“Absolutely no [underlined twice] soldier serving with the British army would say ‘On the double.’ Only an American would give such an order. The correct term is ‘At the double.’”
I love these little things, this pointillist approach to verisimilitude, the correction of detail that cumulatively gives such satisfaction.
“No one would ever think of saying ‘twenty-five-pound guns.’ The term was either ‘twenty-five pounders’ or ‘twenty-five-pounder guns.’ Your usage would sound distinctly bizarre, even to a man who was not with the Royal Artillery.”
Like policemen in a search team, we go on hands and knees and crawl our way toward the truth.
“You have your RAF chappie wearing a beret. I really don’t think so. Outside the Tank Corps, even the army didn’t have them in 1940. I think you’d better give the man a forage cap.”
Finally, the colonel, who began his letter by addressing me as “Miss Tallis,” allowed some impatience with my sex to show through. What was our kind doing anyway, meddling in these affairs?