Back to Basic - David Roberts

BACK TO BASIC

by

David Roberts

CHAPTER ONE

In the spring of ' 85, I was a longhaired, unemployed, directionless
college dropout, and probably the happiest, most relaxed nonentity
alive. My progenitors, however, took a more traditional view of my
modus vivendi;

"It's a shame to see you going nowhere." (Mother)
" Waste of a good wank." (Father)

It was my Grandfather who first had the notion that a military career
might make a man of me, as it had done for him - I thought a few
experimental romps with the lovely Helen next door would accomplish
this feat far more effectively. Unfortunately, and for reasons that
still mystify me, my parents took an instant shine to the more long
term solution.

It seems unlikely that anybody would join the Army on a whim -
especially someone else's - but somehow I did. In the spring I was an
anti-establishment, pacifist beatnik. By the autumn I was marching up
and down the square with the best of them. How I let this polemic
change of lifestyle take place, I still don't really know - but I now
think of Philip Larkin's views on parents as definitive.

The first link in this crazy chain of events was forged when I caught
the No.37 to the Army Careers Office, a non - descript one storey
building in the most liberal area of Portsmouth. Here I was greeted by
a friendly staff - sergeant with the ultra - macho name of Allcock, or
something like that. He had a smart crew-cut, a cheeky smile, and a
great line in cockney patois. It took me about ten seconds to dislike
him.

" What sortah career you after then?" he asked.
"An Army one." I replied cleverly.
" Well you cometah the right place." he continued, oblivious to my
savage wit.

After a lengthy period of such inspiring intercourse, we managed to
arrive at the conclusion that the only Army career I was not completely
unfit for, was that of military bandsman.

" It's a great life bein' a bandsman." he enthused, " All you'll do is
travel and play music. There ain't any bullshit in military bands." he
continued, bullshitting his head off.

Having established which career I was interested in, the next
formality to be dealt with was the basic Army aptitude tests. Since I
was the proud owner of ten 'o' - levels (taken before under - achieving
became fashionable), Sergeant Allcock reassured me that I had
automatically passed these tests, but that I might like to sit them for
curiosity's sake. The upshot was that I cruised the English and Maths
tests ( I could read and write, and had ten digits), but had the logic
- solving prowess of a lemming.

With a large dollop of hindsight, I should have read the warning signs
at this point. Anyone who plumps for the most inappropriate answers to
every logic question is not meant to don khaki. The whole situation
seemed so much like a third-rate sit-com, however, that I continued to
play the part of eager rookie. I left the building with a sense of
unreality, a blossoming headache and a travel warrant to Rowcroft
Barracks, Arborfield; home of the REME Staff Band.

The next stage in my metamorphosis in to one of Her Majesty's finest -
the audition - took place the very next day. I was given a lightning
tour of the base, which seemed to consist entirely of trees, and people
dressed to like trees. Still convinced that I was only role-playing, I
didn't let this ridiculous scenario deter me. At some point during the
day I gave a terrible rendition of Mozart's Clarinet Quintet, and was
accepted on the spot. Music and the Army are not the happiest of
bedfellows. Only one man that I met that day - a grizzly trumpet -
playing sergeant near the end of his service - gave me negative
advice;

" Don't join son," he entreated me, " or get you lobotomised
first."

I disregarded this remark as being the rantings of a scatty old man:
thus did Caesar ignore the soothsayer.

Incredibly, I was only one small step away from becoming a tiny cog in
the great Army machine. I was stupid enough to try to join in the first
place, and was a mediocre clarinet player - the two major requirements
for a military bandsman. All that remained was to pass the Basic Army
Fitness Test. Here lay my last hope for salvation.

Although inherently fit, I had spent the last year immersed in
cigarettes, alcohol and inertia, and so when I boarded the train for
Sutton Coldfield, I was quietly confident that I would be sent packing
with a flea in my ear and a Charles Atlas catalogue under my arm. When,
however, the recruiting officer discovered that I could run a hundred
meters without collapsing (only just), and do ten press-ups (by
cheating), the final, incontrovertible contract was proffered for me to
sign. It offered me a choice of three, six or nine years, and in the
only rational moment of the past few weeks, I opted to sign up for the
minimum amount.
Ever the optimist, I was still convinced that someone, somewhere in
this snowballing scenario would pause for a second, re-examine my
suitability, and stamp 'REJECT' next to 'Roberts' on the appropriate
form. No such luck: I would have made a dreadful draft - dodger.
October 28th was the date I was assigned for the embryonic stage of my
khaki - clad career. This left me four blissful, halcyon months in
which to revel in my freedom.

