Buried Treasure

Observation Post, Volume 1, Issue 31, 18 December 1942, Page 2

Buried Treasure

(By W.O. 11. L. V. Winks.) Mac was a medical bloke, a rat easygoing chap who was as cheerful on sick parade as if the flock that he shepherded to the M.O.’s tent was a leave party. .Every man in the Regiment liked Mac. He handed out ”two of these and one of those” with a grin you could cut with a jack-knue. He walloped on poultices, sootned septic sores, and measured out dope day in, day out. He was as decent a bloke as any I’ve met in the army; white all through, and game as a bulldog. But he had a kink all the same. ' ‘ ‘ Bill, d ’you notice that bit of a rise, just before we came to the sand dunes?” Mac shot the question at his cobber as they strolled along at where the Regiment was ‘‘resting” after one of the Desert stunts. ‘‘Yes, . . . Why? A rubbish heap, I reckon.” ‘‘Rubbish be hanged”! Mac retorted. ‘‘You wall-eyed coot, its a kitchen midden of the ancient people who lived in Palestine long before David put the Knock-out on Golieth. ” ‘ ‘ And what the hell is a kitchen midden?” Bill demanded.

TONS OF FALOOSE Mac looked with patronising pity at his cobber. A kitchen midden’s a place where the ancients camped. You generally find things in ’em, implements, pots and pans, coins, and whips of other things. Some of ’em are worth tons of faloose. Do you get me?” Bill was still hazy, but he .-kept mum. \ ‘‘l’m going to sneak up there tonight, and have a cut at the midden, Mac declared. ‘ ‘ Might strike a pot of old coins worth a couple of hundred quid!” ‘‘Pigs might fly!” With this rude comment, Mac’s cobber hopped into his tent. 1 Mac mooned around after sick parade. His grin was missing, and whenever his cobber came within eye-range,

Mac glowered. ‘‘What’s got you down, Mac?” I ‘‘Nothing, Corp. Only I’d like to plug shat darned idiot Barton. ’ ’ DOG-EARED BOOK | Then Mac opened out, and put me wise to the whole business. He spouted I about archaelogy, about Sennacherib ind Sesostris, and- a lot of other ! ‘ heads ’ who hit things up in old times. Mac had a tin of fags, so I let him carry on. He showed me a little dogeared book about ancient Palestinepicked ,itup in Cairo.. It was by a French bloke, and poor old Mac had swallowed every furphy in it. ‘‘There’s tons of buried treasure in this blighted land,” Mac declared. ‘‘Tons of sand and sorrow,” I said. ‘‘Cut it out, Corp! I’ll bet you my rum issue for a week that I get treasure out' of that mound near the dunes. ‘‘Done!” I snapped. Mac’s dial sprouted the cheerful grin, and he hopped out of the bivvy to get some dope for a chap who was down with malaria. I ‘‘didn’t see him again till ‘‘cookhouse” sounded next morning. Mac was grinning, but he looked dopey, as if he been on the razzle. | DINKY ANTIKA ' ‘‘Saieda, Corp. I’ll trouble you for | that rum issue. . Struck oil last night (

Nazis thought it was a grenade and i threw themselves to the ground. As soon as they rose again the second mitten flew towards them and they dropped to the earth. Then Yegorov threw his helmet. i. i Now the Germans understood that he ! had nothing to fight with. They rose carelessly to full height and made a dasH towards him. But that was just Yegorov was waiting for. He flung his only grenade. Two Nazis fell. The thihP tried to run away, but Yegorov tackled him easily. ' His inventiveness saved him from captivity, torture and death. DECEIVING GERMAN GUNNERS Soviet commanders are fond of pro- ( voking the enemy into action which > wastes his ammunition to no purpose, i Red infantry on a certain sector were planning an attack. A Soviet battery ■ had the job of silencing the Nazi guns i but did not know their exact position. • The Soviet artillery commander had ■ guns mounted on tractors. One night ■ he had them driven backwards and for--1 wards some distance in front of our I infantry formation. The guns mount- ; ed on the tractors blazed away at the . Germans, who apparently decided that i Soviet tanks were concentrating on that sector, for at daybreak they opened ari tillery fire. That was exactly what the ; Soviet artillerymen wanted. They -I smashed the enemy batteries and . cleared the way for the infantry. z There are innumerable ways of des ceiving the enemy — fortificar tions, faked troop movements, and all 3 the tricks of camouflage. To these z must be added the cunning of the indio vidual soldier. It is thss quality which has often helped Red Army troops to. 3 out-manoeuvre the enemy. '

old. timer. Dinky little antika, worth a hundred quid if its worth a piastre.” “Go to Jericho! Let's have a squint at your treasure. Bally old M. and V. tin, I s ’pose.” Mac’s cobber was in the bivvy when we got there. He sniffed when Mac opened his haversack and produced an earth-strained brass pot about the size of a fifty fag tin. It was covered in curious —heiroglyphics, Mac called- —and looked pretty ancient. “Is’nt it a beaut?” Mac gloated over his antika, rubber it gently with his shirt sleeve, and then put it back gently in his haversack. “Give you five dizzies for it, Mac.” Mac glared at his cobber, and then opened on me with a free translation from the French bloke’s book. “In B.C. 701, Sennacherib in vaded Palestine and put the wind up Zelekiah, King of Askelou, Hezekiah of Judah and a lot of other tin-pot kings. He made Lil-baal, King of Gaza, sit up and think; but that old girl got the oil before the Assyrians swooped on him. 'Mac lowered his voice. ‘‘His treasure was buried in a mound near the sea, below Gaza!” ‘‘l get you. And you’ve got the treasure, Mac.” DINNER AT SHEPHERDS ‘‘A bit of it, Corp. Soon’s I hit Cairo, I’ll take that brass pot to the museum. If I get a hundred for it Corp., you’re on a dinner .at Shepherd’s.” Mac left on sick parade. I was Orderly Corporal, and, it was my pain ful duty to detail his cobber for cookhouse fatigue. Bill went like a lamb to peel spud? and chop up Gypo melons for the stew After inspection. I told the S.M., whc was prettv keen on the ‘‘Wonders oi the Holy Land, ’ ’ about Mac’s discov ery. He streaked away for the M.O i tent and froze on to Mac. | ‘‘Report to me when the parade’s ’over.” I ‘‘Very good.” quoth old Mac. I 'l’erf minutes later I saw Mac and ths TURNBULL LIBRARY! ii uriii *>rAl Alin 1—

S.M. making for Mac’s bivvy, and 1 happened along in time to be in at the death. ‘‘lsn’t it a beaut? One of King Lil-baal’s perfume pots. B.C. seven-double-O! MADE IN JAPAN The S.M. grabbed the little brass pot, eyed it all over, and rubbed some caked earth from the bottom. Then a grin, a grin that a Manx cat might have envied, spread over his dial. ‘.‘Get an eyeful of this! The S.M. handed the pot over to Mac with his finger on the space he had cleaned. ■. ‘‘Made in Japan!” Mae spluttered, and flung the pot down. ‘‘A beaut! Worth a hundred if it’s worth a piastre!” said Mac’s cobber, and dodged a water-bottle, and hopped into the open. Mac’s grin was on leave for a week. He cursed the French bloke daily, and wondered how the brass pot came to be on the ground. His cobber might have given him the •linkum —but he didn’t. ‘‘Aussie’’ Magazine.