Adolf Hitler_ my part in his downfall - Spike Milligan [40]
My week’s leave was spent in ‘sitting in’ with local gig bands, seeing people from the Woolwich Arsenal (where I had worked before the War), drinking, and walking home bent double with sexual frustration from 45 Revelon Road, Brockley.
I arrived back off leave, and, I quote from my diary, “Returned back at billets to find everybody drunk, jolly or partially out of their minds.” The knowledge that at last we were going overseas had given the Battery the libertine air of the last day at school. It was impossible to try and sleep. Everyone was hell bent on playing practical jokes. Beds crashed down in the night, buckets of water were fixed over doors, boots were nailed to the floor, there were yells and screams as thunder-flashes exploded under unsuspecting victims’ beds. The Battery was in a state of flux, most were on leave, others were about to go, others were on their way back, some couldn’t get back, others didn’t want to. One night the barracks were full, the next they were empty, God knows who was running us, certainly all the officers were on leave, what one good Fifth Columnist could have wrought at that time doesn’t bear thinking about. I remember very well, one rainy night, Harry and I lay in bed, talking, smoking, unable to sleep with excitement.
“Let’s go and have a Jam in the N.A.A.F.I”
It seemed a good idea. It was about one in the morning when we got in. For an hour we played. ‘These foolish things’, ‘Room Five Hundred and Four’, ‘Serenade in Blue’, ‘Falling Leaves’ and the inevitable Blues. In retrospect it wasn’t a happy occasion, two young men, away from home, playing sentimental tunes in a pitch black N.A.A.F.I. Oh, yesterday, leave me alone!
Friday, December 18th, 1942: the place? The Devonshire Arms; the occasion? the Farewell Dinner and Dance for D Battery. It was Chaterjack’s idea, and I think I’m right in saying that he paid for the whole evening, because I overheard Captain Martin saying to him, “You’ll pay for this.” For the first time D Battery band didn’t play, the music was provided by Jack Shawe and His Band. We would have liked to have played, but Chaterjack insisted that we had the ‘night off’ for once.
It was a marvellous evening. We all enjoyed the dinner despite the frugal wartime fare. The enthusiasm of the occasion was terrific. In retrospect I don’t suppose many of the lads had ever been to a dinner dance on this scale. It was the eve of what for most of us was the greatest adventure of our lives. The moment for the speeches arrived. B.S.M. Poole rapped on the table with a knife handle. “Order please, for the Battery Commander, Major Chaterjack, M.C., D.S.O.” We gave the old man a wild round of clapping infiltrated with Cockney witticisms: ‘Good old Chater’, ‘Hold on I haven’t finished me duff’, etc., etc. The major was in great farm, he’d already been in one war so he knew what it was all about. Taking a swig at his favourite whisky he wiped his mouth with a napkin, and said ‘Fellow Gunners’ (this got a spontaneous cheer). “We are going to war. It’s not much to worry about” (at this he got. various groans) “…at least not this evening.” He went on through a fairly predictable speech, war being “long periods of boredom broken by moments of great excitement; during moments of boredom I will order a certain amount of blancoing.” Here he got great groans and cries of “not again!” With a gleam in his eye he went on, “Ah, but during the moments of intense excitement I will order a double issue of rum ration. Now a toast, The King.” We all stood and drank and mumbled in that usual embarrassed tone Englishmen have on such occasions, ‘The King’. Next we had the guest speaker. “Silence please for Captain Arrowsmith.” Captain Arrowsmith arose. He was a tough man, in many