Preface
Carruthers was born from a series of nonesense e-mails between me, the author and creator of Carruthers, known by some as Adrian and a good friend of mine who runs a hotel near me.
I was in Devizes during one of the annual summer festivals, where otherwise sane people throw caution to the wind and do their very best to prove themselves cool and trendy, whilst appearing to the world as just another embarrassing fifty something who really ought to know better. (I speak with some authority in this matter as a permanently embarrassing fifty year old who refuses to grow up, apparently!) When strains of jazz music were to be heard drifting up from a door to the cellars of the big hotel in the Market Place. Being surrounded by a cacophony of noise, the rythm and melody from just the one singer and band competing with nothing other than the cash register at the bar seemed a perfect way of escaping. Plus, the door into that cellar had always intrigued me! Having descended into the half light it appeared that the band, who until only a moment before had been singing their little hearts out, were now packing up and going home! Had they somehow heard of me before??? The cellar was to become the new live music venue in Devizes with only Jazz and Blues being played and with only bands of a certain calibre. Being a fan of live music generally and Jazz in particular and not unfamiliar with the workings of a bar from either side, I thought that to offer my services to the unsuspecting owner for the 'odd shift', (those describing themselves as normal obviously needed to attend other evenings) would be a good way of listening to decent music, getting cheap beer and getting paid for it! Result! He agreed and I began working every other weekend in The Cellar Bar, Devizes' newest venue for good music. Being of a similar humour, the owner, Andrew, and I became friends and began communicating as Basil and Manuel in our e-mails although it does become quite hard to write with a Spanish accent! After a while I got bored with these two character and whilst trying to relieve that boredom Carruthers was born! What started out as sillyness gradually grew and Andrew encouraged me to save these e-mails, which I resisted at first but when I started getting enquiries from others who had recieved the forwarded e-mails I had sent to Andrew asking when the next one was coming out and asking if I would send them on to them direct, I began compiling the diaries. You will notice that the first few diary entries still resemble just an e-mail and then take on a very different purpose as I explore the deeper creative recesses of my mind. Any recess of my mind is terrifying, so steel yourselves and enjoy The Major's Diary.
Adrian
6th August
Ah yes, Caruthers, bit of a cock up on the cock up front the other day, silly arse leapt into the cockpit being one over the eight, missed his footing, his foot went straight through the side of the canvas fuselage and the joy stick…. Well I don’t think we shall be seeing the end of that again for a while.
Last I saw of him he was wandering around the NAAFI trying to buy up all the rubber rings he could find. In the end he tried to pinch one from some little kid down at the lido. Trouble was the kid wasn’t as little as he thought he was and stood up and gave him one almighty great push and he fell backwards, straight on his rather tender undercarriage. He let out such a long and loud howl that the old squadron leader thought there was an air raid warning. Dashed bad luck I say!
13th August
Corporal you’ll never get your promotion if you carry on like this! With blunders like Friday night in the NAAFI bar you really should have started higher up the chain of command,
Reminds me of old Carstairs you know, he couldn’t have organised a tea party in Boston! Every morning he used to take one of the little jeep things the Yanks had left behind and drive down to the village for his morning paper, if the weather was fine he would walk back and next morning would take another jeep. He couldn’t understand where they were all going as slowly one by one they were all disappearing, kept blaming the tinkers camped behind the squadron HQ so he had them moved on, but still the pool was getting fewer in number. Then he started blaming the home guard, called them a bunch of amateurs when they denied it he tried to have the platoon disbanded. Would have done too if it weren’t for the Colonel’s daughter, but that’s another story. Shan’t divulge here old boy in case the wife sees this! Anyway, as the car park at the paper shop got ever fuller he assumed that the bloody yanks were there visiting the newsagent’s widow. Feeling a bit randy one morning he tried to take advantage of the poor woman believing that if he tipped her a few shillings she may have been a little more compliant, given his rank and all. What the blighter didn’t realise was that the dear lady was also the daughter of the General at HQ. The very next day he was moved to a desk job in Whitehall somewhere. Left in charge of naval operations in Scapa Flow towards the end of the war I believe. Caused a right old ballyhoo there, the Gerry fleet were coming over to surrender, and, well, the old spin doctors had a right old headache trying to come up with a plausible story to release to the press about that one!
Now, Carruthers arse! What a story that one has turned out to be, in a manner of speaking! Nudge, nudge, wink, wink, eh? After the incident with the very large small boy at the lido he was put under surveillance by the military police. What a revelation that turned out to be! No one was quite able to explain why half the junior class had the same strange auburn hair and that same facial tic. It seems the bounder was single handedly responsible for the midwife’s breakdown due to over work. The General suggested that if he perhaps had only been using a single hand he might not have been in the trouble he now found himself.
Anyway corporal, incoming, need to put the blackout curtains across the window.
Tally ho!
20th August
Corporal MacCockup more like, the poor girl was devastated at being missed orf your previous missive old boy. Caruthers is orf down there now to comfort her and console her. You know, I can’t help but wonder why he was so keen to miss out on a quick sortie and buzz a few Gerry before morning coffee, rather strange that, I’m sure he must feel in some way responsible for your omission.
Now Corporal, to business! A bit of bunker work you say, now just checking on the old diary reveals one or two nasty stains on the page, is that anything to do with you? Damned near stuck the pages together! This weekend, old chap, appears to be taken with paternal duties so there’s a bit of an impasse on that one I’m afraid old boy. Now next week, on the Friday I have a funeral to attend in Essex, if it’s mine then no-one’s told me yet but I don’t know what time I will be home. Saturday is looking likely at the moment, so bookings taken for that one if required. Going to have to go old boy the Colonel is approaching and he looks to be in a frightful stew over something. Perhaps the cling film over the lavatory wheeze was a bit misplaced after it turned out that Carstairs had already laced the blighters breakfast with laxative.
Got to go old boy; need to make myself scarce. You know how it is.
27th August
Corporal Cock-up, good morning old boy.
Just checking in to make sure that the Saturday night sortie to the bunker is still a goer. Speaking of goer’s reminds me of the time when old Spotty Carruthers got himself caught up with that little hottie from the driving pool, she wouldn’t leave him alone! Mind you I don’t think she could leave any of them alone to be fair, different one every night so the story goes, just don’t tell the wife, eh? Old Carruthers was a little quiet for a while after that, until they had that film in the NAAFI cinema, some bright spark got the wrong end of the stick completely and billed it as “See Phyllis in Technicolour”! Well most of the chaps went along thinking they were going to see a film about some actress called Phyllis, got the shock of their lives! There were some very ashen faces coming out of there that night and the queue for the medic was much longer than normal the following morning, Carruthers was right at the front wearing his trench coat with the collar turned up, hoping no-one would notice him. The nurse on duty that morning had a voice like a foghorn and the medics were right next to the junior school and all the kids and their mums were all stood there listening to the noise! Be nice to know exactly how they explained that away at the tea table that night! At least it kept Carruthers nocturnal carnal activity to an absolute minimum for a while and the young girls of the town could rest a little easier.
3rd September
Speaking of Carruthers bout of old syph, took a bit of a twist the other day, talk of the officers mess it was! Well, you remember how I told you that Carruthers was a bit quiet for a few days before the film at the NAAFI? Well, turns out that the chaps in the mess had got old Carstairs just a bit drunk one night and Caruthers even more so. Carruthers doesn’t remember bugger all about it, which is quite an appropriate turn of phrase given the circumstances! In a drunken state the chaps managed to convince old Carstairs that the new barmaid in the NAAFI bar that everyone has been going on about had got the hots for him in a big way and she was waiting for him in the cellar. Of course there are no lights down there! Managed to convince him that as she had got the painters in she would take it up the arse! Well Carruthers had been suitably prepared and left down there and then enter Carstairs, in more ways than one! Too pissed to tell any different he was just about to hit the vinegar stroke when on went all the torches, and cameras were everywhere. Carruthers was convinced that his piles were playing up again the following morning and has been buying all the pile ointment he could put his hands on until this morning, well, it’s all over the camp newspaper! Carruthers hasn’t been seen since; although rumour has it that the shortage of the camp rag is due to the fact that he has bought them all up and he may be responsible for the fire down at the General’s wife’s garden potting shed. Carstairs can’t work out why everyone is walking funny when they pass him. Bit of a rum do all round I’d say!
Any how old boy gotta go. Need to organise the re-building party for the potting shed.
10th September
Right old stink since last report old boy; it seems it was Carruthers who had bought up all the weekly rag. Seems the blighter had taken them all down to the allotments to try and dispose of the ‘evidence’. He decided to light a small bonfire behind a potting shed which turned out to be the general’s wife’s; right next to her compost heap. Silly arse hadn’t looked to see what the last thing was that the fearsome lady had deposited on there. Turns out old boy that she had been cutting all the dead shoots from last years herbaceous border and it only took one spark and the whole bloody heap was ablaze! Well that soon spread to the potting shed itself and then the wooden fence running up the side of the allotments, before he could do anything about it the large garage with the general’s staff car, six tanks, three lorries, four small Landrovers and the vicar’s bicycle was well alight. No-one’s quite sure what the vicars bicycle was doing in there but we think it may have been something to do with Mrs. Peabody, she’s been seen coming and going at the vicarage at some very strange times of the day and night. She has her convertible car in the next garage and that was missing at the time. Bit of skullduggery there I feel! The fire crew turned up and started spraying water in all places and put his original bonfire out before the papers had had a chance to burn! Of course some bright spark happened to notice the picture on the front page and now the pictures are on every notice board on camp! Down at the bottom end of the camp where the road bends sharply around the sergeants mess; going away from camp the ‘bend’ sign has been painted with the words ‘not bloody likely’ and the other way the sign has ‘Carruthers, ridden again!’ Carruthers was last seen in the fetal position in the back of one of those wreckers parked behind the parade ground gibbering about mummy so the story goes. No one’s seen Carstairs since, damned poor show I say.
Field telephone is ringing corporal, need to go, over and out.
17th September
Bit of a twist in the tail for Carruthers and Carstairs this week Corporal. Carstairs returned to camp early in the week, some say they have seen the blighter wearing makeup! He was marched by the MP chaps at the guard room straight up to Major Ringbotham for being absent without leave, who gave him a right old roasting I can tell you. I could hear it from the other end of the corridor at my own office, although when it came to the matter of the make-up, Ringbotham seemed far too curious if you ask me. Never did trust the bounder after the choir master’s wife filed for divorce. She couldn’t actually name the other woman, but the description of a burly build with a pronounced grey moustache certainly didn’t fit any of the totty around here that I have met. Even Mary at the Dog and Duck doesn’t have a grey moustache although her build could perhaps be described as burly. Some of the chaps are suggesting that Ringbotham’s swagger stick is more of a mincing stick when he is on parade.
Carruthers eventually emerged looking rather sheepish from the back of the old wrecker behind the parade ground and had even stopped gibbering…and then the Generals wife caught up with him. What a fearsome lady! I wonder sometimes whether she should be the general and allow the general to stay at home and tend the plants. Anyway, Carruthers is living in the back of the wrecker now and barking at anyone who gets close. Even tried sending that little hottie from the NAFFI down wearing some of that cheap perfume she uses. Well, normally Carruthers would have been in there like a shot. She said he was standing on the turrets of an old tank with a patch on one eye and one hand inside his jacket shouting ‘stand by to repel boarders’!
Still the good news is that the heat from the fire has brought the general’s wife’s tomato plants on a good four inches in a week!
24th September
I say Corporal bit of a rum old do with Carruthers, what? He’d managed to get that old tank he’d taken to living in running again, heaven only knows how, last I knew Carstairs had sold the engine to some of the lads in the village and convinced them they could fit it into their old Fordson Major! Top marks for ingenuity I say, they got it in, or more accurately, on the tractor and entered it into the ploughing championship on the estate. They were the talk of the competition; they had four ploughs and bolted them all together, sixteen furrows wide it was! Well they went through once and took up half the field but when they got to the other end darn thing wouldn’t stop! It went straight through the hedge and over the vicars bicycle narrowly missed Mrs. Peabody’s convertible, (I’m beginning to suspect that there’s a rum do developing there I can tell you!) through the car park and ploughed into the side of the General’s car and didn’t stop till it ran out of fuel outside the beer tent. But he managed to turn a lovely straight furrow. Sorry, I digress, Carruthers, he’d managed to find something to get the old tank to run with, I suspect that time will tell us from where. Anyway when the General sent the psychiatrist and his lovely little assistant nurse down to see him and try and talk him down, the good doctor got out of his ambulance and walked towards the tank and Carruthers saw the straight jacket lurking behind his back and turned the turret and fired one of those blank shells at him. Blank or not the wadding made one hell of a hole in the front of the ambulance and lodged itself under the seat between the nurse’s legs. Poor girl passed out with fright! Rumour has it that when they got to her she did have a big smile on her face and was moaning loudly! The MP’s were sent in and dragged him off to the sanitarium shouting loudly about the shadows coming to get him.
Carstairs on the other hand hasn’t been seen at the barracks since he got back from his AWOL episode, always on parade though! Rumour has it that he has moved in with Major Ringbotham and Carstairs has been seen dressed as a woman walking round the park on a Sunday afternoon on Ringbotham’s arm! I’m sure there’s an innocent explanation but I’ll be damned if I can see what it would be!
Since the vicars bicycle was trashed down at the ploughing championships he is being driven everywhere by Mrs. Peabody who he has taken to calling ‘Margie Wargie’! If her father were alive today he would have something to say about it I can tell you. He always seemed to have an unhealthy affection for his daughter if you ask me and always kept any of the chaps away from her and was known on one occasion to chase a much younger Carruthers out of his potting shed with a pitchfork and a twelve bore. It seems that from the potting shed window you could see straight into the young lady’s bedroom.
It would seem also that the General was quite taken with his staff car with one side missing, he had the other one removed and drives around speaking with a decidedly dodgy American accent smoking a big cigar and his Generals hat is now more on the side of his head than it is on the top.
Anyway Corporal, need to go and help remove Carruthers from the chicken coup, someone left his door open last night and he got out. No one realised it until four o’clock this morning when he started crowing. The real rooster was quite put out as Carruthers was better at it than he was!
Tally ho! Over and out.
1st October
Morning Corporal,
Carruthers clutch of eggs have all hatched out now and he is strutting around the back of the parade ground with a dozen little yellow chicks following him. He managed to negotiate with the doctors to allow him to keep the eggs after his little episode in the chicken coup and he took them down to the tank and hatched them all out down there. Mighty peculiar business if you ask me.
Speaking of peculiar businesses, Carstairs and Ringbotham, Carstairs has got himself posted as Ringbotham’s batman and seems far too at home in a floral apron and feather duster to me. He saw Ringbotham off to the office yesterday with a wave of what appeared to be a lace handkerchief from what I could see of it. I can’t help but think that there is something rather unhealthy going on there!
I think the mystery of the new engine in Carruthers mobile home has been solved, no-one has been getting any milk this week and everyone was blaming the milkman’s little dalliance with Mrs. Peabody’s daughter for his inactivity. Eventually the sergeant was sent to find out the cause of the problem and give him a piece of his mind. When he got down to the dairy he found the milkman stood in the empty engine bay of his milk float, scratching his head. It is only circumstantial at the moment as nobody can get near Carruthers and that ruddy tank to find out. He was bad enough before, but now with a brood of chicks to protect he is firing those blank shells at anyone who comes near. Bit of a rumpus the other day, when he got hold of a live one! Carruthers thought that the General was getting too close to his chicks and let loose a shell, well not only has the car got no sides, it has no boot now either; although the General has taken to calling it a trunk, of course. But fortunately for the General the shell didn’t go off; however it did go off when it came to rest against the end wall of the garage where Mrs. Peabody keeps her car. There is now no uncertainty at all about whether there is anything going on between the vicar and the good lady. The garage completely disappeared and revealed Mrs. Peabody spread across the bonnet of her convertible wearing little but a smile, and the vicar spread across her, although he did still have his dog collar on! It gave Ned the gardener quite a turn; he is eighty if he’s a day and deaf as a post! He was on his knees tending the border at the back of the garage when the incident occurred, of course he didn’t hear a thing but when he looked up after the garage had disappeared, all he could see was the vicar’s bare arse bobbing up and down! He thought it was the sunflower in full bloom to start with, although given the shape and colour of the vicar’s legs I can understand the mistake.
Anyway Corporal, must dash, I think I can hear Carruthers trying to start the tank again. Always best to keep a low profile when that engine starts up I find, just in case he has found another live shell.
Over and out Corporal.
8th October
Morning Corporal,
Much against popular belief it is now quite obvious to all that there is actually a Mr. Peabody. Seems the dear fellow works away a lot at the foreign office, well the story of Mrs. Peabody’s little display had got that far, aided by an opportune photographer who happened to be taking pictures for Ned the gardener at the time. The old chap was entering some of his prize blooms for the flower show next week and wanted to capture some of them for posterity, well when the shutter clicked all he got was a posterior! The photographer soon had them developed and were posted all over the officers mess. Some ne’er do well decided to post one of the copies to his mate in Whitehall who happened to be on the next desk to Mr. Peabody. Poor fellow got the shock of his life! Although how exactly he recognised her underneath the vicar and covered in dust and debris I’ll be damned if I knew at the time. He was straight on the train to come back and ‘have it out with the Vicar’. Well it developed into a right old farce after that, worthy of a good script if you ask me. He caught the Vicar and Mrs Peabody at another inopportune moment. Imagine the picture if you will, the Vicar running through the gardens at the vicarage cassocks and robes flowing out behind him clutching his bible. Mr. Peabody, one hand on his head to keep his bowler firmly in place, the other clutching tightly his umbrella like a native with a spear and Mrs. Peabody her housecoat unbuttoned to the waist, her naked ample bosom doing their best to blacken both her eyes as she chased after Mr. Peabody trying to prevent world war three. Carruthers was just running around touching anyone he could get close to and shouting ‘you’re it’! Mrs. Peabody’s daughter was sat on the steps to the conservatory to get the best view whooping with delight and shouting ‘go Dad go’ at the top of her voice.
Well eventually everything died down, Mr Peabody felt sure he could feel his old hernia coming back, the Vicar fell over his cassock and Mrs. Peabody fell over and is now suffering from whiplash and concussion. Not from the fall you understand, from the effect of being battered by her ample naked breasts as she had been running after her husband. Carruthers ran off into the wood and was last heard shouting ‘I’m ready, come and find me’ from the inside of that hollow tree. Well, it turned out in the end that Mr. Peabody was not so concerned about his wife as he was the fact that him and the Vicar had for some years been having a little dalliance with a couple of choir boys and the Vicar had called it all off when he found someone else. Mr. Peabody had taken it all quite badly and had buried himself into his work in London awaiting the return of the Vicars affections. When the photograph turned up on his colleague’s desk it was not his wife that he recognised but the Vicar’s arse. Carruthers has now moved out of the tank and is living in the hollow tree and can be seen most mornings stood on top of it saying, ‘I’m a tree, I’m a tree!’ At least the milkman can now have his engine for his float re-fitted and we can all have our milk delivered again.
