Redemption - Leon Uris [203]
Give your Jack or Janet a pleasant name that he/she will enjoy and not a name of derision.
Because you are all people with backgrounds with horses, you will find many facts in the ensuing chapters are things you already know. As well as the differences between the two animals, there are numerous similarities.
Chapter One: Getting to Know Your Animal
Chapter Two: The Pack Equipment
Chap…
“Oh my God!” Major Christopher Hubble shrieked. “Oh my God!” he repeated, beating his fists on the desk top, wild-eyed. “Oh my God!” He pulled at his hair.
A clerk from the next office tumbled in. “Are you all right, sir?”
“Get my fucking brother…get Lieutenant Hubble in here. Immediately!”
By the time Jeremy arrived, Chris had calmed to a light simmer, gurgling under his breath. “You sent this ludicrous travesty to Corps?” he rumbled low.
“I wasn’t going to leave it sitting here and lose six days while you were at staff school.”
“Charming, charming, bloody fucking charming.”
“Something wrong?” Jeremy asked.
“It reads,” he gnashed out, “as though it were written by some low comic in a sleazy song and dance hall in Soho.” Chris tore it in half. “You’re bloody mad trying to pass this shit off as a British military manual.”
“I turned pages in to you every night. You were too damned busy to read it because of your mania that everyone ate, slept, marched, saluted, and shit by the numbers.”
“My clear intention was to read it in one sitting when it was completed and go over it with the gaffers. I did not instruct you to send it to Corps!”
“You told me that this book was entirely my responsibility.”
“I did NOT, NOT, NOT tell you to send it to Corps!”
The Major’s phone interrupted. Chris lifted the receiver and jumped to attention, swooning as he listened. “That was General Brodhead’s office. He wants me, now.”
“I’ll go along with you and explain him what happened.”
“You’ve done enough. You stay right here. Don’t you move. Your gaffer squad is under barrack arrest.” He paused. “Executive Officer! Captain North!”
“Coming, sir.”
“Captain North, write up an order for the battalion to prepare and stand by for a route march tonight to the Wadi Muzzam and get it over to Corps for approval, at once.”
“Fifty miles in the sand!” Jeremy cried.
Chris slammed the door and was on his way.
“Be seated, Chris,” General Brodhead said.
Oh Lord, the manual was on the General’s desk.
Brodhead held up the instruction book. “Who wrote this?” he asked.
“The gaffer squad, sir. I can explain.”
“Explain? Yes, go ahead and explain.”
“The ultimate responsibility is squarely mine. I should like to say that there was a real bollix in communications. You see, sir, I have been drilling my battalion as a first priority to whip them into fighting shape before their mules arrived and left the manual up to the gaffers with full intention of reviewing it personally. It was finished and sent to Corps without my approval when I was at staff school.”
The farther from the green fields of Ulster and the closer to battle, the saltier Llewelyn Brodhead became. He banged his fist on the table several times and Chris blinked in unison.
“Give these gaffers some time away.”
“You mean put them in the stockade before court-martial?”
Brodhead roared with laughter. “Well, you do have a sense of humor after all, Chris.”
“I’m not quite certain…”
“Give them four-day leave. Best damned manual I’ve read in thirty-two years! Cuts through all the shit. Just the kind of thing you need to get to the point out in the field. Clear, explicit, humorous-that’s what these fucking manuals need, humor. Too bad some twat in the War Office will assign some prig to rewrite it with a corkscrew. Captain Ellsworth has ordered seven hundred copies for the Zion Mule Corps.”
“Well,” Chris said, breathing more freely as he removed the noose from his neck, “I do admit I was just a tad nervous.”
“God, these boys must have really burned the midnight oil. Old Jeremy has come through for us, big!”
In a cheerful mood and with his favorite young officer before him, Brodhead