Mussolini_ His Part in My Downfall - Spike Milligan [63]
I get the first breakfast of the day. ‘G’ truck is silent with the sleeping Fildes, Nash and Deans. The camp is stirring, odd guns bark around the area.
Naples! I try to make myself look respectable, I have a good shave in hot water, and wash my hair; the removal of all that dirt leaves me light-headed and I have to sit down. God knows what will happen when I have a bath, it could mean a wheelchair.
‘G’ truck with its ‘tented’ attachment and Milligan’s terrible tent.
Basenji. Did it really mean non-barking dogs? The three-tonners are warming up, we are all getting aboard, it’s eighty miles to Naples, on these roads it would appear to be two hundred. By nine o’clock we are all packed in the back, by 9.30 we are still all packed in the back. Impatient swearing is emerging from the passengers, it gradually swells into a roar and then the chorus of “Why are we waiting, waiting fucking waiting, why oh why are weee waiting.” The ting was always, under my musical direction, hit loud and hard, “TINGGGGGGG!” the word reverberated around the gun position, cries from those left behind of “Take the bastards away.”
The lorry suddenly lurches forward, a great jeering cheer comes from the passengers and it continues as we jerk and slither down the secondary road.
“Our King is sending us to Naples to get Syph,” cries Smudger Smith.
“Hoorayyyy,” comes the mob’s reply.
It was a dreary nightmare journey, along worn muddy secondary roads in transport that was also secondary, in turn we looked like secondary troops, it all fitted.
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 27, 1943
At mid-day we pulled into the Piazza Dante, clogged with vehicles and people. Italians are screaming at each other—some are screaming at walls some are screaming at themselves. The city pulsated with life, some drunks were pulsating with death, the pavements were crammed with pedestrians who overflowed on to the street, Allied soldiers, civilians, all jostled together. There was that peculiar smell of Italian cigarettes permeating the air. As we jump from the truck, several pretty girls are touting for restaurants, “Nica-a-food-anda-wine” says one ravishing little beauty; as bait she handed us a plate of fishcakes; delicious! “Molto buono,” I said. We followed her to a side street into a Trattoria.
“This bloody menu’s in Italian,” moaned Wenham. We put away a mountain of spaghetti, some set about with a knife and fork. “This isn’t a meal, it’s a bloody puzzle,” said Wenham.
“You’re supposed to swallow it long,” I said.
“And lassoo me guts?”
“How do the Ities manage to eat this day after day?” said Griffin.
“Like I told you, with a fork.”
Alf Fildes has his head back at forty-five degrees, it was something to do with the wineglass he was draining. “Ahhhh, lovely stuff.”
“Be forewarned, all you Lochinvars,” said Deans, “there’s pox galore out here, one good screw and yer prick will swell up like a marrow and yer balls drops off.”
“Now, why doesn’t Thomas Cook put that in his brochures? All that ‘See Lovely Naples and Sorrento, cities of Love and Music’ crap!! He should be saying Round Trip to Naples and back to an old English Syphilitic Ward, £67 return.”
We window shopped. Such luxury goods! Silk shirts, stockings, watches, suits, shoes.
“How come back ‘ome we got bleeding cardboard boots and suits made out of Gunny sacks in our shops and the Ities got all this?” said Fildes.
“Ah! but we have better tanks, aeroplanes and guns,” I said with a cheerful inane grin.
Fildes is looking at a magnificent ladies’ kimono. “What’s Seta Pura mean?”
“It means Pure Seta,” I said.
It was stockings and knickers that seemed to be the main purchases, thousands of parcels were in transit to wives, girlfriends (and some boyfriends), the basic reason was the sexual thrill the squaddie had in buying them and waiting for that inevitable letter