And in order that, as far as possible, carpenters might be sent to units where they wanted carpenters, surveyors where they wanted surveyors, and so on, we were all, soon after arrival, trade-tested to see what special skills we had. And to this end No. 2 Sub-Section was fallen-in, right-dressed, open-order-marched, right-turned, and by-the-left-quick-marched down to a Nissen hut inside which there was waiting for us a small, elderly captain wearing the ribbons of the First World War. And one at a time we went before him.
‘Sapper Milne.’
‘Sir.’
‘What trade?’
‘Carpenter and Joiner, Sir.’
He looked at me, puzzled.
‘What were you doing before you joined the army, Sapper?’
‘I was at Cambridge, Sir.’
He looked at me, worried.
‘You’d be better off as a clerk,’ he said. ‘Can you type?’
‘A little, Sir.’
He had a large book on his desk before him and thumbed through it to the section on clerks.
‘What is your typing speed?’
‘Sir, I can’t really type, and I’d much rather be a carpenter, please, Sir.’
He looked at me sadly, shook his head and sighed. For a dreadful moment my fate seemed to hang in the balance. I had so set my heart on being a Carpenter! It would be so awful to be made a Clerk and to have to sit at my typewriter while others were outside having all the fun! Then to my intense relief he relented. A pale, wintry smile came and went. ‘All right,’ he said, and thumbed through the book again to the section on carpenters.
‘Now then, Sapper. . . . What joint would you use to join a trimmer to a trimming joist?’
I could hardly believe it! Immediately Modern Practical Carpentry (1906 edition) opened before my eyes. Chapter 2: ‘Joints and Fastenings’. Chapter 5: ‘Floors and Flooring’.
‘Tusk tenon, Sir.’ And I could have gone on to tell him how this joint was often constructed wrongly, through ignorance of the stresses it had to meet. I would not have constructed it wrongly. I would not have placed my mortice too low where the fibres of the trimming joist were in tension. . . . But he had gone on to the next question.
‘What joint would you use between the lock rail and the swinging stile of a panelled door?’
Now it was the turn of Modern Practical Joinery.
‘A pair of double tenons, Sir.’
In all I was asked six questions and to each of them George Ellis and I gave the answer pat. And if a seventh had been: ‘What tool would you use for the preliminary dressing off of floor boards, &c?’ and if I had answered that in Mr Ellis’s younger days he had employed the adze, I am sure that the small, elderly captain would have been delighted. ‘Quite right, Sapper, quite right. The army still employs the adze, and a very useful tool it is, too.’
But six were enough to qualify me. ‘All right, Sapper. You have passed your trade test and your pay will be increased forthwith from two-and-nine a day to three-and-six.’
I saluted and marched from the room ablaze with pride and happiness.
Yet proud though I was, I was nevertheless conscious of not being quite the real article. ‘You’re a carpenter, too? What was your job in civvy street?’ I dreaded this and got round it with much embarrassment and I hoped not too much mendacity. ‘I was working for my father. He’s got a farm.’ It was accepted.
However, my real test came a few weeks later. We were on parade and had been inspected to see that we had shaved and had polished our cap badges properly. And then the Sergeant-Major struck terror into my heart.
‘Fall out the carpenters and joiners!’ he roared.
For a moment I hesitated. Would all now be discovered? Would it be safer to pretend that I hadn’t heard (unlikely) or hadn’t quite understood (no less improbable)? In the end I fell – and joined three or four others. ‘You Sappers report to Corporal Morgan who will tell you what he wants doing.’
It was easy. No double tenoning, no adze work, just unscrewing beds and screwing them down again in different positions. I watched to see how the professional did it, then hammered my screws in with the best of them. That was the first and the last time that I put my trade to practical use during my five years with the Royal Engineers. I never held a hammer again.
Somewhere around late April or early May the whole Training Battalion left Newark and moved south to a large camp at Barton Stacey in Hampshire. The sun was shining, and, as we marched from the railway station along narrow country lanes, the hedges were ablaze with leaf. At one point my neighbour, looking around him at all that greenery, sang out: ‘Hey, lads, what sort of a God-forsaken hole is this they’re taking us to?’ But God-forsaken though it was to most of us, to me it was like coming home: the warm, fragrant, friendly south, after my winter in the hard, urban, industrial north.
I have the very happiest memories of Barton Stacey, of visits to Winchester, of feeling the chalk downs beneath my army-booted feet. It was here that I became at last a fully trained Sapper; and here that, six weeks later, I emerged from another spell of training with the rank of Temporary Acting Unpaid Lance Corporal. Now I was really someone of importance! I sewed on my stripe and swaggered about with immense pride. I was no longer one of a squad, falling in and being marched to wherever it was we had to go, no longer one of a flock of sheep. I was the sheep dog, moving up and down my column as the fancy took me, barking at them to keep them in order. ‘Left, left, left, right, left.’ I bawled. ‘Come along. Move sharply there!’
