a great dark hand for an instant on Thurstan’s shoulder. Thurstan bobs up and back like a hammer in a piano, tense and defensive. The Staff Sergeant glances at him and yawns. Then he says:
“None of you are. Any good. Civilians. City-bred, some of you. Doughy. Sloppy. Unfit. Most of you’d be puffed after running. A mile. Hn. We’ll alter all that.” He clears his throat, and then goes on, in the voice of a lecturer, but with an undertone of weariness. (After all, he has been saying the same thing over and over again, day in and day out, for so very long.) He says:
“It is my duty to make you fit and strong in order that you may serve your country to the full extent of your capacity. Some of you went in for sports and physical culture in peacetime. All the better for them that did. You all ought to have done so. A man who neglects the body God gave him is worse than a beast. And if you’ve neglected yourselves and let yourselves get short-winded and soft, well, you’ll suffer for that in the first week or two: it’ll come hard, very hard. You get a lot of P.T. here. You’ve got to be hammered into shape. I can’t show you any mercy, even if I wanted to … and I don’t.
“I hope you enjoy the P.T. you get here. If you don’t, it makes no odds. So you’d better for your own sakes. It isn’t all arm-and-leg exercises.Now, we play a lot of games and do a lot of nice running. Above all, we teach a new kind of thing which we call Unarmed Combat.
“What is Unarmed Combat? Well, it’s nothing more or less than dirty, roughhouse fighting … self-defence other than Queensberry method. Call it All-In Wrestling … a bit of Catch-As-Catch-Can, Ju-Jitsu, Judo, anything you like. The idea is this: you’re up against Jerry. Jerry is ruthless. Jerry won’t lead with his left in hand-to-hand fighting: he’ll more likely bite you in the face and kick. The principle is, that a break-hold, or a gouge, or a properly placed kick or twist, well applied, might save your life in an emergency. I teach you ruthless, unscrupulous, roughhouse tactics, to be used if and when occasion demands. And furthermore, Unarmed Combat gives you confidence in yourselves, and helps you to a proper co-ordination of eye and hand and foot. For instance …”
The Staff Sergeant reaches out, casually, as one might reach for a cigarette; and almost as effortlessly picks up a great Sergeant Instructor in a blue-and-red striped sweater and a Sandow moustache.
“This kind of thing,” says the Staff Sergeant, hurling the striped one to the earth and hauling his right hand back between his shoulder-blades , “is useful sometimes. But you have to be quick, not necessarily strong, but quick to do it, and speed is always useful, in every walk of life.”
The striped Sergeant is black in the face and moaning. The Staff Sergeant releases him. “Sergeant Paul,” he says, “rush me.”
“Must I, Staff? You’ve demonstrated on me twice already today.”
“Yes, you must.”
The striped one walks twenty feet away, and then makes a desperate rush upon the Staff Sergeant. He hopes to bear the grim one down by sheer weight and vigour. A second or so later he is spinning through the air. “Watch him fall,” says Staff. “If he didn’t know how to fall he’d break his neck. Or maybe an arm.” The striped Sergeant rolls over and over, and finally rises, covered with dry grass and somewhat angry.
The Staff Sergeant turns back to us. He has the calm, languid air ofa man who has just thrown away an empty cigarette packet. “You might go a bit easy on these demonstrations,” says Sergeant Paul. “There was a stone where I fell.”
“Well, the stone had no right to be there. All right. I just wanted to have a word with you. You can’t be good soldiers unless you’re fit. It’s up to me to make you fit, and up to you to help me.” And the Staff Sergeant repeats something we have heard before, and are destined to hear many times
“None of you are. Any good. Civilians. City-bred, some of you. Doughy. Sloppy. Unfit. Most of you’d be puffed after running. A mile. Hn. We’ll alter all that.” He clears his throat, and then goes on, in the voice of a lecturer, but with an undertone of weariness. (After all, he has been saying the same thing over and over again, day in and day out, for so very long.) He says:
“It is my duty to make you fit and strong in order that you may serve your country to the full extent of your capacity. Some of you went in for sports and physical culture in peacetime. All the better for them that did. You all ought to have done so. A man who neglects the body God gave him is worse than a beast. And if you’ve neglected yourselves and let yourselves get short-winded and soft, well, you’ll suffer for that in the first week or two: it’ll come hard, very hard. You get a lot of P.T. here. You’ve got to be hammered into shape. I can’t show you any mercy, even if I wanted to … and I don’t.
“I hope you enjoy the P.T. you get here. If you don’t, it makes no odds. So you’d better for your own sakes. It isn’t all arm-and-leg exercises.Now, we play a lot of games and do a lot of nice running. Above all, we teach a new kind of thing which we call Unarmed Combat.
“What is Unarmed Combat? Well, it’s nothing more or less than dirty, roughhouse fighting … self-defence other than Queensberry method. Call it All-In Wrestling … a bit of Catch-As-Catch-Can, Ju-Jitsu, Judo, anything you like. The idea is this: you’re up against Jerry. Jerry is ruthless. Jerry won’t lead with his left in hand-to-hand fighting: he’ll more likely bite you in the face and kick. The principle is, that a break-hold, or a gouge, or a properly placed kick or twist, well applied, might save your life in an emergency. I teach you ruthless, unscrupulous, roughhouse tactics, to be used if and when occasion demands. And furthermore, Unarmed Combat gives you confidence in yourselves, and helps you to a proper co-ordination of eye and hand and foot. For instance …”
The Staff Sergeant reaches out, casually, as one might reach for a cigarette; and almost as effortlessly picks up a great Sergeant Instructor in a blue-and-red striped sweater and a Sandow moustache.
“This kind of thing,” says the Staff Sergeant, hurling the striped one to the earth and hauling his right hand back between his shoulder-blades , “is useful sometimes. But you have to be quick, not necessarily strong, but quick to do it, and speed is always useful, in every walk of life.”
The striped Sergeant is black in the face and moaning. The Staff Sergeant releases him. “Sergeant Paul,” he says, “rush me.”
“Must I, Staff? You’ve demonstrated on me twice already today.”
“Yes, you must.”
The striped one walks twenty feet away, and then makes a desperate rush upon the Staff Sergeant. He hopes to bear the grim one down by sheer weight and vigour. A second or so later he is spinning through the air. “Watch him fall,” says Staff. “If he didn’t know how to fall he’d break his neck. Or maybe an arm.” The striped Sergeant rolls over and over, and finally rises, covered with dry grass and somewhat angry.
The Staff Sergeant turns back to us. He has the calm, languid air ofa man who has just thrown away an empty cigarette packet. “You might go a bit easy on these demonstrations,” says Sergeant Paul. “There was a stone where I fell.”
“Well, the stone had no right to be there. All right. I just wanted to have a word with you. You can’t be good soldiers unless you’re fit. It’s up to me to make you fit, and up to you to help me.” And the Staff Sergeant repeats something we have heard before, and are destined to hear many times
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