Got to go Corporal, cup of char is called for.
Over and out.
15th October
Morning Corporal,
Dashed poor show last weekend, what! Should have got Carruthers and his little harem down there to bolster numbers. The tailor down at the QM stores last week thought he had a poltergeist in his work room, every time his back was turned his tailors’ dummies kept moving around. Poor fellow was becoming quite agitated, particularly when one of them threw itself at him late one evening. The medics were called to try and quieten the poor fellow down, when they lifted the dummy off him he sat up and realised that the other four dummies were now missing, complete with the uniforms that were on them that he had been working on. Three WRAC privates and one sergeant. The General was convinced that gerry was stealing them as disguises for some covert infiltration of the ranks, and it took a rather long phone call from the General to convince him that the Germans haven’t been a serious threat for some time. After getting sergeant Foot in from the military police to ‘survey the crime scene’, (I really think that lot watch too much television you know), at great length they announced the results of their findings in a scene straight out of that Hitchcock film. They had established that Carruthers had been hiding in one of the dummies and had stolen the one he was in and three others because he liked the uniforms! Anyway, Sergeant Foot, or Foot of the Yard as he likes to be referred to, managed to track the culprit back to the old tanks, it seems Carruthers has got fed up with being a tree and is back in one of the tanks only this one has taken on an altogether more sinister prospect, this one has both engine and tracks! He’s got all the dummies lined up ‘on parade’ and was ‘inspecting’ them. Well no one was feeling brave enough to go down there and get them back if Carruthers is armed and now mobile as well! Foot of the Yard went nervously towards the tank and asked in the most authoritative voice he could muster, which to be honest sounded little better than a five year old trembling in front of a teacher on his first day at school, if he could please have his dummies back. Carruthers let fly with one of those blanks he has got hold of, (no one is sure how many he has left), I then realised exactly why that tank was left up there. The barrel is blocked! One hell of a lot of smoke came from everywhere but no wadding came out of the barrel! One just has to hope that they can talk Carruthers down from there before he feels the need to fire another one! Foot of the Yard just stood there and wet himself when the shell was fired and was last seen running for his car. Carruthers is now smitten with his entire little harem and has carried them with him wherever he goes. Bit of a rum do all round I say, what?
22nd October
Morning Corporal,
Bit of a time lag since last entry old boy, had to keep the head down, you know how it is.
Got a bit squiffy myself the other night, one too many brandies in the officer’s mess. When I say one too I probably mean one two, as in twelve to be precise! Got talking to the general and his batman and let it slip about old Carstairs and Major Ringbotham, the general was incensed at the prospect of two gays living in camp! Kept ranting on about sexual proclivities and debauchery. Particularly when he realised that Carruthers was the one he had moved after trying to take advantage of his widowed daughter. You know how it is when you’ve had the odd one over the eight, the mind is saying shut up and the mouth is in full swing.
The following morning, Carstairs and Ringbotham were marched up to the Generals office by two sniggering MP’s. Somehow they managed to convince the General that the reason for them spending so much time together and for Carstairs apparent delectation for female clothes was that they were working on putting together an entertainment troupe for the chaps. The General fell for it hook line and sinker and told them of my own little indiscretion the previous night which left Ringbotham in a right foul bate and he’s been on the warpath looking for me ever since. The real problem for them is that now they have got to come up with the goods and produce something that resembles an entertainment party. They tried to get Carruthers away from that tank to join them, we were all hoping they would manage it as the far side of camp has become a bit of a war zone now that Carruthers tank has an engine. After the last time he took it for a little foray the three new Landrovers the vehicle pool had just taken delivery of were all left with a tank track mark right up the middle and the wheels leaning out at a rather jaunty angle. They nearly managed to get Carruthers away from the thing and the MPs were waiting to go in and remove the batteries and starter when Carruthers heard they were planning on getting him to dress as a woman. He must have had some recollection of that terrible incident down at the NAAFI which led to his rather precarious mental stability; as soon as he saw the dress he ran back into the tank shouting random profanities at anyone and everyone and tried to fire another of those blank shells. Well the barrel was still blocked from the wadding of the previous one, and there then followed one hell of a bang and the whole tank disappeared as smoke exuded from every part of it. When the smoke cleared, the barrel of the tank was peeled back like a banana on all sides, all the doors and traps were blown off their hinges and a smoke blackened Carruthers was sitting on what was left of the turret, sucking his thumb and calling for ‘mummy’.
Need to go old boy, I can hear Ringbotham and Carstairs approaching and I don’t think they are feeling any better disposed towards me yet so I need to make myself scarce. I say, you don’t fancy dressing as a woman and singing Lilly Marlene on a stage do you? Be awfully helpful if you did, I think it might take the sting out of the situation.
Bit of a rum do all round I say!
Over and out.
29th October
Good afternoon Corporal!
Been keeping my head down a bit after the last report old boy, Ringbotham has been on the warpath good and proper. The good thing is he has been so hell bent on finding people to make this ruddy concert party work that he seems to have forgotten what caused the little fiasco in the first place and has left me well alone. Carstairs has finally got what he wants and can walk around quite openly in a frock telling any who question his appearance that he is dealing with concert party business. Although I’ll be damned if I can remember the last time I have seen him in the correct uniform, but it’s a braver man than I who will say anything around here I can tell you.
Speaking of brave men, the Vicar and Mrs. Peabody; Mr. Peabody has gone back to his desk at Whitehall and not been seen since that little incident when he was chasing the Vicar round the garden and the Vicar now seems to spend his time flitting between the vicarage and Peabody Towers. No-one realised he has a wife at home until she became suspicious about the number of parishioners who were dying and their loved ones who needed his consoling at all times of the day and night and yet there were no funerals at the church! She decided that she would follow him one night and that nearly proved her undoing. Carruthers has been coerced away from that ruddy tank of his by putting him in civvies and giving him the job as the camp undertaker and the night the vicar’s wife followed him was probably about the only genuine call-out the vicar had been on for months. The Generals mother-in-law had passed peacefully in her sleep and the Vicar was consoling the Generals wife and the Vicar’s wife was bent down at the front door peeping through the keyhole when Carruthers arrives with a coffin balanced precariously on his shoulder carrying it up the garden path. When he arrived at the door he didn’t see the good lady on her knees and hit her on the back of the head with his coffin. She lurched forward and hit the front of her head on the door which had the two fold effect of knocking her out and opening the door as she lurched through and laid herself out on the hallway carpet. Carruthers meanwhile, had placed the coffin on the floor and realised that there was a body on the hallway carpet, assumed that was to be his cargo for the evening and loaded the recumbent Vicar’s wife into the coffin and then into the back of his van. The Vicar meanwhile is becoming a little flustered at Carruthers apparent lateness to remove the Generals mother in laws body because the Generals wife is becoming a little too welcoming of the Vicars consoling attentions. He couldn’t be too sure but at one point when she laid her head on his shoulder he was sure he could feel her tongue in his ear.
Carruthers meanwhile, had taken his collecting coffin back to the chapel of rest and was busy preparing the not so late Vicar’s wife for her funeral robes. When he had got her half undressed she woke up and sat bolt upright in the coffin. Carruthers assuming that she was some kind of zombie coming to get him, passed out on the spot and the Vicars wife, assuming that she was being raped by some devil worshipper, stood up in the coffin which was not designed for bodies standing up in it, and toppled the whole lot to the ground knocking herself out for the second time that evening! She finished up lying on top of Carruthers and the open coffin on the floor beside them both; when Carruthers came round, all his senses where telling him that he had a flesh eating Zombie lying on top of him about to take a big bite out of his neck. He stood up and ran out of the chapel of rest screaming and ran straight back to his ruddy tank again and was last seen gibbering about Dracula and vampires. In his efforts to escape he had deposited the Vicar’s wife back in the coffin and the lid had fallen shut on top of her.
Meanwhile the Vicar, in search of reason to escape the suspiciously prying tongue of the Generals wife had gone back to the chapel to find Carruthers. When he got there, unable to find the poor fellow, he loaded the collecting coffin into the van and took it all off back to the Generals. He placed the coffin on to the trolley and wheeled it into the Generals house. When the Vicar lifted the lid to place the Generals mother in law in, his own wife had woken again and sat up straight in the coffin. The Vicar passed out with fright, as did the Generals wife and the Vicars wife, convincing herself that as the Vicar was lying under the prone Generals wife she had caught him out good and proper and promptly had an attack of the vapors and passed out again falling back into the coffin with the lid closing back on top of her. When the General returned he found one coffin, full; one mother in law, dead; and the Vicar and his own wife lying on top of each other, out cold.
It caused a right old rumpus I can tell you.
Over and out Corporal.
5th November
Morning Corporal, there’s been a right old bally-hoo here since last report old boy. Barely know where to begin. Do I start with the explosions, the insurgents, or Miss Perivale’s sexual fantasies or…?
Well at least it solved the riddle of Carruthers live shells. Let me explain old boy. After the last report when Carruthers had a bit of a funny turn involving the vicars wife and a coffin the General instigated a bit of an investigation into the goings on with Carruthers et al. MP’s running all over the place; when one of them was in the chapel of rest looking for he knew not what, he stood back to get a breather from his labours and lent against the row of supposedly empty coffins stood end up in the corner. Well he lent a little too hard and the whole bloody lot came tumbling down knocking the lids off many of them and gave himself the fright of his life! There in two of them was a large quantity of all kinds of munitions and in a third was the recumbent corpse of the very late sergeant Green from no. 2 platoon, whose complexion was now starting to live up to his name. Nothing strange in finding a body in a coffin in a chapel of rest you may be saying, except that he has been dead and buried for a month; at least that’s what everyone thought including his wife who has been tending his grave since the funeral! As for the munitions, well that did strike the MP as a little strange, he’s not the brightest button on parade you understand. Of course the two big questions needing to be answered were, if he was now looking at Sergeant Green, resplendent in full uniform, then who was in the coffin at the bottom of the grave where Sergeant Green had been rumoured to be laying at rest and how on earth did two coffins become so heavily laden with so much ammunition? The General ordered an exhumation of the grave and at the bewitching hour two luckless privates were despatched to the graveyard with a tent and two shovels, the General declined to take part himself citing a long established appointment at his gentlemen’s club and nothing at all to do with the rumour flying around the barracks that he was scared of whatever may have been lying at the bottom of that grave. Well our two intrepid privates, after an age taken erecting the tent over the grave, started to dig. The soil being still loose from the burial, it didn’t take long to expose the coffin in question and feeling well deserving of a quick break they climbed out of the hole and lent against the grave stone for a cigarette. After trying their best to scare each other with ghostly stories they were about to resume their labours when one of them lent a bit too hard on the stone and dislodged it. The stone tumbled into the grave and smashed the top of the coffin revealing yet more ammunition however the vibration of the stone falling was having a very profound effect not only on the bowels of the two hapless privates but on the trigger mechanism of one of the shells inside the coffin. What followed will be the talk of the village pub when the lamplights start to flicker for a good time to come I can tell you! It would appear that someone had been pilfering munitions for some time and burying it in coffins in the graveyard. Time will tell who and why, I’m sure! The first shell exploded with a mighty ‘Wump’ and that triggered other shells buried in surrounding graves and they triggered others. It was like some war film with explosions going off all around, body parts from the few coffins that actually did contain what was intended were flying all around and our two intrepid privates trying to dodge the flack as they made their bid for safety trying desperately not to put too much strain on their anal sphincter for fear of leakage! When daylight dawned Carruthers has two ‘flatmates’ in his tank all gibbering about the shadows and the graveyard looks a bit like the Somme after the battle with shell craters and bodies laying all around.
Miss Perivale lives just the other side of the grave yard from the church and is known locally as a sexually predatory spinster of some fifty years with more facial hair than a Sikh. Still rumoured to be untouched, if she takes her virginity to the grave with her it will not be for the want of trying! On the night in question she had left her washing on the line and the late Reverend Bloomfeldt having been disturbed from his eternal slumber a little earlier than I guess he had anticipated found that his knee and arm joints were not as connected as they were when last seen in the light of day and with the aid of the force from the explosion of a 4inch shell found his right hand flying through the air only to become lodged in the waistband of Miss Perivale’s not so small, smalls. Those of an unkind yet truthful disposition have remarked that he is the first man to have his hand in her knickers and others who can remember him have also remarked that she is the first woman to have allowed him that pleasure.
Anyhow Corporal, need to go! Have to organise a repatriation party to try and match arms and legs with their owners and then with the grave to which they belong. Got any duct tape Corporal, may come in handy!
Over and out!
12th November
Ah good morning Corporal, bit of a problem this morning I’m afraid.
Caruthers and those two buffoons from the graveyard that have apparently joined him in that shadowy world he lives in have got a tank each now. Scarily enough they all have engines and some of that ammunition from the graveyard, Caruthers has managed to fit an old barrel he found somewhere off a scrap tank and between them they are causing havoc and mayhem all around the ruddy camp. Caruthers barrel is actually larger than the shells he is firing from it, so where they are going is anybody’s guess and judging by the look of surprise on his face when he sticks his head out of the turret after firing a round off to see where it went he is not expecting them there either! Mrs. Peabody’s car was a convertible before, now not only has it not got a roof, it has no doors, wheels, bonnet or boot either. Caruthers has taken to avenging all those he feels have not been fair to him in the past with the aid of his two new friends from the graveyard. Mrs. Peabody had apparently refused his drunken advances at the NAAFI summer ball a couple of years ago in favour of the vicar, so we are expecting the vicars bicycle to be hit next and if I were Ringbotham or Carstairs I would be watching behind me very closely, but not for the usual reason I fear!
Bloody hell Corporal that was a close one! A shell landed in the parade ground behind the office. I wouldn’t worry that I am a target yet, it is probably just one of Caruthers ill fitting shells has taken its own course once it left the barrel! The General is all for calling in a couple of spitfires to have a go at taking the three tanks out before they do any further damage. Personally I would favour the option of leaving them to it, within a short while they would probably have done the job themselves.
The air raid sirens are going off outside at the moment Corporal, I’m not sure at the moment whether that is because the Spitfires are on their way or just the MP’s trying to get everyone out of the way of those ruddy tanks whilst they work out what to do about them. I think perhaps the best place for all at the moment may well be in the old air raid shelters!
Anyway Corporal, just a quick update on last entry. Most of the body parts have been matched with their owners and re-interred down at the churchyard and this time without any unusual extras in the coffins with them. No clue yet as to who had put all that ammunition down there but we do appear to have two spare arms and one leg with no body or grave to put them with!
Bit of a rum do all round I’d say!
Need to go, rumour has it there’s a bacon sandwich and a mug of char waiting in the air raid shelter.
Over and out.
19th November
Morning Corporal!
Right old ballyhoo down at the vehicle pool old boy. After my last missive we finally got the Carruthers and co. situation under control and back to near normality. The General is blowing his own trumpet about that one and no one is brave enough to put him right. Carruthers etc where busy doing their best to remove any hint that there had ever been any grass with the aid of the tracks of their three tanks and removing any hint of any building surrounding the quadrangle with the aid of considerable quantities of munitions of dubious quality or reliability. Of course Carruthers was every bit the loose cannon he has proved to be of late and even more so when that barrel he had installed into the turret of his tank from some oversized gun he had found, fell off and his shells were firing direct out of the breach. The General marched straight out into the middle and bellowed at the top of his voice which frankly was lost amid the screams of three Rolls Royce tank engines running flat out. Just as he was about to pass out from high blood pressure induced by the effort of making himself heard over the din, silence suddenly reigned over yet another imitation of the Somme that Carruthers had created. The General still feels it was all down to his commanding manner and authoritative tone of voice, but rumour had it at the time it was just that they had all three run out of diesel! The MPs ran in and quickly extracted all three from their respective tanks, Carruthers was carried off screaming that he was a not a number and demanding to see the consulate from Rangoon, no idea why! Carruthers was medicated and sent to the hospital and the other two were sent back to their regiment. Carruthers seemed to be well on the road to recovery, an idea supported by the fact that he was slapped around the face by three young nurses for pinching their bums and twanging their suspenders!
Then the General had a bright idea; still glowing with self praise for his handling of the Carruthers affair he has had far too many bright ideas of late. He decided that Carruthers needed some responsibility to help his recovery and put him in charge of the vehicle pool and enrolled him on a driving course to be able to drive the three ton Bedford’s. The Sergeant Major took Carruthers and four other unsuspecting privates out on their first driving lesson, Carruthers behind the wheel and the Sergeant Major in the passenger seat and the four other privates in the back. It was all going remarkably well whilst it was on a straight road but when it came to the first bend things took a decidedly unorthodox turn for the worse. Fortunately there was an open gate into a ploughed field which Carruthers went through at about forty miles an hour. The four in the back were bouncing around so much that nobody even noticed when Carruthers managed to change gear into reverse whilst still doing forty mph forwards, the only time that he didn’t crunch the gears in the whole journey. The truck was towed out of the field and back to the workshop dripping mud everywhere as it went and is currently awaiting the fitting of a new gearbox.
Carruthers was given his licence anyway, in an effort to save the trucks from having to go through that again and avert a national shortage of gearboxes. He was given the task by the General of moving the entire vehicle pool down to the docks ready for shipping out to the impending manoeuvres in Germany. Whether we get anything serviceable to Germany remains to be seen, Carruthers record so far stands at 1 in 4 vehicles arriving at the docks in a serviceable condition, at his worst it was 1 in 10! The rest are currently either being dragged out of fields, the docks, or having new gearboxes fitted. The national gearbox shortage is looking ever more likely at the moment old boy!
Rum do all round I’d say!
Have to go old boy I can hear another engine being started and a gearbox crunching and it’s rather too close to my office for comfort. Need to go and organize the reinstatement of the lawns in the quad old boy. Got any turf? It may come in handy!
26th November
Morning Corporal!
A bit of a ballyhoo going on down at the docks old chap. As always, where there is mayhem and confusion anywhere, that blithering idiot Carruthers seems to find a way of planting himself right in the middle of it all old boy.
It would seem that we may not be having our little shindig with the ruddy yanks in Germany after all! It appears that we will now have insufficient transport available, thanks to that buffoon Carruthers. We have much less than half of the required vehicles down at the docks thanks to Carruthers best efforts at breaking gearboxes and half shafts with his slightly unorthodox direction changing gear changes, first witnessed in that muddy field. Others have disappeared into various ditches or other equally difficult places to extract vehicles along the route to the docks and the rest have come to rest in the dock, under twenty feet of water. However with a little good old fashioned ingenuity we were just about able to cope, although to be fair the lower decks of the ship would have resembled the REME workshops as the engineers struggled to get new gearboxes etc fitted on the crossing.
It was then that Carruthers delivered his coup. Some damn fool asked him to take a tank, complete with transporter, down to the docks for loading; they did have the presence of mind to remove the keys and any other means of starting the tank together with any ammunition prior to departure, just in case. He managed to get it to the docks relatively unscathed, although he did get a little too close to the front of Peabody Towers and the front wing of the transporter managed to remove most of the front wall as he passed. The good lady of the house was sound asleep and blissfully unaware of the situation, until she arose from her state of slumber. As she stretched, wearing little more than last night’s make-up, she became aware that that the curtains were not drawn! Not only were the curtains not closed, the windows weren't there and neither was the wall!
