17th September

Bit of a twist in the tail for Carruthers and Carstairs this week Corporal. Carstairs returned to camp early in the week, some say they have seen the blighter wearing makeup! He was marched by the MP chaps at the guard room straight up to Major Ringbotham for being absent without leave, who gave him a right old roasting I can tell you. I could hear it from the other end of the corridor at my own office, although when it came to the matter of the make-up, Ringbotham seemed far too curious if you ask me. Never did trust the bounder after the choir master’s wife filed for divorce. She couldn’t actually name the other woman, but the description of a burly build with a pronounced grey moustache certainly didn’t fit any of the totty around here that I have met. Even Mary at the Dog and Duck doesn’t have a grey moustache although her build could perhaps be described as burly. Some of the chaps are suggesting that Ringbotham’s swagger stick is more of a mincing stick when he is on parade.
Carruthers eventually emerged looking rather sheepish from the back of the old wrecker behind the parade ground and had even stopped gibbering…and then the Generals wife caught up with him. What a fearsome lady! I wonder sometimes whether she should be the general and allow the general to stay at home and tend the plants. Anyway, Carruthers is living in the back of the wrecker now and barking at anyone who gets close. Even tried sending that little hottie from the NAFFI down wearing some of that cheap perfume she uses. Well, normally Carruthers would have been in there like a shot. She said he was standing on the turrets of an old tank with a patch on one eye and one hand inside his jacket shouting ‘stand by to repel boarders’!
Still the good news is that the heat from the fire has brought the general’s wife’s tomato plants on a good four inches in a week!