Mussolini_ His Part in My Downfall - Spike Milligan [5]
We congregated by the sand hillocks, dumped our small kit and started to explore the area. Hard by was an American Lightning plane that had crash-landed half in the sea; a glimpse inside showed a blood-saturated cockpit. “He must be very anaemic by now,” said Sherwood. There are slit trenches everywhere, water bottles, helmets, empty ammo boxes, and spent-cartridge cases by the hundreds.
“Must have been a hot spot,” said Bdr. Fuller.
At the bottom of a trench I spot a Scots Guard cap badge, several pieces of human skull with hair attached, and a curling snapshot of two girls with an address somewhere in Streatham. I put it in my paybook intending to forward it to the address. We come across thirty or so hurried graves with makeshift wooden markers. “Private Edwards, E.”, a number, and that was all. Fourteen days ago he was alive, thinking, feeling, hoping…If war was a game of cards, I’d say someone was cheating.
We pause now for Gunner Edgington’s recollections of the landing which go like this (stand well back)…
The scene as it met our eyes as we come up on deck very early that morning, with the ponderous old HMS Boxer leading the convoy and still some way off, the distant coast. It was barely dawn—mighty early—it was to be a fine day, though a touch of unaccustomed chilliness in the air. We had after all just come from North Africa—the sea calm, the elements indeed almost holding their breath—overhead the sky was fairly clear—but there, dead ahead of us was an awesome ‘Curtain up’ setting of Salerno, a name which meant nothing to us at this juncture. [It did to me, I listened to the radio. S.M.] An hour later, the sun having fought his way into his kingdom [my God he’s waxing lyrical. S.M.] the incredible sight of a beautiful flat broad sandy beach, fringed some way back by tall grass over low dunes. Behind that, a great half moon of meadow-land with here and there large wooded areas…a spot that in other times might have been a secluded quiet paradise of nature…and yet, here raged war! For, as far as the eye could see along the beautiful coastline, a veritable armada of ships stood hull-to-hull, their prows to the beaches, disgorging soldiers and endless waves of sophisticated war-making machines. The activity that swarmed in unbelievably unhurried fashion, reminiscent of Hampstead Heath and the fairgrounds at Easter, had, as its musical accompaniment, the roar of great guns, the incessant racket of powerful vehicles and the cheerful shouts of men with megaphones yelling leisurely instructions to us all. As the Boxer’s great jaws opened slowly to the wondering gaze of us all standing within, we saw to our left a Spitfire [I thought it was an American Lightning] brewing up, flaming and smoking hideously, and past it on a grassy fringe a very tall slim flagpole, from its very top almost to its base a broad strip of red cloth fluttering…Red Beach!!
[Well done, Harry, I’ll take over now. There’s a cheque in the post.]
We all stand well back far away from any work, and watch the confusion of unloading the vehicles. Officers and Sergeants are weaving back and forth saluting, shouting. “What are they doing?” says Edgington. “I think they’re trying to win the war,” I said. “Why?” he said. “I’m satisfied with it as it is.” Kidgell’s Scammell lorry is emerging from HMS Boxer. I ponder the logic that gives a driver five foot five inches a giant lorry to drive that necessitates him putting an orange box on the seat before he can see out. Gunner Devine has taken his boots and socks off and is paddling in the sea; an irate officer shouts at him, “Hey, you! What do you think you’re doing?”
“I think I’m paddling, sir,” was the reply.