Windy and Chatty: Over the Top

By Nick Richards

WINDY does not drink to forget. He just likes being drunk. Especially at school.

CHATTY should not be in the English Army. But he is. Which is awkward when you are a lifelong hypochondriac.

Windy is in love with Wendy, his second cousin once removed. But then so is Boswell, his third cousin once removed.

The living should be easy for two young aristocrats at the turn of the 20th Century. Instead, they must help a deranged Headmaster with his scientifically dubious experiments, negotiate the terror of trench warfare and deal with the unwelcome advances of a certain German officer.

But then cross-dressing is never, really, a good idea....

• Language: English
• Publisher: Raindrop Publishing
• Release date: Aug 25, 2015
• ISBN: 9781783017935

Book preview

First published as Windy & Chatty and the misadventures thereof

in the UK and Ireland by Raindrop Publishing 2012

This second edition renamed Over the Top published in 2014

by Raindrop Publishing

All rights reserved

© Shane Healy and Mark Healy, 2012-2014

Shane Healy and Mark Healy have asserted their rights under

Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patent Act 1988

to be identified as the authors of this work

Cover work by Scarlett Rugers

Illustrations by Christian Carley

Typesetting by Typeform

Printing by St. Clays

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978-0-9573940-4-9

eBook ISBN: 978-1-7830179-3-5

Table of Contents

1. Somewhere in France or Belgium – August 1916

2. Somewhere in England- start of the school term, 1910

3. Probably Belgium, 1916

4. Beasingdale Estate, England, 1908

5. London, England 7th of October 1916

6. Beasingdale Estate, England 1910

7. London, England, 7th of October 1916 – (five minutes later to be exact)

8. On a train somewhere in England – start of the school term, 1910

9. London, England 7th October 1916 – (another five minutes later)

10. Brentworth Estate, England, Summer 1910

11. Dr. Frost’s residence, England 1914

12 Chariston Hollow, England – start of the school term 1910

13. London, England, October 1916

14. Chariston Hollow, England-start of the school term 1910

15. London, England October 1916

16. Chariston Hollow, England – second day of school term 1910

17. England / Germany, 1916

18. Chariston Hollow, England-second day of school term 1910

19. Germany, 1st of December 1916

20. Chariston Hollow, England 1910

21. German – occupied France, December 1916

22. Chariston Hollow, England, 1910

23. Alsace Lorraine, German occupied France 1916

24. Chariston Hollow, England 1910-14

25. Retired Admirals Biannual Hurrah England, 1914

26. Whitehall, London, England 1917

27. Somewhere in London, England 1917

28. Somewhere in England, June 1915

29. Somewhere deep in German territory, 1917

30. Somewhere in Germany, 1917

31. Somewhere in Germany, 1917

Acknowledgements

The author wishes to thank the following to his success: his wives, dear family and most of his friends. He would also like to thank in no particular order of importance: Red Dwarf, the Carry on Films, Anne Summers, Harry Enfield and Chums, Valeros, Hanover Mews, V Rally, infomercials regarding 60 second abs, Primal Scream and Molly Ringwald. Scarlett Rugers for doing the new cover. Christian Carley for doing the awesome artwork. Grace Healy for actually getting us here. And, of course, our dear readers who like Windy and Chatty as much as we do. The sequel: Windy and Chatty ‘For Gin and Country’ will be with you shortly.

To the men from both sides who fought in the Great

War and who never made it home to their families.

Wir werden sie nie vergessen.

1

Somewhere in France or Belgium, August 1916

The machine gun bullets whizzed and zipped high over his head. He crouched in the trench, leaning as tightly as possible to the wood panelled wall. It was as close to hell as he could have imagined. Except that, he hadn’t imagined that it would be like hell at all.

Before they arrived at the front line, Chatty or to give his full title, Chattingston Chatterley, the Viscount Howard of Effingham, heir to the Beasingdale Estate and 74th in line to the throne of England, had envisioned a Queensbury Rules type warfare. Something like a relaxing afternoon shooting pheasant, perhaps, with both sides applauding each other’s shots and where death was quick and honourable, for the lower orders anyway.

Here, in either Southern Belgium or Northern France, death was neither of those things. It tended to be quite messy and slow in most cases.

Only the other day, his personal aide, a spindly lad from Portsmouth named Stilton Cooper, had his right arm blown off unexpectedly by a German shell. It was unexpected in the sense that it had come as a complete shock to Stilton Cooper to have his favourite right arm detached from his body in such a violent manner. He had quite naturally presumed that he and his hand would grow old together.

