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

  Next morning, I drove to the Dental Surgery, in a villa on the sea at Cap Matifou. The dentist, a young fair-haired Captain sat me in the chair, and drove his prodder down till it got through to the collar bone.

  “OWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW Sir,” I said.

  “You scream very well.”

  “Yes sir, I’m practising for the front line.”

  I drove back with the left side of my face frozen dead. You may ask, what use is half a frozen face? Well, it keeps longer. To this day, the left side of my face is two hours younger than the right. We were to fill in our wills in the back of our Army Pay Books. I had no possessions, no money, two cheap fifty shilling suits, a second-hand evening dress, a few Marks and Spencer shirts, and a mess of ragged underwear. My trumpet was my only bounty, so I wrote “I leave my trumpet to my mother and the H.P. payments to my father.” Others made lavish entries, Gunner White “I leave my Gas Stove to the Sgt Major,” etc. To some it wasn’t funny. Reg Griffin said “When millions of perfectly healthy young men have to make their wills out, there’s something nasty going on in the world.”

  “This tea tastes funny,” I said.

  “It’s Bromide,” said Gunner Devine. “It stops you havin’ improper thoughts while you’re in action and causing you to lose your aim.”

  “Wot you sayin’ ?” says Gunner Forrest (who was very dim).

  “Wot I’m sayin’,” says Devine, “is that Bromide stops you getting randy when there is no women about to be the recipient of your desires.” The Bromide had some effect, the Onanists were much less active and we all got to sleep earlier. Gunner Moffat didn’t like Bromide, he was a Christian Science Monitor, he stopped drinking tea in case it “interferes with my manhood.” Bombardier Dean told him it was also in the food. So he stopped eating and lived on Arab fruits, as a result he got galloping dysentery and went down to seven stone before he was weaned back to Bully Beef. I don’t think the Bromide had any lasting effect, the only way to stop a British soldier feeling randy is to load Bromide into a 300 Ib. shell and fire it at him from the waist down.

  Gunner James Patrick Devine—one of the great characters of the Battery

  Dawn, February the 11th 1943

  Yawning, I threw back the tent flap and felt the chill air run over me in the pre-dawn light, I hadn’t been able to sleep, the excitement of the coming adventure had got me. I had risen first, dressed and started pacing my kit . As the morning grew my comrades started to stir, the odd voice commenced to break the silence in the camp. After breakfast I loaded my kit onto the Humber Snipe Wireless Truck.

  At 8.30 a.m. the transport of the Regiment was lined up pointing due west. Edgington, late as usual, was swearing, “If I have to pack this bloody kit once more I’ll—I’ll become affiliated to the Swonnicles.”

  “You don’t mean that dark beauteous gunner.” I said wiggling me fingers.

  His kit bag looked as though he had a dismantled gasometer inside. A squadron of Bell Airacobras roared over.

  “I hope you bloody well crash!” I shouted instantly.

  “Any luck?” said Harry.

  “No.”

  “Your power is waning.”

  “Rubbish! I’ve got the lowest wain-fall in the Battery”

  “Get out before I laugh,” said Harry pointing upwards.

  Humber Snipe Wireless Truck

  Driver Shepherd and I had been detailed to drive Lt Budden, in the Wireless Truck. We had been standing by vehicles for an hour and nothing had happened but it happened frequently. Despatch Riders raced up and down the column shouting ‘Fuck everybody’ but that was all. We started to brew tea, when Lt Budden’s Iron Frame Glasses appear round the truck, “Look damn you! You’re supposed to be standing by your vehicles.”

  “Sorry sir, I’ll say three Hail Marys.”

  “Give me a cup and I’ll say no more about it,” he said producing a mug from behind his back.

  Lt Budden flags down a D.R. “What’s the hold up?”

  “I’ll tell you sir. I’m the D.R. who follows the D.R. in front with a message that cancels out his message.”

  A cloud of dust is approaching at high speed. From its nucleus formidable swearing is issuing. It’s our Signal Sergeant Dawson, “Get mounted, we’re off,” it bellows as it goes down the line, followed by mocking cheers. I jump in, engines are coming to life, the hood is rolled back so Budden can stand Caesar-like in the passenger seat. Shouts are heard above the sound of the engines revving. “Right Milligan,” says Lt Budden. “World War Two at 25 m.p.h.” He looked back at the long line of vehicles. “My God, what a target for the Luftwaffe.”

