“I can see that we have a few men who are faster learners than others,” announces Sergeant Clayton when enough time has passed. “Let’s have a little test of skill, shall we? Williams, step up here, please.” Roger Williams, a fairly mild-mannered member of our troop, stands up and makes his way to the front. “And… Yates, I think,” he continues. “You, too. And Wolf.”
All three men gather at the front for what has become Wolf’s daily ritual of humiliation. I can sense the delight of the men as he stands there, and I glance across at Will, who is frowning heavily.
“Now, gentlemen,” says Sergeant Clayton, “the last man to take his rifle apart successfully and put it back together will…” He thinks about it and shrugs. “Well, I’m not sure yet. But I dare say it won’t be much fun.” He smiles a little and some of the sycophants among our company giggle in appreciation of the pathetic joke. “Corporal Wells, count them down if you would.”
Wells gives them a “Three-two-one-begin!” and to my astonishment, as Williams and Yates struggle with their rifles, Wolf takes his apart without any bother at all and reattaches the whole thing in about forty-five seconds flat. There’s a silence among the men, a potent disappointment, and his two opponents stop for a moment and stare at him in disbelief before rushing quickly to finish second.
Sergeant Clayton stares at Wolf in frustration. There’s no question that he has done what has been asked of him and has completed the task in good time; there’s simply no way that he can be punished for it now: it wouldn’t be sporting and every man would know it. Will can’t keep the smile off his face, I notice, and seems only a little shy of breaking into a burst of applause, but thankfully he manages to restrain himself.
“It astonishes me,” says Sergeant Clayton eventually, sounding as if he genuinely means this, “that a man who is afraid to fight should show such skill with a rifle.”
“I’m not afraid to fight,” insists Wolf with an exasperated sigh. “I just don’t care for it very much, that’s all.”
“You’re a coward, sir,” remarks Clayton. “Let us at least call things what they are.”
Wolf shrugs his shoulders, a deliberately provocative gesture, and the sergeant grabs the rifle out of Yates’s hands, checks that it isn’t loaded, and turns to Moody once again. “We’ll have one more go at it, I think,” he announces. “Wolf and I shall take each other on. What do you say, Wolf? Can you stand a challenge? Or does that offend your finely honed moral convictions, too?”
Wolf says nothing, simply nods his head, and a moment later Moody gives another “Three-two-one-begin!” and this time there’s no question about who the victor will be. Sergeant Clayton disassembles and reassembles his rifle with such astonishing speed that it’s really quite something to observe. Many of the men applaud him, although I add only a perfunctory clap to the embarrassing din. He turns and looks at us, delighted by his victory, and grins at Wolf with such a proud expression that it makes me realize what an infant this man really is, for all he has done is best a recruit at something that he has been doing successfully for years. There is no real victory in that. If anything, the challenge itself was shameful.
“Now, Wolf,” he says, “what do you think of that?”
“I think you handle a rifle better than I ever shall,” he replies, finishing the reassembly of his Smiler and taking his place back in line next to Will, who reaches his hand behind him and pats his back in a well-done gesture. Sergeant Clayton, however, cannot seem to decide whether Wolf’s comment was meant as a compliment or a slight, and remains alone on the ground after he dismisses us, scratching his head and no doubt wondering how soon it will be before he can punish Wolf again for some perceived infraction.
The day that our uniforms finally arrive is the same day that Will and I have been rostered for guard duty and we stand together by the gates of the barracks in the cold night air, excited by our brand-new standard issue. Every man in the troop has been given a new pair of boots, two thick grey shirts, collarless, and a pair of khaki trousers, which are pulled high on our waists and kept in place with a neat set of braces. The socks are thick and I believe that for once my feet will be kept warm throughout the night. We’ve each been given a heavy overcoat, too, and it is in this fine new set of clothing that Will and I stand side by side, patiently scouring the expanse in the unlikely event that a battalion of German soldiers might appear over a hill in the middle of Hampshire.
“My neck hurts,” says Will, pulling the shirt away from his skin. “It’s a bloody rough material, isn’t it?”
“Yes. But we’ll get used to it, I dare say.”
“After it’s left a permanent ring around our necks. We’ll have to imagine that we’re aristocrats in the French Revolution and are giving Madame la Guillotine a clue for where to slice our heads off.”
I laugh a little, seeing my breath appear before me. “Still, they’re warmer than what we had before,” I say after a moment. “I was dreading another night on guard duty in my civvies.”
“Me, too. What about poor Wolf, though? Did you ever see anything as disgusting as that in all your life?”
I think about it before replying. Earlier in the day, when Wells and Moody were distributing the uniforms, Wolf found himself with a shirt that was too large and a pair of trousers that were too tight. He looked rather like a clown and the entire troop, save Will, was reduced to tears of laughter when he put them on and displayed himself for our merriment. I only stopped myself from joining in the hysteria through my desire not to have Will think badly of me.
“He brings it on himself,” I say, frustrated by my friend’s constant need to stand up for Wolf. “I mean, really, Will, why do you always take his side?”
“I take his side because he’s in the regiment with us,” he explains, as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “I mean, what was it that Sergeant Clayton spoke to us about the other day? Espert… what was it? Espert something?”
“Esprit de corps,” I remind him.
“Yes, that. The notion that a regiment is a regiment, a singular object, a unit, not a collection of mismatched men all vying for different levels of attention. Wolf may be unpopular among the men but that’s no reason to treat him as if he were a monster of some sort. I mean he’s here, isn’t he? He hasn’t run off to some hideaway in, I don’t know, the Scottish Highlands or some godforsaken place. He might have run off up there and laid low till the war was over.”
“If he’s unpopular it’s because he makes himself so,” I explain. “You’re not trying to tell me that you agree with the things he says, are you? The things he stands for?”
“The man talks a lot of sense,” replies Will quietly. “Oh, I’m not saying that I think we should all hold our hands up and call ourselves conscientious objectors and head off home to bed. I’m not stupid enough to think that that would be a good idea. The whole country would be in a terrible mess. But damn it all, he has a right to his opinion, doesn’t he? He has a right to be heard. There are some chaps who would have just scarpered and he didn’t and I admire him for that. He has the guts to be here, to train with the rest of us while he waits to hear what the result of his case will be. If they ever get round to telling him. And the result of that is that he’s subject to the bullying and despicable behaviour of a bunch of clots who don’t have the sense to think that actually killing another human being is not something we should simply do on a whim, but is a most serious offence against the natural order of things.”