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44 pages

English

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A superbly crafted short story anthology of military and safari adventure tales. Authentic, vivid detail from the author's personal worldwide experience. Well-told tales of plucky, voluptuous, dangerous women and tough, cleancut heroes. Full-blooded stirring military and civilian action, wild animal capture, and risky ventures bravely accomplished.

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Adventure (Guyana)

Adventure

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Publié par	eBookPartnership.com
Date de parution	01 mai 2012
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781908886712
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0038€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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Twelve Tense Tales
by Colin Boxall-Hunt
Sale proceeds help the Army Benevolent Fund (The Soldiers Charity) and other service charities.
TWELVE TENSE TALES
Copyright Colin Boxall-Hunt, 2011
Colin Boxall-Hunt has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.
This edition was published by Wartybooks, Publishers, in 2011 Wartybooks, 1 Payne Court, Whipton Village Road, Exeter, Devon, England EX4 8LA www.wartybooksvpweb.co.uk/
ISBN 978-1-908886-71-2
eBook conversion by eBookpartnership.com
Copyright Colin Boxall-Hunt 2011. All rights reserved.
The right of Colin - Boxall-Hunt to be identified as the author of these stories has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988 Colin Boxall-Hunt asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of these stories.
Contents
FOREWORD
PART 1 Military Stories
STORY 1 Many a good tune
STORY 2 Army Adventures Begin
STORY 3 The Farmer s Daughter
STORY 4 A nightmare for the NAAFI Manager
STORY 5 Warty s Oilrig
STORY 6 Warty dispenses justice
PART 2 Safari Exploits
STORY 7 New life in a new land
STORY 8 The First Safari
STORY 9 An Unlikely Hero
STORY 10 Rebecca s Revenge
STORY 11 An Eland Hunt
STORY 12 To capture a rhino
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
FOREWORD
By Major-General C Shortis, CB, CBE, Former Commander,
BMATT, Zimbabwe and Past President, Devon County Army Benevolent Fund.
It gives me great pleasure to introduce this series of short stories by Major Colin Boxall-Hunt. He is an experienced soldier who served his country in many parts of the world until an accident while on duty overseas led to him being invalided from the service. He is now a Fundraiser for the Army Benevolent Fund (The Soldiers Charity), and part of the purchase price of this book will go to help that most worthwhile of causes. The Military stories in Part One are based on Major Boxall-Hunt s earlier experiences as a soldier while he has used the knowledge he gained serving in Zimbabwe with the British Military Advisory and Training Team, where I first me him, to write Part Two Safari Exploits with its wide ranging and realistic detail.
I recommend this anthology as light and enjoyable reading with an authentic background.
Happy Reading! - and thank you for supporting the Army Benevolent Fund, The Soldiers Charity.
Dedication
These short stories are dedicated to all members of Her Majesty s Armed Forces, Regular or Reserve, Active or Retired, whether or not they feature in them (yet!).
Author s Note
Although, strictly speaking, story 5 (Warty s Oilrig) is not a sailing story, it features the same main character as the other six, and has a definite maritime flavour.
In Memoriam
Major D.G.A. Holt, RMP (aka The Black Dwarf ) 1943 - 2010 RIP
PART 1 Military Stories
STORY 1
Many a good tune
The University of Reading justifiably enjoys a very fine academic reputation. In the early 1960s, however, this was not its principal attraction for Officer Cadet Algernon Charles (nicknamed Warty ) Fraser-Pitcairn and his Rhodesian chum, Officer Cadet Jannie Bullet Rhodie-Stansberg, both then undergoing training at the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst, just 20 miles away or so - certainly within striking distance For them, the main focus of their interest was the large resident university student population, half of which were those magical creatures with exciting bumpy sweaters-Girls! To fit and healthy young men immured for long periods in the austere and monastic surroundings of the Academy, the University held the promise of clearly defined, much desired, and just achievable untold pleasure.
Mrs. Beldon, the resident Warden of the Women s Hall of Residence was an outwardly stern and sturdily-built lady, whose bulldog-like countenance and grimly permed hair struck fear into any of the young women - or their erstwhile boyfriends- who transgressed against her appointed role of moral guardian. She was also, somewhat surprisingly, an accomplished classical pianist, whose pride and joy, an ancient but much cherished and well-tuned upright piano, stood in the Hall Common Room, under the window, where the light was best.
Warty and Bullet had been invited to the University Summer Ball, as guests of two young lady students of Warty s acquaintance. Somewhat over -refreshed, the girls had decided that the merrymaking should continue in the more private and congenial venues of their rooms in the Hall of Residence. Thus it was that Warty awoke with a start very late in the evening to realise that there was grave danger of missing the last train back to Sandhurst. Accordingly, he swiftly dressed, stumbled down a dark and unfamiliar corridor, and by great good fortune found the room where Bullet and his own partner for the evening were entwined in mutual admiration.
