Mussolini_ His Part in My Downfall - Spike Milligan [41]
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 7, 1943
ALF FILDES’ DIARY:
Typical Sunday morning, people going to church opposite. Plenty of firing last night, and church has lost a few windows. After breakfast a dozen ME’s came over and made trouble but left us alone, they made for the main road.
Before the first mass we have to hide our beds—and make ourselves scarce.
I am walking to the cookhouse through a conglomerate of American foxholes and guns. The Yanks sound their air-raid alarm. It’s noisier than the raid. Americans start running in all directions. I didn’t. It was highly unlikely the planes could spot us in this heavily wooded position. They roar over the top of us, and later we heard machine-gunning and bombing somewhere down the Rocamanfina Road. Along with Edgington we explore the Church Annexe and find a piano in the vestry. Soon Italians in Church can hear distant Cole Porter tunes.
A Priest appears, he is not hostile, and stays to listen, I think his name was Father Alborghetti. He too took over the piano and then sang arias from La Boheme, Tosca, in a quivery ecclesiastical voice. We’re all having fun! “Aren’t you glad we’ve liberated you?” I said to the priest.
I do an all-night stint in the Command Post in promise of all day off. It’s bloody cold, and in between Fire orders we all crouch over the brazier. The six o’clock news from the BBC is good. Kiev in Russian hands after a terrific advance. I’m so broke I could do with an advance myself. We are playing pontoon for matchsticks. Rumour that a Gunners’ rest camp has been established somewhere on the Sorrento peninsula, is it true? Guns continue to fire through the night. The fight for Monte Camino continues, it’s a bloody affair. I write some letters home.
Nov. 9, 1943
Dear Dad,
Nothing much to report except World War 2. Is it still going on where you are? It’s winter here, lots of mud, and very cold especially in the mornings, so the balaclava and gloves you sent are very useful. Writing this in a cave, so we haven’t come far from Neanderthal man, have we? There’s always rumours of ‘going home’, one look at this mob and you’d realise we’re all going home. Thanks for the three Life magazines, one reads and re-reads them over and over again and they are usually passed through gunner in the Battery. I’m desperately trying to think of any news, and there isn’t any. Read Beachcomber in the Express, he explains it all. I’m here and you’re there, and every day is much the same as the previous. The conversations are food, sex, and after the war, sometimes its war, food and after the sex. I’ll have to close as we’re about to start sending deliveries of steel to the gentlemen of the Third Reich.
Love to all
Your Loving Son Terry
PS: The Major tells us we must win the war because we’re British.
Capt. Leo Milligan walking home to Orchard Way, Wood-hatch, Reigate, Surrey, 1942-3, while second-in-charge of RAOC depot, Reigate. Now we all know.
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 9, 1943
What’s this? Edgington has made an incredible find. A free-range harmonium! It’s in the Vicarage and the priest says we can use it, so the morning is spent playing jazz; as a mark of respect I play my trumpet muted, Alf plays guitar and the priest and his lady cleaner sit and listen a bit amazed, jazz under Mussolini had been banned as decadent; well, the music wasn’t, but we certainly were. It was an unusual morning, the priest giving us an unexpected blessing before we departed.
“What was he doing then?” said Edgington.
I explained. “It’s a blessing.”
“What good does it do?” he said.
“Well, it’s supposed to be a solemn occasion on which he, as a minister, fortifies your soul by sprinkling holy water over you.”
“It only made me bloody wet,” said Edgington.
Grim news of the fighting on Monte Camino, the Guards are attacking but Jerry has reinforced his position with 1st/104 Panzer Grenadiers,