Trouble In Uniform 2

Because I was a bit undisciplined my brothers decided that I needed some army training. They were keen members of the local territorial unit in Onehunga the 21st Field Battery NZA. They were both qualified gun layers who were the ones to sight the guns and were considered to be the cream of the crop. I was still only 16 when I joined up and had to put my age up to 18 to get in. I of course also wanted to be a gun layer and having learned what you had to do which wasn’t all that difficult decided when the next tests came around to sit the test.
The regular army soldier in charge of training had taken an instant dislike to me and made sure that I failed. We went into camp for a couple of weeks each year for intensive training ending with a live shoot. The guns were World War One 18 pounders that had been converted to pneumatic tyres from the cart wheels used in the war so that they could be towed on the roads. Our uniforms were also World War 1 type jackets and riding breeches which were relics of the days when the guns were towed by horses. The tunics had brass buttons that we polished with Brasso. They were not only down the front but also on the pockets the shoulder epaulettes and at the back of the wrists. There were also two brass belt clips at the waist on either side designed to hold up a web belt which we didn’t wear. We understood that the buttons on the sleeves were handed down from Peter the Great the German Emperor and were originally designed to discourage his troops from wiping their snotty noses on the backs of their sleeves. 
We had to make metal holders with slots in which to slide the buttons to protect the rough serge material from the Brasso when we polished them They had the Artillery insignia  of an old fashioned cannon unlike the infantrymen whose buttons had the four stars of the Southern Cross. We wore a leather bandolier sloping crosswise from one shoulder with a row of leather pouches across the chest designed to holds clips of .303 ammunition. We had no ammunition and stuffed them with paper. They also had to be highly polished but with Nugget shoe polish except for the studs that held them shut which together with the ring that held a loop of leather probably for attaching a bayonet scabbard requiring Brasso.
We wore ‘lemon sqeezer’ felt hats stiffened with sugar to make the brims lie perfectly flat and with Artillery puggarees being hat bands of blue and red. There was an Artillery hat badge that included the gun on the buttons a crown and a scroll bearing the Artillery motto ‘Quo fas et Gloria ducunt’ which I understand means ‘wherever honour and glory lead’  and it had to be polished as well. We had clumsy army boots with spurs that had to be polished and our calves were clad in gaiters that were long strips of close knitted material about four imches wide that we wrapped around our legs in overlapping spirals. They were designed to protect us from scratches when travelling through rough and thorny country.
We had a distinction that also stemmed from earlier times. The Infantry started wrapping theirs from the ankles finishing up just below the knees. They were held in place by long tapes that were wound round the legs several times before being tucked firmly under  the earlier windings. Because a soldier on horseback would continually find the tapes coming loose from rubbing against the saddle we started ours from below the knees and fixed the tapes at our ankles.

In early 1939 we went to Waiouru camp that had just been opened. We slept in tents and the cookhouse was an old farm shed. One of the exercises was a night occupation. We took up a position after dark and laid the guns using aiming posts set out in line behind each gun with lights hanging from them to show the numbers up. The layers had to line up two of the same numbers on each. This enabled them to allow for the gun moving sideways when it fired. We then left the guns and went back to camp.
Early next morning we went out and fired them to test how accurately we had lined them up. At the end my sergeant who was a fiery individual ordered me to fetch the aiming posts that were over fifty yards behind the gun. I set off and heard him roar at me DOUBLE GUNNER GILBERT! The thought of doubling over the tussocks at Waiouru in my stiff army boots was too much and I told him to get ******! I spent the rest of the camp on cookhouse fatigue peeling spuds and washing dixies. It was not until I got home that I realised what a bad week it had been for me. Waiting there was a letter summoning me to a second interview for Training College during the week I was in camp.