Memoires 05 (1985) - Where Have All The Bullets Gone Page 7

  ‘Age makes no difference,’ she says.

  STOP PRESS: THIRTY YEARS YOUNGER

  ‘AGE MAKES NO DIFFERENCE’ BRIDE MISSING!

  Thirty Years Younger French Bride Caught In Flagrante With Algerian Arab In Bedford Hotel Paris.

  “Age makes no difference,” she says.

  BRIGADIER HAS ARAB’S BALLS CUT OFF

  “Age makes no difference,” says Brigadier.

  Thus Major Rodes brought his rupture and the sad story back.

  October 9

  MY DIARY:

  BAND GIG IN ROME. WHOOPEE!

  Rome! The Eternal City! Forever young! Age makes no difference here, unless you’re Henry Woods.

  We travel by Welfare Charabanc. Early morning the charabanc arrives at Alexander Barracks. We eagerly pack our stuff aboard. Len Prosser is worried about the safety of his bass. In its canvas sack he appears to be smuggling a murdered body aboard. “The man who invented this instrument never intended it to travel — it’s meant for hermits or the transfixed.” Drums. Vic Shewry is coming and going. Percussion seems unending. “When you two have finished we’d like to bloody well get on,” says Jim Manning and his alto sax. Up and away a hundred and fifty miles to go, so a cigarette and the Union Jack and I settle back. The Allies are driving the Germans back over the Po River. It must be hard on German mothers to receive telegrams:

  Hitlergram No. Sieben

  ZER FÜHRER REGRETS TO INFORM YOU YOUR SON HAZ BEEN DROWNED IN ZER PO.

  Through ancient Capua, over the Volturno, Sparanise, Teano; all the roads I’d passed through in action. Memories of 19 Battery, the sound of the guns, the shout of fire orders, now all passing into the dreamtime. Through Cassino, and above it the ruined abbey, a monument to Allied stupidity. We rabbit, joke and laugh our way. Come evening we reach our destination. ‘56 Area Rest Camp Welcomes You’. It’s like Belsen with food.

  “This is yours,” says a lumpy Corporal, opening the door of a Nissen hut. It is a paradise of wooden beds and blankets!

  “So,” says Len Prosser with an expansive gesture, “this is Broadway!”

  We get comfortable, try the beds for lumps. QMS Ward is to speak.

  He holds up a hand like Custer halting the 7th Cavalry. “Ye-o-oh.” He reads from a stained paper. “The first gig is tomorrow, Crusaders Officers’ Club, leave here 1900 hours, best battledress.”

  We have the evening to ourselves. Ah! The Alexander Club! We walk out in the sunlit wide streets; people here in no way resemble their grotty cousins in Naples. Lots of pretty girls. On the Via XX September we find the Alexander Club. It is a massive modern concrete and glass horror, a sort of Orson Wells of architecture. Inside a milling sea of squaddies, a cacophony of rattling plates, cups, knives, forks and spoons; it sounds like Lyons Corner House going over Niagara Falls. “Christ!” says Jim Manning. “Aren’t there any bleedin’ soldiers at the front?” He’s wrong. We join a queue for tea and all the soldiers are at the front. It winds back two hundred yards. We look like the Israelites crossing the Red Sea. Tea, buns, fags; fags, buns, tea; buns, tea, fags. Opposite the Alexander is a chrome and glass Italian barber’s. Smart glossy-haired white-jacketed Largo Factotums are in attendance. Len and I are grovelled into our foot-operated adjustable chairs, crisp white sheets are tucked around our necks. I had never savoured the delights of an Italian shave, and now he was whisking up the lather like an egg white. I hadn’t seen such manual dexterity since Mademoiselle Fifi le Toof of the Cages, Bombay. With a chamois leather cloth he cleans my skin with an astringent. With fast revolving circles he lathers me with an aromatic soap made from almond oil. It’s all too good for me. Honing a razor on a black leather strap, he gently scrapes upwards, the bristles falling in hundreds. He feels for any areas he has missed and plies the blade over them, repeating the whole process twice. It’s all done with a marvellous rhythmic precision, the blade so sharp that there is no pulling or tearing of the skin. A glance in the mirror, no shaving soap remains. Now he applies hot towels that he juggles from hand to hand to release the heat. The face is enveloped and the smell of cologne rises with the steam. This done, an ice cold astringent is patted on to the skin. It’s taken twenty-five minutes. We have seen a great artist at work. Len has asked his to marry him. My face feels like fine velvet; I am reeking of a cologne that will make a woman rip her clothes off at fifty paces. I must hurry on to the streets before it wears off.

