"Энди Макнаб. Немедленная операция (engl) " - читать интересную книгу автораbeen to Malaya, and I wanted a barber's shave and a look around.
Three or four of us wandered around, bumping into some of the others from time to time. We went and had some fried chicken, visited a bar and listened to karaoke, hit another bar, had another bit of chicken and more beers. By the end of the night we were stinking, and soon only George and I were left. We were walking around the town at two o'clock in the morning, and we couldn't remember where the camp was. "We'll get a taxi," George said. "What taxi?" I said. We knew the camp was uphill, so we set off. After a few minutes George said, "Let's nick a car." "Well ' I land up getting hung for this," I said. A few hundred yards further on we came across a large red tricycle with a trailer on the back. "Perfect." We both jumped on it, George in the saddle, me in the trailer. We got to the steep uphill bit, and George couldn't pedal, so we got off and pushed. When we got to the camp, it was such a large place we couldn't remember where we were supposed to be. The gate was closed. "We'll leave the bike there and get over the fence," I said. Within minutes we were in our beds and fast asleep. In the morning we were lining up to get some money and the sergeant major was pacing up and down. "Is George about anywhere?" he said. "That's me," George said. "Did you have that bike away last night?" "Well, I think you ought to go and get it, cycle it back down to the town. That's probably someone's livelihood you've got there. Don't fuck these people about." George looked at me, but I had developed sloping shoulders and a wide grin. The last I saw of him was a rear view as he wobbled off toward the town. When he eventually reappeared an hour or so later, he was struggling with the world's biggest sheaf of long green vegetables on his shoulder. "Men, nice souvenirs," I said. "You owe me a fucking tenner," George said. "I was cycling down the hill when the owner spotted me going past his vegetable stall. The only way I could calm him down was to buy this lot." Off we went to Singapore, and the occasion was designated a bone shirt night. We had to look like dickheads, but not blatant anorak wearers; we had to do it in such a way that people thought, Hmm, strange! Everybody else had brought one with him; a few of us had to s end a day running around Singapore looking p for a decent specimen. I went into one shop, half pissed, and said, "I've come in for a bone shirt." "Ah, bone shirt! You know Tiny! Number one!" I ended up with a rather sophisticated Hawaiian number, sun jet orange with green palm trees and great big purple flowers. It had been a really good trip for me. I was fortunate in joining the squadron when the majority of people were together. Sometimes, I heard, blokes could join a squadron and not see all the members for maybe a year or |
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