8}] Land and By Air

but one had to meet an English Sergeant Major in one’s Commando course to really understand a tyrant.

During my 48 hour pass, I visited my sisters in Boston. It was only a night train drive from Toronto, and I felt good in my AC 2 uniform, the lowest form of animal life, having to salute every officer I met.

On return from Boston, I was given two weeks’ rifle drill. The first week there were no rifles to go around, and we marched with sticks over our shoulders. I had never carried a gun or rifle, although we had a gun at home and my father used to kill a crow each year to hang on a pole to keep crows away from the chickens. The only time I had attempted to fire a shot, I had gone down to a potato field and fired at a large flock of Hungarian partridges but when I went to pick up my bag of birds, there were none - they had all flown away.

We got the guns on the second Monday. On Tuesday we were in parade for T.A.B.T. Anyone who has had that inspection knows how sore one’s arm is the next day. Wednesday we had pay parade, so the total time of rifle drill was very few hours. On Thursday we had the final parade — it was a rainy day and we had to have the drill at the Naval Barracks. During our basic training, I was in the middle file, so in order to learn some marching, I got in the back file (marched in 3 files). When we were marching in the Naval Barracks before inspection, the last order was About Turn, and when we stopped, I was in the front file instead of my usual place at the back. When the order was given - Shoulder Arms, I thought I performed quite well, but the parade officer walked up to me and said, “Where did you have your hand?” and I said, ”I don’t know Sir.” He shouted in his loud voice which could be heard all over the parade, ”Take that man’s name.” I don’t think I was ever so embarrassed in my life. The Sergeant

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