In Good Company Read online

  After the breakfast parade, the companies were lined up on the side of the parade ground and at about ten minutes to eight we marched on under the watchful eyes of the regimental sergeant major standing up on the promenade. We were dressed by a drill sergeant, Warrant Officer Quee, who was obviously of British extraction and who had a most unusual executive word of command. When this most imposing man gave an order it sounded like he had shouted ‘Bleahh!’ as the final part of the order. Consequently, the command ‘stand at ease’ would sound like ‘Stund art . . . Bleahh!’; the sound was like a child’s reaction to being offered chicken liver puree for dinner.

  Once we had been fronted and ‘shunned’ and ‘un-shunned’ a couple of dozen times, the Australian flag was broken on the flag station above the parade ground. We had all experienced dress inspections before at our various recruit training battalions but we were somewhat unprepared for the onslaught that followed. The rank in which I was standing was commanded to undo their black webbing belts and display the brass which was on the underside. This binding cannot be seen and therefore is usually not even opened, let alone cleaned or polished. To our dismay the platoon drillie walked along our line to pause opposite each one of us, peer at our ‘disgustingly dirty’ brass and simply say ‘Take one’. What we were taking was an extra training parade. When a drillie came across a poorly turned-out cadet he would bellow, ‘Who owns this idle man?’ or something similar and the unfortunate father would answer, be paraded across in front of his son and shown the offending items of dress or embellishments. All of this was quite unnerving as the drillies hovered looking for shaving cream inside ears, threads hanging off buttons or dust in the welts of boots and gaiters. One of the more serious crimes was to have dried Brasso cleaning compound left in the eyelets of the web belt or in the buckles of the ankle gaiters. So by the time the inspection had finished almost everybody in the junior class had picked up three extra training parades. I wasn’t looking forward to facing my father later that day.

  Just before meal parade I finally confronted him to give him the score on how many extras I had picked up during the day. He didn’t seem too surprised when I told him I had scored three. He took me up to the headquarters of the battalion of officer cadets, or ‘Bullshit Castle’ as it was more commonly referred to, and showed me the punishment book where I was honour bound to record my extra training parade awards. Failure to record an extra and subsequent discovery by the staff would lead to more severe punishment such as stoppage of leave; and for repeated offences could lead to dismissal from the course.

  Once we marched off towards the laundry at the side of the parade ground we rushed to prepare for our first instructional period. The day was divided into nine forty-minute periods and also three night periods. At the end of the first day, a common theme began to emerge from the subjects that we would be studying. Firstly, the course was designed to prepare us as junior Infantry Corps officers capable of leading a platoon on operations in Vietnam. Secondly, the course was demanding; there would probably be around a 50 per cent drop-out rate. Thirdly, we would be put under a lot of pressure to see if we could handle stress. Almost every lecturer who spoke to us used the words ‘When you go to Vietnam. . . . ’.

  Most of the pressure on the course was made by creating a time and space problem for the cadets. There was a ten-minute break between each lecture and during this time you sometimes had to change from dress of the day (which was usually boots, greens, black belt and cap), to physical training dress which was sandshoes, white socks, shorts, white singlet and track suit. Until we became quick change experts most of us would leave our rooms looking like a bomb had gone off and take the chance that the drillies had already done their inspection. It was better to take the chance rather than be late for the next class, because invariably the drillies would award extras to the slow coaches. Each day one of the cadets was appointed duty student for his class and it was his responsibility to get them to the next class on time. Of course, if the class was late he got an extra. This made for instant cooperation between the members of a class: the quickest way to lose friends was to get someone an extra.

