- Reaction score
- 0
- Points
- 410
In his immortal poem “The Road Not Taken”, Robert Frost wrote about two roads diverging in a wood. He chose to take the “one less travelled by”. This tells me that ol’ Bobby would have made an excellent paratrooper and recce-dog. I’m kinda surprised he didn’t see me there. I’d have stood out a bit, I’m sure. Hair too long for regulations, boots shined, pants bloused, beret at a jaunty angle, and a worried look. (People who regularly take roads less travelled by frequently wear worried looks.) But then, maybe I was cammed up. Or sleeping. Probably sleeping. I tire easily these days.
I love taking roads less travelled by, the lesser travelled, the better. One can’t really discover anywhere totally new to Man, but he can rediscover. I was driving the Coy Comd a while back, out in the Training Area, and I spotted a road less travelled by, that diverged from the MSR. “Sir!” I said. (‘Sir’ being my term of endearment for him. I called him ‘Sir’, and he called me ‘That insubordinate ankle’ - Well, it was an anatomical reference, and it did start with an “a”.) “Sir! If we take that blacktrack, we could get to the CP a lot faster. You could be early for the O Group, and we could grab a coffee on the way back.”
“What blacktrack?” He asked. “I don’t see any blacktrack.” (In his defence, it was getting a little dark, and he is getting a tad elderly. But spry, for a man of 102.)
“Right there, Sir. On the other side of the ditch just ahead. Reference dead tree, 30 meters. The tracks are a little over-grown with brush, but you can see where the road winds up towards the top of the high ground. Brush in a track is a good sign, Sir. It means that nobody’s been up that track in a while. So, nobody knows about the shortcut. We could use it to get back and forth and have more time for real work, and less for listening to people babble.”
“Brush? You ankle! Those are trees growing there!”
“Okay, Sir, granted. But they’re small trees. Even better, it means that nobody’s been along there for a couple years. We might find a real good Patrol Base.”
“Couple years? More like this century! We are not going up that ‘blacktrack,’ as you have so imaginatively described it, MCpl.”
“Sir, aren’t you a devotee of Frost? What would he say about this? And you a Pathfinder, and all.” (always hit ‘em with their glory days) “Tell you what, Sir, how ‘bout we just go up a little way. If it looks too rough for ol’ Betsy here, we can just turn ‘er around and come back. We have plenty of time for a brief detour.”
He accepted the suggestion. It’s an old ruse, but a good one, and Officers usually fall for it, at least once. Fortunately the CSM wasn’t along. He wouldn’t have fallen for it at all. I learned it from him.
I put the spurs to ol’ Betsy, the Major’s Iltis, and we went a-buckin’ and a-snortin’ through the ditch, up the bank, and on up that track. She was definitely a road less travelled by, but we were barely bouncing enough to flatten my bush-hat against the roof of the cab. The Major rubbed his head, pushed his glasses back up his nose, and checked his seatbelt buckle. “I really hate it when you do crap like this, MCpl,” he joked.
I laughed in appreciation at his wit. “Good one, Sir. Hang on, now, this could get a bit dicey.”
Ol’ Betsy ploughed through the brush (barely ten feet high, really) plodded on through a small stream that I hadn’t seen from the MSR, (the water barely came in over the door frame), but almost pooped out in the swamp just past the scrub. (I can’t blame her, I poop out in swamps, too. Especially when a beaver slaps his tail around dusk. Then I poop out in my combat trousers.) Ol’ Betsy charged on through to the high ground (she always likes to take the high ground, like a good EP vehicle.), where the blacktrack (or maybe it was just an avalanche) had a few boulders strewn across it. (They weren’t that much bigger than soccer balls.) We manoeuvred around most of them, climbed the ones we couldn’t avoid, and sent a few bouncing down the slope behind us (which wasn’t all that steep. Maybe forty-five degrees, not much more.)
