The Spreading of Military Manure

“You there stand still” screamed a voice two feet behind me. I stopped in my tracks and turned to look into the face of the soldier who was glaring at me like I’d seduced his sister. Having just jumped down from the truck that had brought us from the station I wondered what sort of hideous offence I could possibly have committed in the fifteen seconds I’d been under military control. He was about to enlighten me.

He walked across and picked up one of my bags from near the truck. He held it in front of my face suspended on two fingers like it was contaminated with some god-awful disease. “Didn’t I see you get off that fuckin’ truck with this?” he asked his voice deceptively quiet.

“Oh yes thanks corporal” I smiled reaching for the bag I’d forgotten, “thank you.”

He pulled it out of my reach his face going a deep crimson “Corporal? Fuckin’ corporal?” he screamed. You’re in the Royal Artillery now lad you address me as bombardier” he paused then leaned into my face yelling, “Bom-bar-fuckin’-dier” “You understand?”

“Yes bombardier” I blurted feeling foolish.

Jaysus preserve us I thought, I’ve been in the bloody place less than a minute and I’m getting bollocked already.

“What’s yer fuckin’ name?” he shouted a few decibels lower.

“Gilhooley bombardier, Jonathon Gilhooley I stammered.” He consulted a list attached to his clipboard..

“Oh shit you’re one of mine” he groaned then raising his eyes to the heavens in mock prayer and asked “What have I done to deserve him Lord? What the fuck have I done?”

I thought his reaction was a little bit over the top for the tiny error of momentarily forgetting a bag as I fell in with the rest of the new recruits for the march to our accommodation. When we arrived to my surprise Bdr Grant, aka Grant-the-Rant, my tormentor of a few minutes ago, came up to me and spoke in an almost normal tone saying he’d been watching me on the march to the barracks and it was obvious I’d marched before. How on earth he could tell that when I’d been carrying so much luggage I couldn’t fathom but I confirmed I’d been in the Territorial Army as an infantryman for the last year or so and before that I was an army cadet.

“Ah so that’s why you called me corporal eh?” he almost smiled then spat “Well keep your fuckin’ nose clean an’ do as you’re fuckin’ well told an’ we’ll get along just fuckin’ fine ok?”
 

I joined the British Army in 1960 as an eighteen year old regular soldier to escape a violent drunkard of a father; it was a different world back then although conscription, known as National Service, had been discontinued a couple of year’s earlier conscripts were still being called up. These were the men whose service had been deferred so that they could finish apprenticeships or degree courses at university.

They were from every layer of the social strata. For a lad fresh from the suburbs of Manchester I was in for a few surprises. For instance one of the NS men was a pimp who ran girls on the streets of Birmingham at the other end of the scale was a vicar’s son who knelt on his bed every night and prayed we also had an Oxbridge type with a plumy voice who’s protest at conscription had been to refuse to become a commissioned officer. You name it we had it!

After a awful night’s sleep on a lumpy mattress I was rudely awakened by the duty junior non commissioned officer (NCO) walking down the length of the barrack room banging our bed ends with his stick shouting “hands off cocks and on with socks, breakfast in five minutes.”

I crawled out of bed bleary eyed got dressed and joined the parade outside to be marched to the cook house. The rest of the day was a blur of visiting stores to draw kit then being shown how to wear it then it was off for a haircut on to the medical centre for a battery of injections against diseases I’d never heard of. By the time the day was over I crawled into bed and slept like a log lumps or no lumps.

In those first days my fellow recruits and I sized each other up and we started to bond. We fell into two categories National Servicemen and regulars.Some of the NS men resented being in the Army but the vast majority were resigned to making the most of it since they had no choice anyway. One exception to this was a Welshman called Menmure.

Menmure told us “my father is Scottish, my mother Irish and I was born and bred in Wales so why should I join the English fuckin’ army?”

The fact that it was the British Army seemed to escape him completely.

