My blog-friend, 'Clairwil', is slightly out of sorts so here is another barrack-room tale to amuse her.
Many years ago my lot were sent to Greece for an exercise and we were put in a tented camp by the sea. This huge 'Tent City' had been erected by the advance party who were quickly pestered by swarms of little boys selling lemonade and soft drinks. They shouted their wares in high pitched voices but unfortunately none of them spoke English so the nice lads from the advanced party taught them that the English for "I sell lemonade" was "Fuck the RSM" which they then spent the next month hollering round the camp at the top of their piercing voices.
It so happened that during our stay there it was the anniversary of the battle of Arnhem, and so the Brass arranged a drumhead service for the entire Airborne brigade in an ancient Greek amphi-theatre cut into the hillside opposite our camp. (A drumhead service is one that takes place 'in the field' with the regimental drums piled in the centre to form a sort of alter.) So we were all marched in and sat down, with the officers sitting at the front. It was hot and soon the usual 'yadda-yadda' started up as hundreds of men chattered to pass the time until the service started. But through this background hubbub, one voice with a certain pitch cut through the noise, so that every few minutes I heard, "Fookin' 'ell, oo we waitin' for?", and then, "Fookin' 'ell, 'e moost be fookin' important keepin' all those fookin' officers waiting!" and then "Fookin' 'ell, oo ever 'e is, 'e's kept oos 'ere for 20 fookin' minutes!", and so on, and so on. Suddenly there was a stir down amongst the officers all of whom suddenly stood up and the theatre went silent. From stage left, as it were, there then entered an extraordinary figure who later turned out to have been the local Greek Orthodox Bishop of Volos. A big man dressed in a magnificent jewelled robe with a tall mitre on his head, the robe so long and heavy that two flunkies carried the train, he had an enormous beard down to his stomach and under one arm he held a massive bible and in the other hand a jewell-encrusted shepherd's crook. As he made his slow, magisterial progress across the stage, the voice from the back piped up in awed tones, "Fookin' 'ell - it's Moses!"
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