Free Soldier Of The Queen by Bernard O'Mahoney

if any of you have a criminal record that you have not yet told us about, then declare it now." Such people would be discharged immediately without being punished for having lied in their application forms. However, he said, people who had lied and did not take this opportunity to come clean would be dealt with severely when the army uncovered the truth. "And, believe me, we will find you out. Our checks are stringent. STRIN-GENT."
    He walked down the line, looking into our eyes. I stared straight ahead as he plodded slowly past me. I felt uncomfortable and knew that if they did carry out any checks I'd be found out. I was still under a Supervision Order for the mugging almost two years earlier - I even had my own probation officer; I had not completed the 240 hours of community service that had been imposed some time earlier for going equipped for burglary; I had a six-month prison sentence for theft hanging over me; and I was on bail for the milk-bottle case — assault, theft, threatening behaviour, possessing an offensive weapon - which had yet to be heard. Telling the army the truth was not an option. As far as I was concerned I had nothing to lose by keeping quiet: if I confessed I would be discharged straight into prison. A few people put up their hands. One had been convicted of dangerous driving after clipping the kerb in his Mini; another had been caught shoplifting when he was 13. They were hardly infiltrators from the criminal underworld, but the serious man told them to step out of line and report to the administration office.
    For the next few days we had to perform written and physical tests. Their main aim was to weed out the seriously unfit and the acutely stupid, but they were also supposed to identify aptitudes that might make you suited for a particular role. I did well in both sets of tests — and was told I might make a good tank gunner. I couldn't see how such a trade would equip me to earn a living in civilian life, but the job did have some appeal. It would mean I could travel everywhere on wheels, rather than having to blunder through countryside on foot carrying a huge backpack and a rifle. So I didn't question their assessment. In any case, I had only joined the army to avoid prison, so as long as I achieved that aim I didn't really care what I did.
    I didn't have much time for most of the other recruits: many of them seemed terribly keen to make the army their life. I came across the term "army barmy" for the first time as a way of describing people who loved being soldiers and adored everything to do with soldiering. The army barmies were certainly the dominant group in this intake.
    There was only one recruit I got on well with. His name was Alan and he was from Rhodesia. He was bright and amusing and had done some strange things in his life. He hated blacks, especially black Rhodesians, and followed intently the progress of the war in his homeland between the whites and the black "commie bastard terrorists". He could not understand why English people seemed to treat blacks — he called them "kaffirs" - as equals. He said that when he had first arrived in England he had taken the underground from Heathrow Airport into central London. Further down the line a black man had got on and sat in the same carriage. Alan could not believe the cheek of the man: he thought blacks were forbidden to travel in the same compartments as whites - as was the case in his own country. He got up and told the man to get out of the carriage. Not surprisingly, the man refused. So Alan pulled the communication cord to stop the train. When the guard arrived to see what was wrong Alan told him to remove "the kaffir" immediately. The conductor explained that blacks in England had the same rights as whites; and he warned Alan that people who stopped trains without proper excuse could be prosecuted. Alan spent the rest of the journey in culture shock. Alan's father was Scottish, so he had no problem getting in to the