Free Private's Progress by Alan Hackney Page A

get ’em,” he added confidentially, leaning on the sill. “All the dodgy characters on the periphery of this company. They nearly all turn up for their pay. All, that is,” he went on, “except the people who do so well on the side that they don’t bother. Some of you OCTU boys must come to tea. Remind me some time next week.”
    He departed with a wave of the hand.
    “You’d be all right there, cock,” said Cox. “If I was you I wouldn’t ’esitate. Why, we ’ad a colonel once was so pleased with the mortar platoon ’e ’as the whole lot in for cocktails two nights running, only ’e was that tight ’e couldn’t think who they were. ’E seemed to think they was the General Staff and kept askin’ ’ow things was going in North Africa, except ’e wouldn’t wait for them to tell ’im, as it ’appened, and tells them for about an hour the sorta strategy ’e ’ad in mind. Only you could never tell with him. ’E invites them all next night and about ’alf turn up and ’e’s dead sober again and says: ‘Oo are you lot? Officers’ lines is out of bounds’, and ’e rings up for the provost sarnt and ’as ’em all run in the nick. Sometimes ’e used to be in ’is car in the town and see some geezer ’angin’ about and ’e’d tell ’is driver to stop, and say, ‘You want a lift back to the camp, lad?’ and the bloke ’ops in by the driver, and then, soon as they get back there, ’e’d say, ‘Stop atthe Guard-Room,’ and ’e’d tell the guard commander, ‘Run this man in for failin’ to salute the Commandin’ Officer.’”
    “It doesn’t sound any too safe, from what you say,” said Stanley.
    “Ah, no,” said Cox, “I said, this colonel, you couldn’t never tell with ’im, but old Hitchcock’s nutty all the time. You want to ’ear ’is batman sometimes on about ’im.”
    He was interrupted by the window’s being flung open again. Major Hitchcock reappeared.
    “One thing you must be very careful of,” he remarked to Stanley, “is my sergeant-major. He’ll have you by the short hairs if you don’t watch out. You can’t blame him, of course: some of my company are first-class shits.”
    He fell silent and surveyed the queue.
    “You’d be surprised at the Barrack Damages we have to knock off,” he resumed. “Last week one chap in one of the huts turned the water off and whipped all the taps from the basins. I’m having a parade after this to have a check-up.”
    The parade turned out to be a remarkable affair.
    The four “platoons” of Depot Company were lined up in threes on the square. At a time when the establishment for an infantry platoon was thirty-two, none of these consisted of less than seventy. Ninety-three others lined up with Stanley for No. 3 Platoon, muttering and cursing in low tones.
    Major Hitchcock called the parade to attention.
    A parade state was taken, revealing forty-seven absentees.
    “All right!” called Major Hitchcock in a menacing tone, “I know all about it! Forty-seven bloody absentees ! I’ve got their names here; they’ll suffer for it, all right. Now, does anyone here know about the taps in Khartoum? I thought not. Let me warn you. I’m Company Commander here, and let none of you forget it. You can’t fool me, let me tell you. Now I’ve got you! Get ’em out! You know what I mean!”
    “Identity discs,” muttered Cox. “Every other week ’e’s on about them.”
    They all began rummaging inside their shirts and stood with the red and green discs exposed on strings like so many charms.
    “Properly to attention, now,” shouted Major Hitchcock , and began to sprint down the ranks.
    He stopped suddenly at a man near Stanley and asked:
    “Where are yours?”
    “Left them atome, sir, last weekend, only I ’ad a forty-eight.”
    “Very naughty!” shouted Major Hitchcock for the benefit of the whole parade.
    “And your other one?” he asked a man with only the green one.
    “Come off in me ’and only this