The Naked Island | Page 7

of the orderly room, "you just git down to the cookhouse double smart or you'll find yourself on a charge. And you, Braddon, you report to the office." He thrust his stomach out an extra foot to emphasize both his point and his authority.
For a moment Mick glared mutinously. Then he shrugged. "Better do what the bastard says," he concluded. He held out his hand and said, "Good-bye, mate, don't do anything I wouldn't do," and, having shaken hands, off he went. With a final defiant tug at the white belt, the short, small-waisted figure with its brown pants and green shirt vanished out of the doorway. It was the last time I ever saw him.
Feeling quite forlorn, I made my way to the office to investigate this "requisition." Maybe now, I thought, I'll do something about the Germans.
At the office I found four other men who had alsoone gathered from their comments been requisitioned to the artillery. Three of them were as young as myself, the fourth was a man of about fifty who had, he said, given his age as thirty-five. He had been a ser geant in the 1914-18 war; he seriously considered that nothing had really happened since the Battle of Passchendaele; and he couldn't get into this war quickly enough. These veterans of 1914 who were rejoining in 1940 were known as Ratty Diggers "ratty" because it was thought by Australia's disrespectful youth that, having survived one war, they should have had enough sense to avoid another.
"Your name Braddon?" the Ratty Digger asked me, and when I admitted that it was, he announced, "Braddon's here now, sir,' and a major at a desk looked profoundly bored at this piece of informa tion, whilst the ex-sergeant stood rigidly at attention like a dog pointing.
"Shall I take charge, sir?" asked the Ratty Digger eagerly. With weary indifference the major nodded. Thereupon we were issued with ten pounds of butter and eating-irons and bundled into a truck which, with frenzied speed, was driven out to one of Sydney's race courses. This, we were informed, it was our duty, as artillerymen, to guard.
For five days we lived in a tent on the racecourse, which was high with rank grass and covered with mushrooms. Then, at the end of the fifth day, when we had received no stores, no arms and no order of any kind from the Army: when the Ratty Digger, relying upon his status as a 1918 vintage sergeant, had assumed all the airs and graces of a full-blown colonel and become quite intolerable: when all the mushrooms on the racecourse had been fried in our ten pounds of butter and consumed: and, finally, when no enemy had made even the smallest attempt to seize the racecourse, which we had been determined to defend to the death, if necessary, with our knives and forks then we grew very mutinous and rang up the major at Victoria Barracks.
He seemed most surprised to hear my voice and asked where we were. I told him the racecourse. Still more surprised, he said what were we doing there: so I told him guarding it He asked what with, so I told him, "Knives and forks and a Ratty Digger," and he said, Now, now, soldier, enough of that 111 send a truck for you,' and rang off without even saying good-bye.
Quite soon the truck arrived and we returned to Victoria Barracks, There we were equipped with uniforms that didn't fit and boots that didn't bend and two pairs each of the most obscene-looking long woollen underpants. So ended my first military operation against the Germans.

As soon as the ungracious business of the kit issue had been con cluded, we were ordered to proceed to Central Station, report to the R.T.O. and catch a train to Liverpool. None of us had the small est idea what this R.T.O. was except the Ratty Digger. He wasn't going to tell us unless we asked him, and we had no intention of gratifying him by asking. Swinging packs onto shoulders, we pre pared to depart.
* Then at the last momentto our unqualified joythe Ratty Digger was withdrawn from the party. The remaining four of us made our way alone and with great nonchalance to Central. There, adopting a tone of complete familiarity, I demanded the R.T.O. It was only with difficulty that I concealed my surprise when the R.T.Q. turned out to be merely a nondescript little man with some pips on his shoulders who gave you railway tickets if you had enough forms signed by sufficient people.
Armed with the little man's tickets, we boarded the electric train to Liverpool and arrived there forty-five minutes later. We found the town swarming with both militiamen and Free French troops and with ladies anxious to pick up