BY ROGER SMITH
Extracts from the book:
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Flies and worse in the Western Desert
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A peculiar addiction to Irish lyrics
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Burying the dead Tebaga Gap
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British Army at a minefield near Sfax,
Tunisia
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The countryside near Sousse, Tunisia
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The Padre's tools of trade
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A minefield near Takrouna, Tunisia
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Kelly in Cairo
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Housekeeping in a two-man bivvy in the
rain Sangro, Italy
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Falling asleep on duty Sangro
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Kelly dies at
the Sangro River
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Civilians caught in the frontline
Castel Frantano, Italy
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Getting sadness off your chest
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Giant drunken zooming fireflies
Alife, Italy
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Christmas 1943
back from the front
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Maori Battalion,
Trocchio, Italy
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Fear, and fear of fear Cassino,
Italy
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A break from Cassino
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All in a days work in the Cassino
rubble
·
There for your
mate at the finish Terelle, Italy
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Then Kelly turned up again. I had forgotten about him and thought that he must have
gone home, but not Kelly. He fled to Cairo the day before the furlough draft left, and for
the past month hed been living with a Greek girl in a house boat on the Nile. He had
run out of money, had tried to rob a bar, been caught by the provosts after a two-hour
running fight, and was now hauled before the CO to face a charge of violence and being
AWOL.
Hank and I were called for escort duty when he went up for sentence, and we went through
the usual routine of:
Left turn!
Right turn!
Left turn!
As you were!
Left turn!
Quick march! Left, right, left, right!
Halt!
Right turn!
Kelly collected twenty-one days in the field punishment centre, and I just had time to
whisper as we went left, right, left righting out again:
Was she worth it, you sinner?
Beauty, boy, beauty, Kelly replied with a horribly reminiscent leer of lust. |
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