Adolf Hitler_ my part in his downfall - Spike Milligan [14]
I managed to get through to my father at his office in Fleet Street and he told me all was well with the family. He was a fire warden on top of the Associated Press building and had seen the whole of what looked like St Paul’s on fire. The papers carried stories of how many German planes were shot down, heroism of the fire brigades, wardens, Red Cross and night fighters, etc., etc. But it didn’t mention the casualties that were heavy, well heavy for that time of the war; later on it appeared that London got off extremely light.
BATTERY CHARACTERS
Some people live a nothing life: the most important thing they ever do is die. Thank God for eccentrics! Take Gunner Octavian Neat. He would suddenly appear naked in a barrack room and say, “Does anybody know a good tailor?”, or “Gentlemen-I think there’s a thief in the battery.” He was the bane of the Regiment. When the fancy took him he would go ‘on the trot’.
“I’m off sand-ratting,”↓ he’d say.
≡ Sand-rat: seaside whore.
A month later he would give himself up, get fourteen days detention and start all over again. Leather Suitcase was baffled. Why should, an English man in his right mind leave a perfectly good war?
“Look Neat, why do you keep going A.W.O.L.”
“It’s something to do with the shortage of money sir.”
Leather Suitcase as usual gave him fourteen days, and he was remanded for a psychiatrist’s report.
“I don’t like the uniform,” Neat told the psychiatrist.
“And what’s wrong with it?”
“It’s dangerous. Germans shoot at it on sight.”
The report said: “There is nothing wrong with this man. He has a wholesome fear of being shot by Germans.”
“Right,” said Leather Suitcase. “We’ll put you where they can’t get at you, fifty-six days detention!”
“Look sir,” said Neat, hopefully. “Supping I say sorry?”
“Very well, say it.”
“I’m sorry, sir, very, VERY sorry.”
“Finished? Right! fifty-six days detention!” Nead stood tottering for a moment. “.May I have a last request, sir”
“Yes.”
“Would you go to Beachy Head and throw your bloody self off!” This got him another fourteen daps on top of the fifty-six. After this he was posted. Where to? The Tower Armoury.
Gunner Herman Frick was our hypochondriac. He wanted out. He told the M.O., “I have got hereditary flat feet.” After inspecting them the M.O. gave him three aspirins. Which is the Army way of saying you’re a bloody liar. “The doctor’s anti-Semitic,” raged Frick. “I’ll prove my feet are flat.” He smeared the soles of his feet with Brylcreem, then stood on a piece of paper. “There,” he said holding up the print, “genuine flat feet.”
“You’re too bleeding fat, mate,” said Gunner Knot. “It’s all that weight that makes ‘em look flat.”
Outraged he replied, “I’ll bloody show you it’s not,” and then stood on his head while two of us held up a board covered in paper while he pressed his feet against it. At which moment the orderly officer entered the room. He stood silent before the strange tableau, muttered something to the duty sergeant and left. Next morning Gunner Frick was remanded for a psychiatrist’s report and Part Two Orders bore this warning:
“An orderly officer has reported that certain black magic rituals are being practised in barrack rooms. This contravenes King’s Rules and Regulations in that within the structure of a Regiment no secret rituals or such organisations can be allowed except Housey-Housey.”
To my utter amazement there was a man in the battery who had actually been with my father’s Regiment in Belgaum, India, in 1923. He said he remembered my father as the Mad (quarter-bloke, which explained a lot. ‘Busty’ Roberts had joined the Royal Artillery in 1914 and since then had steadily risen to the rank of Gunner. Now the crunch: someone