Pook In Boots

ONE

The first full-scale parade of No. 3 Section, Royal Marine Recruits, was a spectacle not soon forgotten. In order to inaugurate it, Sergeant Crusher Canyon inhaled air to dilate his magnificent physique to the Michelin Tyre man’s dimensions and then released it for the production of localized explosion of the human voice.

Num-bar Free Sectionner . . . Fall . . . In!

At the initial blast a cloud of pigeons became airborne in panic flight.   Then the motley assembly of recruits, now temporarily deafened, ceased to be disinterested spectators of Sergeant Canyon’s lone performance on the parade ground and shuffled forward like street-corner loungers at opening time to take up crowd-formation in front of him. Crusher presented an awe-inspiring picture out there dominating the square, reminding me for all the world of a great Saxon chief who had finally abandoned the battle-axe for the new- fangled musket.

You better stand next to me, Honners, I advised the short thin youth who was mooching round with his hands in his pockets trying to find a vacant space in the rear outskirts.

Thanks, Peter boy.   The more out of sight I am from that uniformed gorilla the better. Who said Mussolini was over in Italy? he replied, squeezing in among the other recruits who were obsessed with the same tactics.

Silence! roared Sergeant Canyon incongruously. From now on your chat days is over and you keeps your big doughnut-grinders sewn up tight.  Got it? I’m the only cackle-merchant round here. Got it? We don’t want you lot becoming the 3rd Foot and Mouth Mutineers. Got it?

We winced out loud to indicate we had got it, but Sergeant Canyon was staring with bulging eyeballs at the gyrating swarm of recruits before him until the sight became too much for him to bear. Suddenly he threw back his cropped head and implored Providence to intervene with some miracle involving a future life for him which did not include our presence in it.  In fact he stood so long at attention, with his great jaw pointing aloft as he addressed the heavens, that we all looked up in case we were about to witness the desired miracle being granted on the spot.

All right, you shower of bird-watchers, look to your front, he growled when he could steel himself to face us.

Now I’ve got you all gathered round like there’s been a car accident, perhaps you’ll be kind enough to get fell in in some vague resemblance to fower ranks, gentlemen, he continued, in the persuasive tones usually associated with the education of retarded children. "Fower lines of men, not Paul Jones formation please, but fairly straight—it ain’t supposed to be a tay-dansong.  Yes, Pook you can stand next to your cronies but don’t chinwag. I’m the only cackle-merchant from now on, see? I won’t keep you long—not more than fower or five hours—but I wants to see if you know how to stand on two feet, next-door to each other.

Now try to imagine you’re in a queue for the pictures, but all facing the road, see? Now, I’m the commissionaire coming round to see if you’re all happy like, and to make sure you don’t obstruct passers-by, see?

The mob took up queue-formation on my calling out Standing room only in the one-and-nines, please.

Thank you for helping me, Pook, Sergeant Canyon remarked icily. I see you’re obviously officer material, but don’t overdo it in case I murders you before you get your pips.  I’m the jealous type, you know.

From an unidentified source came a professional cry of Pro- grammes, peanuts, popcorn. A prize in each and every pack. Gabby Ellington’s lips did not appear to move, but Sergeant Canyon’s most certainly did.

Si . . . lence! he roared, disappearing behind the largest mouth in the King’s service. "All right, lads; I’ve had more comedians and clowns under my command than I’ve ’ad ’ot dinners, but not one of

’em ever survived the second day of fun."

Sergeant Canyon contrasted everything in life against the yardstick of the number of hot dinners he had consumed in the past— a  comparison of enviable adaptability, applicable even to sexual indulgence.

Oh yes, I know I’m a bastard, said Sergeant Canyon in answer to a suggestion from me, "so let’s get it straight from the start. I was born out of wedlock and reared in an orphanage—and I’m proud of it. Any questions? Good. Now, you’re in what’s humorously called the fell in position—fower queues facing the road, so if you lot at the end will kindly shuffle back a few feet I shall be able to come along like a bus to inspect you without drivin’ round in a circle. Your ring-a-roses days is over, so try and get fell in straight — not like you’re attending an open-air meeting of your perishin’ Blackshirt friends in Hyde Park.

"Now, when I gives the order ‘Shun’ you will bring your leff foot smartly up to your right foot so your wedding-tackle don’t drop off. Now, all look down and learn that at the bottom of your legs is two big lumps to stop your ankles wearing out from marching.  These lumps is known in the trade as feet. Now, you won’t have realized it but your leff foot is the lump nearest that flagpole over there, and the lump left over is called the right one.

