In The Small Hours: Part One Orders
Beware of banshee winds when you’re on guard duty in the Egyptian desert, John Brian Leaver warns.
No mistake. My name is up there once again. Too soon, I think, this must be some mistake. Only seventy-two hours have passed since my last twenty-four hour stint of guarding the last vestiges of sandy Empire, fending off flies, flying beetles, and general ennui that three-on three-off brings.
Straws are drawn. Hope springs eternal. This time I will not land the midnight to three shift.
This has got to be a fix. Hope is, as they say, for the poor. Army pay ensures this. I gird myself with a bandolier of fifty rounds and take up my Lee Enfield rifle, bayonet already fixed, to while away the hours in a gate sentry box, or on one of two watch towers.
It transpires that my midnight to three will be spent in the sentry box. No change there then. This box, structured to last, built of stout timbers with a pointy roof, stands aloof, just outside the rim of the gate’s pool of light. No point in advertising its presence to someone with malign intent, I reason.
It is winter. At night it quickly gets cold. The sable darkness seems to add to the chill. I am muffled up, greatcoat, scarf, gloves…
Into the first hour of the night, and the weather is changing. The wind is picking up, buffeting my retreat, wailing and moaning across Lake Manzala like a banshee foretelling death, dumping the desert’s debris into the sentry box at an alarming rate, Come three o’clock, they will have to dig me out.
The light over the gate whirls in the wind like a dervish.
Methinks no sane duty officer will venture out on a night like this, so, being unable to change the direction of the wind I change that of the box. Nobody to notice me doing so. They are all hunkered down, hoping their guy ropes hold. I will just turn it around to face the wire.
’Struth it’s heavy! Must weigh half a ton. But where there’s a will…
Now, happily ensconced, feet up, bum perched on one piece of 3 by 2 side frame, boots on another, rifle wedged so that it holds me in place,
’lids become heavy. I am ready for my cocoa and bedtime story. Let the night do its worst.
Slam! A hurricane blast hits the back of My Little Grey Home In The East, and down she goes. Thump!
I am entombed. I thought it was dark before, but now…
How much air is there in here? Will someone find me in time?
Perhaps the banshee’s omen was for me! If they do find me in time I’m sure to be hit with enough charges to result in me being sent to Moascar Military Corrective Establishment for at least six months.
Thank the Lord for my trusty Lee Enfield. I use the bayonet to scoop out a hole big enough to receive the rifle butt, then use the rifle as a lever. Eventually I get the box to flip upright.
I have just dusted myself down when a subaltern appears out of the gloom.
“All’s well sir. Nothing to report.’’