  The staff and instructors at Scheyville certainly had their work cut out for them in trying to turn the cadets into infantry platoon commanders. The make-up of the intake varied depending on what time of the year the draft was held. The first intake in the year always contained university graduates and drop-outs. There was always a sprinkling of teachers and other professional types who had eventually been netted by the national service and conscription board. Included in our intake were men who had applied to be army pilots or what every one called ‘air cadets’. These men had actually volunteered to join the Army and after graduating would attend the RAAF Basic Flying Training Course and then go on to the Army Aviation Centre to convert to army machines. All of this training had to be repaid by flying for the army for five years. This group of cadets were often older, already had some sort of civilian flying qualification and were looked upon as a protected species because the Crown badly needed pilots. In actual fact this proved not to be the case and they were given the chop just like the rest of us mortals.

  The cadets actually administered themselves in the way that most officer training establishments do: clothing issues, text books, medical and dental parades and the implementation of orders from the headquarters of Scheyville were all done by the cadets themselves. This had the advantage of providing savings in staff manpower and giving cadets the opportunity to learn the ropes prior to being unleashed on the real army. The organisation was based on an infantry battalion which in this case consisted of three companies of three platoons each. Senior class cadets held command appointments. The headquarters of the organisation was located apart from the three companies, up on high ground. Each company had three sets of long huts with a platoon in each. One of the companies was some distance from the rest and the poor souls who resided there were, by nature of the time and distance they had to cover between lectures, very fit indeed. This company was known as the ‘country club’.

  Physical training was a large part of our daily routine. Most of us had been exposed to the physical training instructors at our various training battalions and thought we knew fairly well the type of person a physical training instructor was. What we didn’t know was that the real sadists were all posted to Scheyville. Every day there was some kind of physical training in the training programme. This was usually held in the wooden gymnasium unless we were doing ‘battle physical training’ or working with logs or going for a run. Inside the gym there was a wide assortment of instruments of torture such as parallel bars, weights, heaving beams and ropes.

  For my class the physical training instructors’ day of infamy was the day we did our swimming test and field expedient flotation test in Cattai Creek. It was held in the early morning in June. The grass on the river bank was covered in frost and the creek had a low mist suspended above it. We were to remove our clothing after warming up with battle physical training rifle exercises, pack all of our field gear in our nylon tent half-shelter and float it across the river. A classmate, Dave McKay, and I had earned the wrath of the physical training instructor that morning for some forgettable reason and we were volunteered to go first into the freezing waters. Dave and I quickly stripped and packed our gear into the nylon tents, known as ‘hootchies’.

  Already shaking from the cold grass, we started to enter the water. An instructor in a safety boat urged us to enter more quickly and started to splash his oar about; so we decided to get it over and done with. I didn’t know water could be so cold without being ice. I couldn’t take a breath and my testicles disappeared somewhere up inside my body so far I felt like I had another pair of tonsils. Dave and I broke all sorts of freestyle records crossing the creek; we were soon on the river bank and out of the water like a flash. Once we were out we had to dress and repack our gear. This was far from easy as we were shivering so badly we couldn’t do up our trouser fly buttons or the b
uckles on our packs. Hot coffee was more use if we stuck our fingers into the brew to warm them to help get our clothes on.

  All of the staff would turn out at the sporting activities. Everything we did—drill, weapon training, physical training and even alertness in lectures—was noted. The instructors would record good and bad performances on a punch card which was fed into computers to give analytical readouts on whether or nor a cadet was performing adequately. Each platoon had a staff member, or ‘directing staff as a counsellor. Every couple of weeks or so the directing staff would call you into his office in the lines to inform you about the standard of your performance. He would go through your latest exploits which had earned extra training parades, or discuss why you didn’t seem enthusiastic in the river crossing test. If you were not passing the theory tests given every couple of weeks, he wanted to know why; and could you explain why your room was so dirty two Fridays ago? All of this gave one a persecution complex. It seemed you couldn’t do a thing without the directing staff knowing about it. He soon fitted into the ‘big brother’ mould.