A small pile of shale had slid off the mountain (okay, maybe it was a little higher than I had originally thought) into the goat-path ahead of us. One side of Ol’ Betsy was firmly wedged against the cliff face, the other side was hanging just a little bit into empty space. (Not much more than the width of the tire, really. And it was on my side, so I don’t see why all the hollering was necessary. Maybe he was concerned with my safety.)
“Stop! Stop the jeep, MCpl! Now! Turn around and take us back down this instant!”
Now, there was no way I was going back down that mountain on a skinny little goat-path, with boulders the size of Volkswagens, and thirty foot trees in the path, so I distracted him. Calmly discharging buckets of cold sweat, and casually gripping the steering wheel and stick-shift with white knuckles, I simply ignored this absurd command. (While not unlawful, it was ridiculous, and I didn’t want to embarrass him by pointing that out.) “Look, Sir! An eagle!” I exclaimed cheerily, with hardly a tinge of panic in my voice. “Isn’t that majestic? Awe-inspiring.” I felt it best to distract him form the illusion that we were in an impossible and probably fatal predicament. “Don’t you love watching birds of prey soar through the air?”
“Not when I’m looking down at them!”
“Well, Sir, I’m sure the road will improve soon.” Of course I was lying. Roads less travelled by never improve. They only get worse. That’s why they’re less travelled by. Still, at times a small white lie is beneficial. It can calm a nervous Officer, and keep him from clawing up the Iltis interior (or yours), thus preventing him from damaging DND property. An EP certainly wouldn’t want to have his Officer disciplined for Destruction of DND Property, or Assault and Battery.
“Sir, you see that little pile of shale ahead? We may just slide a tiny bit to the left, just a couple inches, and tilt ever-so-slightly towards the brink of the cliff. Not to fear, Sir, it’s perfectly normal in these sorts of situations. Would you mind grabbing my shirt if I start to slip out? My seatbelt seems to have a faulty buckle. My shirt, Sir, not my throat. Thank you, Sir.”
I could see that my calming words had the desired soothing effect on the Major, as he released my Adam’s apple, dabbed at the perspiration on his forehead with a swatch of upholstery, and gave me a tiny smile. However, I made a mental note to tell the Major that smiling with clenched teeth and glaring eyes produces a rather grotesque effect, at a later time. Provided there was a later time. We crossed the shale pile with no harm except for the potential hearing loss resulting form the loud, high-pitched shrieking in a closed cab. As I told the Major, shrieking is a wonderful way to relieve tension, and he should have joined in. Bottling up your tension isn’t healthy, and leads to ulcers.
As I thought it would, the snake-path deteriorated beyond the shale pile, and Ol’ Betsy started to struggle and slip. “Well, Sir,” I said, “Looks like time to drop ‘er into four-wheel, eh? You know, so many troops are so stupid that they’ll drive into a remote location in four-wheel until they get stuck. They they’re screwed. The way to do it, is to go in two-wheel as far as possible, then when you’re stuck, you put it in four-by, to get out.”
“Really, MCpl? Guess what, you stunned clavicle (well it was an anatomical reference, and it did start with “c”), you put in four-wheel back in the swamp, and never took it out!”
“Oh, yeah! So I did! Good eye, Sir. Well, guess we go to the winch now. Would you mind running the cable out to that big ol’ pine? I would, but it would take some time for me to pry my fingers off the wheel and stick. I’d likely need pliers.
Winching the last few hundred meters up the mountain was slow and tedious work. I thought that I should see about installing a faster winch, or maybe a faster Officer. But discretion became the better part of valour at this point, as the Major was behaving rather strangely, so I kept that little joke to myself. He was just a little out of sorts, I thought. Which was strange, because he was usually such a collected individual.
Giggling to myself, in what may have been the onset of hysteria, I noticed the Major wildly waving his arms and shouting at me. Thinking that perhaps the cable was about to snap (or that the Major had already had) and that he was trying to warn me me and ol’ Betsy were about to go hurtling off the mountain and into the ravine, I leapt out, and drained off the adrenaline rush by hopping smartly, in a proper military manner, in place.
“What, Sir?”
