Memoires 02 (1974) - Rommel, Gunner Who Page 14

  Mortars, Light Machine Guns and 88’s were making it almost impossible for our O.P’.s to direct fire. To help out, an Air O.P. was allocated to us, an Auster craft containing a Pilot/Gunner Officer (the late Tom Sloan of BBC-TV was one). We started fine and then suddenly our Radio contact went on the blink, the infuriated Pilot flew over our Command Post and shouted through the window “Your Wireless all balls,” then rattled off a series of fire orders, and that’s how it went on, him flying over shouting orders, me belting outside, belting in shouting the orders over the Tannoy, then belting out to shout “Guns ready,” he would shout “Fire in twenty seconds from now,” then rush off to observe fall of shot. By midday I was shagged out. He was polite enough to fly over us and shout “Thanks, I’m off.” I replied: “I thought you’d never bloody well go,” he raised his hat in mock acknowledgement. “He must have had a good education.” Edgington remarked later, “I mean, controlling the plane and issuing fire orders at the same time.”

  “Education isn’t everything.”

  “You’re right, for a start it’s not elephants.”

  Front Line—April 19 1943

  19 April 1943

  On duty at C.P. from 22.00 hours till 02.00. Awakened at dawn by German planes dive bombing 25 pounders in valley behind us. We all sat and enjoyed it very much.

  Up front the fighting raged for the peaks dominating the way to the plains before Tunis. Boston Bombers, 60 at a time, went over and blasted the peaks, so much explosives were rained on Longstop it changed the contour of the summit .

  24 April

  Fighting on Long Stop at a crescendo all day. O.P. under murderous fire—support group at bottom of hill also under heavy shell fire. Gunner Collins hit in hand. At about 11.10 I heard the dreadful news, Lt Goldsmith had been killed. Alf Fildes noted in his diary “Learn with regret we have lost our best officer.”

  I went back to my cave and wept. I remember calling his name. After a few minutes I straightened up, but the memory of that day remains vivid.

  PERSONAL TRIBUTE

  LIEUTENANT A. M. GOLDSMITH

  Flight Lieutenant Terence Rattigan writes:—

  The loss in action of Anthony Goldsmith, at the age of 31, will he most bitterly felt not only by his many personal friends but by al those who, through his writing, recognized his great gifts and were hopeful of the promise they gave.

  I have known him intimately for most of his life, for we were at Harrow together, and later at Oxford, where Tony was an exhibitioner of Balliol. His quiet, humour, deep intelligence, and gentle, unfailing charm endeared him at length to many whom his shyness and modesty at first repelled. His outlook and views, though never at all forcibly expressed, might have appeared at times to the unthinking acquaintance as too self-consciously heterodox. They were in fact the product of his extreme honesty, his tolerant understanding of human weaknesses, and his exceptionally adult mind. He was witty in the best sense: he combined the happiest knack of phrase with a warmth and a generosity that put malice out of bounds. His remarks were freely quoted, but were never made for that purpose. Indeed, so poor—from the standpoint of the professional wit—was his delivery, so grave and unassuming his manner, that it was often with a shock of surprise that one realized that one had heard—but barely heard—an observation at once breathtakingly honest and brilliantly funny.

  The same delicious and distinctive quality pervaded his writing. Very little time was granted him in which to make his mark as an author—barely three years between his decision to devote his life to writing and his joining the Royal Artillery. Much of that time was spent in a painstaking and devoted translation of Flaubert’s ‘ L’Education Sentimentale’, which many critics found a model of the translator’s art. Of original work he has left pitifully little—two plays, one unproduced, a few short stories, and some articles of which a review of the modern theatre in a recent issue of Horizon affords an excellent specimen.

  Little enough to console us—and we were many—who had faith in his right to success and fame. Yet, perhaps those who loved him may take this consolation. Tony, the first to laugh at the futility of the violent passions and the last to covet a hero’s laurels, died fighting gladly against that evil which, above all things else, he loathed and despised with a hatred alien to his very gentle nature.

  Apparently he and Bdr Edwards were sheltering in a fox hole.

