The Singing Bone

Authors note: " Dialogue should be read with a cockney accent in mind"


The Singing Bone


The Somme,
July 1st, 1916.
07.20am
Twenty ninth division, knee deep in mud, awaiting orders from the field marshal to advance on to no mans land. Five seconds ago, the last three allied mines secretly positioned under the German trenches are detonated, clouds of smoke and dust fill the air. Standing next to one another in the third row from the front are Bert and his older brother. Two broke cockneys, born within earshot of the bells of St Mary-le-Bow, are deafened by the blast. They lose there balance and fall face first into the dirt. The platoon sergeant marches over to their screwed up bodies and swipes them up by the scruff of the neck. He shoves cigarettes into both their mouths.
"Light them oiley rags up soilders, and dig ya' daisys roots deep in the two thirty, that way you wont fall on your chevy everytime the Annie Maria hits home". The platoon sergeant slapped them both hard on the back, laughed and stumbled away, sipping brandy from his army issue flask. The initials, R.W are engraved in the steel.
The eldest brother, an ex con, turned bent corporal, wipes the mud from his eye's and tightens his gun belt so that it stops him from pissing his pants. Bert, the youngest and accomplished militant, slips his fathers knife with the elephant bone handle into the holder attached to his leg
"Why don't you flee this pickle you no good chunk of wood", Bert said to the oldest. " You take one step on to that flower patch and it will be cracks and cry for you my dear, just you wait, believe. No thief and brother so sorry and sad, dances for too long in this part of France."
A shot is fired. It ricochets off a tin roof of the bunker and kills a man. No one moves or says anything.
Exactly two hundred and fifteen meters from the front line, an operator receives a telegram ordering the twenty ninth division to advance into "No Mans Land".
" Zero hour hobbledehoy! Bugles blown the advance. Bushel and peck them West Ham reserves and do your dutiful. Let's trot and pace these German flutes right back to the gates of Rome.
Exactly thirteen minutes and twenty seven second later, underground in a German Bunker, the oldest brother runs faster than he has ever run in his life. Above him, machine gun fire drones , broken up by exploding shells. The walls of the bunker shiver. He hears nothing. He runs to the end of the corridor, where he finds a door. Opening the door he sees Bert, his younger brother, standing with his elephant bone knife held up a German Officers throat.
" You see one and t'other, you aint no fighter! You just a cherry hog who forgot how to swim my boy!!", said the youngest brother, sliding his blade across the officers throat, slaughtering him like a beast. Bert stares at his brother.
"Why don't you pack in the old typewriter and coward back to your old life. Charlie rollers and daisy beats, you the scum of London's streets. No cheese and kisses from your missus. Alive or dead, every man has a price on his head. But me, I’m going higher 'my man'. This is my heavenly plan. Now I’ve bagged myself the officer with this knife and bone 'andle. I'm rushing to the top of ya'. My promotion will buy me a house and girl, a sweet ivory-pearl. And I am the younger brother. We both came screaming from the same bitch of a mother. Left for nothing, I was the survivor while you crawled in the gutter and ended up in the bucket and pail, no brother of mine should end up in jail. So maybe i'l see you up on dry land, after you've learnt to read and write, maybe then you'l learn how to fight."
The older brother envious of his younger brothers German booty, pulls his pistol from its holster and shoots him five times in the chest.
"I may be a dirty old tea leaf , but good guys finish last in this fucking world"
War
Live it
Love it
The older brother rips the badge down off the German officers coat
"So much for being completely borassic, I’ve bagged myself a winner"
No shame. Thee end.