Chapter 83

The week at Chatham highlighted Andrew’s strengths and weaknesses. The course was good and there were several highlights. But what the course also showed was that Andrew had a long way to go on leadership.

He knew that already before he went to the camp. He and Pete were a really good team because they complemented each other. Andrew was the planner, the one who made sure everything was in place and ready to go, Pete was the leader. He had that easy command that Andrew had never mastered. Pete was not inspirational but he was a great motivator. He commanded a squad or platoon, without threat or bluster. In fact at school, in the Army section, he used the threat of Andrew as the enforcer. At 6’5” and 14 and a half stone Andrew had the physical presence to command and lead but not the innate ability. He knew this about himself and it was not a crushing revelation. He was better than he had been but it was painstakingly learned. Andrew thought back to the initial conversations that he and Nikki had at the Food Bank. He got her to help with how to deal with groups of guys. But it was learned, it was never natural to him. Andrew was much better in small groups or working on his own. The Artillery exam was the classic example. He could work the mechanics of a firing a tube and the maths of laying down accurate fire. What he would struggle with would be managing a squad of more than 50 guys.

The course was a continuation of the things they had demonstrated when passing the Advanced Proficiency Certificate in Engineering. The Royal Engineers only ran two of these courses during the year, this one at the start of the summer break and another one at the end. It was a very mixed bag of attendees. Mostly 17 or 18 but barely a quarter were from a CCF contingent with the majority of guys on the course being Army Cadet Corp pupils. Two thirds of them were guys who were going to enlist in the regular Army, so were not officer candidates. Thus there was quite the collection of backgrounds and attitudes. It was tough at times but it was also an important learning experience for him. He was the biggest nail and one guy in particular thought he would play the hammer. Many times over the course of the week Andrew thought about John Cuttington’s reminiscence of hard cases from his National Service. There were some wannabes on this course.

Andrew’s approach to confrontation had always been to walk away. The legacy of being a 5’ tall runt when he started senior school at Heriot’s. He had never had a fair stand up fight. He had kneed Murray Jones in the balls during second year, had been jumped a couple of years later in Greyfriars and never had a chance to raise his fists, and had been bottled from behind in the attack on Lothian Road. He had stopped a couple of fights as a prefect and had only been hit once, and that was on the upper arm as he blocked a wild swing at him. So not exactly Muhammed Ali. Chatham showed him that sometimes he needed to stand up for himself.

The initial confrontation came on the first night. They were in barracks dormitories, 12 guys per dorm. One of the guys in the dorm thought he was the course joker, always ready with a wise crack, but there was an edge to his humour. Zero sum game type of edge, for him to be up, someone had to be down. He was from Wolverhampton or somewhere close to there, the middle of England. As the only Scot in the dorm joker boy started ragging on Andrew. Scots are universally called Jock in the Army, so everything was Jock this and Jock that. This was where Andrew’s innate lack of banter always caused him problems. His two normal responses, ignore him and walk away, not an option here; or tell him to fuck off and walk away, also not an available option. Andrew had always walked away from confrontation. He was not sure how to respond. The others were watching and not really taking sides, the bully’s best weapon. The crowd were happy not to be the target and so passively stood and watched.

“Hey Billy, give it a rest. Fucks sake.”

“What’s the matter Jock, can’t take a joke?”

“Sure I can, but you aren’t funny. Why don’t you give your mouth a rest and let someone else talk? We have heard you yapping on all day.”

“Well ain’t you all high and mighty, mister private schoolboy. Why don’t you try and make me shut up you fucking pansy?”

A standard line of attack at the time, including from some of the guys at school. The ultimate Neanderthal attack, you must be gay.

“Really, you want to fight on the first night? You’ll last 10 minutes in the Regulars. Someone will stick your head in a toilet and you’ll be known as ‘bogbrush’ for the rest of your life.”

“Fuck you. What would you know about the Regulars you soft bastard. Poncing around playing Rupert.”

Rupert was the name squaddies called all officers.

“Hey bogbrush, shut up.”

That was where it broke down. Billy lunged at him, eyes fired up, fists swinging. Andrew stepped back avoiding the flailing arms but Billy was mad. He kept coming and the fight was on. What saved Andrew was his height and reach. He was able to fend him off and Billy was too mad to get inside and take advantage of Andrew’s complete lack of fighting ability. He still clocked Andrew a couple of times and that finally convinced him he needed to punch back. None of Andrew’s landed cleanly, he was tall and ungainly with no experience, float like a giraffe sting like a butterfly, that was him.

“You two miserable little bastards, stop that and get over here at the double.”

It was a Corporal of the Royal Engineers standing at the door shouting at them. The tone brooked no argument and so they did as ordered and stood in front of him at attention.

“Come with me. Fucking schoolkids fighting, I don’t need this shit.”

He set off at a quick pace and they hurried along behind him, ending up in the camp office where an older NCO sat dealing with a pile of paperwork. The Corporal told the Sergeant of what had happened including most of the details of the conversation before the actual fight. It was clear that he had been at the door, if out of sight, for some time before he intervened. They were separated and Andrew was told to wait outside. Three minutes later Billy and the Corporal came out and Andrew was sent in.

“McLeod, what did you learn tonight?”

The Sergeant asked him as Andrew stood at attention. He thought back over the incident, the only way Billy was going to shut up was to be made to shut up. Words weren’t going to do it, fists were.

