Free Soldier Of The Queen by Bernard O'Mahoney Page B

miles running with a full kit on your back, a sub-machine-gun in your hands - tank crews did not train with rifles - and a pair of new, ill-fitting boots on your feet that rubbed your skin raw. You would run for three miles and then be ordered to walk, but not at normal walking pace, because this was a forced walk with instructors barking, "Left, right, left, right, left, right," as you lost your rhythm and co-ordination. Then you would go back to running before arriving at an assault course which you would have to cross in groups of six carrying a telegraph pole. As I was taller than most - a lot of people in the tank regiments are quite small so they can fit into the confined tank space -1 had to carry the pole on my shoulder. The smaller recruits in the middle did not have to bear so much of the weight. As I crossed the course the pole would be bouncing and smashing into my head and shoulder, giving me a red-raw shoulder to complement my red-raw feet.
    The training was so intense that you were physically exhausted all the time. On a good day you would fall into bed at 11 p.m. and crawl out at 5 a.m. But you did not usually have much time to sleep, because just as you fell into blissful oblivion around 3 a.m. the doors would be flung open, the lights would be switched on and a group of psychotic Scottish instructors would be standing there screaming. You would leap six feet in the air to land at the side of your bed in your underclothes. At first some people tried to be smart by wearing their uniforms in bed to save having to change swiftly. A few punches in the head and the instructors' observation that "Only pigs wear clothes to bed" put an end to that ruse. Others would sleep on the floor so as not to have to make their beds. But the instructors knew all the tricks and they dealt with that one by dashing unexpectedly into the room, grabbing the feet of their victim and dragging him across the floor into the corridor where he would be kicked about.
    As you stood to attention by your bed you would be ordered to run downstairs to play the instructors' favourite game -Changing Parades. They would order you to change into a bizarre combination of clothing which you had to wear in the stipulated order. They would say things like: "On your feet you'll have plimsolls, on your legs you'll have lightweight trousers, then your number two uniform jacket, then I want you to wear a metal helmet and your towel round your neck." Then they would shout: "Go! Go! Go!" and you would run back upstairs to change, then run back down as fast as you could. The first three downstairs would be allowed to go back to bed; the others would be ordered to change into another combination, which invariably involved wearing a gas mask. Nine times out of ten you had to keep your gas mask on for the whole exercise — sometimes running upstairs backwards — and as you got hotter and hotter you could hardly breathe, nor could you see out of the steamed-up visor.
    There was one recruit who lived in dread of Changing Parades because he always ended up going to bed last. He was from south London, of slight build with short dark hair, parted at the side. Sometimes he wore glasses. He did not mix well
    and rarely spoke. He spent most of his time sitting alone reading war comics or books about the Waffen SS, which obsessed him. Even his civilian clothing was Second World War replica or original: brown leather USAF flying jacket with fur collar, green German paratroop trousers and Afrika Korps camouflage fatigues. Around his bed space, instead of photos of his family or pornographic posters, he had pictures of Nazi tanks. We nicknamed him Rommel. He knew everything there was to know about Waffen SS panzer divisions, especially their soldiers' clothing and weaponry. He wanted to join the Royal Tank Regiment because their tank crews were the only ones in the British Army who wore black overalls - like his SS panzer heroes. Members of other tank regiments wore green.