  “Don’t worry sir, I have a verbal anti-aircraft curse, that brings down planes.”

  “Keep talking Milligan. I think I can get you out on Mental Grounds.”

  “That’s how I got in, sir.”

  “Didn’t we all.”

  There was a throttle on the steering column, I set it to a steady twenty m.p.h.

  “I said twenty-five,” said Budden.

  “Trying to economise, sir. The slower we go chances are by the time we get there it might be all over.”

  “Oh it will be all over Milligan,” he said, “all over bloody Africa.”

  We rolled along comfortably, the sun warm, scenery magnificent. We stopped for ten minutes every two hours to stretch legs. I didn’t stretch mine as they seem to be long enough. At every halt, Arabs materialised from nowhere bearing eggs, dates, and some long black things that looked like petrified eels or models of ‘Plunger’ Bailey’s weapon.

  We pressed on, crossing the River Isser, a thick, brown, tortuous winding affair flowing very fast, it kept company with us until we reached the village of Les Isser, a cluster of mud buildings. Outside a seedy white Gendarmerie, an unshaven seedy off-white gendarme slumbered in a chair. “He’s pretending there isn’t a war on,” said Mr Budden. I shouted “Ai Meisu! le Gendarme? Oil est la Guerre Mondiale Nombre Deux?”

  He pointed up the road. “Avante siese mille kilo.” He grinned and fell back to sleep.

  19 Battery men on their march to the Front being accosted by consenting French Vichy Seamen

  Here is an excerpt from Major Chater Jack’s letter of the time:

  Here I sit in a truck by the road side, the country is all covered with olive trees, Caroo Beans and Alloes, there are snow capped mountains in the distances and a deep turbid muddy river flowing through the centre of a broad fertile valley…What growing country this is! There have been no vineyards for a long time; a few orange groves but the crop is nearly over. Mostly Arabs about, herding flocks of goats, some cattle, some French people in the first few days, but now an Italian strain is showing.

  The scene:

  A lonely French Barracks in Regents Park.

  CHAS. DE GAULLE:

  I am France, Zear iss no osaire leader. France ees de Gaulle, de Gaulle ees France! (he sings the Marseillaise)

  GUNNER:

  Fer Christ sake go to kip.

  DE GAULLE:

  How can I kip ven I zer leader of France, only ‘ave ten francs and ze arse out of my trousers!

  GUNNER:

  It’s yer own bleedin’ fault, you shouldn’t be rude to Churchill.

  DE GAULLE:

  Churchill! zat man! he is calling me a Froggie’, sometimes he says I am Jewish!

  CHURCHILL:

  You must be the Froggie Froggie Jew!

  Funny, I never knew the Major was suffering from Italian strain. 1300 hours. Arrived village of Camp du Marechal.

  (Q.) What ‘Marechal’ was it named after?

  (A.) “It’s had a railway siding,” said Edgington, “so it must be (all together) Marechal Yard!”

  “Three out often,” I said. We sat down to eat “the unexpired portion of our rations,”

  “unexpired’ being a piece of bully beef that is gradually dying for its country. I grabbed my throat, staggered round gasping ‘This bully’s been poisoned with food Ahhhh!” and fell to the ground.<
br />
  “Bury me up a tree,” I said.

  “You bloody fool,” said Edge, “why?”

  “After I die I want people to look up to me.”

  “Three out often,” he said placing one finger in his ear.

  Lunch over and on to battle. Above, the sky was cobalt, cloudless, the Djebels stood out stark blue-grey in the clear light. On our left, the silt laden waters of the Sebaou thundered in a titanic gorge on its way to the Mediterranean. Donkeys with riders perched on their haunches were passing by and pulling more donkeys almost lost to view under sacks of produce. The animals looked in a sorry state, but then so did the Arabs. We were nearing a large town with the champagne name ‘Tizi Ouzou!’

  “What’s that mean?” asked student of Arabic, Gunner White.

  “It’s an ancient Arab proverb,” I said.

  “No it isn’t,” he said, “it’s a wog town.”

  “Let me explain, it means the Shadow of the Razor falls directly under the earole of Mahomet, but it’s cheaper by the pound.”

  “Git,” said Chalky in Bradford accents, “Where do you think up all that bloody crap?”

