Home, Home on the Range

I was having a bad day of it. The rest of the Officers and NCO’s had decided to test the new boy out. My problem was, I was the new boy. They had sent me down the butts to run the re-pasting of the targets and to send back the scores if you could call them that. I was using a PP-8 (pronounced “Pee-pee wheat”) American handheld radio. Last or if you like first seen by me in the film “Sands of Iwo Jima”. It may have been that actual radio too. I hadn’t seen anything like it except in films or war documentaries. We had a lot of American kit. But most of it was pre Liberation of Paris I think.
 
After a lot of shouting, swearing and kicking, lots of kicking in fact. The firing practise finally commenced. There were lots of “Maggies Drawers” being waved I can tell you. It would more than just this meagre session to turn them into some kind of marksmen. They had informed me by radio that the practise had finished. Could I tell them the results of each firer, i.e. had he hit the target? If so how many times. I quite casually climbed out of the butts on to the target line and started to count the holes in the pasted figure of the running man. Eighteen, nineteen, twenty, that was it, one last check, no, I’d missed one down the bottom. Twenty-one, no there was another, I suddenly realised that I hadn’t missed these on my count. These holes were appearing like now.
 
I turned very slowly to face the firing line where I could plainly see a group of what was obviously the NCO’s with a lone firer. Sgt. Lefarge was holding a FAMAS and was swaying slightly; as I turned back to the tgts there was a couple of more holes appearing before my eyes in rapid succession. Bollocks I thought. They wouldn’t actually hit me would they? I continued to play super cool and moved to the next target. A big Mistake. He now started firing at my feet and that was the end of super cool .I dived into the butts and nearly broke my neck doing so.
 
It turned out that he was actually trying to hit me. My big mistake was not diving for cover after the first initial rounds. Playing super cool had pissed off Lefarge and he now wanted to hurt me, not necessarily kill me. Severely wounded was what he wanted. It just happened that he was a bit pissed after his boozy lunch. Me being out of sight and out of mind necessitated the need to find another target for him to shoot at.
 
It soon arrived. Well it had been there for sometime actually. Cutting a swathe across the clear blue skies of southern France. White streamers left in the clear mountain air. Well it was probably much to high for that, about 30,000 feet probably. Anyway it was a commercial passenger plane heading towards Spain. Lefarge opened up again, this time his fire was automatic and skywards. Directed at the passing plane. He fired about 3 full mags at it before he got bored, then turned and staggered back to their table for another drink of wine. I heard he nearly missed that too.
 
Due to me curtailing the fun of the Officers and senior NCO’s by dropping the targets and counting the scores from the safety of the butts. I was moved to another part of the range. Where I given another job to do, controlling the hand grenades.
 
Crouching down in the trench priming grenades. I was thinking about how much more relaxed they were about the rules in the Legion, when I should have really been thinking more about the safety aspects.
 
They had nearly all been through and it was going great, really slick. Then Mr 1% arrived, a left-handed thrower. In this world you get right handed people and left handed people. Which doesn’t really cause any problems until it comes to weapons. The majority of weapons are geared up to be handled by right handed people, but can also be used by the minority of left handers as long as a few extra safety precautions are enforced.
 
Basically when recruits are under going instruction on throwing a grenade you like to be able to see the grenade at all times. Just so you know where it is and that the pin is still in it. In the British army you all sit in a reinforced concrete bunker while the instructors prime the grenades (still in use until stocks run out is the 1936 Mills Bomb, last seen in a “Bridge too Far” or such like movies). If lucky you may get to throw “1”, 1980’s style grenade, of the L1A181 variety. You get called forward one at a time and then you run through the drills and when satisfied the instructor will give you the grenade.
 
You stood side on to the range, facing the instructor in the trench. You held the grenade in your right hand. The left hand cupped both your right hand and the grenade. Your hands were in the centre of your chest with the elbows at a 45-degree angle, feet slightly apart and at the ten to two position. You turned to your head to the left without moving the rest of your body) and checked that the range was clear and there wasn’t anyone who may be injured by your throwing of the grenade. (Well anybody different from whom you would be eventually trying to specifically kill with it).
 
Having completed all this. The instructor gave you the nod. He would then shout the command (bearing in mind that you were only about a foot apart).

“Remove the Pin”.
You would have the lever of the grenade running down the palm of your right hand, fist clasped tightly around the grenade. Then with your arms and elbows pointing as I said earlier at a 45-degree angle you attempted to pull out the pin. Once you had achieved this, after a bit of tugging here and there. You would hold the pin at arm’s length in your left hand and physically turn your head to look at it. Stating the obvious, "Pin". Then turning your head the opposite way, looking at your now extended right arm. You would shout “Ready”.

Then turning your head to look down the range, checking that it was still clear of every one but nasty people. You would attempt to try and throw the bloody thing as far as you could. Shouting “Grenade” as you did so.
 
The problem was that with your arm already extended and locked it was a see saw type motion that came into effect, as you tried to throw it. As a consequence it would usually arc quite high in the air but only travel a few feet down the actual range. You then had to watch it land and remember where it had rolled to a halt. This was so that if it didn’t go off, (and mind you there were quite a number that didn’t) you could go and retrieve it at the end of the practise so that the ATO (Ammunition Technical Officer) could safely dispose of it for you. What really happened was that the instructor tried to get the next thrower to aim his grenade at the unexploded one, hoping that it would go off too. That was because he had to go with you when you retrieved the dud ones.
 
