The 1st Bn HLI were in Tel-el-Kebir, Egypt. The whole battalion except C coy, who were in Cyprus, some hundreds of men, had spent long weeks training for the Queen's Birthday Parade.
Now this parade calls for a feu de joie, which, as you probably know, in the British tradition of that time, entailed sloping arms from attention, presenting arms for inspection, and then a movement which entailed our Lee-Enfield rifles butts passed onto our right shoulders, with fixed bayonets, and firing off a blank round each into the air. But, this is the hard part, you will understand. It was to be a complete and unbroken repetition of gunshot; a sweet brrrrrr from start to finish. The Bn would be lined up on parade, in three rows as always, tallest men on the wings, shortest in the middle, tapered to the middle smoothly, height-wise.
This parade only was to be completely under the direct control of the Regimental Sergeant Major, a very rare circumstance. this was a very tough battalion, drawn from No Mean City,the city of Glasgow, at a time of conscription of all eighteen year- olds, and they had been welded into a disciplined fighting but hot to handle unit. Great on active service, terrible in peace time towns.
The RSM at the time was a real solid, thickset Scot of few and very gruff words, Jimmy The One. He was feared as the hardest man among hard men, by reputation. He was a ram-rod Marciano style, but middleweight i would say.
Under normal circumstances he was all but invisible to the rank and file, he kept his distance, so when he arrived, the shivers began.
All the drill practice for the parade entailed the Bn lined up on parade in the right formation, and when the massed rifles were up on all shoulders by numbers, the RSM gave the order for the feu de joie. The first man at the outside of the front row fired his shot, followed by the man to his right and so on, to the end of thefront row, back down the middle row, and then the last row. Hundreds of perfectly orchestrated single shots, like a long automatic rattle. That is in an ideal world. But the feu de joie is very difficult to judge in the ranks, and it is hard to anticipate as it approaches you, so that the line of dominoes does not rattle along, but develops stop and starts, and the eagle-eyed Rsm, out front, pointed out every offender who blasted too early or too late, and two regimental police immediately doubled across the sand in silence and put the offender between them, single file, and doubled him off the parade ground and straight to jail. So it was a daily ritual to have the cells full.
well, the Day of the Queen's Birthday dawned and the pavilions were erected, the honoured guests, male and female, were directly facing the parade. Between them and us, facing us, was the RSM., man of steel and now steely-eyed, meaning real business.
As one of the shorter guys I am right in middle, front row. Right in the eye-lines of the RSM and honoured guests. We are in full dress, kilts, white spats, battle honours flying and gleaming. The Highland Light Infantry, (formed to put down the American struggle for independence. When they got there ,it so happened, the conflict was over.) the terror of the line.
We marched on, to the swirl of pipes and beat of drums. I coped fine with the Attention, but on the command of slope arms, food and drink to me of course, something very unfortunate befell me. On my right was the very smartest soldier in the battalion, Private Ryan(absolutely true). He won the stick on every parade he appeared on. Our shoulder epaulettes were threaded through our company colours worn on the top of our shoulders, mine yellow and green, his bright red. But, being the sharpest soldier in our thousand, his colours were great big flat wide ones, starched and pressed out flat, big and square. Wonderful. The problem was that on the first movement of the slope arms, which entails tossing the rifle up from the ground vertically and clamping it your right side, right hand catching and grasping the butt, left hand crossing the chest and catching and grasping the barrel, ready for the second movement to put the rifle sloped on the right shoulder, my bayonet went cleanly through the centre of his company colour, which meant that although no damage was done, my rifle was now attached to his shirt, and wouldn't budge.
The battalion completed the slope immaculately and stood rigid, rifles on the shoulders, ready for the command to present arms. I remained stock still, in a wrong and embarrassing position, but still in a military one and I remembered the first lesson on parade. Never move without a command.
I had to hope, that as middle man in the front row, the visitors would assume I had a special role. i tried not to panic. The RSM eyes were boring into me, but I believe mine were desperatlely boring back at him. i think he was measuring me. Would he give the order to present arms? What would I do if he did? I very quickly needed to invent a new response to the command. The present is a 3 part movement, and when the order came, as the rest of the battalion whacked their rifles off their shoulder and raised them vertically before them, I had already completed my new movement and was ready, meeting them and co-ordinating in the final present arms position.
What did I do . I went speedily down on one knee, lowering my rifle vertically as i did so, releasing the bayonet from the grip of Ryan's epaulette and rose in the present arms position with the best of them. It was one smooth movement. probably the only it was ever used. And all mine.
The RSM's eyes bored into me, and mine bored back.
The feu de joie went great, the parade went great.
The RSM never mentioned it - in fact he never ever spoke to me. No-one else mentioned it.
