24.08.2007 08:29 - Burglars
As previously explained , my father did his National Service in the RAF.
As one of the crew of an air-sea rescue boat, one of the less-pleasant duties was fishing out the remains of people who had committed suicide, fallen in and drowned, or got lost. This was never a pleasant duty, as the local wildlife would have usually had time to have a go at the bodies, including, tragically, two little children who had been washed out to sea in a boat. However, there was worse to come.
Squeamish readers better leave off now. It's not pretty.
Retrieval of floating corpses was normally done by using a big tarpaulin which was pulled under the floating corpse, and then pulled up onto the deck. Unfortunately, this time, the tarpaulin pulled loose, and my father's first reaction was to grab the hand of the corpse. Not a good idea, as the whole arm pulled off, and he was left holding it. The crew reacted by filling him with booze to stave off the shock, but the damage was done. For years afterward, he used to wake up at night screaming about the rats. Gradually the nightmares receded, but he didn't stop yelling out in his sleep, which gave rise to many incidents.
Including the one when I was 14.
One night, at about three o'clock in the morning, I was roused by a terrible shout from my father. "Steve! Get in here, there's burglars!"
I leapt to my feet, grabbed my sturdy cricket bat, and, pausing only to pull my t-shirt down to cover the family jewels, leapt into action. I raced across the landing and kicked open the door, brandishing the bat ready to marmelise anyone who came at me.
No-one came at me.
In fact, if anything was conspicious by it's abscence, it was burglars. There was my mother, sitting up, looking puzzled. There was the dog, sitting in her basket, looking perplexed. And there was my father, fast asleep.
It was then that the t-shirt chose to spring back into shape.
"You'll catch your death of cold." said my mother.
