Age-Net

We'd been out on a raid, & was coming back along the Firth of Forth had on our working khaki, & our faces covered with burnt cork, bet we looked a mess. I had caught a bit of shrapnel right on my conk, & it didn't alf hurt. We got as far as South Queensferry, & anchored out in mid streamwere several warships, destroyers & aircraft carriers. Suddenly the engine in our landing craft decided to blow up, all we could do was drift.

We passed alongside a battlewagon standing there in all its glory, polished as if to shine in the dark, & there on the foredeck stood the officer of the day all polished & gleaming. We shouted up at him (two mile above our heads) 'oi Charlie', send us down a bucket of water. He looked over the rails, his nose turning up, & in his best Cambridge accent shouted 'get that bloody heap away from my ship.' Gee thanks, nothing like knowing who ones friends were. Anyways we filled up our radiator (I'll not tell you how) & pulled over to our combined ops base in South Queensferry.

After we landed, the sick bay tiffy said that he couldn't get the shrapnel out of my nose & id have to go to Edinburgh Castle & see the doc. He kindly gave me a towel to put over my nose & then I had to catch a bus into Edinburgh as there were no ambulances available & anyway I was walking wounded. In the R.A.M.C.s Majors waiting room I was sitting talking to the sick bay tiffy, when all of a sudden in walked a squaddy & the whole room lit up with his presence. It was a Sergeant Major & with his stick under his arm he rapidly walked up & down the room looking well groomed, polished & fit as a fiddle.

He was called straight into the doc's surgery, (obviously, I was not very important cos I was only bleeding a bit & anyway I had my blood red towel,) I said to the tiffy, doesn't look as if there's much wrong with him? Oh said the tiffy, 'he's got syph', 'can you cure him then', 'no' said the tiffy, 'if we gave him too many drugs we'd kill him, so all we can do is keep it in check.' 'What a personality he's got though' said I, 'the whole room lights up in his presence.' 'Yes said the tiffy the syph does that.'