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SHOOTING GAZETTE - FEB 2004
Some time ago, I wrote about my purchase of a 'TAC' sling for my rifle.
This enables me to carry the rifle across my chest and relieves my crook
shoulder. It was not a success. Quite simply it was not big enough. Now,
through my military contacts, I have liberated a sling such as is used
on the SA 80. This is the rifle that is now claimed to be - 'the finest
infantry weapon in the world'. This may be so and, after no less than 90
alterations, it damn well ought to be. I have only once fired the SA80
and it jammed on the first round - lucky for me that I did not have half
a hundred howling fundamentalists bearing down on me. I also fired the
current version of the LMG - it also jammed on the first round, so I hope
that that too has been modified. I qualified as a 'Marksman' on the old
Bren Gun - a lovely, simple and reliable weapon with which I must have
fired hundreds of rounds without any problem ("Gun stops firing! What
do yer do? Immediate action No 1!") Anyway the SA80 has a sling similar
to the 'Tac'. The rifle is carried across the chest, but the design (how
many alterations, I know not) allows for much larger men than the puny
civilian - press a spring clip and you can raise the rifle effortlessly
to the firing position and the weight of the rifle is more evenly distributed
across the body, when in the 'carry position'. The new British Army
is a very different one to the one I knew. Men I knew as smooth young subalterns
are now commanding regiments. I remember a school
friend of mine going on interview with the Umpteenth Hussars - only God
and the Army knows what regimental melting pot they have disappeared into.
The Colonel was a terrifying old warhorse. His interview was short and
to the point: "
D'yer hunt?" My friend regretted that he did not. "
Ever ride point to point?" My friend was sorry to say that he
had never enjoyed that pleasure: "
D'yer play polo?" Alas, my friend, whose only knowledge of horses
was that they were the ones that did not have horns on them, again replied
in the negative. "
Young man" the Colonel bristled his eyebrows - " whatever makes
you think that you are a suitable candidate for the modern British Army?"
"And February
comes with rain to fill the frozen dyke again." This
is a family magazine, so there can be no jokes about dykes here. Of
course, the word dyke means different things to different people
in different places. In Northumberland it is a dry stone wall. In
the south it is a water-filled ditch of varying sizes except in Somerset
where a dyke becomes a Rhyne (rhymes with teen). In Soho it means…well,
nothing that concerns the Shooting Gazette. But I will tell you about
rhynes as they are dykes with which I have had a very close relationship
(Mr Barnes's knuckles are looking very white - chill out, Boss, would
I tell that sort of story?) Down in Somerset there is a large flap
of land, known locally as 'The Moors' They are flat as the proverbial
pancake and were once marshes, the ones where Alfred hid when he
burned the cakes. Over the years the marshes were drained and became
grassland (mostly) except when they flood and become marshes again.
To divide up the grassland, deep ditches were dug and these are the
rhynes. Mostly they comprise a layer of pondweed and a couple of
feet of water over bottomless silt. They make a very efficient stock
fence and an interesting obstacle for the local hunt and one that
no one can break. I hunted a pack that had some moors in its territory
and we had good hunting there, except that I did rather a lot of
bathing - some horses being better rhyne jumpers than others and,
if you get a horse in a rhyne, it is a tractor job to extract it.
Anyway I was jumping this rhyne and for some reason parted company
with my horse in mid air. I landed in the rhyne whilst my horse galloped
on. I was sitting there sulking with my moustache full of weed and
my head just above water. Two hunting farmers happened along and
saw what seemed to be a hunting cap floating in the rhyne:" Bugger,
Bob, look - there's a good hunting hat in the rhyne.""
Well you pick the bugger up then." If you think there are too
many buggers you don't know the demotic speech of the West Country.
Then the cap was removed from my head" Well, there's a heller,
Jack! Master's underneath it."" Put the cap back and let
the bugger bide. Us don't need he till next Tuesday." And that is what they buggers did.
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