Where Have All the Bullets Gone? (28 page)

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 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

I
t 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

I
t 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

T
he 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

T
he 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

P
rivate 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