BBC R4 - George MacDonald Fraser's 'Quartered Safe Out Here'
Read by George MacDonald Fraser
Originally broadcast in 1986
This recording made from R7, 2009
Coded from a digital source at 128/44.1

Right now George MacDonald Fraser is best known for his 'Flashman'
stories, but I think, in time, his reputation will depend solely on
this memoir of his time in Burma with Slim's 14th Army.

It is a superb book, and Fraser's reading does it full justice. I
know of no other work that captures the everyday life of soldiers
in the field so vividly.

From Gunga Din
You may talk o' gin an' beer,
When you're quartered safe out 'ere,
An' you're sent to penny-fights an' Aldershot it;
But if it comes to slaughter
You will do your work on water,
An' you'll lick the bloomin' boots of 'im that's got it.
Now in Injia's sunny clime,
Where I used to spend my time
A-servin' of 'Er Majesty the Queen,
Of all them black-faced crew
The finest man I knew
Was our regimental bhisti, Gunga Din.