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By Root 144 0

fuck! She’s going out with a Sergeant, but she does ‘like me’. I said could I see her in between? In between what? Sheets. Don’t be silly. OK, can I see her in between Sergeants? Sergeants? She’s only going out with one. Good — could I see her in between him? OK, Sunday. Sunday we’ll go to Caserta Palace. We’ll walk through the gardens then I’ll try and screw her; then we’ll have tea at the Palace NAAFI and I’ll try and screw her; we will then go to the cinema, where certain delights will accompany the Clark Gables! A Sunday came…and went. I tell you folks, holding hands is no substitute. I returned to my bedroom bent double with strictures from the waist down. Steve is up late reading the Jewish Chronicle. He’s deep into an article about Hitler never having been seen in the nude, but I’m not interested in nude Hitlers, I want nude Candy. How could I bend her to my will? Then the words of my friendly district visiting rapist camed to me. The hot weather! Of course! Heat made women more available, hence the invention of Central Heating. So I planned it all. Next time I met the little darling I’d take her to a warm room, close the windows, turn up the heating, make her drink boiling Horlicks then massage her with Sloane’s Linament. If that failed I’d set fire to her, then leap on. I kept sending her billets-doux and my measurements.

The Printed Word in Maddaloni

Our Librarian, Corporal John Hewitt, tried to foster the written word. Till he arrived our library had no one in charge of our book. He put it to rights by procuring numerous volumes. “This,” he said, holding up a ragged book with covers hanging like limp wings, “this is the Bible of the masses.” No Orchids for Miss Blandish. He points to the drool stains. I’m above this, I have borrowed Darwin’s Origin of the Species, which my father had said was ‘Rubbish’. He was the origin of the species. Hewitt wants to know why I’ve had Dante’s Divine Comedy for two months. I daren’t tell him it’s a counter-weight on Lewis’s mosquito net. ‘Twas Hewitt, himself a poet (silly to be not yourself and a poet) who introduced poetry contests, which he lived to regret.

LONDON

Oh London, none sufficiently can praise

The courage fowering ‘mid your smoke maze

Of Limehouse alleys and suburban streets;

From every home unfailing humour beats

Each newer outrage with a newer jest,

And death has never claimed but second best.

This deathless spirit freed from shattered bones

Scarce sheds a tear above your broken stones

Scarce pauses far a moment longer than

It takes to snap the slender life of man,

‘Ere taking stand within another heart,

Doubling the measure of its counter-smart

Until today your limitless reserve

Of courage, breaks the Nazis’ vaunted nerve.

W.J. O’Leary, Pte.

“That was the winner,” he said sobbing on my shoulder. “You should have seen the bad ones,” he lamented.

Furlough

Yes. “We’ve been furloughed,” said Steve, holding up Part Two Orders. Why had we been furloughed? In appreciation of our Men in gitis efforts. One whole week in the Capital again. We are away next morning, Sgt. Steve Lewis, Private Eddie Edwards and Gunner S. Milligan. It looked like an old joke. “There was this Englishman, this Irishman and this man of the Hebrew persuasion and they were all in the Army, and then one day, ha ha ha, they were all given leave to Rome, ha ha ha.” Once again it’s the 56 Area Rest Camp. Steve, being senior, signs us in. “You realize I’ve signed for you bastards. For God’s sake please avoid the following: rape, murder, arson, little boys, gefilte fish, Mlle Ding.” We queued for a dinner of Irish stew, sponge roll and custard.

Steve Lewis, Eddie Edwards and Spike Milligan There was an Englishman, an Irishman and a Jew…

Tired after a hard day’s travel, we ate it, then wrote off for compensation. The Yew, Lewis, has bagged the favoured upper bunk. “It’s the English class system,” he explains. “If a wild beast gets in it eats the lower class first, allowing the upper class to survive and re-let the bed for the next victim.” Next morning, early