Now, any man equipped with free feet has got one too many and will be put on cushy office duties, as free feet mucks up parade drill something cruel.  Now, fall out any man with more than two feet.

We counted our feet carefully and were relieved to find that two was the standard number.  I’ve definitely got two feet, Sarge, I informed him happily.

You ain’t boastin’, Pook? By the look of all them suede brothel- creepers round your base I thought you had half-a-dozen at least.

No, Sarge, only a couple. They’re big because I’m tall, so they have to stop me blowing over when it’s windy.

Sergeant Canyon’s blue jaw throbbed dangerously.  All right, Pook—and the rest of you—let’s sweat our merry quips out of our system today. As from tomorrow a life of monastic ’ell descends on yer, and you’ll wish your father had drowned you at birth like he wanted to until the police took him away.

Wearing suede shoes on parade was the result of my physique not being catered for in the Quartermaster’s Stores, where the two stock sizes of too small and too big failed to include my shape. Eight years of intensive body-building under the guidance of a health magazine called Brute Strength had produced such a distorted version of the human frame—the much desired T-shape of tiny waist and enormous shoulders—that even the Quartermaster himself had failed to force me into the biggest uniform in stock.

This was the Tent Size specially fabricated for elderly Marines whose beer consumption had blown their stomachs up into fleshy barrels of 50 inches circumference.  My great shoulders could not squeeze into this model, and the waist measurement made it look like a maternity jacket as far as I was concerned.

Consequently I was branded as a freak, and issued with a chit authorizing me to wear my civvy clothes during the six weeks it took the barracks’ tailor to draw scissors and chalk for the purpose of cutting out a new design.  Hence I paraded in a green lounge suit, spivvy overcoat, Tyrolean trilby, and, in order to ward off Hitler’s anticipated annihilation of the British Public, an empty cardboard box which had once contained a civilian gasmask strung round my neck with picture-cord.

The gasmask itself had been lost during its more practical use as goggles when I rode my motorbike. Nowadays I used the box as a kind of handbag for my odds and ends, but it had to be carried in order to conform with regulations.

As Sergeant Canyon walked through the ranks he inspected my ensemble with undisguised revulsion.  Them other pals of yours ain’t Marines; they’re not even sub-Marines—but you, you’re a latrine, he observed hostilely.

Don’t be like that, Sarge, I protested.  Not my fault if your firm don’t cater for the superbly built specimens of humanity, endowed with virile manhood—every man’s gift to his bride. I culled that phrase straight out of Brute Strength, and was extremely proud of it.

Sergeant Canyon’s nostrils curled up at the ends. You may be a gift to your bride, Pook, but to me you’re a pacifist dressed in the glorious Technicolor garb of your Union.

I produced the excused-uniform chit from my cardboard box and waved it under his broken nose.  He sniffed it as though it were radio-active.

Grrr! he rumbled menacingly. You stand there like a broken- down pedlar with his tray of bootlaces strung round his headbracket, and expect me to turn you into a Royal Marine.  P’raps you’ve got an excused-shaving chit tucked in there as well?

"No, Sarge.  I don’t fancy myself in a beard. That bloke on the

Players packet puts me off."

But you’re growing one just the same, antcher? Not really Sarge. Cut myself shaving, that’s all.

So now you wants a bleedin’ medal, eh? Ho, ho, ho! Whenever Crusher cracked a joke he always followed up with a

kind of Zulu war-chant right in one’s face.  Look at your mug— animated emery paper I calls it.  Tomorrow see you parades with a chin smooth as an eunuch’s bottom, got it?

While on the subject of hair he turned his attention to my fashionable curls which the trilby-hat failed to contain. Am I hurting you, Pook ? he inquired with a new tenderness.

No, Sarge, not really. I’m not the sensitive kind.

I mean hurting you physical, not hurting you mental. No, Sarge. I’m all right. I can look after myself, mate.

I was not known as the Cudford Cruiser for nothing, and more than one clever-dick had ended up flat on his back for fingering the golden wig lightly. I didn’t care if Crusher was fifteen stones; he’d have to go the same way as Fireman Tucker of Southampton. As early as the first round Fireman Tucker had inquired during a clinch if I could cook, and some readers may recall what happened to him. All mixed up with the flash-bulbs in the Press-row.

You sure I’m not hurting you, dear? Crusher leered. No, Sarge. But you can have a go, if you like.