I was promoted soon after, The RSM retired and was nominated for a gallantry award. Take a guess what for - for controlling our battalion!. But he did not get his award.
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Now this parade calls for a feu de joie, which, as you probably know, in the British tradition of that time, entailed sloping arms from attention, presenting arms for inspection, and then a movement which entailed our Lee-Enfield rifles butts passed onto our right shoulders, with fixed bayonets, and firing off a blank round each into the air. But, this is the hard part, you will understand. It was to be a complete and unbroken repetition of gunshot; a sweet brrrrrr from start to finish. The Bn would be lined up on parade, in three rows as always, tallest men on the wings, shortest in the middle, tapered to the middle smoothly, height-wise.
This parade only was to be completely under the direct control of the Regimental Sergeant Major, a very rare circumstance. this was a very tough battalion, drawn from No Mean City,the city of Glasgow, at a time of conscription of all eighteen year- olds, and they had been welded into a disciplined fighting but hot to handle unit. Great on active service, terrible in peace time towns.
The RSM at the time was a real solid, thickset Scot of few and very gruff words, Jimmy The One. He was feared as the hardest man among hard men, by reputation. He was a ram-rod Marciano style, but middleweight i would say.
Under normal circumstances he was all but invisible to the rank and file, he kept his distance, so when he arrived, the shivers began.
All the drill practice for the parade entailed the Bn lined up on parade in the right formation, and when the massed rifles were up on all shoulders by numbers, the RSM gave the order for the feu de joie. The first man at the outside of the front row fired his shot, followed by the man to his right and so on, to the end of thefront row, back down the middle row, and then the last row. Hundreds of perfectly orchestrated single shots, like a long automatic rattle. That is in an ideal world. But the feu de joie is very difficult to judge in the ranks, and it is hard to anticipate as it approaches you, so that the line of dominoes does not rattle along, but develops stop and starts, and the eagle-eyed Rsm, out front, pointed out every offender who blasted too early or too late, and two regimental police immediately doubled across the sand in silence and put the offender between them, single file, and doubled him off the parade ground and straight to jail. So it was a daily ritual to have the cells full.
well, the Day of the Queen's Birthday dawned and the pavilions were erected, the honoured guests, male and female, were directly facing the parade. Between them and us, facing us, was the RSM., man of steel and now steely-eyed, meaning real business.
As one of the shorter guys I am right in middle, front row. Right in the eye-lines of the RSM and honoured guests. We are in full dress, kilts, white spats, battle honours flying and gleaming. The Highland Light Infantry, (formed to put down the American struggle for independence. When they got there ,it so happened, the conflict was over.) the terror of the line.
We marched on, to the swirl of pipes and beat of drums. I coped fine with the Attention, but on the command of slope arms, food and drink to me of course, something very unfortunate befell me. On my right was the very smartest soldier in the battalion, Private Ryan(absolutely true). He won the stick on every parade he appeared on. Our shoulder epaulettes were threaded through our company colours worn on the top of our shoulders, mine yellow and green, his bright red. But, being the sharpest soldier in our thousand, his colours were great big flat wide ones, starched and pressed out flat, big and square. Wonderful. The problem was that on the first movement of the slope arms, which entails tossing the rifle up from the ground vertically and clamping it your right side, right hand catching and grasping the butt, left hand crossing the chest and catching and grasping the barrel, ready for the second movement to put the rifle sloped on the right shoulder, my bayonet went cleanly through the centre of his company colour, which meant that although no damage was done, my rifle was now attached to his shirt, and wouldn't budge.
The battalion completed the slope immaculately and stood rigid, rifles on the shoulders, ready for the command to present arms. I remained stock still, in a wrong and embarrassing position, but still in a military one and I remembered the first lesson on parade. Never move without a command.
I had to hope, that as middle man in the front row, the visitors would assume I had a special role. i tried not to panic. The RSM eyes were boring into me, but I believe mine were desperatlely boring back at him. i think he was measuring me. Would he give the order to present arms? What would I do if he did? I very quickly needed to invent a new response to the command. The present is a 3 part movement, and when the order came, as the rest of the battalion whacked their rifles off their shoulder and raised them vertically before them, I had already completed my new movement and was ready, meeting them and co-ordinating in the final present arms position.
What did I do . I went speedily down on one knee, lowering my rifle vertically as i did so, releasing the bayonet from the grip of Ryan's epaulette and rose in the present arms position with the best of them. It was one smooth movement. probably the only it was ever used. And all mine.
The RSM's eyes bored into me, and mine bored back.
The feu de joie went great, the parade went great.
The RSM never mentioned it - in fact he never ever spoke to me. No-one else mentioned it.
I was promoted soon after, The RSM retired and was nominated for a gallantry award. Take a guess what for - for controlling our battalion!. But he did not get his award.