“The Command Post! It’s right below us. And there’s a paved highway just past this tree! It looks like it’ll take us back all the way to Base.”
I don’t know where Bobby Frost’s road less travelled by took him, but I doubt it was a major highway. How depressing.
-again, with respect and admiration, (and maybe apologies) dedicated to Patrick F. McManus
I love taking roads less travelled by, the lesser travelled, the better. One can’t really discover anywhere totally new to Man, but he can rediscover. I was driving the Coy Comd a while back, out in the Training Area, and I spotted a road less travelled by, that diverged from the MSR. “Sir!” I said. (‘Sir’ being my term of endearment for him. I called him ‘Sir’, and he called me ‘That insubordinate ankle’ - Well, it was an anatomical reference, and it did start with an “a”.) “Sir! If we take that blacktrack, we could get to the CP a lot faster. You could be early for the O Group, and we could grab a coffee on the way back.”
“What blacktrack?” He asked. “I don’t see any blacktrack.” (In his defence, it was getting a little dark, and he is getting a tad elderly. But spry, for a man of 102.)
“Right there, Sir. On the other side of the ditch just ahead. Reference dead tree, 30 meters. The tracks are a little over-grown with brush, but you can see where the road winds up towards the top of the high ground. Brush in a track is a good sign, Sir. It means that nobody’s been up that track in a while. So, nobody knows about the shortcut. We could use it to get back and forth and have more time for real work, and less for listening to people babble.”
“Brush? You ankle! Those are trees growing there!”
“Okay, Sir, granted. But they’re small trees. Even better, it means that nobody’s been along there for a couple years. We might find a real good Patrol Base.”
“Couple years? More like this century! We are not going up that ‘blacktrack,’ as you have so imaginatively described it, MCpl.”
“Sir, aren’t you a devotee of Frost? What would he say about this? And you a Pathfinder, and all.” (always hit ‘em with their glory days) “Tell you what, Sir, how ‘bout we just go up a little way. If it looks too rough for ol’ Betsy here, we can just turn ‘er around and come back. We have plenty of time for a brief detour.”
He accepted the suggestion. It’s an old ruse, but a good one, and Officers usually fall for it, at least once. Fortunately the CSM wasn’t along. He wouldn’t have fallen for it at all. I learned it from him.
I put the spurs to ol’ Betsy, the Major’s Iltis, and we went a-buckin’ and a-snortin’ through the ditch, up the bank, and on up that track. She was definitely a road less travelled by, but we were barely bouncing enough to flatten my bush-hat against the roof of the cab. The Major rubbed his head, pushed his glasses back up his nose, and checked his seatbelt buckle. “I really hate it when you do crap like this, MCpl,” he joked.
I laughed in appreciation at his wit. “Good one, Sir. Hang on, now, this could get a bit dicey.”
Ol’ Betsy ploughed through the brush (barely ten feet high, really) plodded on through a small stream that I hadn’t seen from the MSR, (the water barely came in over the door frame), but almost pooped out in the swamp just past the scrub. (I can’t blame her, I poop out in swamps, too. Especially when a beaver slaps his tail around dusk. Then I poop out in my combat trousers.) Ol’ Betsy charged on through to the high ground (she always likes to take the high ground, like a good EP vehicle.), where the blacktrack (or maybe it was just an avalanche) had a few boulders strewn across it. (They weren’t that much bigger than soccer balls.) We manoeuvred around most of them, climbed the ones we couldn’t avoid, and sent a few bouncing down the slope behind us (which wasn’t all that steep. Maybe forty-five degrees, not much more.)
A small pile of shale had slid off the mountain (okay, maybe it was a little higher than I had originally thought) into the goat-path ahead of us. One side of Ol’ Betsy was firmly wedged against the cliff face, the other side was hanging just a little bit into empty space. (Not much more than the width of the tire, really. And it was on my side, so I don’t see why all the hollering was necessary. Maybe he was concerned with my safety.)
“Stop! Stop the jeep, MCpl! Now! Turn around and take us back down this instant!”
