told by the medical authorities at Sedgeberrow that I would probably always walk with a slight limp. Although the reconstruction of my pelvis had gone well, small bits of bone were missing—shot away; the connection with my left leg was less than perfect, so that, in one way and another, my whole hip area was a good deal less than 100 percent. That wasn’t quite as depressing as the news about my prostate, but it wasn’t wholly unexpected either. When I reported my medical progress to my commanding officer at Tetbury, he too said he wasn’t surprised. “But don’t worry, Montgomery,” he went on. “We can’t let you and your German go to waste. I’ll inform the War Ministry—I’m sure they’ll need you somewhere in intelligence. Stand by.”
So I might get a job that my father approved of after all.
The upshot was that in mid-June the Sedgeberrow medics said I was free to leave their care but would not be suitable for “active duty”—whatever that meant—for two to three months. I told the CO. and then went home, to Edgewater. But I felt uneasy, back in my old room, with its books and fishing tackle, and cricket bits and pieces. There was a war on, after all. So after three days I wrote off for some German-language books, to make sure I didn’t get rusty. The bookseller in London who sent back the books included with it a flyer from the War Ministry that he said he had been instructed to give to all people who bought German-language material from him. It was aimed primarily at women, not at men, and it asked anyone who thought they were proficient in German—“proficient” was the word used, I remember—to consider working for the war effort. It said that if candidates passed a language test, tuition would be provided free of charge, with free board and lodging, in specialist subjects— technology, economics, geography—and it listed several places where these courses were given: Carlisle, Doncaster, Nottingham—and Stratford-upon-Avon. I couldn’t believe it until I realized that the school where the tuition was given was probably the self-same language center where Wilhelm Wetzlar had worked before the war. It made sense.
Stratford was the closest anyway, so I applied there, via my commanding officer, and was duly summoned for a test. I borrowed my father’s motorcar and, more to the point, his petrol allowance and, in early July 1915, I set out one Sunday for the forty-five-mile drive from Edgewater to Stratford. I put up at a hotel and, at nine-thirty the next morning, presented myself at the school. The test was entirely oral and in my case lasted for all of twelve minutes, as it should have done. My German was near fluent and it was quickly apparent to the examiners that I was supremely qualified for their course. They said I could start the following Monday, and I accepted.
I was killing two birds with one stone on this trip and had driven up from Edgewater relatively slowly so as to conserve petrol for the next part of my journey—a side excursion to Middle Hill, the village where Sam Ross taught. Outside the exam room it was a beautiful day and I opened all the windows in the car as I found the Alveston and Wellesbourne Road, which led east, away from Stratford and toward Middle Hill. The road ran alongside the Avon River for a bit, then through a deer park and part of a sewage works. I passed a construction site, where there was digging and scaffolding. There were hills ahead of me but the road veered off to the left, north. I found Middle Hill easily enough—it was a collection of attractive, red-brick cottages, with a main street that widened at one point, sufficient (as I later found out) to accommodate a market there every Tuesday, at least in peacetime. As you came into the village, the road rose, to form a bridge over a canal and a railway line.
The school wasn’t difficult to find either. It was at the far end of the main road, but once I had found it I turned the car round and parked near the village pub, called the Lamb. A small change of plan was beginning to revolve around in my brain. I walked back in the direction of the school. My limp was quite pronounced (and moderately painful) in those days and, since I was in uniform, I attracted appreciative glances from the various people