Mussolini_ His Part in My Downfall - Spike Milligan [74]
“Anyone got a camera before it’s too late?” he shouts. After the trials of ‘Cowboy’ Devine I got on and rode the horse at a canter around rather muddy fields. I hadn’t ridden since I was a boy in India. I had forgotten how wonderful it was, and that smell peculiar to horses; we messed around like this until we hear a terrible yell and a splash. Nash is in the canal. Devine had challenged him to leap across and he had failed. Devine is laughingly helpless as Nash thrashes the shit-strewn waters and swears his way to the bank where Devine hauls him up, only to find himself on the same side he’d jumped from. There is a shivering run by Nash along the canal to where the bridge is, some quarter of a mile away. He divests himself of his now reeking battle dress, and hangs it outside to dry. It’s past redemption. The smell is appalling. He tries to exchange it at the Q stores; he had only been in there two minutes when everyone ran out. When he ran out after them, they all ran in again. They told him to get it washed and it would be alright. The farmer’s wife fainted when he showed it to her. Finally, he boiled it. It killed the smell but the suit shrank twelve inches. In a fit of desperation, he put it on; his appearance in the Q stores sufficed to point the need for a new one. Alas, the new one was two feet longer than him. The moral is, don’t go riding. But many persisted; every evening, the meadows were full of galloping horses with gunners hanging round their necks. The Italian farmer wondered why every morning his horses were too shagged out to pull his wagons. He reported this to the Major and Part 2 Orders read, “The practice of riding farm horses in off-duty hours will cease forthwith, as the animals are only for agricultural use.”
“Thank Christ its all over,” said Nash from somewhere inside a battle dress.
Ahhhh! The Army Kinematographic Corps have visited us! they set up their cinema in our billets! There’s to be three shows starting at three…second house six…last house nine.
“Signallers and Specialists in the last batch,” said Sgt. King.
Bloody nerve, it was in our billet, we had to move all our beds, and we had to wait outside until nine at night. We all strolled over to the Tower house, where Edgington and mob are in a frenzy of pontoon. Lire notes are piled in the middle, and like true punters and sportsmen their faces are masks of utter misery. Smudger Smith is Banker. They have been playing nigh four hours, and the total winnings are somewhere in the neighbourhood of twelve shillings, there could be suicides before the night is over.
“Stand behind me, Milligan, you’re Irish, bring me luck,” says Money-Mad Edgington.
Strangely enough, his luck did change, he lost the lot.
Some of the lads had seen the three and six o’clock show and knew it by heart. The film was Casablanca, dubbed Case-of-Blanco, with ‘Humphrey Gocart’.
Every entry by Bogart was greeted with “Now listen, Blue Eyes.” Ingrid Bergman got “‘Ave you had it yet darlin’?” Bogart in Casablanca town was repeatedly warned “The invasion’s cummin’, piss orf before you’re conscripted.”
At one stage as Bogart nonchalantly put his hands in his pockets, a warning to Bergman, “Look out, darlin’, he’s going to show you the white-eared elephant.”
Claude Rains was greeted with “Here comes the weather report.” When Bogart’s victim fell to the ground there was “Stretcher bearer!”, kissing was greeted by 200 gunners making suction noises. I can never ever watch that film again. I report in full Alf Fildes’ diary, it gives an interesting insight as to what an ordinary soldier was thinking on that day thirty-five years ago.
Cinema Show in our garage, so we’re out all day till it’s our turn. Good film Casablanca, lots of barracking. Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman and Claude