Mussolini_ His Part in My Downfall - Spike Milligan [103]
“There’s catacombs, you can see ‘em through the floor.” Yes indeed, Nash saw Milligan disappear down that hole; soon hurling upwards were numerous bones, skulls, rocks, etc. as I searched for a coffin lid. Eureka! I got three, and soon I was lying on it in grand style; the others I gave to Deans, and one to the telephone exchange for the duty signaller to lean against.
Method of digging a dug-out
JANUARY 12, 1944
Troops in front of us are our old friends the Berkshires and a new mob, The London Scottish. Heard ITMA on Radio this evening. Corny bastards. Heard Henry Hall, corny bastard. Have laid in a good supply of firewood. Made two more oil lamps, now in niches inside of our dug-out. Knocked off drum of Derv Oil from parked lorry. Enough to last us a month. Swopped soapy cigarettes with Italians in exchange for eggs. Had a marvellous evening meal, boiled the eggs and floated them in our beef stew and potatoes, ate it sitting on my coffin lid. I gazed long in the fire, and listened to Deans holding forth about the war! “It must end soon,” he says.
“Why?”
“Because I want it to.”
“If wanting to is going to end it, I wanted it to end the day before I bloody joined.”
“I’ll tell you when it’s going to end,” said Fildes in between mouthfuls. “When we’ve flattened every German city and every German, that’s the way it will end.”
“I think he’s going to lose, but we can’t afford to let up here, he knows he’s going to go on retreating, but the bastard only wants revenge in the form of our blood. The blokes running their war would rather burn Germany to the ground than surrender, they’ll only surrender when they have to, and that goes for those little yellow fucking creeps the Japs.”
“Oh Christ,” said Deans. “I’d forgotten about them, it’ll be just our bloody luck, when we’ve finished Jerry off, we’ll be shipped off to the bloody jungles…it’s never going to end.”
Down on the plain there is a burst of MG fire, trained ears recognise it as Jerry’s, there’s response from tommy guns, two patrols have clashed, life and death, more shooting, and I slide another spoonful of dinner in. I really can’t get it all together, us dining, them dying…A head pokes through the black-out, it’s gambling-mad Bombardier Marsden.
“Pontoon?”
“Piss off,” we said.
The head disappeared. We could hear him visiting all the dug-outs around.
“How come he always seems to win?” I said.
“Never mind that,” said Fildes. “How come we always seem to bloody lose?”
THURSDAY, JANUARY 13, 1944
MY DIARY:
SUNNY, SPRINGLIKE MORNING. VERY QUIET. WOKEN BY STARLINGS SQUABBLING OVER SCRAPS I’D LEFT OUTSIDE DUG-OUT. NO WORK. PARADE AND THEN DO AS WE LIKE. EXCHANGE MANNED BY MONKEY TRUCK MEN. WILL CHECK COMMAND POST TO SEE ALL SIGNAL STUFF WORKS.
FILDES’ DIARY:
Cushy now digging is finished. We all had bath down at village hot showers in front line. Fifty casualties in last night’s attack by Berkshires and London Scottish.
Oh yes, those hot showers; there were the infantry blazing away just outside the town, but what Fildes doesn’t say in his diary was that when it was L/Bdr. Milligan’s turn to have a bath, he and a score of the other great unwashed are suddenly divebombed by Jerry, five ME 109s. A goodly sight the folk of Lauro village were treated to, as a crowd of naked pink men scooted out the shower rooms and dived for cover in adjacent slit trenches. As I sat naked in my muddy pit my one thought was for my money in my battle-dress jacket, no sooner the bombing over and people sorting themselves out than L/Bdr. Milligan was seen to sprint back to the shower unit. Thank God! Money was safe! I must have Jewish blood. It was only after checking my wallet that I asked if anyone had been hurt. We restarted our shower as we were now all muddy. This time there is no singing, all ears were tuned to listen for any further planes. Pink and rosy and smelling of Lifebuoy soap I took me to my dug-out, rolled up the canvas flap and let the sunshine in. The fire was going nicely, so I took out my trumpet and played away at the