Simon Boulderstone, a British lieutenant, serving during the North African campaign, is among the major characters of Manning’s The Battle Lost and Won.
Cutting short a leave, Boulderstone wanders, trying to regain his unit and rejoin the fighting against Rommel at El Alamein. Hitching a ride with two Australian soldiers, he calls Cherrypickers, a term he never explains. Driving a drive from Cairo north towards Alexandria, they stop for a picnic, and the moment, the battle is forgotten, and what these men are doing in Egypt is forgotten. The Cherrypickers talk of duck hunting while chewing drumsticks and wings.
It’s an incongruous moment because the Australians are prepared, and the picnic is not impromptu. “The Cherrypickers had a picnic basket with them, packed by the hotel (where they spent the night in Cairo, The three men sat on the seaside rocks in the warm sea breeze. The food—portions of roast duck, fresh rolls, butter, coffee in a thermos flask—was far above the army fare to which Simon was used t, but he was too self-conscious to express any opinion.” Terry, one of the Australians, asks Simon if he ever tried roast duck. Simon answers that he’s never tasted it before.
While the trio of soldiers munches on drumsticks and wings, they talk about ducking hunting. “Soon won’t be a damned duck left,” Terry grumbled as he cleaned off a drumstick and started on a win.”
See Olivia Manning. The Battle Lost and Won. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1978; James Cellan Jones. “Egypt 1942,” Fortunes of War. Screenplay by Alan Pater based on Olivia Manning’s The Levant Trilogy