Memoires 02 (1974) - Rommel, Gunner Who Page 4

  “Sorry,” said the proprietor, “we’re closed.”

  “No, you’re bloody not,” said Ryan, punched through the glass door and laid him out.

  18.00 hours o’clock: Observed squadron of Boston bombers flying very high headed towards the front. These days the sound of any plane made one jumpy. Since leaving Camp trucks and lorries had passed us taking mail etc. and supplies up front. This day a truck had arrived with our MAIL! “Gunner Milligan?” shouted Bombardier Marsden. I ran fifty yards to him—“Yes Bom ?”

  “No mail for you!” he told me gleefully. Bastard! I was shattered. What were all those women I had been sleeping with back home doing ? I mean, now I’d gone, they’d have time on their hands! But worst there was no mail from Lily or Louise. First Lily!

  (MILLIGAN TELLS ALL. HIS LOVES, HIS DESIRES, HIS SECRET SEXUAL CODES, HIS OWN RECEIPT↓ FOR APHRODISIACS, TAKE SIX HUNDRED OYSTERS AND PORRIDGE…AND READ IT ALL IN THE SUN!)

  ≡ YES—A RECEIPT NOT A RECIPE. You see I made the stuff, but I always got a signature for it.

  It was 1936. I was aged seventeen, smothered in pimples, even my suit had them. I worked in S. Strakers of Queen Victoria Street. My pay was 13s a week. After the train fare from Honor Oak Park to London Bridge it left 75 and 6,000 pimples. Standing on Platform One of an evening, waiting for the six fifteen, a small crowd of casual acquaintances would congregate. London Bridge Station, grim, grey, like a mighty iron mangle that squeezed people through its rollers into compartments. Yet, I fell in love there, (Third Class) Lily! She was about five foot six. Delightfully shaped, dark hair, brown doe-like eyes, a funny nose and slim legs. But I wasn’t interested. I was after a girl with green eyes and red hair with fat legs who wore an imitation leopard skin coat, but! Lily fancied me, she made it a point, like General Sherman, of being there “firstust with the mostest.” The first time we met I was running along the platform to get a seat up front, in comes Lily, I say “Take my seat.”

  “No,” she smiles, “I’ll sit on your lap.” She did, very disturbing for a young man brought up on curry, Cod Liver Oil and Keplers Malt. The relationship developed rapidly, and so did I. We fell madly in love. She wanted to get married, on 13s a week I couldn’t. 13 shillings? We’d have to spend our honeymoon on a tram. Marriage? I was so innocent I had no idea how the sex act was performed. When a bloke said ‘You get across a woman’ I thought you laid on the woman crosswise making a Crucifix. I was seventeen, stupid, and a Roman Catholic. Any Questions? I had to learn the hard way—Braille! Of course I wanted sex. God! how clumsy I must have been. Finally after three years being fed up with waiting, she went off with some red headed twit called ‘Roddy’. As far as she was concerned it was over. Not for me. Brought up on silent films with a romantic Irish father who told me I was descended from the Kings of Connaught, I played out the scene of the rejected lover. Sitting on a bench in Ladywell Recreation Ground, with a quarter of jelly babies, I would slump in the corner of the benches in a series of ‘scorned attitudes’ hoping she would come looking for me, like James Cagney in Shanghai Lil. I would do anything up to twenty-seven dejected poses a night, before the Park Keeper threw me out. What I needed was consolation. All my mother gave me was Weetabix. Playing local dances, I would buy ginger ale, disguise it in a whisky glass hoping she would see me taking gulps in between trumpet solos, pretending I was drunk. I was now Robert Taylor. I would play sobbing trumpet choruses until even the Jews would shout “Stop! Enough is enough.” I would wait at night on the opposite side to her house, with my Marks and Spencer’s mackintosh (5s 3d in a sale) coat collar up, making sure when she came home with the new boyfriend, I would be standing under the gas lamp, smoking a cigarette. When they arrived, I would throw down the cigarette, stamp on it, place my hands in my pockets then walk away whistling Bing Crosby’s ‘The Thrill is Gone’. I did that every night of December. I got pneumonia. Just what I wanted! I wrote and told her I was dying! She sent me a get well card. I thought, one evening I would throw myself from the bandstand and crash at the feet of her and her partner. Before I could, she moved her dancing habitat elsewhere. On the night I planned it, I sat sweating, finally I had to go to the Gents and remove the padding stuffed up the front of my shirt to take the shock of the fall.

