Turvey by Earle Birney

Author:Earle Birney [Birney, Earle]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-55199-502-1
Publisher: McClelland & Stewart
Published: 2008-08-12T00:00:00+00:00

TURVEY INVADES THE CONTINENT

“Wakee! Wakee! Rise and shine.”

It was the ungodly hour of five-thirty, the eighth morning since Turvey had arrived in an Aldershot Holding Unit, tagged for immediate despatch to the North-West Theatre. And it went much like the other seven. Half an hour after the corporal with the hysterical voice had winkled them from their straw ticks, Turvey and the fifty-nine other bodies in Draft 606 were standing, shaved and in full marching kit, swollen packs at their feet, yielding up sleepy “Here’s” to a bellicose sergeant.

“Stan easy pay tention. You fellows better git it in your skulls boat-train’ll leave ANY time. You’re confined to your quarters till fur’r notice n REMEMBER – any s.o.b. absen any rollcall’ll be mediately listed DESERTER. N REMEMBER, messin hut for this draft is 83B. 83B ONLY, other side prade square; n you fall out you pro-ceed ROUND the square not cross it. N that means YOU, Turvey, wipe at smirk off your face, n YOU, Kolt. Four years at war n some a you still swannin cross a MILTRY PRADE GROUND. You don know whether your rear-end’s bored or punched. All ry Ten-HUH! Dissssss – MIH!”

Doubling fast, and remembering not to cut corners on the sacred square this time, Turvey and Kolt, a beefy Manitoban he had casually teamed up with in the draft, managed to reach the mess-hut before all the porridge and sky-blue milk were gone.

“No salt in the mush again,” Kolt grumbled loudly. He flicked the one slice of fried ham out of his billytin. “Smells like an old hoo-er. Last night was Mystery Fish again. What kinda grub is this fer a athalete like me. I’d like to tie that cook’s knackers to a stump and push him over backward.”

Turvey shuddered at the thought and tried to be cheerful. “There’s some jam for afters this mornin though, Mike.”

“So what? They cant kid me there’s strawberry seeds in that pozzy. Sawdust, that’s what these limeys put in. Same stuff’s in the slingers. How they think I’m goin to keep up my strength?”

“Slingers? What’s that?”

“Sausages, stoope. Those ersatz barkers we get. Hitler’s secret weapon. I wouldnt care so much if this fuckin army gave a fightin Canadian a decent cup of java in the mornin stead of this limey oil.” He took a reluctant pull on his mug of sugar-clouded tea.

“Well, anyway, there’s toast. Little hard, though.”

“Little!” Mike wiped a hairy paw across his lips as if to obliterate the memory of the tea. “Like a old cowpad in August. Come on, let’s get back to barracks and scoff the rest of that parcel you got.” Later, after Mike had licked the last brown stain from his thumb of the chocolate bars donated by the Kuskanee Ladies Aid, and Turvey had just rounded up two others in the hut for a game of penny high-low on his palliasse, the hysterical corporal, as usual, exploded in the doorway:

“Fall in! On a double! Outside! Hurree. Embarkation Order! Packs on! This is

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