  “Any open space,” I said. Outside Tizi Ouzou, we pulled off the road among groves of orange trees. That night I slept Al Fresco, and there’s nothing better, except sleeping Al Jolson.

  Next day, according to my diary, I sat in the back of the truck with a ‘Huge pink idiot youth from Egham’, who I don’t seem to be able to recall. Egham yes, him no, but Egham yes. Perhaps I was sitting in the back with a huge pink Egham ? I passed the time testing the wireless set, when I got ‘This is the Allied Forces Network, Algeria’ a stentorian American voice said “Here for your listening pleasure is Tommy Dorsey and his Orchestra.” Great! I listened all day. I lit up a cigarette, now this was more like war.

  A sign, Sik-en-Meadou, “Sir,” I called to Budden, “We’ve just passed a sign saying someone’s been Sick-in-the-Meadow.”; there was no reply, just silence, but dear reader, it was a commissioned officer’s silence, of course, if you were a Brigadier you could command a brigade of silence, there was no end to it. I could feel it getting chilly at nights and made a mental note where my balaclava was…In the drawer of a cupboard in 50 Riseldine Road, Brockley, S.E.26. “You’ll never need woollens in Africa,” my father had said. The movement of the truck had lulled huge pink faced idiot from Egham to sleep. When we staged for the night I woke him up.

  “Where are we?” he said.

  “Africa,” I replied.

  “Oh,” he said, “I thought it was Egham.” What he needed was a direct hit.

  The Arabs of this village looked better off than the plain Arabs. (Two plain Arabs and one with chocolate sauce please.)

  Part of the Regimental Convoy on its way to the front—Jan. 1943

  Feb. 11 1943

  Battery Diary:

  Staged Beni Mansour.

  If brevity is the soul of wit this diary was written by Oscar Wilde.

  My Diary:

  Found a tree with heavy foliage to keep off the dew and, if needs be, Oscar Wilde.

  I placed my bed head towards the trunk between radiating roots. Radiating out from the tree are Gunners Edgington, Tume, White, Shepherd, total financial holdings—8 shillings. The night closed in, there was an almighty silence, a distant barking dog became a major sound. The soldiers grew still. There was a loud painful yell. ‘Fire bug’ Bennett had dozed off with a cigarette on and set himself and his bedding alight for the umpteenth time. His blankets looked like early piano rolls. Peace was restored, the silence broken only by the slow tramping of the picket. Each time he passed, puns from recumbent soldiers “You’ll never get well if you pick-it,” or “Keep going there’s a bone in the cookhouse for you.” He silenced us with one threat “You’ve had your fun and I’ll have mine, tomorrow morning at five o’clock, when you will have an accidental rude awakening with my boot up your nose.”

  Somewhere a donkey was braying into the darkness. “Coming Mother,” said Gunner White.

  Gunners bringing Porridge into action against German Sausages

  08.00

  Breakfast, what’s this? PORRIDGE! It was PORRIDGE, watery grey, but porridge. So the porridge convoys were getting through. Now this was better, this was more like the suffering we are supposed to have in wars. Porridge! We paraded at our vehicles, small arms inspection, check on ammunition then off again and Porridge.

  We were climbing steadily all day, jagged peaks three and four thousand feet ranged on either side. From Major Chater Jack’s diary of 12 Feb. mid-day:

  …very cold just now as we are high up in the mountains and I have just halted the column for half an hour. It is still a stiff pull for our vehicles. We climbed up and up following bend after hairpin bend, through pinewoods until we reached the open flat plain between the mountaintops. It is across this plain we are now travelling…

  Twixt Tizi Ouzou and Beni Mansour we passed mountains each side of 8,000 feet, and numerous rock-hewn tunnels.

  “Attention! Rallientair!” signs appeared frequently. We saw camel trains all laden with goods. They followed ancient camel tracks two or three hundred feet above us, moving slowly with a dignity no civilization had managed to speed up. At sundown the Arabs turned towards Mecca to carry out their devotions, a religious people, more than I could say for our lot, the only time they knelt was to pick up money.

  Hitlergram No. 697312

  The scene:

  A glittering affair in a German NAAFI. The band under General Glen von Miller.

  HITLER:

  Ach Meiner beautiful may I have zer Collapse of France Waltz with you?

  GUNNER MILLIGAN:

  Thank you!

