Mussolini_ His Part in My Downfall - Spike Milligan [60]
ALF FILDES’ DIARY:
Still up here on the hill but rather enjoying it.
MY DIARY:
FEEL BETTER THIS MORNING. COLOSSAL DOWNPOUR OF RAIN. EVERYTHING DAMP AND SOGGY, ESPECIALLY ME.
I awoke to the roar of rain on the canvas roof. Six o’clock! What’s the matter with me? It’s this Army habit of ‘early’, it was catching and now I had been affected. It will take years of post-war training to get back to normal. I make the morning tea and wake Fildes, who is lying on his back sucking air in through his open mouth.
He opens his bloodshot eyes, for ten seconds the brain doesn’t register; I hold up his chipped brown mug with the steaming tea, a soppy grin spreads across his face and a clutching hand takes the tea.
“Oh, good luck,” he says, sips it, and screams as he burns his tongue.
“So what’ll we do today?” he said.
“Nothing.”
“That’s all we’ve bloody well done since we’ve been here.”
“Yes, it’s a serial.”
We roll up the back flap of the truck and sit looking out at the rain-drenched mountainside, which gradually disappears into the mist of the downpour.
“I haven’t heard a sound this morning,” said Fildes. He peers round the back of the truck. He is checking his patent water catchment. This is a hole with a piece of canvas placed in it.
“It’s full,” he said.
It seemed lunatic to be catching water in weather like this but we need it to wash in, saving our Jerry can of clean water for drinking. Silently, a dripping soldier appears.
“17 Battery,” he announced. “We’ve come to relieve you.” He pointed down the mountainside to his truck on its side. “We can’t get it up any further,” he said.
“Did you put chains on?”
“No, its bad enough wearing battle dress.”
“The truck.”
“We had everything on, it’s took us two hours to get that far.”
He pointed to the truck on its side.
“Look, it’s impossible for us to get our truck down, and you can’t get up, so it’s pointless you staying here.” He nods agreement.
Poor bugger collects his belongings from his truck and disappears down the hill with the driver.
That night, out of sheer boredom I read my Army paybook.
“Interesting?” says Fildes.
“Incredible, says I was born in a tree.”
We off with the light, and lie back smoking in the dark. The rain continues; fancy, right now Churchill will be sipping brandy and smoking a cigar.
NOVEMBER 26, 1943
It was like a spring morning. “I don’t believe it,” said Fildes. “The sun.” It changed everything, colours once brown were now green, green, green. Today I would shave. Today I would organise my life anew. No more slobbed in bed all day, today I would do things. What those things were I didn’t yet know, but it would be ‘things’, the first ‘thing’ would be breakfast. I build a fire and soon make the bacon sizzle. The smell is wafting through the morning air. A string of mules accompanied by Cypriot attendants come from the left and pass slowly by. They are a little amused seeing us in nothing but socks, boots and shirts. Fildes is shaving.
“Marvellous what the sun will do,” he says.
He whistles in between strokes of the blade. I will do the shave ‘thing’ after the breakfast ‘thing’.
“After this I’m going to have a look over the hill ‘thing’ at Jerry’s positions,” I declared.
“I’m beginning to wonder how long we’ll be up here,” said Fildes. “It’s been four days now, we were only supposed to be here for twenty-four hours.”
Someone in the valley below is trying to attract our attention with a mirror.
“I wonder what they want.”
“We better switch on the set,” said Fildes.
We get through and the message is “Come in. Position being closed down.” We take our time. I stroll to the top of the mountain ridge for a last look, a marvellous view meets the eye, 1,000 feet below us is the great Garigliano plain, with the snow-mottled Aurunci Mountains on the far side of the river. To the left is the Gulf of Gaeta. In the distance at the curling point of the bay is Gaeta itself. Even as I watch, a great plume from an explosion starts skywards, Jerry carrying out demolitions. Why can’t I get a fun job like that? The last of the infantry are leaving