Adolf Hitler_ my part in his downfall - Spike Milligan [18]
Snoring. Each one had his own unique sound. Gunner Forest’s was like gargling with raw eggs through a gently revolving football rattle. For sheer noise, Gunner Notts. He vibrated knives, forks and spoons on the other side of the room. Before he went to sleep we secured all the loose objects with weights. Syd Price gave off snores so vibrant, his bed travelled up to six inches a night. On bad nights we’d find it out in the passage. Next, the teeth grinders! Gunner Leech’s was like a dry cork twisting in the neck of a bottle, followed by the word, “Fissss-ssshhhhhhh!”
This next story was passed on from A Sub-section, stationed at Alfriston. The gun crew were billeted in a beautiful old inn. The men were given the whole length of the attic. At one end was the Great Gun Bucket that gunners place in their midst for use in inclement weather. It was worth its weight in gold, but there were the ‘spoilers’. These men, when the tub was full, would sneak up in the dark, and silently relieve themselves: this caused ‘spillage’, and gradually, without their knowledge, the floor and the ceiling underneath were starting to rot. Came the terrible night, when Lieutenant Sebag-Montefiore, sleeping soundly below was awakened by the sound of the ceiling falling through on him, followed by some twenty gallons of well-matured urine.,
There was a hell of a row, the landlord demanded compensation, etc. The ceiling was made good, the Gunners reprimanded, and it all bleu over, all except the smell. For months after if you were down wind you could always tell where Lieutenant Sebag-Montefiore was.
The Night of the Gun Bucket
MOVING TO MILL WOOD
1941: during which the sole stratagem of the Army in England was one of continual movement. They chose the most excruciating moments. After spending months making your billet comfortable came the order ‘Prepare to Move’. This time I was just about to lay my new Axminster when the order came. It was awful, I had to sell the piano. The moves were always highly secret and came in highly sealed envelopes, the contents of which usually appeared in later editions of the Bexhill Observer Secrecy was impossible, enemy agents had only to follow the trail of illegitimate births. Another obsession was ‘night occupation’. The swearing, the mighty oaths and clangs, told the whole area exactly what was happening. It was quite normal for a pub to empty out and give a hand pulling the gun. Most kids in Bexhill could dismantle one. Our first move was to a ‘specially selected’ muddy disused rubbish tip at :Mill Wood, two miles from Worthingholm. The signal section under Sergeant Dawson had to start the lark of laying new lines. This was simple: you went from Point A, the O.P., and took the line to Point B, the Gun Position. Taking a rough bearing, we set off carrying great revolving iron drums of D.5↓ telephone cable.
≡ I don’t know what it means either.
We had to cross railway lines, roads, swamps, rivers, with no more than adhesive tape. We borrowed the equipment en route from houses, a ladder here, a pair of pliers there, a bit of string, a few hooks, a three course lunch, etc.
To cross loads we had to climb telegraph poles. Basically lazy, it took some half an hour of arguing and threats to get one of us to go up. It was always little Flash Gordon, he didn’t want to climb the poles, but we hit him until he did.
We had a new addition to the family, a military ten line telephone exchange. This saved a great amount of cable laying; it also connected up to the G.P.O. It was installed in a concrete air-raid shelter at the back of Worthingholm. In 1962 I