Between the Mines

INTRODUCTION

I hadn't intended to write this story yet – it was one that was in the back of my mind – but the recent attack on Camp Bastion in Afghanistan made me want to complete it. I just hope I haven't rushed it too much. I also hope it will be accepted as a very small tribute to those who serve their countries in faraway and dangerous places.

Naturally, it's entirely fiction as far as the characters are concerned – and I apologise in advance to anyone from Yorkshire for my awful attempt to write that dialect.

BETWEEN THE MINES

"I was in the pub a while back and I saw my mate, Ernie with a great big smile on his face. So I said; 'What's made you so happy?'

'Well Jack, I've gotta tell ya,' he said, 'yesterday I was waxin' my boat... just waxin' my boat, and this redhead came up to me... tits out to here, Jack. Tits out to here! She says, 'Can I have a ride in your boat?' I said 'Sure you can.' So I took her way out, Jack. I turned off the key, threw it into the cabin, and I said 'It's either screw or swim!

'And guess what? She couldn't swim, Jack. She couldn't swim!'

The next day I was in the bar and I saw Ernie with an even bigger smile on his face. I said, 'what is it this time, Ernie?'

'Well Jack... I gotta tell ya... Yesterday I was waxin' my boat, just waxing' my boat... and a beautiful blonde came up to me... tits out to here, Jack. Tits out to here! She said 'Can I have a ride in your boat?' I told her 'Sure you can.' So I took her way out, Jack. Way out! Much further than the last one. I turned off the key, threw it in the cabin, and I said, 'It's either screw or swim!

'Well... she couldn't swim, Jack! She couldn't swim!'

A couple of days later I went into the same bar... and there's Ernie... crying over a beer.

I said, 'Ernie, what's up?'

'Well Jack, I gotta tell ya,' he sobbed, 'yesterday I was out waxin' my boat, just waxing' my boat... and this incredible brunette came up to me... tits WAY out to here, Jack. Tits WAY out to here. I had more wood than my boat does. She says, 'Can I have a ride in your boat?' So I said, 'Sure you can.'

'So I took her way out, Jack, way, WAY out... much further than the last two. I turned off the key, threw it in the cabin, looked at her tits and said 'It's either screw or swim!'

'Well... she pulled down her pants and...' He paused and took a big gulp of beer.

'She had a dick, Jack! She had this enormous dick! And I can't fuckin' swim Jack! I can't fuckin' swim!"

There was an appreciative – and very satisfying - roar of laughter. It wasn't just the joke; nor was it my delivery of it (pretty decent, though I say so myself!), so much as the fact that the people in Camp Bastion in the Helmand province of Afghanistan were just glad to have something to laugh about. I was still grinning, and employing all the stagecraft I'd ever learned in order to entertain them, even though I was pretty close to being exhausted. Since arriving three days earlier, it seemed as if I hadn't stopped.

The flight out had been, for me at least, nerve racking. Brize Norton, the RAF base near Oxford, is a weird place to begin a journey. I mean the check-in staff ask all the usual questions about packing your bag yourself – but they're in combat fatigues and the flight crew are dressed in what look like beige boiler suits. There are squaddies everywhere – some being welcomed back by relatives; often in tears with relief – others, like the ones I flew with, 'recovering' after a couple of weeks of R&R.

There was a couple of hours or so to wait in Cyprus, because no fixed-wing flights are allowed into Kandahar airfield during daylight. Ten minutes out from Kandahar, we were told to put our body armour and helmets on; everything went silent and the inside of the plane was blacked out. It was actually about half an hour before we landed and then there was a bit of a wait before myself, the other entertainers, and thirty or so soldiers were loaded onto a Hercules transport. It only seemed to be a matter of minutes before we landed, were piled into a snatch-wagon, and were driven past rows of Chinook and Apache helicopters until I was finally shown to the air-conditioned, tented accommodation that was to be my home for a few days.

Now, if you've read my story in the 'Between the Lines' series, you may well be wondering how someone like Jack de Ladd came to be entertaining the armed forces like this. The answer is fairly simple. Although the mini-series written by Penny hadn't really taken off (it turned a decent enough profit but wasn't quite the success we'd both hoped for), our second project had been an entirely different matter.