I ought to be, seein’ as how I’m standing on your golden tresses. Get the stuff shortened by the barracks’ barber before dawn tomorrow, understand? Coming on parade looking like a queer who’s lost his pitch. How many feet you got?

Two, Sarge, on the last count.  I’ve got the same number of mits too, if you’re interested, I retorted, giving Crusher the sardonic sneer.

They tell me you’re the puncher who put Fireman Tucker away inside the distance, Pook, he continued, practically resting his nose on mine.

I believe I did, Sarge.  There’s been so many, I get ’em mixed nowadays. Tucker thought he’d get a laugh out of my hair, so I put the mockers on him in the third.  He wasn’t the first, and I don’t suppose he’ll be the last.

But what about Bandsman Bangle? You weren’t so keen to have a go with him, were you, Pook? Unbeaten, ain’t he, Pook?

I had to chuckle at this one. I had been matched with Bandsman Bangle down at Cudford Townhall, but owing to the objections of my employers my name had been withdrawn at the last minute. Bangle can have it any time he likes, Sarge.  He’s strictly a points prodder who hasn’t met a puncher yet.  All that tap-dancing don’t count for much when you’re lying on the deck wondering if it’s a pedestrian-crossing.

You ain’t exactly a little shrinking violet, are you, Pook?

All that jazz never got anybody anywhere, Sarge. Besides, when you come to weigh it up I haven’t got a lot to be modest about, have I? For instance, I’d have been a professional footballer by now if your mob hadn’t been short-handed.

Then p’raps you’ll be so good as to play for the Regiment when you can spare the time, eh, Pook?

Naturally.  I believe in mucking in wherever I am, so I’ll play for you, and you get the war over as quickly as possible for me.

Sergeant Canyon favoured me with a slit-eyed glare before he moved along to my friend Dennis Longbotham—a fellow who was intended for the military life as much as Miss Edith Summerskill was cut out to be a prize-fighter.

Ho, ho, ho, and what have we here, Longbotham? Crusher roared in a thunder of incredulity. Didn’t know you was in the Air Force—and a pilot to boot.  What in ’ell is that thing round your backside—a parachute?

That’s me haversack, Sarge, Dennis explained carefully.

No, no, man; your haversack is that little bag which should be on your hip, but which you are wearing in place of a sporran to keep your pregnancy-gear warm.T hat’s your pack on your backside, which is supposed to be up on your shoulders.

Dennis grinned. Funny how it slips down all the time, ain’t it, Sarge; can’t sit down properly when it’s low-slung like that, can you? "Tomorrow, I want to see that pack where it’s supposed to be—

up on your hunchback, understand? Let’s hope to gawd the Army ain’t spying on us, that’s all I can say."

Sergeant Canyon then shook Dennis’s water-bottle which hung down from his side camera-fashion.

Empty! he raved, waving the bottle and listening to the tinkle of grit inside it. The only thing between you and an ’orrible death in the desert—and the perishin’ thing’s empty!

Dennis smiled cunningly.  Well, Sarge, I feel like a Christmas tree as it is, all cluttered up with this lot, so I didn’t fill me lemonade- bottle ’cos it only makes it heavier.

Listen, Longbotham, while I tells you a little fairy-story. Once upon a time there was a real Royal Marine lost in the desert because they had fought to the last man, and he was him.  He had had the good sense to fill his water-bottle but now it was all used up, and the poor devil lay there waiting for the lingering death that’s coming your way pretty soon.  ‘Water, water,’ he gasps, almost delirious as you might say.  ‘Water, for the love of Mike, give me some water.’ Just then, believe it or not, a relieving detachment of Jollies finds him and hands him a bucket of the precious fluid.  Jew know what he done then?

Filled his lemonade-bottle? Dennis suggested helpfully.

No, no. First he takes out his blanco tin and starts blancoing his equipment, like a real Royal Marine would who’s worth his salt. He couldn’t do it earlier ’cos he didn’t ’ave no water.

All I can say is he must have been round the bend. Any person in his right mind would have had a bath, Dennis replied solemnly. "Oh, dear gawd, what have I done so wicked to be punished like

this near the end of my twelve, wailed Crusher bitterly.  He made the face for tears, but it had never known such human weakness outside of onion-peeling.  I can’t inspect you any more, Long- botham—it’s more than flesh can bear. Let’s have a look at the last of the Chelsea Pensioners instead."

