The Decision (4 page)

They’d come in lorries, a wildly assorted mass of very young men, mostly eighteen years old, to a depot called Blackdown, near Aldershot, to do the compulsory duty to their Queen and country, two years of military training and experience known as National Service. Charles had sat smoking, offering his pack round to his neighbours, not talking much, all on the advice of a friend who had just survived this ordeal.

‘For the first and probably the last time in your life your accent’ll be a disadvantage,’ he had said, ‘so keep mum as much as you can until you get a bit stuck in.’

They’d arrived mid-morning and been hustled out of the back of the lorry against a background of interminable shouting; shouting and a lot of hustling went on all day. Some of the younger-looking lads wore expressions of absolute panic. They’d been shown to their hut, allotted a bed and then hustled off to another hut for kitting out, walking down a long line of tables bearing clothes and equipment, and piling up kit in their arms as they went, the final and most important bit of kit being the huge Lee Enfield rifle. It all had to be stored in the iron wardrobes that stood next to every iron bed.

And then the haircut: pretty brutal, the clippers run straight from the nape of the neck to the forehead and then a swift finish off round the sides, bit of a shock, but it was only hair for God’s sake, it would grow again. Charles had been appalled to see a couple of Teddy boys, all swagger in the lorry, near to tears as their DAs, short for Drake’s Arse, drifted to the floor.

They had eaten that night in the canteen – pretty disgusting muck on tin plates, using their regulation ‘eating irons’ in army speak, sausages, some burnt, some almost raw, a heap of oily onions, another heap of watery mash, followed by bread and jam. Charles, used to the horrors of public-school food, found it not too unbearable, but several of the boys silently scraped their still-full plates into the dustbins. Probably, they were the ones crying now.

God, he wanted to pee. He’d have to go and find the latrines. He eased himself out of bed and walked quietly down the hut, carefully avoiding looking at any beds in case he embarrassed one of the blubbers. Actually, why bother with the latrines – which had looked pretty disgusting – when outside would do? He slipped out of the hut, peed with huge relief into the darkness and was just going back when he heard an amused cockney voice.

‘That better?’

‘Eh? Oh, yes, thanks.’

‘I s’pose this is all a bit like your school, isn’t it?’

‘Well, yes, it is a bit.’

‘Yeah, I’ve heard you public school lot take to it all like ducks to water. Drakes, rather. Ciggy?’

‘Oh – yes, thanks.’

Charles took a cigarette from the pack of Woodbines being offered. He could see quite well now, his eyes adjusted to the darkness. Not that it was very dark, there were tall arc lights on every corner of the camp.

‘Talking of drakes, did you see that bloke crying as his hair came off?’

‘I did, yes.’

‘Quite a few crying in there now. Poor little mummy’s boys.’ He held out his hand. ‘Matt Shaw.’

‘Charles. Charles Clark.’

‘Where you from, then, Charles?’

‘Oh – Wiltshire.’

‘Yeah? Don’t know that area at all. I’m from London. As no doubt you can hear.’

‘Sort of,’ said Charles carefully.

‘Pretty recognisable, really. Like your accent, no mistaking that either. What d’you reckon we’ll do tomorrow, then?’

‘I rather fear it’s all the medical stuff. You know, injections and so on. It’s Friday.’

‘What’s that got to do with it?’

‘I’ve heard they make you feel a bit rough. You get the weekend to recover a bit. And after that I expect an introduction to drill.’

‘Blimey, those crybabies won’t like the needles will they? More tears I reckon. What you been doing up till now then, Charles?’

‘I’ve been at university.’

‘Yeah? Thought you was a bit older than the rest of us. Oxford I s’pose? Or Cambridge?’

‘Oxford,’ said Charles.

‘Thought so.’ He grinned at Charles. ‘As you can see I know all about the upper classes.’

Charles grinned back at him. He liked him. As far as he could make out in the half-light, Matt Shaw was rather good-looking. Dark hair – what was left of it – rather broad face, dark eyes, wide grin, and surprisingly good white teeth. Quite tall – a good six foot. Obviously pretty young.

