As I get nearer to retirement I occasionally find myself spending time looking back over the forty nine years or so since I left school at the age of fifteen and took those first hesitant and uncertain steps into employment. Well it was not perhaps as uncertain as I make it sound because coming from a family with a history of military service among my reasonably close relatives I had already enlisted into the Army prior to leaving school. I was to become a member of the Junior Leaders Battalion RAOC.
Of the many and varied skills that the Army taught me over the years one of the earliest lessons that everyone requires to learn almost from day one is that before you should laugh at anyone else then you need to be able to laugh at yourself. You are taught to be able to see the humorous side of any situation and if there is not one then you or others should conspire to make it amusing. This is a valuable skill in itself because the Army believes that if its soldiers are able to make light of any situation however bad then the soldier will be able to function under most situations and this is true. If you can laugh about something or laugh about yourself then perhaps the situation may not seem as bad as first thought.
There were many amusing things that happened to me as an individual, to a particular group I belonged to or the situation I found myself in, here are just two examples.
One of the early subjects to be taught to us was Nuclear Biological and Chemical Warfare or NBC as it is more commonly known in the ranks. The subject not really known, perhaps for understandable reason, to be a laugh a minute taught us as individuals and a group how to not only survive but fight should we be unfortunate enough at some point in the future to find ourselves within a nuclear, biological or chemical environment. We learnt how to correctly and quickly put on a respirator [gas mask] put on protective clothing how to de-contaminate ourselves, others and items of equipment such as vehicles or weapons and how to carry out the day to day functions of living within that environment for sustained periods.
Before practical skills however came the theory.
I was in a class of about thirty others and we were about to start a lesson. I put my hand up as one does in such a situation and attracted the instructor’s attention. I informed him that I would have to leave the lesson early as I had a dentist appointment and so would not be able to make notes of everything taught. The instructor told me just to catch up as best I could on anything I might miss and the lesson started. At the appropriate time I made my excuses and left to attend the dentist appointment.
Some weeks later we had a day of written and practical exams, one of these written exams covered some of the theory lessons on NBC and of course the part of the lesson I had missed.
I approached the instructor and reminded him that I had missed some of the lesson a few weeks earlier and I was concerned that I might be penalised in some way because I did not or may not know all the answers. The instructor looked at me, it will be okay he said just think before you write anything down and just imagine the situation you may be in. I nodded not entirely convinced.
Sure enough it was not long before I came to a question that clearly I did not know the answer to, even all these years later I can recall the question.
You have been away on leave from your unit. On your return how would you know that there has been a direct nuclear strike on the camp during your absence?
I sucked the end of my pencil for a moment and remembered the advice the instructor had given me.
Let me see I thought, the camp has been hit by a direct nuclear strike. My first thought was lucky I was away on leave, my second thought was that perhaps due no doubt to the massive number of deaths there may be some prompt and rapid promotion soon coming my way.
I remembered pictures I had seen of Nagasaki and Hiroshima after they had been struck by Atom bombs toward the end of World War 2 and the sheer extent of almost total destruction. I put pencil to paper and described as best I could the scene of total devastation that I might see. Buildings flattened by the nuclear blast, a huge crater, a vast debris field stretching many miles in fact so much total destruction that I might be surprised to recognise the place at all. Pleased with myself and my earthy and gritty description of a nuclear winter that may have overcome the village of Deepcut in particular and most parts of Surrey Hampshire and the Home Counties in general.
Imagine my surprise some days later to be called into the instructor’s office and to be faced with him not only holding my answer paper but positively shaking it at me. Any thought that I may be in line for the unit prize for literature soon left me.
Rubbish he shouted at me, utter twaddle, fantasy of the first order he shouted again as his finger stabbed at the lengthy, but what to this day, I still consider a wonderful piece of descriptive writing.
If returning from leave, he recited from the question paper, you will know that the camp has suffered from a direct nuclear strike because, and at point he stood up as if to enforce his point, you will find a note to that effect pinned to the flag pole outside battalion headquarters by the Adjutant. The note will also include a map reference informing you and others where the unit has deployed to and a point of safety for you to head toward. He sat down again and stared at me, I stared back. He broke the silence by telling me I should always remember this fact as one day it may save my life and should I expect a fulfilling future career in the Army then I should buck my ideas up. But for now I was get out of his sight as fast as my little legs would take me.
