"Ah, you know why I"ve asked you to bring your instruments?"
"You want us to throw them on the fire," I said.
He didn"t laugh. He patted the floor, inviting us to sit.
"No," he said. "You play all that n.i.g.g.e.r music don"t you? I"m going to teach you some good good tunes, I want you both to join in." Here he tootled the first bars of a tune. "Didn"t you recognise that?" he said. tunes, I want you both to join in." Here he tootled the first bars of a tune. "Didn"t you recognise that?" he said.
"Yes," I replied. "It was Whistling Rufus, he was my father."
Over his head it went and hit the wall with a loud plop.
"Yes, it"s Whistling Rufus Whistling Rufus, a fine fine Military marching tune, the Gurkhas marched to that during the Chitral Rebellion." Military marching tune, the Gurkhas marched to that during the Chitral Rebellion."
"It might have caused it," I said.
"I"ll play the melody and when I point to you, Milligan, play the descending obligato."
"What key?" asked Fildes, across the fiery divide.
"I play it in G major."
"G? Major? I knew it when it was only a captain, sir."
Over his head it went and plop against the cave wall. He launched into a very fast version of Whistling Rufus Whistling Rufus, at the given moment he pointed to me, and I played the obligato. He seemed well pleased. When we finished he smiled, counted two bars in and launched back into it all over again. We did this several times, he enjoyed it to such an extent I realised he"d never played with anyone before, it was all a new experience for him, it was a new experience for me...a b.l.o.o.d.y awful one. Woods brought him a cup of tea, Woods didn"t bring us a cup of tea.
"Now," said Jenkins, wiping his mouth with a handkerchief, "shall we try some of your n.i.g.g.e.r music?"
"What about "The Sheik of Araby" by Rudolph Valentino?" I said.
"Jolly Good," he said and launched into a chorus. I played the most awful corny obligatos and when I took a chorus played with a terrible nanny-goat vibrato. Oh! had I only a tape recorder that night! I"d have dropped it on him.
We were interrupted by a Despatch Rider from 2 AGRA HQ.*
Army Group Royal Artillery. Army Group Royal Artillery.
A short dwarf, heavily wrapped up with knee-high motor-cycling boots that came up to his neck, a crash helmet that came down to his knees, and a khaki scarf wrapped around the lower half of his face. Jenkins saw the word URGENT on the envelope, hastily dropped his clarionet, stood up to read the message. It would have read exactly the same sitting down but standing up gave him height. What it didn"t give him was a view of his clarionet rolling slowly into the fire...We let it burn a few moments and when it was too late said, "Oh, sir! Quick, your clarionet is on fire." (Rather like those French translations, i.e. The Clarionet of my cousin has been struck by lightning.) He rushed at the smouldering instrument, letting the top secret message fall.
"My G.o.d," he wailed, "my father gave me this."
He won"t half give it to you when he sees it again, I thought. Meantime his TOP SECRET message was now burning merrily. We left him trying to read it.
I had put up my pup tent against a bank surrounding a field. I lay in bed and wondered if the helmsman"s face was still showing white through the wheel house and where was that man Edgington? Sometimes known as Edge-Ying-Tong (the last two words were to become a song that came third in the Hit Parade of the late 1950s).
Edgington was even now speeding through the night in a traffic jam as the whole battery were homing in on our position, and they would be with us in dribs and drabs throughout the night. I listened and I could hear the first dribs arriving, followed by the drabs.
"Where"s the cookhouse?" could be heard.
Food! This b.l.o.o.d.y army were food mad!
A posh voice: "The cwook house is over theaire and there"ll be a hot meal in halwf an hour." Now I"d already had my dinner, my watch said 11.50, it was very late, I was tired, warm and comfortable and I wasn"t hungry...nevertheless at 12.30 am I find myself in the queue. Ahead of me is another stomach on legs, Kidgell! The nearer he got to the serving table the more silent and tense he became. When there was only one man to go, Kidgell would go dead silent, sweat would appear on his brow, you could see him repeatedly swallowing the excess of saliva that was mounting in his mouth and nearly drowning him, then!...It was his turn! There was nothing twix him and the bubbling, steaming food containers, his trembling hands would hold out his dixies, he would crouch forward like a sprinter in the blocks, his eyes would extend from his head like organ stops. The moment the last drop of gravy from the cook"s spoon had finally fallen into his tin, Kidgell would Start eating immediately as he walked to a spot to sit down. By the time he got there he"d finished the main course and was into the duff. This gone he would gallop to the back of the queue hoping to get "seconds".
