Ruddy busy week this week - Army Recruitment Officer is here

Elephant Battery saluting India under Royal eyes – Henry Francis Prevost Battersby

Damned busy week, damned busy.

Army Recruitment Officer is here goin’ through the chaps for officer material, and he’s brought the Regimental Veterinary Surgeon with him. Not a thought for the work they’re causin’, not one. No doubt they’ll be drinkin’ me out of gin and it later too.

Can you imagine the difficulty in persuadin’ two hundred teenage elephants to line up quietly while some bloke with cold hands goes along the line holding their testicles and telling them to cough? For one thing, it takes both hands to cup an elephant’s testicles and it does rather rely on the animals not following through when they giggle, get embarrassed and finally cough. Not entirely certain what he’s tryin’ to prove, anyway. Suppose I should have asked to see his qualifications before we began but it’s a bit late now, not sure that I want to know if he’s just another pachyderm-groper takin’ advantage.

Anyway, fine life for an elephant in the army, a fine life. Riotous crowds and insurgents to trample, polo and water-polo on weekends and a pension after forty years. It’s not all four-foot wide tin helmets, trumpeting and crawling through flooded foxholes under sniper fire. Damned proud of all of them you know, damned proud.

I suppose that they’ll take all of our best chaps in the end. They usually do.

Onions you know, onions – that’s the reason for these tears in my eyes, ruddy onion fumes.

Cook must be making Germanish potato pancakes again or somethin’.

Chin-chin.

Oi! Yes, you – the ruddy vet! Wash your hands before you go wanderin’ off! Don’t want half of the staff ending up smelling of elephant testicles. He looks like a groper.

p.s. Nota bene – photograph not taken by Vintage Photographer.

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