Mussolini_ His Part in My Downfall - Spike Milligan [101]
The man in charge was the Commandante of the Carabinieri. A man in his fifties, grey wavy hair, wearing a crumpled grey-blue uniform, he was an out-and-out ‘Fascisti’* and made it very clear by his surly attitude.
≡ Our Colonel gave him six months in Sessa prison for not co-operating with the Allies.
He unlocked a room which was to be our billet. It was large enough for twelve to fifteen beds. He grunted “Oui.” We all trooped in and chose our positions, mine near a window; I always did this in case of a direct hit blocking the door. (But silly! supposing one hit the window?) I was immediately made ‘Room Orderly’ for the day, by me. Vic Nash had to start up a cookhouse in one of the adjacent rooms, alongside an Italian lady cook, one Portence, a middle-aged lady, all very willing and smiling and amused at seeing a man doing the cooking. She cheeerily helped Vic Nash, and was quick to learn the benefits of making tea, and the rewards to be had in the shape of cigarettes and bars of chocolate. She seemed to be eternally on duty, from dawn to one in the morning. When I think of some of the soppy females of today who get a charlady to clean their flat of three rooms while they phone their friends and eat chocolates, I realise the change in the quality of ladies’ working lives.
The Commandante of the Carabinieri
Howling gales continued blotting out any sound of gunfire. It was a gorgeous easy day. I was able to renovate my kit, sewing up socks, putting buttons on trousers that had been held up with knotted string and signal wire! (Any message for my trousers today?) At eleven o’clock Portence brought me a mug of tea! I lay back on my bed sipping it and reading from an Anthology of English Poets I had bought in a shop at Castelemare. I read the Love Sonnets of Henry Howard (Earl of Surrey), who apparently imitated Petrarch. I had enough trouble imitating Al Jolson. Somewhere outside, the Gunners were digging in heavy mud and a howling gale. When they returned that evening, soaked, muddy, tired, I just didn’t have the heart to tell them I’d been reading,
“The sweete season that bud and bloom forth brings With green hath clad the hill and eke the vale.”
Soon the room filled with cigarette smoke, swearing, moaning, and an occasional snatch of song. After a hot meal, there was aught to do but get into bed. A last gesture of sociability, I went outside to the wireless truck, listened to the BBC News, jotted down the main details, and from my bed read it out to the lads. The best received was the unstoppable grinding advance of the Russian Army, who were well inside the Polish border, the announcement of which brought a small tired cheer. Birch was sitting up in bed, his arms folded, a cigarette embedded in his face.
“I’m too bloody tired to smoke,” he said.
“Try steaming,” I said. “It’s easier.”
Bombardier Harry Holmwood chips in, “It’s alright for some, Milligan, sittin’ on their arse all day, playin’ their bugle.”
“I swear on the Pope’s legs I have not touched the bugle all day.”
I slept soundly that night.
THURSDAY, JANUARY 6, 1944
ON THE JOB AT 8.15. BITTER COLD. THROUGH THE BUSHES MASKING OUR POSITIONS WE CAN SEE THE SNOW ON THE HILLS ACROSS THE GARIGLIANO.
We were supposed to dig a Command Post, but No! No, we find a super cave right near the gun positions. So, instead we have to dig a cookhouse; this took most of the day. We dug into a bank under the supervision (Super?) of Vic Nash. There is nothing so invigorating as an ex-Old Kent Road pastry cook tellin’ you how to dig a hole.
Hands and feet are freezing, the only way to get them warm is dig. By five o’clock it was too dark to see. We returned to the billet and luxurated in the warmth inside provided by an old