Where have all the bullets gone_ - Spike Milligan [38]
I was still wondering if my brother had survived the last days of fighting. I saw him in Sydney last year and he was still alive. At the time I did not know he was still alive in Sydney.
Tuesday 8 May
Official Victory celebrationsssssss, commence! It starts with the day off. We can obtain breakfast up to and including ten hundred hours.
Sergeant Beaton gives a long thanksgiving speech: “Let us be grateful for this Victory.” We were grateful when he’d finished. On the hills behind the town, the Italians are climbing up to make a giant bonfire for the evening, a prelude to which is the occasional trial firework exploding in the street. We wash, rinse and sterilize our mess tins, then wipe them dry with disease-ridden teacloths. Years later, Peter Sellers told me that on this identical day, he was in Ceylon, telling an RAF MO that he (Sellers, that is) had heard a tiger outside his hut the previous night. There being no tigers in Ceylon, LAC Sellers was recommended for a Psychiatrist’s Report. Alas, what transpired at that session has never been recorded.
PSYCHIATRIST:
Aircraftsman Sellers, you say that you’ve been hearing tigers.
SELLERS:
Yes, sir, there was one outside my hut.
PSYCHIATRIST:
Do you know there are no tigers in Ceylon?
SELLERS:
Well there are now.
PSYCHIATRIST:
It says, and I quote: “I heard a tiger growling.”
SELLERS:
Yes sir.
PSYCHIATRIST:
You’re sure it wasn’t some other carnivore? I mean, lots of growls sound the same.
SELLERS:
Not this one, sir, this growl had stripes on.
At immediately-it-was-ready, the festivities started.
The Dance Hall is packed. For the first time Italian civilians are allowed in. A drunken fug hangs over everything. They’ve been drinking since dawn. In Alexander Square tables are laid with myriad edibles, a display that would have been a feast in rationed England. Fairy lanterns bedeck the trees, wine is flowing freely and the fountain is full of red chianti. It looks wonderful. On the hill the giant bonfire is alight. Fireworks are exploding in the streets under the great display of orchestrated electric lights.
V-E Night in Merry Maddaloni
We’ve never played so good. Charlie Ward sings: “We’re gonna get lit up when the lights go on in London.” It’s like an anthem. A great chorus comes from the dancers. Colonel Startling Grope has sent us up six bottles of Asti Spumante! The evening wears on, the dancers wear out. A GI joins us. His name is Ken Mule. He sings with the band. What a find — he sounds like Dick Haymes! More booze is coming up, but I’m keeping mine down. At two o’clock the dance finishes, but some of the band are ‘into it’ and go on jamming. I creep off and accost lovely Rosetta Page. We get a plate of sandwiches and a bottle of Valpolicella. Soon we are snogging.
“Oh, no, Spike, oh no.”
“Oh yes, Rosetta, oh yes.”
The sandwiches are crushed between us and are toasted.
“No ladies allowed in male billets.” The voice comes from the mouth under the little moustache of a Regimental Policeman.
“Haven’t you heard? The war’s over.”
“Never mind that, out!” He makes a gesture.
I am not a violent man. I take him by the battledress and crash him against the wall. “Do you want to fuckin’ die?” He doesn’t want to die, and leaves.
Drink, drink, drink. Giggle, grope…Somewhere in the wee hours a long way away, sitting on the steps, someone is shaking me. It was me! No! It was Steve! He is naked except for his shirt. “Rosetta darling,” I say, “how you’ve changed.”
He giggles. “Isn’t it time you went to bed?” Yes. I was up about midday, surveying the wreckage of the previous night — most of which appeared to be me.
The CPA band that played on V-E Night +1. The picture has been shrunk owing to financial difficulties at the publishers.
2nd Day of V-E Festivities
A band from the Central Pool of Artists will play tonight, so you chaps can have a jolly good rest,” says