I know why Time is personified so often in literature. It is not an
abstract concept invented by man to sub-divide mortality. It is a
bastard: the ultimate sadistic shit - sucking son - of a bitch. Four
months might as well of been four nano - seconds as Time grabbed me by
the hands and dragged me through total temporal acceleration.

One week was all I had left when the terrible weight of reality
settled on my not - so - broad shoulders. There were two possible
courses of action I could follow;

" Get fit !" urged my head.
" Get pissed !" urged my heart.

Heartily, I decided to get pissed. I boarded a train to Manchester,
looked up an old friend and spent the next five days treating liberty
with the respect it deserves. If the Army was going to make a Man of
me, then I'd better give it an amorphous, alcohol - sodden bag of
blubber to begin with. Fait accompli .

October 27th, at a quarter to midnight I arrived back in Portsmouth to
the sort of reception usually reserved for royalty during a bloody
revolution.

" Where the hell have you been ? " barked my mother, " You're joining
the Army tomorrow !"
" Shorry mum. Shlipped my mind." I shlurred sarcastically, slinking
off to bed.

October 28th, 7 a.m. I awoke. As a cure for hangovers, I can
thoroughly recommend abject terror. How else could I have had such a
crystalline perception of my predicament? I resolved to confront the
challenge ahead with courage and dignity ;

" Mum, mum, I don't want to go. Please don't make me go." I blubbed
into her bosom.

"Darling , you've got to go." she soothed. "They shoot deserters." she
added hopefully.

My last chance for an eleventh - hour stay of execution had
evaporated. I was doomed.

9.45 am I boarded the train for Reading, capital city of
Squaddieshire. Gazing out of the window, I realised for the first time
just how beautiful trees, flowers, overhead cables really are.

"If I should die, " I mused, "think only this of me. Fuck this for a
game of soldiers."

11.58 am (notice how easily I was mastering military precision) the
train pulled into Reading station. As soon as I disembarked, I was met
by a vertically - challenged man in uniform - challenged to get through
doorways without fracturing his skull, that is. About seven foot I
reckoned, and broad to boot.

"Are you part of the new intake for Rowcroft Barracks ?" he enquired
politely.
" Yeah." I replied.
"Yes corporal !!!" he screamed, in a voice that would have made
Stentor sound sotto voce.
"Yes corporal." I whimpered back.
"Good. Just remember that I'm God, and you're a piece of shit, and
we'll get on fine."

I was led smartly to a dilapidated white bus where my gaze was
reciprocated by twenty three pairs of doom - laden eyes. I sat in the
only available seat, next to someone who looked more ill - prepared for
what lay ahead than myself.

Anyone who has read Spike Milligan's Army memoirs or seen 'Carry on
Sergeant' will know that every platoon has an obligatory 'hopeless
case'. This character is not fictional. I had just met him. Chris
Cahill, a carrot - headed conglomerate of incompetence. I was the first
and last person to know him as 'Chris'. He bore almost an unreal
resemblance to the puppet 'Zippy' from 'Rainbow' thus the moniker '
Chris' didn't stand an earthly.

As the bus and its occupants coughed and wheezed through the camp's
security barrier, the phrase ' bleak landscape' flashed into my mind.
Rows of soldiers stood next to the rows of barracks huts which stood
next to the rows of Land Rovers. Nothing was out of place - except for
me and the poor sods like me.

We were met off the bus by a man with three stripes on the arm of his
jumper (olive drab).

"Mi name's Sergeant Taylor" he boomed in sweet Glaswegian tones," and
if any o you'se forget to address me as 'Sergeant', yous'll be tastin'
mi boot leather."

This tirade was embellished with a facial tic and spray of spittle,
which suggested that he might not possess the most sanguine of
temperaments.

