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By Root 94 0

Salisbury Plain. Most of us had put on two sets of woollen underwear, including the dreaded ‘Long Johns’. We were to practise a new speedy method of bringing a twenty-five pounder gun into action. Ahead of us would go a scouting O.P.; somewhere on the Plain four twenty-five pounders drawn by quads would be moving in the direction of a common map reference, all linked to the O.P. by wireless. Ahead the O.P. would establish itself at a point overlooking the enemy. Immediately, the O.P. would send out the signal ‘Crash Action East’, or whichever compass point applied; the information was received by the gun wireless, whose operator would shout out to the gun officer the order received. The gun officer, standing up in his truck would shout to the gun crew, ‘Halt, Action East’. The quad would brake sharply, the gun crew in a frenzy unlimber the gun, and face it east; while they were doing this the O.P. would rapidly send down the Rough Range of the Target. As soon as the gun crew had done this, they fired. In our case, from the first order to the firing of the first round was twenty-five seconds. This was the fastest time for the day.

That night, in high spirits, we of the signal section decided to raid the specialists. After lights out some fifteen of us, faces blacked up, wearing balaclavas, carrying buckets of water and mud mixed to a delightful consistency, crept towards the specialists’ hut. I remember being first in. In the ensuing fight I was mistaken for a specialist and got a bucket all to myself. For the next two hours there was a game of hide-and-seek among the huts as the specialists under Bombardier Aubery sought revenge. It was just too bad about Lieutenant Hughes, sitting quietly in the dark of the officers’ toilet—he got a bucket of mud full face.

The next ten days saw us going through rigorous training. The weather was bitterly cold. I saw Sid Price smoke a cigarette down to the stub, and burn the woollen mitten on his hand without feeling a thing. On the last day, B Subsection were firing smoke shells, when one got jammed in the breech. Sergeant Jordy Rowlands was in the process of removing the charge when it exploded in his hand. When the smoke cleared Rowlands was looking at the stump of his wrist with his right hand ten yards away on the ground. There was a stunned silence and then he said, “Well, I’ll be fooked.” Apart from initial shock he was o.k., but for him the war finished on Salisbury Plain. The severed hand was buried where it fell by Busty Roberts. As he dug a small hole Driver Watts said, “You going to shake hands before you bury it?” Busty’s reply was never recorded.

That night there was an Officers’ and All-Ranks’ dance in the Drill Hall. We all worked hard to extricate all the best-looking A.T.S. girls from the magnetic pull of the officers and sergeants. Alas, we failed, so we reverted to the time honoured sanctuary of the working man—Drink. We finally reached the stage of inebriation when we were willing to do the last dance with any good-looking Lance Bombardier. Next day, Saturday, the last day at Camp, we were allowed into Salisbury. I went to see the Cathedral. I’ll never forget the feeling of awe when I walked in. A boys’ choir was singing something that sounded like Monteverdi. The voices soared up to the fluted vaults as though on wings. The morning autumn sun was driving through the stained-glass windows throwing colours on to the floor of the nave, the whole building was a psalm in stone. It all made. me aware of the indescribable joy derived from beauty. “Cor, it’s bloody big, ain’ it?” said Smudger Smith. He was right. It was bloody big.

There was a beer-up that night, and another dance. After 23:43 hours I don’t remember anything. Next day we returned to that jewel of the south coast, Bexhill.

Larkhill: Crash Action Winners

LEARNING TO DRIVE

The time had come, the Army said, to speak of many things, like teaching us to drive military vehicles; the reason was, we had new vehicles arriving at such a rate they were outnumbering the drivers; so, several of the Signal