大象传媒

During the war my grandfather's farm was partially taken over by the army as a live ammo training area, Not all of the soldiers' training involved firing weapons of course, and the old rule that wars are won as much with the spade as with the sword certainly held true.

One day when soldiers had been instructed to dig trenches for themselves, one soldier, tired after the effort of digging his trench sat down, only to find that an adder had slithered into his trench. The frightened adder immediately struck him and he suffered a snakebite to his rear end. Unfortunately no one seems to have realised the seriousness of the situation and come to his aid and, unable to twist himself into a position so as to be able to suck out the venom, the unfortunate man died shortly afterwards, help, when it did arrive, having arrived too late to be of any use.

Paul Geddes

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