Rommel_ Gunner Who__ A Confrontation in - Spike Milligan [16]
“Goons?” I giggled.
“GOUMIERS! French African Troops you illiterate fellow.”
“Personally sir, I think it’s the Irish Guards in drag.” The Goums were accompanied by wives, children, chickens, goats, dogs, and what looked like the entire contents of Harrods furniture repository. The Goums were right. We should take our women to war, khaki knickers and all.
“Wake up darling.”
“What is it dear.”
“Those awful Germans want righting dear.”
“Not again. I killed three yesterday.”
“Here’s your sandwiches and rifle. Try and not use the bayonet dear, you know what a mess it makes on the carpet.” We were being waved across by a Military Policeman. His trousers had knife-edge creases, even his legs had knife-edge creases. His webbing was blinding white, his brass-work flashed in the sun like gold bayonets. He saluted Lt Budden. “Try and go slow, sir, we’ve had three straffings this morning, it’s the dust.”
“You must get a Hoover,” I said to him, and drove on.
“That, Milligan,” said Budden, “was what I call real bullshit.”
“Ah! So you can tell the difference sir.”
I told him an idea to end the war. All you do is drop fifty English char ladies on the Führer’s bunker. In one week the Hun would be broken. “Come on now, I’m not ‘avin’ all those men in jack boots stompin’ on my polished floor. Never mind about silly old Stalingrad, you sit down and I’ll bring you a nice cup of tea and a cheese roll for Mr Goering.”
We passed Gafour, another dung village, and pulled up on a flat rocky plateau with stunted trees and scrub, but no Porridge.
“Listen sir,” I said, “gunfire!”
“Yes,” said Lt Budden, “there’s a lot of it about.”
A mile to our left towered the blue grey shape of Djbel Eich Cheid, rising some thousand metres. Moving towards us in a cloud of dust was a flock of goats attended by a small boy, whose sole occupation was to hit them and shout ‘Yeaeah’. Growing almost in secrecy were cornflowers. This little flower was the first to bloom in Hiroshima after the holocaust; so much for the power of the Atom. Lurching hither, his hat on sideways was the Great Edgington. He carried yet another mug of tea. How did he manage to brew up so quick? “I’ll tell you,” he said. “It’s fear.”
Hitlergram No. 1560934a
Führer:
Tea—zat is how ve will break zer Britisher!
MESSERSCHMIDT:
A great idea mein Führer.
Führer:
Zer Englanders, zey like make drink tea?—zis is vat I vant you should make, you vill build eine Tank—zis Tank vill inside a bladder have—in zer bladder ve have zer smell of zer NAAFI tea—we sneak zer tank up on zer Tommy Lines, at 4 o’clocken, zer gun barrel, we squirt zer NAAFI tea smell up zere trouser legs.
MESSERSCHMIDT:
Squirt ze tea Schmell?
HITLER:
Zen zer Tommy will jump up and run vid zer mug tovords zer tea-schmell-tank. Zen we shoot-bang-fire!
MESS:
Zis vill finish zer Englanders.
We listened to the BBC one o’clock news. Stewart Hibberd was telling us the First Army troops had “successfully disengaged the enemy,” this meant we’d taken a bashing. Why not “British troops confuse enemy by refusing to fight.”
The little shepherd boy stood watching with eyes like huge brown liquid marbles. “Quelle est votre nom?” I asked.
“Mahomet,” he said.
“Me Spike Milligan,” I said.
I gave him some boiled sweets, it came as a shock when I realised he wasn’t quite sure what they were, I had to eat one to show him. We take a lot of things for granted. The afternoon was warm. Some lads, shirts off, basking in the sun, white bodies, eyes closed, what were they thinking? Pint at the Pub? Watching Millwall at the Den? A walk with the Girl on Sunday? See? The lazy sods, that’s all they ever think of! Booze, Football and Sex.
The afternoon was passing very slowly, we threw stones, broke branches off trees, played Pontoon, we played stones, broke Pontoon and threw trees. We walked around. We sat down. We stood up. We smoked. “Christ if only we had an air raid or measles.” Spike Deans had bought two chickens off an Arab, and for three francs each we could partake of them for din-din! That night we sat dining on roast chicken