Where have all the bullets gone_ - Spike Milligan [71]
Bari is a dusty seaport on the Adriatic. There’s Bari Vecchio and Bari Nuovo. No hotel this time, but a large hostel that seemed to be under permanent siege by lady cleaners. Even as you sat on the WC a mop would suddenly slosh under the door. The streets are heavy with bored British troops, and a heavy sprinkling of Scots from the tribal areas. The old city is really a museum piece, it’s a time capsule dated about 1700: the Moors were here and left their mark -many a dark skin can be seen.
Secombe appears to be inflating his head; he is even inflating his face. Somehow the wind is escaping upwards. No, the man is in real trouble. Poor Gunner, struck down in his prime! Of all things he has illness of the face. It’s true, folks, he has been using cheap Italian make-up which has affected all the cuts he gave himself during his screaming farting and shaving act. It gets bad, and the swelling closes both eyes. There was little pity. We had warned him if he didn’t stop it, this is what would happen. The dramatic situation of temporary blindness gives Secombe a great chance for histrionics: he becomes Gunner King Lear. “I’m sorry lads, to have let you down like this, but remember the show must go on.” He lay in his bed, not knowing that we had left the room. He develops a high temperature which speeds him up. When the ambulance arrives to take him, he is chattering, screaming and farting at twice the speed. “I’m sorry I’m leaving you lads, but I’ll be back, the show must go on, thanks for all your help, remember me when you’re on stage, tell the lads I did my best, Cardiff 3 Swansea Nil. Lloyd George knew my father, saucepanbach, Ivor Novello, when I come home again to Wales.” As they drove him away we could hear snatches of Welsh songs, rugby scores, rasp-berrying and screaming. When he arrived at Bari General Hospital they took him straight to the psychiatric ward where he gave three doctors a nervous breakdown.
His place in the show was taken by Delores Bagitta; dressed as a nun she sang ‘Ave Maria’ in a gin-soaked voice. Lt. Priest pleaded with her not to, but to our horror and amazement she got an ovation! There’s no telling.
Surprise, surprise, after our first show, who shows up? It’s lean lovely Lance-Bombardier Reg Bennett. What’s he doing here? He was posted. He arrived with a letter to the Town Major who said. “I see Bennett that you are an expert on heavy dock clearance and port maintenance.”
“No sir, I’m an insurance clerk.”
Someone had blundered. He gets the plum job of Town Major’s clerk. With it goes a private flat above his office. He invited me back. We took a taxi, so he was doing alright. We arrived at the flat and opened the door to find the Town Major screwing some Iti bird on the floor. “I’m afraid the room is occupied,” he said.
We ended up at a restaurant in the Old Town; customers are up-market Italians and a few British officers. “All black market,” says Reg.
“How can you afford all this, Reg?”
He grinned the grin of a man heavily involved in skullduggery. “I handle the NAAFI,” he said. Ah! NAAFI, the crown jewels of military life. We spoke about an idea we had had back in Baiano. A nightclub on the Thames. It was pie in the sky. Bennett says. “Milligan, if we’re going to dream, why stop at a night club on the Thames, why not a hundred-storey hotel in San Francisco? We’ve just had four bloody years of war, why go in for more trouble? No Spike, I’ve thought about it, if we all clubbed together we’d just about afford two tables and six chairs.”
“We could get a bank loan.”
“OK, eight chairs then.”
He was right. I said so: “You are right.” I said, “To hell with the hundred-storey hotel and the six chairs. Waiter, another bottle of Orvieto!”
Well pissed, Bennett dropped me off at the hotel. An hour later he appears at my bedroom door. “He’s still screwing,” he said. I put him in the spare bed. “I’m not angry, just jealous,” he said. Reg departed next morning. I was not to see him for another five years, by which time the Town