Mussolini_ His Part in My Downfall - Spike Milligan [45]
“Well,” he says, “we haven’t got your size, see; you take an eight, we’ve only got twelves.”
“Twelves? TWELVES? Christ!”
“Take it or leave it.”
A choice! Size twelves or bare feet. It was like wearing landing barges. I used to haul myself around in the mud walking like Frankenstein’s monster, my feet kept coming out of the bloody things, and I had to stand on one leg trying to tug the monster boot out of the mud. It was impossible, I told the Quarterbloke and he relented. “I’ll send a truck to Base Depot and get you a pair of eights.”
The new size eights arrive and are like iron. They have been in store since World War 1. I have to attack them with a hammer to break them down. I cover them with great loads of dubbin, put them near the fire; I watched those boots absorb two pounds of dubbin, with a noise of Glug Glug. “The bloody things are alive,” said Gunner White, watching fascinated as the boots devoured the dubbin. After half an hour’s battering with a Tent Peg Mallet I tried them on. Great! they were as soft as buckskin.
We have news that 17 Battery has had a premature. No one killed but one gunner injured. This was strange as the gun had just come back from workshops, where it had been repaired for a previous premature.
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 1943
REGIMENTAL DIARY:
Weather once again wet windy and cold (That sounded like most of us.).
ALF FILDES’ DIARY:
Rain making things awkward.
BDR. MILLIGAN’S DIARY:
GAVE BOOTS ANOTHER GOOD HAMMERING.
Lt. Budden is a greeny-yellow colour when he enters the Command Post.
“You look off colour, sir—yellow to be precise,” I said sympathetically.
“No, I feel jolly rotten.”
Jolly rotten?
“I’ve just come to collect my prismatic compass.” He goes to a little ledge, picks up a few belongings. He looks dreadful. “I’m going into hospital, Milligan.”
“Congratulations, sir.”
He manages a wry smile and exits. I will miss him, he is a splendid fellow; the only trouble was, he didn’t understand Jazz.
We are visited by Vic Nash, who has just come back from the OP with Jam-Jar Griffin.
“What a bloody time,” he says. “Fuckin’ mud and fuckin’ shells, and fuckin’ Jerry dead stinking away, now I’ve discovered I’ve got bloody Dhobi’s Itch.”
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 15, 1943
TORRENTIAL RAIN
I thought we’d had the heaviest rain possible, but now, today, it is unbelievable! It’s so damp that even under cover you get wet. The only good thing is the rum ration. I can’t stand the taste of it, I keep it in my water bottle and put it in my tea during the night shift. We bake apples and chestnuts by our Command Post fire. The path to the Command Post is very slippery and poor old George Shipman slid off it last night down a sixty-foot bank; he entered the Command Post covered in slimy mud. “I just fell over the bank,” he said.
“I thought they were closed on Mondays.” There’s a lot of illness in the Regiment, we are well below full strength, especially me. It’s come to something, our Medical Officer, Captain Bentley, is in hospital with ‘Chinese Flu’ (Jaundice). 15 and 18 Batteries have been pulled out of the line for a rest, and their guns are at REME Workshops in Naples. The Attack on Monte Camino was halted because of appalling weather. All that blood-letting for nothing. After the war a note in the 14th Panzer Corps (they were defending Camino) Diary for 13th states, “THE ENEMY HAS WON THE BATTLE FOR THE MIGNANO GAP!”…that was the day that General Mark Clark had told Alexander that we would have to suspend the offensive because our troops were exhausted. Kismet.
Our Gunners are so shagged, they have been falling asleep on the guns; Signallers, Specialists and Karzi attendants are all rounded up to do a spell on them. The Gunners sleep in their tents and don’t even wake up for meals. The platforms of the guns are nothing more than pools of mud three feet deep. For the first time the entire Regiment