An old friend - Jimbo 'Marianne' Mcardle, an ancient former female impressionist and superb comedian – had persuaded us to listen to some old tapes he had of a radio programme called 'Life with the Lyons.' He'd tried to persuade us that the time was ripe for a similar domestic comedy, and that Penny had the same innate sense of comic timing that Bebe Daniels had brought to the original along with her husband, the actor, Ben Lyon.

I hadn't been enthusiastic to begin with, but Jimbo worked his charm on Penny and, before too long, she was busy working on scripts while I added the 'gags. To cut a long story short, Jimbo presented the first completed one to a BBC producer and, almost before we knew what was happening, the first six programmes of 'Between the Lines – starring Jack de Ladd and Penny Coyne' were being broadcast on Radio 4.

Much to our surprise, they were really well received – both by the critics and the audience – and we'd been commissioned to do another series. Penny, of course, was now so heavily pregnant that there was no chance of her doing much at the moment, and none whatsoever of her coming with me on this trip – but the question I'd been asked most often since my arrival had been: "Are you really married to Penny Coyne?" And, because the publicity photos had been taken several months ago, this was nearly always followed by: "You lucky bastard!"

Okay, I'm honest enough to admit that I loved the success - and the 'celebrity' trappings that came with it - but I had a wonderful wife to keep my feet firmly on the ground. A few years ago, I'd have probably been carried away with it all and started strutting around like I was the dog's dangly bits, but now I was old enough and wise enough to know that I couldn't have managed it without my Penny.

So, when they'd asked me if I fancied a short trip to 'entertain the troops,' I'd been happy to agree. I might not have been too keen on the war itself - but that was about governments as far as I was concerned – while this was about bringing a bit of cheer to people doing a dirty and dangerous job. Along with a former gymnast-turned-comedy-acrobat, a singer and a trio of musicians, I'd done three shows every day so far – and I'd managed to bring in enough 'new' material to each of them so that anyone who managed to see more than one wouldn't be too bored. After all, there were more than 28,000 people in Camp Bastion, so I wasn't exactly short of an audience.

In between times, because I've become dedicated to trying to keep fit, I'd joined some soldiers who were jogging around the perimeter and also made a couple of visits to one of the gyms. I'd even watched some American marines do a workout that would have put me in the superbly-equipped field hospital!

The scariest bit, though, was going out with a group of marines in a Mastiff patrol vehicle. I was, of course, assured it would be safe. As Colour Sergeant Freedman told me; "Nothing to worry about, Jack... we'll be going 'between the mines' today!" Everyone wants to be a comedian, don't they?

I'm pretty sure there was never any danger – and the message asking for total silence while the men suddenly gripped their weapons and tensed up so dramatically was only for my benefit – but it was enough to scare the living daylights out of me! Their grins when the 'all-okay' message followed a minute or so later confirmed it; and the Scottish corporal couldn't keep a straight face when he asked if I was alright.

"I don't care what nationality you are, pal," I told him, "You're buying me a fuckin' drink when we get back... a large one!" and they all laughed. I heard later that it was something they often did to their 'guests' and that I'd done 'okay' compared to a lot of the pampered celebs who'd received similar treatment.

While I was doing the shows, I'd stayed very carefully within the 'recommended' boundaries. They weren't actually 'rules, as such, but I'd been told that any jokes about unfaithful partners could be disturbing – hardly surprising when these people were thousands of miles away from home and family, and 'Dear John' letters were far from being unknown.

Religious gags could also be a problem as a lot of the people there were serious about their faith. It was particularly true of the Americans in Camp Leatherneck, many of who wandered over to see the shows and, of course, the Afghan troops in Camp Shorabak (or 'Tombstone' as the Yanks called it) who were mostly Muslims. All of which restricted me a bit, but I enjoyed the challenge. In any case, dirty jokes were acceptable!

"I was with this bird.one time. She stripped naked, handed me a box of condoms and said, 'I want you to stick it in my ass.' 'Really?' I smiled. 'Yes,' she said, bending over. So I stuck it into her ass!

'Not the fucking box!' she screamed."

That one went well, as did:

"I'm British... I've never seen so many guns before. But let me tell you, a little while ago I was belting down the motorway at about 120 miles an hour when this cop pulled me over. I waited 'til he was alongside the car... then I whipped out my nine-millimetre! He arrested me for indecent exposure!"

"I was on the flight to Cyprus and this lovely stewardess said 'D'you want some headphones. I said, 'Wow! How did you know my name was Phones?"

