Sergeant Nelson of the Guards

by Gerald Kersh

  *

  There comes into the hut a man in shirt sleeves and a soft S.D. cap. You can tell, by his walk, that he is no ordinary man. He swings his legs out from the hip, and his iron heels cut little arcs in the floorboards. He is long and lean, sun-dried, wind-cured, boucanned, smoked, and sand-blasted. His face is brown as a kipper, and as expressionless. One of his eyes is fixed in a dreadful stare: it is of glass. The other blinks. There is nothing left of him but bone and sinew and vitals: years of service have sweated away all that was superfluous or decorative. He has an air of demoniac energy: a wild swagger, a steady, genial ferocity. Out of his neatly rolled sleeves hang arms as dark and gnarled as old Salami sausages. He has fists like mallets of black stinkwood; an aluminium ring; and a silly little blue bird tattooed on his left wrist. Quite effortlessly, he shouts, in a voice that makes us jump:

  “I am Sergeant Nelson! (Ain’t I, Trained Soldier Brand?) I am Sergeant Nelson! I’ve got one eye, but both me arms! I died at Trafalgar but they dug me up again, and when I’m mad I’m a one-man wave o’ destruction! I’m poison! I’m terrible! I kill seven rookies before breakfast! I can spit fifty yards through the eye of a needle! D’you see that dead tree over there? They’ll tell you it was struck by lightnin’. Don’t believe ’em. I killed it! I slapped it down! You’re my new squad! I’m your Squad Instructor! Silence! Nobody say a word! You do as I say or you suffer. You suffer ’orrible tortures! Now, when I say Hi-de-Hi Squad! you shout Ho-de-Ho!—and shout it loud! Now: Hi-de-Hi Squad!”

  We roar: “Ho-de-Ho!”

  “Right. Whenever I shout Hi-de-Hi, let me hear you reply pretty damn quick, or I’ll chase you all round and round that square till the huts look like henhouses. Hi-de-Hi!”

  “Ho-de-Ho!”

  “Good. Now we’re introduced. I’m here to make Guardsmen out o’ you. Are you going to help me? Well, answer, you unsociable lot of squirts!”

  “Yes, Sergeant!”

  “Good. You’d better. Soldiers get buried in a blanket. I’ll make Guardsmen out of you if you have to pass out of here in blankets. If you turn out flops, as soldiers, I’m responsible. I’m the one that drops something on account of you. And I’d murder me best friend if he got me into trouble. I’d murder me great-grandmother. I’d cut her heart out and throw it on the floor and jump on it—wouldn’t I, Brand? Now on Monday you’ll be Squadded, and you start with me on the Square. I’ve got to drill you. I’ve got to hammer four months of drill into you in eight weeks. It’s impossible. But I shall do it. You’ll see. But you’ve got to play ball with me. You’ve got to give me all you’ve got, with a good heart.” Sergeant Nelson becomes quieter, and very serious.

  “Ask anybody in this Depot about me. They’ll tell you: I hardly ever punish anybody. I never, never bully my men. But you’ve got to work with me. There seems to be a war on. Isn’t there, Brand? So you’ve got to take things seriously. If there’s anything you want to know, don’t be afraid to ask me. If there’s anything you don’t grasp the first time, ask me again, ask me a hundred times: I’ll tell you. If there’s anything you want demonstrated, I’ll demonstrate it. I’m the best demonstrator on earth, aren’t I’ Brand? Definitely, I am. If you’re in trouble over anything except money, come to me, and if necessary I’ll march you into the Company Commander, or the Commandant himself. I’ll stand by you. But don’t try any funny stuff. If anybody tries to treat me rough…. By God! Call me Pig, and I’m Pig all through. Definitely Pig all through. Okay. Which is it going to be? Are you going to work with me?”

  A chorus: “Yes, Sergeant.”

  He roars again. “Okay-dokey, my little fluffy-’eaded chicks! Hi-de-Hi!”

  “Ho-de-Ho!”

  “Good. Now look. Recruits are babies. In one second, Cookhouse is going to blow. By rights I ought to march you about everywhere, definitely everywhere. But I’m going to let you go on your own, just to show you I trust you. You won’t get lost? Or make mugs of yourselves in any way?”

  “No, Sergeant.”

  Come to the cookhouse door, boys, cries the bugle.

  “Knives, forks, and spoons, and scram, then!”

  We rush to the door.

  “Halt!”

  We stop, paralysed by that shattering voice.

  “Hi-de-Hi, Squad!”

