‘What a ruddy place for a cadet school!’ he roared.
‘My dear chap, it is designed to protect our morality,’ muttered a spectacled youth, who looked like (and proved to be) an ex-parson.
‘Morality! After all that time at the front! What a jest!’ exclaimed Beefy, banging his kit down.
In half-an-hour we were all good pals. Beefy confided to me that he had a ripping girl five miles away, and she had a jolly sister. If I wanted an intro., it was all right. He would fix it up. While the ex-parson—Billy Greens by name—suggested that I might help him to hand out the hymn-books at Sunday services. I promised to do so. (My father was in the Diplomatic Service.) And so twenty of us settled down to life in our hut at Windmoor Cadet School.
Tea-time proved that the rations were good, and when Lieutenant Blessem (our platoon officer) came round for complaints, we shouted, ‘None, sir.’
‘That’s a good start,’ he said with a smile. ‘I want you boys to be happy here. If you’re in trouble, or want to know anything, come down to my hut and I’ll help you. But remember this, boys’——
‘What, sir?’ said Beefy.
‘This platoon has got to be top-hole at everything.’
‘Hear, hear, sir!’ we roared, rattling our plates as he went out. Blessem was a sport. After tea we got piles of books thrown at us, as well as the standing orders of the school—a moral code akin to the Koran, insisting on sobriety, sincerity, and big salaams. These orders endorsed the ancient theory that women and wine are the root of all evil.