Memoires 02 (1974) - Rommel, Gunner Who Read online

  “Spike! SPIKE!” The voice of Maunders was shouting in my headphones.

  It was morning…

  “Hello Alf. Yes?”

  “Why didn’t you answer?”

  “I was waiting for the stretcher bearer.”

  “What?”

  “Nothing—what you want?”

  “I’ve got some tea.”

  “I’ll be right down.”

  I scrambled like a hunted beast to the bottom of the hill where all was peace. I sipped the tea luxuriously. I have never tasted the like of it before or since. The next day was reasonably quiet, but one expected ‘things’ to happen, I was glad when at sunset we were told to close down O.P. as our guns were now out of range.

  We packed up our gear. “Had a nice day,” said grinning Sherwood from his 7 foot funk-hole.

  “Why did you stop, 3 feet more and you’d have come out on the Northern Line.”

  “I think you did well today,” he said. “I enjoyed watching you running about, you must be very fit.”

  “Your turn will come Sherwood.”

  “I am one of His Majesty’s Military drivers and I do not partake in violence or running about like a scared rabbit, on my pay it’s not worth it.”

  Capt. Rand and Bombardier Edwards came down, both ginning. Strange, after sticky situations men always grinned, even burst out laughing. We climbed into the Bren. It was sunset, the land was bathed in red, the dust from our tracks looked like powdered blood, perhaps it was. Lorry loads of reinforcement passed us, some of the men were singing as they disappeared in the dusk. “Singing songs going into battle is supposed to be old fashioned,” said Captain Rand. “Ah,” I said, “they don’t do any fighting sir, they are especially trained singing soldiers who drive along the front line singing merry songs to keep up morale, indeed there’s a great Trainee Singing Camp at Catterick, where men are selected for the vocal control under shell fire.” I went raving on, I was mad I know, under these conditions it was advisable. Darkness settled. We seemed to have been driving a long time. Rand gave a polite cough. “Where are we Sherwood?” Sherwood gave a polite cough. “I was just going to ask you that sir.” I gave a polite cough. “May I be the first to congratulate you on getting lost in a world record time of 1 hour 20 minutes.”

  With a failing torch, Capt. Rand perused the map. We were 7 kilometres adrift. In Stygian darkness we arrived back at Munchar, I groped my way to the Cook House. “The Caviar’s all gone,” says Cook May, “and the Dover Sole is off.”

  “It always was,” I said shovelling cold MacConockie into my face. “I must put myself down for an MM.” I added.

  “Done something brave?” said May.

  “Yes, I’m eating this bloody stuff.”

  “Aherough!” The sound of an approaching Edgington, “Something tells me Field Marshal Milligan is nigh,” he waded .

  “Nigh dead,” I replied.

  Edgington tells me there’s mail! and off-loads 3 letters and a parcel! from Mother? I’d heard of such things in Vera Lynn’s songs. The parcel contained Fruit cake, a comb, holy medals, writing paper, Brylcream, 3 pairs grey socks, 3 Mars Bars, a holy picture of the Virgin Mary, 3 packets of Passing Cloud, 6 bars of soap, lovely—except when you smoked the fags they tasted of raw carbolic and you went giddy. An hour later, full of Mars Bars and wearing a necklace of holy medals and 3 pairs of grey socks, sick with soapy fags, I wearily pulled my blankets over my powerful Herculean body, and had the first good sleep I had had for 5 nights. As I lay there on that floor, Churchill was sitting in bed writing a letter to the Min. of Ag. I quote:—

  I understand you have discontinued the small sugar ration which was allowed to bees…

  I won’t go on, but supposing I wrote to the Min. of Ag.

  Sir, I understand that you have discontinued the sugar icing that Gunner Milligan used to have on his doughnuts…

  At the same time the BBC were hitting the enemy pretty hard.

  COMMUNITY

  WHISTLING

  Join in and whistle with Ronald Gourley and the boys this evening at 6.30

  Oh how we enjoyed a good evening’s whistling after being in a trench for 3 days and nights.

  April 11, 1943

  I awoke to a sunny morning, 9.00 a.m., a lizard was sunning himself on the window ledge. Gnr Pills did a noble thing, he brought me breakfast in bed! “Why did you do it? You’re not queer are you?”