Sergeant Canyon moved on to my other friend, the Hon. Lesley Pilkington-Goldberg, now reluctant defender of his land. Morning, Honners, said Crusher affably.

Morning, Sarge, he smiled back.

The parade suit you all right today? Not too early, or anything? "Oh no, Sarge; not so dusty. I intend to muck in with the lads as though nothing had happened. After all, what’s a ruined social life in time of war?

Good show! Your Bentley parked in the grounds to your satis- faction Honners?

Yes thanks, Sarge.  But I’d prefer it under cover when you can move one of the tanks out.

You’re a proper toff, ain’t you, Honners? Well, if you insist, Sarge.

Yes, a toffee-nosed midget, eh?

Well, I know I’m not the biggest bod in the Regiment, Sarge. No, and you ain’t the biggest bod in the Brownies neither. What they done to you—sawn your tiny legs off, or are you standing in a hole? Oh dear, oh dear, the Hostilities Only shower.  We’ve got to accept anything that can crawl in, like a Salvation Army doss-house. "Well, Sarge, if this is supposed to be the finest Corps in the

world, how the dickens am I in it?"

I expect ’cos your old man’s in the War Office, as you keeps reminding every basket around here.

Oh, Sarge, your language. It ruins the whole atmosphere of the barracks.  Actually, if you could only curb it you’d be quite nice otherwise.  Rather Rabelaisian, as the critics say when a famous author writes smut.  As a matter of fact, they tell me I’m finely proportioned; all the essentials but no waste.

Then all I can say is they’re liars.  Now, Honners, I suppose you’ll soon be leaving us to take a commission, and become C.O. of the Regiment?

Well, Sarge, I’m thinking it over.  You see, I’m a qualified solicitor, so I may sign on in the Judge Advocate’s shop and ply the old trade in uniform.  Meanwhile I’ll just have to be content with being a barrack-room lawyer, won’t I?

Sergeant Canyon didn’t think much of this as a hobby, and said so.

While we’re at it, what do you mean by coming on parade in full marching-order carrying a valise?

I too had wondered about Honners’ valise, which he had already carried on previous parades like a porter to the Section.

Well, Sarge, it’s for all my valuables.  Can’t very well leave them lying about unprotected in the ’ut. And I have to hold it in my hand because all the hooks on my webbing are cluttered up with the bric-à-brac I was issued with by the Quartermaster.  I don’t think there’s anything under the sun that’s not hooked on me somewhere. I feel like an itinerant ironmonger on the road.

Don’t you dare let me catch you ever again with that suitcase on parade— got it? You can arrange to deposit the family plate in the Orderly Room safe, understand?

Having completed his preliminary inspection Sergeant Canyon stood well off to address his troops in a parade-ground whisper. Oh, dear, oh, dear; if you could only see yourselves as I see you.  The cream of the nation, they call you in the gutter-press!

We’re only the scum, we cried, to forestall a Crusher quip. "Churchill’s Butchers, the Nazis call you, but for my money

you’re Churchill’s milkmaids.  One look at you, and England will have no option but unconditional surrender. You there at the back, Tarzan—how did you ever drag your crippled body past the Medical Board unobserved?"

Dennis grinned proudly. Well, Sarge, I wanted to join the Red Cross, but they said the Marines was short-handed and needed me. If you’re full up I’ll gladly resign and go home.

All right, clever-cuts.  Now listen to me, the lot of you.  I was heavyweight champion of the Med-Fleet until training recruits broke me spirit and left me the gibbering wreck of a man you see before you now.  But, men—I calls you men, not because you are men but because you draws men’s pay—be warned that there’s still a tiny spark of strength left in me enfeebled body yet. That’s why I’m still unarmed combat champion of the Division, among other trifling feats of self-defence. Here Crusher glanced meaningly at me.

"Furthermore, men, now I know what I’m up against I feels better, as the deserter remarked to the wall before they shot him. Tonight I retires to the Barracks’ Chapel to pray for strength to help me whip you into shape.  And then comes the next day.  Tomorrow is sheer

’ell for the lot of you. Twelve hours or more of mobile torture. You will weep and scream, but it won’t help you any ’cos I thrives on that stuff.

"You’ll find this barracks is Dante’s Inferno with spiked walls round it, so don’t bother to run away.  The last man who was discovered disembowelled on them spikes was put on a charge for bleedin’ without permission and then buried by the Chapel. Now, when I gives the order Dismiss, you springs to attention, turns right facing the cinema and marches off in a soldierly manner. Only instead of creepin’ into the