Redemption - Leon Uris [193]
“I’ll kill for it!” Tarbox cried.
“Maybe I shouldn’t have told you about it, guys. I think if it was up to Farouk, he’d go for it…but he can’t sell police protection to enlisted men in such thick officers’ country, and secondly, if the British command got wind of it, they’d close him down.”
“I don’t want to hear any more!” Rory snapped.
“Jesus, the dirty bastards.”
“And we’re supposed to fight a fucking war with these guys!”
“Unless,” Chester said, “and this is clear crazy—”
“Unless what?”
“Unless we got somebody of the rank of colonel or above to sign the paper, and he means an in-person colonel…no forgeries.”
Cairo jumped back to life around them once again.
64
There was no aspect of soldiering minuscule enough to be overlooked in the basic training that ensued at Camp Anzac. Eager young broadbacks from down under, many of whom had envisioned themselves in the thunder of a cavalry charge, were rudely introduced to the fundamentals of soldiering.
Basic training brought them to a point of physical hardness, to where they could drill in unison, salute their pommies with proper pomp, prepare themselves, their weapons, and their quarters for white-glove inspection, become intimate with their rifles, and fire them accurately.
No battalion was going to be snappier, shine brighter, shoot straighter, follow regulations better, or exercise harder than Major Christopher Hubble’s.
His group quickly earned the reputation as one where survival till the end of the day was considered a personal triumph. He demanded of his officers that they not spare the sweat box, an upright coffin with two small air holes, for the man who did not salute sharply enough or have the corners of his bedding tucked immaculately. Aloof from his men, the major seemed to thrive on their loathing of him.
Once the basic training was completed, Jeremy breathed a sigh of relief. While the other battalions would now convert to infantry, artillery, engineers, and other support units of a brigade and division, the Seventh Light Horse could get on with its special training on mules.
No specialized course could be established for them because they did not have a guiding manual and could not complete the manual until certain experts arrived. Moreover, there was no packing equipment and, mostly…there were no mules.
While the four-man gaffer squad struggled with writing the manual and awaited the vet and packer to complete it, Major Hubble put his men into infantry training.
Llewelyn Brodhead was a marching general. No Anzac unit outmarched the Seventh Light Horse. They sprinted the short marches with light combat packs; they marched full-speed with field packs; they force-marched in full strength up to fifty miles over the sands. They marched in boot-top-covering, ankle-deep-sucking sand, dehydrating and blistering and getting double vision from the brutal sun, only to then be pelted and blinded by slicing sandstorms.
They crawled through sand, through and under barbed wire, with live gunfire, keeping bellies and asses flat. They attacked with grenades and mortars over the dunes.
Night marches in the sudden chill of the desert turned into night patrols. Either they were ambushed or they ambushed others. They stormed through defenses at fixed bayonets in games real enough to tell them that exhaustion can be blessed, if a mental fog enshrouds them, so long as they do not drop out of formation. The gunfire and explosions were tight enough around them to let them realize the fears of combat.
Those big Aussie and New Zealand beef-and-mutton eaters no longer poked fun at the scrawny limeys in the English units who knew the ways of Soldiering.
When they weren’t marching or participating in battle exercises, they dug trenches and latrines and trimmed up their areas. Throughout the Anzac Corps, many officers were lax and allowed the soldiers