Now, there was no way I was going back down that mountain on a skinny little goat-path, with boulders the size of Volkswagens, and thirty foot trees in the path, so I distracted him. Calmly discharging buckets of cold sweat, and casually gripping the steering wheel and stick-shift with white knuckles, I simply ignored this absurd command. (While not unlawful, it was ridiculous, and I didn’t want to embarrass him by pointing that out.) “Look, Sir! An eagle!” I exclaimed cheerily, with hardly a tinge of panic in my voice. “Isn’t that majestic? Awe-inspiring.” I felt it best to distract him form the illusion that we were in an impossible and probably fatal predicament. “Don’t you love watching birds of prey soar through the air?”
“Not when I’m looking down at them!”
“Well, Sir, I’m sure the road will improve soon.” Of course I was lying. Roads less travelled by never improve. They only get worse. That’s why they’re less travelled by. Still, at times a small white lie is beneficial. It can calm a nervous Officer, and keep him from clawing up the Iltis interior (or yours), thus preventing him from damaging DND property. An EP certainly wouldn’t want to have his Officer disciplined for Destruction of DND Property, or Assault and Battery.
“Sir, you see that little pile of shale ahead? We may just slide a tiny bit to the left, just a couple inches, and tilt ever-so-slightly towards the brink of the cliff. Not to fear, Sir, it’s perfectly normal in these sorts of situations. Would you mind grabbing my shirt if I start to slip out? My seatbelt seems to have a faulty buckle. My shirt, Sir, not my throat. Thank you, Sir.”
I could see that my calming words had the desired soothing effect on the Major, as he released my Adam’s apple, dabbed at the perspiration on his forehead with a swatch of upholstery, and gave me a tiny smile. However, I made a mental note to tell the Major that smiling with clenched teeth and glaring eyes produces a rather grotesque effect, at a later time. Provided there was a later time. We crossed the shale pile with no harm except for the potential hearing loss resulting form the loud, high-pitched shrieking in a closed cab. As I told the Major, shrieking is a wonderful way to relieve tension, and he should have joined in. Bottling up your tension isn’t healthy, and leads to ulcers.
As I thought it would, the snake-path deteriorated beyond the shale pile, and Ol’ Betsy started to struggle and slip. “Well, Sir,” I said, “Looks like time to drop ‘er into four-wheel, eh? You know, so many troops are so stupid that they’ll drive into a remote location in four-wheel until they get stuck. They they’re screwed. The way to do it, is to go in two-wheel as far as possible, then when you’re stuck, you put it in four-by, to get out.”
“Really, MCpl? Guess what, you stunned clavicle (well it was an anatomical reference, and it did start with “c”), you put in four-wheel back in the swamp, and never took it out!”
“Oh, yeah! So I did! Good eye, Sir. Well, guess we go to the winch now. Would you mind running the cable out to that big ol’ pine? I would, but it would take some time for me to pry my fingers off the wheel and stick. I’d likely need pliers.
Winching the last few hundred meters up the mountain was slow and tedious work. I thought that I should see about installing a faster winch, or maybe a faster Officer. But discretion became the better part of valour at this point, as the Major was behaving rather strangely, so I kept that little joke to myself. He was just a little out of sorts, I thought. Which was strange, because he was usually such a collected individual.
Giggling to myself, in what may have been the onset of hysteria, I noticed the Major wildly waving his arms and shouting at me. Thinking that perhaps the cable was about to snap (or that the Major had already had) and that he was trying to warn me me and ol’ Betsy were about to go hurtling off the mountain and into the ravine, I leapt out, and drained off the adrenaline rush by hopping smartly, in a proper military manner, in place.
“What, Sir?”
“The Command Post! It’s right below us. And there’s a paved highway just past this tree! It looks like it’ll take us back all the way to Base.”
I don’t know where Bobby Frost’s road less travelled by took him, but I doubt it was a major highway. How depressing.
-again, with respect and admiration, (and maybe apologies) dedicated to Patrick F. McManus
