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In May 1943 I attended a War Office Selection Board in Downpatrick, Northern Ireland and after three days under observation was selected for officer training in Llandrindod Wells. It amounted to a crash course in the use and deployment of Bofors guns. I would become an artillery officer.
The first weeks were devoted to infantry tactics, rugged mountain hikes and strenuous weapon training. We crawled in icy streams, heads down under lethal bursts of machine-gun fire and rocked by explosives tossed alongside us to endure battle conditions while stressed with hunger and fatigue.
I shared a room in the huge red-brick hotel with 5 Canadians. We attended lectures, learned all the gun drills performed by a gun crew, watched our instructors dismantle and assemble the various parts of a Bofors gun and use the special lubricants essential for smooth working.
As the weeks passed we learned to manhandle the weighty guns, hauling them up steep woodland slopes, across tangled undergrowth or winching them to positions commanding clear arcs of fire. This outdoor toil was demanding and arduous rain or shine. Always a series of difficult situations to be overcome. I would feel wearily inadequate trying to shift a tonnage of metal bogged down in clogging mud, mindful that war is a degrading business anyway.
Dogged determination was expected of us young cadets. There were days when, roused at 4.30am we had to trek across miles of bleak mountainside, engaging 'enemy' outposts en route.
Cadets took it in turn to play the role of troop commander, planning an attack, giving clear commands, in full control. Frontal assaults were never approved by our instructors. It was a flanking tactic that we adopted bearing in mind 'SWEAT SAVES BLOOD'. I earned praise for destroying one machine gun nest but was criticised for making myself conspicuous in a final uphill charge, encouraging my men to keep going. "An obvious target for snipers" Captain told the assembled troops.
Long mountain treks ended with bivouac camping when we'd pair off and prepare crude tents made from groundsheets pegged down by stout twigs. A late meal, perhaps the only one for the day, was a simple concoction made from corned beef and oatmeal. These spartan measures were part of our training, getting us accustomed to rock-bottom conditions. My close friend and bivouac partner was Nigel Tranter, a writer of historical novels in peacetime. He was so shivering cold in our flimsy tent one night, we left it to find shelter in a tumbledown barn where we buried ourselves in musty straw. On another occasion, after a rainy night I awoke to find our bivouac lapped by a sizeable pool, and peering through a slit at my side I saw one boot floating free! It was a wretchedly uncomfortable start to the new day.
Map-reading was highly important. We were taken to remote upland areas and dropped off, one by one, to footslog lonely miles and arrive at a map reference point. I felt ill at ease because it was overcast and eerie pressing on through a misty wilderness, sometimes encountering savage farm dogs and dour, suspicious farmers.
When we had free time Nigel and I liked walking a 7 mile stretch of road to Cormel Farm. It was an old farmhouse, dark grey stone, slate-tiled roof and brown brick chimneys. The long living room contained a big black sofa with patched leather headrests and a bulky Welsh range spotless under its soft leaden sheen. We enjoyed cooked meals with the family and picked fallen apples in the orchard. I well remember us walking back in the dark, our boots thumping in step, dim woodland spreads at one side, the odd furtive fox or a barn owl flitting into and out of our shadowy world.
Our instructors were mostly sergeants, somewhat aloof but basically friendly.One or two were apt to be abusive, scornful of our efforts to learn the functions of gun components, caustic in manner over a cadet's inability to remember names. One instructor declared certain cadets were ruddy fools, unfit to handle a popgun. We glowered in silent resentment. Nigel thought it was a deflating ploy offsetting the sergeant's own feelings of inferiority. I wondered whether a bunch of boyish cadets engendered tinges of jealousy.
Charlie Cartmel from Montreal, a fencing champion, undertook to teach a volunteer group the rudiments of sword play. We had the use of a lengthy church hall on certain evenings and he kept us busy practising parries and ripostes, lunging and retreating. To my surprise it developed as a hard and strenuous sport. Those shouted commands: 'On guard! Lunge! En guard! Lunge!' upa nd down that long wooden floor brought me to a standstill. Granted any respite we panted and sagged to regain strength. Not a sport for the indolent.
Charlie helped us when we had to explain the workings of our new predictors, boxy gadgets designed to link up with and accurately locate an enemy plane as it flew within range. Most of us found it a complexity sealed in a neat metal box. He had a better understanding of its inners and managed to impart it in cheerful hope. We wrote our explanations. The box remained a lurking mystery.
For motorcyclists there was an additional short course in cross-country riding, mounted on Norton 500cc bikes. A lot of tumbles and roughneck pursuits across hummocky fields and in muddy farm lanes, jolting climbs up steep quarry slopes, swishing and splashing through streams and ditches. Bruising fun and hard on the knees as we tried to make ourselves shock-absorbers and carry on regardless.
Nebulous unease pervaded our daily activities, the hovering threat of R.T.U. Annie, a possibility of failing the course and being returned to one's unit. And cadets did disappear, relegated to former duties. We lived in hope, resolved to succeed but struggling to keep abreast of the training disciplines.
Unexpected, a boost to my confidence, I won a rifle-shooting tournament open to all cadets. We fired at targets from a starting 50 yards to a final distance of 200 yards. I think my success was due to a simple discovery, that the inner bullseye could be hit with fair certainty if I maintained the same steady aim after firing.Of course I had to be rock steady but most crucial was keeping the rifle sights glued to a centre ring during and after squeezing the trigger. My reward was a modest kitty from collected entry monies.
Classrooms and gun drills, tests and firing practice, a continual round of fitness training, duties of an officer, qualities of leadership. The course culminated in one last assembly held in the local cinema. We wore smart new dress uniforms, Sam Brown belts and shiny brown boots. The Commandant addressed us from the stage, congratulating our persevering diligence, reminding us of our honourable calling, the need for exemplary conduct and loyal adherence to a great cause. We stood, pleased and applauding. One man remained standing, soberly serious. He asked,
"How can I be so many things to the men I shall lead, a fatherly padre, an intelligent Socrates, a saintly Jesus all rolled into one? I can't aspire to such lofty talents."
The reply was firm if not altogether convincing. "Wearing the uniform you will play the role and be accepted without question. Believe in yourself and everything follows."
Not his exact words but their import was an encouraging factor as we dispersed, dressed in a little brief authority.

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