Rommel_ Gunner Who__ A Confrontation in - Spike Milligan [14]
Meantime at No. 10 Downing Street.
Churchill in bed sipping brandy. Enter Alanbrook.
LORD ALANBROOK:
Prime Min. have you seen the bill for Singapore?
HON. W. CHURCHILL:
I know—those Japa-bloody-knees—why couldn’t they come round the front?
LORD ALAN BROOK:
They’re Tradesmen. Any news of Randolph?
HON. W. CHURCHILL:
He’s out in Yugoslavia with that Piss-Artist Evelyn Waugh.
Now read on:
15 Feb. en route to Le Kef
Souk Arras lay along the head waters of the Mejerda River which later swept down and watered the vineyards of the great Mejerda Valley. Thought you’d like to know. Everywhere this dusty light sand coloured soil reflected the sun’s glare so we used our anti-gas goggles., Everywhere seemed parched, and on this the fourth day of; driving, our faces were sore. The horse flies! These buggers would break the skin and suck your blood, given 2 minutes they could give you anaemia. You had to hit them the moment, they landed, a split second later was too late. Men with slow reflexes suffered, like Forrest, who was covered in bites and great bruises where he had hit at them and missed. The more he missed, the harder he hit. “I wish I was Jordy Liddel,” he moaned. “When they bite him, they fall off dead.”
“It’s all that shit he works with.”
About 12.15 Mr Budden said “Milligan, we have just crossed the border into Tunisia.”
“I’ll carve a statue at once.”
On the border was Sakiet Sidi Youseff, where there was some kind of mine. A few donkeys and Arabs were at a pit head or shaft out of which ran a narrow rail, from inside the hole a tipper truck would appear with the powder produce which they shovelled into sacks on the donkeys.
“Where did you spend your last holidays Milligan,” Mr Budden broke in.
“I went with some friends to Whitesand Bay in Cornwall.”
“…Cornwall? Cornwall.” He put his binoculars up.
“You can’t see it from here sir.”
“I’m not looking for Cornwall.”
The journey had covered us all in fine white powdery dust giving us the appearance of old men. Sid Price started to walk bent double like an old Yokel, within seconds the whole battery were doing it, Africa rang to the sound of “Oh Arrrr! Oi be seventy three oi be in Zummerzet.” At the head of the column Major Chater Jack sat watching us. “It’s going to be a long hard war,” he was saying. I can still see his amused smile, especially as Woods, his batman, was from Somerset.
“Lot o’ daft idiots zur,” he said to the Major.
“Yes Woods, a lot of daft idiots, but I fear you and I are stuck with ‘em. The thing to do is keep them well camouflaged.” We were off again, and owing to a laundry crisis I was living dangerously, no underwear!
15 Feb. 12.00 hours
“Le Kef 20 Kilometers.” The road started to climb at an alarming angle, hairpin bend after hairpin bend we laboured, finally the engines started to boil and Chater Jack called a halt. We were in a defile. The dramatic landscape looked like Daumier’s drawings for The Divine Comedy. The rocks around abounded with lizards, to my delight a chameleon was rainbowing around a tree, Shepherd was amazed at the colour changes. “How in God’s name can they do that,” he said. “It’s clean living,” I said. “If you stopped playing with yourself you could do it.” Looking along the line one caught sight of the odd Gunner piddling against the wheels. I don’t understand it! They have to clean their own transport, and then, when they’ve got the whole of Africa, they piss on their own lorries!
Valentine Dyall acting out World War II
The Battery Diary:
1500 hrs. Went into hide west of Le Kef.
(Cowards!) “What’s Le Kef mean,” asked White. “It means The Kef.” I explained. I watched some ants moving a dead grasshopper—“What you doing?” says Edgington with a tea mug welded to his right hand.
“Watching ants.”
“I wonder what killed him,” said Edge, now squatting.
“It would be his heart.”
“We’ll have to wait for the autopsy.”
“That might be too late, with his heart an autopsy could kill him.”
I angered a bull ant with a twig.
“Careful now,” says Edgington.
The bull ant was tugging at the