I don't know if this is the place for this tale of long ago----but I'm telling it .
Long , long ago , when Britain had a narmy and a nempire , I was posted to Hong Kong to be wiv me bruvver . I was in the Raf and he was a pongo . Er , an army chap , a Sapper to be precise .
I was stationed at Sek Kong , and he was at Tai Lam Chung .
Sapper Morgan (Bill) had a pedigree pet called a Hippo . He slept with it , cherished it and would let no-one else touch it . He used to give me rides in it with the blessing of his CO who was a marvellous chap .
In the New Territories , HK , there are two towns (Tsun Wan and Sek Kong) joined by a military road over the highest mountain there (Tai Mo Shan) . The road was known as the TWSK , or twist by the lads , because it was bends and sharper bends all the way up and down . So bad that our supply tankers were forbidden to use it , except once a year to see if it could be done No health and safety there , then .
Bill's nemesis was a particularly nasty rsm , he even tried rollocking me once , but that's another story .
Bill's Hippo was fitted with an engine limiter --supposedly to limit its top speed but not helpful when double de clutching .The limiter could be disconnected from in the cab .
Bill had to take part in a convoy over TWSK and the RSM picked Bill's Hippo as his steed .
Bill said that he was supposed to kill the limiter on such a road , but clever
rsm overruled him .
So Bill let the thing loose going downhill , and as the speed built up , rsm kept tapping speedometer with his pace stick , looking more and more alarmed .
Which is just what Bill wanted ..He told the idiot that he couldn't get enough revs to change down because of the limiter . By this time , rsm is panicky enough to tell Bill to do what he had to .
You can guess the rest .
The sequel to this was that Bill got into trouble with rsm , only saved by CO .
I took the trouble a couple of days later to beat up the camp in a Vampire , coincidentally the rsm had his head under some truck rollocking someone and he banged his head as he shot up in fright .
Needless to say , I never had to buy another drink at Bill's camp .
Nice truck , the Hippo , it leads to adventures galore .