sagalout
Well-known member
I found it, the maggot I lost this morning, it was in me coffee. Just goes to show how good my throwing skills are, it was meant to be by the float in the water.
I found it, the maggot I lost this morning, it was in me coffee. Just goes to show how good my throwing skills are, it was meant to be by the float in the water.
Imagine my alarm when I woke early one morning in a tiny tent in an Indian riverine forest many years ago, reached for the plastic mug I put water in to drink during the night, only to find a ruddy great, still-living scorpion.
Burma: leech and Jap-infested jungle, Chindit camp; normal rise-and-shine procedure begins with shaking the scorps and baby cobras out of one's boots. Something kicks off and a signalman is needed pronto; Signalman Tyler,H. jumps to it and leaps into his boots without thinking, only utterly to fail to suppress a yelp as his toes find something soft therein.
A Toad. How they chuckled. I don't know; Dad never would tell me how...
Burma: leech and Jap-infested jungle, Chindit camp; normal rise-and-shine procedure begins with shaking the scorps and baby cobras out of one's boots. Something kicks off and a signalman is needed pronto; Signalman Tyler,H. jumps to it and leaps into his boots without thinking, only utterly to fail to suppress a yelp as his toes find something soft therein.
A Toad. How they chuckled. I don't know; Dad never would tell me how...
I don't know the details, he wasn't talkative about it.
He was a pit-head electrician, a reserved occupation, but after Coventry, decided he had to do something about ze Germans. So the silly b.s sent him off to Burma... Yorkshire regiment, then REME and signals, and secondment to the Cameron Highlanders with whom he was bundled off up (or down?) the Irrawady. Whether a Chindit "proper" (whatever that may be), I don't know. He came out at six stone something, having been scalded by an overturned billy-can, and caught two types of malaria (are there two? Recurrent and summat else?), with a low opinion of Americans in general and Vinegar Joe Stilwell in particular, a rueful fondness for mules and Chiang Kai-Shek's lot (his politics were just a tad left of the latters', but when someone's busy digging you out of the brown stuff, it doesn't do to quibble...) and the firm opinion that anywhere rich in leeches, scorpions and snakes was ideal for the Japanese. All of them. And most of the British officer "class", too, if room could be found.
One of his few photos - one thing I did inherit from him was an inability to label pictures - to be labelled, bore the inscription "Christmas 1946" and the name of an army camp, so he wasn't exactly rushed home.
Actually, his old army book is upstairs somewhere - does anyone know if (and how) I can trace what he actually got up to from his number?
I don't know the details, he wasn't talkative about it.
He was a pit-head electrician, a reserved occupation, but after Coventry, decided he had to do something about ze Germans. So the silly b.s sent him off to Burma... Yorkshire regiment, then REME and signals, and secondment to the Cameron Highlanders with whom he was bundled off up (or down?) the Irrawady. Whether a Chindit "proper" (whatever that may be), I don't know. He came out at six stone something, having been scalded by an overturned billy-can, and caught two types of malaria (are there two? Recurrent and summat else?), with a low opinion of Americans in general and Vinegar Joe Stilwell in particular, a rueful fondness for mules and Chiang Kai-Shek's lot (his politics were just a tad left of the latters', but when someone's busy digging you out of the brown stuff, it doesn't do to quibble...) and the firm opinion that anywhere rich in leeches, scorpions and snakes was ideal for the Japanese. All of them. And most of the British officer "class", too, if room could be found.
One of his few photos - one thing I did inherit from him was an inability to label pictures - to be labelled, bore the inscription "Christmas 1946" and the name of an army camp, so he wasn't exactly rushed home.
Actually, his old army book is upstairs somewhere - does anyone know if (and how) I can trace what he actually got up to from his number?
Try a throwing stick under an umbrella. No, DON'T!!! Maggots were emerging from my collar to my socks for the whole day.
Got the hat - and scissors just in case!then wear a wide-brimmed hat, pulled down as firm as poss. without actually needing eye-holes cutting in the front.