I first came across Glover in England, not long before we sailed for India. He always seemed to be arguing with a Lance Corporal. They were always together, whether they were in the canteen or walking across the barracks or where ever. I got the impression that the Lance Corporal always seemed irritable, he was always cursing Glover. I used to wonder why, I used to think, "Are they pals or what?" They always seemed to be at each other's throats, whether they were pals or not. Anyway it was just a puzzle to me at that stage.

I remember the 'cockney' Corporal. He used to be often saying, - "Glavver," Cockney for Glover, "You cant." Well you know what that is in cockney. He was cursing him. That stuck in my mind. It was quite a puzzle really I never did get to the bottom of it.

One day not long after we had arrived in India, Glover appeared at the window of the 'Basha' I was in. He was riding a push - bike. The 'Bashas' in India, the old barracks were made of bamboo and timber uprights mainly. There were no glass windows, only an opening and a flap of bamboo matting, that used to be propped open with a stick. This flap was open of course. The bottom half, from the sill down was built of brick. The brick was only built up into a wooded frame, wooden uprights, or studding. The bricks were not keyed in.

As I was saying Glover arrived on his bike, as he stopped out side the window he shoved his foot on the top of the brickwork. The whole soddin' lot came crashing in on my bed, I said, "Glover you twat."

As if nothing had happened he said to me, "What's it like in this company? I'm being posted here next week."

Well I was bloody appalled, all this muck and mess and broken bricks on my bed. I started to have a go at him, so he pissed off on his bike.

The following week he appeared. Well, I thought, " Just my fuckin' luck." I noticed that Glover had found a bed, next but one to mine. He asked me if I would help him put up his mosquito net. There were wires that ran right along the barrack rooms at the top and bottom of the beds. All the beds were in line on both sides.

The mosquito nets were oblong, like a canopy over the beds. There was a tape on each corner and you'd fasten these to the wires. Well this 'chump' Glover asked me to put his net up, well, old muggin's here agreed, but when I came to put it up I noticed it was like a bell tent. The shape was different to mine.

"Where the hell did you get this net?" I said.

"Oh," he replied, "We all had them in the desert. It's a sand fly net it's got a finer mesh than a mosquito net." Well, as I weighted it up I realised it wasn't going to go up, because there was only one tape at the top, and of course that would have gone in the middle of the bed. "There's no wires above the middle of the bed." I said, "You bleedin' nut, you'll have to go and get it changed," he was reluctant to go to the stores and get it changed. After that I got to know Glover pretty well, because he came into the same platoon I was in, which at the time was the motor cycle platoon

The next instance I remember involving Glover was when we arrived back at the barracks at Ahmednagar, after being out on a scheme. It was during the monsoon season in India. These schemes could last from two or three days to a week.

'Of course we had waterproofs, the rain used to absolutely piss down'. When we got back this particular night, it had been the last night of a scheme, the platoon sergeant said to me,

" Have you seen Glover around?"

"No." I said. Then this other fellow arrived, a geordie named Matt Cowan,

"Have you seen Glover around?" said the sergeant "He's not turned up." Matt Cowan said that he had not seen Glover anywhere. The sergeant must have been asking around the platoon were Glover was, because most of us had not been far from each other, or we'd come across each other. So when Matt Cowan said that he hadn't seen Glover either, it seemed that no one had seen him for quite a while. So the sergeant said to me and the geordie, Matt Cowan, "You'd better both go back and see if you can find him."

Well that was a bit of a job really, because it was still pissing down outside. Anyway we got on our bikes, I remember how futile this was. We had a job to see at times, with it pissing raining heavily. The roads were muddy; puddles everywhere. I was cursing Glover again, I thought, "Bleedin' Glover of all people."

We went back for miles until we came to a track we'd gone down off the main road, which was little more than a track. We carried on down the track till we came to where we'd camped the night before. There was still no sign of Glover. We turned our engines off and had a good look around. When we came to restart the engines they just wouldn't start. The water had splashed into the contact breaker points and magnetos, we tried to dry them out with bits of rag. We took the covers off the magnetos. We got Matt Cowan's engine started and left it ticking over, whilst he helped to start mine. As fast as we were drying the contact points, the rain was in there again. It was really pissing down. We didn't have chance to withdraw our hands, when the points would become wet through again. It was bsolutely hopeless bleedin' situation. We kick started, till we were exhausted.

We both decided that it was useless, the only thing to do was to wait until morning, when there was the chance of someone else passing, because it had been a big scheme we had been on. Quite a lot of troops and vehicles were around, although not in the particular spot we were, so we camped for the night.