Ned, the short-sighted postman got the shock of his life that morning as he was squinting up at the house trying to read the house name. But the biggest shock for the village was when the heap of crumpled ironing in the middle of Mrs. Peabody’s bed suddenly sprouted a pair of arms and legs as the vicar extracted himself from under Mrs. Peabody's duvet wearing just his socks and a dog collar. His sermon this Sunday should be as much of a revelation to the village as Ned had already been subjected to.
The real problem came when he got to the dock! He took his tank and transporter across the dock bridge which by my reckoning was only designed to carry about three tonnes, tank and transporter together probably weigh in at something over one hundred tonnes! Well, as we now have the bloody trailer and tank on dry land and the tractor unit on the bridge pillar in the middle, straddling the entrance from the sea and the remains of the bridge are now lying at the bottom of the dock, along with several other vehicles from previous attempts to cross; we are stuck with a problem that what remains of our vehicle pool is marooned around or actually in the dock and can't get out and the boats are lying at anchor somewhere off the coast unable to get into the dock! Guess what?! Carruthers has now got himself another bloody tank! This one has come ready equipped with a moat and a ready supply of ammunition on the back of lorries marooned in the dock.
Not sure how we are going to get him out of this one Corporal, bit of a rum do all round I'd say.
Need to go, have to try and get that fool out of his tank and somewhere that he can't do anyone including himself, any damage. Got any ideas?
Over and out!
3rd December
Afternoon Corporal!
Well, what can I say old boy, things have taken quite a few twists and turns since my last report and several vexatious questions have been answered and revealed others, more vexatious than those they replaced!
You will recall in my last report old boy that Carruthers had got hold of another tank and was marooned across the entrance to the dock and no boats could get in or out and by virtue of the fact that he had got an entire convoy of ammunition trucks in the dock compound with him, he was also armed and quite probably dangerous. Well, the Americans, slightly pissed off that they couldn’t get to Germany with us for a little jolly took it upon themselves to try and divest Carruthers of 100 tonnes of military equipment being used as some kind of a comfort blanket and restore ‘proper order’. In true American style, overkill was an understatement! Helicopter gunships rose from behind sheds all round the perimeter of the dock in some kind of synchronised ballet routine and two dozen navy seals broke surface in the dock as one. Above, three C130’s spewed men from their aft like frogs laying spawn in the sky that then sprouted parachutes as they dropped in onto both sides of a very bewildered Carruthers. The scene that followed couldn’t have been made up and was worthy of a true Hollywood script. Carruthers was unable to understand quite what was happening with all these noisy machines and testosterone charged marines dropping out of the skies and stood on top of his tank turret shouting ‘Bang! And ‘Die you bastard!’ at all the hardware that was surrounding him. Sadly, one of the gunship pilots felt he was a threat to them all, in the way that a lunatic armed with a particularly deadly finger can be a threat to an armoured gunship, so decided to let off a quick burst of gunfire across Carruthers bows. As I had said, Carruthers was completely surrounded by these infernal machines so the gunship directly opposite assumed that somehow he was under fire from Carruthers loaded finger presumably, and so returned fire. Carruthers fainted with all the excitement as twelve helicopter gunships had a shoot out with each other over the top of him each believing they were doing their bit in taking out an aggressive enemy. When the smoke had cleared and Carruthers came round there were twelve burnt out wrecks of helicopters lying all around d the dockside which prompted Carruthers to believe that it was he that had either shot them down with his particularly deadly finger or willed them down by some process of telekinesis and was triumphant as he shouted ever louder bangs at everyone. Eventually he was talked down by convincing him that he had won the battle against an entire American invasion force and he was the hero of the hour.
More was yet to follow, the cranes and divers were brought in to help recover all the equipment at the bottom of the dock and when there was an inventory check done afterwards to see what was missing still it was discovered that there was more crates of ammunition than they had trucks to load them! Where had the extra ammunition come from? It was decided that the crates had to be opened to investigate further. Such incisiveness can only be borne from full military training at Americas finest military academy don’t you know? After much scurrying about the place and measuring and even more head scratching it was concluded that we had extra ammunition from an as yet undetermined source. After handing us the full report and their conclusions the ruddy yanks mounted up and rode off into the sunset whooping and slapping each other on the back for a job well done! It was true, we did have more ammunition than we could account for but where had it come from? That was the real question! Some of it, upon closer inspection, was of a size no longer in use. In fact I was starting to believe that this was more of the stash that blew up most of the churchyard. Under the cover of darkness that night an old landing craft puffing diesel smoke out the exhaust as if it were actually a steam engine gently nosed its way into the dock and a dark and shadowy figure was seen to push several large boxes into the dock chuckling with a very strange Irish accent and then turn and steam off into the inky darkness of the sea. The guards observed from their watch tower as another shadowy figure bearing a marked resemblance to Patrick the postmaster crept out of the remains of the dock sheds, those that the Yanks hadn’t flattened, and pulled the crates out of the water muttering. With that all the search lights went on to reveal Pat, stood there with some of that dodgy ammunition in his hand, a fag hanging out of the corner of his mouth shouting ‘Feck, feck, feck!’ at the top of his voice. He was locked in the cell at the guard house and could be heard throughout the night shouting at the top of his voice ‘You’ll never take me alive!’ Although to me it sounded as if he had been taken and was very much alive! I think we may have got to the bottom of the mystery of the ammunition but no one seems to have a clue why.
Anyway Corporal got to go and organise the rebuilding of the dock sheds. Got any cement bags, may come in handy.
Tally ho Corporal, over and out
10th December
Morning Corporal!
It’s difficult to know where to start today, what with the postmaster locked up in the guard room, vowing never to be taken alive when he clearly has. Carruthers believing he has a new and deadly secret weapon in the shape of a loaded finger, eager to take on all comers by shouting 'Bang, bang, you're dead' at everyone who comes close. If his latest victim doesn't oblige and fall over and play dead he starts to cry and suck his thumb and hide in the corner. The ruddy yanks are hot foot to Hollywood with a script of how they fearlessly and decisively outwitted a Russian invasion plot and recaptured Bristol docks from that dastardly Russian agent Carruthers, agent six and seven eights (capsize). We also have an unexplained quantity of dodgy ammunition retrieved from the dock stacked up in the security compound behind the guardroom.
The ammunition was particularly unstable after it's time spent submerged in the dock, it would seem and the lightning last week set it all off, which was a little unfortunate for the security guard as he sat behind the hessian screen on the new long drop khazie (book now to avoid disappointment in the dysentery season), when after a particularly strenuous attempt to evacuate his bowel, to the point of near coma, opened his eyes again to find his privacy had been well and truly violated, and he now found himself sat alone in the middle of what is now an empty compound. Carruthers had been engaged in a little target practice with his finger from his cell window when the incident occurred and is now more convinced than ever that his finger is in fact a deadly weapon.
With the postmaster being locked away in the cells it has fallen to old Ned to sort and deliver the mail. As short sighted as he is, little is being delivered to the correct address. How we can resolve this situation I’m not sure as any instruction or summons for the postmaster's continued detention or release will be amidst the heap of mail Ned can't see, or perhaps has already been delivered to the wrong address. Several editions of Miss Perivale's 'Sexual Proclivities Weekly', normally delivered in brown plain envelopes, have been, instead, delivered to The Vicarage. Since the Vicar read them Mrs. Peabody has had a particularly wistful expression on her face and the vicar has been seen on several occasions looking around the bins at the back of the saddlers for off cuts of leather, although exactly what he wants them for is a matter of endless speculation around the camp and village. In the absence of her regular magazine Miss Perivale is clearly feeling the pressure of sexual frustration again, and was last spotted running naked through the camp shouting chase me, with Carruthers safely locked up and Carstairs having swung the other way, nobody even noticed.
Rumour also has it that the landing craft spotted briefly recently depositing more ammunition in the dock may have something to do with Shamus from the breakers yard who routinely removes all broken or redundant stock from REME and he may have some explaining to do.
Bit of a rum do all round I'd say Corporal, got to go old boy, need to go and organize a postal sorting party.
Got any leather off cuts? May be a profit in it if you can speak to the Vicar.
Over and out!
17th December
Morning Corporal!
Bit of a security gaff since last report old boy. Carruthers has been locked up for his own protection as well as ours and Carstairs put on his best frock and went to visit, for old time’s sake. Carruthers was a bit taken aback to see him and became quite traumatised at the sight of Carstairs dressed like that and triggered long suppressed memories which undid several months of therapy. Carruthers became so agitated he dispensed with his trademark deadly aimed finger and upturned his bed and was firing over the top of it with the most deadly thing available in his deadly arsenal, an imaginary RPG. Carstairs put his hand on his hip and stamped his foot in the campest manner imaginable, as he insisted that Carruthers got a grip of himself. This only inflamed Carruthers even more as he called in the heavy artillery by turning his bed the right way up and putting his bedside cupboard in the middle of it and sitting on top firing imaginary shells at Carstairs. This was all too much for Carstairs and he fled the cells - and the building - and the camp - and was last seen booking a ticket at the station - destination anywhere, with his eye makeup running all over his face.
Unfortunately, in his absolute panic to get away from the deadly effects of Carruthers growing arsenal, he had only pulled the door of the cell to and not ensured it was properly locked. Carruthers seized his moment and escaped, armed once again with his light sabre, masquerading as his deadly finger, firing imaginary laser beams at everyone and everything in the vicinity as he rolled around the building in the manner he had witnessed those ruddy yanks doing at the docks, uttering testosterone fueled grunts as he did so. The biggest surprise was when he found his way outside into the compound and was rolling around firing more lasers and happened to come across what until recently had been masquerading as the long drop khazie. Now being divested on anything structural and consisting of only a very deep hole in the ground, Carruthers face was a picture as he dropped right to the bottom of an effluent filled hole. Pat was witnessing the spectacle from his cell window and started shouting when Carruthers disappeared, something about an escape pact they had apparently made in whispers through the cell bars, Shamus was calling Carruthers a bastard for not taking him along when he went over the top!
Carruthers now resides at the bottom of the hole covered in heaven knows what and refusing to come out in case Pat 'deads' him! Although to be fair I fear the real reason is that no one will volunteer to go down and assist the poor fellow. Carruthers can now be heard from the bottom of the hole, pleading to be allowed out and promising to behave himself from now on. Whether he can resist pointing that ruddy finger at anyone that upsets him remains to be seen.
Bit of a rum do all round I'd say. Got to go old boy, need to organise a a party to extricate Carruthers from what some have called, rather uncharitably, the bowels of the earth.
Got any charcoal face masks? May come in handy!
Over and out!
24th December
Morning Corporal!
There’s been a right old stink since last report old boy, although it is beginning to die down a little now. No, there really has been a stink! Carruthers if you remember was down the bottom of the khazie pit, where, to his great surprise he had fallen after rolling around the compound grunting as he was firing off lasers from his light sabre masquerading as a finger. Since then he has been refusing to come out, fearful that Pat the postmaster may 'dead' him. So we have been taking it in turns to lower vital supplies down to him. Every time he moved he broke the crust on the effluent he was in and released a further assault on the nose of all within a one mile radius. He became very distraught when everyone fell about laughing when he asked for lavatory paper to be lowered into his hole for what he described as “personal hygiene reasons”.
As Christmas was approaching I felt action was required and as Ringbotham has been no use to man or army since Carstairs ran away, I took action. A screen was erected, so that he couldn't see Pat the postmaster and the wrecker was sent for. It arrived, driven as usual by the regular driver, Wayne, a pimply youth with a permanent cold who punctuated his monosyllabic sentences with a sniff. The length and volume of which seem to indicate the importance he attached to the preceding utterance. He was, as usual, assisted by Gideon, the genetic throwback from a long and distinguished military family rejected by Sandhurst for having no demonstrable military ability; in fact for generally having no ability at all really! Except, of course, for agreeing with everyone and anyone when it meant he may have something to gain from it, even if only peace and quiet! The wrecker was reversed up to the hole under the expert control of Wayne, sniffing and snorting as he watched Gideon directing him in his mirror. Unfortunately, Pat could see this part of the operation from his cell window and suggested loudly that Gideon may resemble “a feckin windmill” and that his mother did not actually know who his father was. Gideon, anxious as always to agree, put his hands in his pockets and ambled over to discuss the matter further with Pat. Wayne's last heard instruction from Gideon was to '”keep coming like that” and did so, straight over the hole. Carruthers, meanwhile, could be heard above the noise of the engine crying because some bastard had turned the lights out in his hole! The vehicle was stopped and repositioned properly with the crane over the hole and Gideon was recalled from Pat's cell window. When told of the consequences of his actions he of course agreed it was not the right thing to do, then blamed it all on Pat. Wayne meanwhile had found his crusty old pair of gloves from the locker on the side of the vehicle and was sniffing loudly, leaning against the side of the truck whilst awaiting further orders. Eventually order was restored and the cable was lowered with a board on the hook for Carruthers to sit on. Carruthers was then winched triumphantly to the surface! The smell was awful as he appeared from the hole and Gideon placed himself beside the highest ranking officer he could find and, holding his nose in an exaggerated fashion, began 'Phewing' loudly! The smell was so bad that even Wayne stopped sniffing for a moment. When Carruthers jumped off his seat on the end of the cranes cable he was so pleased to be out of that hole and not to have been deaded by Pat, that he ran forward to embrace Wayne in gratitude and relief. Starved of affection during his infant nurture, Wayne is usually welcoming of any show of approval or affection but in light of the state of Carruthers and the stomach churning smell, he ran away, far enough that he felt able to recommence normal sniffing without fear of revisiting his breakfast. Carruthers turned from one to the other as in turn they all retired to safe distance. Safe enough not to be on the receiving end of Carruthers gratitude. Even Gideon ran away before finding a high ranking officer to stand beside and recommence tutting, this time at the state Carruthers uniform was in. Although running away was understandable, in hindsight it was perhaps not the best idea ever. Carruthers suddenly realised he was on his own, with the wrecker, which had the keys in it, door open and engine running!
Wayne stood there looking bemused at the spot where until moments before had stood his entire reason for living. No one could tell for certain whether Wayne let out a particularly loud sniff at that point or whether it was Carruthers gleefully crashing another gear change. Gideon meanwhile, realising the opportunity for particularly incisive hindsight, started telling everyone in a very loud voice how he could always see that it was a bad idea from the start to use the crane, hopeful to distance himself from any blame. Carruthers, meanwhile, has managed to remove most of the wall of the cell block with the jib on the back of the wrecker, allowing Pat to escape as well! He then drove through a gate in the compound fence that we didn't have and out onto the main road. Pat ran straight back to the post office and hid in there. At least with him back at the post office we may get the backlog of mail delivered and all the stuff Ned wrongly delivered may be returned to its rightful owner, so I think we may overlook his escape for a while.
Carruthers has now found himself a new home in the wrecker! He drove his new found toy back to the parade ground where he cleaned it inside and out and then removed his belongings from where he had been hiding them inside another old tank and set up his new home. He changed his clothes for some that may perhaps smell a little sweeter and then set off round the camp in his toy looking for something to lift or pull with the winch and crane. Unfortunately he has found manhole covers a particular favourite and has lifted off most of the covers around camp. Walking around camp after dark has become a particularly hazardous affair and is best done in two's. Morning parade usually reveals one or two absentees and search of the camp usually results in a pitiful cry from the bottom of a drain somewhere.
Wayne came up with the suggestion of welding them all down. At least we think that's what he meant; he grunted “weld'em” followed by a long and loud sniff. All the covers were duly welded in place, however morning revealed Carruthers wrecker parked up by the parade square and instead of the usual manhole cover swinging from the crane at the back, there was a manhole cover complete with metal surround and base attached to five square yards of tarmac! Gideon was stood beside it complaining loudly that he knew all along it was a bad idea just in case anyone was listening.
Bit of a rum do all round I'd say Corporal! Got go old boy, need to find where Carruthers is stashing the manhole covers.
Got any large sheets of heavy metal plate, may come in handy!
Over and out!
31st December
Morning Corporal!
Christmas was a fiasco as was probably expected, but this time it wasn't entirely down to Carruthers or Carstairs!
Carstairs has of course disappeared on a train, ticket, destination anywhere and was last heard to be living in a valley in Wales, where a lot of ewes were looking jealous and a lot of rams had a peculiar look of gratification about them. Carruthers had as you will remember taken to living in the cab of the wrecker, which was fine until Gideon managed to get a three tonner stuck in one of Carruthers coverless manholes. Action had to be taken and without any real armaments on this vehicle the MP`s felt much more confident when evicting him. Of course Gideon blamed the world and his wife and particularly Carruthers for his little accident; unusually, on this occasion it was with a certain amount of justification!
Wayne, in the absence of his wrecker and therefore his entire reason for living had been assigned to the task of arranging the regimental Christmas dinner. It was felt, generally, that he was pleased with his new assignment, although to be fair no one could ever be certain, just a guess based on a monosyllabic grunt followed by a long sniff and swallow.
A day before the event he had a dummy run and produced a passable Christmas dinner for a few officers. From the sniffing and grunting emanating from the kitchens during the preparations I was a little suspicious of the glaze on the turkey. The problem came on Christmas morning when it became apparent that Wayne had only ordered one ten pound turkey to feed an entire regiment. Presumably he was expecting some kind of biblical experience and a visitation from someone better able to feed a large gathering from a few loaves and fishes. However, as military establishments are not known these days for biblical experiences of the kind required here, Gideon took charge with one of those dramatic though ill considered gesture’s for which he is so famous. He rang a local poultry packer on Christmas morning, who is a friend of his fathers and whilst making wild and expansive arm gestures said he wanted them to send everything they had got and he wanted it now. The man clearly felt he was onto a winner here and obliged. Within the hour forty tonnes of oven ready chicken had arrived and filled the chiller in the store room and every other fridge and freezer on the camp! Gideon was desperately trying to find someone to blame for his moment of excess but to no avail. In the end he consoled himself a little by ‘tutting’ loudly about the forklift driver who had apparently managed to drop one of the boxes of poultry whilst unloading. Feeling a little cheered that he had managed to ‘tut’ whilst within earshot of an officer; he had then to find sufficient oven space to cook forty tonnes of fresh poultry before it started to turn green and smell a little unpleasant. The kitchens were running at full capacity and Gideon decided that he needed to donate some chicken to local old people's homes. Carruthers immediately volunteered to deliver the chicken, anxious for a good reason, in fact any reason to get behind the wheel of a vehicle again. It was felt generally that this would be a constructive way of giving Carruthers an opportunity to be useful, just as long as he could keep his light sabre in its holster so as not to frighten any of the old folks! Carruthers was duly loaded up with three tonnes of oven ready chicken to be delivered to old folk’s homes and almshouses within the area. Carruthers returned in record time, vehicle empty and looking for his next load. Gideon was only too pleased to see more of his problem disappear down the road so sent him off with another load and then another. As the fourth load was disappearing down the road the local bobby came racing through the gate on his push bike, looking a little flustered. It seemed that Carruthers had got as far as the regimental clay pigeon range and stopped for a roll-up. Leaning against the tin shed he had noticed the clay trap inside and it would appear that an idea had formed inside his little head. Dragging the apparatus round to the back of his lorry and unsheathing his deadly light sabre masquerading as a finger he began launching chickens and trying to pick them off by laser. His laser was clearly misfiring as the first chicken wasn't vaporised in mid air and instead floated gaily over the wall and landed in the yard at the back of the police station. After the airborne delivery of about nine tonnes of fresh poultry, our intrepid bobby stepped out into the sunshine to enjoy his morning coffee, when once again our peaceful, sleepy corner of rural England resembled something akin to The Somme, only this time with chickens!