However, to give Stilton his dues, through his cries and shrieks of pain, he still managed to warm Chatty’s bunk and turn down his bed sheet before crawling off into an old bomb crater to die. The thing was though, Stilton had crawled into that crater four days ago and, unforgivably, he still wasn’t dead. In actual fact, he was crying and shrieking more than ever. He alternated between slow sobbing and staccato yelps which served as an all-too-real reminder for everyone in earshot that there was no honour here, just pain, suffering and death.

Chatty found it all very off-putting.

‘Help meeeeee Chateeee. Help meee, it hurts, it hurts.’

Though naturally all the soldiers felt sympathy for Stilton, there was no way any of them were going to help him. The crater in which he lay was right in line with the German machine guns and a rescue attempt would be suicide.

‘Help meeeeee Chateeeeeeeeeeeeee’

Not for the first time that day Chatty swore and wished he was back at HQ where he belonged, sipping on fine wines, wearing silken smoking jackets, and sitting in front of the fire, moving pieces about the miniature front line mock-up and catching up on his correspondence. He swore again, this time out loud.¹

Windy, otherwise known as Windermere Brentworth, Baron of Mowbray, Segrave and Stowton and 76th in line to the throne of England, stirred and came to from his slumber at Chatty’s feet. However, once he groggily realised that there was nothing much going on to be awake for, he took a little nip from his hipflask, pulled his overcoat high over his head and promptly fell asleep once more.

Chatty envied Windy’s ability to switch himself off at will. They had been at the front line now for a couple of weeks and Chatty had only slept for twenty four and a half minutes. He had never been so tired. Dangerously tired. He was constantly in a daze. Only the other day, just prior to a line push, Chatty had loaded his rifle with hardened baked beans. He would never forget the look of both confusion and relief on that Jerry’s face as the orange legume splattered on his forehead and all over his Pickelhaube helmet.

Regardless of Chatty’s incompetence the 134th Regiment was quickly becoming known as the best troop in Belgium. It was now late August, 1916 and Windy had racked up one hundred and forty six confirmed kills during his time with the Regiment. Kelly, the Irish, was second in their mini-league with a hundred and twenty three.² Chatty brought up the rear with two. He tried to justify his lack of accuracy with a rifle by maintaining that his glaucoma was acting up, but the soldiers did not refrain from ribbing Chatty, potential King or not. In fact, it was getting to the stage where Chatty’s skill with a rifle, or distinct lack thereof, was spreading throughout the army. Even some of the Germans got wind of it and painted crude slogans of ‘Vielen Dank Herr Heinz’³ on white sheets and waved them from the other side of no-man’s land. While the bean incident hadn’t helped his reputation, some of the boys, star-struck because of Chatty’s position to the throne, did concede that because the bean had struck the German between the eyes, it was as good as a proper kill. In a way.

‘Chateee. Windeeee. Fucking help meeeee.’

Excruciating deaths were an everyday occurrence here on the edge of the Allied advance. Nobody needed reminding of that. Although Windy and Chatty’s regiment generally carried with it an upbeat atmosphere, Stilton’s cries were now starting to have a depressive effect on the troops. Most had stopped speaking to each other over the last two days, and now the silence was perforated only by Stilton’s incessant wailing.

To make matters worse they had recently received their orders to make a strong push against the enemy. This strong push was to be distinguished from the last strong push by being fifty percent stronger and between forty to forty five percent pushier. Everyone was really excited. Except, of course, for the men who would actually be involved in the push itself.

‘Kelleeeeee, Murpheeeee, Chatteeeeee,

Windeeeeee…’

Windy woke from his sleep.

‘What the… don’t tell me that Cooper is still alive?’

He took another nip from his hipflask, but this time climbed out from underneath his heavy overcoat, sloshed the whiskey around his gums, and spat it onto the muddy ground in a single stream. He jiggled his head violently as if to shake out the cobwebs from his brain. Looking around him at the faces of his men, he quickly realised that the situation required some immediate attention. Morale was delicately balanced at the best of times, but now it was eroding faster than Windy’s malted buzz. Not only were they firmly pinned down by a large division of trigger-happy Jerries, but now they all had to contend with a regular, aural reminder that serious injury or death was probably in store for many of them. Nobody needed reminding of that.

Putting his flask into his jacket, Windy crossed the planks, beckoned to Chatty and then they both retreated into the trench’s makeshift quarters. Chatty placed his rifle on his bunk, removed his helmet and sat solemnly at the room’s only table. Windy sat opposite.

‘Righto, Chatty, what the hell are we going to do about Cooper? We have to push forward in the next forty eight hours and there is no bloody chance that any of our boys will be up to the task while your God damned servant is crying like a banshee.’

