Mussolini_ His Part in My Downfall - Spike Milligan [58]
Alf Fildes writing cheques for his wife Lily.
NOVEMBER 24, 1943
MY DIARY:
UP VERY EARLY TO CONTACT OUR GUN POSITION. RECEPTION STRENGTH 9, BUT THE OP STRENGTH 1. WILL TRY AND PUT UP VERY LONG AERIAL.
FILDES’ DIARY:
Officer from 17 battery arrives to pass on shoot for ‘Jenks’ (Major Jenkins), nice chap, we had an affable day.
The aerial! This was a metal interslotting series of metal poles with a cross-shaped antennae at the top. Its maximum height was twenty feet.
We contacted Ernie Hart at the Command Post.
“Any mail up, Ernie—over.”
“Yes—over.”
“Any for me or Fildes?—over.”
“Hold on.”
We wait, during which time he makes enquiries. “Yes, there’s some for both of you—over.”
“Great. Any news about leave? Over.”
“Nooo. Nothing. There’s a rumour about forty-eight hours in Naples—.”
“Can you tell Edgington that the mist is on the Swonickles? Over.”
“The what? Over.”
“The mist is on the Swonickles—over.”
“What’s it mean? Over.”
“He’ll understand—over and out.”
The pattern of the day is only broken by rushes to do a slash and cook the lunch. We keep our bit of fire area dry by laying a gas cape over it. We make tea about every two hours. Doing a ‘pony’ is difficult and entails getting a rain-ridden bum. Of course, our leader, Winston, he’s not kipping in the back of a truck, no, he and his crony Roosevelt are in sunny Cairo, and as it’s Thanksgiving Day, he’s got Roosevelt carving great lumps of turkey at his villa, and so stoned does the old man get that after the scoff, they put the gramophone on and the Prime Minister of England dances with a Mr Wilson. What’s happening to the war you say? So! Churchill is foxtrotting in Cairo; Milligan is kipping in the mud of Italy; game, set and match to Churchill.
On the 8th Army front, the 78 Div. and the Indian 8th Div. have attacked and got across the Sangro. God knows how they did it in this weather. Perhaps they had umbrellas.
The evening comes in dark and gloomy, Alf boils up a couple of tins of stew, sitting up in bed we eat it and small talk. He tells me his missus has sent him a Conway Stewart pen. I clutch the bedclothes with excitement. He shows me the latest photo of his wife Lily and their two kids. I clutch the bed clothes with excitement. On the morrow we would try and extend the aerial.
MEANTIME, NEXT DAY
“I’ll try and put it up this tree, Alf,” I said, with good intentions.
“You should look good in a tree. I always thought, in your paybook where it says place of birth it should say Tree.”
“Hold this aerial, Alf,” I said, “and I will climb up and insult you from a great height.”
The words rang clear on the morning air, also clear in the morning air was my lone scream as I fell ten feet.
“You alright?” said Fildes with a whimsical smile.
“Of course, don’t you know falling ten feet from a tree is always alright?”
Clutching and swearing, twigs snapping around me, I managed to get up to the lower branches and let out a Tarzan call.
“Pass me up the aerial, Alf,” says Milligan.
It would appear I have climbed too high for him to reach me.
“You’ll have to come down a bit,” he says.
The tree is winter-green and slippery; in various contortions that are only done by a man with strychnine poisoning, I get to a lower level and give a Tarzan cry.
“Here, grab ‘old,” says Fildes, holding up the aerial. I firmly grab one of the Windmill antennae, it snaps off.
“Never mind, there’s still three more.”
I try and haul the thing through a complex of branches and boughs; now, a twenty-foot-long pole is no manoeuvrable item. It was like trying to thread a giant darning needle and I wasn