Time at War Read Online Free

‘putting him on a charge’. This meant that he was taken up in front of a senior officer for punishment. I found I had great reluctance to put anyone on a charge: reproof could be left to the verbal pyrotechnics of the sergeants, from whom, as I had learned when in the ranks, this sort of thing was easy to accept. It seemed to suit the men if they could see their officer in some sort of predicament equivalent to their own; then they might feel some responsibility for him as well as vice versa. This was a lesson I learned that was most valuable later in the war.
    The other ranks whom the junior officers came in most personal contact with were the batmen who did the chores in the officers’ quarters; and they indeed seemed naturally to treat those who were nominally in charge of them like nannies with children. At the end of my time at Ranby, when I was away on some course before going on embarkation leave, my faithful batman Rifleman Baxter wrote to me –
    Dear Sir, thank you for your interesting letter on life at Cawthorne, it sounds an awful place, but I am not at all surprised because it is Yorks, and you can expect something of that sort from the cold wind prevailing, which leaves its unsunny mark on the countenance of the inhabitants. At a place like that you really need a good old soldier to make you comfortable, as they can always find ways and means. I hope that you are more fortunate than many others in having a decent chap who would also have to be a B-scrounger considering the wartime scarcity of certain necessities.
    One of the slightly more senior officers I remember with admiration and affection from Ranby was the Signals Officer Laurence Whistler, who would soon become famous for his beautiful engravings on glass. One of Laurence’s tasks was to teach us the Morse Code. He would tap out the passages from his favourite poems, and we had to unscramble these and write them down: it was a help if one had some prior knowledge of the particular piece. Laurence was also a memorable wit. Once, when we were having dinner in the mess and a more than usually unpalatable dish was placed in front of us, someone said, ‘What on earth is this?’ And Laurence said, ‘I think it’s the Piece of Cod that passeth all understanding.’
    In counterpoint to both the gaiety and the drudgery of life at Ranby, I carried on an earnest correspondence on the subject of religion with both my aunt and my father. My aunt was a fervent Christian; my father was not. My argument with my aunt had come about because she had becomeanxious that I was spending too many weekends perhaps pursuing ‘gaiety’ in London or at the homes of my friends rather than sticking to duty and commitment. I wrote –
    Somebody must have been whispering some very wicked things into your ear. The idea that a Rifle Brigade officer is not allowed to venture more than 5 miles from camp is so much precious nonsense. And to take Saturday night off – well, agreed it is against the rules, but similarly it is forbidden to wear anything except army underwear, and you will not find many level-headed men, let alone an officer, keeping within the bounds of that law. Seriously, even if anyone of any importance should know – and I cannot see that they should – they would care really very little. They might make it an excuse upon which to start a row if they were dissatisfied with my work, but otherwise, Lord, they don’t mind.
    And the old red herring about shouldn’t I suffer as my men – well really, that is a question that I settled to my own satisfaction a long time ago. Do my men mind? Heavens no. They ask me fondly after London every Monday morning. I show them that I can plunge around with them during the week, and do a great deal more work than they do too, and they judge me on my ability to handle them, and not on the amount of self-suffering I can impose upon myself when off duty. Surely this