There was the sound of boots on the concrete; most likely some kind of patrol. Charles jerked his head towards the hut and they shot in.

Charles had been right about the medical stuff. And Matt had been right about the tears. They were woken at five thirty by NCOs banging their pace sticks on their bed ends and fire buckets and shouting at them.

‘Come on, you ’orrible lot. Hands off cocks and on socks. Up, up, up.’

They were sent into the latrines – plugless basins, freezing cold, not a door to be seen – and then to breakfast. More bread and jam. And then out onto the parade ground. Their sergeant, a bullet-headed sadist, roared insults at them for what seemed like hours while they discovered the apparent impossibility of keeping in step. Charles had no trouble with that, he’d been in the Combined Cadet Corps at Eton, but he did discover his boots were too big. Better than too small, the other option – there were no half sizes – but he knew what the result would be. Blisters. Not fun.

They were also introduced to bulling: the army’s word for cleaning. Kit had to be polished and polished and polished again. Dimples had to be teased out of boots with heated spoons and treated literally with spit and polish; white belts were blancoed, brass shone – ‘I want those buttons shining like a shilling up a sheep’s arse,’ a sergeant shouted. They shouted non-stop; it added to the confusion.

And then at the end of the day, the syringes. Injections against yellow fever, typhoid, tetanus. The needles were alarmingly large: the MO kept a couple hanging casually from his white coat and didn’t sterilise them between each use. A couple of the lads fainted. Even Matt Shaw was quite pale afterwards and very quiet.

‘Fucking hurt,’ he said, managing a grin.

That night there was more muffled weeping.

Three days later, three days of drill and bull and being shouted at and insulted constantly, vile food and too little sleep, even Charles was low. Matt was very low. He missed supper on the Monday night, unlike him since he normally ate everything without complaint – ‘My mum don’t allow fussy feeders’ – and when Charles went to find him he was lying on his bed, clearly unwell.

‘Got an ’eadache,’ he said. ‘Bloody everything aches.’

Charles put a hand on his forehead; it was very hot.

‘You’ve got a temperature,’ he said. ‘Must be the jabs. Come on, I’ll come to the infirmary with you.’

‘What, and get ribbed for skiving? Not bloody likely. I’ll be all right.’

Next day he passed out on the parade ground and was sent to the infirmary anyway.

‘You’re reacting to the yellow fever shot,’ said the MO. ‘Temperature of one hundred and four. Should have told us earlier. We don’t want heroics here. Bloody stupid.’

Matt was too wretched to argue.

Charles went to visit him two days later; he found him sitting up, looking much more cheerful.

‘Back to the ’oliday camp day after tomorrow. Can’t wait.’

‘Wish I was lying down,’ said Charles, ‘I’ve got some hideous blisters.’

‘Yeah?’

‘They’ll harden up in no time. I’m treating them with meths, that toughens up the skin. We used to use it on our backsides at prep school when we’d been beaten.’

‘How old was you then?’ said Matt with interest.

‘Oh, about ten.’

‘And you paid for that, did you?’

‘Well, my parents did,’ said Charles with a grin.

‘Blimey. No wonder you’ve settled down here.’

‘Yeah, it’s much the same. Anyway, poor little Walton’s blisters are really bad. And he was put on jankers today, poor sod. That didn’t help.’

Being put on jankers meant having to run round the parade ground in full battle dress, complete with tin hat and bayonet, urged on none too gently by an NCO in running gear.

‘Poor bugger.’

Walton had become a friend of theirs, had sat in the NAAFI with them the second night and talked of his life as a Barnardo’s Boy. Like Charles, he was finding the army experience bearable, used as he was to institutional life; and he appeared unmoved by the constant criticism hurled at him. He was almost incapable of keeping in step; he had been called out on the third morning, so he could ‘show the rest of this shower ’ow it’s not done’, and quick-marched the width of the parade ground on his own. The drill sergeant watched in silence; then his lip curled.