  We were under mortar attack, we sat facing each other, our knees touching. Tony had the map board on his chest, his arms folded round it. Suddenly, I was blown out of the trench. I went to get back in and I saw that Tony had been hit by a mortar bomb in the chest, he died instantly…

  All the boys came back very shaken. “God knows how the Infantry stick that for two weeks at a time…” Bdr Dodds was so ‘bomb happy’ he went to hospital and never came back. For someone as splendid, kind, intelligent and witty as Tony to be killed outraged my sensibilities. His friend, Terence Rattigan, wrote a personal Obituary in The Times. I remember his last words to me. He was about to leave for Longstop.

  “It won’t be long now, I’d say Tunis in 10 days,” he was patting his pockets, “Blast I’m out of cigarettes.” I gave him 5 of mine, “Here sir, have 5 of my soap-saturated Passing Clouds, a holy medal in every packet…”

  He took them, smiled, tapped the driver on the shoulder and said, “To battle!”

  The evening of the 25th April

  The Major called us all around his tent, he was well disposed to the world and his fellow men via a distillery at Kirkintoloch in Scotland. In contempt of the Hun he ordered a bonfire to be lit, gathered us around and told us, “The last battle is nigh, Alexander has offered the Bosch ‘Unconditional Surrender’, or a watery grave, we’ll give him Dunkirk without the evacuation facilities. Now let’s have a song.” We sang, there was the smell of victory in the air. Next day, we heard that the 8th Argyle and Sutherland Highlanders had taken Longstop at Bayonet point in one incredibly heroic charge, led by Major John Anderson, who was awarded the V.C. Three days of slaughter for the peak had ended.

  Almost immediately we got orders for a hurried move to take up new positions somewhere on Longstop. In the rush Edgington hands me a piece of paper. It read:

  Stalin’s Order of the day

  Two Lagers.

  Packet of Crisps.

  Stalingrad.

  Hitler chalking slogans in Downtown Berlin Gents Toilet after hearing of the fall of Longslop

  “This is vital information, comrade Edgington, this must never fall into enemy hands, it must also not fall into enemy feet, teeth, legs or ears, this must be burnt and you must swallow the ashes,” I said, whereupon he snatched the paper, and ate it! “Delicious,” he said. “That’s called the Readers Digest.” I said. “Hurry up,” comes a yell, “we’re going.” Burdened down by kit and sacks of souvenirs, we staggered to the Monkey Truck. “What’s been keepin’ you,” says Bombardier Trew. “My mother and a small pension,” I told him, at the same time hitting him with my big pack. “Oh dearie me,” says Edgington, “you have laid a non-com, low, with a blow.” Trew reappeared from behind the kit bags.

  “Curse, he’s still alive,” I said.

  “You silly sod I…” Before Trew got further Edgington’s kit bag hit him amidships and with a yell Trew disappeared again. We jumped on to the truck, and a great wrestling match twixt the three of us ensued, an interesting spectacle it was, as the truck bumped and bounced hurling the kit and the wrestlers in the air. We finally overpowered the reluctant Trew. “Say fainites,” I said, as Edgington put undue pressure on his scrotum. “Fainites,” he screamed. “If it weren’t for the fact you bastards owe me money, I’d arrest you,” said Trew from the depths of the kit bags where we had buried him. “That’s a terrible insult,” I said, “we must tie him up.” We both dived on the hapless Trew and—using Telephone Cable—bound him hand and foot, Edgington decided to complete the task, a gag would add to the fun, so an unwashed gunner’s kerchief was poked into his mouth . “Th
e least he can catch is Small-Pox,” I said. “What’s goin’ on back there,” shouted Driver Bennett. “We are carrying out essential readjustments to the British Army Punishment system.”

  “MmmmmMMMMMMMMmmmMMMtsGHHHJ” says Bdr Trew.

  “Don’t mumble man,” shouted Edgington. “If you want the screens, say so.” It was dark as the guns were pulled into their new positions. German planes were active, lots of parachute flares. Bombardier Deans offered to help dig a dugout if he could share my tent. Oh what it is to be a man of property.

  We dug furiously in the dark, throwing ourselves down when the odd German shell landed. It was 04.30 when we got the tent over the top and our kit moved in.

