Ornithology

Having climbed the tree with my field glasses I leaned forward in an attempt to get a better view...unfortunately I fell and became trapped by my pith helmet between two branches. With great presence of mind I undid my chinstrap and fell 15 feet to the jungle floor. Luckily I landed on one of the coolies who ran away screaming, apparently he thought I had been sent from the skies to punish him. After that, I gave up ornithology and resorted to shooting specimens and inspecting them at a later date.

News from afar

Of course it was easy to keep abreast of affairs back home as the railways ensured that we recieved mail and newspapers within days, the real problem lay in finding someone to read them to me over dinner, this was particularly problematic at dinner parties when the reader would have to whisper in my ear whilst seated behind me. Old Shackerly Bennet from the Royal Artillery had his batman shout the news to him as he was as deaf as a post!!

The Colonel

Jawindi

Jawindi during the monsoon season can be a ghastly unforgiving place with mosquitoes the size of a mans hand. The relentless heat and humidity can turn a human being into gibbering wreck in a very short space of time...

So being asked by my former head prefect to play 'hide the sausage' did nothing to improve my morale......

The Major

The Frog

We learnt from the local tribesmen that certain frogs could cause delirium, especially when licked.
I volunteered one of the porters and he died in seconds, albeit in a delirious state....

The Colonel

Mess Life

The Colonel had invited the Padre and I over to the officers mess for one or two glasses of gin of the pink variety. As my promotion was long over due I thought it best to take up the offer......another reason of course was that if I didn't go the Colonel would class it as 'desertion' and I would be summarily shot.

On arrival we entered into a strange world that only British Army officers and.........chaps who have been to boarding/private school would understand. The Colonel who as usual was holding court with some of the chaps from Mosquito Squadron, beckoned me over to his table and insisted I drink a strange concoction his batman had dreamt up whilst recovering from a particularly nasty bout of malaria.
As I raised the pith helmet to my lips I knew it was going to be a long night..............

The Major

Letters to the Colonel

Any news is good news and better than none at all....except for news from the Northern Americas which often arrives with crates of animal furs, smelling of fish. I have been told that letters are good for morale, especially those from my wife and, on occassion, those from other peoples wives.
I would therefore like to hear from anyone who has any 'pressing matters' they would like to share with either the Major or myself. Write to this address and we will respond in a timely fashion.

The Colonel

Memories

This is me aged 18, the week after I left boarding school.......hence the faraway look......the uniform is splendid however......it is amazing what you can do with a service blanket.....

Me again as a young Subaltern posted to a small outpost near Jawindi.......the only thing that had changed was the bleaching of my uniform in the hot sun......the faraway look persisted.......as the senior prefect from my old dorm had been posted there too......

Martial Arts

Having mastered the basics of Kung Fu I knew what the fellow was about, his bowing with both hands clasped did not fool me. I immediately set about him delivering several swift kicks to his groin and a chop to the neck whilst screaming 'Hiyah' as I had been taught.
Satisfied that I had incapacitated the fellow I left for refreshments feeling very happy with myself.
The British High Commission did not share my feelings and I was ordered to apologise to the head monk of the Buddhist monastry whom I had assaulted.

The Colonel

Return from Egypt

As was customary in the day I returned home with a Mummy under one arm and a dried crocodile under the other, unfortunately I also had a rather nasty rash....

Old Peachy

Old Peachy was very drunk he threw his porter off a bridge. Typical peachy that....
Peachy shot the cha wallah by mistake, his wife however was intentional after he caught her with Old Biffo from the Lanciers.
He was eventually trampled by an elephant, we couldn't find a stretcher wide enougth for his body I heard they posted him home to blighty.

The Colonel

Good old Jonty

Jonty wore an orthopedic shoe.
Only the one, but he soon grew tired of walking round in circles.
At boarding school he showed me how to ride a bycycle....without a saddle.....
the bounder...........I also used to warm the toilet seat for him

News of the Empire

I rode for several days with the good news in hand as I had decided to send the message via the electric telephone, holding the device in my hand I spoke into the mouthpiece and held the other appendage to my ear, I spoke for several minutes, to myself actually as I had not cranked the handle...I eventually got through only to have the Majors batman inform me that he was out to tea....the bastard.