The next member of the platoon staff to introduce himself seemed,
thankfully, a little more homo sapiens and a little less homi cidal. He
gave his name as Ian Curtis, but mercifully no one made any wisecracks
about suicidal lead vocalists. This man had a strange expression on his
face, which contrasted starkly with those of his colleagues: it was a
smile. Sardonic, sarcastic or sincere - it mattered not. A smile of any
description made a welcome change that day.

The most innocuous of these trained drillers was a Lance - Corporal
Jones. His face bore the scars of an acne - ridden adolescence, and he
was less physically imposing than his peers. He didn't give his first
name, and over the next few weeks we heard him referred to as 'Jones',
'Jonesy', 'Jonah' or 'Welsh git'. It didn't matter really, as he was
not the sort of person I'd ever want to be on first terms names
with.

Thus, acquainted with our maniacal mentors we were marched to our
barrack block. In my subsequent Army career, I never heard one man or
woman able to articulate the words 'left' and 'right' correctly at high
volume, but none concocted such a bizarre interpretation as Sergeant
Taylor's;

"Dit,dat, dit, dat, dit, dat." he roared, "Come on you'se useless bags
o'shite, keep in step......Dit, dat, dit, dat, dit, dat."

Having ditted and datted to the building that was going to be home for
the next twelve weeks, we were shown to our respective twelve-man rooms
and left to unpack To describe the room I was allotted as barren would
fail to do justice to its Spartan character. The area designated to me
consisted of a bed frame, three white lockers, a workspace and a window
(hardly my idea of luxury accommodation, but hey, I was in the Army
now).

My meagre possessions unpacked - these consisted of clothes,
toiletries and some family photographs - I summond up the courage to
introduce myself to my room-mates. I found them all huddled in the
corner of the room, smoking lie would-be troopers. I perched myself
down and waited for the inevitable male-bonding to begin. It didn't. We
were twelve little islands in a great ocean of apprehension.

The silence which existed between us was not one of embarassment, we
were just too stunned for words. I surveyed my room-mates with
surreptitious sidelong glances, and was relieved to note that most of
them looked more like 'befores' than 'afters'.

Eventually the ice was broken by a broad Birmingham accent;

" Alright boys, me name's Stu; Stu Tomlinson, but in the TA they call
me 'Tommo'. I've done all this crap before like, and it's a piece a of
piss. Just stick with me and you'll be alright like."

The owner of this voice was tall, well-built, dark-haired and
unbearably smug. Just the fact that he had pre-packaged nickname seemed
to give him an unfair advantage over the rest of us.

Fortunately, the others came across as self-effacing and sincere. I
felt most affinity towards a youth called Sean Medley. A fellow
four-eyes, he was softly spoken and could string together several
sentences without substituting 'very' with fucking'. He had
shoulder-length knotty Ash-hairstyle and seemed far more scholastic
than soldierly.

Reluctantly, I began to blither a few details about myself. When I
mentioned that I was a clarinet player, good old Tommo' interupted
with;

" What, like Zoot out of the muppets like?"

Thus, was I rechristened. I don't know why I didn't correct him (Zoot
of course, plays saxophone) but it was a blessed piece of self
restraint. I could have spent the rest of the training known as
'Acker'.

*

We were beginning to relax a little and form tenuous friendships ,
when Corporal Colossus made his reappearance. My initial estimate of
seven foot had been the imaginings of an awe - struck underling; he was
only six eight or nine. Any thoughts we might have harboured about 'a
gentle giant' however were quickly dispelled;

"I'm Corporal Lear. You can call me God, or Jesus, or Bwana, but if
any of you ever call me king, you'll be wearing your bladder as a swim
cap. Let me make it clear; I'm a complete sadist, and nothing will give
me greater pleasure than to break you useless tossers into little
pieces. No more Mr Nice Guy."

I took in his aggressively-cropped hair, bulging eyes, pock marked
skin, ferocious moustache and believed him.

"Oh, and in case any of you are thinking about slashing your wrists,"
he added thoughtfully, "it's less painful and less messy to cut along,
rather than across the vein.....'night lads."

