A mist has risen from the Arno, infiltrating the town and Secombe’s trousers. I can hear the hiss of steam as cold air hits his boiling body. We depart virgo intacto, trousers bursting with revolving testicles and dying erections. We retrace our steps to the hotel. We are lost. “Fancy,” says Secombe. “Who in the Mumbles would dream that I was lost in Florence?” I tell him I gave up: who in Mumbles would know he was lost in Florence.
A tart hovers by. Lily Marlene? She knows the way to the hotel. Do we want a shag? It’s only fifty lire after ten, she’ll do us both for forty. Sorry dear, we’re training for the priesthood. OK, we can find our own fucking way back. Finally we did. “Home at last,” says Secombe, “and forty lire to the good.”
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 with every move. “Amore, amore,” she’d croak. It was monumental tat.
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 clubbe
d 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 Major had finished screwing.
The sound of chattering, farting and screams tells me that Secombe has been cured and released, and the hospital burnt down for safety. “Hello hello, hey hoi hup, raspberry, scream, sing, on with the show hey hoi hup.” He revolves round the hotel at speed. What had eluded scientists for 2000 years has been discovered by Gunner Secombe. Perpetual motion.
New Year’s Eve
A.D. 1946 is a few hours away as the show opens. The front row is filled with the well-scrubbed, pink and pretty Queen Alexandra Nursing Sisters, all crisp and starched in their grey, white and red uniforms. Hovering above them in the crammed gallery are hundreds of steaming Highlanders, all in the combustible atmosphere of whisky fumes. The Bill Hall Trio are a smash hit. We are going for an encore when to our horror we see, falling like gentle rain from heaven, scores of inflated rubber condoms floating down on the dear nursing sisters. Some, all merry with the festive season, start bursting them before they scream with realization. Military police go in among the steaming Scots and a fight breaks out; to the sound of smashing bottles, thuds, screams, wallops and yells, a nun sings ‘Ave Maria’. Happy New Year everyone.
After the show there’s a party on stage, a table with ARGGGGHHH Cold Collation, the Bill Hall Trio play for dancing. A good time was had by all, and something else had by all was Delores Bagitta. Lt. Priest drinks a toast:
“This is our last show and we will be returning to base tomorrow.”
Naples Again
It is 120 miles to Naples, a sort of London/Birmingham trip. Bill, Johnny and I sit as usual at the back on the bench seat. We start to talk seriously about a future in England. We agree to stick together and make our fortune. With the reception we’ve been getting, how can we go wrong.
January. CPA Barracks
It was a sybaritic life. No parades, an occasional inspection, and a NAAFI open day. There were perks. “There’s spare tickets for the opera,” says gay Captain Lees, who is ever so lonely and rightfully in the Queen’s Regiment. The opera? Fat men and women bawling at each other in front of cardboard trees, backed by a crowd of hairy-legged spearmen. OK, it was free. I was about to see what any opera lover would give his life for. Outside the San Carlo: “The WVS presents the world’s greatest tenor, Benjamino Gigli.” Gigli? Coleman Hawkins or Ben Webster, yes, but Gigli?
I have a plush box to myself it seems, but just before curtain-up a smelly Italian peasant carrying a bag of food and a bottle of wine is ushered in. “Scusi,” he says, then starts laying the food out on a cloth. Overture, curtain up. Magic. Where have I been? Puccini! What an ignorant bastard I’ve been. Wait, the Italian is getting pissed, and by the time Mimi’s tiny hand is frozen, he’s joining in the arias. He’s sitting on the floor, the audience can’t really see him, they’re all shushing at me. The attendants come in, I have a struggle telling them I’m not the culprit. Eventually they drag the protesting Iti away, but leave his bread, cheese and wine which I am well pleased to finish.
The Opera continues. ‘Mimi’ sob, sob goes Rudolph, and crashes his twenty stone on top of the poor consumptive; the curtain comes down to stop her being asphyxiated. Curtain call after curtain call. I am on my feet shouting Beeeeseeee! Like all bloody musicians, the orchestra are trying to get out before any encores…they all escape but Gigli collars the harpist and sings Neapolitan folksongs, for an hour — magic. Gigli is gone to his rest, but that evening goes on…
A Bitter End
The curse of the working class! Piles! I am stricken, strucken and stracken with the things! Unlike other enemies, one could not come face to face with these things. Piles! The MO is no help: he is twiddling his things and unsympathetic.
“There’s the operation,” he says.
“And it’s agony,” says I.
“That is true,” says he. Otherwise…what then? He shrugs his shoulders. I’m pretty sure that shrugging your shoulders is no cure for a sore arse. He gives me a pot of foul-smelling ointment. “Apply to the parts.”
