Rommel_ Gunner Who__ A Confrontation in - Spike Milligan [52]
“I don’t think we should go on kipping here,” said Alf Fildes, “They’ll all be waiting for us to report back.”
“O.K. lads,” I say. “Alf’s right, back on the truck.”
“What a bloody life; this isn’t war, it’s silly buggers. Right now Churchill will be lying in bed, swiggin’ brandy, smoking cigars,” Driver Cyril puts on his boots. “Ere, my feet ‘ave swelled.”
“No, they haven’t, cunt, they’re my boots.”
Things righted, we drove off. It was 3.30-ish. “Where the bloody hell have you been Bombardier?” says ashen-faced Beauman-Smythe.
“We’ve been waiting for Lt Goldsmith sir in the prone position.”
“That was p hours ago!”
“He didn’t show up sir, and I’m sorry I wasn’t killed.”
He grinned. “Er—I’m sorry I shouted at you, it’s not getting much sleep makes me niggley, you’d better get some sleep, you have to go on again at 06.00 hours.”
“Oh lovely, in 40 minutes’ time.”
The fighting continued, confusion existed as to who, what and where, only those lonely men crouching in holes on the rocky Djbels knew the score. A note in the diary of Driver Alf Fildes says simply “Slept with trousers on for a change,” showing the careless rapture of the time. The duties were pretty heavy, guns firing almost non-stop in the day and Harrssing Fire at night.
Saturday April 17th
I’m 25 and one day old and I smoke soapy cigarettes. Gunner Edgington is out on M2 Truck, laying a line to the O.P. They stop for tea, it was infusing to a nicety when down came a black bird to peck off his nose in the shape of half a dozen M.E’.s all taking it in turns to bomb, and straff. As one man, our brave lads, pop-eyed with fear and nicotine stained shirt tails, are on the truck which goes from nought to sixty miles an hour in three seconds. Edging-ton, showing the phlegm of his Island race, runs bad for the tea, he is overtaking the truck when the M.E’.s let him have bullets thru’ the seams of his trousers, at which moment Edgington removes tin hat and places it over the tea .Save shrapnel pitted mudguards and flattened tyres they escaped unharmed, questioned later about his heroic action, he replied, “I didn’t want any bits to get in.”
Sunday 18 April
Weather getting very warm, all stripped to the waist. Gunner Woods and Driver Tibbs digging trenches.
Woods:
foot 2 inches. How far you down? Tibbs:
foot 3 inches. Three feet. Woods:
foot 2 inches. That’s no good you want to go down 8 feet. Tibbs:
foot 3 inches. How the bloody hell am I going to get out? Woods:
foot 2 inches. Dig another hole coming up.
It’s a dark night, a heavy dew; the order rings from the Tannoy Speaker. “Fire.” Daddy Wilson echoes “Fire!” A colossal roar, gunners lean away to avoid the blast, some with hands over ears, the earth shakes, the momentum of the crew carried them automatically to put another shell in, to discover the great gun was missing. They stood, nit-like, poised for action. “The bloody thing’s gone.”
It had indeed, bouncing backwards, over a cliff and crashing 50 feet below, just missing the tent of a sleeping Gunner Secombe of 321 Bty, 132 Field Regt. Like the Nazarene, the Sergeant, carrying an oil lamp was given to going among 25 Pounder gunners “and he sayeth ‘Blessed are they that have seen 7.2?’—‘What colour was it?’ And he hitteth them.”
Sunday 18th April 1943
Visited by a suspect Irish Catholic Priest. I was sitting in the Command Post drawing naked women on a message pad when he parted the canvas curtain.
“Are dere any Catlicks in here?”
I stood up. “Yes, father, I am, and so are these nude women I’ve drawn.”
He was about 5 foot 4 inches, and painfully thin, his little pink neck thrust out the top of his Battle dress jacket like a ventriloquist’s dummy, his neck not touching the collar, I don’t think his body was in touch with his B.D. either. When he sat down I nearly had hysterics, the neck disappeared down the jacket, the collar coming up under his nose. He had bright blue eyes, which blinked very slowly like an owl, he sat