Notes from the Code Face

And so we join Keats and Chapman, gentle reader, on the Eastern front, circa 1943. The smoking ruins of Stalingrad are visible on the skyline and Keats and Chapman peer fretfully over the icy rim of their trench. By what cunning passages and deceitful issues of history have these two jackeens come to this point in space and time, clad Vonnegutesquely in borrowed German uniforms ? Il n'y a pas de hors-texte, so we shall never know. Ridicless. Perhaps, but so it goes.

"If it wasn't for that shelling we'd hear the distant tinkling of the brass monkeys", said Chapman. "You're not wrong mate" shivered Keats. The tepid bloody shallows of Gallipoli were on his mind, which soon reverted to it's recurrent fixational fantasy in two parts: a nice cup of tea and and a packet of Garibaldi biscuits.

"Being a native of these parts is a risky venture" observed Chapman, watching a column of Russian prisoners hobble by. "Even if they go home they'll be shot as traitors.".

Chapman turned his mind inwards and with the tip of his prehensile tongue tapped out "Lo-li-ta", one of his lower teeth yielding slightly to the fleshy pressure. "Knackers, that'll be the scurvy", he mused. The field manual recommended preemptive chewing on wild thyme. "Now, cert'nly, in a nice coddle or with a brace of coney's that's one thing...but all raw and staggy like that, not on your nelly", he mumbled.

"Strange then that me Ma's advice, born of the rigours of life in the Coombe should be so apt here at war" said Keats. Chapman said nothing, but, gazing into the distance felt something menacing and inevitable approaching, like war. "Wasn't she forever telling me to take me time and not be rushin'", said Keats.

Chapman winced as he eased his tooth back into position and roughly fingered the trigger of his machine-gun.