Place- Drill

Left, right, left right left. Left, right, left right left....
The unity of our boots hitting the floor in perfect time seemed to spur on Serge, who was dripping from the heavy rain which pounded down on us all.

"Harry, arms up higher!" He called, marching us through mud and other substances I'm glad I couldn't identify. Our shirts stuck to us, epaulettes swollen like sponges and the boys hats soaked through. The only advantage to the ugly female bowler hat was it didn't have a soft top, and so didn't drink up every drop of rain like a thirsty camel.

Serge and Staff Tweed surveyed us, noting every millisecond someone was out of time, until every step was executed with military precision. Everyone longed for their jumpers and coats, both of which were standard issue but still not to be worn during drill. The calling of warmth and dryness seemed to be the biggest incentive to us, and we'd have followed it like the Bisto kids if we could.

"Halt!" Serge shouted, forcing us all to stop on the next clunk of heavy boots. "Atten-tion!" thumbs hit the seam of trousers and backs were straight as nails on exactly his command, hopefully we were good enough this time.

After four and a half hours in vile rain and thick mud, Serge finally let us stop to eat and get dry, only to continue at dawn. We daren't groan, we had to do an extra half hour last time we did. We had to take what we were told without complaint (or any reaction at all if we're at attention) and treat everything with the most serious manner. This was the big boy league.