Memoires 04 (1978) - Mussolini, His Part In My Downfall

by Spike Milligan

  Loving son, Terry.

  I lit up a cigarette and lay back. Mind a blank. The guns roar, the night comes. Grapevine message, “Dinner”, across the field with mess-tins, I am walking on a field that has been laying fallow for a few years. One still feels the furrows where the plough once moved. In the corner of the field under some walnut trees, a heavily camouflaged cook-house is operating, and by the screams they are operating without an anaesthetic. In the queue I find Kidgell and Edgington.

  “Where you been hiding?” is the merry greeting.

  “Hiding? me hiding? that’s a malicious rumour, I haven’t been hiding. I have been standing on the peak of a mountain, swathed in a Union Jack, with a searchlight beaming on me and I have been crying ‘Come on you German swines, and feel the taste of British steel!’ Do you call that hiding?”

  “That’s a load of cobblers.”

  “Talking of cobblers,” says Kidgell, “wot are those terrible things floating in the stew?”

  “Mines,” says our cook. “But don’t worry, they’re ours.”

  It is a Maconochie Stew, and it tastes bloody marvellous. We sit with our backs against a bren carrier. The odd gun falls silent as the gun-teams take turns for their meal. It’s dark now, all around the unending roar of artillery. Odd rumours.

  “They say he’s starting to pull out and our patrols are on the outskirts of Naples.”

  “Cor, Naples, eh?”

  We would all like to be in Naples. It would be the first European city since we left England nearly two years ago. We’ve all been warned of the ‘dangers’. If the brochure was telling the truth, venereal disease was walking the streets of Naples and one could contact it just by shaking hands with a priest. The BQMS has passed a message we won’t be getting any mail for a week, he says things like that to cheer himself up. Amid the gunfire we hear a droning, a lone plane, it’s Jerry, he drops a green flare. It was so pretty we all cheered when it came on.

  “Milligan???? Milligan????” A voice is calling.

  “Is that you mother?” I reply.

  It’s Bombardier Fuller, he is saying, “Pack enough kit to last forty-eight hours, you’re goin’ up the OP.”

  Enough to last forty-eight hours. Wearily I climb into Bdr. Sherwood’s bren carrier, already in it and waiting are Captain Sullivan, Signaller Birch and Bombardier Edwards. In a second carrier are Lt. Budden, Sig. Wenham; I cannot recall the Driver.

  MY DIARY:

  GOT ON TO NARROW ROAD TO MANGO, ROAD JAMMED WITH VEHICLES, TWO TRUCKS AHEAD STRUCK BY JERRY MORTARS. STUCK FOR NEARLY TWO HOURS.

  Progress is slow, road jammed with vehicles, very dark now, ahead is a glow of a large fire. Lt. Budden dismounts, he is coming towards us with a face that says Confusion Unlimited, and he appears to be the Managing Director.

  “That’s the mountain there,” he points to a mountain that is so big it doesn’t need pointing to. Still I take his point. “We’ve got to get up that.”

  “We need a ladder, sir.”

  “How we going to get a bloody bren carrier up there?” says Birch.

  “Post it.”

  He tried to hit me.

  “I’ll miss him.”

  “Who?” says Birch.

  “A helmsman whose face showed white through the wheel house.”

  It’s really dark. We can hear the small arms fire. The crump of mortars is endless. What was Basenji? There is now a nose-to-tail traffic jam along a narrow walled lane; the red glow ahead is getting larger, and now owns the sky. Some walking wounded are squeezing past us on their way back.

  “Wot’s happening?” I said to one of them.

  “Jerry mortars, they set fire to the ammo truck—any minute now.”

  He had hardly said it when there was an explosion and the random fireworks of the ammo going off showered the sky with sparks; it was great fun, and costing us a fortune. A Military Policeman is coming down the convoy.

  “Back up, if you can,” he says, and laughs. We pass the message down the line, half an hour later we start to move backwards. A Despatch Rider is riding up from down behind us calling out “Any 19 Battery here?…Any 19 Battery here?…”

  Birch says “Yes.”

