Sven Goes to War. Part 9. Army Dreamers.

Training consisted of a Six Week High Intensity Programme (SWHIP) the first part of which took place ITW (in the woods).

    Three of the RATs (Recruits Attending Training) played the part of monkeys and would scramble up into the trees while the other three RATs (also known, to avoid confusion, as RAATs (Recruits Also Attending Training)) had to get them down in the shortest time possible by whatever means necessary. 

    Sven preferred to be a RAT on the ground rather than a RAAT (i.e. the monkey himself) because he didn’t like:

 

I.Getting nude in front of the other boys while kitting himself out in the monkey suit.

 

II.The feel of the monkey suit against his bare skin.

 

III.The fact that the zip of the monkey suit went right around his private parts and under his bum and 

 

IV.that he was always getting the  aforementioned zip stuck in one or the other of them 

 

V.OR FLIPPIN’ BOTH

 

VI.and this was because, according to Argon Govinsky Gaffar, the self-proclaimed leader of the RATs, (and RAATs!) that he, Sven, had horribly misshapen lower regions but 

 

VII.it was only later that Sven learnt the other RATs or RAATs (to avoid confusion) lubricated their BPOAKACABs (baser parts otherwise affectionately known as cock and bum) with expensive Monkey Suit Lube^TM which was available in the PX which Sven never went to because

 

VIII. they didn’t have anything on sale for less than 78p which was his absolute upper limit on sundry goods due to his straightened pecuniary circumstances.

 

On top of this whenever he was a monkey himself he always ended up in the suit that some unnamed RAAT had taken a massive dump in eons ago, but it’s a stubborn stain lads so if you need to go let’s all try and do it in the correct receptacle, preferably in the privacy of our own boudoir with no willing (or unwilling!) bystanders and with the extra long tail which got tangled up in the low hanging branches and made you an Easy Target (ET).

     You again Sven. Give me 100 press ups! That’s right. 1. 2. 3. 4. Come on. 5. 6. 7. Right down to the ground RAAT. 8. 9. And up again. 10. 11. Etc. Etc. Etc. 

 

Sven much preferred to be one of the RATs on the ground, or Monkey Catchers, (MCs), and at the Morning Ops Meetings (MOMs), as they drew up their plans, typing them out on the typewriters with the big clunky keys that made a satisfying thwuck as you typed each letter, he particularly liked coming up with ingenious plans In Which No One Got Hurt (iwnogh) and which made him think if he might indeed be a flippin’ no good flippin’ pacifist who doesn’t know his bumhole from his arsehole. 

    

• Aren’t they the same thing Sarg?
• Any more cheek from you and I’ll have you marched out of here so fast your feet won’t even touch the ground. 

 

{From the archive of ##### dated #### Private 35653 Sven Tosier-Gumshoe, 15^th Seal Regiment.

 

 Monkey Plan 1. 

 

1. Hold banana in left hand and wave it (banana) at monkey in tree. 
2. It (monkey) will come down when good and ready. 
3. Same plan also work if banana held in right hand. 
4. If no hands remove shoes and socks and hold banana with feet. 
5. Removing of shoes and socks might be problem if no hands. 
6. Don’t wear shoes and socks!
7. And don’t lose hands in first place. 
8. Messes up plan. 

 

Monkey Plan 2

 

1. Drive up to tree in fast sports car. Shout up to monkey that if monkey comes down from tree he can drive fast sports car. 
2. When monkey says he doesn’t believe after Plan 1 antics when he came down from tree in good faith hoping to eat banana being waved go to point 3. 
3. Point 3. Have woman with no bra on in car in first place. Ask woman to lean out of car window and shout up to monkey that ‘oh my God I feel so hot for monkey today. Especially one driving  fast sports car.!’ 
4. Monkey comes down from tree. 
5. Monkey is caught. 
6. Apologise to woman with no bra who might feel exploited. 
7. Explain that if would have worked would have put own willy out of car window to entice down monkey but doubted that said monkey liked willy. 
8. Woman says, ‘I like willy’.
9. Watch with growing apprehension as woman with no bra climbs up tree now devoid of monkeys. 
10. Listen as woman shouts out, ‘Stick your willy out of car window then love!’
11. Stick willy out of car window. 
12. Take it on chin when woman shouts, ‘Is it out? I can’t see nothing.’
13. Shout out, ‘It’s out!’
14. Listen as woman shouts out, ‘Hang on then. Don’t move. I’m coming down. I’ll let you know when I’m in range.’
15. Hang on.
16. Listen.
17. With growing shame. 
18. And inadequacy. 
19. ‘Still can’t see nothing.’
20. ‘Still can’t see nothing.’
21. ‘Still can’t see nothing.’
22. ‘Still can’t see nothing.’
23. ‘Still can’t see nothing.’
24. ‘Still can’t see nothing.’
25. Woman stands face to face with you. 
26. ‘Still can’t see nothing.’
27. Put willy away with as much pride as possible.
28. ‘And that’s what exploitation feels like,’ says woman with no bra. 
29. Remind yourself that no monkeys got hurt in this plan. 
30. Remind yourself that this was purpose of plan. 
31. Remind yourself (many times!) of Chinese philosopher Sun Tzu quote from book Art of War, “The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.”}     

 

 

 

Sven was not popular with the other young men and in the evenings when they would take out their bowling balls, go out, come back hours later with their eyes red with laughter, mouths redolent of cheap beer, tips of their fingers raw from throwing so many balls, all boasting of their ball-throwing pin-busting antics, Sven would still be on his bunk, his face turned to the wall so the tracks of the tears on his cheeks would not be seen. 

