Rommel_ Gunner Who__ A Confrontation in - Spike Milligan [54]
The same delicious and distinctive quality pervaded his writing. Very little time was granted him in which to make his mark as an author—barely three years between his decision to devote his life to writing and his joining the Royal Artillery. Much of that time was spent in a painstaking and devoted translation of Flaubert’s ‘ L’Education Sentimentale’, which many critics found a model of the translator’s art. Of original work he has left pitifully little—two plays, one unproduced, a few short stories, and some articles of which a review of the modern theatre in a recent issue of Horizon affords an excellent specimen.
Little enough to console us—and we were many—who had faith in his right to success and fame. Yet, perhaps those who loved him may take this consolation. Tony, the first to laugh at the futility of the violent passions and the last to covet a hero’s laurels, died fighting gladly against that evil which, above all things else, he loathed and despised with a hatred alien to his very gentle nature.
Apparently he and Bdr Edwards were sheltering in a fox hole.
We were under mortar attack, we sat facing each other, our knees touching. Tony had the map board on his chest, his arms folded round it. Suddenly, I was blown out of the trench. I went to get back in and I saw that Tony had been hit by a mortar bomb in the chest, he died instantly…
All the boys came back very shaken. “God knows how the Infantry stick that for two weeks at a time…” Bdr Dodds was so ‘bomb happy’ he went to hospital and never came back. For someone as splendid, kind, intelligent and witty as Tony to be killed outraged my sensibilities. His friend, Terence Rattigan, wrote a personal Obituary in The Times. I remember his last words to me. He was about to leave for Longstop.
“It won’t be long now, I’d say Tunis in 10 days,” he was patting his pockets, “Blast I’m out of cigarettes.” I gave him 5 of mine, “Here sir, have 5 of my soap-saturated Passing Clouds, a holy medal in every packet…”
He took them, smiled, tapped the driver on the shoulder and said, “To battle!”
The evening of the 25th April
The Major called us all around his tent, he was well disposed to the world and his fellow men via a distillery at Kirkintoloch in Scotland. In contempt of the Hun he ordered a bonfire to be lit, gathered us around and told us, “The last battle is nigh, Alexander has offered the Bosch ‘Unconditional Surrender’, or a watery grave, we’ll give him Dunkirk without the evacuation facilities. Now let’s have a song.” We sang, there was the smell of victory in the air. Next day, we heard that the 8th Argyle and Sutherland Highlanders had taken Longstop at Bayonet point in one incredibly heroic charge, led by Major John Anderson, who was awarded the V.C. Three days of slaughter for the peak had ended.
Almost immediately we got orders for a hurried move to take up new positions somewhere on Longstop. In the rush Edgington hands me a piece of paper. It read:
Stalin’s Order of the day
Two Lagers.
Packet of Crisps.
Stalingrad.
Hitler chalking slogans in Downtown Berlin Gents Toilet after hearing of the fall of Longslop
“This is vital information, comrade Edgington, this must never fall into enemy hands, it must also not fall into enemy feet, teeth, legs or ears, this must be burnt and you must swallow the ashes,” I said, whereupon he snatched the paper, and ate it! “Delicious,” he said. “That’s called the Readers Digest.” I said. “Hurry up,” comes a yell, “we’re going.” Burdened down by kit and sacks of souvenirs, we staggered to the Monkey Truck. “What’s been keepin’ you,” says