  Silly sod! Never answer anything in the Army, too late now. It’s Don R. Lawrence. He tells us we have to take the bren carrier and go back to pick up a wireless set which has just arrived from the beach, and Captain Sullivan on another truck is going to the OP, so we breathe a sigh of relief, we start extricating the bren carrier from the congestion, marvellous, when we’ve almost got it out the bloody thing breaks down, we struggle and manage to push it on to its side to allow the traffic through. Budden tells us, “We’ll have to walk to HQ and get fresh orders.”

  I tell him I don’t need fresh orders, I’m perfectly satisfied with the ones I’ve got.

  “Please, Milligan,” says Budden, “try and be a soldier.”

  We finally reach RHQ. It’s off a walled lane in an Italian farmhouse, built around a forecourt two storeys high; an exterior staircase leads up to the first floor, which is surrounded by a balcony. The farm is blacked out except the room where our HQ is, that is a mass of light chinks coming from windows and doors like an early Son et Lumiere. Several vehicles are parked in the forecourt. The drivers are asleep in the back. Twenty minutes pass. Mr Budden appears, he smells of Whisky, the khaki after-shave for men. He is much happier.

  “We are not needed, Milligan,” he says.

  “Does that mean for the duration?”

  We both walk back to the gun position, which is easily found. We just followed the loudest bangs.

  SEPTEMBER 24, 1943

  MY DIARY:

  COOL NIGHT, A TOUCH OF AUTUMN CHILL IN THE AIR. HAD VERY DISTURBED SLEEP. KEPT WAKING UP IN A COLD SWEAT, TOOK SWIG AT WATER BOTTLE, HAD A FAG. WHAT A BLOODY LIFE. I FINALLY DROPPED OFF INTO A BLACK SLEEP, LIKE DEATH. AM I THE BLACK SLEEP OF THE FAMILY?

  SEPTEMBER 25, 1943

  I awoke at first light, sat up, yawned. I felt as tired as though I had not slept. A morning mist is rapidly disappearing. It swirls around the head of Monte Mango. I start the ritual of folding my blankets. A voice calls, “Hey, Terry.” Terry? I hadn’t been called that since I turned khaki. It was Reg Lake, a Captain in the Queen’s Regiment. He had been sleeping about thirty yards away. Reg was the pre-war manager of the New Era Rhythm Boys, one of the best semi-pro bands in London. He was the one who gave me my first break as a ‘crooner’. Last time I had seen him was on a 137 bus going from Brockley to Victoria.

  “My God, Terry, what are you doing in this God-forsaken place?”

  “I’m helping England win the war.” What a silly bloody question. “Reg,” I said, “or do I call you sir?”

  “How long you been here?” he said.

  “Came yesterday—I thought it was a day trip.”

  “I was here on the landings, you missed all the fun.”

  “I’ll try and make up for it.”

  It was difficult to make conversation. I couldn’t say, “Where’s the band playing this week?” I asked what had happened to the boys in the band.

  “All split up.”

  “That must be painful.”

  “Most of them are in the services—remember Tom the tenor player with only one lung? They took him.”

  “They took me and I’ve only got two.”

  He was called away by a Sergeant. I never saw him again, I’ve no idea if he survived the war. If he reads this book, I hope he gets in touch.

  A voice is calling across the land, “Bombardier Milligan.”

  “Bombardier Milligan is dead,” I call in a disguised voice.

  The voice replied, “Then he’s going to miss breakfast.”

  Good God! it’s nearly nine! I just get to the cookhouse in time to have the remains of powdered eggs, bacon and tea that appears to have been all cooked together.

  “You slept late,” says Edgington.

  “I’m training for sleeping sickness.”

&
nbsp; Loading a 7.2—to the right, Monte Stella; to the left, Monte Mango

  We are now gathered around the Water Wagon doing our ablutions. Edgington is at the lather stage, peering into a mirror the size of a half crown propped on a mudguard. He was moving his face clockwise as he shaved. I had stripped to the waist, which brought cries of “Where are you?” I had my head under the tap enjoying the refreshing cascade of chlorinated cold water, at which time, twelve FW 109s are enjoying roaring out of the sun, guns hammering, there’s a God-awful scramble, we all meet under a lorry. I caught a glimpse of the planes as they launched their bombs on the 25-pounder regiment behind us.

  “Look out,” warns Edgington, when the planes were half way back to base. He hurled himself face down. “All over.” We stand up. Edgington presented a face, half lather, dust and squashed grapes.