All we had were our ground sheets, Army ground sheets aren't that much use at all. They've been in use since about the Boer War, they were bloody useless. They've never altered the stile of them. They were just long enough, about six feet by maybe two foot six wide, with eye let holes down the side of them, so you could use them as a double purpose thing. You could lace your pull through or bit of rope through, making a bed out of them if you had a frame. In the jungle you could make a bamboo frame and lace your ground sheet round it to make a bed. They weren't a proper good thing at all really, for any purpose

So, we laced the two together with our pull through, which is the piece of cord used for cleaning the rifle barrel through. We put the two motor cycles a couple of feet apart and made a tent with the ground sheets on the top. We both tried to get down on the grass between these two bikes. That's how we spent the night. It was a bloody uncomfortable night, I'll tell you. I had the footrest of one of the bikes sticking in my arse all night. I remember that distinctly. Every time I tried to turn over, this bloody footrest was in the way. They weren't folding footrests, like they have today. I couldn't get shut of the bleedin' thing. It was there to stay.

The next morning a breeze came up, it was quite bright and fine. We managed to get the bikes started, so we set off back to the barracks. We thought, "Well bugger it, we don't know were Glover is, no one else knows so bugger him. We'll make our way back and report that there's no sign of him."

We got back and one of the first blokes we met was Glover. He was large as life, dry as a bone, he'd probably had a bloody good meal and wanted to know what all the fuss was about.

Well the next instance I remember involving Glover was at Kohima.

Glover had been in Hornsey's section. Well, Hornsey the cockney Lance Corporal was now a full corporal, I'd been made up to Lance Corporal at the time. Hornsey was that fed up with Glover in his section that, he came to me one day,

"Look how about taking this clown Glover for a couple of weeks, because he's driving me Barmy?"

I was reluctant to take him. I didn't want to take him at all,

"Oh sod that George," I said, " I've had enough of him, without having him in the section."

Well, George near enough insisted saying, that it wasn't fair, we should really share Glover out. He said that once I'd had enough of Glover I should palm him out on some other bugger. I agreed to take Glover, so he joined my section as a Bren gunner. Daft thing really, but he had been a Bren gunner in the section he was in. So what happened was, we swopped Bren gunners and I copped for Glover.

Well one day, it was still monsoon weather at Kohima, on a hill known as G.P.T. ridge. The hillside was very rocky with boulders sticking up out of the ground. You had to look around for a place to dig, because you'd dig so far down and come to rock. You couldn't get a full trench dug. I was paired off with Glover, I don't know why I was paired off with Glover now, why I didn't have someone else, or if it was my choice, I can't remember. There were two men to a trench, the trenches were known as slit trenches, because not like the 1st World War when they were long lines of trenches, the trench was only about six feet long.

Well, I was looking round for a place to dig and I found a spot, so I decided to dig in there. "Come on George lets get digging," I said. An argument started right away, because Glover had also been looking around and picked his spot. He was that sort of a fella he was insisting. He was saying that the spot he picked was better than that I had picked. Really he should have had no say in the matter, because I was a Lance Corporal and he was a fusilier. But under those conditions there wasn't much you could do really, apart from getting involved in a punch up. If I had have punched him, he would have fought on, he wouldn't have given up easily. He was stubborn, not only stubborn but fuckin' stupid as well.

To make things easier I gave way I said, "All right George." I was still convinced that the spot I had picked was better than the spot he picked. To save a bloody argument and wanting to get on with the job, I said, "Okay George lets dig in." We started to dig, well only a few inches under the ground where he started to dig, we came across a boulder. It just looked like a small rock, but they were all over the place. The further down we got, the wider this rock went. It was like a bloody round pyramid. We were in 'A' company, a party from 'B' company were passing, going for water. That was a constant search, looking for bloody water. You could tell that they were a water party, because they all had water bags on bamboo poles

.

Glover shouted them across. There was a Corporal in charge of them.

"Give us a lift here to throw this rock out of the trench?" Glover said. Two or three of these blokes got round one side. 'I knew it was futile before he bleedin' started'. I stood up and watched them. Glover tried to get round one side of it. They all laughed, because they knew like I did, it was bloody futile. It was hopeless.

The outcome of that instance was that instead of the trench being six feet long, it was bloody near sixteen feet long, because we both had to have a sleeping compartment. Normally you dig a dugout and cover it up with branches behind the trench. Well that was impossible because the rock was in the way. So it finished with me being one side of the bloody rock and Glover being the other side.

On that same hill not long afterwards, the weather cleared up, at that time it had still been pissing down. This particular afternoon it cleared up and Glover, the Bren gunner was supposed to be on his two hours guard duty. I had left the position for some reason. I'd gone further down the track, when an officer came up to me,

"Are you in charge of this section?" he said.

"Yes sir," I replied.

"What's the bloody idea here," he said, "Who's your lookout man?"

I indicated and told him that George was in his trench with his Bren gun.

"There's a man up on top there sir." I said,

"Yes he's on the top of his dug-out reading a bloody newspaper," he replied.

