Do the Birds Still Sing in Hell? Read Online Free PDF Page B

any companions who would listen what they were going to do to the Germans when the action started. Most just sat and stared into space. Horace thought of his family and in particular, his twin brother.
    Horace made the most of another 48-hour pass and Eva returned to her village rather pleasantly sore between the legs.‘Don’t you think of anything else, Horace Greasley?’ she’d asked as they’d exchanged a tender kiss in a deserted barn about two miles from the camp while Horace worked his fingers into her knickers.
    Horace thought about her question and when he came to analyse it, thought it rather stupid. Of course he thought about other things. It just so happened that the touch and the taste of Eva Bell’s beautiful young body occupied his brain most waking hours. Come to think of it, he dreamed about it quite a lot too. His sexual appetite was insatiable, and Eva’s matched his. Although he wasn’t to know it just yet, it was a sexual craving that would place him under an almost weekly death sentence in the years ahead.
    Rather disappointingly for Horace, the 2nd/5th Battalion Leicesters didn’t head for the war immediately. September, October, November and most of December was spent at the barracks practising drill, polishing boots, performing mundane tasks around the camp, listening to the BBC World Service and making an occasional visit to the rifle range. It was as if the Army didn’t have anything for them to do.
    Suddenly, at noon on 23 December 1939, all leave was officially cancelled. A letter had been sent to the next of kin. They were due to leave for France on Boxing Day. Horace was devastated. He was due to leave for home that evening and spend Christmas Day – his birthday – with his family. Jesus Christ, he thought, surely a couple of days wouldn’t have made any difference to the war? Didn’t these colonels and politicians realise how important this day was to people? He imagined his mother sitting at the kitchen table with the letter, the tears streaming down her face. Horace felt bitter and angry.
    He awoke at five minutes to six on Christmas morning. He had no intention of going AWOL – it just sort of happened.He took a trip to the toilet, completed his morning ablutions in double quick time, and passed his sleeping comrades in the huge dormitory. Some snored, or let loose an occasional fart on account of the copious amounts of beer they’d consumed the night before at a hastily arranged Christmas party. He walked through the billet in darkness and wondered how many of these young men would ever return to the shores of England. How many would die, how many would end up languishing in a prisoner of war camp, how many would be maimed or crippled? He would be fine, of course; the thought that he might not make it back home never even crossed his mind. It would never happen to Joseph Horace Greasley.
    He changed into his combats, picked up his coat and fastened it up to the collar. The bitterly cold December morning air took his breath away when he stepped outside. The ground was frozen; a thick white rind of frost covered the grass, the windscreens of vehicles were frozen solid. A thin plume of smoke drifted from the chimney of the gatehouse as he walked over towards it. John Gilbert and Charlie Jackson had been on duty that evening; the poor bastards had missed out on the Christmas party. Horace would tell them all about it over a hot cup of tea.
    But John Gilbert and Charlie Jackson were fast asleep. One of the boys had sneaked a bottle of whisky over to them around midnight, and they had been greedy.
    Horace ducked under the barrier and began walking home.
    Just over an hour into the walk the sun made an appearance and the perspiration started building on Horace’s back as he was bathed in a golden light. The birds that hadn’t flown south for the winter chimed out their sweet dawn chorus and as Horace climbed a five bar gate four miles from the camp he saw his first robin. It sat