  HITLER:

  You dance beautifully but, IT IS NOT GOOD ENOUGH FORZER FÜHRER!

  PETAIN:

  Pardonnez-moi Hitler. This is a Vichy excuse me one step.

  HITLER:

  Take zis olf French Twit outside and shoot him ! Now what is your name?

  GUNNER MILLIGAN:

  Gunner Milligan.

  HITLER:

  Gunter Milligan? Vere haff I hears zat name before?

  ME:

  I give up. Where have you heard that name before?

  HITLER:

  Playing hard to get, hein ? Take this woman out and shoot him.

  Feb. 12th: Approaching Setif

  A large French colonial town. We passed fifty sweating, spotty, French civilians being drilled by a Legion Sergeant. “Don’t look!” I said. “It might be contagious!” A line of black clad Arab ladies carrying pitchers moved liquidly by. “You’d think their old man would buy ‘em a suitcase,” said Chalky White.

  “How you gonna carry bloody water in a suitcase?”

  “Look, I just think of the ideas, it’s up to the wogs to make ‘em work.”

  As we entered this dusty town the French Mayor came out and greeted us with a huge stomach, sweat, a speech and numerous gesticulations. Major Chater Jack’s reply was to the point.

  “Merci, bon chance, and Vive la France.”

  “I suppose there’ll be a grand ball at Versailles tonight,” said Edgington.

  We bivouacked just outside Setif. We’d had a good day buying Arab supplies, eggs, potatoes and chickens, so a great meal was in the offing. We backed two wireless trucks together, threw a blanket over the join, inside we rigged an inspection light, and picked up BBC on the set. The food came steaming in the chilly night air as I uncorked the Vin Rosé. I can still see the scene, the young faces, poised eagerly over the food, all silent save the odd ‘Cor lovely’ and the clank of forks on mess tins. We listened to the news.

  “I think it will be over by Christmas,” said White.

  “You said that last year, and the year before.”

  “I’m playing the waiting game,” says White. “But this time,” he held up his fork to emphasize a point, like lightning, I snatched it from his hand, scooped a mouthful of egg from his mess tin and said “You’re right! B
y the taste of that egg it will definitely be over this year.” I looked at the engraving on the fork ‘Devonshire Hotel. Bexhill’.

  “Give it here,” snatched White. “It’s a souvenir of our last supper in Bexhill.”

  “Last supper?” said Edgington. “If you were at the last supper, Jesus must have kept his bloody mess tins on a chain.”

  “Arrest that man,” says White, “boil his balls in syrup and serve when cool.”

  We drained the last of the wine, smoked, turned in, turned off. It was a hunter’s moon, so we went to sleep shouting “Tally Ho!”

  Bdr ‘Spike’ Deans with Arab chicken purchased by wayside

  Feb. 13th 1943

  This morning, tired of those coughing, scratching Reveilles, I took my trumpet and blew a swing bugle call. Chalky White appeared from under a blanket with a severe attack of face and eyes with blood filled canals. “Whose bloody side are you on!” he groaned. Odd silent soldiers, hands in pockets, eating utensils tucked under arms were making their way to the Field Kitchen. Our Cook, Gunner May, a dapper lad with curly black hair and Ronald Colman moustache was doling out Porridge. He spoke with a very posh voice and Porridge.

  “Where’d you get that accent Ronnie?” asked Gunner Devine.

  “Eton old sausage.”

  “Well I’d stop eatin’ old sausages,” says Devine.

  With a flick of the wrist, May sent a spoonful of Porridge into Devine’s eye. “Good for night blindness,” he says ducking a mug of tea.

  From Setif the road to the front ran fairly straight. During a halt, along comes a pregnant American staff car that gave birth to an American called Eisenhower. The driver was a tall girl with a Veronica Lake hair-do. Eisenhower approached and spoke to,—I can’t remember who,—but I recall him saying “What kind of cannons are these?” (Cannons!? CANNONS!? That’s like calling the H.M.S. Ark Royal a boat.) Eisenhower got back in the car, struck his head on the roof, said “Oh Fuck.” and left. He had shaken hands with Sergeant Mick Ryan who didn’t know who he was. Ryan! Oh what a ruffian that man was! One night, back at Bexhill, he made for the fish and chip shop, as he reached the door the proprietor closed it.