The Hill by Ray Rigby Read Free Book Online Page B

I’ll do my time and get out.
    The wife and kids will have a thin time of it though. Well, Alice is working. She’ll just have to make the best of it. She’ll drop dead when she learns that I’m inside though. Good soldier Roberts inside. What about that? I’ll have to write to her and try and explain. Take some explaining though, won’t it? Well, she’ll just have to try and understand, that’s all. God. They certainly made a job of that hill. Well, that’s my war effort for a long time to come. The hill and humping rocks and digging holes. What a bloody joke. Good men dying up the front and I’ll be digging bloody great holes and filling them in again and doubling about like a lunatic. It’s enough to make anyone Bolshie.
    The R.S.M. stopped pacing and followed Roberts’s blank stare and looked at the hill. “Taking an interest in the hill, Roberts?”
    “Noticed it as I came in, sir.”
    “We built it special. A few tons of sand and rock and a lot of labour and sweat. The prisoners built it.”
    “That’s marvellous, sir. A great construction feat,” said Roberts cheerfully.
    The R.S.M. nodded his head in agreement. “Watch out that you don’t get to know it too well.”
    Roberts smiled. “I want no special privileges, sir.”
    “It gets hot on the hill, Roberts. Hot.”
    Roberts squinted at the hill then looked at Wilson with a pleasant smile. “It looks high from here. I fancy I can see snow on the top.”
    The R.S.M. switched on his benign expression. “Plenty of lads fancies all kinds of things when they get on that hill. You’re showing great promise.” Carry on giving me lip, he thought, I’ll have the last word.
    “Most of us nervous fellers are red hot when it comes to a bit of imagination,” said Roberts with his easy, cheerful smile. I know I’m pushing my luck, he thought, but to hell with you.
    “Red hot is right,” agreed the R.S.M., pleasantly. “You’ll be one big red hot bloody blister after a couple of days on that hill and your imagination will tell you you’re in hell.”
    Roberts squinted at the hill again. “Maybe I’ll know better after I’ve tried it, sir. For now I’m sticking for snow on the top and it leads to Never Never Land.”
    Wilson moved very close to Roberts and said very quietly. “You’re dead set at having a go at it, ain’t you?”
    “I can do without it, sir, but I think you’ve got plans for me.”
    “I have. Every day I’m going to make you remember that you’re a soldier.” He moved on and stopped in front of Bokumbo, looked him up and down and then twitched his nose to express his disgust. “You like to drill with these men, Bokumbo?”
    Bokumbo knew exactly what the R.S.M. meant. He stiffened. “Anything you order I can do, sir.”
    “Something tells me these men are going over that hill. You like to go over that hill with them, Bokumbo?”
    “That damn hill won’t beat me, sir.”
    “Pity I won’t see it. You can’t drill with them. You’re black.”
    Bokumbo tensed then suddenly laughed. “Blame my Mammy, sir. She forgot to put a sun canopy over me.”
    Wilson smiled. “I don’t care what colour you are. A man’s skin’s an accident. But what’s inside ain’t.”
    “That damn accident takes some living with sometimes,” said Bokumbo quietly.
    “Get this,” rapped out Wilson. “I only take notice of one thing. The book, and King’s Rules and Regulations have it laid down in black and white that Hottentots, Basutos, Voodoo boys and sons of witch doctors, do their spell binding and square bashing separate, and away from white men.”
    Williams grinned to himself as he shot a sidelong glance at the R.S.M. and then stared hard at Bokumbo. Very nice, he thought. Very nicely put that. I couldn’t do much better myself. That ought to get you going, you black, stinking, thieving, dirty-postcard maniac, bloody ape, you. In anticipation he moved forward until he was a pace in front of the R.S.M. and waited, with growing