Gideon was of course delighted to have someone to criticise and ‘tut’ at and divert some of the considerable amount of flack which was coming his way that morning.
Bit of a festive rum do all round I'd say old boy.
Got to go, need to organise a party to remove all that chicken from the police yard.
Got any recipes with chicken in them? May come in handy!
Over and out!
7th January
I say Corporal!
Things have taken a bit of a turn on New Years Eve.
Carruthers was sent into town with Wayne and Gideon, the idea being, apparently, to chaperone Carruthers around town safely and allow him to experience some kind of normality. It turned out to be a strange kind of normality! Our intrepid trio was taken into town by the MP's and dropped at a suitable establishment for the evening, with instructions to be waiting at this spot just after midnight.
Wayne was unable to communicate effectively an order for three drinks over the noise of New Years Eve using only monosyllabic sentences, unless of course you count sniffs and grunts, in which case he could manage tri-syllabic sentences. Either way trying to order three drinks under those circumstances was perhaps a little too challenging. There are those that feel that Gideon trying to get him to order a “double Cointreau on the rocks, with crème de menthe and a twist of lemon in a tall glass”, was deliberately aimed at humiliating him and perhaps a little unnecessary. Wayne became frustrated at being unable to communicate Gideon's order to the barman and Carruthers became agitated by the cheap perfume being worn by the girl on the next table. Gideon, not wishing to be outdone, became frustrated and agitated. Some say it was only because he was unable to locate a suitably high rank officer to complain, or offer a loud opinion in front of, that he became agitated. Several local lads started provoking Carruthers and ridiculing Wayne. Gideon found some kind of solace by criticizing the lay-out of the bar, the decor, the way the chaps at the bar were dressed, the way the girls were dressed, the type of clientele and even the way the taxis were parked outside and this just seemed to provoke everyone! Either way, in the melee that followed somehow Carruthers became armed again. This time with the mop from the floor washing bucket in the cloakrooms! By the time the MP’s arrived Wayne was sitting on an upturned flower tub outside the bar quietly sniffing and grunting to himself and Gideon was still inside having the living daylights kicked out of him by just about anyone and everyone inside the bar. The MP’s opted to deal with Wayne first and helped him into the front of the Land Rover, made him comfortable, smoked the remainder of the roll up they had on the go before looking back inside to see how Gideon was fairing. By the time they got back in he was lying on the floor and was being left alone by the crowd who had clearly moved on to more interesting things. He was obviously starting to feel a little better because he was already starting to complain loudly about how dirty the floors were and if he were their commanding officer he would have them cleaning it with their tooth brushes! Tempting though it was for the MP’s to go outside and check on Wayne for another ten minutes, the crowd was starting to circle again around Gideon clearly irritated by his continued complaining after most would have had the sense to shut-up and get out quietly; they picked him up, one on each arm and carried him out to the Land Rover. Carruthers meanwhile, was nowhere to be seen!
The evening carried on in town much as normal for a New Years Eve; Gideon was taken back to the guard room and eventually locked in a cell for no reason other than he couldn’t be heard down there!
It was down by the harbour that Carruthers made his next appearance where a group of revellers were enjoying a barbecue as midnight approached and were pushing the last of the blackened bangers around the fire drawing straws to see who should tackle them. Carruthers, fuelled by drink, drugs, or just an innate desire to protect his country had been watching them for a little while from the shadows and had become more concerned that the presence of accents not normally connected with our shores may indicate the possible attempted invasion by a foreign power. In the dark of the night the waves in the bay were looking for all the world to Carruthers like a submarine lying about half a mile off shore. Summoning his best efforts and armed with his mop he crawled through the surf until he was able to emerge from the surf right behind them. The students from the foreign language school, unable to return home for the holiday were somewhat startled and in some cases quite terrified to see Carruthers appear, covered in seaweed pointing what at first glance in the dark appeared for all the world to be a rifle at them. Carruthers then marched them all back to the camp at ‘mop point’ shouting orders in English but with a phoney German accent, clearly feeling that they may understand him a little better. The guards on the gate got the shock of their lives as a column of teenagers marched towards the gate looking terrified, with a heap of seaweed with legs and a mop following close behind. As they got to the guard room an order was barked out by the heap of seaweed and they all shuffled to a halt and stood there looking quite bewildered at the way the English seem to celebrate the New Year. From under the heap of seaweed, much to the amazement of the guards followed by stifled laughter, emerged Carruthers babbling on about a German invasion pointing his mop handle at anyone who wasn’t in line. It took quite a while to persuade Carruthers to release his prisoners and allow them to be driven back to their college and even longer for the smell of seaweed in the guard room to subside.
I think this New Years Eve may be the subject of many a conversation as the pub lights start to flicker for some time to come.
Still trying to move a considerable quantity of chicken corporal, any ideas?
Need to go Corporal, before they release Gideon. He hasn’t had an officer to stand beside for nearly twenty four hours.
Over and Out
14th January
Dashed bad show Corporal!
After the last report old boy we had a certain amount of remonstrating with the ruddy Ruskies and their embassy. They were raving on for hours down the phone, something to do with “a lunatic Englishman harassing and detaining their young communist party members whilst innocently going about their business in this capitalist den of iniquity”. Of course we never admitted anything but it was obvious that they were referring to Carruthers and his little new years eve outing.
For once the entire officer’s mess was breathing a sigh of relief when Carruthers was seen furtively wandering down to the old tanks again. As he closed the lid and locked it from inside the turret, the whole camp breathed easier as experience has taught us all that he is out of the way for at least a day whenever he moves into a new tank/home. As he ambled down there and out of the way, the Russian commissioner and his entourage came through the camp gates with two of the students that Carruthers had rounded up. It would seem that someone had told them that it was indeed Carruthers who was responsible for a distinct chill being cast over cold war relations. Suspicions that it may have had something to do with Gideon were deemed to be well founded when he sidled up to one of the Russian military officials whilst tutting loudly about the state of the British military and was seen to point at the tanks at the end of the parade ground and state loudly that “the man you want is in there!” The Russians insisted on being escorted down to the end of the parade ground. Gideon was unsure whether he could gain most advantage from standing beside a British officer or a Russian, so positioned himself mid-way between the two so that he could instantly move to where greatest gain could be had. Wayne impressed everyone when approached as he was polishing the last of Carruthers fingerprints from the paintwork of his wrecker. When he looked up he could see a party apparently from the United Nations approaching and uttered his first ever sentence that contained more than one syllable, 'Wassup?' We assume he was enquiring as to why so many were approaching, although no-one can be quite sure. As the party approached the tanks Gideon became more excited and could barely contain himself pointing his finger at the tank whilst foaming at the mouth and screaming at the top of his voice,"He's in there, he's in there!" Carruthers meanwhile was inside the tank arranging his few remaining possessions when he heard the approaching commotion. He put his head out of the tank driver's lid just in time to see Gideon pointing his finger. Knowing that Carruthers own arsenal featured a deadly light sabre that looked for all the world to everyone else to be a finger, Carruthers clearly felt under attack with Gideon pointing his finger in such a manner and therefore deemed the best form of defence under these circumstances would be attack. So he let loose with another of his blanks from the barrel of his tank. I only qualify from where the blank was fired old boy, as these days he seems to have a growing arsenal of imaginary weapons from which to choose. Gideon passed out on the spot with fright and when he came round moments later immediately sprang into action and began looking for the highest ranking officer to stand beside whilst complaining loudly about the safety situation with sudden loud noises from military hardware when civilians were present. He was also tutting as loudly as possible so as to be heard above the melee that it had made his uniform dirty and covered in soot. He seemed to have momentarily overlooked the fact that he had just been fired at. The ruddy Ruskies were running for cover wherever they could find it except one stoic, aging Russian gent who had served through more campaigns than everyone else and seemed to know that the threat had passed already and he was still standing. He was demanding to know who had issued the blanks. Wayne who had already begun polishing the soot from his wrecker all over again was clearly tiring of Gideon’s complaining and tutting had a stroke of genius. At least we think he did! At the Ruskies demand to know who was responsible he uttered just one word with a kind of sideways flick of the thumb aimed at the posturing Gideon and said, 'itsim'. He was clearly impressed with his own ability at a second two syllable sentence in so short a time that he went behind the wrecker and sat down for a roll up and away from Gideon's protests of innocence as the ruddy Ruskies arrested him.
Gideon was dragged off whilst shouting about diplomatic immunity and “My father was a General don't you know”. The ruddy Ruskies insisted on him being arrested for 'supplying an idiot with items dangerous to himself and Russians'. They went off to compose a suitable protest letter to the prime minister and Gideon was placed in the cells again which meant also that no-one could hear him. Result! Carruthers wondering what was going on outside stuck his soot blackened face out of the turret and in a plaintiff voice called out 'Hello, where did they all go?'
Bit of a rum do all round I’d say old boy!
Got to go, need to organise a diplomat’s party down at the officer’s mess to try and smooth this whole thing out. Got any diplomatic skills old boy? May come in handy!
Over and out!
21st January
Crikey Corporal!
Revelation, surprise and answers this time around!!!
Since last report old boy things have really moved on and some questions which have been lurking at the back of the mind have been opened up and the imagination let loose.
In yet another attempt to rehabilitate that buffoon Carruthers someone has authorised him to take charge of a camp patrol with a platoon of guards. Questions have been asked as to why he has not been drummed out of the camp, particularly after firing a tank shell, blank or live, at the Russian commissioner and his entourage! That rumpus is still rumbling on old boy and I suspect the Ruskies haven't finished with us yet.
Anyway old chap, Shamus and his cohorts if you remember were responsible for removing the scrap metal from the camp. He would remove all the old military hardware that was broken or otherwise redundant and break it up for spares or scrap. He was also rumoured to be behind the old landing craft that was seen depositing a quantity of munitions in the dock if you remember.
One evening last week a number of balaclava clad reprobates were caught removing more ammunition from the ammo store. It would appear that much of it had been disappearing of late and when Gideon was ambling home from the NAAFI on this fateful evening after finding no-one of rank to stand beside for several hours and aiming for the guard room as a last resort, he happened across a bunch of Irish migrants removing whatever they could put there hands on from the ammo store. Gideon still hasn't quite mastered the art of knowing when to shut up and so began bellowing loudly something about waiting till the guards get there! That close to the guard room was sure to attract attention and did so! The place was soon crawling with trigger happy MP's which was perhaps not the best thought out strategy possible. Twenty republican army rebels lead by Shamus, hell bent on doing whatever they could to throw a spanner in the works of the British army, in fact anything remotely British, are not the best folks to lock into a British ammunition store when British army MP's are circling like vultures outside. There were things being thrown out of the store at our chaps that I hadn't seen in forty years of military service all of which wreaked their own special kind of havoc of some kind on whatever they should happen to have landed upon and we had a siege on our hands!
Carruthers meanwhile was returning with his platoon of guards from their evening patrol of the camp and walked right into the middle of the melee. Carruthers, ever eager to impress with his new found authority, commanded his platoon to "run and hide at the double". Shamus and his little team were busy taking potshots at anything that moved in the direction of the guard room and if nothing moved for a while then practiced by pretending the guardroom itself was moving although that may have had more to do with the copious quantities of Guinness and Jameson’s that was slopping around in the bilges! Either way, they were completely oblivious to Carruthers presence behind them. Shamus was just getting over a heavy cold and kept producing a handkerchief the size of a bed sheet to blow his nose in. In fact closer inspection would have revealed it was a bed sheet! Carruthers interpretation of the waving of the bed sheet was one of surrender and evacuating large quantities of nasal mucus wasn't a prospect he had in mind as he strode forward to accept the resignation of twenty Irish republican rebels. It's difficult to know who was most surprised by Carruthers actions, the Irish republicans who didn't know he was behind them, the MP's who could easily witness his approach or even the incredulous gasps of disbelief uttered by his own men as he marched confidently forward. Shamus's men offered no resistance as Carruthers removed their arms one by one and had them line up ready to move out. When they got to the
Guardroom Carruthers handed over his detainees and then promptly passed out when informed of what he had achieved.
The Brigadier was so enamoured with Carruthers efforts that he recommended him for a medal. I think it was for ‘meritorious ignorance and general good conduct in the face of overwhelming enemy hanky waving’. A presentation ceremony was organised with good speed in the officer’s mess when the Brigadier could present Carruthers with his medal. I have looked through all the books and general orders and can find no mention of this particular medal, but then the Brigadier always was a little inventive! Presentation over, the serious business of the evening was attended to, that of a good measure of port. The brigadier had consumed a very good measure of port and several good measures of brandy when Gideon, who was clearly enjoying the opportunity to be in the presence of so many officers, in a volume approaching that of a foghorn, visited the subject of sexual conquests. The Brigadier let it slip about his first such occasion with a serving maid at his parent’s home which resulted in a young child being born out of wedlock. Gideon was enjoying his new found camaraderie with the Brigadier and pushed the subject still further. With no less volume he asked, "So who was the hapless wench?" The Brigadier, who's tongue was sufficiently oiled by port to throw discretion to the wind, said in a whisper her name was Betty Carruthers. Gideon was on a roll now and repeated in a very loud voice, Betty Carruthers! That's funny, her having the same name as Carruthers! He had been oblivious to the hush that descended over the room which was now broken only by the dull thud of a body hitting the floor as Carruthers passed out once again. He had always understood that his daddy was a bareback rider from a touring circus who was tragically killed when an elephant sat on him. Gideon was unable to pass up the opportunity to tut loudly about people unable to hold their drink as he stepped over the comatose Carruthers on his way to find another officer.
Carruthers is now living back in his tank and gibbering again, this time about 'daddy' and elephants.
Bit of rum do all round I’d say old boy! Got to go and talk the Brigadier down from a tree he's been hiding in ever since, must be a genetic thing!
Got any paternity papers? May come in handy!
Over and out!
28th January
Morning Corporal!
After the last report old boy, we finished up with half the Irish Republican military movement captured by accident by Carruthers, who was once again living in his ruddy tank. We also had an astounding revelation as to the Brigadier's paternity of Carruthers during a presentation reception at the officer’s mess, aided by Gideon's hopeless desire to talk to everyone or anyone with a rank which may perhaps give him an advantage in his quest to emulate his distinguished military ancestors. A quest which will, I fear, elude him until the day after the one in which he is destined to shuffle off this mortal coil! However, until that day arrives he will never be found very far from an officer, tutting as loudly as he can. The Brigadier, in his frank if not drunken admission about his little dalliance with Carruthers mother, has answered many questions about the British army's seemingly endless tolerance of Carruthers somewhat strange behaviour. The Brigadier meanwhile, once we had convinced him that his world was not about to end, did eventually come down from his tree and remove his head from his hands and once again adopt an upright posture, as taught at Sandhurst. There was a certain amount of relief in some quarters that the Brigadiers little indiscretion was finally out in the open as the medals department were becoming ever more baffled at the mysterious and inventive array of strange medals that were being awarded to Carruthers on almost a weekly basis. However there was yet another to come his way!
After the episode with the ruddy Ruskies when Carruthers managed to chill the cold war by several degrees when he fired several blank shells at the Russian commissioner and his entourage, all had been quiet for a disturbingly long time. They had retired to lick their wounds after being seen off by an idiot firing blanks. Those with diplomatic experience were convinced that the ruddy Ruskies would bide their time and exact some kind of retribution on whoever the luckless individual was who they thought responsible for their humiliation, AKA, Carruthers.
On a dark and moonless night when the shadows were surrounding Carruthers tank and he was convinced they were coming to get him, in the bay a dark shape broke the surface. First a periscope and then a conning tower, on the side of which was plain for no-one in particular to see, a red square with a hammer and sickle emblazoned upon it. Two rubber dinghies were hauled out on to the decks of a Russian submarine before slipping silently into the sea loaded with 20 crack Russian commandoes.
Carruthers meanwhile, was becoming distraught as the shadows slowly crept up on him, although on a night as dark as this, one could only speculate as to exactly where the shadows ended and the general darkness began. Although in Carruthers very borderline version of reality the boundary was all too clear, and they were definitely coming to get him! The pressure eventually got just too much and like an over wound clock spring when the cover comes off, Carruthers leapt into action. First, firing a blank as a warning shot had no effect as the shadows came ever closer, and then followed by a live round, and another! The shadows were clearly not being deterred by the barrage and were in fact speeding up their relentless and apparently evil advance as the rate of Carruthers fire was increasing as the shells hit their mark and passed through the shadows and on out into the night sky.
In the bay two rubber inflatable boats were being paddled towards the shore, their mission to capture the mastermind of the capitalist attempt to humiliate the Russian motherland and her people. The occupants were oblivious of the fact that a strange whistling sound which was increasing in volume and proximity heralded the second humiliation of the Russian motherland and her glorious forces at the hands of the English capitalist idiot, until a loud plop and a ripping sound of rubberised canvas announced the arrival of the first of Carruthers shells. After having failed to find anything of substance in the shadows against which to detonate, they followed their trajectory in a long arc out into the bay, only to part the shoe laces of one comrade Stanislavski. More shots followed as Carruthers fired shells in random directions as he tried to hit every shadow around his tank. As the submarine commander looked out from his conning tower it appeared for all the world that he was under attack, which indirectly he was, and gave the command that his craft should get below the water and the hell out of there as soon as possible. For twenty young Ruskie commandoes the bay suddenly became a very large place to be as they battled in vain to keep one of the boats afloat long enough to make it to dry land in the absence of the craft which had brought them on their mission, which by now had submerged and was getting as far away as possible whilst the captain frantically tried to concoct a story which proved their presence was a peaceable one and that this was another example of capitalist aggression.
