Mussolini_ His Part in My Downfall - Spike Milligan [46]
“I can’t sleep,” says Signaller White. “It’s too bloody quiet.”
We all sit in our tents, watching the mountain of water falling.
“I’ve worked out that the rest of the world must be bone bloody dry!” says Edgington, putting a damp cigarette in his mouth.
“Cheer up,” I said.
“Why?”
“I don’t know why, give me time, I’ll think of a reason.”
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 1943
We have both run across to the cookhouse with our gas capes over our heads, it’s early morning and what a treat! someone has got us a fried egg each for breakfast.
“Oh, magnificent egg,” I intoned.
“Egg! oh Egg!” echoed Edgington like a Shakespearean actor. “I feel a powerful inspiration on the egg coming to me.” He then launched into, “Oh long live the fried egg, even though for it we have to beg. The fact that these eggs are Italian, will have us bound up like a…” I couldn’t think of a rhyme, then Edgington says, “Like a stallion.”
“Did you hear Jerry’s long-range guns last night?” I said.
“Noo, I wasn’t on duty, for once I had a good kip.”
A period of eating and tea sipping.
“Here; last night I picked up some jazz from Naples AFN, they had a half-hour of Goodman with Charlie Christian on guitar, it was bloody marvellous, then about ten minutes of Jimmy Lunceford, they played that great sax arrangement of Sleepy Time Gal, it was great, I think Willy Smith was on first Alto, what a great lead he is.”
“I wonder when we’ll ever play again.”
“Alf’s guitar strings are all going rusty. He’s going to try to get some new ones when he gets a trip into Naples.”
Bombardier Fuller is calling for me. Despite my silence he finds me. “We’re going to move soon.”
“In this bloody weather?”
“In this weather…there’s no rush, but start getting things ready, we can close down on Wireless, but we’re keeping the OP Line open.”
“Ours is but to do and die—and try and get bloody dry!” says Edgington.
It continues as a nothing day, we attempt to write letters. Some play cards, some sleep, some just sit and stare. New Disaster, the shit-pit has been flooded by the rain so it’s all floating around the landscape; poor Sgt. Jock Wilson and his crew are all gently sleeping in their tent when the contents of the Shit-Pit float under the tent flaps. Chaos.
In anticipation of the moves the order goes out that all vehicles will have the tyre chains on. Drivers get into the most appalling state carrying out the order.
“Surely,” says Edgington, “this rain must be longer than Queen Victoria’s.”
“Let’s go to the Command Post,” I said. “See what’s on the wireless.”
We double across, giving off our usual Red Indian War Whoops. In the Command Post, Vic Nash and Bombardier Edwards have folded up the Artillery Board and are packing the remaining bits and pieces.
The fire is glowing red, Edgington and I settle by it. We steam in the near heat. It was the only refuge in a grim world of mud and cold.
“I wonder what wondrous fairyland they are taking us to,” says Deans. He takes a cigarette from his tin.
Little Vic Nash, “Give us one, I’m clean out.”
Deans hands the tin across.
“Fucking Vs! These are personal fuckin’ insults,” says Nash, but still takes one. “It won’t fukin’ well light.”
“You have to dry the bloody thing out first,” advises Deans in sage-like voice.
“You know, I wrote to my MP in London about these bloody Vs, and said it was a disgrace that we had to smoke the bloody things.”
“Did you get a reply?”
“Yes, he said there was nothing that could be done because these fags are made in India, and it’s easier to ship fags from India to Italy than from England; he put a packet of twenty Players in a parcel and wished me good luck.”
“Well, you don’t appear to have had any,” said Edgington.
“Have you see this,” says Deans and hands us a page torn from the Union Jack, the Army newspaper…I was so smitten with what I read I copied it out.
Corridors of Power.
MKI General:
Leaps tall buildings with a single bound. More powerful than a steam engine, faster than a speeding bullet. Gives policy to GOD.
Colonel:
Leaps