The Shadow of War by Jack Murray (latest ebook reader txt) 📗

recruits were to his grousing. In fact, it was a sport enjoyed by bothassailants and target. Taking the rise out Carruthers gave the men a chance toblow off steam. Carruthers, by now, seemed to enjoy the catharsis of givingvent to his feelings albeit in entirely unconcerned company.

Onemorning Carruthers had the room in stitches with his musical criticism of thebugler.

‘I’mconvinced the bugler is blowing the wrong notes. Idefinitely heard a C which should have been an F. Has anyone else noticed?’

No one had but they were laughing too much to point this out.

The first day at the rifle range was a welcome break from themonotony of parade ground drill, PT and the droning lectures. Captain Budd madean appearance at the range. Up until then he had only seen them during theoccasional lecture and the odd meal when he would ask them how they found thefood. Carruthers always spoke negatively about it, but he was in the minoritywith Harn on this subject.

O’Dowd stood before them with the Lee Enfield rifle. He demonstratedwith an economy of movement.

‘In order to take the bolt out, you push forward the safety catchwith the thumb of the right hand.’ Get on with it, thought Danny, I just wantto shoot something. Preferably you.

The demonstration ended when the new recruits were told to partner up and lay down in frontof the open range. Each was given ammunition and ordered to load their weapons.This was done with varying degrees of incompetence but the Little Gloston boyshad no problems. Guns and hunting were a part of everyday life in the villageand their capability with the weapons was soon apparent. Budd came over to themand commented on their accuracy.

‘Goodshooting, men. I see you’ve done this before. Carry on.’

Theyhad done it before but not for such an extended period. By the end of the riflerange practice most were sporting blisters on their trigger fingers. Carruthersand some of the slower learners were better off as they had not been so rapidin their firing. This caused some good-natured banter from the older man.

‘Ifyou were as useless as me then you wouldn’t be in such agony. Only yourself toblame, really.’

‘Jerry’llbe shaking in his jackboots when he comes across you,’ laughed Arthur.

‘Iprefer not to blast away like a child with a pop gun, personally,’ replied Carrutherswith exaggerated superiority.

‘It’snot what your missus told me last night,’ said Arthur.

‘You’relucky she was so interested,’ replied Carruthers amid the laughter.

-

Witheach day, as the group became more confident together, Bob’s temper becameincreasingly frayed. He finally snapped at O’Dowd on the fourth afternoon onthe parade ground as his hat dropped off his head by accident. As he bent topick it up O’Dowd shouted at him.

‘Standstill until I tell you to pick it up.’

Boblost his cool and suggested that O’Dowd pick it up himself. The language he usedin this suggestion, quite apart from the act of responding, caused the sergeantto storm over to Bob. His face was inches away.

‘Whatdid you say, Owen?’

Bob,realising he had spoken unwisely, remained silent.

‘Catgot your tongue?’ continued O’Dowd, now enjoying the humiliation. ‘Well, Ithink you can take yourself over there and start running with the gun over yourhead. Go on, hop it.’

Bob had no choice but to do as he was told. A minute later, infull view of all the recruits, Bob was running around the parade ground. Hislack of fitness and his anger meant he burned up energy fast. Within fifteenminutes he had collapsed. Rather than allow him to recuperate, O’Dowd orderedhim to clean the toilets. He missed the evening meal as a result. However, theother boys smuggled some rations to him when he came into the barracks laterthat evening, still grumbling.

‘Cheer up, Bob,’ said Hugh Gissing.‘We’ve saved you some food.’

‘Thanks,’ said Bob, clearlyembarrassed. ‘I hate that man, boys. I hate him.’

‘Steady, Bob,’ counselledDanny. ‘Don’t do anything stupid.’

‘Don’t you worry,’ replied Bobgrimly, before tearing into the food.

-

Next morning the recruits werewoken, as usual, and they stumbled blindly out from their beds.

‘I don’t know why they start usso early,’ grumbled Carruthers. ‘Another hour in bed wouldn’t make muchdifference.’ He shut up as soon as O’Dowd entered the barrack room shouting forthem to get up.

Their initial parade groundfoot drill was followed by breakfast and then a lecture on field craft. Dannywas fascinated by the lectures in a way that many of his fellow recruits were not. Heoften brought a note pad in and made copious notes. This brought a good degreeof ribbing from his brother and the two Gissing brothers who remembered a lessacademic boy from school.

‘Hark at him,’ said BertGissing.

‘Teacher’s pet,’ added Tom.

‘We’ll see who’s laughing whenJerry is shooting the arse off you and you don’t know which direction to run.’

‘I’ll take cover behind youwhile you’re reading the stars, Danny-boy,’ said Arthur holding his arm alofttowards the heavens.

The rest of the morning was tobe taken up withclose combat without bayonets. Tom and Danny grinned at one another. Anotherinterested spectator was Captain Budd. His interest in parade ground drilling tendedto be only slightly above that of the men under his leadership. On theindefatigable O’Dowd seemed to like the endless drilling.

Inevitably, Bob and Harn werethe first two recruits to be asked to grapple with O’Dowd. Despite years oftraining with Danny, Bob didn’t last long. Harn hit the ground with an almightywallop and stayed down for a minute in agony. There was little sympathy fromeither sergeant, commanding officer or the rest of the recruits.

Finally, Danny was asked up.For the previous few minutes, Danny had studied O’Dowd closely. It was clearthe sergeant knew how to wrestle. However, his age and size, calculated Danny,would count against him. But Danny knew better than to be complacent and thetwo men circled one another warily. Whether it was instinct or just observationof Danny over the previous week, O’Dowd knew this would a different proposition.It wasn’t just Danny’s height and physique. There was a look in the eye thatO’Dowd recognised. The kid had a quiet confidence.

 Looking on, the rest of therecruits and Captain Budd sensed this was a more evenly matched bout. Previouslythere had been a lot of noise