regulations …” I clapped my hand to my revolver and he ran off down the road and into a house. I made a mental note of the address.
The platoon finished their desecration in good time and Major Arkdust pronounced his satisfaction with the slit trenches. To me, those utility earthworks just had no style at all. After the baroque magnificence of my bastions, it was a workhouse way of making war. I hoped devoutly that the Boche would not attack our portion of Dorset. I’d have been utterly ashamed to be caught by professional Junkers in such ridiculous rabbit scrapes.
“Thank you, chaps, for working so hard,” I said on parade . “The company commander is again very pleased. But there’s just one detail I would like to stress.”
“So help me God!” muttered Private Drogue. “If he wants ’em opening out again, I’m going straight over to Hitler.”
“I’d like to stress,” I went on, “that you should never on any account prick blisters. The correct treatment is to …” Which gave me a lead-in to a most useful and much appreciated lecture on First Aid in the Field.
It rained interminably during the next fortnight. A spring burst up on the path down to the undercliff. The blue mud was so slippery that we had to fit ropeways to lower ourselves down. As I slithered along one pouring evening the voices of my men came grumbling back like a Russian rising. Battleship Potemkin might have been anchored below.
“I can’t get my flipping feet in, Sarge, never mind no Bren.”
“Come out of there, Clapper, and get back here,” shouted Sergeant Transom, “before you get yourself man-trapped.”
My trenches in the undercliff had shrunk. Their meagre three-feet width had dwindled to six inches. The saturated clay had begun to flow like lava down the cliff face and was slowly, inexorably, filling in our foxholes.
I ordered a strategic withdrawl to the top of the cliff. Our scrambling accelerated the slide and we stood in the misty rain and watched in fascination as the lips of our trenches moved finally together. In ten minutes they were as closely sealed as Baldwin’s, the slope of clay was smooth as silk and there was no sign to show that Twelve Platoon had ever struck spade.
Sergeant Transom sighed wearily.
“Dig ’em up here now, sir?” he asked indicating the same turf he had spitted with his bayonet five weeks before.
“Yes,” I said, looking away from him and out to sea.
“Slit trenches, sir?”
“Yes.”
“Three feet wide, sir?”
“Yes.”
Private Drogue knelt in the wet and beat his head on the ground.
“Dig ’em small, dig ’em big, dig ’em small again…. Now close your eyes and I’ll make ’em disappear. I tell you heain’t a British officer at all. He’s a fifth columnist sent by Hitler to soften up Dorset.”
“They dropped him by parachute, mate, dressed as a ruddy nun.”
“Jonah, that’s what he is. Bad luck Jonah. And please Gawd send Twelve Platoon a bloody great whale.”
It seemed another excellent opportunity for Sergeant Transom to show whether he was officer material, so I left him to carry on. That civilian spy was waiting for me up on the road once more. This time, I decided, I would have to arrest him.
“Evening,” he said. “Going to dig them up on top now, eh?”
“Yes. Now I warned you last time …”
“You should’ve dug them up there in the first place. Hopeless on the undercliff. Blue slipper clay, those cliffs are. Runs like pudden in the rain. I could have told you when you first started that they’d only close up in the autumn.”
“Then why didn’t you?”
“You wouldn’t let me.”
I was about to change the charge and arrest him for withholding information likely to be of assistance to the military authorities when I noticed Private Drogue picking up his rifle and pointing it our way. I had not yet had opportunity to check whether he was fully trained in the use of the safety catch, and deemed it wiser to leave the
The platoon finished their desecration in good time and Major Arkdust pronounced his satisfaction with the slit trenches. To me, those utility earthworks just had no style at all. After the baroque magnificence of my bastions, it was a workhouse way of making war. I hoped devoutly that the Boche would not attack our portion of Dorset. I’d have been utterly ashamed to be caught by professional Junkers in such ridiculous rabbit scrapes.
“Thank you, chaps, for working so hard,” I said on parade . “The company commander is again very pleased. But there’s just one detail I would like to stress.”
“So help me God!” muttered Private Drogue. “If he wants ’em opening out again, I’m going straight over to Hitler.”
“I’d like to stress,” I went on, “that you should never on any account prick blisters. The correct treatment is to …” Which gave me a lead-in to a most useful and much appreciated lecture on First Aid in the Field.
It rained interminably during the next fortnight. A spring burst up on the path down to the undercliff. The blue mud was so slippery that we had to fit ropeways to lower ourselves down. As I slithered along one pouring evening the voices of my men came grumbling back like a Russian rising. Battleship Potemkin might have been anchored below.
“I can’t get my flipping feet in, Sarge, never mind no Bren.”
“Come out of there, Clapper, and get back here,” shouted Sergeant Transom, “before you get yourself man-trapped.”
My trenches in the undercliff had shrunk. Their meagre three-feet width had dwindled to six inches. The saturated clay had begun to flow like lava down the cliff face and was slowly, inexorably, filling in our foxholes.
I ordered a strategic withdrawl to the top of the cliff. Our scrambling accelerated the slide and we stood in the misty rain and watched in fascination as the lips of our trenches moved finally together. In ten minutes they were as closely sealed as Baldwin’s, the slope of clay was smooth as silk and there was no sign to show that Twelve Platoon had ever struck spade.
Sergeant Transom sighed wearily.
“Dig ’em up here now, sir?” he asked indicating the same turf he had spitted with his bayonet five weeks before.
“Yes,” I said, looking away from him and out to sea.
“Slit trenches, sir?”
“Yes.”
“Three feet wide, sir?”
“Yes.”
Private Drogue knelt in the wet and beat his head on the ground.
“Dig ’em small, dig ’em big, dig ’em small again…. Now close your eyes and I’ll make ’em disappear. I tell you heain’t a British officer at all. He’s a fifth columnist sent by Hitler to soften up Dorset.”
“They dropped him by parachute, mate, dressed as a ruddy nun.”
“Jonah, that’s what he is. Bad luck Jonah. And please Gawd send Twelve Platoon a bloody great whale.”
It seemed another excellent opportunity for Sergeant Transom to show whether he was officer material, so I left him to carry on. That civilian spy was waiting for me up on the road once more. This time, I decided, I would have to arrest him.
“Evening,” he said. “Going to dig them up on top now, eh?”
“Yes. Now I warned you last time …”
“You should’ve dug them up there in the first place. Hopeless on the undercliff. Blue slipper clay, those cliffs are. Runs like pudden in the rain. I could have told you when you first started that they’d only close up in the autumn.”
“Then why didn’t you?”
“You wouldn’t let me.”
I was about to change the charge and arrest him for withholding information likely to be of assistance to the military authorities when I noticed Private Drogue picking up his rifle and pointing it our way. I had not yet had opportunity to check whether he was fully trained in the use of the safety catch, and deemed it wiser to leave the
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