Adolf Hitler_ my part in his downfall - Spike Milligan [4]
“Whair hev yew been, and what me yew wearing civilian clothes?”
“They wouldn’t let me on the train naked sir.”
“I mean, whai aren’t you in uniform?”
“I’m not at war with anybody sir.”
“Silence when you speak to an officer,” said B.S.M.
The Major, who was fiddling with a rubber band, slid it over his finger.
“Does this mean we’re engaged sir?”
“Silence!” said B.S.M.
“I suppose,” said Suitcase, “you know you are three months late arriving?”
“I’ll make up for it sir, I’ll fight nights as well!” All these attempts at friendly humour fell on stony ground. I was marched to a bare room by a Bombardier. He pointed to a floor board.
“You’re trying to tell me something,” I said.
“Your bed, right?”
“Right.”
“Right Bombardier!”
“I’m a Bombardier already?”
“Oh cheeky bastard, eh? Got the very job for yew.”
He gave me a scrubbing-brush with two bristles, showed me a three acre cook-house floor and pointed down; he was still trying to tell me something. Leering over all this was the dwarf-like Battery Cook, Bombardier Nash, who looked like Quasimodo with the hump reversed. He was doing things to sausages. Three hours’ scrubbing, and the knees in my trousers went through. To make matters worse there were no uniforms in the ‘Q’ stores. I cut a racy figure on guard, dark blue trousers gone at the knee, powder blue double-breasted chalkstripe jacket, lemon shirt and white tie, all set off with steel helmet, boots and gaiters. It wasn’t easy.
“Halt! Who goes there?” I’d challenge. When they saw me the answer was, “Piss Off.” I had to be taken off guard duties. In time I got a uniform. It made no difference.
“Halt, who goes there?”
“Piss Off.”
Words can’t describe the wretched appearance of a soldier in a new battle-dress. Size had nothing to do with it. You wore what you got. Some soldiers never left barracks for fear of being seen. Others spent most of their time hiding behind trees. The garments were impregnated with an anti-gas agent that reeked like dead camels, and a water-proofing chemical that gave you false pregnancy and nausea. The smell of 500 newly kitted rookies could only be likened to an open Hindu sewerage works on a hot summer night by Delius. To try and ‘cure’ my B.D. I salted it and hung it outside in thunderstorms, I took it for walks, I hit it, in desperation, I sprayed it with Eau de Cologne, it made little difference, except once a sailor followed me home. Overcoats were a huge, shapeless dead loss. If you wanted alterations, you took it to a garage. But the most difficult part of Army Life was the 06:00 hours awakening. In films this was done by a smart bugler who, silhouetted against the dawn with the Union Jack flying, blew reveille. Not so our ‘Badgey’,↓ who stayed in bed, pushed the door open with his foot, blew reveille, then went back to sleep.
≡ Badgey: Bugler.
Very well, alone then! Gnr Milligan, 954024, defending England, June 1940
DUNKIRK
The first eventful date in my army career was the eve of the final evacuation from Dunkirk, when I was sent to the O.P. at Galley Hill to help the cook. I had only been in the Army twenty-four hours when it happened. Each news bulletin from BBC told an increasingly depressing story. Things were indeed very grave. For days previously we could hear the distant sound of explosions and heavy gunfire from across the Channel. Sitting in a crude wood O.P. heaped with earth at two in the morning with a Ross Rifle with only five rounds made you feel so bloody useless in relation to what was going on the other side. Five rounds of ammo, and that was between the whole O.P. The day of the actual Dunkirk evacuation the Channel was like a piece of polished steel. I’d never seen a sea so calm. One would say it was miraculous. I presume that something like this had happened to create the ‘Angel of Mons’ legend.
That afternoon Bombardier Andrews and I went down for a swim. It would appear we were the only two people on the south coast having one. With the distant booms, the still sea,