EX-TEFL TEACHERS DON'T MAKE GOOD SOLDIERS - PART 5

If I can blame anybody but myself for my failure to enroll at the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst in September 1995, it would have to be Number 21. (In order to strip us of our humanity during the Regular Commissions Board (RCB), each of our six-member unit was given a number from 20 to 25, and we were ordered around using these digits rather than our names.) I had taken an instant dislike to Number 21 when I had failed in a polite attempt to make small talk as we awaited the Scottish Sergeant-Major’s dressing down. He was the sour fruit of the county of Essex, and struck me as a charmless Thatcherite “there is no such thing as society, only individuals” acolyte. He was selfish, truculent and had mean little piggy eyes and a wayward conviction that he would be getting through the forthcoming tests despite, rather than with the help of, his fellow team members. Several times over the next couple of days his obnoxious ignorance provoked in me a strong urge just to seize him wordlessly and slap him repeatedly about the head.

Making up the rest of our company was a lanky Northern Irish school leaver, another loud fish wife from the north-west (were they sisters, I wondered?), a heaving blonde with bright lipstick, a Royal Military Policeman seeking to rise through the ranks, myself and the excellent Number 24, a cynical undergraduate from Yorkshire who did little to disguise his utter lack of interest in joining Her Britannic Majesty’s Forces. Apparently his father had insisted he candidate himself for a commission in a nostalgic tribute to the good old days when press gangs roamed the taverns of Portsmouth and Southsea offering careers as Royal Navy Able Seamen.

One of the reasons given for my dishonorable discharge from the RCB was, to quote the wrung out Colonel’s missive, “a lack of physical courage”. This insinuation wounds me deeply, and I would like to take this opportunity to defend my soiled reputation.

As expected, the officer recruitment tests featured an assault course. It wasn’t a particularly lengthy or taxing one, but it was fiendishly located on a significant down slope, meaning that, on exiting several of the obstacles, you couldn’t help but build up an undesirable head of steam when approaching the next. One of said impediments to be negotiated was a bar to be leapt over. Having just crawled under an annoyingly low construction, as I scrambled to my feet, it became clear I was never going to manage to high hurdle the awkwardly placed stick, given my accelerated velocity and the short distances involved. I therefore deemed it wise to run past the obstacle, decelerate, jog back up the hill, and calmly complete the task under more controlled conditions. Evidently, this was wrong – even if it meant knocking the bar flying, I should have blundered through the task at breakneck speed, like some rampaging lunatic devoid of basic motor skills. If I’d known in advance that this kind of raising Cain was what they were after, I wouldn’t have scaled the seven-foot wall, I’d have run straight into it in a brave, but ultimately futile, attempt to demolish it with my head.

Another cunning psychological ploy utilised was to herd us into a corrugated iron hut at the bottom of the slope where we would await our turn on Hamburger Hill. From this Spartan vantage point we could hear, but not see, each other panting and gasping around the course, and it was cleverly situated near enough to the seven-foot wall for us to discern the sickening thud and desperate scraping sounds that accompanied the latest hapless pretender’s attempt to overcome the unyielding wooden edifice. Our numbers were called out in random order, adding to the tense, air-raid shelter atmosphere of our cramped den. Of course, having been singled out by my advanced age for special treatment, I was last to be summoned to complete the course, and was almost certainly the least.

I, for one, secretly warmed towards feckless Yorkshireman Number 24 as we heard his quickening, flat-footed lope approaching and winced in unison at his loud collision with the wall. There followed an undignified grunting and scrabbling, then a sudden silence, broken seconds later by the unmistakable sound of some immoderate dry heaving as his flaccid, unconditioned body spectacularly betrayed him. The man had a certain cavalier, devil-may-care panache - I comforted myself that I would be in good company as it became increasingly clear that neither of us would be passing out in the conventional military sense.

PART SIX TO FOLLOW SHORTLY…