We were on parade waiting to be marched to a lecture on personal hygiene to be given by the medical officer. The roll was called and Menmure was absent.

After Bdr. Grant had dispatched two men with the instruction “Find the bastard an’ get his fuckin’ arse here sharpish” he spent the next five minutes looking at his watch and pacing nervously.

At last the men returned to report “He’s in the shithouse Bom; says he’s can’t come.”

Grant couldn’t have looked more astonished if you’d thrown a bucket of cold water over him. “Can’t come?” his scream sounded almost hysterical “we’ll soon fuckin’ see about that” and he   shot into the hut complex. a minute later he was back pushing Menmure, who was hurriedly donning his belt and beret, before him.

We were made to run or double march as the army calls it about half a mile to the other side of the camp.

Grant was Calling “lef’ ri’ lef’ ri’ lef’ ri’ lef” as if his life depended on urging us on with the greatest speed possible.

When we got there our troop sergeant, Harry Joseph (Grumpy) Graham, was walking up and down looking at his watch. “You’re late bombardier” he bellowed

“Yes Sergeant.”

“See me after this parade Bom.” Grumpy sounded ominous.

In the army shit travels downward in strict order of rank gatherng both volume and velocity on its way. The medical officer who was giving the lecture had told Sgt. Graham of his displeasure at our lack of punctuality he in turn had taken action by severely bollocking Grant-the-Rant the bombardier in his turn would make all our lives hell to impress upon us the need for punctuality. This was a lesson we wouldn’t forget in a hurry.

After the lecture we were told by Grant that we were the ‘idlest bunch of wankers it had ever been his misfortune to clap eyes on.’  We were ordered to change into our physical training kit and fall in on the road. Given just two minutes to complete this task we were taken for a five mile run by Grant who was a cross country runner of no mean talent.

On our return exhausted and filthy he ordered us down on our faces to perform fifty push-ups. No half hearted efforts were accepted he wanted, and got, fifty of the best. All this extra activity took time and we missed our evening meal. Manure needed to have his attitude adjusted.

Before he allowed us into the showers Grant told us that we had to parade again in the same kit washed and ironed at 0600hrs the next morning. This of course meant that as well as the normal barrack room and kit cleaning we had to stay up late washing, ironing and scrubbing mud off plimsolls.

By way of excuse Menmure said he’d been caught short and simply had to go to the toilet he didn’t apologise but simply went into a defensive sulk. This was the first of many excuses and evasions we were to get from this character and the first of many punishments we had to suffer as a result of his reluctance to soldier. Things had to change.

Next morning we had to drag Menmure out of bed, he was given a couple of swift body punches with the promise of more should he dropped us in it again that day. We duly paraded present and correct five minutes before the appointed hour. Grant then inspected us. He stopped before me and felt my sleeve.

“Your kit’s still wet Gilhooley” he said with a questioning look in his eye.

“Yes Bombardier” I shouted to my front.

“Why?”

“You said washed and ironed Bombardier nothing about it being dry.”

His response surprised me “Good man” he said “I’ve got at least one fucker who listens to what he’s told.”

Most of the others had stayed up very late drying their kit by repeatedly ironing it taking it in turns with the two irons we shared between the eighteen of us. Well I figured it would be wet with sweat very soon after putting it on anyway and I needed my sleep.

Grant-the-Rant bawled "Right we'll do another five miler." and we all groaned.

As it turned out he relented after three miles and we cut across some fields back to camp in time for breakfast.

The next time Manure dropped us in the shit was on barrack room inspection by our troop commander a lieutenant with piggy eyes, a broken nose and a missing tooth; Lt. Pallmore had been an Oxford boxing Blue but judging by the state of his face he hadn’t been all that good at it. Pallmore had an uncanny knack of finding shit.

We stood beside our beds straining at attention as Pallmore walk casually among our bed spaces. Of course the one he singled out for close attention was Manure’s. Walking to the bed head he brushed his hand along the rail that ran underneath which, of course, manure had neglected to clean.

