PostPoems Be Artistic. Be Creative. Be Inspired!

JELLY BEANS

 It was all over, and 2 PARA had left, on the Norland. It was beginning to piss him right off. But airborne forces day was looming on the horizon , even if Ascension Island, wasn't. He had the day off, as well, for once, it looked like a plan was coming together.

The spics were mumbling about something. He went over to see what it was. Basically, they wanted hot water. Not to wash, or shave in, hygiene not being one of their individual strong points. No, it was to make some kind of herbal tea.

He couldn't understand it himself. After all, they had cigarettes, matches, blankets/sheets, and enough other stuff, to start a fire, if they wanted. It was a total pain in the arse, counting them up five decks, down five decks every time they got fed. The only thing they hadn't been given, was heximine blocks, (solid fuel cooking tablets) so they could cook individually. I mean, even they, weren't that stupid, to try, and sink the ship they were on. Were they? Perhaps it shouldn't be put to the test. After all, the ST Edmund was no Norland, but it sure beat the shit out of being back on the islands.

He thought he had really stopped hating them, well, curbing his total lack of sincerity when he spoke, or looked at them. I really thought I was doing well with the smile, too.

Okay, maybe he did feel sorry for them . Now that they'd been cleaned up a bit. Given clean clothes to wear. Been disarmed. Yeah, that was a little plus in their favour for the popularity stakes. Without the FN rifles, machine guns, re-coiless rifles, aircraft, and artillery support. They once again looked like the little children, some of the news papers had portrayed them as. What the fuck , he grabbed the water jerry can, and headed for the stairs, he wasn't exactly doing anything else anyway.

It was five decks up, and twice as many flights of stairs , and then some. But, he was fit, the bastards down below, had seen to that. The last time he'd been this lean, had to have been, when he had been in nick, at Colchester(MCTC). Boy that evoked some bloody memories, only in those days, he had been in the minority. The non-francofones. He hummed the Gar-Pere, to himself, as he pushed the galley door open. The french chef was on today, maybe he'd do him a steak tartar. Like the spics, he could only ask.

In the end, it had taken five minutes of grovelling, just to fill up the jerry can with hot water.

The chef had been too busy to talk to him, let alone, make any scoff for him. He'd forgotten the reason he had been speaking in french, was because the chef was french. He'd just forgot. He had been that used to swearing and taking the piss out of everybody else, because they couldn't understand him.

Calling him an arse licking, cock sucking, little poofter, it just slipped out like. He'd got about half way back, and he had to stop, and change shoulders already. He was beginning to go off the idea completely. Fuck it. He lowered the jerry can from his shoulder and placed it in the corner of the stair well. I got my cigarettes out and lit one up. Placing my SLR on my knees, I sat on the top of the jerry can, propping my back against the corner of the stairs. It was uncomfortable sitting on the jerry can, besides, he'd been away too long. Stubbing out the cigarette, I hoisted the jerry can back onto my shoulder once again, and cradling my SLR in my other arm, set off once again, for the tea party.

By the time I got back to the car deck, where the conscripts were being kept, I'd had a bit of a sense of humour failure. I stood sweating, as the first two filled their cups. They chatted away like long lost brothers, but he couldn't understand a word of spic. The next bloke in line wasn't smiling though.

Ernie, the Sergeant in charge of the detail, had said, not to let too many of them up at the same time, in case they tried something. It sounded like good, sound, advice to me. The unsmiling geezer filled his cup, eye balling me all the time. He stood up slowly and after taking a brief sip from the cup, spat it all over the car deck, launching into a torrent of spic. This, then set the others off. They all chucked their cups down, and started to crowd around me, ranting away in spic.

Well. That was the straw that broke the camel's back. I wasn't taking any of this shit from these ungrateful bastards. I lunged forward and rammed the barrel of my SLR into the unsmiling bastards mouth. The others soon backed off, and sat down . My thumb flicked the safety off, just as big Ernie's hand clasped my shoulder. He'd come in through the access door behind me.

" Hey Jock, I think you look like you need a smoke break!", he spoke quietly, as though there was nothing amiss.
"You could be right, there, " I replied, and pulled the barrel out of the spic's mouth. Luckily, he still had all his teeth, in all the right places too. I slowly backed towards the access door. All the time, staring into the spic's eyes. Which were quite wide by now.

Ernie came out, when I was on about my fifth cigarette, I was refilling my magazine.He stood and watched. Ball the bottom two, followed by two red tracer, two incendiaries, two armoured piercing, two sniper , and two green tracer. I stopped to look up at him. He looked at the top of my mag, and the rest of the rounds I had in my lap.

"Jelly Beans, Ernie", I said.
The top two rounds had been incendiaries, it was lucky he'd turned up.

"In the years ahead, when you are old men................you will be able to say, as they said after Waterloo, after Alamien, and Arnhem. I marched, and fought, and won, in the Falklands, and showed the world, the incomparable quality, of professionalism, of the British army, and the spirit, and strength of the regimental system".
1982 General Bramall, Chief of the General staff.

GiAjl