Future Insured first published in The British Army Review under the alias "Campaigner" aka C. F. G. Parkinson. (with apologies to Sustainer, and to Peter Simple of the Daily Telegraph) L/Cpl. Ferret ofthe Royal Insurance Corps (R.I.C.) adjusted the air-conditioning in his enormous office and threw himselfback into his chair with a look of contentment on his face. Opposite him stared back the approving grimace ofhis Great Uncle General Sir Frank Nidgetofthe Royal Army Tailoring Corps, encapsulated (orwas it emasculated?) in oils. This is, of course, the year 2010, and Uncle Frank has long since died, buried in a Royal Logistic Corps mass grave in Bicester. Single-handedly, he reflected, he had brought almost all training to a halt. True enough, in the early days, there had been a few staff officers who had quashed his recommendations, but they soon learned to put up their ( R.I.C. Logo) umbrellas and give in like the rest, following the odd adverse article in the "Mail". He had made the key discovery very early in his career, that no-one any longer dared upturn the recommendations of a L/Cpl. who had done a course, no matter what they cost in money or loss of training. Officers, he discovered, had lost any sense ofbalance, and were no longer capable ofineasuring a one-in-a-million risk against an annual cost of £ 10 million, orthe abandonment oftraining. The Regular Army were now no longer allowed even near a puddle without Royal Navy supervision, Adventure Training was now restricted to the S.A. S., the TA to pipe ranges and cadets to safe classrooms watching videos ofpast victories -(safe that is until Ferret had finished his report on Repetitive Strain Injury caused by videos). Ferret flicked his cigar ash over the head ofa General who had popped in to empty his litter bin, and resumed work on an instruction to ensure that use of assault courses should now be restricted to troops who had had a medical by an orthopaedic consultant within ten minutes of starting, that the course had been inspected by the Royal Engineers within the hour andthe supervising officer had passed a course within the last three weeks on TV's "Gladiators", no military unit being allowed to use such dangerous equipment.
Of course, even cadets were, in theory, al lowed to fire weapons, but rules about use of military vehicles with military escorts, separate transport (with escort), for ammunition, and for cadets, abounded. This, combined with the fact that Ferret had cleverly placed the last Training Material Park in Inverness and arranged sponsor units at least one hundred miles away from Cadet Units, there was no real danger. Most of the ranges had in any case been closed for safety repairs and the TAVRAs could only fund only one cadet armoury per county because, with Ferret's specifications, they cost £2m each. Any unit he noticed training too much got a quick vi sit from the kitchen inspector who would close the kitchen and order a £75,000 refurbishment, or Ferret would get their FMT 600s and Matrix Tests checked to put halftheir drivers offthe road. Failing that, a visit to deep-clean their indoor-range, timed to coincide with visits from the Race Relations Board andthe Establishments Committee would soon have them on their knees. "Why should they grumble?" thought Ferret, "Recruiting is up". Young men and women were flooding into the Army to escape the risks of civilian life. Admittedly, his first attempt to sort out the Air Cadets was a bit amateur, reducing the Air Experience Flights and introducing parachutes that could only be worn by cadets weighing over seventeen stone, but he had since explained that air was as dangerous as water, and cadets were restricted to TerraFirma, watching films like TheDambusters to show them the dangers faced in an unenlightened age. He had been on better form with the Royal Artillery, whose weapons he had banned in the interests of ear protection (what? EAR PROTECTION! Oh!), and who now had to say BANG loudly, but not within 300m ofan inhabited dwelling. Perhaps his greatest coup was simultaneously banning most activity and all weaponry within five hundred metres ofprivate land and reducing the training areas so that none was more than one thousand metres across. Lt. Col. Iron-Sinew ofthe Royal Marines had put up the stoutest resistance, but Ferret had hit him with a fuel economy committee, a cash check, a sexequality check, a food-handlers certificate check and a safety inspection of electrical equipments. When that did not work, a security inspection, closure of all ranges on weekends, a check to see if respirators were being inspected monthly and a 56
