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By Root 180 0

about a thousand men, all in a state of coming and going, unlike me who couldn’t tell if I was coming or going. Under Peters the food improved. He indented for twice the amount, and sent scrounging parties to buy eggs, chicken and fish, all of which the cooks dutifully boiled to shreds. “I think they put it in with the laundry,” said Peters. He also allowed men out of an evening, but the effect of alcohol on some of the loonies who were on tranquillizers was alarming. It was something to see the guard commander and his men holding down a half naked shit-covered, wine-stained loony alternately being sick, screaming and singing. Some loonies tried to climb Vesuvius. God knows how many fell in. A resident psychiatrist arrived. He immediately dished out drugs that zombified most of the inmates, who walked around the camp staring-eyed, grinning and saying ‘Hello’ to trees.

March 5

DIARY:

HIGH TEMPERATURE REPORTED SICK

“You’ve got Gingivitis,” said the M.O.

“Gingivitis?”

“It’s inflamed gums.” I see. A sort of Trench Foot of the mouth.

“It was very common in World War One.”

“Is it a better class now?”

“Do you clean your teeth regularly?”

“Yes, once a week.”

“You’ve got it quite badly, you can pick it up anywhere.”

“Not in the legs surely?”

He smiled. “I’m putting you in the 70th General.”

The 70th! I’d done the 92nd, now the 70th! BINGO! “Gunner Milligan, you have just won the golden thermometer!”

70th General Hospital Pompeii

A long cool ward full of military illnesses. Through the window I see a wall with faded Fascist slogans:

OBBIDIRE, CREDERE, LAVORARE, MUSSOLINI HA SEMPRE RAGGIONE.

Obey, believe, work. Three words that would send a British Leyland worker into a swoon.

A gay nurse leads me to my bed. “Put those on.” He points to some blue pyjamas. Each side of me are two soldiers with bronchitis. They are asleep. When they wake up they still have it. One is from Lewisham, the other isn’t. The gay nurse returns and takes my temperature.

“What is it?”

“It’s a thermometer,” he says and minces off.

A doctor appears escorted by a Matron with a huge bosom. She tapers away and disappears at the waist. She has Eton-cropped hair and a horsy face and if you shouted ‘Gee up’, she would gallop away. They stop at bed-ends to check patients’ records. Who will be in the top ten? Last week it was Corporal Welts with Ulcerated Groin, but coming up from nowhere and coming in at Number two is Gunner Milligan and Real Disease with Gingivitis! My God, it’s the drunken sandy-haired Scots doctor from Volume II! How did he find his way into Volume V?

“See,” he mused, “I know yew, see, Salerno wasn’t it?”

“Yes sir, last time I had Salerno.” Matron hands him my . chart which is lost from sight as she heaves it from under her bosom.

The gay nurse arrives. “I’ve got to paint your gums.” “I want someone better than you — Augustus John, Renoir…”

He applies the scalding Gentian Violet. It tastes like cats’ piss boiled in turpentine. A brilliant purple colour.

The days pass. A parcel delivery. By the shape it must have been a Caesarian. Now the hot weather has arrived, my mother has sent me a balaclava and gloves, plus three socks. She explains: “One is a spare, son.” I lay them on my bed to rest.

“There’s one short,” says Lewisham.

“No, no, they’re all the same length,” I say.

“I mean, shouldn’t there be four?” says Lewisham.

“No, my mother always makes three, you see, I have a one-legged brother.”

Lewisham goes mute, but he has his uses: he has a bird who visits him with a pretty sister who is soon onto me. I hide my three socks in case she thinks I’ve got three legs, or two legs and a willy warmer. She is short plump and pretty. Her name is Maria. (All girls in Italy not called Mussolini are called Maria.) Tea and biscuits are being served. We sit and talk broken Italian and biscuits. In the days that follow she brings me grapes, figs, oranges and apples. I get clinical dysentery.

March 10

DIARY:

CURED!

I can leave today. A tearful farewell with Maria. She loads me with another bag of diaretics. “Come