Part 1 (2/2)

Naples, land of Wine, Women and Syph. The Borsa Nera!

My parents sent me all my post office savings - no good leaving it mouldering in England when here I could become rich, rich, rich! In time it arrived, smuggled in a box cunningly marked Pile Suppositories. My parents were no fools.

Six pounds! Wait till this money hits the black market! Next evening, on the Via Roma, I made contact.

”Hey, Joe,” (he'd got my name wrong!) ”you wanna change money or a f.u.c.k?”

”Sterling,” I said out of the corner of my mouth.

”How mucha you gotta?”

I smiled secretively. I handed him the Pile Suppository box.

He shook out the money. ”Six pounds?” he said. ”Is datta all?” He was joking, he was just trying to play it cool. I nodded like James Cagney and I made with the shoulders. ”What's the rate?” I said, this time as George Raft. Two thousand lire. Great. The hit man looked up and down the street. ”You waita here, wid my two a friends.” He indicated two young urchins and made off.

”He go makea da deal,” said the eldest.

I waited. We all waited. ”He takea longa time,” said one urchin. ”I go see whata happen” and left. Three down, one to go. We wait.

”Something ees a wrong, I go and see, you waita herea.”

And none to go. I waited 'herea', the evening dew settled on me, midnight, I waited 'herea' for three hours. Technically I'm still waiting. James Cagney, George Raft and Bombardier Milligan have been conned. I walked back down the Via Roma as Charlie Chaplin.

”Wanna buy cigarette Americano?” A young urchin hove to.

Yes! I'll get my own back! I'll buy cigarettes cheap! Twenty Philip Morris. It was strange - the s.h.i.+p bearing my six pounds in a Pile Suppository box had risked U-boats, dive bombers, all that bravery for nothing.

Back at the 92 General, Rogers is waiting expectantly. ”Well, ha' you got spondulicks?” he said, rubbing his hands. I tell my woeful story, he laughs at each revelation. Never mind, have a real American cigarette. I open a packet like John Wayne, give the base a flick, sawdust spurts out. Rogers laughs out loud. Sawdust! ”Why not start a circus?” he says, ducking a boot at his head.

TORRE DEL GRECO.

Torre Del Greco Torre Del Greco was a dust and rags village astride the Salerno-Naples Road on the south side of Vesuvius. It was adjacent to this that a new tented camp had been erected for our 'loonies'. A short journey by lorry saw us settling in. It was life as per Afragola. The warm weather had come and we watched as the sun dried out our mud-caked men, making them look like fossilized corpses of Turkish Janissaries. The office tent is in among olive groves, yes. Olive Groves, the diva that sang with Ivor Novello. Who could christen a child Olive Groves? Why not Walnut Trees?

A letter from my mother gives dire warning of the coming shortage of underwear in England. ”You would be wise to stock up now, son,” she urges. ”It's already started. Neighbours have stopped hanging their laundry out and your father sleeps with his underwear on for safety.” Obeying my mother's warning, I bought, stole, cajoled a ma.s.s of underwear, from a series of holes on a waist band to heavily patched beer-stained transparent long-johns.

From the medical board I had received my 'U are now officially down-graded' papers. I was still glad to see on the certificate that I had Hernia...Nil, Varicose Veins...Nil, a draw! I also noted that I had No Gynaecological disorders. I wrote and told my mother I was B2. She wrote back: ”Your father and I are so proud, none of our family have ever had the B2 before.”

March 1944 It was spring, the sun shone and the mud disappeared. Banging his boot on the ground, Guardsman Rogers exclaims: ”My G.o.d! I think I've found land!”

The New Broom Cweeps Slean The camp is to be run by a loony officer; he's been blown up on the Volturno and blown down again at Ca.s.sino. Captain Peters of the Queens. Tall and thin, large horse-like face, pale blue eyes with a rapid blink and a twitch of the head; all done with a strange noise at the back of the nose that goes 'phnut'. He is balding and has a fine head of hairs. Speaks very rapidly due to an overdraft at Lloyds.

To date one had the feeling that the Rehabilitation Camp was totally unknown and unrecorded in the Army lists. With the coming of Captain Peters all that changed. The camp went on being unknown and unrecorded, but now we had an officer in charge. The camp had a turnover of about a thousand men, all in a state of coming and going, unlike me who couldn't tell if I was coming or going. Under Peters the food improved. He indented for twice the amount, and sent scrounging parties to buy eggs, chicken and fish, all of which the cooks dutifully boiled to shreds. ”I think they put it in with the laundry,” said Peters. He also allowed men out of an evening, but the effect of alcohol on some of the loonies who were on tranquillizers was alarming. It was something to see the guard commander and his men holding down a half naked s.h.i.+t-covered, wine-stained loony alternately being sick, screaming and singing. Some loonies tried to climb Vesuvius. G.o.d knows how many fell in. A resident psychiatrist arrived. He immediately dished out drugs that zombified most of the inmates, who walked around the camp staring-eyed, grinning and saying 'h.e.l.lo' to trees.

March 5 DIARY: DIARY: HIGH TEMPERATURE REPORTED SICK HIGH TEMPERATURE REPORTED SICK.

”You've got Gingivitis,” said the M.O.

”Gingivitis?”

”It's inflamed gums.” I see. A sort of Trench Foot of the mouth.

”It was very common in World War One.”

”Is it a better cla.s.s now?”

”Do you clean your teeth regularly?”

”Yes, once a week.”

”You've got it quite badly, you can pick it up anywhere.”

”Not in the legs surely?”

He smiled. ”I'm putting you in the 70th General.” General.”

The 70th! I'd done the 92nd, now the 70th! BINGO! ”Gunner Milligan, you have just won the golden thermometer!”

70th General Hospital Pompeii General Hospital Pompeii A long cool ward full of military illnesses. Through the window I see a wall with faded Fascist slogans: long cool ward full of military illnesses. Through the window I see a wall with faded Fascist slogans: OBBIDIRE, CREDERE, LAVORARE, MUSSOLINI HA SEMPRE RAGGIONE. OBBIDIRE, CREDERE, LAVORARE, MUSSOLINI HA SEMPRE RAGGIONE.

Obey, believe, work. Three words that would send a British Leyland worker into a swoon.

A gay nurse leads me to my bed. ”Put those on.” He points to some blue pyjamas. Each side of me are two soldiers with bronchitis. They are asleep. When they wake up they still have it. One is from Lewisham, the other isn't. The gay nurse returns and takes my temperature.

”What is it?”

”It's a thermometer,” he says and minces off.

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