CHAPTER TWO

Day one of training proper involved a radical change in our sartorial
and tonsorial styles. A major element of military philosophy is the
immediate depersonification of the individual. As hair and clothing are
two of the most important factors in establishing individual identity
they are the first to be neutralised by army assimilation.

First stop then, the Quatermaster's stores, scene of more fiddling
than a Vivaldi festival. When it came to be my turn for 'kitting-out',
I learnt my first lesson in army survival: never be superior to your
superiors - even if you are;

" What's your collar size? " asked the sergeant behind the
counter.
" Dunno' sergeant."
" Your chest size?"
" Dunno' that either sergeant."
" Alright your waist size?"
" Twenty eight.....no thirty.....no...dunno' sergeant."
" Christ almighty! How many O levels have you got ?"

Now this one I could answer;

" Ten sergeant" I replied truthfully.
" Don't ever take the piss out of me, or you'll be in shaggin ' pokey
getting yourself a stripey suntan ! " He hissed in my face
" But....I....sorry sergeant."

'Shaggin pokey' as I was soon to discover, is a quaint term for an
army jailhouse.

After much trial and error I was eventually issued with the relevant
clothing and equipment, and lined up alongside my platoon - mates. Next
stop, the 'regimental hairdressers.' As we were about to find out, this
job description carried more than a hint of irony.

As everything was being executed alphabetically, I was one of the last
to have my hair restyled. Those who had already entered the 'salon',
had not reappeared, so I could only assume that they were leaving
through a back door. Curiouser and curiouser. At last my name was
called, and I gingerley went in. The regimental hairdresser - Cyril -
did nothing to allay my apprehension. He wore bottle-thick glasses,
looked well past retirement age and sported the most unprofessional
hairstyle I'd ever seen.

" Sit down son ", he soothed " Now how would you like it? "
" Well, if you could just thin it out at the back and sides, but leave
it long on top, that'll be fine." I suggested hopefully.
" Right you are son." he replied, and proceeded to power-up a
vicious-looking electric clipper.

I watched in hopeless horror as he ploughed a neat through the centre
of my crowing glory with his demonic depilatory device. Two minutes
later, I was to all intents and purposes bald: five o' clock shadow was
all that remained of my lustruous locks.

" I'll read yer bumps now if ya like. " Cyril offered kindly.

Now I understand why everyone wasn leaving by a back exit. This sheep
for one, would have bolted had it had prior knowledge of the severity
of its shearing.

*

Freshly bedecked in splendid khaki and sporting our new streamlined
haircuts, we were at last ready for training to begin in earnest. We
were lined up in squad formation - roughly, a human rectangle - while
Corporal Curtis, he of the relatively human demeanour, demonstrated the
rudiments of 'drill' to us. It is the easiest achievement imaginable to
swing one arm whilist striding with the opposite leg - we humans do it
naturally as we walk. When. however, this movement is explained and
exaggerated, it suddenly takes on the magnitude of a quantum physics
problem. Most of the platoon, myself included, suddenly found it the
most natural thing in the world to move corresponding members in
tandem, an aberrance known as ' teddy-bearing'. We must have looked
like a job lot of defective automatons.

Eventually we came to terms with this elementary excercise and moved
on to more advanced manoevres. We now knew how to march in a military
fashion,next we had to master how to halt in a similar way. Corporal
Curtis enlightened us; "O.K you lot listen in. The most important thing
to remember about the halt is that it must be heard as well as seen.
The foot must be drrrriven into the ground."

He then stamped his left foot Rumplestiltskin - fashion, creating a
whip crack sound effect that Annie Oakley would have envied.Our
attempts at emulating this feat were virtually inaudible. Perhaps it
was due to his vastly superior experience,then again perhaps the row of
metal studs nailed to the soles of his boots. Either way,we weren't
impressing him,that much was obvious;

"Come on, you great sugar - plum fairies,I want to see blood spurting
through your lace -holes as your boot hits the ground. There's no place
for mincers in this man's army."

Suitably encouraged, we strived for volume, nealy rupturing ourselves
in the process. It was futile. No matter how hard rubber impacts with
concrete, it will not produce the same dramatic sound effect as metal.
The closest we came to creating a sonic boom was a sort of muffled
"flummm". Fortunately, Corporal Curtis seemed to possess a relatively
low boredom threshold, and soon grew tired of our ineptitude;

Alright lads, that's enough for today" he sighed, "I can't let you
demoralise me any more".

