Where have all the bullets gone_ - Spike Milligan [70]
No, not home at last, locked out at last. “Open up landlord, we are thirsty travellers.” We rang the bell. We hammered on the door. We tapped on the windows. We shouted upwards. We hammered on the bell. We rang the door. We tapped upwards. We shouted on the windows. “How much did she say for the two of us?” says Secombe. A sliding of bolts, a weary concierge opens the door. “Molto tardi signorini,” he says. We apologize. I press a ten lire note in his hand. A low moan comes from his lips. “What did you give him?” says Secombe. “A heart attack.”
I crawl into my dream bed. Peace. Relaxation, but no, wait!!! Something wet and ‘horribule’ is in my bed. It’s a terrible soldier joke, there in my bed is an eight-inch ‘Richard the Third’, made from dampened brown paper. Wait, there’s a note, a chilling message. It says: “The phantom strikes again.” It bears all the hallmarks of Mulgrew, or is it the Mulgrew marks of Hall? I fell asleep laughing.
RETURN TO NAPLES
Return to Naples
Days seem to go by like water rushing over stones. We leave Florence, having visited every possible sight. It was a city I can never forget. We are to return to Naples, with an overnight stay in Rome. There we dine again with the Eton-cropped manageress, whom we now know to be a lesbian. The discovery was made by Lt. Priest who had put his hand on her leg and had it crushed in a vice-like grip, all the while smiling sweetly at him. I got a bit worried when she said to me, “You are a very pretty boy.” After dinner she asked the trio to come to her room and play. Drinks had been laid on, including a Barolo 1930! She asked us to play ‘You Go to my Head’, then sang it in Italian in a deep baritone voice. If we weren’t certain before, we were now. Yes, there was the shaving soap on the windowsill. The more she drank, the more masculine she became, giving us thumps on the back like demolition hammers. “Let’s get out of here,” said Hall, “or she’ll fuck the lot of us.”
The last leg to Naples. All the while Secombe entertains us with insane jokes and raspberries. Does anyone know the Big Horse Song? No. He sings Big Horse I love you. The Hook and Eye song? No? He sings Hook and I live without you. The Niton Song? Niton day, you are the One. The Ammonia song? Ammonia bird in a gilded cage. There was no stopping him, he was like a dynamo.
“Are you on anything!” I said.
“Yes, two pound ten a week. Hoi Hup, raspberry.” He used to be a pithead clerk.
“Were you good at figures?”
“Well, as long as I got within three or four shillings.”
If what he told me was true, miners who hadn’t shown up for a week ended up with double wages and the reverse. The day he joined the army, the miners held a pithead Thanksgiving Service.
Back in the old routine. Hall has been missing for days. During his absence, we transform his army bed into a magnificent four poster with a Heraldic Shield, satin drapes and a scarlet velvet bedspread. We time it to perfection. Hall comes in five minutes before the once-weekly roll call and inspection. He walks in a moment before the Inspecting Officer. Stunned, he stands by his bed. Enter Captain O’List. He too is stunned.
O’LIST: Whose bed is this?
HALL: Mine sir.
O’LIST: How long has it been like this?
HALL: Just today, sir.
O’LIST: Why?
HALL: It’s my mother’s birthday, sir.
O’List couldn’t contain himself. Weak-legged he walked rapidly from the room. On the stairs we could hear him choking with laughter.
Bari
Yes, we are to ancient Barium where the meal-enema was invented. We are to entertain the bored soldiery. First thing, chain Gunner Hall to the bed. Louisa Pucelli, our Italian star, has dropped out of the show, and in her place we have Signorina Delores Bagitta, an ageing bottle-blonde Neapolitan old boiler, with a voice like a Ferrari exhaust. She looked OK from a distance, about a mile I’d say. She did a Carmen Miranda act, her layers of cutaneous fat shuddering