My act was going down surprisingly well, and I think it helped that I was happy to mingle with the audience afterwards. It just seemed amazing to me that, after years of working in second-rate clubs, I found myself signing autographs for some of the strongest, bravest and best people you could hope to meet anywhere. Naturally, I had to sign a few of Penny's photos and, equally naturally, I enjoyed a bit of banter with the single guys who presented me with them:

"Have you been eating yoghurt? There're white marks on this one!" and; "Sign on the bottom? You mean the bottom of the photo, or...?" They all took it in good part, a few blushed when their mates added to my comments, but the atmosphere was good and I made it a point of pride to chat and sign until everyone was satisfied.

The other 'star' - a baby-faced performer named Alton Bentner, didn't seem to get anything like as much attention however. He was the singer; and his claim to fame was that he'd (almost) won one of those interminable TV talent shows. His first single release – a heavily over-produced number called 'Me, all over you,' had gone straight to number one for a week and disappeared off the radar a couple of weeks later. In simple terms, his career was already in trouble although neither he, nor the agent who went everywhere with him, seemed to realise it. At each show he sang the same three numbers, claiming that the dry air of the desert was affecting his voice so he couldn't do more.

I tried hard to like the lad, but he didn't make it easy. He was already trying to stand on a podium of his own making, used to being pursued by young teenage females - and some matronly ones who seemed to want to 'mother' him – and he was devastated that the whooping, screaming and yelling he normally fed off had been replaced by polite applause. The video his agent was compiling was, I'd been told, a mixture of Alton's performance, the wild applause that greeted 'Cosmo Clatter,' the acrobat; and scenes of queues for (my!) autograph.

None of which bothered me. What did annoy me was the way he strutted around as if he was some kind of god; the contemptuous way he spoke to the musicians, and the way he flaunted himself at every female he met. I'd even had a bit of a go at him over that last one when I'd introduced him as, "A young man who seems to be irresistible to anything in a skirt... so much so that Colour-Sergeant McIntyre has refused to wear his kilt until we've gone home!"

At the end of our first full day, though, I noticed he was paying particular attention to a very sweet little nurse by the name of Corporal Amy Wednesbury. Okay, it was none of my business, but the fact that she was wearing a gold band on her wedding finger disturbed me. I don't mean I'm a moralist – my current wife used to be a striptease artist and a previous one was a porn star, so I can hardly take the high ground – but there was something about it that I found it worrying.

Especially worrying was the way his agent seemed to have his camera pointed in their direction whenever she and Alton were together. Something about it didn't smell right. On the second day there I had an hour or so to spend in front of a computer screen, Skyping my beautiful wife back home in England. We talked for a while about the fact that she was due to give birth in a week or so and I reassured her that I'd be home in plenty of time. Then, when we'd gone over all the slushy stuff about how much we missed each other, I asked her what she knew about Alton Bentner.

What I learned did nothing to reassure me. It seemed that Alton was suspected of being a closet gay. Now, in showbusiness possibly even more than in most walks of modern life, gays are accepted for what they are. The trouble starts when someone tries to deceive their public about their sexuality, and the vociferous denials of Alto's management team had failed to quell the rumours. There had even been threats to sue any news outlets that dared to suggest he was anything other than a fully functioning heterosexual.

I didn't have too much time to dwell on it then, I had a show to do, and it was several hours before I had a chance to reflect on what I'd learned.

I couldn't really make sense of it at first. The simple fact was that, if he was gay, he only had to 'out' himself and everything would be okay. I mean, he might lose a few of his adoring fans, but the chances were that he'd gain at least as many new ones. So why was there such determination to prevent that happening?

After the final show on the second day, I wandered over to the B3 shop in the camp that's home to the RAF regiment and settled down with a caramel latte (imagine – in the middle of a desert!) and found myself chatting to Warrant Officer Harding – a huge bull of a man whose forthrightness was as plain as his language and his Yorkshire dialect.

He told me that he'd enjoyed the shows – except for "t'kid that can't hold t'tune," and, for no reason other than that I enjoyed his bluff company, I told him about my concerns. Obviously, and not too surprisingly, he was smarter than me.