When soldiers finish for the day, they 'fall out'. Unlike nuclear fall
out and the falling out that may happen between friends, the military
version of 'falling out' is a blessed relief indeed. So, for the first
time in my army career, I 'fell out'. I was to 'fall out' many times in
the subsequent weeks, and not always in the savoury sense of the
phrase.

That evening after 'lights out' (eleven o'clock sharp) I lay in my bed
and sobbed silently. I'll never know for sure, but I don't think I was
alone in doing this. I had hated every waking moment of this day, yet
instinctively felt that far, far worse was to come. Feeling more
depressed and self-pitying than at any time in my life, I closed my
eyes and, mercifully, fell asleep. Approximately fifteen seconds later,
it was time to get up again;

"Wakey, wakey," a gentle voice cajoled.
"Come on lads, wakey, wakey," it tried again.
"I SAID, WAKEY, FUCKING WAKEY!!"

This time the effect was galvanising.

Some people wake to the clinking of milk bottles, others to the
sympathetic sound of breakfast radio. We awoke to the apoplectic
apparation of Corporal Lear. It wasn't a pleasant start to the
day.

"Right you lazy grunts (I think he said "grunts"), get yourselves
washed and dressed, and over to the cookhouse for breakfast. Be back
here for 6.15."

Breakfast: 1. The first meal of the day.
2. A formal meal.

(Reader's Digest Universal Dictionary pub. 1988)

Popular opinion has it that breakfast is the most important meal of the
day; the fuel which enables the body to overcome any obstacles in its
path. I find it a disgusting practice, alien to my system and against
my religion. The Army, however, defines it in one word:
compulsory.

The master chef is alloted a generous budget with which to cater for
his charges, but traditionally buys the poorest quality foodstuffs
available, whilst swelling his coffers with the surplus funds.

Thus, breakfast comprised of an ocean of grease, with tiny incinerated
islands floating in its midst. To help with identification, the fried
breakfast was colour-coded: anything black was meat, anything of
another colour wasn't. The only way of negotiating this 'meal' was to
wash it down with as many cups of tea as possible.

This tea which tasted like mulled marzipan, needed several heaped
spoonfuls of sugar to make it potable. I spent ten weeks devoid of
female contact and with no form of sexual release, without once feeling
unduly frisky. I might not have Warren Beatty's libido, but I would
normally expect to be nagged by my nether regions at some point over
such a stretch. I hadn't heard of the quelling powers of bromide at the
time; I put my libidinal lethargy down to fatigue.

CHAPTER THREE

November 3rd, 1985.

I don't think I can take much more of this. Many times today I thought
that perhaps I've died, and gone to hell. We've been training for six
days now, but today we realised just what a dangerous practice we're
caught up in.

Sometimes, while we're bulling the block (polishing the floor, fixtures
and fittings, dusting, ironing the curtains, that sort of thing),
Corporal Lear sits in his office, just outside our sleeping quarters,
and devises new tortures to inflict on us. If he decides he wants
anything - his nose scratching or his tea stirring for example - he
bellows:

"One Man!"

and one of us has to materialise in his office within five seconds, or
the whole platoon is given extra duties.

We've worked out a crude, but effective system, whereby whoever is
nearest the door dashes for our lives. This evening at around six, the
unfortunate person was Stuart Naseby.

Stuart is an intelligent, articulate man and showed every sign of
making an excellent soldier. This evening, the Sword of Damocles came
down on his head. When the dreaded command, "One Man!" was screamed,
Stuart was right by the door. He sprang for the handle, and leapt out
into the corridor. Seconds later we heard a gut-wrenching sound. Stuart
had slipped backwards on the floor, which we'd polished glassy for
inspection, and cracked his head. We haven't heard any news from the
hospital yet, but the medic's immediate diagnosis was a broken
neck.

Corporal Lear said we'd made a good job of polishing the floor.