  She met someone with a car, I used to give chase, shouting threats. After a year of this I’d had the shoes resoled fifty times, chased the car 1,073 miles, lost hope and had calves like Nureyev, but, I imagined, like Camille, she would return one winter’s night to die in my arms at 50 Riseldine Road, Brockley Rise, S.E.26. I’d offer her Champagne (Ovaltine), she would ask me to play ‘Honeysuckle Rose’ on my trumpet and then die. It didn’t happen. And not only did it not happen, here I was by the roadside of some bloody wog village in Africa and she hadn’t even bothered to write to me. But chum! Living in hope is no reason to go without. I mean, what’s wrong with part-time love affairs which included night occupations from the waist down? I mean, I had to keep fit. To this end I let other women into my life. I was good looking so I went in at the deep end.

  There was lovely Junoesque Ivy, her sister Magda, then s her married sister, Eileen! Ivy had taught me how, and from then on there was no stopping me. I had to go on to vitamin pills. There was Dot on One Tree Hill, Brockley Doris who was to get married on the morrow, Deptford Flo, Miss MacCafferty of Lewisham Hospital. Once in uniform I ran into a spate of affairs. Oh Louise! Louise! Louise!

  So no mail. “Cheer up,” said Gunner Forester, “You can read my letter, my wife’s pissed off with a Polish Pilot.”

  “With eyesight like that, how did he become a pilot?” I said.

  Hitlergram No. 27

  ADOLPH HITLER:

  You realize soon zer Englishers people will be crushed!

  ME:

  It must be rush hour.

  ADOLPH HITLER:

  Zere is no need to rush!! Soon it will all be over.

  ME:

  Hooray! back to Civvy Street.

  ADOLPH:

  Civvy Street is no more! It was destroyed by zer bombs of mine Luftwaffe.

  We were pressing on down the dusty road towards Souk Arras a hundred miles from the front. At Oued Athmenia, we got into a secondary road. We were on a high plateau, the sun overhead, the endless jolting finally made you numb. At the next break Driver Shepherd took over. Budden emerged from behind a tree, shaking off the drips. “Right Milligan, off we go.”

  “I’m not Milligan sir,” said Shepherd, in a hurt voice.

  “Oh it’s you Shepherd, good!”

  Voice from back of truck. “It’s the Good Shepherd sir.”

  19 Battery was now to part from the main body of the Regiment. They went to spend the night at Guelma (the dirty swines) while we, the lilywhite boys, went on half the distance again, into a night bivouac outside Souk Arras.

  Meantime at No. 10 Downing Street.

  Churchill in bed sipping brandy. Enter Alanbrook.

  LORD ALANBROOK:

  Prime Min. have you seen the bill for Singapore?

  HON. W. CHURCHILL:

  I know—those Japa-bloody-knees—why couldn’t they come round the front?

  LORD ALAN BROOK:

  They’re Tradesmen. Any news of Randolph?

  HON. W. CHURCHILL:

  He’s out in Yugoslavia with that Piss-Artist Evelyn Waugh.

  Now read on:

  15 Feb. en route to Le Kef

  Souk Arras lay along the head waters of the Mejerda River which later swept down and watered the vineyards of the great Mejerda Valley. Thought you’d like to know. Everywhere this dusty light sand coloured soil reflected the sun’s glare so we used our anti-gas goggles., Everywhere seemed parched, and on this the fourth day of; driving, our faces were sore. The horse flies! These buggers would break the skin and suck your blood, given 2 minutes they could give you anaemia. You had to hit them the moment, they landed, a split second later was too late. Men with slow reflexes suffered, like Forrest, who was covered in bites and great b
ruises where he had hit at them and missed. The more he missed, the harder he hit. “I wish I was Jordy Liddel,” he moaned. “When they bite him, they fall off dead.”

  “It’s all that shit he works with.”

  About 12.15 Mr Budden said “Milligan, we have just crossed the border into Tunisia.”

  “I’ll carve a statue at once.”