  “I don’t know,” he said, “Waitin’ on orficers is a dooty, well, I was orf dooty, and I fort I’d do a good deed for the day and I seed you sleepin’ and I fort, he’s ‘ad an ‘ard time or ‘eed ‘ave gotten up for ‘ees breakfast, so I’ll get it for ‘im,” then added, “You won’t tell anyone will you, or they’ll all bleedin’ want it.”

  A bath! Ten minutes later I stood naked by the thermal spring soaping myself, singing, and waving my plonker at anyone who made rude remarks about it. “With one as big as that you ought to be back home on Essential War Work.” It was nice to have these little unsolicited testimonials. The animal delight of sitting in a rocky pool of running warm water, under a blue sky and a brilliant sun, is one of life’s bonuses.

  I dried myself on what had once been a towel against what had once been a body. I was a wiry nine and a half stone. I tried to think of myself as a suntanned lean Gary Cooper but I always came out dirty white skinny Milligan. “You look like a bag of bones held together by flesh coloured tights,” said Spiv Corvine. “Don’t go,” I said, “stay for my description of you, you short-arsed little git!”

  Letter Home:

  My dear Mum, Dad, Des,

  Thanks for the parcel, don’t put soap in with fags. Out of action for the day, hence letter. Weather is hotting up, about 70°, it’s shirt sleeves. And how silly we all look, naked except for 2 shirt sleeves! I believe they are shortly to issue Tropical Kit, or KD’s (Khaki Drill) which will bring back memories of Poona. I still remember those boyhood days with remarkable clarity. I think if you enjoy a childhood, it is indelible for life. Clearest are memories of hearing the strident Bugle, and Drums of the Cheshire Regiment playing ‘When we are marching to Georgia’, and the Regiment swinging by, so impeccable, bayonets and brass buttons flashing light signals in all directions, the blinding white webbing, boots like polished basalt, trousers crackling with starch, the creases with razor edges, the marks of sweat appearing down the spines of the men, the Pariah dogs slinking from the path of the column, and, the silent resentment of watching Natives. I don’t think we can retain it as part of the Empire much longer. I give it until say 1950. Can’t tell you much because of Censorship; so far miraculously, no one in this Battery has been hurt by enemy action. Not much chance to play Jazz at the moment, but listen regularly to AFN Algiers. I hope my records are O.K. I put them in a box under my bed with a cardboard sheet between each record. If you move, please be very careful of them. We’re billeted in a war-damaged house, it’s in a bad state, and we are trying to get a reduction in our rates. I hear a distant scream saying “Lunch will be served in an empty cowshed,” or is it “Cows will be served in an empty lunch shed,” so I’ll be off.

  Love to you all,

  your loving son, Terry.

  P.S. Send more cake, chocolate, fags, Pile ointment, but for Christ sake no more holy medals.

  My mother informing my father of the contents of my letter

  Last day Munchar

  “Fresh flowers from the fields of Tunisia Sir.”

  “Oh Milligan how nice,” beamed Lt Budden, his solemn face journeying to a smile.

  “I don’t like plucking flowers, but”—I recalled Lady Astor visiting Bernard Shaw, remarking it was Summer yet he had no flowers in his house. “No mam,” he replied. “I like flowers, I also like children, but, I do not chop their heads off and keep them in bowls around the house.” A great man. She was a twit. She filled Parliament with Bon Mots, and put progress back a hundred years.

  “Put them in this,” said Lt Budden filling a broken jar with water.
We placed the flowers on a rough square wooden table.

  “They do brighten up the place,” said Lt Budden standing back to admire them. Christ, I thought, the English are so bloody civilized, and I made a mental note to forgive them for the dispossession of my family’s farm in Ulster during The Plantation.

  “I think they are Ranunculus.”

  “Oh? I thought they were flowers.”

  The phone rang. I beat Budden to it.

  “Hello, Bdr Milligan.”

  “Want any chicken shit?” said a voice.

  “Who’s that?” I said.

