Rommel_ Gunner Who__ A Confrontation in - Spike Milligan [21]
But, worst of all, the other day,
When I was checking someone’s lay,
The Germans rushed the gun position
Without the Commandant’s permission.
I had to meet them, man to man,
Armed only with a Tetley fan.
O send me back to Salisbury Plain
And never let me rove again!
Larkhill’s the only place for me,
Where I could live at ease and free
And frame, with sharpened pencil stroke
A barrage of predicted smoke.
Worked out for sixteen different breezes,
With extra graphs, in case it freezes,
For non-rigidity corrected,
And on a Merton Grid projected!
O take me to the R.A. Mess,
To dwell in red brick happiness,
Enfold my body, leather chair,
And let me fight the War from there!
Lt Tony Goldsmith
18.20 hours. I retired to our mud hut, threw myself on my bed. My second day in action and not killed yet! By God the Germans were bad shots! Next door to us were the Arab farmer, his wife and two kids, a boy of six and a girl about four. I knew they must be having a rough time so I occasionally took them a tin of steak and kidney pudding. What words of comfort did the Arab mother have for her children? How did she explain away the thunder of our guns, what did she say we were ? Good ? Bad ? I suppose the little Arab boy is a man now and works the same land, perhaps he’s getting a better life. I wonder if he remembers the gunner who made a rabbit’s head from a handkerchief and made it wiggle its ears. He might be telling his children “So this silly bugger comes up, ties a few knots in his handkerchief and I was supposed to laugh. Silly sod!” The oil lamps cast a yellow glow, shadows wavered on faces in the playing light. The guns, silent for the past hour, started a Harassing Fire Task. Somewhere, some German was about to receive 200 pounds of exploding iron.
A direct hit on a German Laundry
Harassing Fire had no rhythm…That was the idea…you fired at aggravating intervals. It was the Chinese water torture with solids.
Ernie Hart:
What was it like at the O.P. ?
Me:
Nothing much I was shelled a bit.
Ernie:
What real shells?
Me:
Oh no, just imitations.
Ernie:
Were they near?
Me:
Pretty near. They fell in the same country.
Hart:
We had to take a line to the top of Djbel Rihane, near the Mosque.
Me:
Mosque?
Hart:
Yes, it was a ruin.
Me:
Shows you what drink can do.
Hart:
We could see Jerry from the top.
Me:
Anybody we knew ?
Hart:
We could even see ‘em queueing up for grub.
A Voice:
What’s the time?
Me:
It’s nearly eleven.
Hart:
Feels like two in the morning.
Me:
You. must be feeling the wrong part.
The scene:
He pulled the blankets up and moved down into his pit.
Me:
Just think, if Gladstone was alive today he’d be a hundred and fifty-seven. Men cannot live by bread alone!
Hart:
Wot you talkin’ about? Go to sleep for Christ sake.
Me:
Very well, but if Gladstone comes through that door and asks for a slice of bread alone, don’t say I didn’t warn you!
At this, Gunner Milligan rolled on his side, closed his eyes and dreamed he was fronting a twenty-four piece orchestra. They all wore black jackets but He was wearing a white one, playing great trumpet solos that had people crowding the stand. Lily was there and he ignored her, at which moment Rita Hayworth called for him in a Rolls Royce that she drove right up to the bandstand. He screws Hayworth in the back of the Rolls, then takes another chorus on the trumpet.
Dawn 20th Feb. 1943
A khaki creature was shaking me. “Come on Harry James stand to…”
“Stand Two? I can’t stand one.”
It was 0400 hours. 0400 hours? There was no such time, it had been invented by Hitler to break us. I staggered out into the chill morning darkness. Bombardier Edwards posted me in a trench directly outside the officers’ hut.
“Get in, keep your eyes open, stay in that hole. If you get killed, just lay down and we’ll fill it in.”
“Very funny,” I said to him. “With your sense of humour you should be on the other side.”
I was alone in the hole in the ground in Africa. It was very quiet. All the guns had stopped