Where have all the bullets gone_ - Spike Milligan [49]
The Field Mashal’s car passed the guard of honour and came into the square, Sir Harold was met by Brig. J. H. Woods, C.B.E., and escorted to the platform outside the concert room windows, and then it all happened.
The black clouds which had been gathering for a half-hour suddenly broke and huge rain-drops fell. It was typical of a Commander who invariably has shown the greatest consideration for his troops that he immediately directed the parade to be dismissed to shelter. The men scurried to doorways and under trees, waiting a while on the chance of still hearing the Field Marshal, but the storm was too much and he drove off
In true British Iconoclastic style, the quadrangle rang with gales of laughter. Anything that pricks the balloon of pomposity is fair game for the Anglo Saxon.
England Home and Beauty
Yes, I was going home to England and taking my beauty with me. I sent a hasty note to Harry.
October 5
DIARY:
TRAIN LEAVES MADDALONI AT 09.00 HOURS
A crowd of over a hundred, some even older, are waiting at the siding. Sgt Prosser is my travelling companion. It’s sunny, we are all in a holiday mood.
“Here she comes,” says Prosser looking up the line.
“And there she goes,” I say, as it goes right past.
Finally a string of Wagons-Lits clank slowly into place; a scramble of khaki porridge as we fight for seats. Len and I sink down in corner seats opposite each other. It’s Sergeants only, but ah! ha!, I have added a third stripe to my sleeve. A shuddering clanking as the engine is coupled, a jerking start as the engine gets up steam; gradually we gain momentum and in ten minutes rejoin the same line in Caserta. Much points changing and shouts from the railway men, and we are set fair for Rome, a hundred miles north. Thank God I had Len for company, not one of these NCOs would talk, save for an odd grunt. “Any minute now,” I said, “they’ll go Baaa.” They brought to this sunny day the atmosphere of a Coroner’s waiting-room.
All rail journeys are identical — looking out of windows, yawning, walking up corridors, smoking, the occasional exchange of conversation, sleeping, scratching, smoking, reading. We pass through war-torn Sessa Arunca, a long tunnel through Monte de Fate, the country alternates between mountain and plain. I prefer my countryside plain, don’t you? Through Minturno, the area where I had last been in action. I point out Colle Dimiano.
“That’s where I was wounded,” I tell Len and the entire carriage. “Did the Sergeant kiss it better?” says Len.
Midday, and we are on the plain approaching Cisterna, to our left the Via Appia, up into the Alban Hills dotted with white crosses from the Anzio break-out. By one o’clock we are hissing and chuffing into Rome Central Station. “Half an hour,” shouts a voice. We debouch and stretch our legs, then taking from the vendor’s trolley, stretch our teeth on sticky gooey cakes which look like noses boiled in treacle.
The platforms are scurrying with Romans, all looking like unshaven Barclays Bank managers in Cricklewood. The supply of pretty Italian girls seems endless. “They must have a factory round here,” says Len, eating what looks like a dried mango with cockroaches stuck on it. We both agree that to eat continental pastries you should be sedated or blindfolded. A sloppy thin, violently ugly Railway Transport officer comes a-clumping and a-shouting through a bull horn: “All Liap Pwarty number Twenty-six bwack on the twain.” We had stocked up with French bread, cheese and boiled noses in treacle plus a bottle of Chianti. The guard’s shrill whistle, unlike British guards’, plays arias from Madame Butterfly: he’s still blowing when we’ve left the station.
We are not hungry, so we start to eat the bread and cheese right away. The prognosis is we should be in Calais at exactly ‘some time tomorrow’. When I wake up the train is speeding past Lake Bracciano; at the level crossing a crowd of peasants stand with open mouths. It’s getting colder. So is mine. We can see snow on distant mountains. We plunge