If he thought he was going to be recognised, he would put his tin hat on and keep his head well down to hide his face. What gave him away was his dribbling, drooling and shaking hand when he got near the grub; he earned his t.i.tle, "the famine".
"I reckon," said our cook, "if he got to a field of wheat first, the locusts wouldn"t stand a b.l.o.o.d.y chance."
Another Day at San Marco "Gandhi"s legs," Edgington reads aloud from a soggy Daily Mirror Daily Mirror rapidly becoming an antique. rapidly becoming an antique.
"What about Gandhi"s legs," I said.
Out here in Italy there had been no news of Gandhi"s legs since we landed.
"It says here," Edgington continues, "Gandhi"s legs are the thinnest political legs in the world."
"Rubbish," I said. "My mother has the thinnest in the world. She has legs like old pipe-cleaners."
"Ah but she has non-political non-political thin legs, we"re talking about thin legs, we"re talking about political political thin legs." thin legs."
"My mother voted Labour-she walked to the polling booth. Of course her legs are political."
Fuller sticks his head in our tent.
"We"re moving."
"Moving?" I said, "I can"t feel a thing."
"There"s not enough mud here," chuckled Fuller. "The Major is reccying for a quagmire."
"When?" said Edgington mournfully.
"Tomorrow. 0600."
"Why do wars always have to be so b.l.o.o.d.y early-it"s always 0400, 0500-0500!! What"s wrong with 11.30? Eh? Who feels like fighting at b.l.o.o.d.y dawn? A man is much braver at 11.30!"
I left him raving in his damp tent as I went to man the No. 22 wireless set that kept us in contact with RHQ. It was 20.30. I went to relieve Ernie Hart, who was dutifully asleep on his set with headphones on. With true camaraderie I left him there and went back to bed. I am awakened at midnight, by an enraged Hart.
"Look at the time-you were supposed to relieve me at half-past eight!"
"I did but you was a-kip-wasn"t you? I didn"t have the heart to wake you."
The staccato rat-a-plan of rain drops on the canvas roof as the deluge started.
"Do I have have to get up?" to get up?"
"Yes, you b.l.o.o.d.y well do-it"s 11.20-you"ve got five minutes to do-"
b.u.g.g.e.r. I sat at the set for five minutes. I called RHQ to test the signals.
"h.e.l.lo, Dog Easy Fox-Dog Easy Fox-Able Baker Charley calling-over,"
"h.e.l.lo Able Baker Charley Dog Easy Fox-answering. Hearing you strength nine-er, strength nine-er-over."
"OK, Dog Easy Fox-over and out."
I twiddle the dial till I get AFN Naples. It"s Artie Shaw!! He"s playing "The Blues". He is really a more elegant player than Goodman though Goodman was nearer to real Jazz. Birch-bleary-eyed, coughing, comes to relieve me.
"You"re five minutes late late," I said in Lance-Bombardier voice.
"Sorry, Bomb. I couldn"t find me boots."
I climb out the truck, he puts on the headphones. He listens. "This isn"t RHQ," he says.
"Yes it is is," I said. "If you wait till the end of the tune you"ll hear the Lt.-Colonel Scorsbie announce the next dance."
"Look, Bomb," he says patiently, "why not help shorten the war, hand in your stripe?"
"I can"t, it covers a hole in my sleeve." As I walk back in drenching rain, I see a red glow in the Northern Sky-it gets brighter and brighter, then darkness followed by a low rumbling of a distant explosion. Some poor swine might have been killed in that, I thought, and then I thought, f.u.c.k "im, and went to bed. My blankets are damp and cold. I don"t know how we didn"t all die of pulmonary ailments, perhaps I was dead-perhaps we were all dead, and this was h.e.l.l. Of course! That"s it! We"re all dead! I shout into the night, "Good news, we"re all dead."
