29th October

Good afternoon Corporal!
Been keeping my head down a bit after the last report old boy, Ringbotham has been on the warpath good and proper. The good thing is he has been so hell bent on finding people to make this ruddy concert party work that he seems to have forgotten what caused the little fiasco in the first place and has left me well alone. Carstairs has finally got what he wants and can walk around quite openly in a frock telling any who question his appearance that he is dealing with concert party business. Although I’ll be damned if I can remember the last time I have seen him in the correct uniform, but it’s a braver man than I, who will say anything around here I can tell you.

Speaking of brave men, the Vicar and Mrs. Peabody; Mr. Peabody has gone back to his desk at Whitehall and not been seen since that little incident when he was chasing the Vicar round the garden and the Vicar now seems to spend his time flitting between the vicarage and Peabody Towers. No-one realised he has a wife at home until she became suspicious about the number of parishioners who were dying and their loved ones who needed his consoling at all times of the day and night and yet there were no funerals at the church! She decided that she would follow him one night and that nearly proved her undoing. Carruthers has been coerced away from that ruddy tank of his by putting him in civvies and giving him the job as the camp undertaker and the night the vicar’s wife followed him was probably about the only genuine call-out the vicar had been on for months. The Generals mother-in-law had passed peacefully in her sleep and the Vicar was consoling the Generals wife and the Vicar’s wife was bent down at the front door peeping through the keyhole when Carruthers arrives with a coffin balanced precariously on his shoulder carrying it up the garden path. When he arrived at the door he didn’t see the good lady on her knees and hit her on the back of the head with his coffin. She lurched forward and hit the front of her head on the door which had the two fold effect of knocking her out and opening the door as she lurched through and laid herself out on the hallway carpet. Carruthers meanwhile, had placed the coffin on the floor and realised that there was a body on the hallway carpet, assumed that was to be his cargo for the evening and loaded the recumbent Vicar’s wife into the coffin and then into the back of his van. The Vicar meanwhile is becoming a little flustered at Carruthers apparent lateness to remove the Generals mother in laws body because the Generals wife is becoming a little too welcoming of the Vicars consoling attentions. He couldn’t be too sure but at one point when she laid her head on his shoulder he was sure he could feel her tongue in his ear.


Carruthers meanwhile, had taken his collecting coffin back to the chapel of rest and was busy preparing the not so late Vicar’s wife for her funeral robes. When he had got her half undressed she woke up and sat bolt upright in the coffin. Carruthers assuming that she was some kind of zombie coming to get him, passed out on the spot and the Vicars wife, assuming that she was being raped by some devil worshipper, stood up in the coffin which was not designed for bodies standing up in it, and toppled the whole lot to the ground knocking herself out for the second time that evening! She finished up lying on top of Carruthers and the open coffin on the floor beside them both; when Carruthers came round, all his senses where telling him that he had a flesh eating Zombie lying on top of him about to take a big bite out of his neck. He stood up and ran out
of the chapel of rest screaming and ran straight back to his ruddy tank again and was last seen gibbering about Dracula and vampires. In his efforts to escape he had deposited the Vicar’s wife back in the coffin and the lid had fallen shut on top of her.

Meanwhile the Vicar, in search of reason to escape the suspiciously prying tongue of the Generals wife had gone back to the chapel to find Carruthers. When he got there, unable to find the poor fellow, he loaded the collecting coffin into the van and took it all off back to the Generals. He placed the coffin on to the trolley and wheeled it into the Generals house. When the Vicar lifted the lid to place the Generals mother in law in, his own wife had woken again and sat up straight in the coffin. The Vicar passed out with fright, as did the Generals wife and the Vicars wife, convincing herself that as the Vicar was lying under the prone Generals wife she had caught him out good and proper and promptly had an attack of the vapors and passed out again falling back into the coffin with the lid closing back on top of her. When the General returned he found one coffin, full; one mother in law, dead; and the Vicar and his own wife lying on top of each other, out cold.

It caused a right old rumpus I can tell you.

Over and out Corporal.