  L./Bdr. L. Prosser and Gunner T. Milligan. After being shaved, they are waiting at the Fountain of the Naiads for a good trouser press.

  * this man is now in America somewhere

  What to do? It’s only seven of the clock. We look at our Soldier’s Guide to Rome —

  “That one looks interesting, Len.” I say, pointing out the Yewish Soldiers’ Club. So there are such people as Yews; they must come from Yewrusaleum. We opt for the Super Cinema in the Via Depretis. The film is Sweet Rosie O’Grady, starring Betty Grable’s legs, and occasionally her. The hero, whose name escapes me, was John Payne; a fitting name for a pain in the arse. It’s San Francisco, but recently vacated by Jeanette MacDonald and Clarke Gable, John Payne is a struggling pianist. He’s also having a struggle acting. He falls in love with Betty Grable’s legs, she falls in love with his bad acting, but the boss of the bar loves her legs more. Payne writes ‘My heart tells Me’; he tells her, “You sing it baby, it’ll be a hit, you’ll see.” The boss says, “She ain’t singin’ no trashy song like that, dis goil I’m savin’ fer Opera.” Payne hits the boss, the boss hits Payne, they hit each other, they break, there is the traditional breaking of the matchstick chair over the hero, who floors the boss. “You’re fired,” he snarls. “Huh, fired, I’ll quit.” (If only he would.) Payne goes to New York. Diamond Jim Brady hires him on to Broadway; he’s in the pit conducting on the big night; Joan Blondell and her tits are going to sing ‘My heart tells me’ and make him famous. But she faints. Who’s going to save the show? Outside in the snow, a ragged unshaven figure appears: it’s Betty Grable. She hears the introduction…The End. Money back please. So to bed.

  The Gig

  We spent the morning lazing. I cleaned my trumpet. In the afternoon band practice, listened to by crowds of soldiers. Comes evening. I couldn’t believe it. Little old me from Brockley, in Rome! Back home I’d never got further than Hernia Bay. The dance is at the Crusader Club. Wow! A huge marble hotel, an officer’s dream palace.

  Colonel Philip Slessor greets us. “Who’s in charge?” he asks.

  “You are,” we say.

  Tall and saturnine, Slessor was later to become a BBC announcer. He started practising right away by announcing that we were to follow him.

  The ballroom is magnificent, the stage a mass of red velvet and gold embroidery; it was an ‘embarrass de choix de richesses’. Slessor makes another announcement. “There’s a room for you all to change in.” We haven’t anything to change into except Mr Jekyll.

  “What? You’re not going to play like that?” Haven’t we any mess dress? No, there’s another fine mess dress we haven’t got into. I told him we sounded exactly the same in battle-dress as we did in mess dress.

  “Huh,” he announces.

  The band room is a munificence of coleslaw, the table is groaning with every sandwich possible, even a few impossible ones. Wine? Gallons. A line of bottles without labels. We tasted it, found it tasted like unlabelled wine.

  Slessor is announcing again: “We start in ten minutes, lads.” We set up behind the brocade curtains, give him the nod, and he announces: “Ladies and Gentlemen, we have great pleasure in announcing the Band of the Officers of the Second Echelon under their conductor Sergeant Stand (yes, Stand) Britton. Take your partners for the first Waltz.” The curtains draw back as we swing into ‘Song of India’. The floor is soon crammed with dancers, most of the ladies Italian, all desperate for food, fags and soap. It’s hard to believe that the beautiful Contessa, dancing with the cross-eyed Hindu colonel, is doing it for three bars of choco
late.

  I was blowing great that night. When I stood up to take a chorus it was for one of two reasons: a) Egomania or b) Piles.

  The interval, and Colonel Slessor announces that he’s ‘Very pleased with us’. He then announces he is leaving the room.

  Throughout the evening he announced every dance, the names of the tunes, the winners of the spot prize, even “The trumpet solos were by Gunner Millington.” He really was ready for the 9 o’clock news. Finally “The last waltz, please.” ‘God Save the King’, then we moved in on the scoff. It had been a great evening of dancing and announcing; we had seen lots of pretty birds but hadn’t pulled any, so, as Jim Manning said, “We’ll ‘ave ter pull ourselves.”