Carruthers meanwhile had run out of shells and opted to bale out of his tank and make a run for it to escape the advancing shadows. In blind panic he ran through the town and down to the harbour where twenty very bewildered Ruskies, their boat having sunk, were wading ashore. Being the first humans he had encountered on his flight from the shadows, Carruthers ran straight up to them and flung his arms around the first one he encountered, more out of relief than anything else. The Ruskie tried to resist and it all finished up with the Ruskie and Carruthers rolling on the beach just as two MP's turned up on a mission to find where Carruthers shells had landed. The Ruskie looked up and was convinced that he was outnumbered and surrendered immediately. The MP's were at first baffled and then clearly impressed that Carruthers had single handedly and fearlessly taken on the might of the Russian commando force and carried him aloft back to the camp as they marched their captives back to a diplomatic uncertainty. Carruthers at first was a little disturbed that he was being captured by the shadows again but once the lights of the guardroom hove in sight and the shadows were banished from his mind he began to enjoy the adulation he was receiving, although to be fair he had no idea why he was receiving it! Thanks entirely to Carruthers, the cell block is now crammed to capacity with a multinational force of soldiers, what with the Irish he captured earlier this month and now the ruddy Ruskies. We are awaiting the arrival of the ambassadors of both the Irish Republic and the Soviet Republic when they realise we are holding their people. The Brigadier is rushing around trying to find a medal big enough to pin on Carruthers chest for what he has done, although to be fair it would be lost on Carruthers as he really has know idea what he did, he is just relieved that the shadows are no longer chasing him.
Bit of a rum do all round I'd say Corporal!
Got to go, need to organise a building party to extend the cell block, just in case Carruthers manages to round up any more foreign invaders.
Don't suppose you have a cement mixer do you? May come in handy!
Over and out!
4th February
Morning Corporal!
Right old ballyhoo down at HQ since last report old boy! The long and the short of it is that we have forty foreign nationals that are not wanted for a variety of reasons by their respective governments and a diplomatic community in London desperate to avoid an incident so don't want them tried through the British judicial system.
The Irish diplomats tend to work at a very slow pace anyway but have already indicated that Shamus and his team have previously caused far too much trouble at home and the Irish government is secretly quite pleased that they have been captured on foreign soil and they can now wash their hands of the lot of them. It seems that at the last elections Shamus had insisted on exercising his "democratic roight to stand fur feckin' lection'!" With no discernable policies, save one for 'free Guinness for all and Jamesons all round on a Friday noight', his campaign was gaining far too much popularity for the establishments peace of mind and some were even speculating that he may have actually stood a chance of winning, until he tried a "pilot project" one Saturday night. He insisted at gun point that the landlords of Dublin should serve free Guinness all night. It would seem that word soon got around and within a very short time every pub and hotel was completely devoid of any liquid worthy of the name. Shamus was surrounded by a very angry crowd of half pissed Irishmen and an even angrier crowd of landlords and had to escape down the river Liffey on a pallet that happened to be floating by at a most opportune moment. When he decided to 'take up the cause' on soil anywhere other than Ireland there were many Gaelic sighs of relief throughout the Emerald Isle. Now he has been imprisoned by the British army; for now it solves a problem as long as a protracted trial doesn't allow him to portray himself as a martyr.
The Ruskies on the other hand had a very different problem. The Commissioner, pissed off at being outwitted by an idiot, even if the idiot was unaware he had done so, had spoken with his cousin in the Russian foreign ministry and managed to convince the military authorities that Carruthers was in fact a Russian agent who had been enslaved into the capitalist army and was being forced to work against his nationalist and communist beliefs and the only possible solution was a covert enforced repatriation mission. With the cold war becoming chillier by the day and the ruddy Ruskies anxious to avoid all out war, they were quick to distance themselves from any official involvement. With no official papers or ID they could really distance the Ruskie government form the melee by denying the commandoes were even Russian citizens!
Gideon was detailed to process the papers for their repatriation and that was where, through Gideon's general incompetence a solution was found. Gideon, unable to tell that Stanislavski was unlikely to be an Irish national, was processing the wrong papers to the wrong governments and a diplomatic solution was found. The Irish government allowed the repatriation of Stanislavski and his comrades as Irish nationals back to Dublin to be passed on as diplomatic baggage at a later date when everything had died down, as long as the ruddy Ruskies took Shamus and co and sent them to Siberia or anywhere from which they could not exercise their democratic roit to anything connected to Ireland. Gideon also performed the most spectacular u-turn in even his history as first, he eventually realised his mistake and tutted profusely as he tried desperately to distance himself from his mistake and trying to find a gullible private, a new recruit, to take the blame for his mistake. Having successfully found such an unfortunate and passed the blame with great efficiency, he realised that with the diplomatic solution now on the table all the credit was now going elsewhere and not landing on his plate. So with a great deal of middle management posturing and standing behind the clueless private with his hand resting on his shoulder in an avuncular fashion, Gideon managed to convince himself if no one else that he had reclaimed some of the credit for the solution and began crowing loudly about how he did it quite deliberately to allow his hapless private to learn from his mistake.
Bit of a rum do all round I’d say!
Got to go Corporal, need to arrange for clearance for foreign national aircraft to enter British national airspace! Story so far is that they'll be able to land in a field in Wiltshire somewhere at night.
Got any flares Corporal?
May come in handy!
Over and out!
11th February
Morning Corporal!
Had to make an interim report old boy, been a lot happening since the last one! The international incident I thought was all laid to rest seems to have taken several somewhat unexpected twists. That is to say, unexpected if you are not aware of Caruthers propensity for throwing his very own style of spanner in the works.
If you recall we had twenty ruddy Ruskies due to be handed over to the Irish Republican government for repatriation as diplomatic baggage at a later date and twenty or so Irish Republican paramilitaries lead by Shamus. The Irish government had been talking to the Ruskies about having them sent to Siberia, or anywhere that they would be of no further nuisance to Irish society generally.
An Irish transport plane duly arrived in the dead of night at a military airfield in Wiltshire and twenty Ruskies climbed aboard happy to be starting their journey home, even if it were by an unorthodox route. Loaded and refueled it taxied out to the end of the runway and took off into the night sky. Then appearing out of the gloom behind us, a Ruskie transport plane came down to land, its engines spluttering and spitting flame from their exhausts. With an enormous roar it taxied from the end of the runway towards the hangers for the handover of prisoners. However, in Wiltshire nothing was ever built straight and the taxi route was no exception. It was however quite a shame that no-one had told the pilot who took a straight line to the hangers which took him straight across a field covered in the tiny green shoots of the first showing of the spring barley! Ploughed fields were never really intended to take the weight of Russian transport planes and this one was clearly no exception as the first wheel off the tarmac dropped like a stone straight into the mud. No amount of reverse thrust would ever shift that! Wayne was called for. He arrived smiling and sniffing; not that I think the two actions were connected; with Carruthers smiling in the passenger seat, pleased to be out and away from the shadows. Somewhere that he could see a steering wheel and smell the fumes of an engine again. Somewhere he would not be laughed at whilst making infantile engine noises and gear changes. Interestingly he even crunched the gears when making the noises himself, so he clearly believes that to be the normal way of driving! Wayne was happy to be able to have something really challenging to show off his wrecker, his pride and joy and what it could really do. With a deafening roar from four massive aero engines and a lot of grunting from Wayne's wrecker, punctuated by great sniffing from Wayne himself, the massive plane slowly climbed out of the hole it was in. Shamus and his cohorts were loaded into specially constructed cages, like mini cells, lining the sides of the plane's cargo hold and this prison ship of the skies lumbered down to the end of the runway taking good care to follow the tarmac this time. With a stupendous roar, the massive hulk disappeared into the night sky as we all watched the glow of the exhausts of these massive engines fade to a dot and disappear. Wayne clambered back into his cab and sat there for a few moments, clearly doing his best to think, before jumping back out and coming back to where we were all waiting. He then uttered what for Wayne passes as a full sentence, "Ruthers"! Indeed, Carruthers was missing! A quick search of all vehicles yielded no clue as to his whereabouts. A much wider search of surrounding buildings yielded a similar result. It was then the realisation dawned, Carruthers had gone missing and the only thing possible to have climbed into was the Russian plane! For the next commentary I quote from the text of the report of the Russian commander, Major Trotsky.
"Ze British capitalist soldier, name of Carruthers, infiltrated ze glorious russian plane flown by comrade Victor Gideonoff and avoided Russian security by his devious capitalist deceit and hid in the cockpit of our glorious plane. After a short while ze capitalist made his devious move by jumping into ze co-pilots seat and waving what ze fool was calling ze waggle waggle stick and indeed ze fool soon had ze plane waggle waggling all over ze sky. Ze pilot Comrade Victor Gideonoff, viz great bravery allowed ze fool to operate two of ze throttles on ze dashboard, as long as ze fool promised he vould do as he was told. Zis seemed to satisfy ze simpleton to ze point vhere he behaved himself properly for ze rest of ze journey. Vhen ze plane landed in ze glorious Russian motherland ze fool was arrested and taken to ze detention centre near ze tank compound. Vhen he got zere he seemed to cheer up and babbled excitably. Velly strange behaviour for a soldier I feel! Ze glorious comrade jailer placed him in ze cell and was very baffled by zis fools repeated use of an imaginary laser gun vich he felt looked more like ze fools finger. Ze British army vill never vin a var viz fools like zis! However I sink ze british are cleverer zan I thought. Ze lazer was clearly hidden in his sleeve as ven comrade jailer turned his back, ze fool managed to open ze cell door and escape! Ze plan was to interogate him tomorrow and find out exactly vhat he knew. However ze capitalist Carruthers had ozzer ideas. He managed to make his vay to ze tank compound and got into von of ze tanks. Ze next ting vaz that he vaz firing ze shells everywhere destroying ze motherlands property wherever he could see it. Zere was no end to zis mans bravery or is it foolishness. Ve had a full squadron of transport planes prior to Carruthers arrival and vith one shell ze fool managed to make ze hole through ze tailplane of six glorious transport planes. I am doubting if we have enough planes to last until morning at zis rate. I sink ze man is too dangerous to keep here any longer so ve have put him back in ze only surviving plane and have promised comrade Victor Gideonoff great privelages for flying him back to Britain. I sink he may even get an extra vodka ration for zis! He vas removed from ze tank compound by ze glorious KGB and handcuffed, it was felt appropriate to put his hands in ze Siberian mittens for ze journey, just in case he did have ze laser after all. Don't vant any more accidents! At great expense to ze Russian people ze plane was refuelled and Caruthers was sent home!"
Well Corporal, Carruthers is now on his way back again and there is a reception party standing on a cold dark and windy military airfield in Wiltshire awaiting his arrival.
Bit of a rum do all round I'd say Corporal. Got any thermal gloves, may come in handy!
Over and out!
17th February
Ah Corporal!
Well the glorious Russian transport plane arrived back in dear old Blighty with Carruthers et all! As it taxied in to the dispersal area by the hangers a very un-Russian face appeared at the cockpit window and thus triggered yet another diplomatic spat! Carruthers was also nowhere to be seen!
The balaclava covered face was a little difficult to see at first and as no doors were immediately thrown open when the engines were shut down there was a certain amount of confusion amongst the ground crew as to what exactly they were to do next. Then the control tower radio spluttered into life as an all too familiar voice shouted "Oil be lookin’ fur a feckin chopper t' take me the feck outa here!"
Any thoughts about Carruthers involvement or culpability in these events were dismissed when further communications were received from the radio. "Oi've got the feckin fool and the Ruskie 'ostage an if I doesna get what oi'm askin fur oi'l shoot the pair of 'em so I will, please god!" It would appear that Shamus had found his way onto the plane and was very much in control. With Carruthers handcuffed and his hands in very thick Siberian gloves to protect the plane in the unlikely event that he did actually have a laser embedded in his finger, he would ordinarily have had little option but to comply when a Kalashnikov was thrust in his side, except Carruthers only response had been to giggle uncontrollably whilst complaining about being ticklish! It would appear that Carruthers, in his dream world that passes for reality, was under some illusion that Shamus was playing a game of tag and Carruthers was now 'it'! The pilot was a little preoccupied trying to fly this ancient and glorious hulk to worry about anything else so it was a largely uncontested hijack.
Over a crackly radio Shamus was finding it a little difficult to communicate the full venom of his hatred for anything British and by association, anything Russian as well. Out of pure frustration at his inability to communicate the simplest of his demands for "a point of feckin Guinness" and getting the response from an inexperienced negotiator in the control tower, "What is the point of Guinness? Well, I should imagine there would be a great deal point if you were thirsty!" Then, remembering his training, albeit a little wide of the mark, asked "What would you think the point of a pint of Guinness would be?” Shamus was becoming almost incandescent with rage and frustration. "Not the point; ya feckin edjit! A point! I want a point! Oi want a feckin point of Guinness!!" The negotiator, clearly feeling he was on to something quickly responded, "Tell me, does the thought of alcohol always make you feel so despondent? I would like to explore with you why it also induces such anger. Tell me, do you think you are an alcoholic?” Shamus was near on the verge of bursting a blood vessel as he exploded down the radio, "Ya feckin edjit, if I gets hold of ya oil shove that feckin radio set where the sun don’t shine, so I will!". Unable to resist the provocation any longer he threw the microphone at the cockpit dashboard and stormed down to the cargo door and leaned out and started remonstrating with the ground crew; but quite importantly he had taken his eye of Carruthers!
Whilst this was going on Carruthers had been creeping up behind him and gave him a big push and shouted. "Hah! You’re on it!" This had the effect of sending Shamus tumbling from the plane onto the tarmac below. Shamus recovered to the point of being on hands and knees and paused momentarily whilst he regained his breath. Carruthers seized his moment and jumped out on top of him, and as Shamus protested and tried to throw him off, Carruthers hung on tight and shouted at the top of his voice, “Yeehaa! Ride 'em cowboy!” Shamus resisted even more and so Carruthers was whooping with even greater delight. The MP's also seized their moment and rushed across and dragged Carruthers off and arrested Shamus. As they marched Shamus away to an uncertain future Carruthers was protesting that his new friend was being taken away and he would now have no-one to play tag with. It was at this point that the Ruddy Ruskie pilot appeared at the cargo door and announced that he would be happy to play tag with Carruthers and could someone else take the plane back for him. We now have an Irishman that his government doesn't want, a ruddy Ruskie that his government might be a little bit miffed about his apparent defection, and a Ruskie transport plane that is the only one the Ruddy Ruskies have left that, for now at least, Carruthers hasn't put a hole through the tail of.
I fear a bit of a hoo-hah developing hear old boy.
Need to go and organise a pilot who may know how to fly the damned thing and someway of returning him to Blighty afterwards.
Got a pilots licence old boy? May come in handy!
Over and out!
24th March
Oh Lordy Corporal!
Where to start?
If you recall from last report old chap, after Carruthers little foray into Russia, he was sent back because they couldn't afford to keep him with the amount of aircraft they were losing after he escaped and got into the tank compound! They had to re-fuel their one remaining transport plane, the one that Carruthers hadn't put a hole through the tail plane with his dead eye shooting from his new toy, a ruddy Ruskie tank! They bundled him back onto the plane handcuffed and with thick heavy gloves over his hands in case he actually did have a laser somehow connected to his finger and may have somehow felt obliged to prove it on his journey home. He arrived safely back on British soil despite a hijacking by the escaping Shamus, who was overpowered by Carruthers playing 'you're on it'. In a surprise twist the pilot decide that life on a cold and windswept Wiltshire military airfield playing 'you're on it' was infinitely preferable to life on the Russian Steppes and defected. We were then left with an ageing Ruskie aircraft that no one here could fly and a desperate need to get the darn thing back to Mother Russia to avoid further diplomatic escalation over a series of incidents that, to be frank, all seemed to have been centred around Carruthers.
It all got much worse!
After contacting the Ruddy Ruskies and informing them of the situation Major Trotsky was jumping up and down on his furry Russian Ushanka hat and is now refusing to take back Shamus either. Lord knows what we are going to do with him as the Irish don't want him either!
Just when things were sounding bad they took a distinct turn for the worse. Whilst on the phone trying to calm Major Trotsky, outside Carruthers was further adding his own special kind of chaos. After the last arrival of the ruddy Ruskie plane causing it to be bogged down in a Wiltshire field showing the first green shoots of the next summers spring barley, it was generally felt that it would be expedient to keep Wayne and his wrecker on standby. That proved, with hindsight, to be a mistake. Carruthers, having been released from his handcuffs and Siberian gloves was enjoying his freedom and running around touching everyone in sight and telling them they were 'on it'. As he began to tire of that he was looking for other forms of amusement when he happened upon Wayne's wrecker which, in search of a little refreshment had been left unattended by Wayne whilst he went in search of a cup of tea. Like a child in a toy shop Carruthers climbed into the cab. There, dangling in the ignition like an irresistible magnet, were the keys. Inside the building on the phone to an already furious Ruskie Major an already sinking feeling deepened considerably as the distinctive sound of an engine starting, unexpectedly echoed around the hanger. The sound that followed was quite sickening, as the crunching of gears heralded the realisation that it was indeed Carruthers at the wheel. Personnel rushed from everywhere to try and get him away from the thing before any damage could be done, but to no avail. The crunching of gears ceased as he eventually found a gear and everyone dived for cover. The crisis deepened as the vehicle lurched backwards at great speed with Carruthers whooping with great delight! The sickening crunch was even heard in Russia as the jib of the wrecker’s crane punctured the tail plane of the Ruskie transport plane! When I say punctured I really mean removed; as a quick glance out of the window revealed a Ruskie plane devoid of anything resembling a tail plane and a heap of twisted wreckage on the ground behind it! The Ruskie motherland is now completely without any kind of transport plane, entirely thanks to Carruthers! The only one left that he hadn't shot a hole through, he has just removed its tail plane. Major Trotsky has since been moved to Siberia I've heard. Carruthers collected his new friend the defected Ruskie pilot and together have disappeared into the distance of the airfield.
Gideon has just arrived and I can hear him tutting loudly already as he searches for the highest ranking officer to stand beside. The ruddy Ruskies are sending a team of engineers to try and rebuild their plane using a commercial passenger plane for transport but we have had to agree to provide them with an hourly report of Carruthers whereabouts and they are going to decide where to land when they are almost here and basing their decision on our 'Carruthers whereabouts' reports.
Bit of a rum do all round I'd say.
Got to go old boy, Gideon has realised the highest ranking officer is me old chap, and I can hear him approaching now.
Got any strong glue old boy? May come in handy!
Over and out!
31st March
Morning Corporal!
Bit of a turn up for the books on parade this morning, took most of us by surprise old chap.
Since the departure of Carstairs under strange circumstances when Carruthers tried to turn the might of his imaginary arsenal on him from his cell in the guard room, Major Ringbotham as you may recall has been no good to man, beast, or the army generally. Carstairs was generally rumoured to be living with a flock of sheep in a valley in Wales somewhere and although, strictly speaking he was officially AWOL, no-one was looking too hard for him as, with the ruddy Ruskies starting to play up a bit, it was one less problem to deal with. A soldier with a propensity for cross dressing and almost certainly the live-in lover of a British army Major, there could have been some awkward questions to have been answered from HQ. Frankly I don't think the ruse about organising a concert party for the chaps would have washed with them for very long.