  “Rhode Island Red,” a gale of laughter, then click. I suspect the joker was Bdr Sherwood, who was given to such pranks, he was one of five brothers, a first class driver, a very clean soldier, a good footballer, and a bloody awful pianist, I think it was the beer.

  April 11/12

  The front line is out of range. Officers are reccying new positions. The Fifth Mediums were settling into a new one on a farm when a Gun Lorry runs on a mine, it blows off the front axle, the driver jumps out to inspect damage and has his legs blown off. He bled to death before he reached hospital. Discussing it that night I said: “It might have been a blessing in disguise that he died.”

  “Oh no, no, no,” says Gunner Maunders rising from his blankets like Lazarus from the dead, but worse looking, “people live with their legs off, there are even advantages.”

  “Like what?”

  “For a start he hasn’t got so far to bend down.” He wasn’t joking.

  We rendezvoused at Map ref. 4940, a grove of ancient olive trees, and hid up all day. The terrain was rocky white outcrops, sudden valleys, chasms, tortuous for man and machine. I tuned in Allied Forces Network, round the back of the truck comes Edgington’s grinning face, with a paper moustache held to his lip, otherwise he appeared to be in control.

  “Arrrrg,” says he, “this looks like the Interval for World War Two.”

  “Arrg,” sez I, “absolutely right, I’m just casting the Battle of Tunis.”

  “What part do I play?”

  “A crippled Grannie with identical matching plimsoles.”

  He took my hand. “You look lovely in the moonlight, Samantha,” sez he, “What’s a nice gunner like you doing in a war like this?”

  “I’m the duty homosexual,” sez I. I give him a set of headphones and we listen to music until “Tea up,” shouts a voice. Edgington leaps out the truck and nearly decapitates himself.

  “Say after me,” sez I, “I must remember to take my headphones off.”

  “Nonsense!” sez he, “it’s your duty to get me a thirty-mile extension so I can wander freely with headphones on and a magnetic vanilla-flavoured truss that points due North.”

  “Come in Gunner Edgington your time is up,” sez I.

  The Tunisian night closed in, the sky turned pink, purple, then rapidly into a fathomless black, then, the stars, stars, stars. Dinner was nigh; we knew by the clanking mess tins of those who carried clocks in their stomachs. His name? Driver Kidgell!

  “How do you time it to the second?”

  “I park my lorry near the Cookhouse.”

  “I suppose,” Harry said, “after the war you’ll sleep in the kitchen.”

  “Kitchen?” I said, “he’ll sleep in the food. If his guts was on the outside, they’d look like worn out suit linings.”

  Lt Tony Goldsmith on right of picture with Derek Hudson

  It was sing-song night. Dvr Fildes strummed his guitar, our voices echo into the feline darkness. Lt Goldsmith joined us with two bottles of Rose and a silly grin. “I have brought along Major Chater Jack’s Pink Voice Improver.” A sort of cheer greeted this.

  “I have a request,” he said.

  “What is it? Shut up?”

  “The Tower fer you Milligan.”

  “Thank you sir, I’ll move in tomorrow.”

  “I have a request for you, Smudger Smith, to sing ‘Ole King Cole’, complete with all foul and bawdy references.” Smudger stepped forward, five foot eight, chunky, blue eyes, a disarming grin (Smith! grin at those Germans and disarm them!), he was the breath of Cockney London, a Smithfield porter. He launched into song.

  Oh Old King Cole

  Was a merry old soul,

  A merry old soul was he

  Called for his pipe, he called for his bowl,

  And he called for his fiddlers three.

  There was a late moon, it reflected on the trunks of the olive trees standing ghost-like, their aged limbs extended like tired wooden arms. “Did you know Harry—that ancient Greeks thought they were the tortured souls of the departed?”

  “Yes, I did,” he paused. “Ahh! it’s so peaceful,” he said, puffing his cigarette. “It makes a nice break,” I said, “I don’t like the war any more. I wish, right now, I was on the stand at St Cyprians Hall, Brockly, SE 23 and there was Jim Cherry on Alto, Billy Mercer on Tenor, and I was doing Bunny Berrigan’s chorus in ‘Song of India’, and all the little darlings are looking at me, especially Ivy Chandler, with the ‘lovely legs. Oh roll on demob, no more bloody Woolwich Arsenal for me, it’s straight to Jos Loss and asking for an audition.”