  Most of the instructors at Scheyville were combat veterans. The senior non-commissioned officers (NCOs) were mostly veterans of Borneo, Malaya and had done at least one twelve-month tour of duty in South Vietnam. Some of the older NCOs were Korean War veterans and were what we came to recognise as the type of soldier who ‘had been there, done that’. They were all excellent instructors. They had a professional approach to everything they did and would not let anyone get away with the slightest error no matter what it was. They hammered weapon safety until we could recite by heart every well-worn phrase they used. Almost without exception they would remind us somewhere during a lesson or lecture that if we didn’t ‘hoist it on board’ or ‘be full bottle’ on a subject, we or our men could die. A lot of the instructors were infantrymen and I can’t recall one who hadn’t been to Vietnam. Consequently, we had a wealth of experience to draw on, and we believed everything they told us. All of these staff members created an atmosphere of earnest learning. There was an undercurrent of importance where no mistakes were allowed. There was only one standard and it was excellence.

  The directing staff always went to elaborate lengths to drive home the lessons on such things as weapon safety. Our first visit to the 25 metre range came near the end of our first week at Scheyville. The whole of the intake had to attend a range familiarisation activity affectionately called ‘Home On The Range’ We marched down to the range just outside the gates and were seated on benches and stools for this extravaganza. The senior weapon training NCO was a giant of a man. He stood somewhere around six feet tall and had a huge barrel chest and massive forearms which were covered in the fashionable tattoos of the time. In dress uniform he was most impressive as he had just about every service ribbon awarded since the Second World War. In a booming voice he directed us to our places and told us to ‘sit down, shut up and take notice. . .please’.

  We hadn’t been seated more than a minute when two of the weapon training instructors walked out and moved toward the firing point. We had had so much weapon safety rammed down our throats that it was clear to us that one of the instructors hadn’t cleared his weapon correctly before firing. Then a shot rang out; and one of the cadets screamed in agony. There was immediate pandemonium as directing staff converged from everywhere. All we could see was a man lying on the ground with a shocking gunshot wound to the leg. No sooner had the shock of this registered than the NCO thundered to us to resume our seats. As order began to settle on the crowd, the ‘cadet’ jumped up from the ground and scooted off to the flank of the range firing point. It had all been an elaborate hoax—but it was one which I don’t think many of us ever forgot.

  The NCO then reminded us of the requirement for clearing weapons and proceeded to show us the weapons we would become so familiar with in the next six months. As a bit of a sideshow he demonstrated how a self-loading rifle (SLR) could be fired one-handed. He had so much strength in his arms he was able to hold and fire the rifle one-handed from an unsupported standing position and ensure every round hit the target. When he demonstrated the hitting power of the GPMG M60 machine gun he fired one burst with the butt of the weapon resting on his chin to show its lack of recoil. He was a damn good shot with all of the weapons shown to us that day, but the pièce de résistance was when he wrote his name on the dirt mound on the stop butts with the M60 gun. Showy, but effective.

  A lot of our training in the first three months of junior class was spent teaching us the skills of a competent infantry section leader. Most of these skills were taught by the field training team, comprising mainly warrant officers and captains. In the training area close to Scheyville they taught us how to judge distance, give target indications, move as a section of infantry and give field signals. Once we had those basics mastered we loaded our rifles with blanks and did section battle drills. Every one got a turn at leading the section in a contact drill, a section attack, an immediate ambush and a counter ambush drill. We did these drills until we were sore all over from hitting the ground doing fire and movement. Almost every time we did a contact drill, one of the warrant officers would point his directing staff stick at a cadet and say ‘you’re dead, no cover from fire’ or ‘do you call that a fire position, mister?’ and on it would go. Fire positions were rammed down our throats as much as weapon safety. If you were made a casualty during fire and movement practice you had to tell the rest of the section why you were killed during the debrief afterwards. It was during these debriefs that I believe we learnt the most from our instructors. The assistant instructors would colour their explanations with examples from real contacts and never left us in doubt that during battle someone was going to get hurt. Nevertheless it still seemed akin to car accidents—it would always happen to someone else.