  On the border was Sakiet Sidi Youseff, where there was some kind of mine. A few donkeys and Arabs were at a pit head or shaft out of which ran a narrow rail, from inside the hole a tipper truck would appear with the powder produce which they shovelled into sacks on the donkeys.

  “Where did you spend your last holidays Milligan,” Mr Budden broke in.

  “I went with some friends to Whitesand Bay in Cornwall.”

  “…Cornwall? Cornwall.” He put his binoculars up.

  “You can’t see it from here sir.”

  “I’m not looking for Cornwall.”

  The journey had covered us all in fine white powdery dust giving us the appearance of old men. Sid Price started to walk bent double like an old Yokel, within seconds the whole battery were doing it, Africa rang to the sound of “Oh Arrrr! Oi be seventy three oi be in Zummerzet.” At the head of the column Major Chater Jack sat watching us. “It’s going to be a long hard war,” he was saying. I can still see his amused smile, especially as Woods, his batman, was from Somerset.

  “Lot o’ daft idiots zur,” he said to the Major.

  “Yes Woods, a lot of daft idiots, but I fear you and I are stuck with ‘em. The thing to do is keep them well camouflaged.” We were off again, and owing to a laundry crisis I was living dangerously, no underwear!

  15 Feb. 12.00 hours

  “Le Kef 20 Kilometers.” The road started to climb at an alarming angle, hairpin bend after hairpin bend we laboured, finally the engines started to boil and Chater Jack called a halt. We were in a defile. The dramatic landscape looked like Daumier’s drawings for The Divine Comedy. The rocks around abounded with lizards, to my delight a chameleon was rainbowing around a tree, Shepherd was amazed at the colour changes. “How in God’s name can they do that,” he said. “It’s clean living,” I said. “If you stopped playing with yourself you could do it.” Looking along the line one caught sight of the odd Gunner piddling against the wheels. I don’t understand it! They have to clean their own transport, and then, when they’ve got the whole of Africa, they piss on their own lorries!

  Valentine Dyall acting out World War II

  The Battery Diary:

  1500 hrs. Went into hide west of Le Kef.

  (Cowards!) “What’s Le Kef mean,” asked White. “It means The Kef.” I explained. I watched some ants moving a dead grasshopper—“What you doing?” says Edgington with a tea mug welded to his right hand.

  “Watching ants.”

  “I wonder what killed him,” said Edge, now squatting.

  “It would be his heart.”

  “We’ll have to wait for the autopsy.”

  “That might be too late, with his heart an autopsy could kill him.”

  I angered a bull ant with a twig.

  “Careful now,” says Edgington.

  The bull ant was tugging at the twig.

  “Don’t let him get hold of it mate,” says Edge, “or he’ll beat the shit out of you.”

  All eyes aloft. Two more squadrons of Boston Bombers appeared, the engines groaning under the weight of bombs. How clean it all looked up there. By sundown we were all pissed off doing nothing. Officers tried to occupy us with things like “Do that top button up.” They were then hard put to it to think of something to do next, they settled for “Undo that top button.”

  “What’s the time?” says Gunner Chalky White.

  “You want to know the time?”

  “I thought it would be exciting.”

  “All right,” I said, “it’s 5.24.”

  “Can I hear it again?”

  “I’m sorry it’s gone—but I can let you have 5.25.”

  “Oh no,” he shook his head sadly, “I like the old times better.” I wrote a few letters. The one to Louise made me so hot I had to lie down in the shade. I tell you Bromide was useless!!!

  MILLIGAN:

  Hellow Huston Control! descending for soft landing on Louise.

  BASE:

  What’s it look like?

  MILLIGAN:

  Arrrgggh Knickers! Knockers!

  “Char?” says Edgington handing me a mug of tea.

  “You have interrupted my midday erotic fantasy!”

  “Yes, I smelt burning hairs, and I was afeared for your trousers.” I sipped the tea. “How’s the journey in M Truck?”

  “Bloody murder! Seats are wood, only trouble my arse isn’t.”

  “I miss not being able to play with the band,” I said.

  “Me too,” he said, “at least you can have a blow on yer bugle, me, where do you get a piano in lovely flyblown Le Kef?”

  “Report sick, tell ‘em you are suffering from Piano withdrawal.”