Sturat is the second man we've lost from the platoon. The other, Gary
Willcox is in jail, awaiting a court-martial. Gary is a very likeable
lad, with an enormous baby-face, and a grin to match. Sadly, everything
about Gary is over-sized, especially his waist line. This has made him
a victim of the PTIs (Physical Training Instructors) from the word
go.

Every PT session we have had so far, has included a 'beasting'. This
consists of a series of competitive physical exercises (sprints,
press-ups, etc...) in which the winner of one contest can sit out the
rest. Obviously, the fittest, fastest or strongest amongst us (I rate
about average) have an easy time of it. Poor Gary, however, has been
consistently last.

Yesterday PTI Dawes, a muscle-bound Welsh sadist was giving Gary a
particularly hard time, screaming abuse at him whilst kicking his ample
backside. With a speed we didn't know he possessed, Gary whirled round,
threw Dawes to the ground and began to pummel him savagely. In an
American movie, we'd have all been cheering at this point, but we
didn't. in an act of unspoken solidarity, however, no one interveaned.
Our support for Gary, whilst mute, was tangible nonetheless. Dawes
wasn't too badly beaten up, but his ego had taken a terrible hiding.
This athletic Adonis bested by a "big, fat poof". It's rumoured that
Gary will be kicked out of the Army in disgrace.

He should be given a medal.

November 7th, 1985
We've survived eleven days now, although we've had two more casualties.
An impossibly tall and skinny youth called Gribble and a cheery cockney
lad, Mike Fraser, have both PVR'd. PVR stands for Premature Voluntary
Release. At any time, we can march ourselves off to the administration
office, sign a few forms and be on the next bus out of Arborfield. It's
that easy. I suspect the reason that I, and nineteen others are still
here is because the training staff consider every departure a victory
on their part; proof that men aren't made of what they used to be. It
might be churlish, but I'm not going to leave of my own volition. I
couldn't give them that satisfaction.

The training is intensifying, but physically and mentally we are
toughening apace. Every one of us has strengths and weaknesses, and the
art of collective survival is to give and receive help when it is
required. Having lost a stone of excess flab, I've discovered that I am
a good runner. I'm not fast, but in footballing parlance, I have 'a
good engine'. Sean Medley the softly-spoken youth finds running
difficult, but could turn coal-dust into diamonds with a bit of spit
and polish. In our unwritten contract, I physically push him around the
course if he starts to falter, for which he makes sure that my kit
passes muster every morning.

It now seems ironic that I was made to sign a document stating that I
am not, or ever have been, a communist. In this environment communist
ideology is the only practicable one.

This communal spirit, which the Army quaintly dubs 'the buddy-buddy
system'. can be taken too far, however. Yesterday, on the firing range,
my 'buddy' was Zippy. After he'd finished shooting, I patched up his
target for him and vice versa. Tommo, the platoon's 'old sweat' had
given us a neat little ruse: a standard HB pencil leaves a hole in a
target virtually the same size as a.762 calibre bullet. So, after Zippy
had fired off his 40 rounds, I went to work with my Staedtler, ensuring
that he exceeded the 30 'hits' needed to pass.

I got into the prone shooting position, happy in the knowldge that
Zippy's .762 pencil would see me through. It's a good job that safety
regulations on the ranges are so meticulous, as I had no idea where
most of my shots were going. Still, having fired my 40 rounds, I was
confident;

"Hey, Roberts, git yersel' doon here." Sergeant Taylor ordered, "I
wantee be the firs' ta' congratulate ya'. You'se jus' broken the
battalion record son. 43 hits oota 40. Wit a fuckin' marksman."

While I was peeling potatoes last night, I resolved to find myself a
'buddy' who could count.

*

November 12th, 1985.

Last night something happened which has completely changed my
perception of Sergeant Taylor and this whole basic training
business.

I was lying in bed reading a letter from my Grandmother, when the door
creaked open and Sergeant Taylor lurched in. After staggering around
for a while, he reeled into my bedspace, flashed me an idiotic grin,
put his finger to his lips and sat on the end of my bed. He reeked of
his national drink, so naturally, I felt more than a little
apprehensive;

"Ya kna' Zoot", he slurred, "mi wife dis nae unnershtand mi. She
reckons I think more o' mi job than I dee o' her.