Where have all the bullets gone_ - Spike Milligan [13]
ME: Has that put you off?
LOONY: Is it warm?
ME: Yes.
LOONY: It’s wet and warm, eh?
ME: Yes.
LOONY: Is it comfortable?
ME: Yes.
(It would appear he wants personal references for the swimming hole.)
ME: Yes, it’s very comfortable, it fits well under the arms, it’s not too tight in the crutch, and the water reaches down to below the feet. It’s a light brown colour, you don’t need buttons and it doesn’t crease.
He stood still for a moment, then without a word of thanks, went his way whistling all the while.
Sport
Captain Peters is of a mind that we are in need of exercise. “Football! Phnut!” The camp is divided into four teams -Red, Blue, White, Yellow. The teams were up to twenty a side. I played for the Reds. I never saw the ball, but I heard it several times. Getting past two goalies presented difficulties, especially as they threatened you if you tried to score a goal. “You score and I’ll kill you, you bastard!” Still, it was fun. Athletics presented a problem as there was no track. Owing to the terrain, all races had to be run in a straight line. This was OK for the Dash but the mile was a disaster.
Records? Forget it; over the stony pot-holed track it took the winner of the 100 yards 20 seconds! The mile took a quarter of an hour and we had to send a truck out to bring them back. The Marathon was cancelled. As Peters said, “We’d never see them again.” The prizes were ideal for those trying to get fit. Fags.
June. A Posting
Ah! That Italian summer in the Campania. The mornings, the cool air touching the face like an eider feather, the dawn light under the tent flap vivifying the moment, the aroma of dew on earth, the distant cockerel, the sound of the old guard standing down, the clank of the early morning tea bucket. Long before we rose the trundling of ox carts to the fields and the “Aie!” of the calling herdsmen, all this and the lung-bursting coughing of Private Andrews.
“Who’s a lucky lad then?” says Sergeant Arnolds.
I pause at my desk and answer: “A lucky lad is the Duke of Windsor now soaking up sea and sun as the Governor of Bermuda.” No, no, the lucky boy is me. He throws me a document. From this camp of a thousand loonies I am being posted to the Officers’ Club, Portici, as a wine steward. The word gets round. Milligan is leaving!!
The night before I left, Reg Bennett, Jock Rogers, Bronx Weddon, Private Andrews and I had a farewell party at the Welfare Centre. It was eggs and chips and red wine. Reg played the piano, I played the trumpet, then into the back garden to hear the Italian orchestra playing old Neapolitan : Airs — ‘Lae ther piss tub down bab’ (‘Lay that Pistol down, Babe’).
“The place won’t be the same without you,” says a tearful Reg Bennett. I tell him it wasn’t the same with me. We stagger home by a hunter’s moon, our shadows going before us on the silver ribbon of a road. Me, at an Officers’ Club!
“I wonder what they’ll make me,” I said.
“They’ll make you an offer,” says Bronx.
The Officers’ Club, Portici
It was a large splendid classical-style villa on the main road. I walked up a tessellated path, then right up marble steps with Venetian balustrades into a large white foyer, which had pedestalled busts of Apollo, Hermes, Aristotle and several etcs. In a large dining-room I am intercepted by a short squat thick-set Corporal of the Black Watch, complete in clan kilt. He is the image of Jerry Collona.
“I’m Gunner Milligan I —”
He pounces in. “Ahhyes, you’ve come at an awkward time.”
“I could come back…after the war.”
No, follow him. Through an arched annexe into a sumptuous room, the beds are on a three-foot raised platform in the middle, surrounded by a Roman-style wooden railing in the St Andrew’s Cross design. “It’s how the Romans used to sleep, raised up,” he explains. “That’s my bed, use the mossy-net at night and take Mepacrin.” He is Corporal Tom Ross. “You can call me Tom, except near officers.” Right, he can call me Spike, except near railings. He is from the 51st Highland Division. Had I heard of them? Yes, we called them