  “If there’s no jobs after the war, we can be grave digger, ha, ha, ha, ha,” I said.

  “No point in going to sleep now,” said Deans, “it’ll be stand to in a minute.” We were all posted in pairs around the periphery of the gun positions. It was me and Bdr Deans behind a pile of rocks and scrub. I yawned, he yawned .We yawned . He blew his nose—I didn’t blow mine.—“I wonder,” says Deans, “why we’ve got 2 nostrils.”

  “I should imagine one is a reserve, in case of a malfunction of the other.”

  “But a single nostril would look neater.”

  “But dangerous; when I was a kid, I got a bead up one nostril, so what’s me mum do? Shuts me gob, blows in the clear nostril, and the bead shoots out the other and hit the cat.” There was a silence. “I wonder what Jerry’s up to,” said Deans. “He must be up to Chapter II, they’re slow readers, it’s all them big German words like Trockenbeerauslese that slows them up.” The odd shell keeps plopping around us, but strangely were nearly all duds. “They sound as if they come from Cheesmans of Lewisham,” I said. Beauman-Smythe visited us. “There’s the chance of a counter-attack by Jerry, if he does, we’ll be in the middle of it, so keep KV.”

  “Thank you for cheering us up sir,” says Deans. “If they do attack sir,” I said, “do you want me to get killed right away, or shall I fight for a bit first.” He forced a laugh—“he, he, he, ha, ha, ha!”

  7.2 Camouflaging on Longstop

  Chater Jack had got us in a very forward position for heavy guns, were in front of all the Field and Mediums, and in view of Jerry. Dawn came and went, and our camouflage must have been good because no rangeing rounds came over. We were told not to move about too much and to keep in our particular fold in the hill in which the guns were secreted, some of the lads wandered out into view and were immediately nailed by an 88 Battery. Spiv Convine found a heavy German Machine Gun, which he tried to sell to Lt Mostyn. “I’ll have to have it valued first,” said Mostyn, “you never know, it might be a fake. I must also arrest you for not handing in an enemy weapon thereby contravening Kings Rules and Regulations.” Convine staggered back and held his head.

  “What’s wrong man,” said Mostyn.

  “I think I’ve got an attack of Anti-Semitism coming on sir.”

  “Good heavens,” said Mostyn, “I must be a carrier.”

  “Has anybody seen Bombardier Trew,” said Sergeant Dawson.

  A nasty feeling came over me. Trew was found, purple with fury where we had left him the previous evening, underneath the kit bags. Edgington and I later saw him stalking around with an iron bar in his hand and kept well clear. That morning Lt Beauman-Smythe is reccying our area for a better position (like Bexhill I tell him), when four Germans with hands aloft come out of a dugout. “Kamerad,” the spokesman says. Smythe, unfamiliar with Saxons, was embarrassed. “Shoo,” he says, “clear off.”

  “Kamerad Herr General,” they insisted.

  “You Nix Prisoner, me busy, clear off,” he said in his best Rugby Referee voice. However the Germans followed him like lost children.

  “Oh Christ, get them on the truck, and drive them away.”

  “Where to sir,” says Driver Bennett.

  “Anywhere! Take them somewhere, tell them to get off-say Shoo!—then drive away.” So Bennett drives them into the vicinity of the 5th Medium Regiment, drops them off and leaves them, whereupon the hapless Germans were immediately fired upon by the Gunners.

  26 April

  Gunner Driver Alf Fildes writes in his diary:

  Spike kindly sleeps all day, while I use match sticks, 5 hours sleep in 2 days. I think I’ll hand my blankets in for the duration.

  Now for the love of me I don’t remember sleeping all day! My diary says,

  Fildes kindly sleeps all day, while I use match sticks, one hour’s sleep in eight weeks, I can’t go on like this! Worse still last night I caught Alf Fildes copying something from my diary. In the morning I’m going to tell teacher.

  O.P. reported a five hour tank battle, some using flame throwers. 6th Armoured vs the X Panzers. M.E. tog’s bombed vehicles using the Medjez el Bab Tunis Road, but ran into well concealed Beaufort Guns that shot two down in flames amid whoops of jubilation from the lads.