Anyway old chap; parade this morning. Ringbotham was droning on as usual about heaven knows what and all the chaps were fidgeting as they shifted uneasily from foot to foot when I was sure I could hear the distinctive sound of sheep. At first I ignored, it but as it got louder others started to notice it as well until, despite his best efforts to be commanding, Ringbotham had lost his audience even more than normal and everyone was turned round looking towards the back of the parade ground from where the sound was emanating! A small amount of dust was being kicked up by what appeared to be a flock of sheep! As they drew closer it became readily apparent that they were in fact a flock of rams being led, like the Pied Piper of Hamlin, by a solitary figure dressed in a floral summery dress with high heels and a handlebar moustache! It would appear that Carstairs was returning! Ringbotham rushed forward to take command until he realised who was leading the intrusion on his parade and with a tear in his eye put his arms out to embrace his prodigal lover. Realising that this might not be his best move recovered quickly and summoned the MP's to arrest Carstairs for being absent without leave. Whilst awaiting their arrival both Carstairs and Ringbotham shuffled nervously from foot to foot until they could contain themselves no longer and launched themselves forward towards each other in a wholly inappropriate embrace. This was perhaps a little unfortunate from a number of ways. It was exactly at this moment that the General was looking up from his desk and grabbed his hat and stormed off down the stairs to halt "This disgraceful display". At that moment one of the rams became distinctly irritated that the object of his usual lustful intentions was seemingly showing affection to someone else and responded as rams tend to by butting Ringbotham in his sweetbreads. This had the effect of causing one army major, one cross dressing homosexual and a ram to collapse in a heap in the middle of the parade ground. Carruthers had been watching from the bushes with his new found friend Comrade Victor Smirnoff and seized his moment and they both ran forward with shouts of childish exuberance and jumped into the mêlée crying out in fits of laughter that Carstairs was now on it, before running back into the bushes. At this moment the General appeared from the door to the office block to see what he took to be two men and a ram in the throws of a tender embrace, although I cannot help but think that by this time the only tender embrace that was going on was Ringbotham tenderly embracing his gonads to try and relieve the considerable pain he was now experiencing. The General had the MP's arrest Carstairs and Ringbotham for conduct unbecoming of members of his Majesty's armed forces, and suspected bestiality. Although I would have thought that the former would have covered the latter as well.
Now we have two cells in the guardroom occupied by Carstairs and Ringbotham and a third with a small flock of rams. At least one of which keeps giving Ringbotham the evil eye every time he goes anywhere near the bars adjoining Carstairs cell. Of course not forgetting that Shamus is lurking in his own cell spitting venom at anything remotely British.
Bit of a rum do all round I’d say Corporal.
Got to go old boy; need to go and organise a sheep shearing party.
Got any sheep hurdles?
May come in handy!
Over and out!
7th April
Evening Corporal!
There's been a bit of a hoo-hah from the foreign office overnight! Seems the ruddy Ruskies have caused a bit of a rumpus over their one remaining transport plane that isn't really remaining any longer. Unless you count the fact that it is for now at least, remaining on British soil.
The chaps at HQ are adamant that we should never give away the whereabouts of any British chaps and yet via the foreign office the ruddy Ruskies are still trying to find out where Carruthers is hiding, before they try and land. The difficulty at the moment is that other than saying he is probably in the West Country, we cannot be specific! The damn fellow seems to just pop up, create havoc with his mate Comrade Gideonoff and disappear back into the shadows, which is quite a turn-up for a chap that of recent months has had such a problem with the shadows. No-one has yet managed to narrow down exactly where the fool is living. Although of course the Ruskie authorities won't believe that to be true!
We’ve tried his usual haunts; the tanks have all now been removed from the back of the parade ground so he isn't there. The old hollow tree behind Peabody Towers is covered in brambles and hasn’t had anyone near it in months. The only possibility is that as nobody has found Wayne's wrecker since that unfortunate incident on the airfield when he drove over the tail plane of the ruddy Ruskie aircraft they have set up camp in that somewhere. So we need to narrow down the whereabouts of the wrecker.
Wayne of course, without his wrecker is now without his entire reason for living and as Easter is with us, we felt it would be good therapy for him to take charge of the Easter dinner. This time we have kept Gideon gainfully employed elsewhere on the airfield guarding the bits and pieces and creating an inventory of all the debris left after Carruthers departed the site. Stroke of genius I'd say Corporal, none of us can identify half the parts laying around, so that should keep him occupied for a least a week.
Somebody else also had a stroke of genius and told him he was answerable to the Brigadier which left Gideon in absolute heaven at the thought, but a chain of command that he couldn't follow as the Brigadier has been summoned to HQ over a week ago to explain the strange medal requests he has been making regarding Carruthers. We have heard the ruddy Ruskies have taken off from Moscow on their way to Wiltshire and are demanding we send them our ‘Carruthers whereabouts report’ and the truth is we still don't know where the fool and his chum are living. For now at least, our best guess is he is living in a wrecker, whereabouts unknown, but believed to be accompanied by one Comrade Gideonoff!
I have a feeling that he won’t be able to keep himself hidden for very long Corporal. Got to go old boy, need to organise some wooden crates to send to Gideon to put all the bits in before the arrival of the ruddy Ruskies!
Over and out
14th April
Morning Corporal!
Carruthers has revealed himself again and the blighter has disappeared once more but at least we know for now he is not in Wiltshire!
Horse Guards parade was never a place one would expect to find a wrecker, traditionally. That was until Carruthers and Comrade Victor Gideonoff launched themselves from the bushes in their wrecker! The King was also not one, traditionally, for playing 'you're on it', with his loyal subjects! That also was until Carruthers and Comrade Victor Gideonoff launched from the bushes in Horse Guards Parade. The King was a little bemused when wrestled to the ground by a fool and a ruddy Ruskie only to be told he was now 'on it'! The greatest bemusement was to follow when the King next met the prime minister and chuckled as he touched him on the arm and told him that HE was now on it. But by the time the guards and the bobbies had realised that someone had approached the King and also that he was in no immediate danger it was too late and Carruthers and the wrecker had disappeared back into the shadows from whence he had come.
But the good thing about it was that we were able to tell the Ruskies with some confidence that Carruthers was nowhere near Wiltshire and it would therefore be safe to land on the same airfield as their transport plane was languishing.
The London police force was busy chasing all over London looking for the wrecker, checking every lock-up and under every bridge. Just over two hours after the King was officially classed as 'on it', the Ruskie aircraft was coming in to land in Wiltshire. We cannot explain the next sequence of events old boy! The plane had just landed and the pilot was being carefully briefed by his superiors as to exactly how Wiltshire people construct their tarmac taxi ways, unlike those in the glorious motherland! Suddenly, with a lot of whooping and other childish noises a wrecker burst through the bushes and onto the end of the runway. Defying all laws of physics and several of those covering the roads of this country Carruthers had somehow got back from his audience with the King in a time hitherto unheard of! He was now backing up to the stationary Ruskie aircraft and Comrade Victor Gideonoff was attaching the towing cable. There then ensued a kind of tug of war between a passenger aircraft and a wrecker attached to the front landing gear. We now have one Ruskie transport plane with no tail and another Ruskie plane with no front undercarriage after Carruthers managed to remove it!
There is going to be one hell of a rumpus over this one I fear! The good thing is that we now have Carruthers back in safe custody and his Ruskie comrade handcuffed and back in Russian hands.
Got to go Corporal; got to explain a rather delicate matter to a rather excitable Ruskie Major.
Got any suggestions old chap, would be grateful.
Over and out!
21st April
Well Corporal, things have really taken on a more serious overtone!
We had, until recently, managed to keep recent events as a purely military affair. That was until, Carruthers little daytrip to London! After telling the King he was 'on it' and the King telling the Prime Minister HE was now on it; then the Prime Minister telling the home secretary he was now on it and the home secretary telling the secretary of state for defence that he was now on it..... Well to cut what was clearly going to be a long story a little shorter, it was when the foreign secretary paid a surprise visit to the airfield to 'shake hands with the ruddy Ruskie engineers' that the entire story came full circle when he arrived and touched my shoulder and informed me I was in fact now on it!
The transport plane was well under repair, although I cannot help but wonder whether that much scaffolding holding the rear of the aircraft on to the rest of the fuselage would have somehow impinged on its general airworthiness. The commercial aircraft nose wheel was displaying characteristics somewhat more appropriate to a stack of pallets when last I saw it, although the engineer was seemingly quite confident it would fly. To be fair I wouldn't have doubted its ability to fly, it was just as to whether a stack of pallets would have been sufficient to support the nose until it was travelling fast enough to get somewhere near take off speed.
The way it is looking at the moment I just hope the transport plane doesn't try and accelerate too fast or I fear that the aft section may be left sitting on the runway together with a heap of scaffolding. A ruddy Ruskie from their foreign ministry was sent out to remonstrate with the chaps over who was to blame for this little fiasco but when his opening gambit was 'You are on it', as he touched the commanding officer of the reception party on the shoulder, I began to wonder who from our side had connected the chain into Ruskie territory. In fact, do we have a Ruskie infiltrating our ranks?
The Ruskies are now asking if we have any casters to use for keeping the tail plane off the ground until take off speeds are reached.
I am having a bad feeling about this one Corporal!
Got an old bread trolley?
I feel I may know someone who could use it!
Over and out!
28th April
Corporal!
Carruthers was whisked away last night to a sanatorium in a royal car under the express orders of the King of England!
I’ve no idea how he does it but the fool has now got the King on his side! It would seem that the King was taken back to his childhood days when he used to play tag with the son of one of the cooks and was so amused by being ‘on it’ again that the King has taken personal charge of the whole case. Reports are being drawn up as we speak, from both sides of the iron curtain, to try and document at least some of Carruthers activity of late. The Brigadier has been told he can now return to his quarters and forget about the medals he has been issuing to Carruthers and of course Gideon is now overjoyed at being able to report to the Brigadier. Rumour has it that after a few hours of Gideon reporting to him every hour, on the hour, day or night, the Brigadier was asking the chaps around the barracks what was the easiest way of getting put on a charge and sent away to a desk job in Whitehall somewhere. Wayne, of course, was just happy to be reunited with his wrecker.
The King is really taking this whole thing rather seriously with Carruthers! He arrived this afternoon, unannounced, to inspect the facilities that had hitherto housed Carruthers. We did our best to steer the King away from a certain cross dresser and his boyfriend still living in the guard room cells and instead encourage him to apply his diplomatic skills to the problem of Shamus. The King visited Shamus in his cell which may not have been the best idea, as Shamus was going through his after lunch exercise routine which normally consists of giving vent to all the bile and hatred for anything British that he can bring to mind at the time! Shamus was working up to a crescendo as the King walked in and immediately fell silent as he peered through the cell bars at the visitor. “Here, don’t I know you? I’ve seen you somewhere to be sure, haven’t I, please god, so it is? Yous the fella on the hoarding adverts aren’t ya? Don’t tell me it’ll come to me in a minute so it will! Got it! Yous the fella with the coffee beans aren’t ya?” Gideon had appeared, having heard who was visiting and I guess reasoned that there wasn’t a much higher ranking person in the country that he could stand beside, so for the moment at least, forgot about the Brigadier. He had immediately started tutting loudly upon entering the room at the state the floors were in and then turned his attention to Shamus, suggesting that he should be more respectful when in the presence of His Majesty. That was not the right thing to say to an unusually placated Shamus, who upon hearing that the head of the institution that he personally held responsible for the subjugation of the Irish people let forth with a double helping of bile and hatred worthy of the occasion. The King was ushered out whilst Shamus calmed down and Gideon tutted about how terrible it all was. The King pointed out that it was perhaps not the best thing ever that he could have said under the circumstance to which Gideon of course agreed, and then blamed the custody sergeant. After peace had returned within the cell block the King returned alone and after a short burst of further angry shouting from Shamus all went quiet. After a while the King returned and closed the door behind him. “A car will pick him up in a short while, remove his handcuffs and I think all will be well”. On leaving to return to his own car he turned and enquired as to exactly why we had a flock of sheep residing in one of the cells that appeared to have an officer in the next one in a state of some distress every time they looked at him.
True to his word, a car arrived and collected a much more peaceable Shamus and took him off to the docks were he boarded a ship bound for New York where there is apparently, a vibrant Irish community and free from British influence. Gideon has gone to have a lie down after the satisfaction of tutting beside the highest ranking officer in the country.
We need to remove those sheep quickly Corporal, before questions are asked.
Got any recipes for mutton?
May come in handy!
Over and out!
5th May
Corporal old chap!
We've emptied the guard room cells; Carruthers has been taken to the Isle of White and is now living in an officer’s retirement home at Osborne House, the former residence of Queen Victoria at the behest of the King.
We have taken a small flock of mostly rams to the market, however the leader of the flock was particularly reluctant to leave the cell and its last stand was to cling to the cell bars next to Carstairs with what looked distinctly like a tear in his eye. Carstairs was also waving his arms pathetically through the bars trying to cling to the ram whilst crying sufficiently to make his eye make-up run down his face. Disgraceful if you ask me Corporal!
We, or rather the King, had already dispatched Shamus towards the United States of America on a cruise ship, doubtless to stir up republican emotions with the ruddy Yanks, but that is now their problem! Or at least it will be when he gets there, I guess for now it is the problem of the ships captain. Do they still make troublesome passengers and crew members walk the plank these days?
The last of the problems was a gay Major and his cross dressing boyfriend with certain bestial tendencies. Kings regulations clearly state that any homosexual tendencies are not to be considered normal and are therefore banned. The General therefore had little choice but to give them both a dishonourable discharge. Rumour has it that there is now a new act on the music hall circuit, The Gay Major and Madame Carstairs with their flock of performing sheep!
The guardroom cell block is unusually quiet now, devoid of detainees for the first time in memory.
However, the same cannot be said of The Solent! His first treatment was apparently showing signs of some relief from his condition and Carruthers was allowed to go out in the grounds and take a little light exercise. It was felt that the fresh sea air would be good for him. From the edge of the grounds a good view of the harbour is to be had and Carruthers was seen sitting on a bench watching the boats coming and going and the ferries bringing visitors and essential supplies to the island. Had anyone asked we could have told them that it was very unwise to leave Carruthers to his own devices even if he was believed to be peaceful where he was! In the harbour, no-one noticed amid the bustle and confusion of a busy harbour when the brooding hulk of an old car ferry moored alongside the harbour wall, where it had been for more years than can be remembered, suddenly had a small plume of smoke appear from the funnel. Neither did anyone notice when the mooring lines went slack and then dropped into the sea beside the harbour wall. What to us was a very familiar face, worryingly appeared on the bridge, grinning demonically! The town of Cowes suddenly lurched into Carruthers own special kind of reality, as the water at the rear of the car ferry churned and foamed as the propellers started to turn and the ferry started to move forward bouncing its bow off the sea wall sending the craft out through the moorings of hundreds of small private yachts; the majority of which were left broken or smashed and adrift in the wake of Carruthers latest orgy of insanity and destruction. Carruthers was whooping with delight on the bridge and the fog horn was also whooping and groaning to imitate Carruthers efforts, which came as something of a surprise to the poor seagull sitting proudly on her nest in the front of the horn! Carruthers has an absolute gift for making large items of military hardware disappear off the face of the earth and he was now extending his skill to items much larger. After creating a trail of destruction whilst exiting the harbour the boat rounded the headland and apparently disappeared. The harbourmaster nearly bit the end off his pipe when he came out of his office and could actually see the horizon instead of the side of the aging ferry! He jumped into his little launch and went for a quick tour around the local bays and inlets but Carruthers, complete with his ferry had disappeared!
Got to go old boy, need to organise aerial reconnaissance to try and find where the fool has hidden the ruddy ferry.
Got any binoculars Corporal? May come in handy!
Over and out!
12th May
Corporal, the ruddy Ruskies have been at it again!
We have had a team of Ruskie engineers trying to make the two aircraft airworthy enough to get the damn things airborne and back to the glorious Ruskie motherland and out of our hair. You will remember that Carruthers had reversed the wrecker into the only remaining transport plane that he hadn't shot whilst on his little mission to the glorious motherland and managed to remove the complete tail plane. When the engineers were sent over to try and rebuild the damn thing they arrived in a requisitioned civilian plane which Carruthers and his new found friend, the defected Ruskie pilot managed to rip the front undercarriage from its mountings. The engineers arrived with no spares; being the kind of problem they had no experience of, Carruthers being a uniquely British problem! The poor devils had little idea of the damage done nor what was required to rectify the problem!
We received communication that they had done what was necessary to get the bloody things airborne and on their way home. The chaps form air ministry had apparently tried to insist that nothing would be allowed to move and pass through British airspace unless they had passed it as airworthy. Well of course when they turned up for the inspection they were horrified! The civilian plane was resting her nose on a stack of pallets with a bakers trolley underneath, apparently the engineers, in the absence of proper spares had decided the pallets and trolley would be enough to get the ruddy thing airborne and then it would be someone else’s problem when it landed. The chief inspector had a right old hissie fit and banned the thing from getting off the ground. Unfortunately the military transport plane was beyond his jurisdiction and despite some theatricals he had no authority to ground it. The tail plane was reattached to the fuselage by a framework of scaffolding and the controls, with the not so subtle application of a large number of lengths of old fashioned baler twine.
The massive aero engines were fired up and warmed up whilst spitting flame out of their exhausts in a most dramatic fashion. However that wasn't the only dramatic thing that the plane did that afternoon! The engineers seemed confident that apart from excessive fuel consumption from the poor aerodynamics everything else was as good as new. With tremendous roars from each of the four powerful engines this behemoth of the skies made its way slowly to the end of the runway for take off and back to the glorious motherland. After certain formalities between the crew and the control tower, like which language they were going to communicate in, with an ear-splitting roar the engines were given full power as they held it on the brakes. There then followed a bit of a quick comedy routine worthy of the Keystone Cops. With a strange crunching sound the front half of the plane pulled clean away from the scaffolding holding it to the rear section, which was left in a crumpled heap on the runway. The front section being now divested of any ability for directional control and at least part of its braking ability careered off down the runway and then veered off onto the grass taking two trips around the control tower before coming to a standstill with its nose through the windows of the officers’ mess.
The Ruskies immediately started shouting about how this was yet another attempt by the aggressive capitalists to undermine the morale of the Russian people. A diplomatic compromise has been reached where our engineers will help them get both aircraft airworthy again using spares from our own workshops. We had also to promise that Carruthers would be kept at least fifty miles from the airfield whilst repairs were carried out. The promise was made, although it was a little tongue in cheek as although we believe him to be on an aging car ferry in the Solent, no-one is too certain of that and even more so that we don't actually know where the ferry is! Another tail plane was fitted taken from an old Dakota, abandoned on the far side of the airfield, and modified to fit and BOAC volunteered the nose wheel assembly from one of their planes that was being broken for spares. The wheel wouldn't retract but that would have to do under the circumstances. The ruddy Ruskies felt we were still taking the proverbial as the Dakota tail plane still had RAF insignia on it when it eventually took off and I should perhaps admit they may have been right on this occasion! At least we didn’t have an ageing car ferry sailing up the runway! Impossible I know, but with that fool you can never be too sure.
Got to go old boy, we're trying to find the old captain of the ferry to see if he can remember how much fuel was in it.
Got any old torpedoes? May come in handy!
Over and out!
19th May
Corporal, the fog has come down as predicted by the chaps in the Met office!
