Free The Loose Screw by Jim Dawkins

his usual loud self -this was just Fred's normal volume but people who didn't know him would often take him the wrong way. Anyway, Fred went to the toilet and Kia and I noticed four guys who had been staring at our group all night follow him in. We thought it was a bit strange that they should all want to 'go' at the same time as Fred and decided that as Fred had had about twenty pints of bitter we should go and see if he was all right. We entered the toilets almost immediately after the four guys, but realized that Fred was in no need of assistance when we saw three of them out cold on the floor and the fourth going a strange shade of blue whilst being held in one of Fred's trademark bear hugs. We apologized to Fred for our lack of faith in him and left him to enjoy himself and finish his piss.
    As I said earlier, I have obviously not mentioned all the members of the platoon. They were all great guys and it was a pleasure, if not an experience, to have had the opportunity to live and work with them. You all know who you are and if you are upset that you didn't get a mention, tough shit. I'll buy you a drink at the next reunion.
    Our first duty away from Warminster was the Cardiff Tattoo, which was being held in the grounds of the city's castle. We arrived and were billeted in the university, as the students were on their summer holidays. On arrival, the porter pointed out that there was a bundle of tickets on the reception table that would allow us to gain free entry into some of the city's clubs. He invited us to take one each, but as we were the first group to arrive we told him we would take the lot and asked him to forget to mention it to the others as and when they arrived. So that was us sorted for the next couple of weeks as we divided up the tickets equally between us.
    The Tattoo itself, although I am sure it was spectacular for spectators, was nothing but an interruption to our main objective whilst in this lovely capital city and that was to visit as many drinking holes as possible and sample as many different types of alcohol as we could drink. Our last performance didn't finish until about nine o'clock, but luckily we were the first to march off at the end of the big finale.
    We used to get on the first bus in line to take us back to the university. Once back on campus we would run upstairs, get changed, splash on a bit of Old Spice and then commandeer another bus on its way back to pick up the stragglers from the castle to drop us off in the town centre en route. We perfected this so well that we would even beat the spectators into the Owen Glyndwr pub where we would start out from each night. We had a good time every night, but no night went by without an incident of some description.
    One of the other military units that was also present was the Royal Navy Recruitment team, armed with an impressive 3D replica of one of their destroyers, which was part of their display. We passed this one night at about three o' clock in the morning and decided to dance the hornpipe on it to the Captain Pugwash theme tune. Impressive as it was, it was not designed for such use and halfway through our performance the whole thing collapsed from under us. It was only due to the fact that we were all so pissed that we escaped injury. We had to chuckle the next day when we went past the wreckage on our bus and saw a group of sailors looking puzzled and scratching their heads. We got one of those looks we had become only too familiar with from our boss as he put two and two together.
    The Tattoo over, we returned to Warminster. The battalion's primary role at Battlesbury Barracks was to carry out its duties as the infantry demonstration battalion. For the lads in the rifle companies it was a very monotonous role. They spent hours day after day performing the same demonstrations of new infantry weapons and machines to international audiences as well as putting recently qualified young officers through various tactical scenarios to