We were all obsessed with our kit, we had to be, everything was based around the clothes you wore being immaculate, the clothes in your locker in the dorm being just as immaculate, next to the bunk with its perfectly folded bedding. If it wasn't you could expect to spend your day in the press up position with a boot in the middle of your back, while you were loudly told how pathetic most of the things that made up your being were.
Or worse, I remember looking out the tall windows of our dorm in the late afternoon, I was probably ironing or trying to sew my surname into a sock or some such, and one of the recruits from another platoon was coming up the long slope of the hill from Narrow Neck beach. It was a perfect afternoon, and his hair was wet and slicked back. In a different life he would have been home from work and jogged down the hill to leap into the warm water, soak up the beauty of late summer. He had a bunch of sodden clothing in his arms, pressed to his chest. White shirts, blue shorts belts and socks. One of the petty officers had decided his kit was rubbish, and made him gather it up, sprint down the hill and throw it into the water while bemused mums and businessmen with their shoes and socks off watched on.
I was platoon leader, so my kit was supposed to be beyond immaculate. There were eight platoons, eight leaders, and we were the first to be inspected every morning head to toe, standing rigidly at attention while the instructors circled with their parade sticks flicking about menacingly.
There was one chief petty officer who outdid all the others for menace without even trying. He did it perfectly, always lurking back beyond the ones who ranted and waved their arms about, so that you began to wonder what unspeakable horror would unfold if he ever was to step forward. He was huge and muscular and wore his peaked cap low so that the eyes you dared not meet remained unseen.
I was as fit as I could be. Every morning I would get up earlier than most and have my kit just right before the morning run. We would line up for breakfast and the cooks while line up trays of bacon and eggs, baked beans and spaghetti. I had the cereal and fruit which was dumped at the far end of the long, long servery, maybe a boiled egg wolfed down and then I was gone, making sure the dorm was neat as a pin before morning parade. We used to hang our hats on pegs along the wall of the mess hall, as we were called to parade all the recruits would funnel down to that point, grab their hats and rush out onto the parade ground, the small parade ground, and await the beginnings of the day.
I let my guys go past me, making sure they looked okay, socks up high, cap tallies centered perfectly above their nose, put on my own with a quick look in the long mirror and went out to stand in front of them.
The parade began with the usual, there were always a few threats and admonishments, nothing major.
We were probably getting ready to move away, race back to the dorms and head out to the classes of the day.
The chief stepped between a couple of the petty officers standing in front of him, I'm sure I'm making it up but I can imagine all eyes furtively turning to the movement, as if a huge piece of an Antarctic glacier had come loose and slipped into the sea.
He came down unhurriedly and at last I realised he was standing somewhere near my left shoulder, quiet.
'You happy with your kit recruit?'
"Yes Chief."
He reached up and took my hat off, held it in front of my face. There was a tiny string of spaghetti stuck in the stitching along the edge, about where someone must have grabbed it as they rushed for the parade ground, turned it over to read the name in the lining and realised it wasn't theirs.
He didn't say anything else. He just put it back on my head, and slammed his hand down so hard that the front edge came down and split the skin along the bridge of my nose and blood poured down my blue drill shirt.
The parade commander dismissed us, we turned right, held for a moment, and made our way off the parade ground.
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