I"d asked my father for Players-but no! I get Pa.s.sing Clouds! Why? Because he"s a sn.o.b- sn.o.b- at his officers" mess he had made it clear that he would never drink inferior wine, smoke inferior tobacco-the reason was he was skint. Gunner White thought their flat Turkish shape was due to pressure in transit, and proceeded to roll them until they were round. I am smoking in the dark, the roar of the rain wonderful! It drowns out all sounds except a ghastly yawn from Edgington"s tent. at his officers" mess he had made it clear that he would never drink inferior wine, smoke inferior tobacco-the reason was he was skint. Gunner White thought their flat Turkish shape was due to pressure in transit, and proceeded to roll them until they were round. I am smoking in the dark, the roar of the rain wonderful! It drowns out all sounds except a ghastly yawn from Edgington"s tent.
"Harry-that you?"
"Just a minute, I"m putting my jaw back."
"You still awake?"
"Just."
"I wonder what it"s like in London now."
"Don"t make me homesick."
"I bet all the night clubs are open...some of the big bands will be still playing. Ambrose, Lew Stone, all that lot, they go till three in the morning...you ever been to a night club?"
There"s no reply-he"s unconscious, I must hurry and catch him up.
SAt.u.r.dAY, NOVEMBER 6, 1943.
Very cold. "We must be high up," Edgington is announcing.
"Why must we be high?" I enquire, because we were sitting down.
"The rations, that"s that"s why." why."
"What about the Russians?"
"Rations! You silly Gunner, You silly Gunner, rations rations. Haven"t you noticed that in addition to our ration we now get little round vitamin pills?"
"I thought they were concentrated Plum Puddings to save shipping s.p.a.ce."
For the millionth time we are in the back of a lorry lumbering through a muddy cold landscape, winter black trees line our route like dying sentinels. I trace our position as we progress. The town we are pa.s.sing through is Teano! I tell Edgington, "This is where Garibaldi invented spotted biscuits and reunited Italy for King Emanuel the umpteenth."
"I am thrilled," says Edgington.
"It was Garibaldi that caused the Bourbons to flee over the Rocky Alps."
"Ah, thereby hangs the phrase, a Bourbon on the Rocks."
Groans. We have halted. "Look what I"ve rescued." Vic Nash has come to the tailboard of our lorry. He holds a small wriggling black puppy; this was to be christened Teano, and was to become part of the Battery. We stroked him, petted him, gave him a bit of cheese and handed him back.
"Hide him from Driver Kidgell, won"t you?" I said.
"Why?"
"Because he"ll eat him."
Vic Nash giggled, the pup is furiously licking his face, so it can"t have long to live.
"Get mounted," calls an important voice from up front.
"Get stuffed," comes the reply.
We move off in fits and starts, the lorry starts, we have fits. Climbing continuously on a secondary road between Teano and Rocamanfina about 1000 feet up. We sing a ditty oft sung in boring circ.u.mstances: The good old Duke of York The good old Duke of York He had ten thousand men He had ten thousand men He marched them up to the top of the hill He marched them up to the top of the hill And he marched them down again. And he marched them down again. When they were up they were up When they were up they were up And when they were down they were down And when they were down they were down And when they were only half way up And when they were only half way up They were b.u.g.g.e.red! They were b.u.g.g.e.red! Good evening Friendssssss! Ching! Good evening Friendssssss! Ching!
We are on a mountain road with a gradient of one in four. We halt. "Dismount!" We climb out. On the right side of the road is a Church, semi-Gothic style. Just behind it is the Vicarage. The road opposite flanks a high bank with several footpaths leading up to a cave set in a sort of browny-red sandstone.
"That"s it," says Bombardier Fuller, riding up on his mo" bike. "That cave; get all the Command Post stuff in there."
We struggle and strain with all that b.l.o.o.d.y stuff we"ve carried so many times before. Edgington has developed the oriental carrying posture, balancing a battery on his head. We all copy and march Indian file up the slope chanting, "Sandy the wise, Sandy the strong".
"How long is this going to last?" he says.
"With time off for good conduct by the time you"re eighty-three the future is yours."
Lieutenant Budden hoves to. "Has anyone seen Mr Wright?"
"Yes, sir," I said, "I saw him yesterday."
He looks at me in despair and says, "Can"t you take anything for it, Milligan?"
Out of politeness I asked where the guns were.
"They"re in the woods somewhere."