Chapter 6: THE ROYAL ARTILLERY

On July 1917 I received orders to report as an Officer Cadet to the Royal School of Artillery, Topsham Barracks, Exeter, Devonshire. The officer cadets faced an intensive four months course, including all aspects of gunnery, riding etc., to be followed by four weeks of actual firing and "movement" at Larkhill, Wiltshire.

Each month would see an influx of sixty newcomers half of which were recently from school, like myself and the other half were from the trenches. The veterans, without exception were thankful for this respite from front line action. Most of them were in their mid twenties, quite a few with wound stripes on their sleeves. We younger Officer Cadets treated them with a great deal of respect.

For our final month of training we were deemed fit to proceed to Larkhill where it was bitterly cold and our scarcely heated huts were a severe test. I got into trouble for cantering my mount into a heavy sweat as he was stabled out in the open and had a long winter coat. I was ordered to lead him around for over an hour until he cooled off, missing my evening meal, which is something, a hungry eighteen-year-old remembers.

After our graduation, we enjoyed a week's leave, before receiving our commissions as Second Lieutenants.

I was posted to a Reserve Brigade at Swanage in Dorset where we learned to shoe our horses and received gas training. The primitive gas masks of those days was clumsy and uncomfortable and hampered effective operation of duties.