I have over the years occasionally reconsidered this fact of life and I laugh about the ridiculousness of it all. Should, God forbid, at anytime I might stumble upon an army camp that has had the misfortune to be targeted for a direct nuclear strike then I will make a point to locate the flag pole and find the note left by the adjutant. Stupid yes; hilarious of course. I failed the exam but I laughed for days afterwards in fact I still do.
The late 1960's found me now in adult service and in the desert, yes dear reader my Lawrence of Arabia moment had arrived. As the sun was setting on an already fading Empire I and many others found ourselves in yet another part of the world that neither wanted us nor cared for us, in fact a part of the Middle East where today people pay huge sums of money to go on holiday, strange world, we couldn't wait to get out of the place. We suffered from time to time with the local populace, who no doubt bored waiting for the camel racing to begin on a Saturday evening who then sought their fun by forming a mob and marching [well okay not exactly marching] on the camp and throwing bricks and other items at us.
The British Army fortunately has a process called anti riot drills which in those days consisted of fifteen men, fourteen soldiers and one, normally very junior, officer to command the situation. The men would form a square, ah yes the famous British Army square which for many years had served the system well, with four soldiers on each side of the square each soldier armed with a rifle. Within the square would be two soldiers armed with sub machine guns and between them carrying a rolled up banner and finally the very junior officer armed with a pistol. Being a square it could face or change direction with always four soldiers facing forwards. The whole group could be moved around forwards backwards sideways and even diagonally by commands from the officer to face any rioters or other trouble makers as required. When the officer decided that the situation was getting out of hand he would command the two men to unfurl the banner which on one side in English would state
DISPERSE OR WE WILL FIRE
On the reverse exactly the same message, but in the local language, so the banner could be turned around. Should the officer still consider things were not improving then it was within his powers to command one or more or even all twelve riflemen to open fire on pre-determined individuals [normally what would be understood to be the ring leaders] among the rioters hoping the remainder of the crowd would see the error of their ways for upsetting the British Army and disperse and go home to their families and goats.
As these duties rotate it soon became my turn to be on standby for the next set of anti riot drills. Looking at the banner, which was becoming more than a little faded I made the decision to have a new banner made. I went to find the unit interpreter only to find he was on leave however with a little lateral thinking it occurred to me that the civilian clerk could of course speak, read and write in both Arabic and English, I decided he was just the man I needed to make a new banner.
I laid out a new piece of hessian on the ground and I painted DISPERSE OR WE WILL FIRE on one side and I instructed the clerk that I need the same message painting on the reverse but in Arabic. The clerk read what I had painted and then asked what did DISPERSE mean exactly. I thought for a moment and said well, Disband, Break Up, Scatter, Go Away, Disappear, Go Home. The clerk thought for a moment and then smiled, ah yes he said I understand now, but what does it mean FIRE. I explained that the point of the banner was to encourage the trouble makers to go home or we might start shooting. Ah yes now he understood..........................he assured me.
A few days later and bricks start smashing windows a lorry is set on fire a mob assembles and so we the duty anti riot squad are called out to restore peace and order to this particular backwater of the empire.
Off we go and by movement forward we start slowly to push the trouble makers back away from brick throwing distance and almost back into the centre of town when determined they were not going any further they stood their ground and again started throwing bricks [and anything else they could gets their hands on] at us and then they started to move forward and close on us. The officer could be heard saying something stupid like hold your fire, hold your fire wait for the order, as if he had some delusion of commanding a brigade at Waterloo.
They are getting a little too close now sir said the man next to me.
Show them the banner came the command for the officer who, now I think about it, sounded more than a little nervous, and so the two men holding the banner did their little dance to unfurl the banner, more bricks and assorted debris continued to rain down upon us and the officer commanded to turn the banner around so the side with Arabic writing could be shown. That worked. Almost instantly there was complete silence, the rioters stood still and studied the banner there was a littler muttering and we saw some of them talking to each other and pointing at the banner.
That’s made them think said the officer at about the same time as the whole group of rioters burst out laughing and pointing at us and then continued to throw bricks. It was time for a strategic withdrawal, we fire two rounds of rifle ammunition over their heads and then withdrew quickly toward the camp where fortunately for us reinforcements had assembled and being outnumbered the rioters decided it was time for Saturday night camel racing and they went home.
At the debrief in an attempt to find out what had clearly gone wrong someone helpfully pointed out that the message on the banner in Arabic did not say DISPERSE OR WE WILL FIRE it said
GO HOME OR WE WILL SHOOT OURSELVES.
We all burst out laughing.