I couldn't believe it, I went up the hill, and there's George, sprawled out on top of the dug out reading a Seac newspaper. The Army issued the Seac newspaper from time to time. It used to come up with the rations. 'Seac' used to stand for South East Asia Command. There was Glover, reading the newspaper as large as life. I got it in the 'neck' and what could I do? All I could do was tell him off. But it was like talking to a chimpanzee.

The next instance I remember with George, we were supporting 'B' company. 'B' company had attacked a hill known as Aradura Sper. They were using barbed wire, it was going to be a long job. They couldn't take the hill, somebody else had tried before them. I think it was the Royal Scots.

We were carrying barbed wire up for 'B' company, because they must have decided to dig in. Instead of coming all the way down the hill, they must have decided to dig in overnight and put barbed wire out, then perhaps have another go in the morning to try and shift the Japs off this hill.

George and I and a few other soldiers had made two or three trips up the hill with these rolls of barbed wire. We were handing them to a Sergeant at the top from 'B' company. He came from under some large bushes, rhododendrons I think. We were on about our third trip up the hill, we got to the top and there was nobody there. I became a bit anxious really, knowing that the Japanese weren't far way. They were only a couple of hundred yards further on. I was anxious to get out of the bloody place. When there was nobody to hand the wire over to, I thought, "Well sod it we've stayed around long enough, lets get out of it". But on the way back down the hill we passed about half a dozen dead soldiers who'd been killed in an earlier attack. They were not our soldiers, I think they were Royal Scots. They were like Africans, because they were bloated. They'd probably been lying there for a couple of days in the sun. In the climate out there, bodies soon start to rot. Well these had swelled and they were bloated in their uniforms, I remember that sight of them. Well you can imagine that sort of thing.

On the way down George stopped there. He's going round from one body to another picking up rifles, then putting them down again. I was getting more irritable, because I wanted to be out of it. I said, "What the bloody hell's going on George?"

" I'm looking for a rifle with better woodwork than mine," he replied,

You wouldn't believe it! Well, in barracks you're on inspection every morning. You have a rifle inspection. Whilst in barracks if you had a rifle issued or changed, you'd ask the store man for a rifle with decent woodwork, because some rifles had lighter woodwork than others. On some the woodwork was dark, these rifles never looked as smart and clean as the light woodwork, even when cleaned. Well that became noticeable. It was well known in the Army, if you had a rifle with nice woodwork that was half the battle. The officer inspecting just looked and got the impression right away that the rifle was clean. Where as a rifle with dirty woodwork, blokes used to often get pulled up, because the rifle its self looks dirty.

Well this barmy bastard Glover under those conditions was looking for a rifle with better woodwork than the one he had. You just can't believe these bloody idiots. Anyway I got Glover away and we buggered off back down the hill.

Not long afterwards not very far way from that last hill Aradura, there was a village called Viswema that we attacked and took from the Japanese. After we took the village we dug-in on the outside of the village. You never dug-in inside the village, because of course the enemy would shell you. They didn't know quite where you were on the outside when you dug-in.

Well, we got ourselves dug-in, then the mortar bombs started landing, I new they were Japanese because they were too bleedin' close for one thing. George was wondering around in the open, I shouted to him to get under cover. "What's the bloody hell's up with ya? They're our own trench mortars," he replied.

Well that often happened if the Japanese were advancing, our own artillery or mortars would land shells just in front of us, which in that case wouldn't have been very far from where we were. Sometimes when you were advancing your own artillery would fire shells to land about fifty yards in front to keep the enemies heads down, while you advanced a bit further. But this wasn't the case here. Common bloody sense told me it wasn't the case, because in the first place we knew of no attack, in the second they were too bloody close. So I shouted to George. Would you believe it, he was walking around as if he was on a bleedin' Sunday afternoon stroll. Another soldier that I didn't notice at first shouted to him, "Hey George you silly bugger you've been hit." I thought that this other soldier shouted that to get George to take cover, but when I looked again I saw the blood trickling down his groin. I could see it, we used to wear green drill dress, I could see the blood running down his thigh from his groin. So I backed the other soldier up then. "George you silly sod you've been hit, get to the regimental aid post," I shouted. So he then looked down and was convinced, but there was no sign of him flapping or panicking. He just looked down, saw the blood and said, "Where's the regimental aid post?" He walked over in that direction. He'd no sooner arrived then the aid post was plastered with mortar bombs. So George got another packet in his knees.

When the battle was over, after Kohima. I was given a fortnight's leave. I was returning from this leave, and I was stood on the railway station in Calcutta. Who should come walking towards me but George with all his bloody gear, "Hi George," I said, "Where you off to?"

"I'm going home, I've got me discharge."

I thought, "thank bleedin' Christ!"

The next time I saw George, was at home in Salford in a shop in Lower Broughton Road. I walked into the shop, which was a penny bazaar, he was picking a pair of socks. He just looked up and said, "Hello Pat," as if he had only seen me the day before.

George died a couple of years ago.