Mussolini_ His Part in My Downfall - Spike Milligan [67]
Heeemmm Bammmmm! Wheeem Bamm! It’s the same bloody 88mm from yesterday! Lucky he has only spotted us as we go round a hairpin bend out of view.
“We’re not safe yet,” said Sherwood. “Those bloody things can fire round corners.”
They couldn’t. What they could do was wait for you to reappear, and when we did, he was waiting. Wheeeem Bammm! Wheeem Bammm! He was getting too close, we’d have to take evasive action. Sherwood pulls the carrier off the road down a very steep gradient, it takes us out of view but puts us at a perilous angle. We wait, listening intently. We know what to do, it’s a terrible trick, you wait for a vehicle going in the opposite direction, and while Jerry is following him, you scoot out the other way. This we did, some poor bastard in a recce car came by and got the lot, and Whoosh! the khaki cowards were gone!
Back safe and sound, I collected my breakfast, and join the G Truck bivvy. The fire was being rekindled by Vic Nash, fresh from his bed and looking like the spirit of dawn in his shirt, boots, half a fag, and coughing his lungs up.
“They didn’t get you then?” was his cheery greeting.
“No, but you’ll be glad to know they nearly did.”
“You could go back again.”
“No, they’ve stopped piece work.”
“Ahhhhhhggggg.”
Enter Edgington, a dixie in one hand, a tea mug in the other. His unlaced boots reveal a late dash from bed to cookhouse.
“My God, you got to be quick,” he said.
Now Fildes enters eating and walking. “Ahhh Milligan…you just been up the OP, what’s it like?”
“Darkness is the best time to go.”
“Oh fuck! we’re going up in an hour’s time. I’m taking Mr Walker and the relief party. How far is it?”
“About fifteen miles.”
A spark from the fire has shot out into Edgington’s tea.
“Ah well,” he says philosophically, “it can only improve it.”
“I am now going to kip, as is my just due,” I said.
What had started as a clear day now became overcast, and I hurried to sleep to avoid it. During that sleep the big push for Monte Camino was moving to its starting lines. Three Divisions. But what’s this on my bed? A piece of Army form blank with a St Andrew’s cross on it. Was this an invitation to a game of noughts and crosses? No, there in a clear hand was the warning: “The Phantom Arsole strikes again.” What had started as a promising day now grew black with clouds. I slept the clock round; that is, I went to sleep in November and woke up in December.
Christmas greetings card showing conditions in the Italian theatre of war.
DECEMBER 1, 1943
REGIMENTAL DIARY:
Supported fire continued through the night.
FILDES’ DIARY:
The ‘do’ begins tonight.
MY DIARY:
RAIN, BLOODY RAIN.
“And, on the fifth day, he divideth the land from the waters.” Not any more he didn’t, for “On yer umpteenth day, he mixeth the land and the water and lo! he maketh mud, and he putteth his beloved son, Gunner Milligan, up to his neck in it.” Command Post very busy all day, preparations for fire plan for attack at 2200 hours.
Ammunition is being dumped by the guns, through the day the pile of mustard-coloured shells mounts up. Mud is everywhere. Are they going to attack in this weather? Up a mountain? At two in the morning? I couldn’t help but recall Siegfried Sassoon’s World War 1 poem:
He’s not a bad bloke
Said Harry to Jack
As they humped their way forward
With rifle and pack
But he did for them with his plan of attack.
(I think that’s right.) Did that thing still happen? To add to our emotional confusion we are issued with Christmas Air Letter Cards. They have no particular artistic merit, done by a run-of-the-mill artist. Most certainly I wouldn’t let him run my mill.
Christmas? It didn’t seem possible. Yet, somehow, the ancient message was still relevant (a bit of a white relevant), and the echo of Childhood Christmasses held strong in the memory. That distant happy time had strength, the call of family and close feelings remained indestructible. Hearts and flowers, please!
The truck from Wagon Lines has arrived with Christmas Mail. Smiles all round. A parcel from my dear mother. It’s sewn up in a