Mussolini_ His Part in My Downfall - Spike Milligan [3]
“It’ll be my luck to get killed and next day it’ll come through downgraded to 2B.”
“That would be terrible,” I said, “being killed is bad enough, but to be a corpse and 2B as well, that’s too much.”
The Cocoa-Pot Matelot introduces himself. He was Eddie Hackshaw and from what I hear, still is, a short squat London lad with a cheery smile. He has taken a fancy to me. He gave me a silver Arab ring for luck. He troops Kidgell,
Edgington and self down to see the engine-room. We meet the engineers, they are embalmed in oil and grease, all Liverpudlians.
“These are the Whackers who do the engines,” he said.
“Ah, the famous Do-Whacker-dos.” (Groans.)
They had been working long hours since ‘D’ day, and looked desperately tired.
“It was bloody murder, two of our lads were killed on deck by Jerry artillery!”
We sat at their mess table, which was a mess.
“We haven’t had time to scrub it since we did the landings.”
We sat and talked, they gave us tea, grub, and handfuls of fags. A Big Liverpudlian, as I remember his name was Paul, said, “Did youse know the anagram of Salerno was ‘Narsole’?”
“I thought it was the other way round.”
The face of the helmsman showed white through the wheel house. Lunch was a mangled stew, lumps of gristle floating on the surface. Edgington said if you held your ear to it you could hear an old lady calling “Helppppp.”
The curtain of night is falling as we pass Argonaut-like in the shadow of Sicily. The sun, like a scarlet Communion host, dips into a horizon that is gossamer with mist; the wave-tops catch the last pink fading light, and reflect like a million flashing indicators. The night comes: we heard the Tannoy.
“This is the Captain speaking, there will be no naked lights, matches or cigarettes during hours of darkness. We are travelling through a known U-boat area. Will all officers ensure this order is carried out?”
Dinner was lunch four hours later and several degrees colder. I went below and Hackshaw scrounged me a bottle of beer.
“Where you been?” says Kidgell.
“In the galley.”
He leaps up, grabbed his mess-tins. “Is there more grub there, then?” he said, saliva pouring down his chin like Pavlov’s dogs.
It may be an illusion but night seemed to make the sea sound louder and lovelier. It even made Kidgell sound louder added. “It’s not doing the Warspite any good either.”
Lorries and guns coming ashore at Red Beach, Salerno. Note the man in the foreground with two broken forearms—now going for broken legs to get his ticket.
In the morning mistiness we make out hyper-activity on the beaches—lorries, tanks, half-tracks, beach-masters waving flags, pointing, lifting, lowering, signalling, shouting—all involved in the logistics of the war. The shells from Warspite were bursting inland on the hills behind Pontecagnano, which dominated the landing beaches. Why wasn’t Jerry replying? We drop anchor; immediately trouble, the chain has wrapped around the propeller shaft, fun and high jinks. We cheer as a diver goes down. A boat from the beach approached with a purple-faced Officer who shouted rude things through a bull-horn at our Captain, whose face incidentally showed white through the wheel house. To make it more difficult for our Captain, the destroyers lay a smoke-screen around us, and the Tannoy crackles: “Hello—click-buzz-crackle—it’s—click-buzz-crackle—later.” End of message.
“It’s all getting a bit silly,” said Harry. “All we had was the view and now that’s been bloody obscured!”
Now is the time for action! I take my trumpet from its case. There must be men still alive who remember the sound of ‘The Last Post’ from the smoke-shrouded Boxer. The Tannoy crackles.
“Whoever is playing that bugle, please stop,” said a piqued Navy voice.
Salerno.