    Eventually he would fall asleep and he would dream of walking down the High Street arm in arm in Stanley, dressed in his yellow dress, walking confidently on his high heeled shoes and he would be happy but then on waking up he would find a small stack of bogies piled on his forehead in a small scale replica of The Eiffel Tower or his boots would have been filled to the brim with cold porridge or, one time, he even found a log of pooh balanced perfectly on his upper lip so it looked like he had a shit moustache and that became his nickname, Shit Moustache or SM for short. 

    Hey SM, come and have a look at this video. 

    And it was a video of him, lying on his bed, Argon Govinsky Gaffar crouched over him, having a pooh on his face. 

    You’re gunna be a star SM. Best Oscar. It’s in the bag. It’s yours. It’s got you all over it. 

 

The second part of the SWHIP (Six Week High Intensity Programme) took place down on the beach and in the sea where, according to the training brochure, From Waster to War Machine, It Could Be You!, the young men would be sent off to fend for themselves and would come back with a new sense of vigour and hardiness.

     Sven enjoyed this part more because it involved surviving in the wild and living on your wits. Having grown up on a bleak-Northern-coastline he knew how to live on oysters and ward off attacking seals and other aquatic animals with the flotsam and jetsam scavenged from the shore. 

    On the first day he built himself a castle in the sand and on the second a boat from six tyres and two planks of wood. He made fire from seaweed and caught fish with a harpoon he had fashioned himself from an abandoned shopping trolley, found and dismantled.  

    On the third day one of the other young men turned up and asked if he could sleep in his castle because the previous night he had frozen his fucking bollocks off. 

    Sven was not the kind of person to hold a grudge. 

    Ok, he said simply, not lording it up, and then by flickering firelight, their stomachs full and because there was nothing else to do Sven asked the other young man if he would like to hear a story, yes please, me mam always used to tell me stories in bed when I was a nipper but don’t flippin’ tell anyone because I’m as hard as nails now, and so Sven started out telling the story of one of his favourite adventure books, embellishing and making up the bits he couldn’t quite remember.

 

    “The 39 Steps. It was a cold dark day in London. Richard Hannay, having recently returned from South Africa where he had made his fortune in diamonds, was attending an event at a music hall where a Memory Man was challenging the audience to test his skill.

    ‘Who won the 430 at Ascot, 500 yards, in 1922, horse name and rider?’”

 

On the next night one of the other young men arrived. The night after they another one. 

    And so on. 

    Argon Govinsky Gaffar was the last to turn up. This was on his hands and knees. A chunk had been taken out of his side, a flippin’ humungous seal, he said and he had lost one of his eyes to a gull, woke up and there it was balanced on me kisser, pecking away like Holy Jesus.

    Then he said, I’m sorry about before, about taking a dump on your face, I shouldn’t a done it, but I suppose I got my comeuppance with that gull, what do they say?, an eye for an eye, and you didn’t even lose your eye, so will you help me?, and Sven, who had never been apologised to before, by anyone, said there was no need to be sorry, no need at all, if there’s one thing I’ve learnt about humanity, it’s the necessity to be humane, and while he set the other young men the task of building a new wing to the (sand) castle he set to work on Argon Govinsky Gaffar’s wounds; ground mussels for antiseptic, seaweed for bandages. 

    Then, to take his mind off the pain he continued with the story of The 39 Steps, which he had been telling every night, all of them curled up snugly together, legs around legs, arms around arms, shouting out the words so the other young men could hear him above the night barks of the seals, the crash of the waves, the rushing of the wind through their hair. 

    “Hannay was driving along the narrow Scottish road when a sleek sports car came careening towards him. ‘Watch out!’ he screamed but it was too late. The sleek sports car was in the ditch, its wheels buckled, smoke pouring from its engine. If he didn’t act quick it was going to blow! But he got to the man who had been driving it just in time, pulled him out, laid him flat on the road and gave him the kiss of life. 

    “‘I say,’ said the man, sitting up. ‘You’ve saved my life. And maybe you can save it again. Do you know anything about free trade and protectionism?’

    ‘Actually I do,’ said Hannay. ‘I used to run a flippin’ diamond mine in South Africa.’

    ‘Well top hole,’ said the man. ‘You come with me and I’ll see you alright by Jove if I flippin’ will. I’ve got a country pile just up this narrow burr or burn.’

    “And as they set off Hannay wondered what was going to throw itself in his direction next? Was there no end to his troubles? Would his pursuers catch him? Would he ever solve the mystery of the coded notebook? Would he solve the mystery of The 39 Steps? Tune in this time tomorrow to find out more…”