Can you drive a Bren Carrier?

A Funny Story about Brother Andrew.

 This story happened when he was in the army, and it was before he was a Christian.

   ….Part of the education of a commando was the development of self-confidence. But here I needed no schooling. From childhood I had had a completely unfounded confidence in my ability to do anything I set out to do.

Like drive a Bren carrier, for instance. These were heavy armored vehicles mounted on caterpillar treads, and handling them was difficult even for someone who could drive an automobile—which I could not. Bu each day as we went out on maneuvers I watched the driver of the carrier on which I rode, until it seemed to me that I had the hang of it.

Unexpectedly one day I had a chance to find out. Coming out of company headquarters, I ran into an officer.

“Can you drive a Bren carrier, soldier?”

A quick salute and an even quicker, “Yes, sir.”

Well, that one there has to go to the garage. Let’s go.”

In front of us at the curb was the carrier. Three hundred yards away was the garage. Seven other carriers were parked there, nose to tail, waiting to be serviced. I hopped snappily into the driver’s seat while the officer climbed in beside me. I looked at the dashboard. There in front of me was a key, and I remembered that the driver always turned that first of all. Sure enough the engine coughed once and then caught. Now which of those pedals was the clutch? I pressed one of them and it went to the floor, and I knew I had been lucky twice in a row. I put the carrier into gear, let go of the clutch pedal, and with a great kangaroo leap we launched into space.

The officer looked at me quickly but said nothing: no Bren carrier ever starts smoothly. But as I raced full throttle down the company street, I noticed that he was holding on with both hands and bracing his feet. We covered the three hundred yards with only one near-accident-a sergeant who discovered on the spot how great were his powers of flight—and then we came to the line of carriers.

And I knew that I was in trouble.

I didn’t know where the brake was.

Arms flailing and feet flying, I tried every button and lever I could find. Among the things I pushed was the accelerator, and with one last surge of power we plowed into the row of Bren carriers parked at the curb. All seven of them bucked forward, each slamming against the other, until we came to a rest, hissing and smoking, our engine at last dead.

I looked at the officer. He stared straight ahead of him, his eyes large, sweat pouring down the sides of his face. He got out of the car, crossed himself, and walked away without one turning to look at me. The sergeant ran up to me and pulled me out of the driver’s seat.

“What on earth got into you, soldier?”

“He asked me if I knew how to drive it, sergeant. He didn’t ask if I knew how to stop!”