Free Take or Destroy! by John Harris

discipline -- a couple of commandos or the Fairst Black Watch, for instance -- we could have seen off both Mussolini and Franco, and then Hitler might no’ have bothered to go to war.’
    As he stopped to draw breath, there were no funny comments because they all knew that what he said was the truth. ‘So!’ he ended. ‘I shall be doing everything you’re doing, as will all the other officers and sergeants, so you’ve no need to think you’ve got it tough.’
    A few glances were exchanged and Murdoch went on. ‘You’re fully trained soldiers,’ he said, his foxy eyes gleaming behind his glasses. ‘When I’ve finished with you, you’ll be fit fully trained soldiers - with courage, physical endurance, initiative, resource, activity, self-reliance and an aggressive spirit towards the war.’
    ‘Jesus!’ Waterhouse let his breath out in a bleat of horror.
    ‘In the words o’ Garibaldi - ‘
    ‘Wha the hell’s Garibaldi?’ Keely muttered.
    ‘Some bloody Eyetie ice-cream merchant,’ Belcher pointed out. ‘Shut up.’
    ‘- you’ll know “fame, sete, marcie forzate, battaglia e morte.” Churchill puts it a different way. “Blood, sweat an’ tears,” he called it. There’ll no’ be much red tape, but there will be bull, because a clean soldier’s a good soldier and it’s all only normal infantry training. A wee bit quicker and a wee bit harder, to make you persevere, when the time comes, right to the end. Any man can cover seven miles an hour if he wishes - even out here. It’s our job to see that you do wish.’
    There were a few shocked looks but Murdoch seemed impervious.
    ‘Most o’ what you do, therefore,’ he continued, ‘will be done at the double, carrying heavy weights. When you’ve finished you’ll be better men, and when you leave here every one of you will walk on the earth as if he owns it. To the Germans he will have to face, he will be as a wolf is to a lamb. Now, who are the engineers?’
    A group of men shuffled forward, none too willingly, because it was the oldest dodge in the army to ask who were birdwatchers or Baptists or who could ride a bicycle, and then give you the job of cleaning out latrines.
    This time, it was different.
    Murdoch turned to Jacka, the commando sergeant. ‘I want an assault course constructed. So that they can learn to do the things they might have to do. I want it finished by tonight.’
    As the others tramped away, the engineers stared at Jacka.
    ‘What the hell’s an assault course?’ they demanded.
    Jacka grinned. ‘A few ups and a few downs,’ he said. ‘A few unders and a few overs. That sort of thing.’
    ‘Where do we get the gear? There’s nothing here.’
    ‘No, there isn’t, is there?’ Jacka looked at the speaker contemptuously. ‘‘Then find the bloody stuff!’ he roared.
    It was their first lesson in independence and in no time they’d begged, borrowed or stolen from neighbouring camps or the intervening desert, nets, poles, rope, boxes, boards, spades, rolls of barbed wire, even wrecked cars, old lorries and one rusty tank.
    The rest of the men had grouped round Murdoch who was balancing a rifle and bayonet in his hand. He looked murderous despite his glasses.
    ‘Weapon training,’ he said quietly. ‘You all know about weapons and how to handle ‘em. Some o’ you might even have had a pot-shot at a Jerry. In the commandos, the aim o’ weapon training is no’ to take pot-shots, but to kill.’ His voice rose slightly so that he seemed to be the embodiment of a diabolical will, and anyone who’d thought up to then that there was any other aim to weapon training realized he’d been kidding himself.
    They were all a little sober as they headed back to camp at the end of the morning and all a great deal dustier after four hours of solid marching to see what they could do.
    ‘Gawd chase me up and down Wapping Steps,’ Belcher said, brushing the sweat from his eyes. ‘I feel like ten men - nine dead and one paralysed