airborne
21-12-07, 12:29
I raised my head and looked around with my one good eye at my fallen comrades. In twos, and threes, they lay here and there in twisted deathly positions. Rolling over on to my right side I felt intense pain down my left arm and I wondered how badly I was wounded. I flexed my fingers and ran my hands carefully over my body feeling for blood or broken bones, apart from the eye nothing. I’d got off pretty lightly compared to some of those around me. It was hard to think clearly, the buzzing in my ears and the splitting pain in my head led me to think that I was concussed. Someone, somewhere, under a pile of bodies behind me gave out a quavering groan, someone else coughed raggedly. It was more than I could bear, I had to do something. Getting up was a struggle, my body wasn’t fully responding yet.
I staggered to the billet door and threw it open; the harsh Mediterranean sunlight hit me like a sledgehammer. Along the wall outside were several fire buckets full of water. Unhooking one I fell back inside and shared its contents among my mates and then beat the fire bucket hard against a steel locker for a few moments. You know some people just don’t appreciate my sense of humor? OK it had been a great Christmas Eve bash in downtown Limassol last night, and yes the Military Police had not been able to take any of us prisoner, (from memory we won 16-nil) but it was time for our morning run round the camp perimeter. My only consolation was that everybody was too sick to beat me up.
We ran, my mouth tasted like an incontinent vulture had been sleeping in it, and whatever it was, streaming from my pores and pooling in my boots, it was probably 70% proof. My stomach began a spin tumble and dry cycle; there must have been something off in that Packet of peanuts I ate in the Kit Kat Bar last night.
Last night...? the Kit Kat Bar....? Mama’s Taverna...? Talula’s.. what? Something was nagging at me? Aha got it! . I glanced over my shoulder at Bert (motor mouth) Schofield who nodded back at me as we made ground and sobered up. He was a good mate, but then again was it my place to remind him of his proposal of marriage to the huge Egyptian bar girl with the false teeth and the bad wig, from Talula’s? They didn’t have a lot in common – apart from the mustache- and they were both ugly, but who knows where the delicate flower of love will raise it’s beauteous head next?
No, I thought, maybe I’ll let him find out the next time we dropped by, and watch him try to talk his way out of this one.
Gentlemen, Christmases come in many different kinds of packaging, but I believe that they should all contain gems of happiness, humor, good will and at least one really good surprise.
Mike
I staggered to the billet door and threw it open; the harsh Mediterranean sunlight hit me like a sledgehammer. Along the wall outside were several fire buckets full of water. Unhooking one I fell back inside and shared its contents among my mates and then beat the fire bucket hard against a steel locker for a few moments. You know some people just don’t appreciate my sense of humor? OK it had been a great Christmas Eve bash in downtown Limassol last night, and yes the Military Police had not been able to take any of us prisoner, (from memory we won 16-nil) but it was time for our morning run round the camp perimeter. My only consolation was that everybody was too sick to beat me up.
We ran, my mouth tasted like an incontinent vulture had been sleeping in it, and whatever it was, streaming from my pores and pooling in my boots, it was probably 70% proof. My stomach began a spin tumble and dry cycle; there must have been something off in that Packet of peanuts I ate in the Kit Kat Bar last night.
Last night...? the Kit Kat Bar....? Mama’s Taverna...? Talula’s.. what? Something was nagging at me? Aha got it! . I glanced over my shoulder at Bert (motor mouth) Schofield who nodded back at me as we made ground and sobered up. He was a good mate, but then again was it my place to remind him of his proposal of marriage to the huge Egyptian bar girl with the false teeth and the bad wig, from Talula’s? They didn’t have a lot in common – apart from the mustache- and they were both ugly, but who knows where the delicate flower of love will raise it’s beauteous head next?
No, I thought, maybe I’ll let him find out the next time we dropped by, and watch him try to talk his way out of this one.
Gentlemen, Christmases come in many different kinds of packaging, but I believe that they should all contain gems of happiness, humor, good will and at least one really good surprise.
Mike