Where have all the bullets gone_ - Spike Milligan [50]
A merry Jiminy Cricket Castrati voice is calling: “Wake up, wake up…we’re in Milan.” “Bollocks” is the response. It’s eight o’clock on a very dull cold morning which I see through a sea of legs and boots. The smell in the carriage is like an uncleaned chicken coop on a hot day. Rasping smokers’ coughs greet the morning. Milan station stands gaunt, grey and steely cold in the early gloom. The platform is almost empty save for vendors. We drink their exquisite aromatic coffee, banging our feet, expelling steam on our breath.
“How did you sleep?” I ask.
“Sitting up, didn’t you notice?”
He hasn’t slept well, because he hasn’t slept at all. What did he do?
“I read the Corriere delta Sera.” He doesn’t speak Iti, but when you’re awake all bloody night, it’s amazing what you can manage. “All Liap Pwarty number twenty-six bwack on twain.”
He’s still around! With my ablution kit I spruce up in the toilet. What the hell, why not? I strip off for a stand-up bath. The train is on a dodgy bit of track. Trying to wash one leg while standing on the other, the train lurches and one leg goes down the toilet up to the groin. It’s the nutcracker suite. I exit to a queue of strained faces: “Been ‘avin’ a bloody barf?” says one micturated voice. Why should I tell these rough soldiers that, quite apart from crushing my nuts, I have partaken of Italian train waters and my body is now snow white and ready for leave.
What’s this? A buffet car has been added? Len and I wobble along the steamed-up corridors past the odd dozy soldier. It’s very nice, bright and clean with white tablecloths and friendly waiters. Our waiter is fat and looks suspiciously like Mussolini. He smiles. We order egg and chips. He stops smiling.
The scenery is now ravishing. Cobalt-tinted lakes, blue mountains with snow caps, pine forests, cascading gorges, all displayed in bright sunshine. However, in the Sergeants’ carriage, it is overcast, raining, with heavy fog. An RTO Sergeant holding a clipboard is checking our documents and counting heads. God, this is exciting, this is what got Agatha Christie going on continental train murders. “She should have travelled Southern Railways in the rush hour,” says Len. “That’s murder all the bloody time.” We’ve come to a sudden halt. I get off the floor. A look out of the window shows gangers on the line, some shouting ‘twixt engine driver and gangers. Finally shouts and a whistle blowing, we chuff chuff forward. We proceed in fits and starts, starts and fits, then farts and stits.
And lo! there was darkness on the land. It was called the Simplon Tunnel. Icy cold air squirts through the crevices in the trousers and fibrillates the Brinjalls. Soon we are out of war-torn Italy into peaceful money-mad Switzerland. Customs officers have boarded at Domodossola and are checking Passports. “Piss Pots…all Piss Pots pleasea,” they are calling. Two enter our cabin. No, we are travelling on the King’s Warrant and don’t need Piss Pots, but wish them well in their search. The lighthearted banter and laughter between Len and myself brings facial sneers, constant nudges and silent stares of hatred from our fellow passengers. People are like that. If you don’t understand them, hate them. What better species to drop the Bomb on! Alas they outnumber us.
CHEERFUL CHAPS 2
MISERABLE BASTARDS 10
MISERABLE BASTARDS WIN BY 8
The suburbs of Basle. What’s this? Union Jacks hanging from the buildings and signs: ‘Vive Tommy’. When the train slows, they foist apples and almond cakes on us, girls run alongside and hand