Lost in Translation Part 3 – Drill Night by Persephone

Sometimes going through transition can feel like you're walking through a minefield. And sometimes you actually are...
 

Coventry England - 2019
 
 
“Parade! To your duties… dis…miss!”

The old victorian drill hall echoed to the sound of three dozen pairs of combat boots being stomped into the concrete, to be followed instantly by the competing shouts of the NCOs trying to sort out their respective sections getting ready for the evening’s training programme and work details.

“Not a bad turn out this evening Josie,” Major Ed Slattery, the officer commanding, or OC, of 274 Field Engineer Squadron, remarked to his second in command as he watched the last of his squadron scattering to their duties, “of course the last couple of months have been quiet with it being the summer holidays and such.”

Josie winced internally as she herself had been one of the defaulters for those two months. “Yes sir, I’m sorry about that. I should have…” but she was cut off before she could apologise any further.

“I wasn’t talking about you Josie.” Major Slattery grinned disarmingly, “I know you’ve had an awful lot going on. Nor was I complaining. It’s pretty much normal for the time of year. I’m just happy to see the boys and girls turning up tonight when we have the MATTs package coming up in a couple of months. It will be good to shake some cobwebs loose before then.“

With the wind taken out of her sails somewhat all Josie could do was agree before the boss continued.

“I notice young Mister Faraday hasn’t turned up again. Bugger! He was supposed to give the Values and Standards lecture this evening. At least the lecture pack is in the Squadron Sergeant Major’s office. Josie can you pick it up and run with that? It’s just the usual refresher on the ‘Super Six’”

Josie laughed. “God! I’m not sure I even need the pack for that anymore.” She started to quote back to him in a sing song voice. “Courage, Discipline, Respect, Integrity, Loyalty and Selfless commitment. You can remember these values by using the mnemonic C-DRILS.”

“Excellent! Don’t tell anyone but I can never remember the damn things.” Major Slattery chuckled. “Anyway I’ll leave you to it then. You’re on in the main lecture room at twenty hundred hours OK? Oh, and the Chief Clerk muttered something about a pile of paperwork for you to do. He left it in your in-tray, so if you can get it sorted out tonight I’d be grateful. I don’t need him giving me grief again tomorrow.”

“Certainly sir.” Josie saluted and turned to head upstairs to the squadron office and the joys awaiting her in her in tray.

“Ma’am?” An assured voice called from across the drill hall.

Josie continued heading for the stairs, wondering if she had time to grab a brew before getting immersed in paperwork.

“Captain Wells ma’am?”

Finally the words sunk in. God, I’m going to have to get used to being called that now.

Rather embarrassedly Josie turned back to come face to face with warrant officer second class Claire Paddocks, the newly appointed squadron sergeant major. “I’m sorry Sar’major. My mind was miles away.”

“No worries ma’am.” The Sergeant Major assured Josie even as her eyes sent a rather different message. “I wonder if you could spare me a few moments in my office ma’am? It will only take a minute or two and you can pick up the ‘Values and Standards’ lecture pack whilst you’re there.”

With a feeling of dread, and all thoughts of a cup of tea vanishing, Josie followed the immaculately turned out figure into her inner sanctum and watched the door being carefully closed.

“Ma’am, I don’t want to be indelicate but I’m conscious you didn’t follow the usual commissioning course through Sandhurst that other female officers went through.”

Josie gave a little chuckle. “Sar’major if you mean I went through as a bloke then yes.”

“Just so ma’am. As a result there are certain lessons you unfortunately missed out on.”

With a sigh Josie recognised what was coming. “What did I do wrong Sar’major? And can you help me get it right?”

A big grin lit up the sergeant major’s face. “I’d be delighted to ma’am. Have you got any bobby pins with you? You need to lose that fringe when in uniform. And might I suggest some practice in putting your hair up in a bun before the next drill night? You also need to buy some hairnets and things. Oh, and I’ll warn off the squadron quarter master sergeant that you will be coming in if you don’t mind? Your combats may have fitted a few months ago but might I suggest they are looking rather too snug around the hips now.”

With a start Josie realised that her combat trousers really were straining less than appropriately at the hips and seat. God! Had she been giving the squaddies a free ogle? “I’ll make sure I pop in next week for ‘diffies and exchanges’ and get measured up Sar’major.” She promised vehemently as a blush did its best to sprint from her neck to her eyebrows.

“Very good ma’am. You’ll get the hang of it all in no time I’m sure. Now all you need to do is get used to being treated as a second class citizen, and I know from bitter experience that will come without any need to practice.”

With her head full of good advice and the start of a sizeable shopping list Josie eventually made it to her desk in the squadron office, and looked in horror at the mountain of paperwork in her in-tray. “Corporal Penney, has the Chief Clerk got it in for me?” She asked the pay clerk who was busily sorting out the evening’s attendance registers on the other side of the room.

“No more than usual ma’am. It’s just that we haven’t seen you for a bit.”

“Thank you Corporal Penney, rub it in why don’t you?” Josie grumbled theatrically. “I see I am going to have to do a cream bun run for the office next week to get back in his good books aren’t I?”

“I couldn’t possibly say ma’am.” The irrepressibly chirpy Corporal Penney opined. “However he does seem to have lost some weight over the last couple of months… and he didn’t say anything about being on a diet.”

Shaking her head with amusement Josie buckled down to the joyful task of reviewing and countersigning two months backlog of travel claims, attendance registers, ammunition returns and all the other administrative chaff demanded by regimental headquarters. By the time she reached the bottom of the pile and her fingers were beginning to cramp she found two envelopes marked ‘For attention Capt Wells’.

