Today Everything Changes: Quick Read Read Online Free PDF Page A

this time but out on the parade square. It wasn’t only our kit that the sergeant major was inspecting, it was also our bodies. He checked our ears to make sure we were cleaning them, and our hair, what was left of it, because it could never be greasy.
    The only concession was zits. If you had zits, you had zits. Not even the British Army could get rid of them. Shaving rash, on the other hand, was a big no-no. The sergeant major would wantto know why you had it. Hadn’t you been shown how to shave or how to deal with a rash? If not, the training sergeants had some explaining to do. He even looked at our fingernails. If anyone bit them, and I did, their name was taken and their nails were checked the next week. If they were no better, the sergeant major would say, ‘That shows a lack of self-respect, and you’re going to get fat. Stop it.’
    Sometimes a tiny patch of Brasso would dry in the corner of one of the belt brasses, or a fleck of mud would get into the welt where the boot was stitched to the sole. To the sergeant major, either was a worse crime than murder or armed robbery. ‘Lack of detail,’ he’d bark, and demand your name and number, which his staff would note down.
    From then on, you had to go to the guardroom every night and show the bit of kit that had not been properly cleaned. It was a nightmare. Once the scary provost sergeant had you, you never escaped him. The kit was never, ever clean enough, no matter how hard you worked at it.

Chapter Fifteen
    Once the sergeant major had inspected us all, we would march around for a couple of hours so that he could check our standard. That always made the drill instructors very nervous. If the drill wasn’t good enough, they weren’t good enough.
    After the parade was over with, it was panic again as we changed into full combat gear for company training. From midday Friday until midday Sunday, we’d learn how to fight in the field. We dug trenches, used hand signals, laid ambushes and learned about camouflage and concealment. The sergeant major would have checked our ears to make sure there was no dark-green camouflage cream left from the week before.
    On the two nights each week that we camped, we learned how to live under our shelters and how to use our rations. Soldiers have to be able to make themselves equally comfortable in a blizzard or a heat wave. I learned some important rules. First, make sure your kit isalways packed away. Second, keep your feet and sleeping-bag dry. Third, make sure your weapon is close to you at all times.
    I never minded being wet, cold and hungry. No matter how long we were outside, I knew a hot shower was waiting for me at the end.

Chapter Sixteen
    Every Sunday morning we had to run the ten miles back to camp in full combat gear within two hours. With a sleeping-bag, rations and ammunition, we were carrying thirty or forty pounds of stuff. That’s quite a lot for a sixteen-year-old who hasn’t slept for two nights, has a heavy steel helmet on his head, wet clothing and boots, plus a rifle. But moaning was pointless. You had to do it whether you liked it or not, so it was best just to get on with it.
    It was all about teamwork. It was not as if you could do your own thing, get your head down and go for it. You could only move as fast as your slowest man. That meant finding the weakest guys, and helping them. One of us would carry their backpack for a while, then pass it to another lad.
    No one was allowed to help a slow man by carrying his weapon. Once we left training, our rank would be ‘rifleman’. Without a rifle, even the fastest man is no use to anyone. We werelearning that you couldn’t do anything unless you were part of a team.
    The sergeants taught us by example. They carried weapons and the same amount of kit as we did. They didn’t run in shorts and trainers. Their aim was to get us to the camp main gate as a platoon. Four hundred metres before the final corner, we would stop. The sergeants would get