The uniform, neatly folded, with the orderly’s cap upside down on the top of the pile. But in the cupboard, he finds only Tommy’s medical bag and: In the sequel, The Return of the Indian, Omri needs Tommy again to tend to the wounded Little Bull. Make an ’orrible row they do, even before they land, a sort of whistle that gets louder and louder, and then- KERBOOM!”īut has he actually dodged the Minnie? When Omri returns him once again to the cupboard he’s worried for him, but Tommy wants to go back and help the wounded.
“It’s our name for a Minnenwerfe – that’s one of them big German shells.
When Tommy is brought back again, later on in the novel, he’s just dodged a “Minnie”:
This name is, of course, a shorthand: the slang for a common soldier at WWI, a term already in existence in the 19th century, but particularly linked with the Great War. Steve Coogan as Tommy in the film adaptation of The Indian in the Cupboard, directed by Frank Oz, 1995Īnd he salutes Omri, by saying: “Tommy Atkins, at your service”. “Not that there’s much to look forward to except mud and rats and German shells coming over… Still, got to win the war, haven’t we? Can’t desert, even into a dream, not for long, that is-duty calls and all that, eh?” When Tommy is done with his medical task, and Omri asks him if he’s ready to “wake up” now, and return to his proper time and size, he says: “Still and all, perhaps it’s a change for the better. The whole rotten war’s nightmare enough, though, without giants and-and-” He stared around Omri’s room. “A dream, is it? Well … I should’ve guessed. He thinks he’s dreaming, and he’s so grateful for this unexpected break from the horrors of the front. Tommy emerges from the cupboard straight out of the trenches. He is really a side character, a tiny plastic toy brought to life by Omri not to be a protagonist, but just someone to tend to the wounds of the titular Indian (Little Bull) and Boone, the cowboy (another recurring character). In the first book, The Indian in the Cupboard, Tommy is one of these plastic figures.
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