We understood why we had been told to stay away from the
three hundred and fifty American Marines on the far side of the airfield. The odds of ten to one, as there were only
thirty five of us, were not very favourable, but we had no intention of causing
trouble so they were quite safe really.
The three hundred and fifty American Marines had been called in and told
that there were thirty five 92 Squadron chaps on the far side of the airfield
and they should stay away from them. I
think the Marines were a little bit confused.
I wasn’t confused, well; no more than normal, I was in pain.
I have to admit that I had a few interesting days as the
mixture of pain killers and booze had the cold hard north of Denmark become
rather mellow. Someone had arranged a
trip to the local Carlsberg brewery and they were more than generous. We were given the ‘quick’ tour of the brewery
and then led in to a reception room.
Crates of beer were wheeled in and boxes of gimmicky stuff. Bottle openers, pens, note pads, more beer. After the brewery trip we were all feeling
mighty fine so decided to have a look around Alborg town itself. We had been told that one of Denmark’s most famous
sculptures was situated in one of the town’s squares.
It was the Cimbrian Bull and all we knew was that it
represented their love of life and was paid for by the breweries. The group I was with managed to find the
statue and were quite amazed to discover that some other group, from the squadron,
had beaten us to it. The other group were
not still around photographing or sketching the bull they had long gone. But the
squadron had left its mark as stuck to the rather impressive pair of testicles on
the bull was a squadron zap. I later
learned that they had used Araldite to stick the zap on which would take the
towns cleaning department rather a long time to remove.
As a sort of public relations exercise we had to field a
rugby team to play against Alborg town.
This was rather unfair as Alborg had their regular full team and we could
only choose fifteen men from our small detachment of thirty five. I do remember one scrum as we engaged I heard
someone being sick. As the scrum broke,
probably so that we could compose ourselves and stop laughing, I noticed the
referee. Under one arm he had a box of
fifty King Edward cigars and he was smoking one, while in his other hand he
held a bottle of Glayva liqueur from which he occasionally took a slug.
It has to have been the most ridiculous game of rugby I have
ever participated in. Afterwards the
party was totally mental. Despite the
language barrier the Danes joined in with the singing. These ditties could be quite funny, depending
on your sense of humour. We would start
one like a normal decent Sunday hymn. ♫ There is a green hill far away
without a city wall. ♫
As you can imagine we are laying it on thick, hands clasped together,
eyes raised to heaven. ♫
Where our dear Lord was crucified he died to save us all. Two. Three. Four.
For he’s a jolly good fellow, for he’s a jolly good fellow….. ♫
Nobody was safe as far as squadron songs were concerned, especially
God and Jesus. One popular song
went ♫ Holes in hands, holes in feet,
carries crosses down the street, has anybody seen J C? Schubydoo, schubydoo, schubydoo. ♫ That was the first verse, I shall not tell you
what the second verse said, but the third verse was. ♫ Four of bread, five of fish, feeds ten
thousand piece of pish, has anybody seen J C?
Schubydoo, schubydoo, schubydoo. ♫ We would probably then move on to the popular
rugby song ♫ Swing low sweet chariot, ♫ which would be sung with hand gestures
and then repeated without words and hand gestures only. Another popular song was ‘The alphabet’ which
had us sing the alphabet, except we would have a swear word for each letter of
the alphabet and a rhyme surrounding that word with each word connected to the
next.
Not the sort of stuff you would sing in church. The Danes would have rewarded our efforts
with rugby songs and ditties of their own however we discovered that the Americans
did not have this tradition. All they
would do is shout “Hoo Rah!” which didn’t
rhyme, didn’t last very long and wasn’t that funny. We ended up in some sort of night club,
supposedly dancing the night away but the Danes do not seem to know how to
jive, neither did I come to think of it as the combination of pain killers and
drink had given me rubber feet. We did
seem to be very popular which may have been something to do with the amount of
whiskey we were pulling from our kit bags.
I remember that I had split my trousers and had to take off
my jumper and tie it around my waist to cover the tear. We had been told that the nightclub closed at
six o clock in the morning and most of us were determined to make it to closing
time. I began to flag and decided to
make my way back to camp for a rest. I
had switched on my internal radar, that most drunks seem to have, and was
wandering along. I had crossed a long
bridge and had left the city; it was dawn and quite a pleasant morning. A taxi pulled up alongside me and asked where
I was going. I explained that I was
going to the air base and the driver insisted that I get in and he would drop
me by the gates as he was passing the air base.
He wouldn’t take any money and I was quiet impressed with the
civility of the locals. I managed to
find our accommodation and hit the sack hoping that my pillow would be gentle
with me. That evening we all had to pull
our best uniforms on and attend the formal function with the Americans. The Americans looked like Christmas trees
with all the gold and medals they wore.
We were quite drab compared to them.
I was standing chatting with two Marines; I think they were Master Sergeants. Both of them carried about twenty medals each
on their tunic. We were laughing and
joking with them about the collection of medals and suggested that they
probably got them for eating cornflakes.
One medal I noticed had the number seven attached to the ribbon
bar.
I asked what this meant and was told that he had been shot
down, while in a helicopter, seven times.
As you may imagine we scoffed at him and insisted that it was probably the
number of times he had gone to the shops on his own. He was quite upset with our mockery and
ripped off his tunic and shirt. This was
not the old drunken preparation for a bar room brawl. He asked us to inspect his torso which was criss
crossed with scars which he insisted were the proof of his numerous encounters. I know that I woke up the following morning
in a tent with twenty American Marines.
That was the least of my problems because I wasn’t in my uniform; I was
dressed as an American Marine.
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