Part 13 (2/2)

I crawl into my dream bed. Peace. Relaxation, but no, wait!!! Something wet and 'horribule' is in my bed. It's a terrible soldier joke, there in my bed is an eight-inch 'Richard the Third', made from dampened brown paper. Wait, there's a note, a chilling message. It says: ”The phantom strikes again.” It bears all the hallmarks of Mulgrew, or is it the Mulgrew marks of Hall? I fell asleep laughing.

RETURN TO NAPLES.

Return to Naples Days seem to go by like water rus.h.i.+ng over stones. We leave Florence, having visited every possible sight. It was a city I can never forget. We are to return to Naples, with an overnight stay in Rome. There we dine again with the Eton-cropped manageress, whom we now know to be a lesbian. The discovery was made by Lt. Priest who had put his hand on her leg and had it crushed in a vice-like grip, all the while smiling sweetly at him. I got a bit worried when she said to me, ”You are a very pretty boy.” After dinner she asked the trio to come to her room and play. Drinks had been laid on, including a Barolo 1930! She asked us to play 'You Go to my Head', then sang it in Italian in a deep baritone voice. If we weren't certain before, we were now. Yes, there was the shaving soap on the windowsill. The more she drank, the more masculine she became, giving us thumps on the back like demolition hammers. ”Let's get out of here,” said Hall, ”or she'll f.u.c.k the lot of us.”

The last leg to Naples. All the while Secombe entertains us with insane jokes and raspberries. Does anyone know the Big Horse Song? No. He sings Big Horse I love you. The Hook and Eye song? No? He sings Hook and I live without you. The Niton Song? Niton day, you are the One. The Ammonia song? Ammonia bird in a gilded cage. There was no stopping him, he was like a dynamo.

”Are you on anything!” I said.

”Yes, two pound ten a week. Hoi Hup, raspberry.” He used to be a pithead clerk.

”Were you good at figures?”

”Well, as long as I got within three or four s.h.i.+llings.”

If what he told me was true, miners who hadn't shown up for a week ended up with double wages and the reverse. The day he joined the army, the miners held a pithead Thanksgiving Service.

Back in the old routine. Hall has been missing for days. During his absence, we transform his army bed into a magnificent four poster with a Heraldic s.h.i.+eld, satin drapes and a scarlet velvet bedspread. We time it to perfection. Hall comes in five minutes before the once-weekly roll call and inspection. He walks in a moment before the Inspecting Officer. Stunned, he stands by his bed. Enter Captain O'List. He too is stunned.

O'LIST: Whose bed is this? Whose bed is this?

HALL:.

Mine sir. Mine sir.

O'LIST: How long has it been like this? How long has it been like this?

HALL:.

Just today, sir. Just today, sir.

O'LIST: Why? Why?

HALL:.

It's my mother's birthday, sir. It's my mother's birthday, sir.

O'List couldn't contain himself. Weak-legged he walked rapidly from the room. On the stairs we could hear him choking with laughter.

Bari Yes, we are to ancient Barium where the meal-enema was invented. We are to entertain the bored soldiery. First thing, chain Gunner Hall to the bed. Louisa Pucelli, our Italian star, has dropped out of the show, and in her place we have Signorina Delores Bagitta, an ageing bottle-blonde Neapolitan old boiler, with a voice like a Ferrari exhaust. She looked OK from a distance, about a mile I'd say. She did a Carmen Miranda act, her layers of cutaneous fat shuddering with every move. ”Amore, amore,” she'd croak. It was monumental tat.

Bari is a dusty seaport on the Adriatic. There's Bari Vecchio and Bari Nuovo. No hotel this time, but a large hostel that seemed to be under permanent siege by lady cleaners. Even as you sat on the WC a mop would suddenly slosh under the door. The streets are heavy with bored British troops, and a heavy sprinkling of Scots from the tribal areas. The old city is really a museum piece, it's a time capsule dated about 1700: the Moors were here and left their mark -many a dark skin can be seen.

Secombe appears to be inflating his head; he is even inflating his face. Somehow the wind is escaping upwards. No, the man is in real trouble. Poor Gunner, struck down in his prime! Of all things he has illness of the face. It's true, folks, he has been using cheap Italian make-up which has affected all the cuts he gave himself during his screaming farting and shaving act. It gets bad, and the swelling closes both eyes. There was little pity. We had warned him if he didn't stop it, this is what would happen. The dramatic situation of temporary blindness gives Secombe a great chance for histrionics: he becomes Gunner King Lear. ”I'm sorry lads, to have let you down like this, but remember the show must go on.” He lay in his bed, not knowing that we had left the room. He develops a high temperature which speeds him up. When the ambulance arrives to take him, he is chattering, screaming and farting at twice the speed. ”I'm sorry I'm leaving you lads, but I'll be back, the show must go on, thanks for all your help, remember me when you're on stage, tell the lads I did my best, Cardiff 3 Swansea Nil. Lloyd George knew my father, saucepanbach, Ivor Novello, when I come home again to Wales.” As they drove him away we could hear s.n.a.t.c.hes of Welsh songs, rugby scores, rasp-berrying and screaming. When he arrived at Bari General Hospital they took him straight to the psychiatric ward where he gave three doctors a nervous breakdown.

