When the time came for me and my colleagues either to become officers or to have failed, I was interviewed by the young captain who had largely been responsible for our training and he told me that they did not usually commission cadets with a stammer as bad as mine, but … but I don’t remember him quite being able to finish this sentence. But anyway, there I was, turning up in London for Christmas 1942 resplendent in my new Second-Lieutenant’s uniform. And the battle of Alamein had by this time been won, the battle of Stalingrad was going all right, was it not? And the war seemed as distant as ancient mythology.
One of the consequences of my having become an officer was that I got permission from the Home Office to spend the best part of a day with my father and stepmother in Holloway Jail. So in the New Year I dropped in at Fortnum and Mason on the way and arrived with the inside of my huge army overcoat hung with a ham and a bottle of brandy, and under my arm a Wagner record for Diana’s wind-up gramophone with a giant horn. We had a fine day — this was the first time I felt old enough to talk on anything like equal terms with my father — we did not say much about the war; we talked about ideas and books. Then towards the end of the day there was a knock on the door of the bleak cell-like room where my father and stepmother and I were sampling the brandy; my father said, ‘Who is it?’ and a voice said, ‘The Governor.’ My father said, ‘Oh do come in!’ and made a half-hearted attempt to hide the bottle under the table. The Governor was a pleasant man and he stayed and chatted with us for a while. Then my father said, ‘Would you like a glass of brandy?’ The Governor said, Thank you!’ My stepmother went off to wash a tooth-glass. The Governor said, ‘Ah, you don’t often find brandy like this nowadays!’
My father still seemed extraordinarily serene in prison; it was as if prison were evidence of his disapproval of war. Then, on a later visit when we were alone together for a while, he did speak briefly of the war. He said that when I went abroad to fight, if ever it happened that I were taken prisoner, I should remember some password that he would give me in case he were able to get in touch with me. I thought this odd: surely my father could have no contacts now with Germany? He had never, unlike my stepmother, been on close personal terms with high-up Nazis. I thought — This is just a way of implying that he might still have a finger in the world of intrigue. But I did perhaps begin to wonder — Well it might not be such a bad thing after all to be taken prisoner and so survive a war which before long, surely, would be as good as won. But what a time it might still take to finish it off — for armies to slog to and fro across North Africa, and all the way back across Russia to Berlin.
2
Newly commissioned officers waiting to be sent overseas went to the Rifle Brigade Holding Battalion at Ranby, in Nottinghamshire, a rather bleak encampment of huts either side of the Retford-Worksop road. But here everything became different.
We felt ourselves liberated from institutional subservience; from the need to ingratiate and dissemble. We could begin to be what we felt we were: but most of us were only nineteen.
We were each to be in charge of the training of a platoon of thirty to thirty-five men, most of them much older than ourselves. I wrote to my Aunt Irene –
At the moment I have a platoon of 35 men all to myself who are only just starting their training, and who are ignorant and stupid beyond belief. So I have a hard and anxious job, but I believe when some of the other officers come back off leave I may have someone to help me. Unfortunately I was given the platoon which had the reputation of being the scruffiest in the Company, and now it is up to me I suppose to descruff them. They never wash, lose all their equipment and come out half dressed; but are incredibly keen when out training in the country, and good fun if you treat them right. They are so shabby and slack about their appearance and their barrack room, and yet they are so pleasant and good-natured when one chats to them. I try to be both pleasant and firm, but it is tricky.
The time is taken up with Weapon Training, which I leave to the NCOs, who are efficient, and can do that sort of thing much better than us: unending lectures on Gas, Map Reading, Tactics, and even First Aid and Topical Interest, which I give, rather shakily at first, but I am getting used to it now, and am becoming reasonably good. My sergeant is very helpful. I really do take my hat off to these old NCOs, some of whom have been in the army for years. They all play up to us junior officers, and there is no question of the jealousy which I believe you get in some regiments.
To my old school friend, Timmy, who was following in my footsteps a few months behind me and who had written asking for hints from which he could learn, I wrote –
So long as you tell your sergeant just what you want done and leave him to do it in his own way, the house on fire burns merrily. It is only when you butt in on the sergeant’s pitch, and quibble with him in front of the men, that the trouble starts. When you want to take over the platoon he will step into the background and help without pestering suggestions.
With the men I have so far got on well, and we have been able to laugh together and they do have respect. I have only had to deliver one personal rocket when I saw a man chewing gum on parade. I told him to spit it out, to which he answered that he was unable because it had stuck to the roof of his palate. I then waxed vicious and said that he either got his gum unstuck or I would get him so stuck himself that he would not be able to extricate self for weeks, at which he accordingly expectorated (is this the word?) and so we went on.
Later. Christ, am I weary this evening. My platoon is really too bloody keen for words. They led me slap through a river today, and I had to follow with pretence of enjoyment. But they are fun, and so much more worthwhile than the old sweats I was with at Winch.
When we went out on manoeuvres we were able to go to the beautiful Peak District of Derbyshire, where it seemed to make sense to do tactical training in the style of stalking-and-catching-and-rescuing games which my friends and I had played ever since childhood. My friend and colleague during these exercises was Raleigh Trevelyan, who later was to write one of the best books about fighting in the Second World War, The Fortress, about his experiences at the landing at Anzio. In the Peak District we would pit our platoons against each other like Cowboys and Indians; in the evenings we would all sit around campfires and sing songs under the stars. We junior officers often felt more at home with our men than we did in the officers’ mess at Ranby. I wrote to my sister –
I really think that the usual life of an officer is even more narrowing and binding than that of a man. In the ranks one was admittedly restricted physically by petty regulations, but as an officer one is up against the appalling tyranny of etiquette and good manners. The mess is stuffy and staid like a Victorian clubroom; and there is no escape. One cannot even roll out and wallow in a pub. One is always under the eye of a keen and critical audience.