We have got people posted on every beach or cliff top along the coast of Hampshire, Dorset and the Isle of Wight listening for any foghorn that cannot be associated with a known boat!
My own look out posting is on a pebble beach just outside Lymington and it is a very eerie place in such a dense fog with near calm conditions. The occasional solitary bell chimes out through the fog from one of the buoys marking the channel somewhere out there in the gloom and although fog horns are what we are listening for, when one does sound from a known ship it is still an otherworldly experience. Two days we were there, with the local WRVS keeping us supplied with tea and soup as we waited for Carruthers to show us where he has been hiding. On the third day, to the east I heard what I felt sure was a muffled foghorn followed by a seagull squawk! The same sound was confirmed to their west on the field telephone from the chaps at Calshot where the flying boats are kept. He was somewhere between us and on our side of The Solent! Small marine craft were launched in a military operation to try and contain him and eventually board the vessel. Dark was once again upon us as we waited for Carruthers to once again try and upset the seagull nesting in the front of the foghorn. During the night we had reports come in that the ferry had been seen by a fisherman moored on the Beulieu River under a large tree which may explain why aerial reconnaissance hadn't been able to see him. However, a search of the navigable section of the river revealed no boat but several deep gouges in the banks where presumably he had been learning how to steer the ruddy thing. But somehow he had again slipped through the net, if indeed he had been there when reported.
Daybreak came and heralded a bright sunny morning with good visibility. The chaps at Calshot were somewhat bemused when first light revealed a car ferry beached high on the pebbles right in front of them with a chain ferry tied to its stern swinging about in the currents! Hopefully Carruthers was still on board! A thorough search of the vessel revealed no sign of Carruthers except perhaps an eye patch dangling over the helm. A wider search located him in one of the flying boats nearby, stood in the cockpit with a patch over one eye and one hand tucked inside his jacket blowing kisses at the chaps below shouting "Kiss me Hardy"! The engineers managed to disable the engines to prevent the fool getting one of the damn things airborne. Then we had to work on getting the doors open and getting someone inside. Mission accomplished and Carruthers back in safe custody with no further damage to man or machine, we put engineers on board the ferry to get the thing refloated at high tide and called a tug from Poole to take the chain ferry back to Sandbanks and relieve the considerable congestion that had developed in its absence.
Carruthers has been readmitted to Osborne House and given certain medication designed to make the patient a little more predictable when being held for his own safety, although in Carruthers case it is more for the safety of man and machinery within a hundred mile radius! He has now been assigned his own personal nurse to keep an eye on him generally, a girl from eastern Europe called Juliana with legs that the chaps say seem to start somewhere near her armpits.
Need to go Corporal; the transport has arrived to take us all back to base.
Got a bottle of Sapphire gin old boy, after this week I could do with a stiff drink!
Over and out!
26th May
Morning Corporal!
Gideon had spotted great opportunity for particularly incisive hindsight and posturing and so had taken a few days leave to join us on the coast in our search for Carruthers! Making sure that as many as possible could hear him when he told everyone who happened to be within earshot that he felt it was his duty to help “the poor unfortunate fellow”. It was noticed by some that the closest at the time happened to be the Brigadier who you may recall had fathered Carruthers after a tryst with one of the serving staff at his parents’ home some years before. I guess Gideon had felt he would gain great advantage in his promotion hopes as a result of the Brigadier seeing his philanthropic nature.
Gideon took great delight in tutting loudly and criticizing whoever had left that big boat on the gravel beach and how they hadn’t even bothered to tie up the swingy boaty thing on the back properly. When it was pointed out to him that it was indeed Carruthers who had abandoned it there and the swingy boaty thing was in fact another ferry that Carruthers had collected en route and all this had happened to have been said in front of the Brigadier, Gideon immediately went into a process of damage limitation and began to praise the inventive use of cordage and the creation of an absolutely new knot! When he felt that may not have been enough he announced loudly that he was only reiterating what the private further down the beach had been telling him and crunched off along the pebble beach tutting loudly in search of another situation to have an opinion about.
Some of the chaps had an idea to put him on board the chain ferry when it was towed back to Sandbanks and so told him that the Brigadier had said that to take charge of a task force to manage the ferry whilst under tow was a great responsibility and that he was just the man to do it. Unable resist such bait, he was like a rabbit in the headlights and jumped on board just as the tug crew had tied on to one end and the engineers cast off the other. As the tug inched it slowly off the beach and into deeper water he could be seen rushing around the decks in search of his task force to command and on realising he was actually the only one on board sat down tutting loudly over the noise of the tug engines. The last we heard was a very small voice over a very large sea calling back "Come on lads, let me off; please." We had all had a bit of a whip round and paid the tug skipper to ignore his pleas and take the long way back so they went right round the back of the island before heading back to Poole.
The next day he arrived back on the island to see if there was anything that required his organisation. He was noticed to have appointed himself as inspector of the dock and was going along the harbour wall with his clipboard in his hand 'inspecting' the knots used to tie up the ferry alongside. We all thought the harbourmaster, who was an old sea dog who was reputed to have sailed under Nelson, was going to throw him in the harbour. He was the one who had secured the lines and wasn't very appreciative of having Gideon making a report out on the 'sloppy standards' used to tie her up and recommended he would have been better using a bow instead.
I wonder exactly where that report will be heading when he has finished writing it. Judging by the way he was sat on a bollard sucking the end of his pencil whilst looking at the horizon for further inspiration for several long periods before scribbling furiously on his clipboard again, this will be a weighty tome. Report presumably finished he wandered up to the officer’s rest home at Osborne House where Carruthers was now safely ensconced presumably in the bosom of his own private nurse, nurse Juliana. He said he was going to see how the poor unfortunate chaps were doing although I guess he was more likely looking for further inadequacies he could identify and report on.
Need to make myself scarce old boy, just in case he gets back to camp and tries to get me to 'action his recommendations'.
We have a few oilskins left over from a bit of a cock up in the procurement office after our watch when looking for Carruthers. We have a hundred of them; in child sizes!
Know any orphans homes on the beach?
May have something for them!
Over and out!
2nd June
Corporal! The blighter is perhaps not as unhinged as we had hitherto supposed although the datum we have based this supposition upon can be regarded as perhaps dubious at best!
Let me explain the sequence of events. Carruthers was, as you will recall, back in Osborne House after his little excursion aboard a redundant cross channel car ferry. Gideon had arrived back on the island and was generally making a nuisance of himself with his clipboard writing reports on perceived inefficiencies in a variety of situations. He then announced he was heading for Osborne House to visit and "bring some relief to the poor unfortunates housed there".
Carruthers had been assigned his own personal nurse, one nurse Juliana from Eastern Europe. A former dancer who has been described as having legs that appear to start at or near her armpits! She has since been his constant companion and indeed some reports have hinted that she has been perhaps a little too indulging of Carruthers little whims.
All had been going well for Carruthers until Gideon arrived at the premises and a degree of normality had been observed in his general demeanour since nurse Juliana had taken charge of his day to day care. Gideon began upsetting people with his attitude here, as he managed to wherever he spent time and that perhaps provided certain triggers in what happened to him next. Gideon was making out a report on the general standards of uniform within the establishment and ignored protestations from both staff and inmates that military uniform was not required under Kings Regulations in a hospital. Gideon was having none of it and promptly filed a report, sending a copy to the King. Having later checked through Kings Regulations he discovered what had clearly been an oversight by the printers, that no uniform was required when a patient at a military hospital. Having searched through any reference book he could find and not coming up with any idea as to what one should look like he felt that maybe he had found at last a way of getting himself into the history books of the British military, by creating one! Off he went into town and rifled through the bins around the industrial areas until he came up with a pair of blue overalls and then had them washed. Mission accomplished he hurried back to Osborne House and happened upon Carruthers. It was at this point that Carruthers, aided at least in part by Nurse Juliana, turned Gideon’s day upside down. Gideon was quite insisting that he had some kind authority from a nameless high ranking officer to insist that Carruthers should try on the new uniform. After much deliberate huffing and puffing by Carruthers and still not managing to get the ruddy uniform over his head Gideon could stand it no longer and snatched the uniform from Carruthers and after removing his own outer clothing donned the uniform and said to Carruthers, “There that wasn’t so difficult was it?”. Standing there resplendent in a worn out pair of painters overalls still bearing some of the scars of a close brush with an industrial skip, Gideon looked more like an inmate of the establishment than did Carruthers. Carruthers calmly picked up Gideon’s trousers and shirt put them on and walked out with Nurse Juliana. Gideon’s at first incredulity turned to anger when realising that he had been duped into changing into the uniform of an idiot and now had lost his own clothes to said idiot.
Carruthers passed an orderly on his way down the corridor and calmly informed him that the noise emanating from the room was ‘patient Carruthers’ and he was having a bit of a bad day. He kept trying to insist he was someone else and try to escape. Would the orderly kindly arrange for some kind of sedative to be applied to make him more comfortable? With that, and to the roars and shrieks from behind the door to Carruthers room, he left the building.
Gideon was creating an nerve jangling row from behind the door and when the orderly and doctor entered the room they reached fever pitch as Gideon tried to convince them he was in fact not a patient at all and was not Carruthers either. To the Doctor this only confirmed his suspicions that he was patient Carruthers and he was clearly having a very bad day! Sedative administered, the screams and shouts began to subside as Gideon slid into a drug induced stupor. A scene that was to be repeated four times a day during the day and with a particularly heavy dose to make him more comfortable during the night, for some time to come.
Carruthers was next seen boarding the Southampton ferry clutching two train tickets for London with a very leggy Eastern European on his arm.
Got to go Corporal, I have a train to meet in London in case Carruthers is on it and a phone call to the Kings office to warn him that his new found friend has escaped the island by outwitting the hospital staff and the descendent of a distinguished military family and is believed to be heading for London.
Got any excuses Corporal, I could do with a few!
Over and out!
9th June
Corporal, call me paranoid or maybe its just some innate sixth sense. But, you remember the last report when Carruthers was thought to be heading towards London? Well, the entire London underground network ground to a halt this week and at the time I couldn't help but wonder if Carruthers may have had something to do with it!
Further inspection revealed that the main power switch controlling the whole network had been thrown onto 'maintenance' which meant that no power was going to the rails, only to the emergency lighting and one of the hand carts that the maintenance workers use was missing! It turned up later, abandoned at the station at St James's Park. No damage, just abandoned!
Could it also be pure coincidence that when the guards at Buckingham Palace came to get ready to change the guard that morning all the bearskins were arranged in little circles in the yard around dishes of milk and tinned pet food? Further coincidence perhaps that when the chaps in the cavalry went to groom and feed their trusty steeds they were all found equipped with straw hats with little holes for their ears. One even had a pair of oversized glasses fitted to him and apparently was quite crestfallen when they were removed!
Further mystery from the palace as the King has found his bed sheet turned up to make an apple pie bed on two occasions this week, but his chamber maids and valets insist they know nothing of the prank.
Reports from the Isle of Wight also say that Nurse Juliana is still missing from her ward since Carruthers switched places with Gideon.
Speaking of Gideon, his predicament was noticed after a couple of days. However, it was also noticed that whilst he was sedated and kept in Carruthers room he was out of everyone else’s hair and so was kept there for a few more days before someone 'realised the terrible mistake’. He was eventually given his uniform back and released. Sadly for all there was a clipboard lying on the desk at the nurses’ station which Gideon commandeered and immediately filed 'a damning report'! But sadly for him was unable to find a high ranking officer to either stand beside or file the report with. Any that were at the hospital locked their doors and pretended not to be in. Unfortunately that means he will be heading back here! I fear a great deal of opinionated tutting and posturing launching through my door before too long.
There has been plenty of circumstantial evidence as to his whereabouts, but no positive sightings of Carruthers now for nearly a week, nor yet of his nurse the ex-dancer from Eastern Europe nurse Juliana.
Got to go Corporal, I can hear a lot of tutting coming up the corridor so I fear Gideon may have made it back to camp. I really need to make myself scarce as I don't think my desk can take the weight of all the reports he will be wanting to file somewhere.
Do you know of any reinforced desks? They may come in handy!
Over and out!
16th June
Corporal!
Gideon has arrived, struggling with a wooden ammunition box under his arm loaded with the various lengthy reports he has written and is trying to find somewhere to file.
I am beginning to think the only way to shut him up is to work with him, so he has been given the task of writing a report on the difficulties of filing a report! This has given him an inflated sense of his own self importance and he has taken the whole task very seriously indeed. He has commandeered the tea room at the end of the office block as his very own office. Fortunately it has its own outside door, or at least one that is beside it and he was unsure how to react when told he should consider that his own personal door. Should he feel pleased he has his own door or disappointed that he doesn't use the main officers’ office block door. In the end he decided to throw himself behind it wholeheartedly and removed the emergency exit sign outside and had it replaced by 'Report Office - SALUTE WHEN ENTERING!' The local stationers were loving his appointment as the stationers van has been seen making twice daily deliveries of paper and pens and all the other bits necessary to furnish an over stocked office worthy of an incompetent with an overactive sense of his own self importance. He has been seen appearing everywhere on camp with his clipboard and an unexplained stopwatch. He was even seen measuring an area of grass repeatedly; no one was quite sure why until someone pointed out that he was outside the Brigadiers office. Hence the great posturing and thoughtful pencil sucking during the several hours he spent measuring that area of grass. I await his report with great trepidation, but for now at least he is being kept at a distance from the world in general. The only person ever to be seen entering via the report office door was Gideon himself, but he does salute with great enthusiasm when he does so, in case anyone in authority should be watching. He was found earlier in the Generals office measuring the lengths of the pencils in the Generals draw and when the General had him evicted he was tutting loudly about high level meddling in important report creation and went off to write a 'damning report' on the matter.
Carruthers still hasn't been seen! No-one has any idea where he is living other than he is thought to be with Nurse Juliana as she hasn't been seen either. There is still more circumstantial evidence of where he has been. All the royal loo rolls disappeared from the palace earlier; they can be distinguished from others by the royal crest printed in the corner of each sheet. They reappeared a day later when the King was being driven along Regent Street and an impromptu tick-a-tape parade happened when a year’s supply of royal loo paper, separated into individual sheets, was dropped from the roof tops. A thorough search of the surrounding roof tops revealed nothing other than a quantity of empty boxes on both sides of the road. If it is Carruthers he definitely has help, but the biggest question is how on earth is he getting in and out of the palace without being seen by any of the staff or security and on the last occasion carrying a large quantity of lavatory paper!
Fortunately the King is finding it all quite amusing at the moment even when he awoke in the middle of the night to find an intruder, presumed to be Carruthers, snoring contentedly in the bed beside him with an arm over the Kings shoulder and one leg resting over the Kings thigh. There was also a female apparently slumbering quietly beside the male who the King thought may have spoken with a Russian accent. The King was woken when the male started to dribble in the royal ear. The King jumped up and ran out of the door to call his security but when he looked back in only a few seconds later the sleeping couple were gone but with no clue as to where or how. Security searched the gardens but to no avail, the intruders had vanished again.
Gideon is approaching, and he has a trolley loaded with paper which I am guessing is his report! I think it's time to escape.
Can you remember how to get the cover off the laundry chute behind my desk? If you can, now's the time to tell me!
Over and out!
23rd June
Corporal!
The King was sat at his breakfast table looking forward to his two soft boiled eggs reading his morning papers. Looking out of the window he noticed the magnolia bush in the gardens start to shake a little. Cook arrived with his eggs as the bush shook a little more, so whilst she removed his early morning tea cup he went outside and spoke with his valet to ask for someone to investigate the cause of the minor disturbance. As he approached the door to his room he passed the cook on her way out. When he sat down at his breakfast table his two soft boiled eggs were missing and had been replaced with two notes, one bearing the words "Thank you Sir" and the other just had a female lipstick kiss on it. When I saw it I was sure it was Carruthers handwriting but where is he living and how is he getting into the palace?
The King's valet suggested that it may be he was entering the Kings chamber via the disused laundry chute and so the maintenance man was summoned to the Kings chamber. The valet stood back whilst the King took a more hands on approach whilst the maintenance man removed thick paint and paper to eventually reveal a laundry chute draped with enough cobwebs to be sure that nothing had passed down it in a very long time. When the King turned around to address his valet he was a little dumfounded to see the valet resplendent in his long johns with his trousers round his ankles. Further questioning established that his braces were now missing and the valet hadn't felt a thing! The matter now dealt with, the maintenance man turned to pick up his tool bag to retire from the Kings chamber to find no tool bag to pick up.
Half an hour later a taxi passing the front of the palace had two soft boiled eggs land fair and square in the middle of the windscreen, apparently launched from the direction of the palace roof! A quick visit to the roof located the missing tool bag and the braces tied at one end to the flag pole bearing the royal standard. A later inspection found one of the ceremonial cannons used for twenty one gun salutes was also missing along with a small quantity of ammunition and a horse! How does one get a ruddy great cannon and a horse through the daylight streets of London without raising an eyebrow somewhere?
Londoners everywhere slept a little uneasily that night with a cannon and a horse apparently able to disappear and presumably reappear at will, not to mention the small quantity of ammunition. What happened next confirmed that it was indeed Carruthers behind the recent unusual incidents in London! Very early one morning, before most of London was awake; a skipper of a sailing barge, one Ned Purbey was on board his barge quietly drifting down the Thames puffing thoughtfully on his pipe warming his hands on his cup of morning char. A seagull was sat on the top of the mast dozing in the first warming rays of the sun when a loud bang and a cloud of white smoke emanated from the small park on the north bank of the river causing Ned to spill his cup of tea with the surprise but the whistling of an incoming missile caused him to bite the end off his pipe. The seagull got the surprise of its life when the shell from a cannon ripped through the sail just below where it had been dozing contentedly and landed with a plop in the low water mud on the far bank. A manic voice was then heard to shout from the bank like Billy Cotton, "Wakey wakey!" Then a female voice with a heavy eastern bloc inflection was whooping with delight as Nurse Juliana guided a military horse dragging a ceremonial cannon with Carruthers sat astride it shouting "Ride 'em cowgirl!" Carruthers, Nurse Juliana, horse and all have once again disappeared. The King has asked if he can please have his horse and gun back but has stipulated that Carruthers must not be hurt in any capture and Ned Purbey has put in for a new pipe to replace the one he bit in half when Carruthers shell left a hole that any self respecting moth would have been proud of in his barges sail and of course, a new sail.
The King has asked for extra security around his breakfast eggs this morning.
Got to go Corporal; need to organise a search party within the palace gardens.
Got any spare time? Could be useful!
Over and out!
30th June
Morning Corporal!
