Where have all the bullets gone_ - Spike Milligan [45]
I’m groggy in bed for a while. Steve is bringing my meals in, and eating them. “How do you feel?”
“Hungry.”
“That doesn’t leave much after tax,” he said, and I still don’t understand what he meant.
“Stop that bloody noise in there,” shouts the Rev. Sergeant Beaton. “We’re trying to meditate.”
“Sorry,” says Steve. “Let us know when it’s our turn.”
Roma Encore
The holiday with Scotland’s Revenge (porridge) and Links of Love (Slingers). All packed and puffing cigarettes, our lorry drives out of Alexander barracks in triumph. As we pass through the proles on their way to their offices, they boo us. “You wouldn’t ‘af to work if you’d learn the fiddle,” chortles Jim Manning. It’s a glorious day with a sky like Canaletto; unlike England where it’s like Cannelloni.
September 1
DIARY:
56 AREA REST CAMP. LOVELY LAZY DAY. SWIMMING, GRUB, PICTURES, PING-PONG.
The consensus is we go to a restaurant. We find one in the Via Forno, a lovely little trattoria with plastic grapes hanging from the ceiling, raffia-bound flasks hanging in clusters from the wall, and candles on the table. Several blue-chinned mafia-style waiters are waiting to serve, or murder us. It’s pasta all round, except for Jim Manning. He’s not going to ‘ ‘ave any of those long strips of garlic worms, no, it’s egg and chips’. Alright, we can laugh — eggs are good for you, they give you the ‘orn. I find a delightful red wine, Tignanello. Then two shillings a gallon, now £6 a bottle, I’m glad I ordered it then. We now rush rapidly to the next morning to avoid all that retching out of the back of the lorry.
Funny ha-ha reaction to the End of WWII by Bdr. Milligan — note modern frizz-top hair-do. Left: Vic Shewery; right: Jim Manning who volunteered to pose with me.
Diary: September 2
Terrible hangover. Felt better after breakfast. Lovely sunny day. It is now ALL over: the Nips have jacked it in.
“The bastards,” said Jim Manning. “The bomb was too bloody good for ‘em — they should have dropped something cheaper, like gas stoves filled with shit.” What a thought.
The Romans ignore the Victory, the Allied soldiers get pissed, the City is full of stumbling, staggering, farting drunks, none of whom have ever seen a Jap. The rest camp leaves the latecomers a huge table of the latest greatest horror in British cuisine, the dreaded Cold Collation, each plate containing the following:
Small part of cold dead chicken.
One lettuce leaf brown at edges.
One slice of tomato laid like wreath on dead chicken bit.
Mess of diced stale boiled potatoes hiding under thin watery mayonnaise.
Sprig of watercress.
Thin slice of bread curling at edges as though about to fly off plate.
Six pale peas glued together for security.
A shrimp.
Greasy thumbprint.
NIPPON DAILY NEWS
Emperor Hirohito hit by gas stove filled with shit. Western barbarians drop ultimate weapon. Despicable act without warning. No surrender. Antikarzi squadrons to intercept new hell weapon.
It was a warm night and we all knew who had had brown ale. “I think,” says Len Prosser, “if they’d dropped Cold Collation on Hiroshima it would have done more damage.” He’s right! After eating it, we surrendered.
There’s no lights out, so we play Pontoon. At one in the morning, from distant campanili, a series of one o’clocks ring out over the rooftops of Rome. One o’clock went on for a good seven minutes. We set our watches some twenty times.
“It must be different religions,” I said, “like the Protestants are three minutes behind the Greek Orthodox, and the Catholics one minute up on the Coptics.” They all say I’m a silly bugger.
“That’s it,” says a triumphant Jim Manning. “Pontoons only.” He scoops up the winnings.
I hadn’t done too badly, I’d come out with the same amount I’d had before the game, but then I hadn’t played -I’d had my fingers burnt before when someone set fire to the cards.
The days that followed were much the same. Monday, Tuesday etc. to the power of seven. Breakfast, lazing, swim, lunch, lazing, swim, cold collation, screaming, ping-pong, evening spruce up, Rome, sightseeing,