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By Root 57 0

bed. Staff wrestled to hold down the NAAFI marquee, flapping, like a giant eagle about to take off — a stream of cups, saucers, spoons and buns, shot out of the sides. The manager is yelling ‘Save the tea urns’. To add to it, monkeys are being blown through the camp — they seek refuge in trucks, huts, etc. The hessian wall of the latrines shoots skywards revealing a line of straining figures on poles, hanging on like grim death to the straining bar. This wind was the famous North Africa Sirocco. The sand was like a whip lash on the skin. We shelter in the driving cabs with the windows up. Men are running after their kit. It’s very dark — a monkey has bitten a gunner who tried to shoo him out of the back of his lorry. A fire has broken out on distant hills, the sky-line is aflame. “Has anyone phoned the fire brigade,” says Gunner Knott. “The number’s Bradford 999, it’s next to a mortician’s shop, I remember it caught fire one night and burnt all the stiffs, we were in the café next door eating eggs and chips.”

By midnight it had blown itself out, the camp was in a state. The NAAFI Sergeant was swearing. “The monkeys have eaten all the fuckin’ buns.”

“They’ll be dead in a week,” said Kidgell. He should know. Next day I’m floating on the waters when Lt Budden calls me from the shore. “Come in Gunner number 954024, your time is up.”

We were to pack up at once and report to L/Bdr Carter for duty with the new Concert Party. There was a lot of swearing from the lads. “What a bloody thing to do on the second day of our leave, they’ve got no respect for the dead.”

So back to Ain Abessa.

We returned at sunset. I wasn’t pissed, but there, on a trestle table was a seven foot hammer-headed shark.

Apparently the Major and Sgt ‘Max’ Muhleder set forth from Ziama in a rubber boat and started fishing with grenades. Suddenly a monster with eyes on oblique stalks shot up! “Shark! Row for your life Sergeant!!!” He already was. They got ashore, observed the monster still floating on top, and returned. Chater Jack with a loaded pistol just stops himself from saying ‘Hands up’. The creature was dead, and here it was, frying on a griddle and smelling delicious.

“Any chance of…”

“No, there fuckin’ isn’t,” says the Cook. “Ask the Major.”

From inside the Major’s tent I can hear straining of the type one only hears in the Gents at Leicester Square.

“Major Chater Jack sir?”

“Milligan, can’t you see I’m busy,” more heavy straining, followed by a purple gasp. What was he doing??? Did he wear a secret appliance? There follows a creaking unoiled hinge sound, a gigantic heave, the unmistakable sound of a cork from a bottle, a great exhaling of breath followed by a pause, a swallowing sound then ‘Ahhhhhh, now what is it Milligan’ it was a different man speaking.

“It’s about your shark.”

“It hasn’t bitten you has it?”

I bargained for a slice of the shark in exchange for my next fruit cake. To duplicate the taste of a hammer-head shark, boil old newspapers in Sloan’s Liniment.

Suddenly came the Bad News. Major Chater Jack was being transferred to another regiment. Sadly he told us, “I’m leaving you all. I don’t want to, but it’s promotion, and you know what that means.”

“More lolly,” says a voice.

Sgt Griffin chirps up, “We’re sorry to see you go, sir and we wish you the best of luck,” or something like that. It didn’t matter, with his going the Battery was never the same again, we’d never been the same before, but now we were never going to be the same again.

NAAFI Store

The New Major

His name was Evan Jenkins. His physique? He didn’t have one. The nearest description? Tut-an-Khamen with the bandages off. His neck measurement would be 11 inches, including shoulders. When a strong wind blew he had to hold his head to stop it from snapping off. His Adams apple stuck out like a third knee and when he swallowed, it disappeared down the front of his shirt and made him look pregnant. His arms must have been sent from Auschwitz; they were for all the world like two pieces of string with knots tied where the elbows were. His legs were like