This is a story from the Army Apprentices School, Arborfield, which was not far from Wokingham in Berkshire. I started my soldiering there on 15 January, 1959. It was a memorable first day because on the way there, through a window of the London to Wokingham train I saw a real, live cow and that evening, in the cookhouse, I had a pint *** smashed over my head. Anyway, this poem relates to the passage of information and the dangers of misinformation, and in a way is relative to my first day.

(While waiting for a train)

A bombardier and corporal were arguing the toss
About a job they had to do, about who should be boss.
The corporal said 'it should be me. You know the way we train.
My being in the Infantry means that I have the brain
To make sure job gets properly done, and doing it is really fun.
That being said - this job, you know, we really ought to flick it.
Would you believe they have us down to run a fire-piquet?

Replied his mate, the bombardier, 'even if it's cavalier,
I'm the one that fires off gun so I should get to have the fun.
And working the Apprentice School appears to me to be quite cool.
These AT's., they know their stuff, and work they'd never think to cuff.
Why, one even told my daughter, ‘on fire you never use hot water.'
Perplexed, his mate then asked 'why not, use h2o when it is hot?'
'Stands to reason' said his mate (they stood at Railway Station),
'Hot water on a burning fire just ups the conflagration'.

The two both spent that weekend off at home and in the yard.
Concluding individually the task was just too hard.
And so, selectively, they chose (so soon as they got back)
To do the work at Arborfield a smartly dressed lance-jack.
A Fusileer with bright cockade, four GEC's and bright
(though he said he'd had to give up two for getting in a fight).
He drilled the boys of Arborfield exactly as he orter
Whilst urging them to 'never, ever, ever use hot water'.