Originally Posted by
Mossdog
Tenuous connection to fell running, but it is Cumbrian related and anyway I couldn't find another general book thread in the search bar..
Just been reading...Quartered Safe Out Here: A Recollection of the War in Burma
This is a military memoir of World War II by George MacDonald Fraser, the author of The Flashman Papers series of novels, and this book was first published in 1993.
I found it full of fascinating, uplifting, humorous and thoughtful recollections of a private soldier, then aged 19 years old from Carlisle, in the Border Regiment of the 14th Army (the forgotten army).
Here's a taste, as it won't suit everybody, particularly those of 21 Century sensibilities. But, if you love Cumbrian humour and griping jests, it's one not to miss. I'd post some trigger warnings, for the overly sensitive, but that would be to employ an audacious pun. Needless to say, but I'll say it anyway, I can't imagine it being included on the BBC's R4's A Good Read.
"Then suddenly we were through, and the shelling stopped as abruptly as it had begun. Hutton had been right: the closer we got, the better. Only a few hundred yards of broken ground separated us from the line of ruined buildings beyond which the gradual slope began, and the Japanese guns, on the reverse slope, must already be at maximum depression—in other words, they couldn't shoot low enough to hit us. Then there was small arms firing to the right, and we were ordered to take up firing positions in a cluster of low hillocks; I believe, but am not certain, that the right-hand company had hit bunkers, and our advance checked while they were cleared. Anyway, we were halted long enough for an incident which I blush to record, because it was too damned silly for words, but since I am writing a faithful record I can't very well omit it.
We were lying among the hillocks, watching our front and listening to the firing on the flank and the occasional whit! of a shot overhead, cursing the blazing heat and lamenting that we had no chaggles with us, when Grandarse asked Wattie for a drink from his bottle, a request answered in that comradely spirit for which Nine Section was celebrated.
“W'at's wrang wi' thi own fookin' bottle?”
“It's roond back on us, ye gormless Egremont twat!
It's lyin' atop me bloody arse, that's w'at's wrang wid it!” “Well, oonfasten the bloody thing!”
“Look, bollock-brain, if Ah oondoo the bloody straps Ah'll nivver git them doon oop again!” Grandarse, being portly, might well have had difficulty re-threading the two straps from which his bottle hung below the
small of his back. “Ye want us runnin' at bloody Japs wid me bundook* in one hand an' me bottle in t'other?”
“Awreet—Ah'll oondoo it for thee mesel'. Then we'll baith git a drink— oot o' thy bottle!”
“Ye miserable sod, w'at difference does it mek w'ee's bottle we soop frae?”
“That's w'at Ah'm sayin'! W'at fer should we use my bottle ’stead o' thine? Y'are always on the scroonge, you! Guzzlin' big-bellied git!”
“Reet!” roared Grandarse. “Stick yer effin' bottle oop yer goonga, an' Ah hope it gi'es thee piles!”
“Ah, give ower, ye bloody bairns!” snapped Forster. “There's a fookin' well ower theer, wid watter in't. Use that, an' stop natterin', an' keep thi bottle till efter.”
This sounded sensible, since water was liable to be precious by the end of the day, and the well was in plain view just outside our position, a circular mud wall enclosing the well-head. Grandarse, however, was hygiene conscious.
“It'll be full o' shit, like that ’un we used last week, an' foond there wez twa deid Japs in't. Bloated tae boogery, they were.”
“Weel, ye took no ’arm!” said Forster. “The purification pills does the trick. Ye've got toons o' the bloody things!”
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