Mussolini_ His Part in My Downfall - Spike Milligan [28]
“I’m just feeling meself to see if that was a direct hit…no, there’s no holes in me so I’ll continue in the service.”
“Milligan? Bombardier Milligan?” the voice of our new AI Sgt. King: “It’s no use keeping silent, I’ll find you, the smell will give you away.”
I give a weak ‘I’m here, Sarge’, trying to throw my voice in another direction.
“Ah, I want you to make out a roster for the Command Post for twenty-four hours.”
It’s along midnight, I’m not wanted for any duties, so I must find a place to kip. Eyes now accustomed to the gloom, I see ahead of our trench a group of farm outbuildings. With blankets and kit I lumber across to them. Inside I find a manger. The roof is intact save a few slates that rattle when the guns go. A manger? Well, if it was good enough for him… There are a few bales of straw around, soon I am lying snuggled down. I’m a bit worried about being above ground with Jerry lobbing over harassing fire, but I gradually fall asleep to the sound of 7.2s.
OCTOBER 22, 1943
I glanced at my watch, 0700 hours, the sun is shining like a spring morn. It had a cheering effect, so I gave three cheers. I arose from my straw bed and was soon at the cook-house for breakfast. The mosquitoes return to the attack. We eat with gas capes draped over our heads. “Where’d you kip?” said Edgington. I pointed. “Over there.”
“Jerry slung over a dozen in the night.”
“I didn’t hear them. Did they have silencers on?”
“Poor old Bill Trew, he was havin’ a crap in the field, the first one landed behind him. He set off and ended up in the ditch, with his trousers still down.”
“I heard that Captain Richards of 17 Battery has got the MC.”
“What for?” I said.
“I dunno,” said Edgington, “it arrived with the rations so he pinned it on, and our Johnnie Walker’s been mentioned in despatches.”
“Oh, what did he do?”
“Drinking a whole bottle of Scotch under heavy mortar fire, and never spilled a drop.”
We all realised as we drank our tea that the guns were silent.
“Is it a strike?”
“No,” says Bombardier Fuller. “There’s Jerries in the area supposed to be massing for an attack, and so we don’t give our position away, we been ordered to stay silent.”
“Oh,” I said, “are we talking too loud?”
“He’s up there,” said Bill Trew, emerging from under his gas cape long enough to point to a hill about 4,000 yards away.
“You mean he can see us?” I said.
“Yer,” says Trew.
I gave a cheery wave at the hill. “Hello, lads,” I called.
It was amazing, Jerry could see us but wasn’t doing anything about it, a strange uneasy feeling; anticipating a Stonk* by Jerry, we set to and dug a funk hole into the side of the ditch.
≡ Concentration of Artillery fire.
A plume of black smoke is ascending from the Jerry position.
“He’s still got fags then,” said Edgington.
We made a floor out of bits of wood that kept us off the mud. At the same time we were also involved in digging an alcove for the telephone exchange; also along the ditch was the Command Post, Cookhouse, Officers’ Mess and Battery Office. It looked very much like a World War 1 trench. An incredible find by Edgington, a huge cupboard that we wedge into our funkhole—we sit inside with the door closed to avoid the mozzies.
At about 0930 the guns open up again and we could see our shells bursting on the hillside behind Sparanise. The siting of our guns was obviously good, behind a bank of trees that hid them from view, but we gunners walked about the fields in full view like the silly sods we were.
I set about drawing up a Duty Roster for manning the Exchange. Normally, they would stick some poor sod on from six till midnight, then some poor sod from midnight till six, leaving signallers milling around scratching their balls and with nothing to do. So I drew up a schedule that spread the load more evenly.
I invented this roster and it continued on for as long as I was with the Battery.
COMMAND POST SIGNALS ROSTER 24thNight 25th Night 26th Night 27th Night 28th Night
08.30. 11.30 Radford 8 Milligan 1 Sherwood 4 Hart 7 Birch 10
11.30. 2.30 Fildes 9 Wenham 2 Thornton 5 Radford