As the Crow Flies

Lunch consisted of bread and cheese, neither of which Charlie would have dared to offer for sale to Mrs. Smelley. As they munched hungrily, he learned how Tommy at the age of eighteen had been given the choice of two years at His Majesty’s pleasure or volunteering to fight for King and country. He tossed a coin and the King’s head landed face up.

“Two years?” said Charlie. “But what for?”

“Nicking the odd barrel ’ere and there and making a side deal with one or two of the more crafty landlords. I’d been getting away with it for ages. An ’undred years ago they would ’ave ’anged me on the spot or sent me off to Australia, so I can’t complain. After all, that’s what I’m trained for, ain’t it?”

“What do you mean?” asked Charlie.

“Well, my father was a professional pickpocket, wasn’t ’e? And ’is father before ’im. You should have seen Captain Trentham’s face when ’e found out that I had chosen a spell in the Fusiliers rather than going back to jail.”

Twenty minutes was the time allocated for lunch and then the afternoon was taken up with being fitted with a uniform. Charlie, who turned out to be a regular size, was dealt with fairly quickly, but it took almost an hour to find anything that didn’t make Tommy look as if he were entering a sack race.

Once they were back in the billet Charlie folded up his best suit and placed it under the bed next to the one Tommy had settled on, then swaggered around the room in his new uniform.

“Dead men’s clothes,” warned Tommy, as he looked up and studied Charlie’s khaki jacket.

“What do you mean?”

“Been sent back from the front, ’asn’t it? Cleaned and sewn up,” said Tommy, pointing to a two-inch mend just above Charlie’s heart. “About wide enough to thrust a bayonet through, I reckon,” he added.

After another two-hour session on the now freezing parade ground they were released for supper.

“More bloody stale bread and cheese,” said Tommy morosely, but Charlie was far too hungry to complain as he scooped up every last crumb with a wet finger. For the second night running he collapsed on his bed.

“Enjoyed our first day serving King and country, ’ave we?” asked the duty corporal of his charges, when at twenty-one hundred hours he turned down the gaslights in the barracks room.

“Yes, thank you, Corp,” came back the sarcastic cry.

“Good,” said the corporal, “because we’re always gentle with you on the first day.”

A groan went up that Charlie reckoned must have been heard in the middle of Edinburgh. Above the nervous chatter that continued once the corporal had left, Charlie could hear the last post being played on a bugle from the castle battlements. He fell asleep.

When Charlie woke the next morning he jumped out of bed immediately and was washed and dressed before anyone else had stirred. He had folded up his sheets and blankets and was polishing his boots by the time reveille sounded.

“Aren’t we the early bird?” said Tommy, as he turned over. “But why bother, I ask myself, when all you’re goin’ to get for breakfast is a worm.”

“If you’re first in the queue at least it’s an ’ot worm,” said Charlie. “And in any case—”

“Feet on the floor. On the floor,” the corporal bellowed, as he entered the billet and banged the frame on the end of every bed he passed with his cane.

“Of course,” suggested Tommy, as he tried to stifle a yawn, “a man of property like yourself would need to be up early of a mornin’, to make sure ’is workers were already on parade and not shirkin’.”

“Stop talking you two and look sharpish,” said the corporal. “And get yourselves dressed or you’ll find yourself on fatigues.”

“I am dressed, Corp,” insisted Charlie.

“Don’t answer me back, laddie, and don’t call me ‘corp’ unless you want a spell cleaning out the latrines.” That threat was even enough to get Tommy’s feet on the floor.

The second morning consisted of more drill accompanied by the ever-falling snow, which this time had a two-inch start on them, followed by another lunch of bread and cheese. The afternoon, however, was designated on company orders as “Games and Recreation.” So it was a change of clothes before jogging in step over to the gymnasium for physical jerks followed by boxing instruction.

Ch

arlie, now a light middleweight, couldn’t wait to get in the ring while Tommy somehow managed to keep himself out of the firing line, although both of them became aware of Captain Trentham’s menacing presence as his swagger stick continually struck the side of his leg. He always seemed to be hanging about, keeping a watchful eye on them. The only smile that crossed his lips all afternoon was when he saw someone knocked out. And every time he came across Tommy he just scowled.

“I’m one of nature’s seconds,” Tommy told Charlie later that evening. “You’ve no doubt ’eard the expression ‘seconds out.’ Well, that’s me,” he explained as his friend lay on his bed, staring up at the ceiling.

“Do we ever escape from this place, Corp?” Tommy asked when the duty corporal entered the barracks a few minutes before lights out. “You know, for like good behavior?”

“You’ll be allowed out on Saturday night,” said the corporal. “Three hours restricted leave from six to nine, when you can do what you please. However, you will go no farther than two miles from the barracks, you will behave in a manner that befits a Royal Fusilier and you will report back to the guardroom sober as a judge at one minute before nine. Sleep well, my lovelies.” These were the corporal’s final words before he went round the barracks turning down every one of the gaslights.