How I Won the War Read Online Free PDF Page B

honey-coloured puttees, was the ultimate authority on all things Pathan and advised us every Wednesday how hostilities were conducted on the Northwest Frontier.
    “Never underrate the Pathan,” he would stress. “Damned wily chap, Johnny Pathan. When you’re under canvas always keep the rifles chained to the tent pole. Otherwise, he’ll have ’em. Strip himself mother-naked, greased all over and slippery as an eel, he’ll slide under the brailings like a snake. And if he can’t get a rifle, he’ll take the bolt. Wonderful craftsmen, the Pathan. Make a barrel and stock as well as anybody in Brummagem, but he can’t make a bolt. You can’t temper steel on a cow-dung fire, can you? So always take the bolt out, lock ’em in a box and chain that to the pole too…. Any questions, so far?”
    I had always made a point of asking at least one question at every lecture. It showed the instructor that you were keen on the ball.
    “Please, sir,” I said, “have the Pathans gone over to Hitler?”
    “No, they haven’t. Too damned wily for that.”
    “Then shall we be fighting them in this war, sir?”
    “Of course you will, lad. British Army’s always been fighting the Pathans.”
    “What about, sir?”
    “What about? … Well … about all sorts of things. Always trouble up on the Northwest Frontier. Army’s job tofight, my boy, not keeping asking why, why, why all the blasted time.”
    “I’m sorry, sir. I just wondered why it was always the Pathans.”
    “Because, my lad, the Pathans are just like you are. Damned troublemakers. What’s your name?”
    He wrote my name in his little black book, muttering through his moustache that there were some right sow’s ears in this latest lot. I had plainly slipped one rung down the R. T. U. ladder and I’m afraid that a later misunderstanding during Chemical Warfare brought further descent.
    Sergeant Hoop, the Anti-Gas Instructor, suffered, unfortunately , from educational insecurity. He feared the superior intellects of the dons, barristers, and public school wanderers in his audience and was ever suspicious that they were trying to come it over him.
    “What we are going on with now,” he said from his platform, one drowsy afternoon, “is the use and handling of Anti-Gas Carpet. Now one roll of anti-gas carpet is proper to be held in each company stores. Anti-gas carpet is made of a number of laminated layers of heavy gauge paper specially coated with a chemical preparation which renders it resistant to liquid mustard gas. Anti-gas carpet is strong enough to support on normal ground the weight of troops in Full Service Marching Order. On encountering an area of liquid mustard gas advancing infantry should be given the command ‘Halt!’ and the anti-gas carpet should immediately be brought up. The standard roll of carpet is four feet six inches wide and twenty-five yards long. It should be laid on the ground six feet from the contaminated area and the securing tapes released. Two men should then be detailed to advance on the carpet unrolling it before them as they go. When the carpet has been laid completely across the contaminated area the remaining troops should proceed smartly across it. The anti-gas carpet is an expendable item of stores and should be left in situ and no attempt made to salvage any part of it…. Any questions?”
    I stood up.
    “Did you say, Sergeant, there was twenty-five yards in a roll?”
    “That is correct.”
    “What do you do then, if having unrolled the anti-gas carpet and marched all your troops on to it, you find that the area of liquid mustard gas is fifty yards wide?”
    Sergeant Hoop looked at me silently for a long time.
    “What’s your name?” he asked at last.
    “Goodbody, Sergeant.”
    “Mr. Goodbody,” he said precisely. “You want bull-f——ing.”
    He wrote my name in his little black book, too, and went straight on with “Decontamination of Motorcycles.” I have never to this day had a proper answer to my