The parrot

It’s been a good few years now since I left the army, but I’ll never forget that parrot!

At the time of the incident I was a sergeant in the P.B.I. We were out on a training exercise in the use of camouflage, our objective being to creep through some woods unnoticed and find a hut somewhere in the centre. Observers were placed at various points. They knew each individual on the exercise by name and would shout if any of us were seen.

A secondary objective of the exercise was to judge the effect of an increase in sugar levels on our ability to stay unobserved for longer periods. To this end we were each given a lump of sugar to eat before we started out.

As soon as we arrived at the chosen wooded area, we were given ten minutes to camouflage ourselves, before a whistle was blown to send us on our way. Every one in the platoon was soon covered in fresh vegetation to break up our outlines, while every face had been smeared with green and brown stripes.

I knew we’d all done a good job, when I lost touch with everyone inside the first five minutes. It was of course an individual exercise, so it didn’t matter and I felt quite proud of the lads as they blended into the background one by one.

I began moving slowly from tree to tree, looking carefully up in the branches to check for hidden observers, looking equally carefully round each trunk to check that the ground was clear before moving on to the next tree.

I must have been moving like this for ten minutes or so before I heard the noise. It was slowly getting louder and was obviously on my planned route to the target. So much for quiet observation! Somebody was singing loudly in a rather harsh voice. I crept closer, rather more carefully than before. Who knows, it could have been an observer trying to make himself sound like a drunken civilian.

At last as I put my head round a tree, there was the source of the noise directly in front of me.

“There’s a little ditty they sing dahn in the city, it’s a little ditty wot everyone knows.”
There on a low branch, was a parrot with his back to me singing the song in a raucous cockney accent. At the same time he seemed to be doing a dance along his branch.

He’d shuffle along sideways until he got to the end of a line in the song, then try a kick, before shuffling back to attempt another kick at the end of the next line. As I watched he stopped singing and sighed.

“Oh gawd I dunno wot’s wrong wiv me bleedin' feet today!”

He started jumping up and down on the spot, shouting “Oom,pah,pah, oom pah pah everyone knows, when it goes Oooom pahpaah,” in a most unmelodious way.

Then he began spinning on his branch and suddenly saw me watching. “Oh me sainted aunt, savvidges!” he squawked, then he fell off his perch and landed on the ground with a thud.

I suppose he was justified to some extent. My face was painted with stripes, while the rest of me was covered in greenery; I certainly couldn’t have looked normal. He hadn’t moved since he’d landed and was lying on his back with his legs in the air. I crept over very slowly and had just reached him when he began to shudder.

It wasn’t a normal shuddering like any animal that is cold; it was more like a vibration running through his body. Nor was it even a normal vibration, in front of my eyes the parrot was changing into a pretty young woman dressed in old-fashioned clothes.

She opened her eyes and looked at me uncomprehendingly.

“Ear wot’s yor gime?” she said in the same rough accent that the parrot had spoken.

I stayed where I was in absolute disbelief. She looked and spoke just like an actress dressed for the old time music hall, but somehow I got the impression that she wasn’t acting.

“Excuse me young lady would you mind telling me your name?”

“Blimey yer sounds like a toff, but sure as eggs you don’t look like one! Me nime’s Polly Perkins if yer must know.”
I knew her at once of course. “Surely not Polly Perkins of Paddington Green?” I asked.

I moved towards her to help her to her feet, but she scrambled upright before I reached her.

“You keep yer ‘ands to yerself,” she screeched, then suddenly went for me.

It was so unexpected that she knocked me down. I must have hit my head on a stone and become a bit dizzy, since I just lay there unresisting, while she jumped on top of me and began slapping my face vigorously.

“You stage door johnnies is all the same,” she yelled, although the slaps slowly got gentler.

My vision had gone a bit fuzzy, while her voice was slowly becoming deeper. Then at last I was able to focus properly. I was lying on a bed in the sick bay, while an orderly rhythmically slapped alternate sides of my face.

“Are you alright now Sarge?” he asked.

I sat up and checked myself over quickly. I still had smudges of camouflage paint on my face, various small bits of greenery attached to my person and one hell of a headache.

“You didn’t half give us a fright Sarge, you was dancing in the woods singing old time music hall songs when they found you!”

I’ve thought it all over since and can still see that parrot vividly. I know it was real and no one can tell me any different, I’ve even made a guess at how I came to see it. I reckon someone put something on that lump of sugar!