And my sheep? They were a ‘pre-OCTU’ Class. That is to say they were an assortment of Sappers, Corporals and Sergeants, some very new to the army, others with quite long service, and now all lumped together as Officer Cadets. After six weeks at Barton Stacey they would be going on to Aldershot to one of the two RE OCTUs for a further six months’ training, after which they would become Second Lieutenants. ‘Left, left, left, right, left. You may have been a Sergeant last week but now you’re only a Cadet. So chin in, chest out and swing your arms!’ I might as well enjoy all this while I could, for I knew that it wasn’t going to last, that my turn was coming, that the sheep dog would soon be returning to the flock. And so it was. When I had barked that Class out through the gates of Barton Stacey for the last time, I unsewed my stripe and became a Cadet myself. ‘Left, left, left, right, left!’ Now I was having to come-along-move-sharply-there. And six weeks later, on a cold January morning, the sky grey, the fields white with thin snow, I in my turn was marched through the gates, down the road, bound for Aldershot.
It was at Aldershot that I discovered the sort of soldier that I was never going to become. I could be Sapper Milne, one of thirty or so, indistinguishable from his fellows; and I could be Lance Corporal Milne, strutting about on his own. But I was no good at being Cadet Milne, an individual in a group. It was like being at school again, having to be gregarious, while at the same time trying to outshine the others. I had enjoyed being drilled as a Sapper. There was point to it then: we were being moulded into a homogeneous, cohesive body of men in which all individuality was suppressed. This was the way it was done, and one could take a pride in the result. But at Aldershot it was only for convenience that we were drilled as a squad, all doing the same thing to the single order of command. For the object of our training now was to turn us back into individuals. So I disliked our numerous sessions under the Senior Drill Instructor; and polishing my boots and my brasses became a bore. And as to the rest of my training, well, if I am honest and try to picture myself as I must have looked to my instructors, I wouldn’t blame them if what they saw was a young man, a very young man, technically quite able, perhaps, but lacking in most of the more general qualities one looks for in an officer. . . . So let me hurry on to the day when it all came to an end, a day at the beginning of July.
Here we were then, thirty or so infant Second Lieutenants, fitted out by the Aldershot tailors with Great Coat, Service Dress, Sam Browne and Peaked Cap. Where were we all going?
Well, there might have been a few of us whose specialized skills demanded that they were posted to units needing those particular skills. But for the rest we were just ordinary, moderately competent Engineers, with a rudimentary knowledge of building construction, mechanics, explosives, surveying and such like, and able to handle the equipment with which the army provided us. We could never have designed and built a wooden bridge across the Mohawk River, but give us the standard Folding Boat Equipment or Small Box Girder and a Section of Sappers under an experienced NCO and we wouldn’t have disgraced ourselves. Some, of course, would have performed better than others. Some of us radiated self-confidence. Some of us were clearly born leaders. Others weren’t.
It was generally accepted in the Engineers that the best jobs were those nearest to the enemy. So the best Cadets were posted to the Divisions; the less good went to Corps or Army Engineer Companies; the indifferent went to Line of Communication Units; the rather feeble, who needed a bit of extra experience before being given any very responsible command, went to the Training Battalions. And the most feeble of the lot didn’t get a proper posting at all, but were sent here, there, anywhere – as Supernumeraries.
It was as a Supernumerary that Second Lieutenant Milne was posted to HQRE 56 (London) Division then at Sible Hedingham in Essex.
4. Reflections on War
It soon became clear why I had been posted to 56 Division: the Division was mobilizing for service overseas. This entailed – among other things – a sorting out of the troops and equipment that were to go from those that were to be left behind. For each unit would be leaving behind a rear party – consisting of the less young, the less fit – whose main task before being disbanded would be to tidy up. Here was a job just waiting for a Supernumerary Officer. Second Lieutenant Milne would take charge of one of the tidying-up parties.
So why didn’t I? I was never told, and I shan’t now attempt to guess. I shall just record the fact that one morning after breakfast the CRE, Lt-Col Keane, said to me, almost casually: ‘By the way, Milne, would you like to come with us?’ and I nearly passed put with pleasure.
At this point I must pause. You can if you like imagine the pause as taking place during my embarkation leave at Cotchford. During those seven days there would have been plenty of time for contemplation, for going through my thoughts and feelings and trying to understand them. And this is what I would like to do now.
So far the war had been for me no more than a succession of newspaper reports on the one hand and a sort of continuation of school on the other. Battles were being fought in Africa, in Malay, on the Atlantic, even in the blue sky over Cotchford, but the reality of war had not yet touched me. I had seen a bombed building or two on my rare visits to London – but it could have been the work of a demolition company. I had seen the remains, of a German bomber lying in a Sussex field – but it was no more alarming than a piece of rusting farm machinery. I had been taught how to use a bayonet, jabbing it into a straw-filled dummy – but the dummy didn’t jab back or cry out in agony. I had yet to experience the real thing at first hand. I had yet to come face to face with fear.
