Where have all the bullets gone_ - Spike Milligan [61]
RETURN TO ITALY
Return to Italy
The morning of November the second dawns. A hurrying RTO Sergeant proceeds down the corridor. “Maddaloni in fifteen minutes.” Familiar landscape is in view, the hills behind Caserta are light and dark in the morning sun. We wipe the steamed windows to see it. I’ve had breakfast: two boiled eggs, boiled bread and boiled tea. How come the Continentals can’t make tea? If this is tea, bring me coffee. If this is coffee, bring me tea. The Italian waiter says they don’t go much on tea. I tell him if they did it would make it stronger. The black giant locomotive groans and hisses to a clanking steaming halt, there’s a long shuddering final hiss as the steam leaches out, like a giant carthorse about to die. We all climb down on to the tracks. A few thank the unshaven smoke-blackened driver. There’s a clutch of lorries waiting, they are dead on time. Now the war’s over the Army’s getting it together. Wearily we clamber on board and arrive at Alexander barracks as the town is coming to life. Shagged-out cats are heading for home and the odd early morning dog sits on the cold pavement, freezing his bum and scratching away the night fleas.
“Wake up, Steve.” I shake the sleeping Yew. “Wake up, God’s in his heaven, all’s right with the world.”
“Piss off,” he says, without opening his eyes.
“Wake up Steve my old friend, it’s me, Sunny Spike Milligan, back from foreign shores with a tale to tell.”
He raises his lovely head, squints, groans, and lets his head fall back with a thud. Go away Milligan, go a long way away, take a known poison and only come back when you’re dead.
I take his eating irons and bring him his breakfast. This thaws him out.
“Breakfast in bed,” he says, sitting up, pulling strings that raise the mosquito net, empty the po, release his shirt, loosen his pyjamas, bring his socks, raise his vest, lower his comb, push his boots…So what was England like? It’s like 1939 with bomb craters and fruit cake, and there’s a lot of it about. I should know, I’m just recovering. Back into the office grind. What news? During the absence of the band on leave, entertainment has come to a halt.
Redivivus
We’ve got to do a spot on the Variety Bill this Monday.” Stan Britton welcomes me back. “They want something funny and musical.” How about ‘Ave Maria’ naked in gumboots filled with custard? No? Then ‘Your Tiny Hand Is Frozen’ sung from inside a fridge through the keyhole. No? Why am I wasting my time on this man when I could be wasting it on a woman in Sandwich?
Shock Horror Etc and Other Headlines!
I was to get the chop! Not the leg of lamb or the kidney but the chop! While I was helping the women of England get back to normal in Sandwich, Brigadier Henry Woods has decided that either I go or he stays.
BOMBARDIER MILLIGAN S. 954024
With effect from November the umpteenth, the above will be posted to the CPA, Welfare Department, Naples.
Signed H Woods, Brigadier and midget.
So, he was the coloured gentleman in the wood pile. I swore I would never go to the pictures with him again. (He died a few years ago. I wish him well.) Why was he persecuting me like this? My only crime was my only crime. Still, like Cold Collation I could take it. I had letters to that effect from several serving women. The papers should hear of this.
DAILY MIRROR
Ace Filing Clerk To Be Axed Shock Horror etc.
Today, Bombardier Milligan, the world-renowned corporal with three stripes, and known throughout the Italian theatre of war as the most advanced filing clerk in the British Army, heard that he was to be sacked.
— Reuter.
The band boys tried to commiserate with me. We had a last jam session in the band room and rounded off with a great piss up. I was carried to