At my last scout camp strange things happened: I cooked
sausages forty feet up in a tree, our Scout Master showed us his willy, we were
passed through by a ghost from the battle of Waterloo, and the Assistant Patrol
Leader was accidentally decapitated. Facts are often stranger than fiction.
Our Scout Master was a gregarious man, who encouraged
those of us who needed it and pushed those who were idle and sloppy. Perhaps
that was why, on the first day of our last scout camp, I ended up a tree with a
frying pan, a tub of lard, and a butane gas cooker, swaying nervously in the
wind and cooking sausages.
However, it was when our Patrol, of half a dozen
middle aged teenagers, stood to attention in the fading light, that we were told
one thing by our Scout Master and shown another. Both were of interest. Our
camp, he had said, had once been the staging post for troops preparing to cross
overseas to fight at the battle of Waterloo. How exciting, I thought, but was
confused by the constant childish giggling of our Assistant Patrol Leader. What
the rest of us had failed to the see, in the dappled shadows, was the Scout
Masters floppy flesh, unzipped and on display.
In our green tent, we laughed, extrapolated and
feasted on our teenage hormones. Then everyone lay down without thinking, as if
we had been told to go to sleep. We hid inside our sleeping bags to warm our
faces, and felt the ground penetrate.
Then I wondered if I was asleep or awake? There was an aura, a soundless state. In the
darkness, the green canvas flapped. Odd, because the night had been so still
and windless.
But this was how it all
started: a vacuum sucked out the air and fear rushed in. I had to stand up,
because I was expecting someone, something. I could hear running from the top
of the hill, at an inhuman pace, sounding like flesh flapping inside old
fashioned boots. Then we all heard it coming. Keep quiet, keep quiet, we all said,
as the boots pounded and rushed in!
The ghost of Waterloo
Hill, I said, as the torches went on. We swore, rationalised and speculated.
Whatever the truth, nobody denied they had not heard and felt the same
thing.
In the morning, we were
handed old cutting tools by our unapologetic Scout Master and headed out to a
thick field of dew drenched ferns, to make the roof for a bivouac. Our scythes
of long curved blade, stripped easily, but also bleed juices down our hands.
This was how the flying blade cut off the Assistant Patrol Leaders head, as our
Scout Master swung and slipped the cutter just above the neck.
He was found guilty of manslaughter and various
health and safety regulations. We were treated for trauma. And we agreed
amongst ourselves that we must have been possessed by the ghost of Waterloo, or
why else would the Scout Master chop off his head?
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