. No one in the battalion, including myself, will talk to any member of the press unless you are present. Got that? You will make sure that no one says anything bloody stupid and that nothing’s wheedled out of them. You can’t be too careful with some of these bloody journalists. You will also keep a sharp eye out for any of these directional microphones I keep hearing about and make sure no one says anything they shouldn’t when they’re around. And, of course, you’d better watch your own step when you’re talking to these chaps. Remember that the American Army’s effort in Vietnam was ruined because they had to cope with the press as well. Point is, Charles, if anything goes wrong I’ll know who to blame. Okay? Good. You’re responsible for community relations, under the 2IC. He’ll brief you on that separately.’ The CO raised his glass. ‘Best of luck, and don’t blow your foot off.’

Tony Watch, the signals officer with whom Charles shared his bedroom, was a brisk, chubby, cheerful man with a moustache. He seemed to be energetically efficient, enjoyed his signals and enjoyed his pipe, which he smoked nearly all the time. He was married but it was some weeks before Charles discovered that. Tony was not a man to talk about himself. Indeed, he had little to say about most things, though he was prepared to comment briefly on anything. His views on most subjects boiled down to a simple choice of either/or; you could always have one thing or another but you could never have both, and you were darned lucky if you could even choose which; on the whole, you just had to like it and lump it, whatever it was.

Tony was already in bed when Charles decided to turn in. He was reading a car magazine and smoking his pipe. ‘Hope you don’t mind the pipe,’ he said. ‘Say if you do. Can’t sleep without a pipe before bed. Can’t open the windows because of these shutters. Though yours hasn’t got one, has it? So you could. Might get shot, I s’pose.’

There was a window above each bed, and Tony’s, as with every other window in the building, had a steel shutter over it which had to be shut whenever there was a light in the room. Charles’s was the exception: no shutter and no sign of there ever having been one.

‘Don’t understand that,’ said Tony, taking his pipe out of his mouth and craning his neck. ‘Only thing you can do is stuff your kitbag in it. Not that that would stop a peashooter, but it’ll make you feel better. You’ll just have to be a bit careful how you get in and out of bed and not hang around with the light on.’

The bed was parallel with the wall, and the window was about halfway along it. The room was so small that there was nowhere else to put the bed. That night, and for the rest of his time there, Charles entered his bed from the bottom, sliding on his belly like a snake. He left it each morning by lowering himself off the side.

Tony followed the first of these performances with interest. ‘That’s the stuff. Keep your arse down. You won’t be spending much time there anyway, so it shouldn’t be much of a problem. This is the first time I’ve been in bed before two since we got here. CO must be tired.’

Routine at battalion HQ turned out to be even more tiring than that in the companies. The hours were much the same but there was no patrolling to break the monotony. Because it was battalion HQ no one felt he could do anything safely, even though everyone would have benefited from more sleep, and so people sat at their desks or radios long after there was any need. The CO drove himself mercilessly and none of the officers felt justified in going to bed before he did. Just as he would probably not have noticed if they had, and would probably not have criticised them for doing so, so he did not notice that they were waiting upon him.

Sharing the adjutant’s office gave Charles a different view of the workings of the battalion to that which he had seen so far. People in the companies tended to feel, consciously or not, that battalion HQ existed in order to support them. How well or badly they thought it did this varied from day to day, though at its best it was never regarded as being any better than it ought to be and usually it fell far short. The point was, they were in the front line, hence they were the centre of the world and everything else was eccentric. In battalion HQ, however, everyone was quite clear that this was where the war was really being waged, and that the companies were, at their best, merely an extension of battalion HQ’s will and at other times selfish, myopic irritants who had to be coped with along with the lunacies of battalion HQ’s other major problem. Brigade. At their worst the companies were thought to be a greater nuisance than the enemy, whoever he might be. Brigade was seen as a support organisation, usually inadequate and interfering, overstaffed and safe from all danger.

Fortunately, Colin Wood was an easy man to get on with. He had a quiet, wry humour and time for everyone. The only signs of the pressure he worked under — much of it caused by the administrative quirks of the CO — was that he smoked about sixty cigarettes a day and looked unnaturally pale. Charles, if he were free from his own work, would often help him out. After a while Colin became quite forthcoming about the CO, the company commanders, battalion rivalries and Brigade matters, but more often than not he had little time for small-talk. One evening the telephone they shared went out of order and Charles speculated that, with luck, it had succumbed to a telephonic disease that might spread to all the other phones in the building and give everyone a peaceful night. ‘It might even drive the CO to drink and despair,’ he said.