Parts? Piles don’t have parts. I can have two days in bed and then come and see him again. The pretty Italian lady cleaners want to know why I’m in bed. No way will my romantic soul let me tell them it’s piles, not even in Italian. Piles-o! No! I have bronchitis. They want to know why every time I sneeze, I grab my arse and scream. It’s very difficult. The Duty Officer and Sergeant find me asleep face downwards at midday.
“Why is this man in bed, Sergeant?”
“Piles, sir.”
“Piles?”
“Yes sir, the piles.”
“Have you seen the MO?”
“Yes, sir.”
“What’s he say?”
“He said I had piles, bed down for two days.”
The Officer gave me a look of utter disdain. Why? He was jealous. Any man with such a demeaning illness as piles should never be allowed to shirk his duty. Officers never had piles and if they did they went on serving the King.
WHITEHALL. FIELD-MARSHALL ALEXANDER’S OFFICE
ALEXANDER stands in front of a huge war map. HIGH-RANKING OFFICERS WAIT ON HIS EVERY WORD, HE POINTS TO THE MAP.
ALEXANDER:
Gentlemen (points to flags on map), there are several outbreaks of pile jealousy in these areas.
GENERALS:
Scrampson — Scrampson — Scrampson!!!
ALEXANDER:
From now on, all cases of piles must be kept top secret.
Romance ‘Neath Italian Skies
The music of ‘Lae thar piss tub dawn bab’ floats on the air. It’s spring in Napoli! Bornheim and I are sipping sweet tea as the sun streams into the golden pilasters of the Banqueting Room of the Royal Palace, Naples NAAFI, having posted a look out on the roof for Gracie Fields. Our waitress is a Maria, and fancying me.
“Wot ewer name?”
“Spike.”
“Spak?”
“Yes, Spike.”
“Spak.”
It sounds like custard hitting a wall. My darling, can we go “passagiere sul la Mare?” Si, si, si. When darling? Sabato. But we must be careful, we must not be seen by her parents or her familyo! Why, Maria, why? Wasn’t it I, a British soldier, who has liberated Italy from the Naughty Nazis and let loose a hoard of raping, pillaging, Allied soldiers on to your streets. Does her family know I am a Holy Roman Catholic with half a hundredweight of relics of the cross to my credit, and a cache of secondhand underwear? No, no, no, it would be dangerous. What would happen if they caught us together? They would catch mine together and crush them. We meet then in the mysterious Vomero, she in Sunday best, me in the best I can find on Sunday. Now for a day of high romance. But no. She is in a state of high anxiety, every ten seconds she clutches me with a stifled scream, she imagines one of her family appearing, knife in hand. We spend the day like two people trying to avoid the searchlights at Alcatraz, forever flattening against walls, diving into dark doorways where I give them a quick squeeze, and running across squares.*
* One of the squares I ran across was Reg O’List.
At the end of the day, shagged out by a hard day’s espionage and squeezing, she says goodbye and catches a tram. Bornheim is sitting on his bed awaiting the results.
“Did you get it?”
“No.”
Nothing? No. What did I do? About eighteen miles, I said.
Maria in a state of High Anxiety at the start of our day out
CAPRI
’Twas on the Isle of Capri
Private Bornheim is singing the theme from the ‘Pathétique’ and cutting his toe-nails with what look like garden shears. “The good weather is coming, we should go for a trip to Capri.” Good idea, but we must choose a day when Gracie Fields is singing on the mainland. Ha ha ha. “When should we go?” As soon as he’s finished cutting his toe-nails. That could be weeks.
The quay for the ferry to Capri — left is the Castel Uovo
One fine warm spring morning, we board the ferry Cavallo del Mare, and set fair for the Isle of Capri. Bornheim feels fine: with toe-nails clipped he’s about ten pounds lighter. A bar on board sells cigarettes, fruit juices and flies.
I watch as the magic isle heaves into view, blue and purple in the morning mist, the old village in the centre, the houses huddled together like frightened children. On the bridge an unshaven captain in a vest, oily peaked cap and flies, shouts to the shoreman. We approach Marina Grande, he cuts the engines, we glide to the quay; all the while Private Bornheim has been immersed in his Union Jack, calling out bits of news: “They’ve increased the fat allowance back home.” All that and Capri!
Bornheim holding his eternal Union Jack newspaper — with a passing Maria
As we disembark, Italian Dragomen and flies are waiting. “Do you like a donkey?” No thanks, I’m a vegetarian. We board the Funicolare — up up up. At the top we walk out into the most famous square in the world, Captain Reg O’List. How are we? — he’s just returning. Goodbye Reg, no — no need to sing ‘Begin the Beguine’, no, thank mother for the rabbit.
The main square is set up with cafes and outdoor tables, no piped music or transistors. We choose the Cafe Azzura because it’s nearest, and order two icecreams. What ice-creams!!! Wow, a foot high, multi-coloured, and covered in cream and flies. We are the only two soldiers in the Square.
Memoires 05 (1985) - Where Have All The Bullets Gone Page 17