  What was I laughing at? One moment I was well. Next moment I was on my knees vomiting. It was unbelievable. I became giddy, kept seeing stars and the Virgin Mary upside down.

  “Report sick,” says Bombardier Fuller.

  “You’re so kind,” I said.

  They took me to the Doc, who said I had a temperature of 103.

  “What have you been doing?” he said.

  “I was washing, sir.”

  Having a temperature of 103 allowed you to stop fighting. No but seriously, folks, I was ill! Oh I was ill!! The war would have to go on without me! In a bren carrier they took me shivering with ague to the Forward Dressing Station. It was a small tented area off a rough track; a Lance-Corporal, tall, thin with spectacles, took my details, tied a label on me, I think it was THIS WAY UP.

  “That stretcher there,” he said.

  So, they were going to stretch me! I felt a bit of a fraud. Around me were seriously wounded men. Some were moaning softly. A chubby Catholic Priest, about forty-five, red faced, blond hair going grey, walked among us.

  “What’s wrong with you, son?”

  “I got fever.”

  “Fever?”

  “Yes. Disappointed, father?”

  He grinned, but it didn’t wipe the sadness off his face. He told me they were awaiting the arrival of some badly wounded men from the Queen’s.

  “They were trying to take that.” He nodded towards Monte Stella.

  Three jeeps arrive with stretcher cases. Among them is a German, his face almost off. Poor bastard. There was a trickle of wounded all afternoon, some walking, some on stretchers, some dead, the priest went among them carrying out the last rites. Was this the way Christ wanted them to go? The most depressing picture of the war was for me the blanket-covered bodies on stretchers, their boots protruding from the end. For my part I kept falling into a delirious sleep, where I told General Montgomery to sing ‘God Save America’ with his trousers down. When I awoke it was evening. I’d been lying there about four hours.

  “Are they going to take me?” I asked an orderly.

  “Yes, you’re next, Corporal,” he comforted. “We had a lot of badly wounded, we had to send them off first.”

  With the sun setting, and the tent sides turning pink in the light, I was loaded aboard an ambulance in the top bunk. The top bunk! It all came back to me, the top bunk, that’s the one my parents always put me in during those long train journeys across India on the old GIP* Railway…all seemed so long ago…

  ≡ Great Indian Peninsula.

  The ambulance bumped and jolted through the narrow mountain roads. I recalled those bright sunlit Indian days, as a boy, where every day was like a Kipling story…

  “Like a drink of water, Corporal?”

  “Yes.”

  The attendant poured water into a tin mug. I gulped down two, it tasted like nectar.

  It was four stretchers to an ambulance; in between with his back to the driving cab sat an orderly. The inside was painted white. The vehicle smelt new. A blood plasma bottle was attached to the soldier on the lower bunk, his chest swathed in bandages. The orderly constantly checked the flow of the plasma. The German kept groaning. It all seemed to be coming to me through a heat charged mist. I was hovering twix delirium and reality. I doze off.

  The ambulance stops, near-by artillery are banging away, the doors open, it’s dark, voices mixed with gunfire, I am being unloaded. I’m on the ground, from there a large municipal building with a flat roof is silhouetted against the night sky. Covered with ivy, it looks like the setting for Gormenghast. I am carried up stairs along corridors, more stairs, and finally into a dim-lit ward of about thirty beds, all with mozzy nets down. I am placed on the floor.

  “Can you undress yourself?” says an overworked orderly.

  Yes, I can.

  “The pyjamas are under the pillow,” he points to a bed.

  My God, it looked good, already turned down, white sheets and pillows, TWO PILLOWS, being ill was paying dividends. I pulled on the standard blue pyjamas.

  “Where’s the karzi?” I said weakly.

  He pointed out the door. “Dead opposite.”

  I wasn’t quite dead but I went opposite; that journey over, I pulled my body under the sheets. I was desperately tired and feverish, but stayed awake to enjoy the luxury of sheets. Another orderly; they all wear gym shoes so you don’t hear them coming, he took my pulse, temperature, entered them on a board that hung on the foot of my bed.

  “Like some tea?” He spoke Yorkshire.

  “Aye,” I said in Yorkshire.

  “Anything to eat?”

