Adolf Hitler_ my part in his downfall - Spike Milligan [47]
There were no transports save those to carry kit-bags and luggage. Chalky White and I were lucky again. “You two stay behind. Supervise the loading of all Battery kit-bags on to that three-tonner.”
Unloading went on all day. The harbour was glutted with ships unloading war supplies and what occasionally looked suspiciously like Three Piece Suites. Throughout the dusty day the cranes were lifting and dipping, like herons fishing. Our Battery baggage was identified by colour. A blue square with a yellow stripe up the middle. We rode up and down in cargo nets. Puzzled Algerians watched us as we arose from the bowels of the ship singing Ann Zeigler and Webster Booth melodies. Ever present were the Arabs, waiting to nick things, but it was easy to stop them. You hit ‘em. It was appalling to see a people so impoverished. They wore rags, they were second-class citizens, they were degraded. It hurt most when you saw the children. I’m bloody glad I wasn’t French. Even better, I’m glad I wasn’t an Arab. But seriously, folks! By sunset, the job was completed and we were exhausted by a day’s hard singing in the nets. Lieutenant Hughes fell us in. We marched through the palm-lined streets, into a vast concrete football stadium. On the pitch were scores of tents. It must have been half-time I thought. But no! They were-the bivouacs of a Scots Battalion, just back from the front. Hanging on the washing lines were battle-scarred kilts. It must have been hell under there! It was a vast concrete football stadium. I mention that again in the nature of an encore. All the action was around a field kitchen. Several queues all converged on one point where a cook, with a handle-bar moustache, and of all things a monocle, was doling out. He once had a glass eye that shot out when he sneezed and fell in the porridge so he wore the monocle as a sort of optical condom. He doled out something into my mess tin. “What is it?” I asked. “Irish Stew,” he said, “Then,” I replied. “Irish Stew in the name of the Law.” It was a vast concrete arena. We queued for an hour. When that had passed we queued for blankets. Next, find somewhere to sleep, like a football stadium in North Africa. We dossed down on the terraces. After ship’s hammocks it was murder. If only, if only I had a grand piano. I could have slept in that. Anything was better than a vast concrete arena. At dawn my frozen body signalled me, arise. I stamped around the freezing terraces to get warm. I lit up a fag and went scrounging. There were still a few embers burning in the field kitchen. I found a tea urn full of dead leaves from which I managed to get a fresh brew. A sentry turned up. “Bleedin’ cold, ain’t it,” he said. “Yes,” I replied, and he seemed well pleased with the answer. After all, it was free and unsolicited. I shared the tea with him. “My name’s Eric Rushton,” he said. “In Civvy Street I’m a porter in Covent Garden.” Good, I thought, there’s nothing like coming to Algiers to meet, a fruit porter called Rushton. Who knows, before sun-up, I might even meet an apprentice gas-fitter’s mate called Dick Scroogle from Lewisham. If so, he’d have to hurry as dawn’s left hand was already in the sky. A small man in an overcoat drew nigh.
“You’re not Dick Scroogle