United States or Kyrgyzstan ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
"Don't I?" "Git!" "Shut!" In the coffee-shop Wankin is invariably the centre of an interested group. As the company scapegrace and black sheep of the battalion he occupies in his mates' eyes a position of considerable importance.
Albans may obtain a drink on a Sabbath day. Soldiers, like most mortals, are sometimes dry and like to drink; Wankin was often dry and Wankin had seldom much money to spend. The first soldier who came out from the town wanted to get to the tavern. "Can't pass here!" the mock-picket told him. "But I'm dry and I've a cold that catches me awful in the throat."
His repartees are famous, and none knows better than he how to score off an unpopular officer or N.C.O. He has the distinction also of having spent more days in the guard-room than any other man in the battalion. On the occasion when identity discs were being served out to the men and a momentary stir pervaded the battalion, it was Wankin who first became involved in trouble.
I'll let you go by. It's hard to stew dry so near the bar!" An hour later the young man set off towards home, and on his way he met two of his comrades-in-arms on the road. "Going to pub?" he inquired. "Going to see that no one does go near it," was the answer. "Picket duty for the rest of the day, we are." "But Wankin " "What?"
With stockinged feet, cold, but still wearing an inscrutable smile of impudence, Wankin paraded in front of a thousand grinning faces and in due course got back to his kit and beside the sarcastic major. "What do you think of it?" asked the latter. "I don't think much of it, sir," Wankin replied. "It's the dirtiest regiment I ever inspected."
I like Wankin and most of his mates like him. We feel that when detention, barrack confinement and English taverns will be things of yesterday, Wankin will make a good and trustworthy friend in the trenches.
The young man explained, and shortly afterwards Wankin went to headquarters under an armed escort. Three days later I saw his head sticking out through the guard-room window, and at that time I had not heard of the London road escapade. "Here on account of drink?" I asked him. "You fool," he roared at me. "Do you think I mistook this damned place for the canteen?"
"Them colds are dangerous," Wankin remarked in a contemplative voice, tinged with compassion. "Used to have them bad myself an' I feel one coming on. I think gin, same as they have in the trenches, is the stuff to put a cold away. But I'm on the rocks." "If you'll let me through I'll stand on my hands." "It's risky," said Wankin, then in a brave burst of bravado he said, "Damn it all!
"Three days C.B. your muckin' about'll cost you." And before Wankin could reply the sergeant was reporting the matter to the captain. Wankin is eternally in trouble, although his agility in dodging pickets and his skill in making a week's C.B. a veritable holiday are the talk of the regiment.
On another occasion the major suffered when a battalion kit inspection took place early one December morning. Wankin had sold his spare pair of boots, the pair that is always kept on top of the kit-bag; but when the major inspected Wankin's kit the boots were there, newly polished and freed from the most microscopic speck of dust.
Word Of The Day