Mussolini_ His Part in My Downfall - Spike Milligan [24]
“No wonder Mussolini turned it in,” said Tibbies.
The row abated as we drank tea by the light of an oil lamp. The German bombers were returning and the Ack-Ack re-awoke the baby and the whole mad trio were soon yelling at each other again. It sounded like a vegetable shopping list.
“Too-ma-toeee!…Poo-ta-toeee!” they shouted, “Minestrone!!”
I reflected, as I lay in bed, that I’d had a cushy few weeks behind the lines, but from the stories the war was not going to be a gentleman’s one like we had in North Africa. Since those distant days I have actually met one of the German lads who was in the line opposite us in North Africa, Hans Teske. In fact, I organised a small reunion at the Medusa Restaurant in December ‘76 for those who had been involved in fighting in and around Steam Roller Farm, February 26, 1943. An officer present, Noel Burdett, hearing Teske and me stating that we must have actually fired at each other that day, said, “Your survival indicates you must both be bloody awful shots.”
Later Hans Teske dispelled the belief that Germans had no sense of humour by inscribing my menu:
“Dear Spike, sorry I missed you on February 26, 1943.”
As I lay dreaming, an unbelievable experience happened. In the dark a farm dog had got into our room. I heard him sniffing around. I made friendly noises and in the dark his cold nose touched my hand. I patted him and left it at that, the next thing the dirty little devil piddled on me. Was he Mussolini’s Revenge?
MY DIARY:
0600 AM: DRIVEN FROM WAGON LINES TO GUN POSITION.
It was sunny, but everywhere wet, damp and muddy. Cancello is a small agricultural town on the great plain that lies on the North bank of the Volturno. I’m in a three-tonner with Driver Kit Masters. At seven we arrive at the gun position, the guns have gone, and all that is left are the M Truck Signallers who are to reel in the D5 lines.
“This is it,” said Driver Masters, pulling up in a morass of mud.
I leap from the vehicle and land knee-deep in it.
“It’s all yours,” says Masters, and speeds away like a priest from a brothel.
Emerging from holes in the ground are mud-caked troglodytes. I recognise Edgington.
“Why lawks a mercy,” he said in Southern Negro tones, “welcome home, massa Milligan, de young massa am home, praise de Laud and hide de Silver.”
“Good God, Edgington, what are you wearing?”
“Mud, it am all de rage.”
“I can’t tell how good it is to be back, mate,” I said.
“Oh what a pity—now we’ll never know.” I offered him a cigarette.
“You must be mad, why in God’s name did you come back?”
“I ran out of illness.”
“Get out! All you got to do is a pee against a Neapolitan karzi wall and you get crabs.”
“Where’s the guns?”
Edgington countenanced himself as a Red Indian. “White men gone, take heap big fire-stick and fuck off.”
More mud-draped creatures are issuing from what had been the Command Post. I suddenly remembered!
“Where’s all my kit?”
“We had to auction it off—it started to smell.”
Jam-Jar Griffin alone and unafraid, his BO having driven the Germans from the Volturno plain.
“Don’t bugger around, everything I treasure is in my big pack.”
Harry shook his head. “Sorry mate, yer big pack has gone AWOL*, but yer kitbag’s safe in G Truck with Alf Fildes.”
≡ Absent without leave
“Where’s Alf Fildes?”
“He’s at the new gun position, last time I saw him he had the shits, anyhow your kit’s in his truck.”
My big pack, lost! It was a major disaster.
“You can report it missing killed in action,” says Edging-ton.
All that I held dear was in there, things close to a soldier’s heart, like socks, drawers cellular, worst of all my Nazi war loot, a dagger, an Iron Cross, an Afrika Korps hat, and a set of pornographic photographs taken lovingly from a dead Jerry on