The Colonel

The Kasbah

I awoke aboard a Sopwith Camel wearing only a loincloth with a splitting headache and sore backside, some of the groundcrew detachment looking at me as though I had two heads...it wasn't until later in the bath that I realised in fact I indeed did have two heads....but not in the biblical sense.....having finished all the gin we decided to abandon the airfield and made off on foot.
Despite being extremely drunk I managed to navigate the dead sea on foot and arrived with the most fearsome callouses.
One man drowned and another was left with a severe limp.
On entering the port city of Aqaba...I was accosted by a chap called Mohammed who introduced me to a full bosomed bellydancer called...Mohammed...I began to smell a rat.
They had the same eyes you see....and big hands...
Which brings me to the subject of crocodiles in bottles a variation on the ship, you see the crocodile is introduced to the bottle at a very young age and fed on a diet of weevils and hard tack biscuits.
How can someone with such big hands perform this 'tour de force'? I wondered out loud, unfortunately he took this last comment to heart.
I soon made off across the kasbah throwing women and children in behind me.....Mohammed hot on my heels wielding a rather nasty looking Scimitar
I managed to evade capture by diguising myself as hubly bubly man and spent the next few hours in a state of bilissful unawareness thanks to the contents of a rather large Hookah pipe
Slightly the worse for wear I was uncovered by Mohammed and his growing entourage, I was soon cornered and resorted to my school days going at them with everything the Marquis of Queensbury had to offer and some other tricks that I learnt in the dorm after hours
It took me three weeks at a back street surgeons place in the souq to remove the Hookah pipe from a rather embarrasing place...

The Charge of the Touareg

We peered over the walls of the battlements of the secluded desert fortress only to be faced with hundreds of Touareg warriors, some dressed in their traditonal dark blue robes, all mounted on camels and looking rather annoyed. Amongst them was the father of the girl whom I had met several nights before in the town of Adrar, and I must say I thought he looked particularly miffed. One should learn to keep ones daughters locked away.

The Colonel

Golf..

Having woke up with a 'cloudy' head the morning after the Colonel's cocktail party during which one of the guests was 'grazed' during a knife throwing incident. I thought that I would clear my head by attempting a game of the new sport being played back in Blighty...golf.
I got the men to work clearing thick Jungle......unfortunately work had to be curtailed after one of the men was stung on the buttock by a hornet the size of a small child.....his screaming could be heard in the centre of Rangoon.....

The Witch Doctor

Having lost at Backgammon for the third consecutive evening, I assumed the worst and thought there may be some truth in the Witch Doctors curse. The following morning I took destiny into my own hands and thought to hell with it! The minute he appearred outisde the camp I opened fire in his general direction. This had the desired effect as he ran away screaming . Feeling much better about my predicament, I awaited that evenings Backgammon with great impatience only to lose once again

The Secret Mission

Once clear of the monsoon season, I was asked by the Colonel to accompany him on a top secret mission of the highest importance. I jumped at the chance, knowing I needed the exercise to clear a particularly bad attack of gout which had made both my toes look like eight ounce boxing gloves and rendered me with a gait similar to that of some ghastly zombie.
The Colonel briefed the party that the "Mission" would take one month and would be completed on horseback (The Colonel and I), on foot(everyone else) and that the stores would be carried by mule and thirty five porters (mainly porters). When asked about the mission itself, the Colonel became evasive and shrugged off questions in a brusque manner, so nothing more was said by anyone as we all now knew that the "Mission" must be of a highly sensitive nature.
After many days of struggling through primary jungle and the loss of six porters in an unfortunate tree felling incident, we arrived at the top of a mountain shrouded in mist.
On the direction of the Colonel the men set about making camp with their usual gusto taking two days to ensure the marquee's where correctly erected and the mahogany drinks cabinet( which was 24 hours behind due to the death of the mule that was carrying it) was in place and fully stocked.

At dawn I was awoken by the Colonel who was in a rather agitated state, he informed me that the day of the "mission" had arrived, however, he had forgotten the most important piece of equipment.
So, after covering eighty miles through dense jungle with the loss of six porters, one mule, eleven cases of severe dysentry and a rash not yet identified in any medical journal the "mission" the Colonel informed me was in fact a picture of the sunrise over the "Pradesh Pachmarhi" and he had forgotten the blasted camera!
On the way back we thought it best not to mention it to the men who where by now somewhat "tetchy" and had lost not only several of their collegues but several stones in body weight.
On arrival back at Base camp the Colonel thanked what was left of the men, deemed the "Mission" a rip roaring success because the gin had lasted and besides, my gout had completely gone!


The Major

Face Him Like a Briton

I dismounted from the elephant and proceeded on foot, finally coming to the edge of a small waterfall. It was there that I saw him, a majestic beast, the king of the jungle, a fully grown adult male tiger.

I slowly raised my rifle as he turned to face me. I pulled the trigger but only heard a faint popping sound.
Hearing this, the tiger, squatted down, ready to pounce.