Windy had recently learned the word ‘banshee’ from Kelly, one of the Irish lads in the regiment and now liked to use it a lot. In almost every conversation.

‘What would you bloody well have me do Windy? Just because he was my bloody aide doesn’t mean that he’s my bloody responsibility now does it?’

Chatty knew that something had to be done but he wasn’t sure what Windy was hinting at. In any event, he was pretty chuffed he had worked ‘bloody’ three times into his reply.

‘Do stop wailing like a banshee Chatty. I’m sure you agree that this is having a terrible effect on the men.’

His friend nodded in morose agreement. Chatty shifted awkwardly in his seat, his constipated bowels causing him continued discomfort. He would see to his toilet as soon as they were done.

‘So what the dickens are you saying Windy? You want me to go out there and actually rescue him?’

Chatty felt his bladder loosen. He was disappointed he had reverted to dickens. He only did this when he was really nervous. Windy shook his head and placed a reassuring hand on Chatty’s shoulder.

‘I couldn’t possibly suggest such a thing Chatty. You’d never make it back across no man’s land carrying a wailing banshee on your shoulders. However, you are going to have to crawl to him. Tonight.’

Chatty didn’t understand and frowned accordingly. He couldn’t figure out why Windy wanted him to risk his life trying to get to Stilton if he wasn’t going to bring him back.

‘Windy, why in the name of dickens do you want me to crawl over to Stilton if I’m not rescuing him? I can hardly go out there and gag him now can I? That wouldn’t be quite cricket now would it? If I was to do that well I might as well…’

Windy raised his eyebrows sheepishly as if to signal that Chatty had found the solution all on his own.

‘Well Chatty, he is almost dead anyway… and we have our orders to push forward and all… and we can’t exactly take Stilton with us now… and he’d be bawling like a banshee anyway so you’d be picked off by the snipers and…’

Now frowning more furiously, Chatty tried to make sense of what Windy was saying. He thought he knew but refused to believe it. He couldn’t mean that, he just couldn’t. And anyway Chatty wouldn’t.

He just wouldn’t.

2

Somewhere in England, Start of the School Term 1910

Chattingston Chatterley, the Viscount Howard of Effingham, heir to the Beasingdale Estate, aged 12 and five sixths and 74th in line to the throne of England, looked nervous as he stepped onto the platform.

‘Damn and blast,’ he thought to himself, ‘damn and blast and rotten pickles.’

He was somewhat late for the train and realised that the hordes of people ahead of him meant that he would be lucky to get a seat in first class. Chatty turned to the tall figure beside him.

‘Father, I feel rather unwell and wish to return to the estate.’

Wilbur Chatterley, the Earl of Effingham, paid no attention to his son’s complaint and lifted him roughly up onto the doorstep of the carriage. Usually preoccupied with far more important thoughts than the welfare of his only son, in light of this being the day that Chatty set off for his first term at Chariston Hollow, Wilbur managed to proffer some worldly advice to his son.

‘Chin up and back straight,’ he said directly as he coldly patted his cheek and shut the door of the carriage with tremendous force.

‘And do try to keep your hands out of your pockets my boy. Remember, the servants will not be on hand to wash those soilings out of your trousers from now on.’

Chatty blushed and retreated into the shadows of the first class train seats to avoid the customary clip around the ear, which followed every masturbatory conversation with his father. As Chatty had expected, the manly arm of his father swiped for his head, but, not anticipating Chatty’s movement, he missed by a number of inches and his hand pounded into the advancing bosom of an oncoming female passenger. The lady, obviously unused to being molested in such an impolite manner, instantly swooned and collapsed in a crumpled heap by the door exposing a lace slip and Parisian stockings. Chatty giggled into his hand and ejaculated slightly into his restrictive undergarments.

His father reached down and slapped the woman a second time in an attempt to revive her, this time on the right cheek of her comatose face, yet the woman remained noticeably inanimate. Chatty turned to get a more detailed look of the woman’s shadowy areas, but they were adequately protected by five or six layers of corsetry. Disappointed, he looked up to see his red-faced father striding arrogantly across the platform muttering something about ‘bloody women’.

‘Goodbye father, see you at Christmas…’

But the man was already out of earshot beyond the arches and Chatty could only watch from the train window as the incredibly upright figure of his father disappeared into the swarms of bowler hats and black umbrellas.

As Chatty’s attention returned to the faint figure at his feet, a tall, elfish-looking boy sporting the same uniform, pushed past him roughly and stopping only to glance at the presentation