  “You’d make a good chauffer.”

  “Shut up! Heaven is a fourteen-piece band with me on second trumpet, and the money would be good.”

  “All money is good,” said Edgington.

  “All money is not good, take Chinese money.”

  “Chinese money is good, if,” he added, “you’re Chinese.”

  “It’s no good being Chinese, with Chinese money, you can’t go into Cheesmans of Lewisham, and put Chinese money down and ask for ten Woodbines or even Woodblines.”

  “I was thinking of the Chinese in China, not bloody Cheesmans of Lewisham.”

  “I say even if you’re Chinese, with Chinese money and you go into a Chinky-poo fag shop, you still couldn’t ask for 10 Woodbines.”

  “Why not?”

  “They don’t sell Woodbines in China.”

  “What proof have you got? If you say there are no Woodbines in China, you must be backed up by facts.”

  “All right, don’t shout! The baby’s asleep! Now, have you ever seen a Chinaman?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where?”

  “Limehouse.”

  “Have you ever seen ‘em smoking?”

  “Yes, sideways.”

  “How many?”

  “About 10.”

  “Right, 10 Chinese, how many brands of fags are there?”

  “About a score↓.”

  ≡ 20.

  “So, without going to China, you’ve seen 10 Chinamen smoking; now, out of 20 brands of fags, one brand is Woodbines, therefore on the law of averages at least half a per cent of the Chinamen are smoking Woodbines.”

  “Whoever saw half a Chinaman smoking?”

  “Why don’t you bleedin’ idiots go to sleep,” said a weary voice. A good idea. The bleedin’ idiots went to sleep. Not before a German plane dropped parachute flares, bathing our faces in an eerie green light.

  “You’re going mouldy,” says Edgington. “No, I’m not,” I said, “I’m inventing Penicillin.” Another flare, this time red. Lovely.

  “He’s trying to make us think it’s Guy Fawkes night.”

  “He’s taking photographs,” said Harry.

  “Say Cheese.”

  The flare faded, the plane droned away, I suppose the pilot was as pissed off’ with war as we were, in half an hour he’d be in bed smoking a fag and playing with himself, or if rumours about the Germans were true, playing with his fag and smoking himself.

  “You still awake Harry?”

  “No, I’m dead asleep, this is a recorded message.”

  I yawned one of those yawns that makes the back of your head touch your shoulder blades and push your chest out. Tomorrow the new Gun Position. Oh no! not tomorrow…at midnight we were beaten awake with rifle butts, our erections smashed down with shovels. We were to move now.

&nbs
p; “This isn’t war,” screamed Edgington, “it’s Sadism. S-a-d-e-s-e-a-m.” etc. The convoy crawled along in pitch darkness, the moon having waned. “Where are we going sir?” I asked.

  “It’s a place called Map Ref. 517412,” said Lt Goldsmith.

  “They don’t write numbers like that any more sir.”

  We passed the bombed shattered village of Toukabeur, full of Booby Traps. Seven Sappers were killed during clearing. Outside the village was our new position. At night it looked like the surface of the moon, or Mae West’s bum the moment the corsets came off.

  In front of us was a rocky multi-surfaced outcrop 80 feet high and a hundred yards long, behind us a ledge dropping sheer 50 feet to a granite plateau 50 yards long, then another 30 foot drop into a valley, in fact two giant steps. The canvas command post erected, I pitched my tent on the edge of the first drop, because shells falling behind me would drop 50 feet down and I would avoid being sub-divided by the Third Reich. However, if shells landed in front of me, I’d suffer the quincequonces. The guns were pulled, heaved and sworn into position. Wireless network opened with 78 Div. H.Q. and 46 Div. O.P. line laid and contact made. Jerry dropped an occasional Chandelier flare. Kerrashboom-kerak! Our first rounds went off at 22.00 hours. I was on Command Post duty all night.

  A Sgt standing on the trail to make it more difficult to move

  In between fire orders a running argument developed between Lt Beauman Smythe, Gnr Thornton and self.

  Thornton:

  There’s been heavy casualties on Bou Diss.