  Before we knew it three months had blurred past and our ‘dads’ were going to graduate. Dave Parry-Okeden had survived. He once told me that he believed the only reason he had made it through was because as a vet he had cured the chief instructor’s ailing horse. I must admit that after an incident in Dave’s room I thought it unlikely that the battalion sergeant major would ever make life difficult for me. I had wanted to see Dave about something after night lectures and went next door and knocked. It was slightly ajar and I was more or less in the room before he had a chance to keep me out. Dave’s bottom drawer in his chest of drawers was open. There was a fairly tidy liquor cabinet installed in it. But more to my surprise, the battalion sergeant major, a somewhat elevated and revered cadet in a junior classman’s eyes, was standing behind the door with a drink in his hand. I was quickly hauled in and the door was shut. The battalion sergeant major looked at me with a wry smile, asked me how I was going and before I could answer Dave shoved a drink in my hand. To avoid any embarrassment I finished my drink as quickly as I could and went back to my room. From then on I always got a nod from the battalion sergeant major whenever our paths crossed; and I can’t ever recall getting a ‘rocket’ or punishment from him.

  The graduation of our fathers was a turning point in the course for us. Once they had passed out we became the senior class, and we had to assume the mantle of responsibility for running the battalion of officer cadets. Our training changed too: we were elevated another step in the military ladder with our work now all aimed at platoon level. From now on it was platoon contact drills, attacks and ambushes. We had to master the intricacies of calling for artillery and mortar fire and adjusting it and a million other things a platoon commander had to know.

  The day our sons marched in was a bit like looking in the mirror. Could we have had those same bewildered faces when we were herded off the buses? They all appeared terribly confused and uncertain. When we looked around at ourselves we could see just how far we had come in such a short time. One couldn’t help smiling as we watched them marching around on that first day at 140 paces to the minute.

  Because our class had taken quite a few casualties and was now down to about 100
there were a few extra cadets to go around from the new junior class. I was allocated two sons, whose surnames both began with the same letter. One was a big lump of a bloke by the name of Adrian Ohlsen who was quiet by nature and hardly ever got into trouble. The other was a character by the name of Brian O’Sullivan. He was an extrovert who was always in the eyes of the directing staff. He arrived as an air cadet wearing a purple hessian suit. His hair was so long the drillies were licking their lips as they moved in for the kill. One of the drillies used an old favourite line by standing behind O’Sullivan and asking him if he was hurting him. When O’Sullivan answered ‘No’, the drillie roared ‘Well I bloody well oughta be, because I’m standing on your bloody hair!’

  O’Sullivan was a very talented man. He was 23 years old, a trainee pilot with multi-engine qualifications from Qantas, and could play the classical guitar magnificently. He loved playing flamenco style and had a girlfriend who danced in a Spanish restaurant in Sydney. He was a potter of some ability, was deeply interested in judo and jujitsu, and made one of the best fruit punches I’ve ever had at a party.

  Unfortunately he thought that a lot of the training at Scheyville was superfluous and he was offside with the directing staff from day one. This made my life hell as I had learnt to avoid extra training parades and hadn’t done one for weeks. O’Sullivan soon changed that: I did fourteen straight extra training parades as he went around Scheyville seemingly intent on creating some kind of a record for the greatest number of extras a cadet could accumulate. After one incredible day when he booked something like 14 extra training parades in one day he came into my room and said ‘Now don’t be mad dad, we’re not allowed leave for the first thirty days and it wakes me up in the morning anyway!’ He was quite a disarming person and could talk his way out of anything. I think it was also O’Sullivan who, on the inspection parade one morning in answer to a drillie’s question, ‘You’re a grub, Mister. . . what are you?’, answered with a loud clear voice, ‘Embarrassed. . .Sergeant Major’. It was moments like this when I wished I could disown O’Sullivan; but he was a pretty good bloke and all he wanted to do was fly for the army.