Mussolini_ His Part in My Downfall - Spike Milligan [85]
He had the bottles uncorked, and we presented our mugs for the seasonal cheer. By eight o’clock we were all very merry again; we went to the gun-teams’ billets and sang carols. Well-meaning insults were hurled from the windows above. Back in our billet, we went to bed and continued consuming the last of the wine.
There was something grim about going to bed in a coal-bunker on Christmas Eve. As I got in, I remember all those child Christmasses when my mother and my grandmother tucked me up in bed, my face red with excitement at the coming of Father Christmas, the magnitude to the child mind of new toys on the morrow, the trying-to-get-to-sleep-so-as-to-wake-up-early feeling. There was no joy ever quite like that. I tried not to think of all those happy yester-Christmasses, but in the dark they came flooding back to me. I had always wanted toy soldiers, now I was one myself. The billet was mouse quiet. Were they all thinking like me? Outside, a cold wind was playing the trees. Christmas. Somewhere in the rest of this fucked-up world there were still children wide awake. Someone had started snoring, so he had escaped from his nostalgia. Christmas Eve, God, it was quiet, or was I just making it seem that way? No good, I couldn’t sleep. I lit up a cigarette. Christmas Eve. What was Mum doing? Dad? Desmond? The Christmas tree at 50 Riseldine Road; we always had a small one in the front room, we bought it from Wheelers at Honor Oak Park. Dad would always buy a bottle of sweet Sherry, a bottle of Port, three bottles of Brown Ale and two large ones of Lemonade, all from Lovibonds, the off-licence on Brockley Rise. All the bottles were saved, as Desmond would take them and get a few pennies on the empties. The Trifle!!! I remember that, I enjoyed it even more than the chicken (we couldn’t afford turkey)…all that custard, that cream. At some hour during those kaleidoscope memories, sleep must have taken me. Away to the north of us, our sister Batteries were sending out a Christmas message of death and having the compliment returned by an equally unseasonal enemy.
CHRISTMAS DAY, DECEMBER 25, 1943
ALF FILDES’ DIARY:
Sgt.-Major Griffin and Sgts. wake us with tea and rum and we’re off!
MY DIARY:
LATE REVEILLE, DON’T HAVE TO GET UP. BSM AND SGTS. BRING US TEA AND RUM IN BED.
It was all too much. “Give us a kiss, Sarge,” I said as Mick Ryan filled my battered tea mug.
“You’ll kiss me arse,” he says. An unbearable thought.
All around, smiling gunners are sitting up like old ladies in Geriatric Wards, grinning. “Merry Christmas,” they say to each other. We linger over the Rum-laden tea.
“There’s a carol service at RHQ, at 11.00, if anybody wants to go.”
Why not? It’s Christmas, the season of goodwill? Nobody went. A Regimental Parson in a barn merrily sang ‘The First Noel’, all by himself. Fried Eggs and Bacon for breakkers! Wow!!!
The morning was spent fiddling around with the stage and props. All seemed set; we then concentrated on thinking about Christmas dinner.
Soldier and Italians trampling on a German soldier in back of lorry.
“I will eat mine very, very slowly. I want it to last as long as possible,” said Gunner White.
“They say there’s tinned turkey on the menu,” I said.
“How do you know?” said Kidgell, his stomach revolving at the thought.
“I heard a rumour.”
“Look, mate,” said Kidgell, “I don’t want a rumour of a turkey, I want a real bloody one, parson’s nose and all.” So saying, he ran off to practise eating.
A detail of layabouts had been rounded up and a long makeshift table laid out in an adjacent barn. It consisted of long planks resting on trestles, blankets for tablecloths; someone with a soul had stuck thorn-leaves into some tins to resemble holly. BSM Griffin’s voice rings on the air.
“Come and get it!”
We take off like sprinters and collide as we try to squeeze through the door. Thundering ahead is Kidgell, his legs barely touching the ground; pounding behind him is Gunner White, his tongue dragging along the floor.