In Our Search For The Truth
Because it's out there, and also in here, and often both combined, to concoct a tortured analogy.
Today we are going to be doing a bit of myth-busting, legend verification and artwork appreciation, all rolled into one package as Conrad reviews bits of 'Charley's War', one of my trophies from BOVINGTON TANK MUSEUM. Art!
Charley Bourne, bless his working class boots, isn't very bright and is barely literate, as seen in the letters he sends back home to his family. He is, on the other hand, brave, stout-hearted and a good comrade to his fellow soldiers.
Let us deal with that title first. Charley, like a lot of other youths in the early years of the First Unpleasantness, lied about his age on enlistment, claiming to be 18 when he was only 16 and thus ineligible for enlistment. By the time he reached the trenches as one of the 'K' (for 'Kitchener') divisions at least a year would have passed, so - still underage. Art!
'The morning hate! Get under cover, everyone!'
The 'morning hate' was when Teuton gunners, as regular as clockwork, would bombard the enemy trenches, in this case, those of Charley's platoon. Note the empty food tins thrown over the parapet at lower port, which was a quick and easy way to dispose of them, but which drew flies and rats and hence disease. Note the mix of steel 'screw piquets' and wooden stakes holding up the barbed wire in front of the trenches, and the enormous number of sandbags in use. Art!
What is this sinister apparition, whom resembles a medieval knight with their wearing extensive armour? Well, this is Pat Mills and Joe Colquhoun getting the details exactly right, because Teuton snipers were issued with body armour and face shields as protection when they went about their business. Art!
The Teuton 'stahlhelm' had two attachment lugs on either side to allow the face shield to be retained and kept in place. Art!
In another throwback to medieval warfare, here we see Charley's platoon readying themselves for a trench raid to capture prisoners, and these are all weapons that the Tommies used; a sharpened spade for hacking or slashing, knobkerries and spiked clubs. These are weapons for melée warfare in the close confines of a trench, where a rifle with bayonet attached would be very unwieldy. Art!
As the text is a little obscure, allow me to explicate: "Ach, you make me sick, Kurt. The rest of us fight for the Fatherland - but we do not take pleasure in death like you do."
To which Kurt replies: "Bah! You Saxons are weak but we Prussians are strong!"
This is not mere scripted posturing: the Prussians were seen by Tommy Atkins as the worst kind of Teuton, fighting dirty and taking satisfaction in doing so; the Bavarians, as I have said before, were tough lads up for a scrap, but decent with it. Next were the Wurtemburgers, and the Saxons were acknowledged as the Teuton troops with the least enthusiasm for the war. Art!
One of the reasons CW is so highly-regarded: the soldiers here are not mere ciphers who cheerily go forward to almost certain death, they suffer fear, panic and other valid reactions to being subject to gas, snipers, machine guns, mortars and artillery.
What Lucky is trying to do here is inflict an injury ('Self-Inflicted Wound') on himself so serious that he'll be sent back to England (a.k.a. 'Blighty') for medical treatment - thus the term 'a Blighty wound'. The Teutons had their own version - a 'Heimatschutz' or 'Hometown shot'.
ANYWAY Lucky is taking a novel method of inflicting same, which Your Humble Scribe had never heard of before but which is entirely plausible. You see, if you shoot yourself at point-blank range, the discharge will leave cordite burns on your uniform, and thus any Medical Orderly or Officer would instantly recognise a SIW. The sandbag will be what takes the brunt of the burns, not Lucky's uniform. On the other hand, it's quite possible that the round will deflect inside the sandbag, coming out who knows where. Art!
If you were found out this armband is what you had to wear during your very long prison sentence.
I think that's enough of Charley for today. Rest assured we will come back to him. I bet you can hardly wait.
More Misery Mallets Mordorvia
Yes, we are back to more of my annotations from 'Joe Blogs' vlog about the corporate repercussions in Ruffia to date, as the Special Idiotic Operation's consequences catch up with the economy and employers. Art!
GAZ truck
GAZ: Nothing to do with the camping gas retailer, which is French if I recall correctly. No, this is the Ruffian vehicle manufacturer, which makes vans, buses and light trucks. They have 20,000 employees, whom went to a 4-day working week in August, then back to a 5-day working week and then back to the 4-day working week. No, they are not paid for the day they have off, so they are being docked 20% of their wages. Demand in the civilian market has dropped, partly due to sanctioned components reducing numbers built and an emphasis on supplying the military sector. Oops.
Nothing Doing
Whilst I have a sad face, wallet smirks in triumph. I have just spent several minutes putting different search terms into 'Abebooks' to see if "Enshrined in Stone: 1st Battalion The Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry in the Second World War"
is available, and -
Nothing.
 |
| One day, wallet, one day |
Well Well What Do You Know
Conrad is old enough to have seen 'The Terminator' in it's first run at the cinema all the way back in 1984. One of the more startling moments is when a Terminator infiltrates into one of the resistance's underground refuges and proceeds to shoot the living daylights out of every Hom. Sap. visible. Art!
Don't worry, the doggos survive. Kyle Reese, the resistance volunteer who ends up in 1984, must have survived as well, since he gets to go back in time, whoopee.
Who is this Terminator? None other than Arnold Schwarzenegger's best friend, the Italian bodybuilder Franco Columbu. There is no question but that Arnie got him this gig, which is fair enough; as a Terminator he doesn't have to emote, just look like a gigantic slab of beef over a metal endoskeleton. Art!
The two rapscallions
Arnie tells an hilarious tale of when they were bodybuilding together. There was absolutely NO money in the bodybuilding business, so they went into the bricklaying business instead. Franco would come up with outrageous estimate for a job, at which Arnie would argue with him, then go away and fill a notepad page full of scribbled maths. He would then quote an extremely precise and much lower figure to the client, who usually snapped it up. Except even that price was far higher than the real one. How they laughed! As Arnie said, he was Austrian and Franco was Italian and 'They have been known to argue.'
Progress To Date
I like to keep you informed. Currently on Book Four of 'Saga' and it's been so long since I first read these volumes that it's all quite novel. Art!
It's taking ages to read these, far longer than I anticipated. I'd also forgotten that Brian Vaughan wrote 'Y: The Last Man', which is about - you may be ahead of me here - the last man on Earth. The women are all there, just not the men. Once I've finished reading 'Saga' I shall probably have to read 'Y' again, before packing them both away in the storage boxes I got last weekend. Art!
This is from yesteryon and is already out of date, as the locomotive front is almost complete. That missing edge piece to starboard still hasn't turned up and Conrad, hamfisted klutz that he is, may have dropped it somewhere in the Sekrit Layr. Ooops.
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