Quick, Bullet he hissed We ve really got to get a move on. The last train goes in twenty minutes, and if we miss it we ll really be in the soft and smelly with the Company Sergeant-Major! The CSM, an outwardly stern and forbidding although scrupulously fair-minded Coldstream Guards Warrant Officer whose sobriquet of Grim Jim belied his wise and kindly sympathetic attitude to the minor military infringements of those cadets over whom he reigned supreme in matters of discipline would not forgive such extreme lateness.
Followed by a sleepy Bullet, hopping on one leg as he pulled on his trousers, he fled down the stairs to the main door. Horror! It had been locked and barred by the ever vigilant Mrs. Beldon. Back up the stairs to the Common Room, where to their relief they found that they could open the window over the piano, from where it was but a short drop to the lawn below.
So they climbed onto the piano, and leaped into the dark, both landing safely, but to a resounding crashing noise from within the Hall, which brought most of the lights on, and Mrs. Beldon s enraged features leaning out of her window, shaking her muscular fist at the two heroes as they legged it down the road towards the station. Bullet, in his leap, had pushed over the piano, causing terminal damage. Mrs Beldon s pride and joy was never again to sound forth.
Warty and Bullet, however, caught the train on time, and courtesy of a comradely Guard Commander, like Bullet a Rhodesian, managed to sneak into the Academy before the dreaded Witching Hour.
They, and the two delicious and enterprising young ladies, considered that the demise of Mrs. Beldon s piano was well worth such a pleasant evening, especially since the foursome had greatly enjoyed sweet music of a quite different and exquisite nature altogether.
STORY 2
Army Adventures Begin
Second-Lieutenant Algernon Charles (since childhood nick-named Warty ) Fraser-Pitcairn was ready to face up to the might of the Red Army if it rolled into West Germany.
Very young and inexperienced, having only recently finished his Young Officers course at the Royal School of Artillery, he was posted to an artillery regiment based in Sennelager, north-west Germany, part of BAOR (British Army of the Rhine). It was armed with eight-inch calibre heavy howitzers and Honest John missiles, both having a nuclear capability.
Will I be thrown straight into battle? he asked the senior Lieutenant from his new regiment who had been tasked to meet him at RAF Gutersloh after the uncomfortable flight from Luton on a chartered air-trooping plane.
Don t ask me , his guide replied curtly Ask the Colonel when you meet him tomorrow Just get your arse and bags into the Landrover over there and let s get back to barracks. It s late, I m cold, and it s started to rain. Warty quickly complied and clambered aboard. He knew anyway that it was the season for land warfare. Summer was well underway in BAOR, and the Cold War could turn hot at any moment.
The Landrover drew swiftly away, his guide, of course, sitting comfortably in the front passenger seat, protected from the chilly wind. RHIP (rank has its privileges), Warty remembered.
An hour or so later, Warty was deposited at the entrance to the Officers Mess block in the former German Army Wehrmacht barracks now occupied by his new Regiment. In the hope of, perhaps, a meal and a drink, he quickly followed a taciturn Scottish Mess Sergeant to his allocated room, rapidly washed and changed, and repaired downstairs to where the sounds of revelry seemed promising.
Alas for Warty s hope of solid and liquid sustenance! It was swiftly made clear to him by the assembled company in the large Mess Anteroom that all newly joining Officers must be given (more accurately undergo) a Regimental Welcome. This consisted of a party where their embarrassment would be promoted and they would be confused about the real identities of Regimental personalities. Thus, the distinguished-looking gent to whom Warty was introduced as the Commanding Officer was, in reality, an elderly Quartermaster, who sternly terrified Warty about what would be expected of him. The role of the Colonel s lady was acted by a cheerful, full-bosomed, willing and good-humoured girl who was one of the local army schoolteachers and who had been persuaded to put on an act of seduction. Luckily, even inexperienced Warty realised that this was highly unlikely to be the behaviour of his Commanding Officer s wife, or, if so, the danger in succumbing, so he beat a hasty retreat in the direction of an apparent Padre (in real life a senior Captain in borrowed clerical dog collar) whose limp-wristed demeanour and lisp served to further arouse Warty s suspicion and alarm about exactly what sort of Regimenthe had joined. However, having avoided all the pitfalls, and being adjudged worthy of joining the Mess, Warty finally managed to escape and get a few hours sleep. On rising the next morning he eventually found the dining room (his guide and mentor being nowhere to be seen). Fortified by his first proper Mess breakfast, he sallie