Christmas Eve with the Ruperts 1966
By
Jonesy
RASC/RCT

The morning of Christmas Eve in Habilayn 1966 started as any other morning, a rushed breakfast, collect small arms and ammo, grab a case of cold Tennents ordered the night previously, from the NAAFI fridge then hit the road. ‘B’ Troop of  7 Sqn. RCT were accompanying 30 Fld. Sqn. REs.on the construction of the Dhala Road.

However on this particular morning there hung in the air a degree of expectancy. We had already learned that we were to finish for the day at 1400 and this alone was cause for flickering  flames of hope to sputter behind the most bloodshot of beer sodden eyes.

Work that day was localised  and only the roadwork which ran alongside the camp area was given some half hearted grading and rolling. At the aforementioned hour work was closed down and all vehicles parked up. So it may be imagined that the remainder of the afternoon was spent drinking, swapping yarns, drinking some more and everyone generally listless.

You all know what squaddies are like; if they’ve got nothing to keep them occupied they become fractious and look around for something to play with. If that fails they’ll find a fight or start one. Generally though everyone was in good humour.

Following a main meal around 1700/1800 it seemed the perfect cue to start drinking again; let’s face it, wasn’t much else to do. I wandered round to one of  the Royal Engineer’s marquees to see what my brother was up to and found the whole gang in the same state as myself; some having already reached the pissed and maudlin’ stage. Jeez! This was going to be one happy Christmas.

One of their number had skived off from road work and applied himself to the task of erecting a Christmas Tree. A lot of thought had gone into the design and it was a thing of wonder. From somewhere he had purloined a broom handle ( a source of mystery to this day as I never saw a broom around the camp) and had delicately drilled very small holes at angles all around the length; into these he had inserted vast numbers of welding rods cut to give the tree a semblance of shape.

The ‘tree’ defied the forces of gravity by the utilisation of a box, steel, ammo 7.62 Ball that was filled with dust and gravel etc.; no frills or paintwork. The whole assembly was ‘in your face’ and grown men rubbed their eyes when they beheld it for the first time.

The ‘piece de resistance’ was the Fairy. Dexterously cut from a Tennent’s can with a pair of tinsnips was ‘Anne’ complete with a star topped wand. It was a work of art. It was further decorated with bits of silver foil from a number of Kit-Kat bars and some other stuff like bacon rind and worse, I can’t remember exactly what. Before morning some prat had impaled himself on the thing while staggering outside for a piss and it was moved to a safer location……..the nearest gash bin.

Someone else had a made a parachute, with a chunk torn from a cotton sheet. This was destined for trials with the camp cat and both were duly taken onto the roof of the marquee. Amidst loud cheers felis catus was launched into free-fall. The brute hit the ground running with the ‘chute trailing behind like a drogue and that was the last we saw of it.

I suppose it would be around this time when the Latrine Secret Service appraised us of the fact that the Political Officer had been invited to the Officers Mess for Christmas Eve dinner. ‘So what’?….in chorus. ‘So ‘e’s bringin’ ‘is missis with ‘im inny’! ‘An I ‘ear she’s bloody gorgeous that’s bloody what’!

Oh well, that was different, now we were faced with a dilemma; how the hell could we crash the party and have decko? Two minutes into a huddled ‘O’ group and we had the answer. We’d treat the Mess to a Carol Service………they’d love it. Not only would they enjoy it, they deserved  it!

And so unsteady, unabashed and unbidden we shuffled in a disorderly fashion to the Officer’s Mess and formed up into a thicket of choristers. Never have the words of ‘Good King Wenceslas’ been sung with such appalling disregard for harmony. The sound was pretty awful to us; it must have sounded atrocious from inside the marquee.

To our utter amazement all the officers piled out to listen and even clapped, more amazing was the invite to join them inside for drinks. We were inside before them and made a beeline for their bar but were stopped; yeah there was a catch, before we could have drinks the Ruperts wanted to hear another couple of Carols. They must have been as mad as we were stunned. Why? Anyhow we didn’t really know any more.

So we gave it our worst and all the while our eyes were on the wife of the Political Officer. It was true, she really was a beautiful young woman. What on earth she thought of a bunch of drunken, lecherous engineers and drivers ogling her I shall never know but she never batted an eyelid and took  it all in good part. I hope, all these years later she is in good health and enjoying life.

The Ruperts finally relented and somewhat foolishly allowed us access to their booze stocks; they had no idea just how much beer other ranks can put away. In the death they threw us out still protesting, though by then we had just about finished all their booze.

On Christmas day a number of officers were seen trying to scrounge booze from the lads and after some grovelling beer was passed over, albeit in miniscule quantities. Never give a sucker an even break.

However Christmas day is another story………………………..
 Jonesy