This meeting was now not so far away. What would it be like? How would I react to it? Would I indeed survive? These were the three questions I was asking myself as I walked round and round the garden and then across the meadow, along the river, through Posingford and up to the forest. I was saying goodbye to it all. For ever? Yes, for ever. For of my three questions it was only the last that I could answer with absolute certainty. I would not survive. The thought didn’t particularly bother me; for I had no very special reason for not wanting to die. The other two questions were much more important.
I can answer them both now; and to some extent I must try to do so.
If I were merely writing an account of my adventures, then the first question would be the one to engage my attention. Thus I did, and thus and thus and thus. But too many war stories of this kind have been written for me to want to add to their number. And in any case, compared with those epics that still tingle the blood, my story is tame and unexciting. So I turn rather to the second question: how did I react to it all? This is far more interesting.
Dare I suggest that it is not just more interesting, it is also more important? For if we are to prevent war we must first understand it. And in particular we must understand how it is that, while all reason is against it, yet instinct and emotion may draw us towards it, so that even someone who before 1941 and after 1946 could hardly have looked less like a soldier yet managed to find in those terrible years something of lasting value, something which, in its curious way, gave and still gives immense satisfaction.
War is like the application of heat to a chemical process: it speeds things up. It speeds up the progress of science, the march of civilization. This, I think, we all recognize. It also speeds up the development – especially the emotional development – of the individual. In a single year of war we can experience all the emotions of ten years of peace. They come fairly bubbling up within us. Indeed they may even come bubbling over, and in extreme cases the whole apparatus may explode. But if the bubbling is under control and is not excessive the outcome for the individual is not necessarily bad. I say this with great reluctance, hating to put forward anything that might seem a recommendation of war. Nevertheless it is, I think, generally true that good and bad can never be entirely separated from each other, that although at times the one may dominate the scene, the other will still manage to put in an occasional appearance. And this is true even of war. War is like strychnine. A poison, yes, and one wouldn’t recommend that it should be put on sale in all grocers’ shops. Yet this is not to deny that sometimes, in very small doses, there are certain ailments that it may help to cure.
Like so many of my contemporaries I experienced all the familiar, if today somewhat tarnished, emotions. The rallying cries of our leaders, the valiant deeds of our warriors stirred me profoundly. I had no doubts: the war in which we were engaged was a crusade against the forces of Evil, a conflict in which I must play my part. My king and Country needed me. So here I was eager to offer my services, proud that my offer had been – despite that first terrible visit to Brighton – accepted. Dulce et decorum est. . . . Oh, yes: all that sort of thing. Not expressed so crudely, of course, but felt, very deeply felt. The emotions that had stirred our fathers and our grandfathers before us, that had stirred young men from the beginning of time, were still alive. Even as recently as 1940, even after all the disillusion of 1914-18, war still had that power over us.
The process of growing up is in part a process of getting to know oneself. Who am I? There is no one to tell us. We must find out for ourselves, and we can only find out by trial and error. This is often painful and the lessons discouraging. So the happy man is he who learns quickly and who then makes the best of it. I had already learned a number of things about myself. I knew that I was shy, emotional, young for my age, unadventurous, and that while others were covering themselves with mud and glory on the rugger field I preferred more peaceful surroundings. Frankly I was not the warrior type, not the stuff of heroes. Nor were these my only disqualifications. There was something far more serious, something that had dominated my life as a schoolboy and now seemed likely to dominate it in the army. My stammer. Even today it is painful to recall the pain – indeed the agony and the misery – that this used to cause me. There are some who can take what seems a grim pleasure in spluttering their way from word to word, leaving only their listeners to feel uncomfortable. But not I. And the memories of those battles with words, battles fought and lost, are with me still. At school I learned Greek. Today only a dozen words survive, one of which is fronimos. Its meaning is gone; its claim to immortality dates from the day when it took my tongue what seemed like half an hour to negotiate its ‘comparative’ and ‘superlative’ forms. And there were plenty of other, similar occasions, and would indeed have been more if I hadn’t always done my utmost to dodge them when I saw them approaching
. I knew my limitations. I knew when I was at my worst: reading aloud (which ruined Shakespeare for me), using the telephone, making polite conversation to grown-ups. And when I could I ran away.
So although, when contemplating my future military career, I might allow myself delightful Walter Mitty-like dreams in which single-handed I defied the enemy while bullets whistled past me and shells pattered around like hail, in more sober moments I well knew there were certain things that were quite beyond me. I might just possibly be capable of brave deeds, but brave words were out of the question. And so if, back in June 1940, I had attempted to assemble all my thoughts on paper, this is what I might then have written:
The Path Through the Trees Page 4