Monday, July 5, 2010

Promoted Officer Owes Back Pay

http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/column-8/column-8-20100705-zxi4.html

Sydney Morning Herald
6 July 2010

Column 8

[...] ''Your lovely story about the cakes and ale, especially the punchline, put me in mind of a delicious story I heard from the war,'' recalls Robert Gardiner, of Welshman's Reef, Victoria (Old Cambridge rules and cheeky students, Column 8, yesterday). ''It seems that a young officer was promoted to captain in 1941. During the celebrations his mates saw that this was gazetted in 1041. He applied for back pay and was credited £39,999. The sting was that as the only survivor of the Battle of Hastings, he was responsible for the loss of 20,000 horses at £2 each. Result - a debit of £1 pound.'' [...]

[See also Pass the Port: The Best After-dinner Stories of the Famous (Cirencester: Christian Brann, 1976), p. 62.]

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