“Sneaky sod,” Josie muttered under her breath as she tore the first open. “He knew I wouldn’t get to them until I’d finished with all the dross.” In the first was a print out of her personal record, complete with a signature sheet to confirm she had reviewed it for the year. Her eyes immediately scanned the record, checking her first names and gender marker were correct. Bless him, Josie grinned, the Chief may be a grumpy sod at times but he certainly was efficient. She skimmed through the rest of the printout then happily signed before turning to the second envelope.

‘HQ Army - Army Reserve personnel language skills audit’ was blazoned across the covering letter.

As part of the Armed Forces’ continuous programme to make the best use of our reserve personnel’s specialist skills and experience you are requested to complete and return the enclosed questionnaire identifying your language proficiencies in both written and spoken forms. Please tick all of the languages with which you are familiar indicating your level of proficiency (1 = basic, 3 = colloquial, 5 = fluent) for both the written and spoken language. Once you have completed the survey please return it to SO2 G5 Specialist Training (Foreign Languages), HQ Army, using the enclosed prepaid envelope.’

Josie glanced at her watch, Sugar! I need to get ready for that lecture, then quickly rattled down the list. Russian, tick, fluent. Turkish, tick, fluent. French, tick, colloquial. Arabic, tick, colloquial. Pashto, tick, basic. At that Josie snickered. It was only basic if you excluded swear words and curses. In Helmand her Afghan National Army interpreter had taken great delight in teaching all of her construction troop as much truly foul language as he could think of. She then scanned the rest of the list, nope, nope, nope, why the heck would the Army be interested in someone speaking Navajo? Finally done, she signed then stuffed the questionnaire into the envelope provided, dropped it in the mail-out box, grabbed the lecture pack and dashed for the door before Corporal Penney could find anything else for her to sign.

“Right ladies and gentlemen.” Josie wrapped up the final lecture for the night’s training. “To recap, you need to know and apply the six core values of the Army. You can remember them by using the mnemonic ‘C-DRILS’. Now, are there any questions on anything I have covered?”

Josie waited until she was sure that no one was going to be brave enough to ask a question that got in the way of their mates escaping to the squadron bar before deciding that a bit of humour at her own expense wouldn’t go amiss. “OK. A final point. As you know there is an equality and diversity element to the Values and Standards test during the MATTS weekend. So, as none of you have snickered or made any dumb comments I’m delighted to inform you that you have all already passed the practical. That’s it. Sergeant Cameron please carry on.”

“Ma’am.” The senior NCO barked out from the back of the lecture room stilling the chuckles from her audience. “Room… room ’shun.” Whereupon Josie made her escape to drop off the lecture pack before joining the OC in the bar.

“So Josie how did it go?” Major Slattery enquired as he dropped a gin and tonic in front of her and took a long pull from his pint.

“Oh, the lecture went fine sir, although I swear the Chief Clerk has it in for me. My hand is still aching from the number of signatures he required.”

Edward Slattery dropped his voice a little. “That’s not quite what I meant Josie. I meant how are you coping and has anyone given you any grief or anything?”

Josie glanced up about to make a polite denial, and then stopped herself. When she really thought about it she realised that absolutely no one had said anything untoward, or even looked at her oddly. “Actually sir…”

The OC interrupted her. “It’s Ed, or Edward off duty Josie. I’ve told you often enough.”

“Sorry… Edward. Well to be honest I’m most surprised by the complete lack of comments and the like. It’s nothing like where I work in my day job. In fact quite a few of the sergeants mess, who I thought would be the most hidebound and difficult, have gone out of their way to be supportive, whilst the Army has treated the whole thing as if it is utterly commonplace.”

Edward chuckled. “That’s probably because in the grand scheme of things it is exactly that; commonplace, boring and largely irrelevant.”

“How do you mean Sir? Sorry… Edward?”

“I’ll tell you a story. Probably back before you finished Sandhurst I was deployed out to Afghanistan as a squadron second in command at the main base at Bastion. One evening in the EFI bar I found myself chatting to a female major who was something to do with the IT networks. It dawned on me after a while that she too was transgendered. Anyway, to cut a long story short, she had been just as surprised about how she was accepted; just as you are now. Then, when she had time to think about it she came up with an explanation that made a lot of sense.”

“Really? What was it?” Josie was intrigued and pleasantly surprised that she wasn’t the first transgendered officer her boss had come across.

“She called it ‘The four questions rule.’ “ Edward took another long sup of his pint to lubricate his throat before continuing. “So, as you know, everyone is mad busy on operations right? You’ve hardly got time to take a dump.”

“Right.” Josie nodded.

“So, when someone new turns up to join the team you only have time for three questions. The first is can they do their job? The second is can they shoot straight, apply a field dressing and use a tourniquet effectively? The third is, when the excrement hits the air-con unit and rounds are coming down range will they do all of the above to save me? You really haven’t got time for a fourth question about colour, gender or who they prefer to sleep with or whatever. You just get on with the job.”

“So what did you think of that?”

“Well, it made sense to me. So now you can understand why I say that, as long as you can do your job, the whole thing about gender and gender identity is a non issue as far as both I, and the Army, is concerned.” Edward reached for his pint again, “and of course, as you’re a commissioned officer, if someone was stupid enough to give you grief, even if you didn’t deal with them yourself the sergeant major would definitely tear them a new one. She’s very protective of her girls is our Claire. Even the commissioned ones.”

It was well past ten o’clock by the time Josie got home. Shattered after the long day she merely threw her uniform into the laundry basket, brushed her teeth and crawled into bed. She lay in the dark and stared up at the ceiling, reliving everything that had happened, and equally everything that hadn’t happened despite her fears, that evening.

I can actually do this! was her last thought before slipping off into the land of nod.