  “Ho-de-Ho, Sergeant!”

  We go to Dinner.

  That afternoon we get our first Fatigue. There isn’t much for us to do until we are squadded. Hanging around, putting twice-ordered bits of kit again in order, looking around, exchanging speculative horrors, we wait, killing time by inches. One or two of us—Hodge, Dale, and Thurstan foremost, as it happens—start on our boots. The surface of these Ammunition Boots is what the shopkeepers call “Scotch Grain”: that is to say, it is all bumpy. This has to be smoothed out by the chemical action of spit and the mechanical action of polish. We have been warned that, at first, the more we polish the less there will be to show for our efforts. “Think of the Foorer,” says Trained Soldier Brand, “think of Gobbles, think of Gooring … and spit.” But the Ammos, or boots, would absorb the digestive juices of a shark. John Johnson watches us. Soon, he says: “You got no oidea, that’s what it is, no oidea.” And he picks up a boot and a tin of polish, and, baring his sunburnt arms, begins to polish away with a mad enthusiasm. All the misdirected energy of a little, misspent life, is being concentrated on a toe cap. He polishes as if some strange fate has condemned him to it … which, indeed, it has. “Oi’ll get that cap badge,” he says, “oi betcher a million pounds.” A Bedfordshire lad who used to work in a Nottinghamshire boot factory talks of buffing leather. He takes out of a battered fibre case a toothbrush; compares it with the Army issue, and finally strokes his boots with it. Everybody else follows suit. As any gentleman’s gentleman will tell you, it helps if you beat the surface of a leather boot flat with a bone … but you’ve got to put your weight behind it. Alison, the glum old soldier, says that if you smear the surface of the boots thickly with polish and then set light to it, you get the grease out quicker. Trained Soldier Brand, hearing this, says: “That is a serious offence,” and adds:

  “Say you burn your boots. What happens? Boots are made of what? Well … what, Bates?”

  “Oi don’t know, Trained Soldier.”

  “Leather and stitches. Burn the leather, and you burn the stitches. Burn the stitches, and what happens? Well, Bates?”

  “It’s a serious offence, Trained Soldier.”

  “They bust. And if the stitches of your boots bust, what happens, Bates?”

  “Oi don’t know, Trained Soldier.”

  “One day your boots come apart. And remember—a soldier marches on his feet. On his … what, Bates?”

  “On his feet, Trained Soldier.”

  “Good. You’ll be a lieutenant colonel inside of a fortnight.”

  “Will Oi——”

  “So. Don’t burn your boots. If you’re without boots, you’re what, Bates?”

  “Uh?”

  “Say you’ve got no boots, what happens?”

  “Oi don’t know, Trained Soldier.”

  “You’re barefoot.”

  “Oi know that, but——”

  “Then why didn’t you say so? You can’t march, and the war is as good as lost. So no burning. Leather,” says Brand, “comes from abroad. It takes sailors. Sailors die so that you wear boots. Get it? Them boots are covered in the blood of sailors.”

  Bates says: “Trained Soldier, Oi thought that was grease.”

  “God give me strength,” says Brand.

  We polish away. Later, a sergeant with a book under his arm comes into the hut and shouts: “Stand to your beds and listen! Is there anybody here who’s good at painting and decorating?”

  Two men stand up.

  “Anybody play football … I don’t mean just kicking a ball around: I mean, anybody who can play it well.”

  One man rises and says: “I played for Underwood Wednesday.”

  “And are there any
market gardeners, or other men who know all about turfing and whatnot?”

  Two more men rise.

  “Excellent. Excellent. Lastly, is there anybody here of education up to matriculation standard?”

  Old Silence stands up.

  “That’s fine.” The sergeant with the book licks a pencil and says: “Names…. You will all report to the Green Lanes Cookhouse for spud-peeling.”

  (“And let that be a lesson for you,” says Brand, grinning: “In the Army, you never volunteer for anything except certain death.”)

  Those of us who have risen go out. A cookhouse sergeant says: “Do you mind eating spuds a little bit wizened?”

  “No.”

  “Then bloodywell peel them.”

  The men left behind congratulate themselves, until a serious-looking Corporal, asking for men who know jig and tool making, the use of the typewriter, the elements of the banjulele and singing, salesmanship, care of livestock, bandaging, fire-fighting, bartending, building, haircutting, carpentering, ladies’ hairdressing, platen-minding, typesetting, fancy lettering, high jumping, and box making, drags in most of the others for floor washing, and, tiring of the joke, asks, all humour apart, for one intelligent man. Johnson leaps up. “You read books, I bet,” says the Corporal. “Ah,” says Johnson. “Then go and swab out the library,” says the Corporal In Waiting, and goes out, while Johnson swears that in this life there is no justice.

