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We had wandered around Amalfi, bought postcards, walked up and down the seafront, tried to chat the Signorinas, no dice. I thought perhaps when I said ‘Me Roman Catholic’ it might break the ice, but no. I tried “Me Protestant, me Jewish.” Nothing.

Chalky White looms up from behind the sea wall.

“I been sunbathin’,” he is saying. “What sadist sent us to the seaside in December?”

It’s late evening, nightlife consists of going to bed. We troop back to the leisure room to play darts. Dinner is bully beef stew, it’s not bad, but somehow eating bully beef in Amalfi is like ordering beans on toast at Maxim’s. We are restless, so decide to go for a stroll. It’s dark, in the distance we can hear Ack-Ack, God knows where from. It’s a reminder of what we have to go back to. We walked up the steps that ran alongside the stream, and ascended slowly until we reach a cafe. We entered a small room full of soldiers drinking. Alf and I sat down and ordered a couple of brandies; the room was blue with cigarette smoke. A fat-bottomed girl was carrying the drinks to the table, and those whose bottom brushed them seemed well favoured. One drunk was singing self-indulgent songs, ‘My Mother’s Birthday’ or some such crap. Ah! the fat bottom is approaching us, she has a lovely plump smiling face, with brown eyes as large as walnuts and glistening like oiled olives. She smiles, places our glasses before us. “Signore,” she utters. “Corrrrr,” we utter.

“Lets go,” said Alf. We picked our way down the steps, no sound save the cascading water running down to the sea. Most of the lads were in bed except! Edgington, he’s writing Peg one of his letters. That could mean a three-hour stint ending with swollen balls. I just fell into the bed. Springs! Marvellous. Black out. Zzzzzzz.

DECEMBER 28, 1943

I am roused in the early hours, bitten to death, my bed alive with bugs. I am worried about getting typhus. I report it to the duty Bombardier, he’s nonplussed.

“Why you and no one else?” he says.

“Yes, why me and no one else,”. I said. With my clothes off I looked like I’d been sandpapered. I reported to the MO, a 45-year-old Base Depot drunk recovering from last night’s piss-up. With eyes like smoked glass windows he examines me and says with authority, “You have been bitten by something.”

“Have I?” I said.

“Have you had a typhus injection?”

“Yes,” I said very quickly.

“Good,” he said. He wrote me a prescription for a bottle of camomile mixture.

“Have a good shower,” said the Orderly, “then rub this on.”

I retired to the showers. They’re ice cold, aren’t they!, my screams ring through the building. Covered in pink liquid I dress and join the lads in the rest room. Alf Fildes and I decide to look around the shops; he has already been around and been accosted by two girls who called him ‘Hello Baby’. I thought he looked older. My face a mass of red blotches, Fildes and I appraised the goods in the windows.

“What bloody prices,” he moaned.

I was flat broke and living on money borrowed from Edgington, who in turn was living on money borrowed from Vic Nash. It did not deter me from going into the shops just to chat up the shopgirls, all of whom look ravishingly beautiful. We returned to the billets for lunch, an indifferent affair of stew, potatoes, bread, rice pudding, and tea. It tasted best if you mixed the lot together. Still it went down, and you could hear the crash.

“Now what?” says Edgington as we wash our dixies.

“The Ballet? The Opera? Or pontoon al fresco?”

“We’re only here for four days, we must act quickly.”

“Alright, Hamlet in four seconds!”

The billet notice-board recommended a visit to Ravello. This was at the top of the hill directly above Amalfi, so the gang of us set off, Spike Deans, Harry Edgington, Jam-Jar Griffin, Geo. Shipman, Alf Fildes, Reg Bennett and Ken Carter.

“They say it’s very nice up there,” says Ken Carter.

“It’s a long way to the top,” says the Billet Bombardier.

We start walking. The afternoon was bright, with slight haze