Yet Another Ghastly Christmas by Shonagh Koea

Author:Shonagh Koea [Shonagh Koea]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781775532262
Publisher: Penguin Random House New Zealand
Published: 2014-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

Deep in the winter the unit was sent on manoeuvres. This training session was lengthy and involved spending several days in the open and various nights in farm buildings, including barns. They also had to cross a river on a rope-bridge they had made themselves. The second lieutenant fell in the river and swam to the other side and when the company commander found this out he just said, ‘Good, good,’ as if swimming a river rather than attempting a rope-bridge made by soldiers in training was much the more sensible thing to do.

The weather had been treacherous for some time and the ground everywhere was extremely puggy, especially in the dips and deep valleys they had struggled through. A wrong order was given, or someone misinterpreted a map at a crucial point, and the unit was left behind during the main push by the entire regiment. The unit was not in the correct place at the correct time.

The company commander came on an inspection the next morning, after the men from the unit had spent a freezing night in yet another barn, and he looked at everything, even the soles of their boots to see if any footwear needed repairing.

He was displeased that they had not been given porridge for breakfast but, when questioned, most of the men said they did not like porridge, which pleased him even less. The company commander believed that porridge did a man good, and he said so. It was implied in his discourse that if they had had porridge more regularly they would be better men who read maps more skilfully and would thus have been in the right place at the right time. As it was they had had to stand aside at some point the previous day while another unit marched through their ranks, like people on a golf course playing through.

‘What did these men have for breakfast?’ the company commander asked the second lieutenant, who said, ‘Liver, sir.’ And then, almost as an afterthought, ‘And bread, sir. With jam.’ There was a silence. ‘Definitely jam, sir.’

‘Liver? You mean liver?’ The commander seemed astounded.

‘Yes, sir. Liver, sir.’ The second lieutenant waited. ‘With bread, sir. And jam.’

The company commander remained deep in thought.

‘I see,’ he said at last.

The sergeant had been very quiet during the entire exercise. He had been markedly withdrawn for a long time now. It had been several weeks since his initial outburst over the behaviour of his wife and even that was not much of an event. After the letter telling him of her infidelity had arrived he suddenly became quiet when previously he had been a cheery, quite noisy man, fond of jokes and always to be relied upon for some funny story or an amusing aside. He was well liked in the unit because he was good company, but after the arrival of the letter he instantly became quiet, even morose. His whole demeanour and appearance changed. By the time the manoeuvres were held and the

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.