"It's obvious," he declared, "If t'lad had come out in t'first place, he'd a bin alright... but he didn't. His fans bought into t'image and he can't go back on it now. Anyway... I heard he was being financed by some religious group... can't remember which one... they're all t'bloody same to me... but I know it's one of them what don't like homosexuals! I reckon that creep wi' t'camera's tryin' t'make it look like he's in some hot romance with a woman."

"But she's married," I protested, "and she's about ten years older than him."

"Aye... but that don't matter, does it?" he replied, "that slimy fookin' agent of 'is jus' wants a few pictures to make it look like he's pulled a good-lookin' bird, doesn't he? Which one is it?"

I told him and he nodded; "Aye... make's sense. She's a looker that one. A damned good nurse, mind you. She's married to one of the American marines. I don't think she'd ever consider cheating... she's not the type... but a few doctored photos could make it look like she was...."

"...And destroy a marriage," I mused, "Where's her husband now? Is he here?"

"No... 'e's in Iraq, so I believe," Harding said. "She's English... works in a hospital and joined the Territorial Army in the hope of being near to him. Of course, they wouldn't send her there... imagine she was on duty and he came in wi' Category A or B wounds. Wouldn't be nice, would it?"

I nodded. Even after a couple of days I'd learned that Category A meant 'life-threatening' and B meant 'wounded but stable.'

"From t'sound of it, e's usin' 'er," he declared, "and she probably don't know it. That's not nice, Jack... that's not nice at all. Is he a pal of yours?"

"No... not at all," I insisted, "He's a jumped-up little twat as far as I'm concerned... and that agent of his is nothing more than a leech."

"Would you like me to sort somethin' out, Jack?"

"Errm... what d'you mean exactly?" I asked, a bit uncertainly.

"Better you don't know, Jack," He answered with a wink, "the Yanks aren't a bad bunch... I think I know someone who'd be delighted t'andle this."

I might have probed a bit more, but he was called away just then and I was left to finish my coffee and wonder what, exactly was going to happen or, as Harding would have said, 'appen!

On the fourth, and final, day of our visit, there was no sign of Alton. I was told to announce that the desert air had finally got him and he simply wasn't capable of singing. Instead, the group of three musicians filled in for his spot and, to be honest, they did a much better job and were received far better.

As we were getting ready for the penultimate performance, I had a brief visit from W.O. Harding and he gave me a brief account of what had happened. Apparently, Alton Bentner had cornered the lovely nurse in a quiet place, wrapped his arms around her and started to kiss her – all while the sneaky agent had been filming from close by.

That well-known female tactic, popularly known as a 'knee in the nuts' had put paid to his advances very quickly, but not before the embrace had been caught on camera and the agent had declared himself satisfied with it. The 'two pricks,' as Harding called them, had been surprised to turn around and find themselves with a trio of very large American marines behind them. There hadn't been so much as a sound as they were held, as all the carefully gathered photos and film was deleted, and as they were removed to the safe environment of Camp Leatherneck for a few hours.

"What did they do to him?" I asked, a bit anxious about what I'd initiated.

"Oh... nothing too serious!" Harding laughed. "The only marks are the ones on Bentner's face from Amy's nails. Mind you, he bloody near shit isself when she told 'im she specialised in AIDs patients! She was lying of course... but 'e didn't know that!

"Anyways... as it ended up, I believe the only pictures left of 'is visit are a few of 'im prancing around t'stage... plus some more that are... well... intimate studies as y'might say... of Alton sucking his agent's cock!

"I don't know 'ow they managed it... but those Yankee marines are an inventive bunch o' bastards! Credit where it's due!" He roared with laughter for a few seconds, and then said, "Amy and 'er 'eroes are on t'Skype thing now... talking to 'er 'usband and telling 'im all about it. From what I can tell, she was never tempted by 'im... she adores 'er 'usband. But it could've been nasty, Jack, if you 'adn't spotted what was 'appening. Who knows... you may even 'ave some American fans now!"

"Where are they now?"

"On their way 'ome! They'll stick to t'script they were given if they don't want t'photos spread all over t'Internet!"

Before the final show, Harding took me to Camp Leatherneck to meet a few 'friends.' They were all nice guys and we spent a little while chatting about British and American comedians and comparisons in style and presentation. While I was there, I also met a youngster whose pride and joy was a Fender American Standard Stratocaster guitar – an expensive piece of kit – and, after I'd talked to him for a while, I had a bright idea.