  “He’ll only give me one in tablet form.”

  “Then it could open up the music world! And now! Franz Edgington, wearing a hedgehog skin loin cloth, will play Grieg’s A Minor on an upright Tablet and scream.”

  It was 5.20 p.m. At this time in civvy street I’d have been breaking my soul in the dull lit boredom at a wooden table in the Woolwich Arsenal Dockyard. Mr Rose the foreman would be saying “You call this a day’s work Milligan?” And I’d say “Yes.” About now, they’d all be thinking of 5.30 and tucking their little thermos flasks in little cardboard briefcases and folding up the greaseproof paper for the morrow. Even if I got killed, it was better than that. Of course, if I got killed I might change my mind.

  “Eggs again?” said Chalky White. “We’ll all be egg bound soon. There’s no happy in between. Back at X Camp we all had the runs, now we’re all bound up like bloody concrete.”

  “True, I suppose the moment we get into action we’ll all have the shits again,” I said.

  “I wonder what it’s like.”

  “The shits?”

  “No…action.”

  “We’ll soon know all about it.”

  “They say it’s very noisy.”

  “Action?”

  “No, the shits.”

  It was night now—distant flashes of gunfire lit the sky. Men sat in groups, talking, laughing, then, one by one, crawled into the pit. In the dark, cigarette ends glowed like fireflies. Somewhere, a long way off, a goat bleated, and a lot of good it did him. While we slept the First Army was having a bloody conflict establishing the character of the campaign. In the mountains, there was no scope for dashing armoured division pursuits on the flat as the Eighth Army had enjoyed. This was an arduous vicious slogging match of small groups of Infantry charging up hill tops at bayonet point. And on this particular night all hell was being let loose in the Kasserine Pass with Rommel at his cavalier best destroying the American opposition.

  16 Feb. 1943

  Battery Diary:

  …Battery Commander, and Gun Position Officer to El Aroussa via Le Kef to report to C.R.A. 6th Armoured Div. Battery to move to hide west of Gafour.

  “Why do they keep hidin’ us,” says Chalky. “I’m not ashamed of being a Gunner.”

  We bade farewell to lovely shit-laden Le Kef and set off in our little Khaki Noddy Cars.

  A sign ‘Dust means death’, Shepherd commented. “Aye, if ye get too much in yer lungs it kills ye,” he says. We passed camouflaged ammo dumps, rear Echelon vehicles, tents, bivvys etc. Crossing the road ahead were what would seem like bundles of rags on legs, carrying rifles and gas stoves.

  “They’re Goums,” said Lt Budden.

  “Goons?” I giggled.

  “GOUMIERS! French African Troops you illiterate fellow.”

  “Personally sir, I think it’s the Irish Guards in drag.” The Goums were accompanied by wives, children, chickens, goats, dogs, and what looked like the entire contents of Harr
ods furniture repository. The Goums were right. We should take our women to war, khaki knickers and all.

  “Wake up darling.”

  “What is it dear.”

  “Those awful Germans want righting dear.”

  “Not again. I killed three yesterday.”

  “Here’s your sandwiches and rifle. Try and not use the bayonet dear, you know what a mess it makes on the carpet.” We were being waved across by a Military Policeman. His trousers had knife-edge creases, even his legs had knife-edge creases. His webbing was blinding white, his brass-work flashed in the sun like gold bayonets. He saluted Lt Budden. “Try and go slow, sir, we’ve had three straffings this morning, it’s the dust.”

  “You must get a Hoover,” I said to him, and drove on.

  “That, Milligan,” said Budden, “was what I call real bullshit.”

  “Ah! So you can tell the difference sir.”

  I told him an idea to end the war. All you do is drop fifty English char ladies on the Führer’s bunker. In one week the Hun would be broken. “Come on now, I’m not ‘avin’ all those men in jack boots stompin’ on my polished floor. Never mind about silly old Stalingrad, you sit down and I’ll bring you a nice cup of tea and a cheese roll for Mr Goering.”

  We passed Gafour, another dung village, and pulled up on a flat rocky plateau with stunted trees and scrub, but no Porridge.

  “Listen sir,” I said, “gunfire!”

  “Yes,” said Lt Budden, “there’s a lot of it about.”