  *

  That Sunday is quiet. Recruits in the Naffy tell dark tales of discipline. Men three weeks squadded, already assuming the portentous air of old sweats, ask themselves rhetorically why they did not join something else. The Glorious Fusiliers, says one, do no drill; the Dagenham Foresters, says another, have dulled brasses for active service, and rightly so. Old Silence, pursuing the vexed question of spit-and-polish in the Brigade of Guards, asks the Trained Soldier about it.

  Brand laughs. “You’ll work your boots and brasses up,” he says, “whether you like it or not. So you may as well do it with a good ’eart. When you get round to fighting, I dessay you’ll be told to let your brasses go dull and grease your second-best boots. Meanwhile, you’ll shine. Why, you might ask. Because the Guards have got a tradition of smart turnout, that’s why. I admit you work harder in the Guards than elsewhere. Well, that’s the price you pay for the privilege of being in the ’Ouse’old Brigade. Don’t worry—you’ll learn as much of tactics and field-training and fighting as anybody in the Army; only you’ll be made to get the ’abit of smartness in your appearance. Why? Because we’re the Guards. We’re the Lilywhites, the Coalies, the Coldstreamers. It’s got to be kept up. At Dunkirk, our mob were still pick-outable on account of some of them still shining up their daisy-roots and working in a quick shave, even on the retreat. It’s crazy, I know. But personally, I like it. And so do you. Or if you won’t you will. And if you don’t, you’d better. Gorblimey, we’ve ’ad fellers ’ere like Wild Men o’ Borneo, and turned ’em out neat as a new pin in a few weeks. Carriage! Smartness! That’s the real uniform of the Guards. Because all battledress looks alike. And yet you could pick a Coldstreamer out of a thousand others. It may be a bit tough. Well, blimey, you’ve got to suffer to be beautiful … Ain’t you, you de-licious little peach-blossom?” he says, to Thurstan.

  Before Thurstan can unload the insults which rise and fill his mouth, a bugle sounds, a siren moans, and Brand says:

  “Jerry in the sky. Get in the trench.”

  The Guards’ Depot exploits air-raids, and makes prompt action a part of Guards’ training. We run to cover, and it is then that Sergeant Nelson, who, for eight weeks, will never let us out of his sight, tells us about the Wogs, “light of ear, bloody of hand,” the Arabs; and tells tall stories in short sentences, of discipline and training in the Guards. “And if I make your blood run cold—don’t worry, because I’ll warm it for you when I get you on the Square tomorrow. Definitely.”

  *

  The Square is vast and flat; black-grey asphalt tickled by mysterious eddies of pale-brown dust. We have to pass a half-finished building to get to it. Bricklayers pause and look at us with some pity. One old man, splitting a speckled pink brick with one flick of a trowel, says: “Now you’re for it, my boys.” He is a little old man, incongruously got up in soiled blue serge, with a stiff collar and a bright strip of medal-ribbons. “Ah well, I was at Mons.” To this, Barker, who is hiding his nervousness under a great froth of funny talk, says: “No wonder they retreated. Are you sure you don’t mean Water-bloody-loo?”

  “Laugh, my cock-oh,” says the old man, “you’ll never see what I saw!”

  Sergeant Nelson is there, waiting for us. “Sheep!” he says, in such a voice that the distant echoes answer Eep. “Sheep for the slaughter. Hi-de-Hi!”

  “Ho-de-Ho!”

  “Now listen to me. I’m going to teach you some elementary drill movements. You don’t have to be a Bachelor of Science to do ’em. Millions have done ’em before. Millions will do ’em again. You don’t need a matriculation certificate to do it. Just be confident. Don’t be nervous. Keep calm, and do exactly as I tell you. And work! By God! Work with me and I’m as mild as your mummy’s milk. But work against me and I’ll kill ya! Look at me. I’m poison! I’m a rattlesnake! I kill more men than Diphtheria! Now for the time you’re here, you’ll shout the time of your movements out as you move.