  Part II Orders:

  The sheik from Medjez-el-Bab has complained to General Anderson that chickens are being stolen by Allied Troops, this practice will stop forthwith. Any one seen in possession of a chicken will be questioned and will have to show proof as to how he came by it.

  Local Arab reporting 19 Battery to the Sheik

  “Fuck!” says Chalky White. “There goes two months’ free dinners.”

  A swelling had started on my knee. I said so to Lt Budden.

  “A swelling has started on my knee.”

  “It’s got to start somewhere,” he said.

  “True,” I said, “I hope it’s nothing trivial.”

  I hobbled about dropping hints, “Oh dear, there it goes again, tsu! tsu!…I hope it does not get any worse, or dearie me, I will have to stop seeing my King and Country and he will have to serve himself!” The knee got worse, I reported to the M.O., a laconic Canadian who looked like Charles Boyer and dribbled. “Yur, you’ve got some kind of infection, I think it’s a blind boil.”

  “Does this mean an optician?”

  He wrote something on a bit of paper that looked like ‘Asparagus tetani-scrotum’. To a Field Hospital I went, a series of tents on an arid plain near Beja. A man, disguised as a female nurse said “Undress, lie on that bed, and die !” I pulled on blue military pyjamas that had remained unchanged, and I suspect unwashed, since the Crimea. The tent was a hundred feet long, beds lining the walls, filled with various ‘non combatant’ ailments, i.e. boils, piles, flat feet, dandruff, varicose veins and cowardice. To my left a Grenadier Guardsman with bunions, to my right a Corporal with Mange. Nurses go around every morning at 4.00 and stick thermometers in your mouth or up the anus. 0 had mine orally, I prayed every morning I’d get it before the first of the rectums. A red-faced pissed sandy-haired doctor stopped at my bed, looked at my chart.

  “You’re shuffering from Milligan?”

  “No sir, that’s my name.”

  Next day he said, “Bad knee I shee!”

  Next day, “We must have a look at it.”

  Next day, “What’s the matter with you?”

  “I’m suffering from a recurring amnesiac sandy-haired doctor.”

  I was given massive doses of the new drug, Penicillin. The knee subsided, but /started to swell, my temperature soared. What luck! I was allergic to Penicillin! I spent three wonderful days in clean bedsheets, and visits from the WVS ladies.

  “What are you ill with?”

  “Penicillin poisoning, mam.”

  “You brave boy. Your parents must be so proud of you.”

  “No, they think I’m a silly bugger.”

  She smiled. She was deaf. The ground temperature was 100° as she gave me a woollen pullover, scarf and gloves. “It gets very chilly in the evenings,” she added. A kind old dear, but the wrong kind, I think her name was Trowler, she was about a hundred and sixty, and always carried a shovel. There was one magnificent nurse, Sheila Frances. She had red hair, deep blue eyes and was very pretty, but that didn’t matter! because! she had big t
its. Everyone was after her, and I didn’t think I had a chance, but, she fancied me. I got lots of extra, like helping me get her knickers off in her tent and she eased my pain no end. It was all very nice but had to end, one morning I was loaded on to a truck driven back to the regiment for a well-deserved rest. Every night after that I would face in the direction of the hospital, take all my clothes off and howl.

  A prematurely aged L/Bdr Milligan being told by the M.O. he must stop screwing Nurse Sheila Frances or go blind

  Trauma

  I couldn’t move. Something terrible was about to happen. Something so awful, that only in dreams would it be concerned, and yet it was about to become a reality, a German 115 mm shell was in orbit, and on a collision course with my body, it was going to explode when it touched my groin, my bowels were going to be blown out of my back, yet I would still be alive long enough to turn and see my entrails traced out fan-like from my stomach, I would hear a high-pitched scream, it was my mother, she was standing in the front room—and I lay on the carpet, outrageously mutilated.

  April 27th

  Battery Diary:

  Lt Goldsmith buried on LONGSTOP.

  April 30th

  My Diary:

  Back from Hospital and recovering from sexual coma. Early duty in Command Post. Duty Officer Lt Beauman-Smythe.

  The Battery was heavily engaged in Counter Battery Fire, we silenced German 88s at Montresier and again at Djbel Bou.