Free Sergeant Nelson of the Guards by Gerald Kersh Page B

convenience, you will give her your seat. Conveyance: I always get them two words mixed up.
    “But I am ’ere to show you the ropes. It’s not my duty to lecture you.
    “Everybody will buy a tin of black boot polish, a tin of dark tan, a duster, a slab of Blanco Khaki Renovator, a tin of Bluebell Metal Polish, and a twopenny-halfpenny brush. With the possession of these ’ere articles, your troubles begin, and so do mine; for your webbing must be spotless, your brasses must damn well flash like a gigolo’s eyes…. Is there an educated man ’ere?”
    A dark, quiet individual whom we call Old Silence, says: “I’ve been to school.”
    “Well, tell me. Is it G igolo, or J igolo?”
    “Pronounced Jig olo.”
    “I thought as much. I was having an argument. Someone said G igolo. Then someone else said J igolo, and I agreed. Where are you from?”
    “London, Trained Soldier.”
    “What business?”
    “Unemployed.”
    “Do you mean you’ve got money of your own, or that you just couldn’t get a job?”
    “Both, Trained Soldier.”
    “’Ow old are you?”
    “Thirty-four, Trained Soldier.”
    “Well, son, we’ll soon find you plenty jobs round ’ere…. And your name?”
    “John Johnson,” says the Brummagem Fly Boy suddenly.
    “Not so much of the ‘John Johnson,’ you. Address me as Trained Soldier! Don’t tell me where you come from: I know. You’re a Brummy Boy. I can tell by your accent. Well, don’t get fly here, son. It won’t pay you. And you?”
    “Bates, Trained Soldier. Oi come from Leicester. Oi was a brewer’s drayman. Oi’m Church of Englernd, Trained Soldier.”
    “Married?”
    “One proper woife, Trained Soldier, but she left me. She took all the furniture. Oi got an unmarried woife, now, and she’s noice, Trained Soldier. Yow loike to see a pic-tcher, Trained Soldier?”
    “In a minute. And what’s your name?”
    “Abbs, Trained Soldier. I got a brother in the Coldstream Guards. Did you ever meet him, Trained Soldier? Abbs, from Walsall. Jimmy Abbs. I’m Alfred Abbs. Thirty-five. I got six kids, all girls. My wife’s uncle just died of a growth in ’is throat—big as a babby’s head. I——”
    “—Every morning,” says Trained Soldier Brand, “the hut will be swept and tidied, and everything will be put in its right place. Every Saturday, it will be scrubbed from top to bottom, and your bed-boards and trestles will also be scrubbed till they are as white as snow, because I don’t mind telling you, they’re ’ot on that. Also, you better take careto scrub your ’oldalls till they’re like driven snow. They’re ’ot on ’oldalls, too. Got it? One other thing: don’t keep things under your mattresses in the daytime. More men get put in the book for that than anything else. And for God’s sake see your rifles are clean. A dirty rifle is a serious offence. Oh well …” He yawns. “Muck in,” he says, with conviction, “that’s the great rule of ’appiness. Muck in. Muck in. That’s what the Bible says: muck in. Do unto others as you would ’ave others do unto you. In other words, muck in. Got it? What ’ave you got to do, Bates?”
    “Not leave nothing under your mattress, Trained Soldier!”
    “Oh Gord lumme, I want my mummy and the puddens she used to make!” cries Trained Soldier Brand. “Why should England tremble, eh? Did you hear me say ‘Muck in’?”
    “I thought——”
    “You thought. Wot with did you think? You ain’t ’ere to think. You’re not in Civvy Street now. Why, if everybody went around thinking , we wouldn’t ’ave no army. Muck in. What did I say?”
    Bates thinks deeply, and says: “Mook in, Trained Soldier.”
    “There now. You got it right that time, didn’t you? You can do it if you try, can’t you? That’s the style. Go on like that and you’ll be a Brigadier before you know where you are.”
    “Will oi really, Trained Soldier?”
    *
    There comes into the hut a man in shirt sleeves and a soft S.D. cap.