Sergeant Nelson of the Guards by Gerald Kersh

You can tell, by his walk, that he is no ordinary man. He swings his legs out from the hip, and his iron heels cut little arcs in the floorboards. He is long and lean, sun-dried, wind-cured, boucanned, smoked, and sand-blasted. His face is brown as a kipper, and as expressionless. One of his eyes is fixed in a dreadful stare: it is of glass. The other blinks. There is nothing left of him but bone and sinew and vitals: years of service have sweated away all that was superfluous or decorative. He has an air of demoniac energy: a wild swagger, a steady, genial ferocity. Out of his neatly rolled sleeves hang arms as dark and gnarled as old Salami sausages. He has fists like mallets of black stinkwood; an aluminium ring; and a silly little blue bird tattooed on his left wrist. Quite effortlessly, he shouts, in a voice that makes us jump:
    “I am Sergeant Nelson! (Ain’t I, Trained Soldier Brand?) I am Sergeant Nelson! I’ve got one eye, but both me arms! I died at Trafalgar but they dug me up again, and when I’m mad I’m a one-man wave o’ destruction! I’m poison! I’m terrible! I kill seven rookies before breakfast! I can spit fifty yards through the eye of a needle! D’you see that dead tree over there? They’ll tell you it was struck by lightnin’. Don’t believe ’em. I killed it! I slapped it down! You’re my new squad! I’m your Squad Instructor! Silence! Nobody say a word! You do as I say or you suffer. You suffer ’orrible tortures! Now, when I say Hi-de-Hi Squad! you shout Ho-de-Ho! —and shout it loud! Now: Hi-de-Hi Squad!”
    We roar: “Ho-de-Ho!”
    “Right. Whenever I shout Hi-de-Hi, let me hear you reply pretty damn quick, or I’ll chase you all round and round that square till the huts look like henhouses. Hi-de-Hi! ”
    “Ho-de-Ho!”
    “Good. Now we’re introduced. I’m here to make Guardsmen out o’ you. Are you going to help me? Well, answer, you unsociable lot of squirts!”
    “Yes, Sergeant!”
    “Good. You’d better. Soldiers get buried in a blanket. I’ll make Guardsmen out of you if you have to pass out of here in blankets. If you turn out flops, as soldiers, I’m responsible. I ’m the one that drops something on account of you. And I’d murder me best friend if he got me into trouble. I’d murder me great-grandmother. I’d cut her heart out and throw it on the floor and jump on it—wouldn’t I, Brand? Now on Monday you’ll be Squadded, and you start with me on the Square. I’ve got to drill you. I’ve got to hammer four months of drill into youin eight weeks. It’s impossible. But I shall do it. You’ll see. But you’ve got to play ball with me. You’ve got to give me all you’ve got, with a good heart.” Sergeant Nelson becomes quieter, and very serious.
    “Ask anybody in this Depot about me. They’ll tell you: I hardly ever punish anybody. I never, never bully my men. But you’ve got to work with me. There seems to be a war on. Isn’t there, Brand? So you’ve got to take things seriously. If there’s anything you want to know, don’t be afraid to ask me. If there’s anything you don’t grasp the first time, ask me again, ask me a hundred times: I’ll tell you. If there’s anything you want demonstrated, I’ll demonstrate it. I’m the best demonstrator on earth, aren’t I’ Brand? Definitely, I am. If you’re in trouble over anything except money, come to me, and if necessary I’ll march you into the Company Commander, or the Commandant himself. I’ll stand by you. But don’t try any funny stuff. If anybody tries to treat me rough…. By God! Call me Pig, and I’m Pig all through. Definitely Pig all through. Okay. Which is it going to be? Are you going to work with me?”
    A chorus: “Yes, Sergeant.”
    He roars again. “Okay-dokey, my little fluffy-’eaded chicks! Hi- de-Hi!”
    “Ho-de-Ho!”
    “Good. Now look. Recruits are babies. In one second, Cookhouse is going to blow. By rights I ought to march you about everywhere, definitely