‘Weekend Soldier’

 by Harry Riley

This is fiction and resemblance to anyone living or dead is coincidental

It was 1958 and Arthur my best pal, decided to join the army but I still had two years of an apprenticeship to serve so I couldn’t follow his lead. He had volunteered for the REME (Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers) and when he returned home on leave he was full of the excitement and adventure of it all. He would reminisce over a pint at ‘The Trip to Jerusalem’ Pub, about the great comradeship and talk about foreign travel after completion of basic training. He already knew he was going to Christmas Island. I listened eagerly but was stuck in a factory and couldn’t get away to join in the fun. So I decided to do the next best thing and become a part-time soldier. My plan was to join the Royal Artillery (My dad’s old regiment) There was a small Regimental Barracks within three miles of my home address and so I made an appointment and duly joined up for two years service in the Territorial Army. I had signed up for foreign-service duty if called upon and fully expected to do summer training abroad. There was talk we could be sent to Germany but it never came off.

It was now the ‘cold-war’ with Russia’s nuclear threat ever present: to vaporize us all at a stroke.

In the meantime Arthur sent back photos of himself lounging amongst the Pacific Island Palm trees, stripped to the waist and looking every inch the sun-tanned soldier. This was amazing because he was a ‘red-head’ like me and previously only ever went lobster-red and peeled

At least I was now getting involved in soldiering of a sort. I ought to have been grateful but my uniform was thick and incredibly itchy and the only chance I got for rifle practice was at the annual butts when we each had to fire old wartime ‘303’ bolt action rifles in order to qualify for the Bounty Payout.

Having a keen interest in motorbikes I had tried to become a dispatch rider but demand was high and so I chose to be a driver-wireless operator. Instead. Along with several others in our battery I would take my turn to crash the gears of a big truck as the instructor tried vainly to teach us to double-de-clutch up steep hills. It was all good fun but when I eventually became my Sergeant Major’s driver-operator he would only allow me to drive around the camp perimeter at five miles an hour, being doubtful of my ability to brake in an emergency.