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By Root 245 0

revs up and then rushes out on to the road. I cringe…nothing, soon we’re safe behind covering ground. The OP was manned by Bombardier Eddy Edwards, Signaller ‘My brain hurts’ Birch and a Lieutenant from 18 Battery whose name I can’t remember and a face that’s left an indelible blank on my mind. The trench was in low scrub on a forward slope, indispersed among the Infantry and to our right an OP from 74 Mediums which I, muggins, had to crawl to, linking them up to us by phone. At the bottom of their trench grinning upwards is L/Bombardier Ken Carter. Little did I know I was looking at the man who would one day produce Crossroads. Had I known I would have killed him there and then. During the night I spoke to him on the phone. I’d heard he was putting together a new show. “Yes, it’s a pantomime…Ali Baba.”

“Same cast as Stand Easy?”

“Bigger, much bigger…about a hundred.”

“Hundred? Christ, who’s left to fire the guns?”

“I want it to be really big, West End stuff, the lads must be fed up with all those skinny bloody six-handed ENSA shows.”

“Think you’ll be allowed to do it?”

“Yes, I’ve already spoken to Brigadier Rogers.”

“Did he speak to you, though?”

“Yes.”

“Another class barrier has fallen! Headline! Bombardier addresses Brigadier and lives.”

Our hushed conversation was terminated by Jerry artillery.

“I suppose it’s to keep us awake,” said Bombardier Edwards.

Squatting in a trench for hours is hell. The pain at the back of the knees is exquisite. After dark we stand up to stretch ourselves.

“What we need are detachable legs Mark One,” I said. “A heater in the seat of the trousers, a lubrication-point at the back of each knee, hollow rubber feet that can be filled with hot water, an electrified nose-muff, and a collapsible Po.”

“I agree with all that, Bombardier,” said the Lieutenant, “save for the last mentioned. I think a Po would make a man lose that wild sense of freedom that he has as he sprays the foliage of Italy with a deft hand and a flick of the wrist.”

The shelling is big stuff, Jerry 155mm, it’s falling about 200 yards to our right where the Infantry have some Vickers machine guns. The phone emits a faint buzz. I snatch up the hand set.

“OP,” I whisper.

“Command Post here.” It’s Pedlar Palmer, God’s gift to ugly women. “Line OK?” he says.

“Yes…clear.”

“Anything happening?”

“A bit of Jerry shelling, that’s OK, it’s Edwards’ breath that’s killing us.”

“You bastard,” said Edwards. Palmer continues,

“It’s all quiet back here, anything up your end?”

“No, there’s nothing up my end.”

“Dirty little bugger you.” He goes.

The shelling stops.

“The poor darlings must be tired,” says the Lieutenant.

A burst of heavy German machine-gun fire. A bren-gun starts to answer back with its laboured chug, chug, chug. Why did the idiot want to fire back? It was only upsetting Jerry! Christmas was coming, we should be making paper chains and funny hats to hang on the officers. We open our vacuum tea tube. It’s now very tannic and burns the tongue but it’s hot. The front goes quiet, a gossamer-thin quilt of light starts to furnish the sky to our east, it grows almost imperceptibly; a lone, very strong crowing cockerel shrills the air.

“Silly cunt,” said Birch.

A soft lush pink mounts the heavens and I watched overawed as it turns almost crimson, then pales into the lucidity of daylight. Hello, who’s this approaching on his stomach?

“Sorry I’m late,” it says, as it slithers into the trench.

Ah, I recognise those brown teeth, it’s Thornton, my relief. What a relief!

“Sherwood’s waiting behind the hill to take you back in his little Noddy car.”

I collected my small pack and crawled back, always conscious that a bloody German might spot me and riddle my arse with metal, but no! I’m safe and riding back in the bren carrier.

“It’s dodgy along here,” says Sherwood.

“It’s your own bloody fault for coming in daylight.”

“Couldn’t help it,” he said. “Thornton was late seeing the MO.”

“Excuses, bloody excuses, this bloody army is made up of them.”

“Keep moaning,” said Sherwood. “It’s the only way to promotion.