The Greatcoat
The lieutenant colonel had the air of someone who had never eaten meat from a tin or picked dirt from a mug of tea, and yet he stood, fearlessly, on a table in front of the crowded room. He raised his voice, shouting above the murmurs, not seeming to care how his clipped tones grated on the soldiers, making their heads shake and their backs straighten. Jack was at the back of the room, near the stove. But he could hear just fine and felt resentment, just like the others, that he was forced to listen to this brass-hat, this fool who had never seen action and probably didn’t know one end of a bayonet from his arsehole.
“You will each be given one of these forms,” and the lieutenant colonel waved a piece of paper in the air, “and you are to report to the barracks at Merthyr, w