“Hit him hard and early, get it over with before the training staff have to intervene.”

Andrew stood, his eyes 18 inches above the Sergeant’s head.

“Interesting group dynamic on this course. In a year’s time all of that bullshit will be behind your back but right now you are all equal. Learn from this. Corporal Wilkens is moving him to another dorm. Dismissed.”

As Andrew walked back to the barracks he thought about the evening. The staff wanted them to get into it? They didn’t encourage it, but they sure as hell didn’t discourage it. He wondered when he and Billy were going to cross paths again that week. There were classes in the morning Monday to Wednesday with field exercises in the afternoons. They had not yet been told what was happening on the last three days of the course.

When Andrew got back to the dorm, the conversation stopped as he walked in but then started again as they sheepishly looked at each other. Billy had been cursing him up and down when he came back but Wilkens had stayed to make sure he left Andrew’s bunk and gear alone. Now there were 11 of them and it didn’t look like anyone was taking Billy’s place that night. Andrew explained what the Sergeant had told him, there was no point in hiding anything. They talked about how the Army almost encouraged this to see how they reacted. That became the theme for the rest of the night as they talked about the unspoken parts of the course as well as the engineering work during the day.

The course settled down for a couple of days after that as everyone focused on the various different tasks that the Engineers were asked to perform. They first talked theoretically and dealt with three of the roles, Bomb Disposal, Air Assault and Amphibious Assault. The cadets knew they were not allowed to undertake any specific training for any of them that week. Even the British Army thought they should wait until they signed up before they exposed them to that. What they did explain to them and were going to demonstrate were Construction and Route Maintenance, the absolute core things the Royal Engineers did. They were going to demonstrate Military Plant and Air Support roles as well and finally, and the thing they were all most excited about, they were going to get the chance to work with a bridge laying troop of the Engineering Armour section. Yes, boys and toys. They only had that first night in Chatham itself, as Tuesday after lunch everyone was loaded onto 4-tonners and driven the five miles out of town to Chattenden camp across the Medway from Chatham. This was the training area that supported the main barracks in the town. They trained late into that night and after a short class on Wednesday morning were right back out in the field. After lunch at the mess the group was re-assembling when Billy came up again, still mouthing off. Nothing came of it at that point, too many people were about but it was clear that he was still steaming mad at Andrew. Later that afternoon they came across each other at the edge of an area that was being surveyed for a helicopter pad. Stepping back from the view of the training staff, Billy launched himself at Andrew. Andrew was able to block Billy’s right but his left smacked Andrew square on the side of his jaw and he went down hard. Being the fair and sporting soul that he was Billy immediately tried to kick Andrew in the head, which he was able to block more by luck than judgement. Andrew got back to his feet and shook his head to clear the cobwebs. His jaw ached and left pinky finger was bent at an odd angle. Rather than continue to attack Andrew Billy proceeded to gloat and mouth off. His height, Scottishness, sexual orientation, kind of school he went to, all were referenced as Billy bounced around in front of him.

What had Andrew answered to the Sergeant’s question on Monday night? Hit him hard and early, hmmm, not so much at the moment. But he hadn’t tried yet. Andrew was all arms and legs and trying to swing a punch at Billy would have been telegraphed and easily blocked. Instead he jabbed and caught Billy by surprise right on the nose. Andrew’s long reach worked out for him, and Billy just didn’t rate him as any kind of fighter. One lucky punch and one busted nose. Blood went everywhere, and rather than prepare to follow up, Andrew stepped back and watched as Billy’s cadet blouse quickly became soaked in blood. Billy was holding his nose, trying to stem the blood flow with minimal success. He turned and semi-ran, jog-walked over to the far side of the clearing where the training staff were organising the exercise. Andrew walked through the trees and came out at a different part of the clearing and followed the others as they reassembled. Billy had been taken away in a LandRover to be seen by the medics and other than a few stares from a couple of NCOs the exercise continued. Andrew strapped his pinky to his ring finger and carried on, he would go and see the medics at dinner time at get it reset and bandaged properly. He did not want the two of them turning up at the same time, too many awkward questions. When he went later he was in and out in five minutes, after getting the finger straightened and a splint bandaged to it. Stuff like that happened all the time and the ‘I caught it on something’ excuse was accepted without comment.

Andrew had managed to stand up for himself and all it had cost him was a sore chin and a bust finger. That put an end to the stupidity for the week, Andrew didn’t know if Billy was sent home early or what but he didn’t see him again. Andrew focused on the course and watched and tried to learn as they were rotated through the leader role on the different exercises. When it came to his turn to lead, they got the task completed but Andrew could see it was not as effortless as some of the others. He watched them closely, listened to the way they led the group, part of it was confidence he was sure. They had been seen as leaders throughout their lives and the command part came to them naturally. Andrew was not that person, a follower until he was nearly 14 and a loner since then. He was the member of several groups including the CCF at school but always compared himself to others and found himself wanting. As Andrew worked away, he thought about how Leslie and Faith had given him confidence in so many areas of his life, especially around women, but this was still one of his biggest weaknesses. Thursday afternoon they were brought back to the mess hall before dinner and the officer in charge of the training talked about the next day and a half. The course wrapped up at 2.00 on Saturday afternoon. Until then they were given the option to select a speciality and be part of a training squad. The bridging squad seemed to attract two thirds of the course so Andrew looked at the other four options and went over to talk to the Sergeant running the Military Plant section.