Warfare
by Peter
Wakefield Kitcher
Well, howdy!
No problem. Pull up a chair. There’s nobody
sitting here. It’s quite full tonight, isn’t
it? Hey Joe can you get me another one and one
for my friend here. What would you like?
You been here before? Where you from? Where?
England? I was in England during the war. I was
with the 51st Infantry. We got to England a
couple of months before D-Day. We had a great
time. I’d like to get back there sometime. I
suppose everything’s changed now. Yeah. Was
you in the army? Where was you then? No, on D-Day.
Folkestone! I was in Folkestone just before we
went into France. Hey that’s a coincidence.
Fancy you being in Folkestone the same time as me.
You’ve got to have another drink on me. Hey
Joe, get my friend here another of the same and
another one for me while you’re at it.
I’ll tell you something that happened in
Folkestone then. I haven’t told anybody
about this for years. We always had a great laugh
about it. Would you like another drink? Oh, you’ve
got one. Now where was I?
We was in a
camp just out of Folkestone and we used to go
there and have a few drinks and a laugh but this
one night we was in a bar up the hill outside
Folkestone. What did you call them? Oh, yeah, a
pub. Well we went in this pub on the hill outside
Folkestone. There were about six of us and we had
a few drinks and in walks some fellows all in
blue and they were in your Air Force. They didn’t
fly planes or anything, I forget what they were
but they were Air Force. Then they had a few
drinks and they bought a beer for us and we
bought a beer for them and we had a good laugh
and one of them kept on telling jokes and we all
had a good time and then this man called out
“Time Gentlemen” and that always made
us laugh ‘cause nobody else called us “gentlemen”.
Anyway, we all got up and went out. My friend
Johnny could hardly stand but we helped him up
and it was a lovely evening and we sat outside
the pub for a while chatting and laughing. Then
these Air Force fellers said they had to go. Then
someone said, “What are all those big white
round stones doing by the side of the road there?”
and one of the Air Force fellers said they were
there to stop German tanks coming up the hill
from Germany and then someone else said how could
they stop a tank if they were by the side of the
road and we all laughed like crazy and then he
said that someone had to put them in the road
before the tanks came up the hill and then I said
why don’t we put them in the road now before
they do try to come up the hill. It was all crazy,
I can tell you.
I tell you there weren’t any cars around
there at this time so that wasn’t a problem.
And then we managed to roll one of these stones
into the road and we pushed it and it rolled down
the hill but then it wobbled off and went into a
field. So we managed to get another one and this
one rolled down the hill and went into the side
of a shop and by this time we were laughing so
much we couldn’t roll any more. I think we
did more damage than the Germans who didn’t
come. But we never heard any more about it and we
never told anyone about it.
Then we went back to camp and the Air Force
fellers went off. I’ve often wondered
whatever happened to them. Later we went into
France and a lot of my friends were killed but I’ll
always remember that night.
What do you say we have another drink?
|
