Mussolini_ His Part in My Downfall - Spike Milligan [23]
“Rumble, he was killed…”
“How?”
“Very unlucky really—”
“Yes, it is unlucky to be killed.”
“He was writing a letter home* when suddenly Jerry sent over one lone shell, it burst behind him, a piece went in the back of his head, he died at once.”
≡ Some say he was having a wash.
“Poor bugger…”
Strangely, I didn’t feel that moved. Had it been peacetime and I’d been told he was killed by a tram, I’m sure I’d be desperately sad; somehow in wartime all those feelings were reduced. Strange.
“We’ve all been flooded out.”
“Weak bladder?”
“Shut up or I’ll take you back; no, we’re all dug in on a plain in front of a river, what’s it called, the—er—Vallerbo or something—”
“Volturno,” says clever.
“Yes, well, you know that bloody thunderstorm we had last night.”
“Personally,” I said.
“Well, the bloody lot fell on us, the river flooded, and Christ, in ten minutes all the dug-outs were like sunken baths!”
Coming down the road towards us are two tank transporters. The front one is carrying an almost intact fuselage of a FW 109, and the one behind, a Mark IV Tank with a neat hole drilled in the turret.
“Wonder where they’re takin’ them,” says Wright.
“I think they test them out for information, then they send them for exhibition in London.”
“Christ, I wish they’d put me on exhibition in London.”
We ride in silence. We go through the Salerno Gap, and are soon nearing the outskirts of Naples. Lots of pretty girls. Soon we are in the thick of the Via Roma traffic, we move at a snail’s pace. People are as thick as flies, some thicker. It takes us nearly an hour to get through the chaos.
“Never think there was a war on here, would you, shops full of stuff, all the squaddies buying knickers for their birds, mind you the prices are going up like lightning. It’s the Yanks, they pay anything for stuff, they’re loaded with money.” He stopped, and said, “Cor, I forgot,” he started to feel in his map pocket. “Got some mail for you.”
Mail! MAIL! I hadn’t had any for a month. It was like being five years old on Christmas morning. Ten letters! I read my mother’s first. My father has now been transferred to the Command RAOC Depot, Reigate, where he has decided that the standard Infantry ammunition pouches are useless. They helped win Alamein but that’s not good enough for father. He has designed some strange things that are strapped round the leg that, my brother later told me, made it impossible to walk or run. In other words you could carry twice as much ammo but had to stand still all the time.
Thank God he wasn’t running the war like he wanted to. My mother was apparently doing little for the war effort except pray for the death of Hitler. If he didn’t die soon, her knees were going to give out. My brother has won the South London Poster Design prize, for which he got a certificate saying ‘You have just won the South London Poster Design Prize’. After six dusty hours we arrive at an Italian farmhouse near the village of Cancello just across the Volturno on the 46 Div. front. It’s dark and I can’t get a picture of the lay-out, looming around are vehicles draped with camouflage nets, looking like strange grotesque monsters. It started to drizzle. The Wagon Lines are billeted in various buildings, the central one being the farmhouse. I noted in my diary, “People living in and about look nervous and strained.” I was very happy to be back with the lads, though my real pals were at the Gun Lines where I would journey on the morrow.
After dinner in a small room, I was brought up to date with Battery news by Bombardier Tibbies. He told me Gunner Rumble has been killed. Poor Rumble, killed twice apparently.
The ominous sound of Jerry bombers directly overhead.
“Making for Naples,” said Tibbies.
“Are you sure?” I said from under the table.
We stood in the blackened courtyard of the farm and watched the spider’s web of tracer shells etching the night sky, behind them the red tongue of Vesuvius. Inside the farm an Italian baby was crying, and the mother was trying to calm it in a hysterical