Clean (ish)

After the final attack we heard the words we'd been longing to hear. A word that brings a smile to your face not matter what the exercise has been like.

"ENDEX."

The next couple of hours were spent picking up empty bullet cases (it's more the fact that the MOD makes a packet from all that brass rather than us being environmentally friendly), making sure we hadn't lost anything important (like the odd rifle), and generally sorting ourselves out.

After that it was back to the temporary accomodation and soon we were in our own time.

I'd been thinking about a hot shower for a couple of days now.

I'd like to say that I spent the next hour under a scalding hot power shower. I like to say it soaked away the aches and pains from the last couple of weeks. I'd like to say that after it was over my hair would have passed muster in a VO5 commerical.

In actual fact I spent about 5 minutes standing under a shower nozzle that dripped a rather pathetic amount of tepid water down my neck. I spent the 5 minutes with a queue of other blokes asking if I'd finished yet. I spent the 5 minutes watching a muddy puddle appear on the shower basin as two weeks accumulated grime began to disappear.

It may not have been the shower I'd planned but I still got out feeling a different man.*

* - (And no phnar phnar comments about me feeling men up please)