  “For example. Look at me. I’m standing properly at attention. See? Heels together, feet at an angle of forty-five degrees, fingers curled up, head perfectly still, eyes straight to the front, chin in, back like a ruler, and thumbs in line with the seams of the trousers. (That’s what the seams of your trousers are for.) Now. I’m standing to attention. I get the order Left Turn. Le-heft … Tyeeern! The heel of my left foot be comes a pivot. I push with the toe of my right foot, and turn left. That’s One. I count a pause—Two, Three—then raise my right knee smartly and bring my right foot down in the correct position at an angle of forty-five degrees with a smash that cracks the asphalt—One! One … two … three…. One! Get it? You’ll only shout out the time while you’re here. By that time, the correct pause will become instinctive. Now, you. What’s ‘Instinctive’? What’s it mean?”

  He has picked on Bates. Bates grins. Then he says: “Loike a dog‚ Sergeant.”

  “What d’you mean, like a dog?”

  “Well, a dog’s instinctive, Sergeant.”

  “Oh, so a dog’s instinctive, is it? I’ll dog you, you stuffed dummy, you. I’ll instinctive you, you sloppy great Dane, you! You horrible thing! The correct movement—for the benefit of any brainless lout that doesn’t know the meaning of the English language—will come to you without your having to think about it, and so will the correct time. Anybody here done any navvying? … Several of you. Well, do you have to think how to get hold of a pick or a shovel? No. That’s instinctive. Definitely. Well, your arms will come to you like that. So will the proper use of your feet. Now listen,” says Sergeant Nelson, dropping his voice to an ordinary, conversational tone. “Some of you guys may be sensitive. I dunno. Well, don’t worry if I shout at you a bit and call you names. It’s essential. It’s impossible to get along without it. I’ve got to get you fairly proficient in eight or nine weeks. Always be sure that I won’t dish you out more than you can take, and I won’t punish any man unless he asks for it. Take everything in good part, and you’ll be all right.” He bellows: “Now, then! Come here. Lemme arrange you, like flowers in a garden … oh, you pretty-pretty bunch o’ soppy-stalked shy pansy-wansies. God definitely blimey, blimey with thunderbolts, blimey with lightning! You, you rasher of wind!” He drags Old Silence into place. “Atcha, you great roasted ox.” He pushes Hodge into position. “C’mon, you parrot-faced son of a son, Barker, or whatever your name is…. You, you gorbellier Geordie … yes, you, Shorrocks. There’s enough of you there to start a sausage factory…. And you, Dopey … where are you from? Widnes? Get in there…. Gor damme and lumme! Why should England tremble, eh? You’ve been in the A
rmy before, eh? I can see you have. Well, you come up here. Now look. You’re in your positions. You’ll always keep in those positions while you’re here. Get it? When told to fall in, you will fall in in those same positions, one arm’s length apart. Have you got it? Are you sure?”

  To our left, thirty men, followed by a shrieking Sergeant brandishing a pace-stick, execute a left wheel which, to us, represents the ultimate perfection of military footwork.

  “Gord milk the coconuts and stone me over the hurdles,” groans Sergeant Nelson, “look at ’em. Three weeks squadded, and when it comes to a left wheel some of ’em right wheel, some of ’em about turn, some of ’em turn handsprings, some of ’em pick their noses, and some stand still. Definitely horrible. Now you’re going to show ’em what you can do. To me, you look not too bad a squad. You might shape. Now look. Over there is a squad that came last week. I want you to do me a personal favour. I want you to beat them Things hollow. Your credit is my credit. I won’t let you down. Will you let me down?”

  “No, Sergeant!”

  “I’m sure you won’t. I like the look of you, you terrible-looking objects as you are. Now. You’ll be on this side of the Square punctual to time. That is to say, ten minutes too early, always. You will be clean and tidy, smart and attentive. Now, I want you to try and stand to attention like this…. No, no, head straight, eyes straight to your front, arms straight to your sides, backs straight…. Now, when I say Stand at Ease, raise your left knee, so, and bring your left foot down with a stamp, your heels twelve inches apart; and simultaneously, shoot your hands to your rear … like this … your thumbs crossed, fingers straight, right hand over the left. Now don’t worry if you can’t do it properly first time. I don’t expect you to. We’ve all got to learn. Now…. Stand at Hoooease!” He looks at us. “Keep still. In the Army, right or wrong—keep still!” He walks round us, pushing up a chin here, tapping down a head there, straightening fingers, adjusting heels.

  With the possible exception of a man in love, no man in the world is so desperately eager to please as the new recruit in the Army. He has his back to the yardstick of regimental tradition. For the duration of his time, his value will depend upon nothing but his proficiency as a soldier. The muscles of a rookie doing his first Stand at Ease are as taut as those of a man clinging for his life to a breaking branch.