Heard on a Train - Army Cadets

The 'Quiet Coach' from Plymouth to Reading was commandeered by a group of army cadets, aged 18 to 22. I gave up on my book and sat there listening. You don't get many performance pieces giving you the inside scoop on young army life.

The odd good story emerged. One young man aiming to become a corporal in six months told of a time working in a corner shop. A man came in, blood on his hands, asking to use the wash basin out the back.

'Why?'

'Some driver's just run over a cat and didn't stop. I had to wring its neck.'

The man was nodded through to the back on the back of one question. "What did you do with it?'

He gestured to the front door of the shop. Just outside was the body of the newly dead cat. People paused to bend and stroke it, and then notice the bloody reality. Old folk, with poor sight, simply stepped over it.

So that was a fine bit of eavesdropping. Interesting too was the petty, adolescent series of punishments meted out on the cadets - shoes thrown out of windows because they were found to be dirty during inspection, for the cadets to go and collect etc till they were running around in flipflops- and the fun with which the cadets recalled such discipline.

They're young lads, I thought, but they're out to protect me. They guard the interests of everyone on the country. I get naive like that sometimes.

'Have you any gays in your troop?' one of them asked, and the homophobia rolled forth unchecked. 'You have any on your troop you suspect is gay, you've got to keep ragging him. Ask him all the time, get at him, make fun until he breaks.' And they want on to give examples of how they'd done this in the past. Of course they're hiding their vulnerable sides beneath a jock exterior and all that, but it was sad and unfortunate. They were travelling without tickets too, because tickets are seldom checked. When a guard came along, they lied away and joked about it afterwards. At least their boots are clean.