Mussolini_ His Part in My Downfall - Spike Milligan [35]
The girl Beryl is a mixture of singer/sweetheart/friend/resident of Norwood. She had sung with Carl Barriateau’s band before and during the war. The only photo I have of her is the one overleaf on top of an oil tanker.
The letter seems to suggest that I was fed up. Well, I can’t remember so I must have been fed up; of course, I might have been fed down, or I might have been fed sideways, or fed intravenously, no one will ever know. Why I never finished the letter to Beryl is likewise a mystery; a bigger mystery, why did I keep it all these years? Did I intend to finish it? yes! of course, I’ll write at the bottom, “That’s all for now, love, Spike.” Another wartime mystery solved folks! AGED GUNNER FINDS LOST LOVE LETTER IN OLD ARMY SOCK. “Thanks to that sock,” says 159-year-old ex-Gunner Millington, “I have discovered my lost love, now we shall be married and I’ll end happily ever after.”
Miss Beryl Southby, sweetheart of my forces and singer with Carl Barriateau’s band. Shown on the wagon, Norwood 1941-2.
OCTOBER 31, 1943
MY DIARY:
LOVELY DAY. PADRE HELD CHURCH SERVICE.
ALF FILDES’ DIARY:
Lazy Day. Fry ups. Deans’ coffee.
NOVEMBER 1, 1943
REGIMENTAL DIARY: (I can’t resist reporting this entry!)
Had orders to move from 083857 by 10.00 hrs as ‘X’ Corps want to come into the area. The orders from 2 AGRA were vague and they were unable to indicate any hide area for us to go. They could not tell us where the enemy were, they could not tell us whether we were to go into action that day. So we aren’t doing anything.
Any questions folks?
Ted Lawrence, our Don R, comes up and says, “Jerry’s retreatin’.” He ought to know, he’s just stamped his bare foot on a dog-end and comes hot-foot from HQ. We’ve all got to be ready to move at a moment’s notice. A mad rush as we start hurling our crappy clobber into big pack, small pack kitbag, cardboard boxes, brown paper parcels all held together by miles of knotted string and bits of bent wire. It was really terrible to see what a once immaculate Battery looked like. No longer did we appear as Conquerors, no, we looked like families of impoverished Armenian refugees fleeing the Turkish slaughter. Bundles of canvas, tea-chests and water-proof sheeting were piled on the roof, obliterating the outline of the lorry which, in silhouette, appeared to be an extinct dinosaur. So, from our ‘Wembley Exhibition’ site we all started to slither and slide to the main road. My God! What a mess! Vehicles were everywhere, all pointing the wrong way, the giant Scammell lorries with guns in tow had ‘jack-knifed’, red-faced Sergeants were yelling abuse at the drivers, who in turn yelled abuse at the gunners, who pointed accusingly at the Sergeants. The signallers (us) are all OK. We are sitting in our trucks and have managed to get to the main road known as Route 6, facing the right way. We have brewed up. Great steaming mugs of tea are jamming the roadway. American trucks with coloured drivers are racing past shouting, “Out of the way, Limey white trash,” and we shout back, “Fuck Joe Louis.” We drank tea till our bladders were crippled and the tannic acid showed red through our skin, by which time the great guns had finally been extricated from the mud.
Ted Lawrence, with his pistol pointing in a direction that could ruin his marriage.
By eleven o’clock, we were in convoy, looking like Council Dustcarts on the move.
“Oh! look who’s coming up the road! It’s our leader, General Mark Clark! God bless ‘ee zur!”
He is seated in a jeep, with four stars on the front. His driver I swear was W. C. Fields. As he passes down our line he grins at the good-natured shouting, “Got any spare dollars, Mate? Why aren’t we getting ice cream like your men?”
He stopped at the head of our column, stood up, talked to his driver, turned round and came back again. He turned and gave a wave as he disappeared round a corner.