  Colonel Philip Slessor showing an officer the correct dress and stance for announcing

  The Days

  The days of that week were spent visiting every tourist trap available, the Vatican, the Fountains of Rome, the Capitol, the Karzi, during which time I nearly scored.

  We have one night off and I go solo walkabout. I’m hovering near the Therme de Caracalla when I hear a sweet female voice laced with sandpaper — there were no words as such — but she is bearing down on me as though I’m an old friend. A Junoesque thirty-five-year-old in black, and wearing an Ascot hat, she grabs my hand and says how good it is to see me again.

  “Come sta?”

  Oh, I’m very ‘sta’. It’s all a ploy to avoid the suspicion of; being on the game. I like this game, but I want game, set and match. She is desperate, she’s short of money and at her’ wit’s end. My type.

  She is respectable, she’s not on the game, but she’s desperate. So am I, I tell her. She says we must retire to a cafe. She: needs a coffee and brandy as she is ‘faint’, all twelve stone of her. So there we are in the cafe; she tells me she is married, that her husband is in the Reggimento Aeronautica, though he hasn’t been sending her any money. But beware, he is ‘molto geloso’ and she shows me his photo. He looks like two Al Capones stuffed into a uniform. She thinks he’s a prisoner of war ‘somewhere’. I hope it’s Siberia. Can Gunner Milligan take her to dinner tomorrow? No he can’t, he’s playing in the band. Oh, so I’m a musician! How romantico! The next night then, yes. I know the Sunday is free. Can I bring her some chocolate, soap, cigarettes, sweets, in fact the entire stores of the Allied 5th Army. There is a promise of female favours in her eyes. Yes I will etc. I tell the boys. They go green with envy, some go yellow and grey.

  “Wot’s she like?” says Private Manning, lying on his bed looking at the ceiling, imagining it’s him. I say she likes the contents of warehouses. I say she’s a mixture of Rita Hay-worth, Betty Grable and Mae West. I’ll make the buggers suffer.

  Romance Two

  We meet at the cafe. She’s gone ahead and put two cognacs on my bill. Have I got the goodies? I hand her my meagre parcel, apologizing for omitting the leg of venison and side of beef. She must examine the contents and check these against her list. We must take a horse-drawn carriage, it will be less conspicuous. So we drive down the Corso Umberto while she checks the parcel. Mama mia! Only chocolate, cigarettes and jam? I apologize. Never mind, she knows a ‘cosy little’ trattoria. This is called La Tantolina and it’s disguised as a four-star hotel. I can’t believe the swish interior, black velvet and gold cutlery, all tables arranged in private nooks, with lights from chandeliers that look like flying saucers. A trio are playing ‘Lae thar piss tub darn bab’. We are seated under the stern gaze of the Maître. “Hello mate,” I say. He hands me the menu like a summons. One look and I realize I’m hurtling to financial oblivion. Just the soup needs a bank loan. What will madame have? She will have all Milligan’s savings, post-war gratuities and his collection of underwear.

  “Oh che mangiare,” she says in ecstasy. Why oh why isn’t Gunner Milligan eating, why is he only sipping water and not drinking the luscious vintage Masi? I tell her it’s my delayed Easter fast. “Che poverino,” she coos, munching Polio Romana. I watch her clock up seventeen thousand lire; I have eighteen, I just make it. I give the waiter a ten lire tip, which he throws in the rubbish bin. What now? Revenge in bed. No, she must fly, her mother is ill. She borrows my last 1000 lire, “Taxi!”

  I never saw her again. That night, starving and skint, I could be found diving for coins in the Trevi Fountain. The lads; I lied to them, yes! I’d had it away again and again and again! I couldn’t stop her! She said she’d leave her husband and join me in England. I failed to add, in a debtors’ prison. Yes, lads, it was some night, now can someone lend me a bar of soap and a fag?

  Our final gig is at the Nirvenetta Club, Via de Monoriti; after that we all found our way to the GI Swing Club on the Via Vittoria Collona, a below-ground joint with seepage from the Tiber and an Iti ‘swing band’ that sounds like seepage from the Tiber — yes, it’s ‘Lae thar piss tub darn bab’. We don’t get a dance — everyone has brought their own bird. Under Mussolini, jazz has been forbidden. This must have been the band that caused it. We ask them if we can sit in; they grudgingly agree. Soon we’ve wiped them out, we have the place jumping. G is are appreciative: “Great! Man, you should have come sooner,” they say. We know. We get free drinks and the Italian musicians sit and glower at our success. First we bomb Monte Casssino and now this.

