GAP said:
A christmas tree.....the morning after
Long, long ago, in a small town in Germany (near
Soest), on a fine fall day, a group of idle young officers (idle being the only kind of young officer on issue in those days, according to the battalion 2I/C) enlisted the aid of the RCEME (when we still had one of those) SSgt (when we still had one of those, too) to convert our weekend's worth of green
Carlsberg cans into a tree. It ended up being a nice, stable structure - about 9' tall! The Bn Int LCpl (when they still existed) took a picture which was conveyed to the Carlsberg Brewing Company in Copenhagen. In due course several free cases of
Carlsberg made their way to the officers' mess.
The Bn 2I/C agreed that, given the right incentive, the
single rats could be something other than bone idle; he also confiscated the beer and the tree and donated both to the annual men's Xmas dinner
pool - as a gift from the grateful officers. Several subalterns did a week of extra orderly officer duties,each, a couple of captains did an extra week of duty field officer ... ho, hum.