  “Yes, anything.”

  He came back with a plate of tomato soup and bread. On the tray were four white tablets.

  “Take these when you dun, they’ll help bring temperature down.”

  “I don’t want it down, I want it up for the duration.”

  I gulped it down. Took the tablets, brought them all up. Who said romance was dead? So much for my first forty-eight hours in Italy.

  SEPTEMBER 26, 1943, 0600 HRS

  Awakened by a nurse. A female nurse, all pink and scrubbed in spotless uniform smelling of Pears soap.

  “Darling, I love you, marry me,” I said.

  “Good morning,” she said, threw back the mozzy net and before I could answer had stuffed a thermometer in my gob.

  “It’s down,” she said.

  “What’s down?” I said.

  “You’re only a 100.”

  She bent over the next bed, and showed two shapely legs, one would have been enough. I felt my temperature go up again. I really was ill. I fell asleep, an orderly woke me up with breakfast. The ward was coming to life, I wasn’t; orderlies were taking down the last of the black-outs, those patients who could were putting the mozzy nets up, trailing out to the ablutions, others were swallowing medicines, here comes mine, four white tablets, what are they? The orderly doesn’t know.

  “I don’t have to,” he says, “then if you die it’s not my fault.”

  Cheerful bugger. For the first two days my temperature goes up and down, and so I’m not alone, I go with it. At night it was worst with delirium and terrible dreams. However, gradually I start to recover. The nurse (I wish I could remember her name) tells me of an incident. In the officers’ section there’s a Colonel from the RAOC; he’s due for a hernia operation, the matron has been given the job of shaving him, she knocks on the door.

  “Come in,” says the Colonel.

  The matron throws back the bed clothes, lathers all around his ‘willy’, shaves him and starts to leave. The Colonel says, “Pardon me, matron, but why did you bother to knock?”

  In the next bed is a Marine Commando, Jamie Notam. He’s in with our old friend ‘Shell Shock’, received during the landings around Marina. He was forty-one, a bit old for a Commando.

  “I used to be a Gentleman’s Gentleman,” he’s speaking with a broad Scots accent.

  Jamie is sitting on the edge of his bed, he is in his battle dress, his boots highly polished, a hangover from his gentleman’s gentleman days. His bed was immaculate, his eating irons and mess-tins shine like silver. He basic
ally wanted to do things; if he folded a newspaper it was always perfectly square, but there the creation stopped. He could never make anything. It was always do but what he did was perfect. He must have been the ideal servant. It’s eleven o’clock of a morning. Outside the sun shone, that autumnal light more silver than gold, it beamed through the windows of our ward, favouring the beds who were on that side.

  In the centre of the ward are three trestle tables loaded with books, periodicals and newspapers. On one is an old Italian wireless set plugged up to a ceiling light. From it issues music from Allied Forces Network in Algiers. It’s mostly danceband music and singers like Crosby, Sinatra, Dick Haymes, Vera Lynn, Ann Shelton and Evelyn Dall (who?). The ward is big, high ceiling, plenty of light. All the bedside lockers have a water jug and glass. If you wished, you could have orange or lemon juice flavouring. In the locker were those tortuous pieces of porcelain, the bed-pan and the pee bottle. The attempt to make the place look homely, small tins with a few wild flowers, was very much appreciated. Since my admission, the sounds of artillery had daily receded. It was now reasonably quiet, save for the sound of planes passing overhead.

  Some of the patients sat up in bed, some writing letters, some reading newspapers with headlines like:

  AMBASSADOR KENNEDY TELLS PRESIDENT BRITAIN IS FINISHED

  (if he meant after the war he was spot-on). Some soldiers had donned their dressing-gowns and were seated on other patients’ beds, talking, smoking, or playing cards. The sick ones lay still, some asleep, some staring at the ceiling. We aren’t a casualty ward so we don’t have any blood or bandages. The lad in the bed on my right is very ill and in an oxygen tent; he has pneumonia and looks ghastly. My temperature was down to normal in the day, up to a hundred at night.

  “How’d you get into the Commandos at the age of forty-one?”

  “I told ‘em I was thirty.”

  “Why didn’t you say thirteen, you’d have got out altogether.”

  “I wanted adventure.”

  “Call this adventure?”