  Back to Base

  On the morrow we drive back to Maddaloni. We arrive in the early evening. During our absence, the old dance hall has been renovated by George Lambourne and his merry painters and looks great. Now we have a stage and an orchestra pit, lighting board, paint frame, the lot. We are forewarned by BQMS Drew Taylor, a khaki Florenz Ziegfeld, that a concert is to be given for the Grand Opening. Have we any contributions? I said mine were in the stomach of a ; bird in Rome. Can we do a small swing spot? Yes, has he a gallows?

  Alick Adams reports:

  A leading feature of the show was the O2E Dance Band, especially a spot in the second half when, as the programme states, Spike Milligan & the Rythm Section ware featured.

  I recall that the show was under the patronage of one Brigadier Woods, Deputy Adjutant General, or DAG for short. This proved significant for the aforementioned Spike had written a special number for the concert, ‘Doodle with DAG’. ‘Doodle’ being a euphemism which was in popular use in the Other Ranks Bar at the time. The trumpet solo was of course executed from the horizontal position, the instrumentalist’s embouchure being very prominent from this angle.

  Transcibed typed text

  We all worked very hard to get the show together and we opened to an enthusiastic reception. I did a mad musical spot called The Ablution Blues, with a pair of pyjama trousers tied to my trumpet that I kept dipping into a bucket of soapy water, then swinging round and drenching the audience. I thought it was very funny, I did, I thought it was very funny. Thanks to hard work the act was a smash flop. The reception was like the one Judas got at the last supper.

  The Ablution Blues — an overwhelming flop.

  Piano: Stan Britton; Drums: Vic Shewry; Bass: Len Prosser

  Why should I take all the blame?

  The evening concluded with the band playing prior to ‘closedown’ (see programme). Finally there was a speech on the new stage by the Brigadier, who said all the right things: “I would like to thank…grateful to…hard work…made it possible…not forgetting…with the help of…debt of gratitude…and of course…without whose help…bearing in mind…last but not least…has anyone seen Mademoiselle Ding?”

  Let’s see what George Lambourne thought about it: “Back to Maddaloni to O2E Concert (opening ceremony). Brigadier Woods in opening speech said a lot of flattering and charming things about me which I did not hear! I thought the concert very bad.”

  Religious Interlude

  My days of sleeping on O branch office floor were over. I had found a windowless little room up a flight of stairs adjacent to the C of E chapel room at Alexander Barracks. I ask the Rev. Sergeant Beaton if I could sleep in it. Yes, but nothing else, remember! The chapel is next door and
there’s early services. OK, I move in, and am immediately seized upon to help. Sunday, the ‘pumper’ for the organ hasn’t shown, can I? There, on my knees I am gainfully employed i by the Lord. The handle should be lowered and raised with an air of delicacy, but Gunner Milligan is a jazz pumper, with a beat-me-daddy-eight-to-the-bar. There is a sickening ‘CRACK’, I am left with the shaft, and the only way to keep the music going is to activate the remaining four-inch stump. Panicky I pump gallantly, but just can’t get enough air into the bellows. The organ fades, and wheezes back to life as the lunatic Gunner tries to keep it operating. No good, it’s starting to sound like a bagpipe chanter groaning into life. The congregation are in disarray. Exhausted, I jack it in, the organ ‘expires’ with a long groan and ‘Fissshhhhhh’ as the last wind escapes.

  Jesus said, “Through suffering thou shalt come to me.” Well, I was nearly there.

  After our weekly Saturday night dance, I would like to hang back and play the piano. I had the illusion that a concerto would come. I was really Cornel Wilde as Chopin. As the climax of the Finale Grandioso con Woodbines, a magnificent ATS Private in a transparent cheesecloth vest would appear and unroll a mattress: “Come Chopin, forget your silly old Nocturnes — have something else.”

  On one such evening, someone does approach. It’s a Yewish sergeant who wants to say how much he has enjoyed my trumpet playing. He’s just joined the unit and is also keen on show business.

  Well, it was the start of a friendship. I let him move into my billet because I thought he had money.