‘Look at ’im,’ he roared, ‘just like a pregnant bloody fairy!’

‘I didn’t really care,’ Walton had said to Charles and Matt later, ‘except half the hut will think he meant it, think I am a fairy. Which I’m not. If I ’ad been I wouldn’t be no more. You got beaten for it at the Home – if they caught you that is. Soon cured it, I can tell you.’

The weeks wore painfully on. With the first thirty-six-hour leave in sight, everyone was terrified of doing something that would jeopardise it. Punishment could descend from apparently nowhere, often on unjustly large numbers. But they were lucky, and their inspection more than passed muster, resulting in a cheery ‘jolly good, Sergeant, well done’ from the inspecting officer.

‘As if the bleedin’ sergeant done anything,’ said Matt bitterly.

Much of the first leave, the thirty-six hours so desperately looked forward to, was spent by the men in their beds. They came home literally exhausted, not only by the physcial trauma of their new lives, but the pressure, from being harried from first light to last, from struggling to cope with the ceaseless criticism and confusion, from the loss of any kind of privacy, from the fear of failure and the threat of punishment.

There was a lot of bravado, of boasting of imminent and immense sexual conquests and drinking, but Charles, looking round the hut as they waited to leave, almost everyone pale and hollow-eyed, thought there would be precious little energy for either activity. All he wanted, after a decent dinner, was to lie down on his own comfortable bed in his own quiet room at Summercourt and stay there until it was time to return.

Matt Shaw had no intention of spending any time in his bed. Since it would be in a room shared with two younger brothers and usually the family dog as well, a constantly yapping terrier called Scruff, there would be little point.

He got off the train at Clapham Junction and walked along the Northcote Road, savouring the freedom to move slowly, to smile and chat with various stallholders in the market who recognised him, ribbed him on his haircut, asked if he was a Field Marshal yet.

The Shaws lived in a small terraced house in a street just south of the Northcote Road; as Matt opened the gate, his two young brothers shot into his arms. He was touched.

‘You miss me, then?’

‘Not ’arf. No one to talk to,’ said twelve-year-old Derek.

‘An’ I ’ad to walk Scruff on me own,’ said nine-year-old Alan.

‘Shockin’. Oh, now here’s Mum. How’s my best girl then, eh?’

His mother smiled at him, gave him a hug.

‘Hello, Matt. You all right? You look a bit thin, love. And my word, what they done to your hair? It looks shocking.’

‘Mum, it’ll grow. Worse things happen than that, I can tell you. You look good, Mum. Like your hair.’

‘You noticed! More than your dad did. It was Scarlett’s idea, getting it cut.’

‘Very nice. Where is she?’

‘Away, love. Should be back tonight though, with luck. She’s in Rome.’

Sandra’s pride in Scarlett and her new career as an air hostess was almost unbearable. For a family to whom the Isle of Wight was abroad, to have a daughter who flew regularly to legendary places like Rome – and Paris and Venice and Madrid – was truly extraordinary.

‘She enjoying it still?’

‘Loving it. And the people she meets, really Matt, you’ve no idea—’

Matt, who had every idea of the people Scarlett met, having been regaled with the list of them as well as the destinations, said he was pleased to hear it, and he and Scarlett could catch up later.

‘Imagine if you get sent abroad, Matt, that’d be half the family over there. What a thought. Come and sit down, love. Want something to eat? How about a bacon sandwich?’

‘Oh, Mum, now you’re talking. Army food’s disgusting.’

He watched her as she fried the bacon, sipping a cup of her extra-strong, extra-sweet tea. She was great, his mum. She wasn’t like the other mothers round their way, she didn’t look halfway to old age already. At forty, Sandra Shaw was still pretty – very pretty. She was dark, very slim, with large brown eyes. She’d had a hard life; she’d had to do cleaning work to close the gap between what Peter Shaw brought home from his building job and what their large family needed, but had always claimed cheerfully that as it got her out of the house and away from her own cleaning, she didn’t really mind. Sandra was nothing if not upbeat.