UNDERGRADUATE PAGE
Escape to Patriotism
By JOHN FRIPP (Merton College, Oxford)
WHILE Mr. Strachey turns jingo, and the world thaws into war, and the Sunday threepennies foretell the land- bound future of Britain's armaments, what is Oxford doing ? " The submerged tenth " is a cliché that is out of fashion, save in the frenzied pages of the Isis. But in Oxford there is a depressed element submerged even beyond the ken of his ; it is not even a tenth, and only just a hundredth. It is the O.U.T.C. (T.A.), the University Training Corps which became part of the Territorial Army three years ago, which spends its time trundling armoured cars up Cat Street and being photographed by the Soldier, and which is. to date, just seventy strong.
Seventy, of both sexes, is not many out of seven thousand. But two years ago the parade state of the corps was something like this: five officers and nine other ranks of the permanent staff were on the full-time job of instructing seven undergraduates. Three of these were in the armoured wing, two each in the artillery and signals, none in the infantry. Those were the days indeed. Now the armoured wing is still the most popular— who would walk when he can ride ? But the recruit, unless he has Cert. A, or has been in the Army, is put into the basic squad willy-nilly. The cratered patade-ground has been cleared of its undependable three-tonners, and an unhappy assortment of berets and ill-fitting battle-dresses square-bash every Thurs- day. We all go for basic training to Carlisle and Plymouth and Catterick in the summer. and are beginning to learn the Army's complicated' hierarchy of initials. We are not amateurs any more, and sometimes we are not even very inefficient, by normal standards.
But there are compensations. Although 9d. per hour is not very much, and a £9 annual bounty is insignificant compared to the heights reached by the air squadron, or even the Oxford troop of the S.A.S., still it is a supplement to one's meagre grant. And although, when one returns late from the weekly parade, as one always does, and one finds that the wiser ex- servicemen in the corduroy jackets. whose secret memories alone are military, have eaten all the cakes at the only open tea-shop, nevertheless it is still possible to distract attention from a still- born essay by appearing before one's tutor in muddy boots and oily uniform. It is even more effective if the essay has to be read before a class. Here, realises the tutor, is a man with wide interests : and, to the tutor, they are possibly a better excuse for the essay than those of the ordinary athlete. But it depends on the tutor, and it is a gambit that can be used only once or twice.
However, these are considerations realised only after one has joined, and it is too late to do very much about it. The average freshman joins, I suppose, because he has his military service to do, and sees in the Training Corps a short-cut to a com- mission. Certainly most of the seventy are straight from school. But then there are those who have done their service, like the ex-captain of Indian Artillery, who is bombardier to a school- boy B.S.M. They, perhaps, join because they enjoyed the Army, and want to continue what was once a happy existence. Some want to go back into the Regular Army, and for them member- ship of the corps is obligatory. And some, perhaps, as a chemist suggested, wish to savour as many of life's delights as they can.
That is probably the truest reason. The others are rationali- sations of what is, ultimately, romanticism. It is, after all, rather enjoyable to spend an afternoon firing a two-inch mortar. It is a change from the price mechanism or Beowulf or anatomy or the early Stuarts. It is nice, too, to spend an - afternoon dressing up. and watching your less imaginative acquaintances from the turret of an armoured car, or even from the back of a three-tonner. It should never be admitted, but playing at soldiers is very pleasant, and the unsatisfied child's demands for leaden regiments that really fight, and for guns that will really knock them down, can still be felt.
To that extent soldiering of any sort is escapism. But in Oxford it is doubly so. There is in everybody a craving to bo master of a machine. The stroke of a brush, the sweep of a pencil, the tap of a chisel and the wood curling up in exact but unrepeatable design are all worth while in themselves. Execution is as satisfying as completion. But in Oxford, as for most people, there is no time to finish anything, and very little that is worth doing for its own sake. Words, work, writing are all for the sake of something that can never be fully realised —unless schools are ever a work of art, and by then it is too late for artistic appreciation. Even in sport one can never be sure that it is one's mastery of technique that has brought victory ; there is always luck, or the toss, or the wind, or one's opponent's mistakes to remember. Thus there is always some- thing lacking ; we can never be quite sure about ourselves. because we can never know that there is something we can do perfectly. We can never say: "At least I have mastered the technique." There are the few who can derive the same sort of pleasure from music or painting, but certainly there is no time in Oxford. nor for most other people, for sculpture or woodcarving, or even carpentry.
Nevertheless, there are a few things that give the same sort of satisfaction in technique without demanding unusual talent. Mainly, they are to do with machines. The machine does the work, but yours is the guiding hand. Thus, driving is one of them, and shooting a gun is another. Firearms with some people, perhaps with most people at some time of their life. are an obsession. Btu, more than that, it is the ability to do something well that makes firing a rifle so pleasant. Other people, perhaps, prefer driving or tinkering with wireless. What- ever it is, they do it because they must have something which they know they can do, as distinct from doing something which. uninspiring in itself, may eventually enable them to do something else.
But there is, besides, in some people, something primitive which delights in self-torture. Just because Oxford is one of the few places left in the world where the Army is still despised, to join the Training Corps is to satisfy the secret wish, not only for rude plastic ability, but for self-immolation. World crises have not very much to do with volunteering. Besides. I had heard that there were bounties paid to volunteers for the Territorial Army, and I thought that a change of scene once a week would be enjoyable in Schools Year. So I joined. Two- inch mortars were as nice as I had thought, perhaps even nicer : but playing at soldiers, even once a week, is sometimes a little: tedious.
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