The officer's face remained impassive as he showed his white gloved hand to Manure. “What’s this?” he inquired his voice deadly quiet.

“It’s dust sir” replied Manure.

“It’s shit man, shit!” Pallmore hissed. He showed the stained glove to Grumpy.

“This room S’han’t Graham is in shit order from top to bottom. I’ll inspect it again on Wednesday afternoon four o’clock sharp.”

Grumpy slammed up to attention and saluted bawling “Sah!” at the back of the departing officer.

The shit then hit the fan in huge volumes and was liberally spread amongst us.




2
The only semi leisure day during basic training in the army of those days was a Wednesday afternoon which was dedicated to sport. My favourite sport was cross country running because I could run a whole half mile to the local transport cafe, buy a bacon roll and a large steaming mug of tea then, along with half a dozen other ‘keen’ runners, spend the afternoon reading the paper or trying vainly to chat up the girl behind the counter.

 
Grumpy Graham’s favourite punishment was to cancel sports afternoon and have barrack room cleaning instead. He’d tell us who or what had caused his displeasure and the offender, if we judged him at fault, then got ‘disciplined’ by the rest of us.

Menmure was usually the cause of such punishments and as a result was detested. A spoilt brat whose father ran a successful business, he made it plain that he was above such menial tasks as cleaning his kit. This of course led to punishments galore and after several beatings and a cold bath Manure failed to change his ways for more than a day or so before he slipped back into his customary sloth so an action plan to rid ourselves of him was desperately needed.
 
The only practical way to be shot of this pariah, Bdr Grant informed us, was to have him back squadded to one of the later intakes. Not an easy task this and we puzzled upon many a weird plan until my friend ‘Tommo’ Thompson came up with a bright idea.
 
Tommo, Gorgdie, Bruce and me were sitting in the NAAFI* drinking a beer one pay night discussing the problem of Menmure when Tommo said “We’ll have to break the bastard’s leg that’ll do the trick.”

“Ow the fuck wi goin’ t’ manage that?” Bruce enquired in his broad Yorkshire accent.

Tommo grinned and produced a box of matches. “We draw lots to do the twat.” he replied with an evil glint in his eye.

The more beer we consumed the better we liked Tommo's plan.
 
I of course drew the short match. Bloody hell I thought why me? Before I could think of an excuse I found myself bundled out of the NAAFI where a pickaxe handle was thrust into my sweating palm and I was given a piece of hessian sacking to wrap around my face then I was propelled toward our barrack hut wherein Manure was alone reading a book on his bed.
 
I hesitated by the door for a moment and Menmure looked up and saw me.

“Right cunt” I said advancing on him, swinging the pick helve and trying to sound hard.

Manure he gave a startled yelp, dropped his book and ran for the fire exit at the bottom end of the room. Before my beer fuddled head could instruct me to run after him I heard him scream. On reaching the fire door I saw him lying spread-eagled and groaning half way in a manhole from which someone had removed the cover.

Guess what? Oh joy! The bastard had broken his leg!  
 
Post script:  I got to know Tommo very well in his two years service he had a keen intelligence and was always working on some nefarious plot or ploy to get out of doing cookhouse fatigues or guard duty; the bugger was often successful too.

It occurred to me that, as the pick helve and hessian sacking had been very conveniently to hand that night, and that the manhole cover had been mysteriously removed for no apparent reason, that Tommo had planned the whole thing well in advance although when challenged he vehemently denied it.
 
After that I was known as the bloke who “fixed” Menmure even after several years of service when being introduced to soldiers newly posted from other units some would say things like “Oh yeah I’ve heard of you, you’re the bloke who broke some cunt’s leg with a pick helve ain’t you?”  Talk about give a dog a bad name!

*NAAFI stands for Navy Army and Air Force Institutes. Or as the National Servicemen said it stood for: No Ambition And Fuck-all Interest!