Read Online Sergeant Nelson of the Guards by Gerald Kersh - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Gerald Kersh
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serge, pairs, two, or one suit of Best and another for Second Best; a greatcoat. The kitbag bulges. Trained Soldier Brand sweats and strains like a man with a thirty-mule team. Do we think we’re done yet, he asks. Oho. Let us not think so for a moment. If we want his candid opinion, we haven’t begun yet. There is Web Equipment yet to be drawn. We draw it … a large valise, a small pack, two ammunition pouches, bayonet frog, a tangle of strange straps with brass D’s and dim buckles, a thing to contain a water bottle, and a water bottle for it to contain. Is this all? Ha. This, says Trained Soldier Brand, is far from all. This is by no means all. There is still a ground sheet to come; and an anti-gas cape; and a respirator, and a respirator case, and a strap to hang it on; and another kind of anti-gas cape, rubberized and obsolete, but useful for training purposes; and a badge; and mess tins; and a canvas bag to keep mess tins in; and a steel helmet complete with chinstrap and lining; and a clothesbrush, and a button-stick, and a button-brush, and a shaving-brush , and two bootbrushes, and a toothbrush, and a nailbrush, and a safety razor complete with blades, one, unusable except by downy creatures not more than six months on the wrong side of puberty. Then, ofcourse, every man must have a rifle, a Short Lee Enfield, together with a bayonet.
There is a stupendous clicking of pressed triggers, and an uproar of “You’re dead,” until the Trained Soldier says, very sourly:
“Say there was bullets up the spouts of them rifles. Say there was live rounds. There couldn’t be, but just say. Well, you’d all be dead. It is strictly forbidden to point your rifle in the hut. I’m decent. I’m good-hearted . I’m one o’ the best, I am. But I can be a lousy, rotten swine if I want to. And I’ll put any of you inside that I ketch pointing rifles or assing about with bayonets—fencing, and throwing ’em, and chopping up wood or anything. So don’t you go and do it. School kids. Who goes fencing about with dangerous bayonets in huts? Soppy little girls do that, not Guardsmen. Now look. You’re in Lance-Sergeant Nelson’s Squad, Z Company, Coldstream Guards, Guards’ Depot, Caterham. Got it? And I’m your Trained Soldier, Trained Soldier Brand. Got it? Well, get it if you ain’t got it. This is your hut …”
We look. A great, scoured box; two stoves; ninety planks on sixty trestles, making thirty little wooden beds; a coal tub, two galvanized iron buckets, three brooms, a long scrubber, a mop, two scrubbing brushes.
“… This is your hut. From now on, this is going to be your home. And it will be kept as such—so clean you could eat fried eggs off the floor, just like you do at home. God help the dirty man in the Brigade of Guards. God help the man who goes around in tripe! Personally,” says Trained Soldier Brand, in a burst of friendly confidence, “I never used to use a nailbrush myself, for the simple reason that I used to bite my nails down to the quick. But then I lost all my teeth. And look at my nails now. Look how clean. I want to see every man’s nails like them. I’m proud of my fingernails, now.
“Everybody pick himself a bed. Keep it. You’re responsible for the tidiness of your bed area, and everything connected with it. There is only one right way of doing a thing, and that is the Army way. I amhere to show you what to do. Come round me in a circle, and I’ll have a chat with you. I want to get to know you.”
*
He looks us over. He says: “It takes all sorts to make a world … and then what have you got? What’s your name?”
“Shorrocks, Trained Soldier.”
“What was your job in Civvy Street?”
“I was a grocer. I’ve got my own business.”
“What’s your religion? Not that I care a damn.”
“Congregationalist.”
“Well, every man is entitled to his own whatsiname. I’m a bit of a Mohammedan, myself. But I goes down as C. of E. There’s services for C. of
There is a stupendous clicking of pressed triggers, and an uproar of “You’re dead,” until the Trained Soldier says, very sourly:
“Say there was bullets up the spouts of them rifles. Say there was live rounds. There couldn’t be, but just say. Well, you’d all be dead. It is strictly forbidden to point your rifle in the hut. I’m decent. I’m good-hearted . I’m one o’ the best, I am. But I can be a lousy, rotten swine if I want to. And I’ll put any of you inside that I ketch pointing rifles or assing about with bayonets—fencing, and throwing ’em, and chopping up wood or anything. So don’t you go and do it. School kids. Who goes fencing about with dangerous bayonets in huts? Soppy little girls do that, not Guardsmen. Now look. You’re in Lance-Sergeant Nelson’s Squad, Z Company, Coldstream Guards, Guards’ Depot, Caterham. Got it? And I’m your Trained Soldier, Trained Soldier Brand. Got it? Well, get it if you ain’t got it. This is your hut …”
We look. A great, scoured box; two stoves; ninety planks on sixty trestles, making thirty little wooden beds; a coal tub, two galvanized iron buckets, three brooms, a long scrubber, a mop, two scrubbing brushes.
“… This is your hut. From now on, this is going to be your home. And it will be kept as such—so clean you could eat fried eggs off the floor, just like you do at home. God help the dirty man in the Brigade of Guards. God help the man who goes around in tripe! Personally,” says Trained Soldier Brand, in a burst of friendly confidence, “I never used to use a nailbrush myself, for the simple reason that I used to bite my nails down to the quick. But then I lost all my teeth. And look at my nails now. Look how clean. I want to see every man’s nails like them. I’m proud of my fingernails, now.
“Everybody pick himself a bed. Keep it. You’re responsible for the tidiness of your bed area, and everything connected with it. There is only one right way of doing a thing, and that is the Army way. I amhere to show you what to do. Come round me in a circle, and I’ll have a chat with you. I want to get to know you.”
*
He looks us over. He says: “It takes all sorts to make a world … and then what have you got? What’s your name?”
“Shorrocks, Trained Soldier.”
“What was your job in Civvy Street?”
“I was a grocer. I’ve got my own business.”
“What’s your religion? Not that I care a damn.”
“Congregationalist.”
“Well, every man is entitled to his own whatsiname. I’m a bit of a Mohammedan, myself. But I goes down as C. of E. There’s services for C. of
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