I faced him like a Briton and with great presence of mind I grabbed one of the porters and thrust him towards the tiger, enabling me to make good my escape.

Fortunately the lucky fellow survived having climbed a nearby tree, where he remained for seven days. Upon his return to our camp we congratulated him but as I did not want to encourage complacency I had the paymaster dock him seven days wages.

The Colonel

The Pavilion Roof

...wrapped in his own mosquito net he spun around the room like some ghastly dervish before exiting via the balcony overlooking the botanical gardens. Apparently he landed on the roof of the pavilion where he could be seen flapping around like a fish for several hours. I had already retired to my quarters by this time but on the following morning the battalions physician commented on the matter, stating that he had never seen such a bad case of sleepwalking in his entire career. In light of this and the considerable cost of the repairs to the pavilion roof, once the chap was able to walk again, I had him and his men assigned to some godforsaken outpost in Peshawar.

The Colonel

The hunting trip

“August 1st 1857 Arrived at our camping ground about a mile beyond the village of Shawpore and pitched tents in a mangoe tope. We here found a planter’s bungalow, which had been partially looted by budmarshes, but as they had left a few cases of preserved meat, pickled salmon etc… we made the house headquarters and made a good breakfast, thanks to the poor planter. Having a pucka house over one’s head I slept well until the first bugle….
I awoke with a start to find the Colonel in a state of undress wandering around the position mumbling to himself.......turns out that the salmon we had liberated the evening before wasn't as pickled as first thought....he was violently ill from both ends for many days....

The Major

The Boy King

despite his young age, they loved him like a king, that was until the major shot the poor fellow, entirely by mistake of course, although I must say it was an excellent shot, right between the eyes. Fortunately for us he fell off the cliff and the villagers were none the wiser, believing that he had ascended to heaven and not, as the case was, the victim of one of her majesties finest shots.

The Colonel

The road to Lhasa

...having extricated myself from the wreckage I proceeded on foot to Lhasa wearing only a life jacket and a sheepskin coat which left my knees rather exposed.

The Colonel

Diary Extract ....

Killed a muskdeer in the early morning: saw some female Ibex with young feeding among the rocks, but of course did not follow them, went up a tremendous height, but saw nothing more; in coming down fell in with a ‘nomade’ encampment, consisting of 2,000 sheep, some ponies, 5 or 6 of the finest limbed men I ever saw, 2 women (very pretty) & a lot of boys – most hospitable they were….”

The Major.

The Honey Trap

Having set up camp at the foot of a large buttress tree I decided to climb it in order to gain a better view of the camp and hopefully retrieve some eggs of which the major was so fond, apart from the time he ate a bad one and remained locked in the khazi for a full 48 hours. Halfway up I came to a large hole in the trunk, my curiosity getting the better of me I inserted my head. Seeing nothing I tried to pull my head out, unfortunately my blasted pith helmet became jammed, pulling harder I lost my footing and ended up hanging 30 foot up in the canopy by my chinstrap and beset all on sides by angry bees.

The Colonel

The Congo Wager

We rested for several months in Brazzaville on the banks of the great Congo river, we would often erect the marquee and sit of an evening observing the great swirling muddy torrent as it headed towards one of the many waterfalls, carrying with it large lumps of grassy earth upon which would be stranded some unfortunate local.
After a few gins the major and I would sit and wager on which ones would make it past the waterfall.
The game however was short lived as I caught the major cheating after I saw the same local johnny go past twice. The major, who is an absolute bounder, was paying them.
The afternoon was not a complete loss as, fortunately, the last man to float past never made it beyond the waterfall and I won my wager.

The Colonel

The raft disaster

I recall an unfortunate incident that occurred in the Congo.

Having spent several days waiting for supplies on the bank of a large tributary of the Congo, they finally arrived on the opposite shore and were then placed upon the raft and shipped across to us, however, halfway across, the blasted raft struck a rock and then proceeded to fall apart. The contents of the raft and the local porters were all pitched into the raging muddy torrent and swept away.
There was much ado on the banks, not least around my pavilion, as some of the locals attempted to use the guide ropes for the rescue effort, I flatly refused as I had no wish of getting sunburn again. Instead the Major immediately organised a search party to go down river and pick up any survivors that the crocodiles had not eaten.
This was a great personal tragedy, as I lost all four porters and more importantly our whole consignement of gin for that month.
The rest of the day was spent shooting monkeys out of the jungle canopy as they had a rather nasty habit of pelting the Major with nuts.

The Colonel