Mussolini_ His Part in My Downfall - Spike Milligan [30]
The mosquitoes are so bad that an official complaint has been made to the MO and now three engineers with spray guns are going round squirting the countryside and our dinners; it helped a little, but far too late. The mosquitoes had left, why?
“They couldn’t find any space between the bites,” says Fuller, whose face resembled a side of beef with scabs on.
Some of the lads’ scratches went septic and they were daubed with some pink stuff that made them look like Indians in war paint. They came dancing from the MO’s tent with war whoops.
OCTOBER 23, 1943, NIGHT
Command Post: I sat on a much-treasured wooden box, in front of me a telephone, a message pad, the panel control of the Tannoy; this last mentioned connected up a loudspeaker to each gun. Through this you relayed the orders. You would pass on the Command Post Officer’s orders.
Me: Take post!
A Sub: A Sub answering.
B Sub: B Sub answering.
Me: Angle of sight ‘something something’ degrees, Range 15,000.
The subsections would then all answer back the orders to acknowledge.
The OP spotting fall of shot would come back. “More three degrees or add 500 (yds”) and so on till you hit whatever it was.
On this particular shoot, we were trying to silence Nebel-wurfers. Six o’clock we get the BBC news. The Russians have broken through between Dneiperpertrovsk and Che molk, large bridgehead created threatening Kiev. Goodski!
As we listen, the Naples sirens go, at once the Ack-Ack opens up. We duck through our canvas wall and see the sky alive with tracer. It was one of the entertainments of war, a sort of early television.
“See anything last night?”
“Smashin’ air raid on Naples.”
“Are they going to repeat it?”
We can hear the distant drone of Jerry planes approaching. We sit tight as they fly overhead, a short sharp burst of MG fire and a plane bursts into flames, immediately, a fiery coffin in the sky plunges a thousand yards south of us, hits the ground and explodes. The grapevine was soon through, a Jerry!! Great! It crashed near 18 Battery, a hundred yards from the Battery latrine, where the occupants had flung themselves to the ground, shattering their meditations. It was 8.30, my relief was Signaller Thornton. He saunters in.
“Evenin’ all, see the fireworks?”
I bid Lt. Wright goodnight.
“Thanks for the help, Milligan, leave the pencil, it’s the only one we’ve got.”
I pushed into the dark, and stumbled towards where the Ten Line exchange was. Behind the canvas blackout flap I hear Edgington struggling with the calls.
“Just a minute—er—wot?—hold it, sorry sir—I oops! I gave you the wrong line—hello 19 Battery here, who? Just a minute—blast, what the—” buried by 18 Battery.
“See? 18 Battery again,” says Chalky White. “They get all the fun.”
Gunner Devine is passing with a bandage on his hand.
“There’s a curse on 19 Battery,” he says solemnly.
“A curse?” queries Edgington. “What is it?”
“Fuck ‘em,” said Devine, a great Liverpudlian grin on his unshaven face.
“That is indeed a terrible curse,” says Bombardier Milligan. “I wonder who put it on us.”
“It’s ‘Jumbo’ Jenkins, ‘ees the bleedin’ curse on us,” said White.
“Fuck him,” said Devine.
“See? There goes that curse again,” says Edgington.
Edgington borrows Fildes’ guitar, and off duty, we have a little sing-song in our dug-out.
“Ahhhh! There you are,” says a voice followed by the body of Sgt-Major Griffin. Our much-beloved Welshman has that half evil, half benign smile on his face. Before we can dive for cover, he says, “You, you, you, and you,” all the while pointing at me, “we’re moving, lads.”
A great groan rents the air.
“Oh, cheer up now,” he says in a mock cheery voice, “the King is going to let you all have a nice shovel on loan for the day.”
More terrible groans.
“We are going to make some nice little holes in the ground for our guns.”
We are all packed off in a three-tonner. We drive through Sparanise, badly shelled