Gideon has been gainfully employed this week. He has been pushing a sack truck around the camp stacked up with reams of paper desperately trying to find the Brigadier to present his report on the difficulties of presenting reports, which is kind of ironic really! The Brigadier kept on the move for a whole week and away from the pontificating attentions of Gideon but, perhaps inevitably, the Brigadiers luck ran out when Gideon came and knocked on the Brigadiers door and told his wife that he had been told by one of the Major’s he had been hounding to wait for the Brigadier at home. So the dear woman invited him in, fed him tea and cakes and Gideon sat and waited for him in his kitchen. The Brigadier nearly died of fright when he came home congratulating himself on having kept out of Gideon’s way for another day, expecting to see his wife waiting for him with a cup of hot tea and a peck on the cheek, only to see his adversary sat in his kitchen. It turned out that the trolley loaded with paper Gideon had been pushing around was only the summary. There was a lot more where that had come from, Gideon proudly told the Brigadier. So the Brigadier instructed the guardroom to find the main report and lose it, burn it, hide it. Anything that would keep it out of Gideon’s clutches! So one of the three tonners was nearly overloaded with paper whilst the Brigadier kept Gideon talking and that in itself taxed Gideon’s brain when next he saw the Brigadier in his office. The Brigadier was having what he thought was a lighthearted conversation about Kings Regulations relating to the manner in which uniform should be worn in military life. The Brigadier told Gideon that Kings Regulations state quite clearly that it is the uniform that the soldier should be saluting and not the man wearing it. This caused a mild panic in Gideon when next he visited the Brigadiers office. There, sat at the desk was the Brigadier, but with no uniform that Gideon could see. But on the back of the door was hung the Brigadiers uniform! The mental torture! Who or what should he salute? Should he opt for the Brigadier which would be normal and may provide a chance to impress the Brigadier or follow Kings Regulations and salute the jacket hanging on the back of the door but on further consideration that may also impress the Brigadier and there may just be a chance that someone important may see his following of Kings Regulations. So to cover both wickets he saluted both, much to the surprise and then amusement of the Brigadier. Gideon was getting himself in a frightful stew as the bulk of his report had gone missing! No one had seen it and he was building up to adding another chapter to his report on the efficiencies of delivery of reports. Wandering up the corridor pondering on the whereabouts of his report he happened to pass the laundry man delivering about thirty officers jackets of various ranks all on hangers hanging on one of those rails on wheels. Realising the opportunity to impress was abundant at that point Gideon saluted every jacket on the rail with great enthusiasm! A Captain happened to be absentmindedly wandering down the corridor at the time chewing the end of his pencil as he chose the horses for his weekly bet and was a little bemused by Gideon’s activity. Gideon was a little irritated by the Captains lack of activity particularly in the department of following Kings Regulations and saluting uniforms of a superior rank and immediately went back to his desk and filed a report recommending the Captain be placed on a charge for not saluting higher ranking uniforms! Quite what response this will get I am not entirely sure but I suspect that this may run around the Officer’s Mess for some time to come.
Carruthers has been helping himself again but this time to a sail designed specifically to fit a Thames barge and in particular the one belonging to Ned Purbey to replace the one that Carruthers shot a hole through early one morning last week. It had been delivered and signed for and Ned had been summoned to collect it when he was passing next. On the phone Ned also spluttered something about his pipe that he had bitten in half at the shock of so near a miss as that. Hitler hadn’t managed during the entire war to get one as close as that, the Americans had gone home already and now one of our own side had nearly killed him! Although to be fair we none of us can be too certain as to what it was exactly he said as with only one tooth and a dialect hitherto unheard of in normal civilised society, conversation with him is a little restricted. Carruthers is now camped up somewhere in London with his new found love Nurse Juliana, a horse and a cannon, all presumably protected by a large sail. Surely it can’t be too hard to find, although if his ability to hide a redundant cross channel ferry with a chain ferry tied to its stern is anything to go by we could be searching for some time to come.
Got to go Corporal, its that time of day and the bar is about to open at the mess.
Don’t have any tailors dummies do you Corporal. I may have a use for them.
Over and out!
7th July
Morning Corporal!
A new padre has arrived on camp!
Father Andrew is from an ancient and honourable order that apparently come from a part of the world where Christianity has more than just a little work left to do. He has arrived apparently on a mission to save Carruthers from the hell and torment that inhabits his very soul. It would seem that word has got to the very highest level that our own vicar has become just a little too obsessed with Mrs. Peabody and he's generally thought to be aiming to save just a little more than her soul and so Father Andrew has come to the aid of Carruthers. It took a great deal of persuading that we hadn't got him locked up on some Pagan sacrificial altar somewhere and that the fool is now running amok in Central London with his own nurse, a cannon and a stallion. That sounds like the start of a joke I could use for the Christmas party to tell the chaps! Father Andrew has decided that for now he will content himself with saving the chaps on camp here, just until Carruthers decides to give himself up. My own feeling is that most around here are probably just a little beyond saving but we'll let him try.
Father Andrew has certainly been trying hard to save the camp! He has blessed nearly everyone on camp. Twice! Whether they wanted it or not and has been flicking holy water all over the place. The cleaner had a bit of a funny turn with him after she had just finished cleaning all the office windows and he came into the office block and felt that we needed the help of the Lord and started flicking water over everything within range. The only thing that needed saving that particular day was Father Andrew from the wrath of the cleaner. I don't think he had heard some of the names she was using to express her general dissatisfaction at the water marks all over her clean windows. I saw him later in the library poring over the dictionary with a distinctly shocked look on his face!
He has been known to lurk in the bushes and jump out on the young mothers heading for the school, to repel Satan from their lives. Plus flicking a load more water all over them and the kids! The first time he tried it the police were called and they nearly had him arrested.
Last I knew there were no holy wells on the camp, so quite where he is getting the stuff from is anyone’s guess. Although it may have something to do with him lurking behind the NAAFI kitchens near the tap with a five gallon water container!
Some of the chaps and I have had a right wheeze with Gideon! We managed to get some tailors manikins and dress them all in officer’s uniform and leave them around the camp where we knew Gideon will be walking, just to see how many times they can get him to salute the same uniform. The record currently stands at ten times in the same hour. Perhaps Father Andrew could delay saving us from Satan for a while and concentrate instead on saving us from Gideon. When people started sniggering at him he became very irritated that people were not taking Kings Regulations seriously and when he told them so they all fell about laughing. Once the jape had been revealed he of course said he knew that and was just playing along. He then realised he had some urgent report to write and disappeared to the other side of the camp.
Good news on Carruthers, he has walked into the cavalry officers mess and asked if he can please have some more ammunition as the last lot got a bit wet in a particularly high tide. I will let you know any updates on that one in the next entry.
Got any holy water going spare? I think I know someone who could use it!
Over an out!
14th July
I say Corporal they've managed to corner the boundah!
Carruthers as you may remember has been living heaven knows where in London with his eastern European nurse, a cannon, a stallion with which to pull it, a small quantity of ammunition for said cannon and more recently the sail intended for a Thames barge he managed to put a shell though earlier and a clay pipe intended to replace the one the skipper of said barge, one Ned Purbey bit through with surprise when the shell went through the sail and landed unexploded in the mud on the south ban. He has only come to light when he managed to get his remaining shells wet and came back asking for some replacements.
The Master at Arms was somewhat taken aback by his blasé manner, walking back to the scene of the crime to ask for more. But those of us who know him expect little else! He had the presence of mind to lead Carruthers into the ammunition store room which has no windows and lock him in whilst he sought further advice as to what exactly he should do with him.
The Master at Arms went back with the correct advice on handling Carruthers which by now could be made into a full book and issued to all new recruits as a warning! Also armed with four burly MP's and instructions to detain him in the cells in the guardroom but with the rider issued by the King that Carruthers should not be hurt in any way. When they opened the door to the store room they were speechless at the sight which greeted them. Half the ceremonial ammunition was missing and Carruthers was head first halfway through an improbably small manhole cover! Two MP's grabbed hold of a leg each and tried to drag him back out accompanied by muffled shouts from all the air vents around the room of "Gerroff ya bastards!" Eventually they found a manhole cover of sufficient size that a normal man could get in and tried to negotiate their way through the tunnels to find the other side of where the fool was being kept stranded. Eventually with two MP's pushing and two pulling and further shouts of "Gerroff you bastards" and shouts from the Master at Arms of "Pull you bastards" and "Push you bastards!" depending on what seemed to be required at the time, there seemed to be an awful lot of bastards around in one room. Eventually, after an extraordinary amount of grunting and cursing, Carruthers was born again, like a baby with forceps, with a loud plop into the room. It then took a full half hour to count the ammunition to establish whether any more had gone missing. A very delicate negotiation had to be managed to find the whereabouts of not only Nurse Juliana but a quantity, albeit small and apparently damp, of ceremonial ammunition, a horse, a cannon and a sail. The pipe we had already found in Carruthers pocket but was now broken!
Carruthers was quite happy to tell all about where all the equipment and personnel were but it made no sense to anyone. The only thing which did make any sense was that Nurse Juliana was apparently earning a bit of cash dancing in a West End club somewhere. There was no shortage of volunteers to comb all the clubs and pubs in that area looking for a Soviet dancer with improbably long legs, oh, and a horse! After much diligent and thorough searching of the clubs by most of the Kings Cavalry, one was found which was boasting a particularly exotic cabaret featuring 'Juliana of the Russian Steppes'. Arrangements were made for a team of MI5 agents to follow her back that night to wherever she was living in a covert operation to recapture the cannon and of course Ned Purbey's sail. They managed to follow her back as far as Fleet Street where she rounded a corner and just disappeared! As far as anyone could tell she had turned into a blind alley but she seemed to have been just spirited away, although one of the chaps on her tail swore he could hear a ghostly horse whinny at about the time she disappeared. The next night they were more prepared and had more than a dozen men posted around the alley waiting for her return. Once again she entered the alley and with a muffled whinny she seemed to go into the shadows and just disappear! At daybreak the stable boy reported a quantity of oats and other feedstuffs missing from the Kings cavalry stables. And a further search of the alleyway at the point where she disappeared revealed the only possible escape route to be down a manhole. With some trepidation they lifted the lid and discovered a set of steps leading down into the culverted Fleet River. Once descended there was a subterranean world not seen in a long time! As their eyes accustomed to the gloom they realised they were in a large cavern with the river running through the middle and several quite large tunnels, presumably the ancient drainage system running off it. To one side they became aware of movement and shining torches towards the movement they first saw a cannon, then a horse and behind that a large heap of sail canvas. As they watched in sheer disbelief the canvas appeared to be moving a little and snoring gently. Moving closer they became aware of two slumbering figures, from the state of her undress one was definitely female and the other male. From the pictures they were carrying they could identify the female as being Nurse Juliana, but the male? It couldn’t be! Far from being asleep in his cell in a guardroom at Horseguards awaiting breakfast; here lay the slumbering Carruthers! Surely there cannot be two of them!
Got any smelling salts old boy? I fear an attack of the vapors coming on.
Over and out!
21st July
Corporal!
Carruthers has been found!
The chaps from MI5 followed Nurse Juliana on two separate nights from where some of the chaps had so diligently sought her out amongst so vast a choice of potential night time venues that boast dancers of a somewhat exotic nature, only to find her in a more reasonable kind of cabaret where the horse rumoured to be a part of her act featured only as a means of transport to get her home on a late night.
Carruthers, although widely believed to be curled up snug in his bunk in a cell in the guardroom, now appeared from under a vast amount of sailcloth held aloft in places by a pair of braces removed from the King’s valet whilst waiting on the King, himself resembling a heap of crumpled ironing! When awoken from his slumber by a great number of flashlights beside the near naked Nurse Juliana, his only question was "Am I late for breakfast at the guardroom?" And, "Should I make my usual way back or are you going to drive me, or perhaps I could drive one of your big wagons?"
Nurse Juliana, given her Eastern European infant nurture and the fact she appears to have found a way of entering the Kings bed chamber was taken along with Carruthers for an extensive debrief in Whitehall and that’s where the real excitement came from. It would appear that the ruddy Ruskies have infiltrated us good and proper! It would appear that she is a Ruskie agent and had been sent over to try and make contact with British officers when they were at their weakest point, in a convalescent home recovering from who knows what! Her mission had been to extract whatever information she could from her charges using her very evident bedside manner. This has answered one or two perplexing questions concerning covert operations when the Ruskies seemed to be one step ahead of us. That was until they came across our very own secret weapon, agent Carruthers! Somewhere in amongst the proceedings this Russian beauty fell under Carruthers very own spell and now is more than happy to follow the fool to the ends of the earth. I guess I call him the fool more out of habit really, if he can capture Nurse Juliana, in more ways than one, he perhaps isn’t quite as daft as we had supposed.
The King became involved in what was fast becoming an interrogation rather than a debrief, firstly out of curiosity as to exactly who had been joining him in his bedchamber, and how, but mainly to ensure that Carruthers came to no harm. The King has really taken quite a liking to this military incompetent! There was a general feeling that to place the pair of them in a cell was, frankly, a complete waste of time given Carruthers new habit of escaping from just about anywhere, so the King ordered that they were to be housed in a royal apartment in Kensington! How has he managed it? Not six months ago he was to be found at the bottom of a smelly pit of festering faeces frightened to come out in case a mad Irishman was going to dead him and now he is being hosted by the King in a royal apartment!
Our masters in Whitehall, ever ones to come up with a brilliant scheme of impossibilities and expect someone else to help them out by implementing them, have suggested that Nurse Juliana become a double agent and be assisted by Carruthers! They are to take back some out of date information for the Ruskie authorities and become part of Russian military life and feed any useful information they can back to England.
Gideon on hearing of the developments felt there was some useful posturing to be done in furtherance of his own military aspirations and so jumped on the next train to London. Father Andrew, also hearing of the developments and anxious to administer whatever assistance to Carruthers spiritual well being he could think of, also boarded the next train to London dragging a five gallon can of holy water with him. The Brigadier, who if you remember was actually Carruthers father as the result of a little tryst between him and one of the serving staff at his parents home, keen to have an input into his illegitimate sons well being, also jumped onto the next London bound train. Gideon thought that it was an excellent opportunity to instruct the Brigadier on the ways in which Gideon felt the Regiment could be run a lot better and the Brigadier thought it an excellent opportunity to spend the entire journey sat locked in the lavatory reading the newspaper, the emergency instructions on the back of the door, the graffiti scribbled on and around the mirror about the sexual exploits of one Marjorie from Margate and even joining up all the holes left in the door by the exiting woodworm to see if it formed a pattern. Presumably even the woodworm had got wind of Gideon joining the train and got off as quick as possible. Father Andrew felt that he had a whole train of people who all would need some kind of salvation and by the next stop had flicked all of his holy water over passengers and had to visit the tap around the back of the gents lavatories to replenish his supply. By the time the train had arrived at London, Gideon had found another Major to give the benefit of his military mind to, although to be fair he was only a Major in the Salvation Army but beggars can’t be choosers. The Brigadier had done The Times crossword twice over, learned of two new sexual practices from the graffiti in the lavatory and caught two new sexual diseases from the lavatory seat. Father Andrew had managed to cover the inside of the train and its occupants with fifteen gallons of holy water and conducted two exorcisms. One, a gipsy selling lucky heather who short changed him and the other was the train guard who could see no reason he should allow anyone to travel without a ticket on his train even if he was on the Lord’s work.
By this evening there were three extra figures wandering the streets of London, Father Andrew looking for further souls who needed saving and dragging his large container of holy water with him; the Brigadier looking for a chemist that was still open to buy some ointment to try and calm the raging irritation building around his private parts from the nasty little rash he had picked up from the lavatory seat on the train where he had been hiding from Gideon, and Gideon was just looking for somewhere to stay as he had been thrown out of the barracks for telling them all that he would be inspecting their kit tomorrow to see if it all fits with Kings regulations and woe betide anyone who was, in Gideon’s opinion, slacking in any way.
Got to go Corporal, need to send out a rescue party for Father Andrew! He was last seen heading down a dark alley with a certain lady of ill repute who has an intimate knowledge of most of the three regiments based locally, dragging his container of holy water behind him. I think it would take a lot more holy water than he could put his hands on to cleanse her!
All the chemists seem to be shut tonight Corporal; do you have any ointment for nasty rashes? I think I know someone who would be glad of it!
Over an out!
28th July
We've had a bit of a tragedy Corporal!
Carruthers, after his first night at the royal apartment with Nurse Juliana, a guest of his new friend, the King of England, was up and about early wearing a cardboard crown painted gold with red splodges on it, which I guess were meant to represent jewels. He was also carrying a cardboard cut out sword and by ten o-clock we had two new KBE's and three life peers, all working in the palace gardens!
Carruthers and Nurse Juliana were summoned to MI5 to attend a briefing session and we were all of us asked to attend. Gideon had been sleeping under a cold bridge down by the railway because he had been evicted from the barracks after he had threatened to inspect everyone and their kit the following morning to see if they are all conforming to Kings Regulations. He had eventually found his way down to the back of the old warehouses were London's gentlemen of the road spend their nights, but they quickly threw him out as well. The only shelter he could find was the old bridge where he was kept awake by the trains shunting all night, so he was a little grumpy that morning.
Father Andrew was there as well and was feeling much happier that he had now been able to do something of what he had set out to achieve by blessing the relationship between Carruthers and Nurse Juliana; with of course the liberal application of holy water. The Brigadier was sat there, fidgeting about, unable to gain any relief from the ferocious itching going on around his crutch whilst retaining any sense of dignity. Eventually he was able to get to sit behind a desk where he had at least a certain sense of privacy from the waist down to have a good scratch. The look of relief on his face was of absolute bliss and soon dismissed himself from the meeting to wander off in search of a chemist. Somehow he had to get that itching under control before he returned home. His wife might not believe his story of the lavatory seat on the train! Carruthers was sat on the window sill drawing stick men in the condensation on the window and building pyramids with the cups and saucers and then firing pencil sharpeners across the room to knock them down whilst Nurse Juliana was frantically scribbling notes for both of them. Gideon was rushing around with a tape measure and followed by much thoughtful scribbling on his clipboard. I wouldn't like to guess where that report was going to go when he has finished it. I know where I’d like to stick it! He at one point caught sight of himself in a mirror and began tutting with the kind of volume required when in ear shot of the head of MI5 about the dishevelled state of his uniform. Although it would be nothing short of what would be expected of someone who had spent the night trying to sleep in a cardboard box under a noisy bridge. However he felt it necessary to place himself on report.
So that was it, we now have the latest two recruits to the British secret service! God help us all! Nurse Juliana and agent Carruthers, 006 and seven eights (cap size).
The Brigadier was still wandering the streets of London looking for some relief from the itching. When he had left he shook Carruthers hand and gave him a manly hug with a tear in his eye, although no-one was too sure whether it was from paternal pride or the discomfort from his genital itching. He gave Carruthers a little speech about his pride of his son and if they should never meet again he felt that he had to let him know that. The Brigadier died that afternoon a broken man. A very broken man! Distracted by the itching he had stepped off the kerb and got run over by a tram!
Carruthers and Juliana were taken to Portsmouth to meet a submarine that would take them on their next adventure together. The King had left a message for them that on their safe return the Royal apartment where they had spent the night was theirs. It would seem that the King really has taken quite a shine to his new found friend!
Got to go Corporal! Need to organise getting a Brigadier (in kit form) back home and perhaps fitted back together enough for his good lady wife to see him.
Have you still got your old anatomy notes from college, I think they may come in handy.
Tally ho!
