Rommel_ Gunner Who__ A Confrontation in - Spike Milligan [47]
“Put them in this,” said Lt Budden filling a broken jar with water. We placed the flowers on a rough square wooden table.
“They do brighten up the place,” said Lt Budden standing back to admire them. Christ, I thought, the English are so bloody civilized, and I made a mental note to forgive them for the dispossession of my family’s farm in Ulster during The Plantation.
“I think they are Ranunculus.”
“Oh? I thought they were flowers.”
The phone rang. I beat Budden to it.
“Hello, Bdr Milligan.”
“Want any chicken shit?” said a voice.
“Who’s that?” I said.
“Rhode Island Red,” a gale of laughter, then click. I suspect the joker was Bdr Sherwood, who was given to such pranks, he was one of five brothers, a first class driver, a very clean soldier, a good footballer, and a bloody awful pianist, I think it was the beer.
April 11/12
The front line is out of range. Officers are reccying new positions. The Fifth Mediums were settling into a new one on a farm when a Gun Lorry runs on a mine, it blows off the front axle, the driver jumps out to inspect damage and has his legs blown off. He bled to death before he reached hospital. Discussing it that night I said: “It might have been a blessing in disguise that he died.”
“Oh no, no, no,” says Gunner Maunders rising from his blankets like Lazarus from the dead, but worse looking, “people live with their legs off, there are even advantages.”
“Like what?”
“For a start he hasn’t got so far to bend down.” He wasn’t joking.
We rendezvoused at Map ref. 4940, a grove of ancient olive trees, and hid up all day. The terrain was rocky white outcrops, sudden valleys, chasms, tortuous for man and machine. I tuned in Allied Forces Network, round the back of the truck comes Edgington’s grinning face, with a paper moustache held to his lip, otherwise he appeared to be in control.
“Arrrrg,” says he, “this looks like the Interval for World War Two.”
“Arrg,” sez I, “absolutely right, I’m just casting the Battle of Tunis.”
“What part do I play?”
“A crippled Grannie with identical matching plimsoles.”
He took my hand. “You look lovely in the moonlight, Samantha,” sez he, “What’s a nice gunner like you doing in a war like this?”
“I’m the duty homosexual,” sez I. I give him a set of headphones and we listen to music until “Tea up,” shouts a voice. Edgington leaps out the truck and nearly decapitates himself.
“Say after me,” sez I, “I must remember to take my headphones off.”
“Nonsense!” sez he, “it’s your duty to get me a thirty-mile extension so I can wander freely with headphones on and a magnetic vanilla-flavoured truss that points due North.”
“Come in Gunner Edgington your time is up,” sez I.
The Tunisian night closed in, the sky turned pink, purple, then rapidly into a fathomless black, then, the stars, stars, stars. Dinner was nigh; we knew by the clanking mess tins of those who carried clocks in their stomachs. His name? Driver Kidgell!
“How do you time it to the second?”
“I park my lorry near the Cookhouse.”
“I suppose,” Harry said, “after the war you’ll sleep in the kitchen.”
“Kitchen?” I said, “he’ll sleep in the food. If his guts was on the outside, they’d look like worn out suit linings.”
Lt Tony Goldsmith on right of picture with Derek Hudson
It was sing-song night. Dvr Fildes strummed his guitar, our voices echo into the feline darkness. Lt Goldsmith joined us with two bottles of Rose and a silly grin. “I have brought along Major Chater Jack’s Pink Voice Improver.” A sort of cheer greeted this.
“I have a request,” he said.
“What is it? Shut up?”
“The Tower fer you Milligan.”
“Thank you sir, I’ll move in tomorrow.”
“I have a request for you, Smudger Smith, to sing ‘Ole King Cole’, complete with all foul and bawdy references.” Smudger stepped forward, five foot eight,