Jokers

Jokers – We lived in typical RAF, wooden barracks which had outside doors for each of the self-contained rooms. In each room there was a small, cylindrical cook stove with the stovepipe going straight up through the roof. Art Summers and I roomed together and we had two neighbours – Don Keith and Jack Martin – and both of these characters were jokers of the practical nature. A number of times the area was a target for enemy bombing, but the most dangerous aspect was the falling shrapnel from the area’s protecting force. One evening, Art and I had just returned from the bath house some distance from our barracks and were in clean pyjamas. Keith and Martin, evidently, saw us and they waited until Art and I entered our room; then they whistled in an expert manner simulating falling shrapnel. Summers and I reacted quickly. We hit the floor and landed under our respective beds. Under our beds was much dust. We were livid when we heard, through paper-thin walls, the rotten characters laughing like mad. So we agreed to fix their water. We got a shell used for the firing of identification signals from an aircraft. We tied a long piece of string to the shell, and while I went next door to hold the attention of Keith and Martin, Summers climbed up onto the roof and quietly lowered the shell down the short distance into the stovepipe of Keith’s and Martin’s cook stove. Then Summers, hanging onto the end of the piece of string, got back into our room and when I, also, got back into the room, Summers let the string loose. There was one terrific BANG. Keith and Martin went running out of the barracks hollering, “Get out boys, she’s on fire.”

When the smoke dissipated and things in general calmed down, Summers and I went in to see the damage, if any. The identification shell was a white one and it left Keith’s and Martin’s stove in a pure white condition. The lid of the cook stove had shot up to the ceiling to leave its impression. Keith and Martin never knew what happened, and Summers and I chuckled until the time when we were posted to different squadrons.