They didn’t quite use this method in the Legion. There the thrower would hold the grenade in his chosen hand and would stand in the trench next to the Senior NCO who was in charge of the firing point. The thrower shall we say would be asked if he was prepared to throw and would answer accordingly. He would then be given a target at which he was to try and hit with his grenade. Theses would usually be large rings marked out on the ground by white rocks. They were at 100 meters intervals of distance up to 300 metres.
You threw the grenade like a cricket ball to all intense purposes. The left arm would be raised in front of the body then; the end of the fingertips would be sighted a long an imaginary line with the eye through the finger tips to the target. The right hand, in which the firer or thrower held the grenade, would be laid on top of the back of the left hand. The index finger of the left hand would be inserted through the ring of the pin, and as the firer brought the grenade back in an arc over his shoulder to throw. The pin would be pulled out and the firer would continue the cycle and bring his right arm forward again throwing the grenade towards the target. Like in the British army both the NCO and the thrower would watch where the grenade landed. Then duck down behind the parapet as the grenade detonated. But like I said enter Mr 1%.
 
Not one of the recruits had indicated to me that they were left-handed and I had primed all the grenades as right-handed throwers. The throwing bay was not particularly all that long and for that matter it was not particularly all that deep .It was about 2 meters long by 1 metre deep, reinforced concrete though. So if a grenade went off in the trench all the fragments would bounce off the hard surface and shred your body to bits. Great depth, being nearly 2 meters I had little chance of ducking, so I was crouched down in the end of the trench with my box of grenades. It had been just slightly hairy up ‘til now.
 
I gave the recruit the grenade and he passed by me and went to the centre of the throwing bay. The little sergeant with the specs and pencil moustache was now running the range. They’d changed after they’d had lunch. This was the first thrower and I was shitting myself a little bit. I didn’t know how sober the sergeant was. I was soon to find out though.
 
The Sargent went through his little spiel and the thrower prepared to do the biz. He did all the drills correct right up till he pulled the pin. Then it all went pear shaped. He pulled the pin and the lever shot off and hit the bottom of the trench, you could hear my arsehole pucker at this stage. The recruit however did shit himself and as a consequence dropped the grenade at the same time.
 
Well that was it for me, these grenades had been primed for 4-5 seconds but were going off a bit earlier than that. I was now sitting on a crate of them with one rolling about the trench.
 
Well, what happened next, it was all in slow motion and it was fucking brilliant.
 
The Sargent pushed his glasses back with his index finger of his left hand and grabbed the recruit by the throat with his right.
 
“What’s the game? Comrade” he said, then rabbit punched him in the face. In one fluid motion he had bent down, scooped up the grenade and had lobbed it down the range. Re-grabbed the recruit pulling down to the bottom of the trench. 3.8 seconds had elapsed and then there was a crump. Me I was still in the corner kissing my ass good-bye.
 
Needless to say there followed the ritual duty slapping and kicking session only deserved and reserved for fools. (And at times genuinely fucking unlucky dudes).
 
They sent me back to the rifle range, running the ammo and controlling the brass salvage.
 
I was sitting quite sedately and this side and just slightly forward of the firing point I was putting the expended cartridge cases into the large board that had been brought from Castel. It had holes drilled in it and looked rather like a large biscuit. The empty cartridges were put in the holes and the rows could easily be counted as to not loose any of the empty cases. Ensuring that all the brass was taken back to the QMs with us. I don’t know what made me look up. Self-preservation I suppose.
 
The recruits were lined up along the front edge of firing point. They were loaded with the 96mm anti tank practise grenade a big white bulbous dart shaped thing which weighed the front of their weapons down and caused strain on their backs as they tried to keep the nose of the grenade up, and away from the ground. I watched the line of white blobs bobbing up and down as the rest of the NCO’s passed up and down the rear of the detail slapping the backs of heads as they shouted at them to keep the weapons pointed down the range and up towards the blue sky.
 
The weapon was loaded with a single cartridge that was similar to a blank round in that it did not have a lead bullet on the end of the case. It was a casing full of powder that was used to launch the grenade from the end of the rifle. One round, one rocket as they say. The main problem was that it was a bitch to fire. One of the senior NCO’s had taken great delight in telling all the recruits that if you didn’t watch it, you could break your finger or even your hand when firing it.
 
Well, it was true.
 
But telling this shower of misfits had been a mistake. None of them wanted to fire the fucking thing now and they were all shitting themselves in case they got injured and ended up in the infirmary. Now they were all standing in a line on the firing point.
 
The weapon, the fusil 55/56 (manufactured in 1955 and modified in 1956) was slung over the firer’s shoulder and the magazine was removed due to their only being the cartouche round up the spout. It was fired like a mini mortar in fact. The index finger of the right hand was gingerly extended and the tip of the finger was used to pull the trigger. The left arm extended and the left hand used to point and holds the weapon down after firing it.
 
So as the weapon became a coiled python around your body, after the horrendously violent fucking recoil, you would let go as the fist was clenched. Otherwise it would get smacked by the trigger guard and break your finger at the knuckle. I lost interest in them and started to sort out the empty cases again. Another mistake that footballer’s can make too, in effect you might say I took my eye off the ball.
 
There was the sound of an explosion and I duck as I clasped my hands over my ears. Something went over my head and hit the end of the cart-case board. Up it went like a seesaw, brass going every where. Most of it was coming at me, showering me with the empty cart-cases.
 
They had fired the 96-mm grenade at me, fortunately it was only the practise type. But it still could have taken my fucking head off, or broken most of the bones in my body if it had managed to hit me. Fucking arseholes I thought.
 
Still it was nothing compared to the time later on in my service when the recruit fired one through the roof of a Puma helicopter. That was the fastest I’ve ever come down in, and got out of a chopper.
 
As per usual when the culprit was finally identified every body took turns in kicking the shit out of him. (The pilots and aircrew had a fucking good go too).
 

Jim Love