Rommel_ Gunner Who__ A Confrontation in - Spike Milligan [33]
The roads were alive with reinforcements. A squadron of Churchills all spanking new were trundling towards the front—their gear stowed immaculately, Divisional signs freshly painted. Along the Beja-Oued Zaga Road we travelled, the sun was shining, the land was green, we didn’t have a care in the world, was there really a war on ?
We sang songs, those nostalgic slushy moon-June love songs that had fucked-up my generation. I was brought up to believe that the answer to all problems was a red-rouged-moist-lipped Alice Faye romance. I wasn’t in a war really, I was, Robert Taylor in ‘Waterloo Bridge’—and Louise of Bexhill was Vivien Leigh. Life was a series of weak-joked crappy dialogues one could hear in any Hollywood film from 1935 to 1945. If I made a wisecrack I was Lee Tracey, if I sang a song I was Bing Crosby, if I played trumpet, Louis Armstrong if I kissed a girl, Clarke Gable, if I was in a fight, James Cagney—but who was I when washing out my socks? Hollywood didn’t recognise reality—the escapism was almost evil, yet, I was looking for the happy ending, with Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney marching triumphantly and singing ‘They call us Babes in Arms’. It never happened. It never will, Hollywood sold us short. My generation have suffered withdrawal symptoms ever since. But here we were singing gaily. It was ridiculous! A thin soldier, in outsize denim trousers held up with string singing ‘You stepped out of a dream’. Doug had a new trick, on the first beat of the bar he’d hit the accelerator—and the lorry would lurch forward.
March 13th
The mail had arrived. Everyone went mad!
I had one from Mum and Dad, one from Lily, and Ohhh ArGGGGHHHHHHH! Three from Louise of Bexhill. AHGGGHHHHHHHHHH. Help! I’m going blind. My father had rejoined the Army as a Captain in the RAOC. He was over fifty, but using glazier’s putty, and blacking his bald head with boot polish, looked forty-nine. My brother Desmond was working as a runner-cum-slave to a press photographers in Fleet Street, and was in the middle of all the fire raids and frequently came home smoke blackened, but whistling cheerfully. This caused mother to worry. She got Doctor O’Brien to prescribe whisky to “relax her.” Every evening she would open the front window, sip whisky, and listen for Desmond’s whistling. By the time he arrived mother was so relaxed she was stretched out in the passage.
All the mail didn’t bring good news. Sgt Dale says “Ere! My missus has run off with a bleedin’ Polish airman!”
“That’s funny, so ‘as mine. They must be short of planes.” Other letters were from Beryl Southby—a Norwood girl who had a crush on me, and one from Kay in Herstmonceaux—I must have pulled the birds in those days but I don’t remember working at it, however, it got complicated, as this letter of Edgington recalls:
Then—how about the night at the De-La-Warr Pavillion, when it took seven of us to get all your ‘birds’ safely out of the place at the end of the evening whilst you ‘peeled-off’ secretly with the eighth—the latest! Kay, the dazzling blonde from Herstmonceaux who had been waiting behind the dressing-room door with a pair of scissors clutched in her hands during the interval!—Did you know about that!!!??? Doug was first man into the room in the interval and walked right into her, as Alf arrived, he was needed to help Doug in the struggle to ‘unarm’ her and as I came in, she was crying and they were trying to mollify her…
You never showed up! If you were out in the auditorium you were still taking your life in your hands for they were all there—the two Bettys among them, flexing long fingernails, even Pearl the NAAFI girl was looking very unhappy, and there was one of the sergeant’s wives I remember. (It’s all lies folks! S.M.) Anyway, came the finish of the evening with Jimmy, Chalky and I nervously shepherding three of them up the left-hand (as you looked out from the stage) raised aisle or gallery where all the seating was: Well, we were just getting towards the far end of it and there