His place in the show was taken by Delores Bagitta; dressed as a nun she sang 'Ave Maria' in a gin-soaked voice. Lt. Priest pleaded with her not to, but to our horror and amazement she got an ovation! There's no telling.

Surprise, surprise, after our first show, who shows up? It's lean lovely Lance-Bombardier Reg Bennett. What's he doing here? He was posted. He arrived with a letter to the Town Major who said. ”I see Bennett that you are an expert on heavy dock clearance and port maintenance.”

”No sir, I'm an insurance clerk.”

Someone had blundered. He gets the plum job of Town Major's clerk. With it goes a private flat above his office. He invited me back. We took a taxi, so he was doing alright. We arrived at the flat and opened the door to find the Town Major s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g some Iti bird on the floor. ”I'm afraid the room is occupied,” he said.

We ended up at a restaurant in the Old Town; customers are up-market Italians and a few British officers. ”All black market,” says Reg.

”How can you afford all this, Reg?”

He grinned the grin of a man heavily involved in skullduggery. ”I handle the NAAFI,” he said. Ah! NAAFI, the crown jewels of military life. We spoke about an idea we had had back in Baiano. A nightclub on the Thames. It was pie in the sky. Bennett says. ”Milligan, if we're going to dream, why stop at a night club on the Thames, why not a hundred-storey hotel in San Francisco? We've just had four b.l.o.o.d.y years of war, why go in for more trouble? No Spike, I've thought about it, if we all clubbed together we'd just about afford two tables and six chairs.”

”We could get a bank loan.”

”OK, eight eight chairs then.” chairs then.”

He was right. I said so: ”You are right.” I said, ”To h.e.l.l with the hundred-storey hotel and the six chairs. Waiter, another bottle of Orvieto!”

Well p.i.s.sed, Bennett dropped me off at the hotel. An hour later he appears at my bedroom door. ”He's still s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g,” he said. I put him in the spare bed. ”I'm not angry, just jealous,” he said. Reg departed next morning. I was not to see him for another five years, by which time the Town Major had finished s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g.

The sound of chattering, farting and screams tells me that Secombe has been cured and released, and the hospital burnt down for safety. ”h.e.l.lo h.e.l.lo, hey hoi hup, raspberry, scream, sing, on with the show hey hoi hup.” He revolves round the hotel at speed. What had eluded scientists for 2000 years has been discovered by Gunner Secombe. Perpetual motion.

New Year's Eve A.D. 1946 is a few hours away as the show opens. The front row is filled with the well-scrubbed, pink and pretty Queen Alexandra Nursing Sisters, all crisp and starched in their grey, white and red uniforms. Hovering above them in the crammed gallery are hundreds of steaming Highlanders, all in the combustible atmosphere of whisky fumes. The Bill Hall Trio are a smash hit. We are going for an encore when to our horror we see, falling like gentle rain from heaven, scores of inflated rubber condoms floating down on the dear nursing sisters. Some, all merry with the festive season, start bursting them before they scream with realization. Military police go in among the steaming Scots and a fight breaks out; to the sound of smas.h.i.+ng bottles, thuds, screams, wallops and yells, a nun sings 'Ave Maria'. Happy New Year everyone.

After the show there's a party on stage, a table with ARGGGGHHH Cold Collation, the Bill Hall Trio play for dancing. A good time was had by all, and something else had by all was Delores Bagitta. Lt. Priest drinks a toast: ”This is our last show and we will be returning to base tomorrow.”

Naples Again It is 120 miles to Naples, a sort of London/Birmingham trip. Bill, Johnny and I sit as usual at the back on the bench seat. We start to talk seriously about a future in England. We agree to stick together and make our fortune. With the reception we've been getting, how can we go wrong.

January. CPA Barracks It was a sybaritic life. No parades, an occasional inspection, and a NAAFI open day. There were perks. ”There's spare tickets for the opera,” says gay Captain Lees, who is ever so lonely and rightfully in the Queen's Regiment. The opera? Fat men and women bawling at each other in front of cardboard trees, backed by a crowd of hairy-legged spearmen. OK, it was free. I was about to see what any opera lover would give his life for. Outside the San Carlo: ”The WVS presents the world's greatest tenor, Benjamino Gigli.” Gigli? Coleman Hawkins or Ben Webster, yes, but Gigli?

I have a plush box to myself it seems, but just before curtain-up a smelly Italian peasant carrying a bag of food and a bottle of wine is ushered in. ”Scusi,” he says, then starts laying the food out on a cloth. Overture, curtain up. Magic. Where have I been? Puccini! What an ignorant b.a.s.t.a.r.d I've been. Wait, the Italian is getting p.i.s.sed, and by the time Mimi's tiny hand is frozen, he's joining in the arias. He's sitting on the floor, the audience can't really see him, they're all shus.h.i.+ng at me me. The attendants come in, I have a struggle telling them I'm not the culprit. Eventually they drag the protesting Iti away, but leave his bread, cheese and wine which I am well pleased to finish.

The Opera continues. 'Mimi' sob, sob goes Rudolph, and crashes his twenty stone on top of the poor consumptive; the curtain comes down to stop her being asphyxiated. Curtain call after curtain call. I am on my feet shouting Beeeeseeee! Like all b.l.o.o.d.y musicians, the orchestra are trying to get out before any encores...they all escape but Gigli collars the harpist and sings Neapolitan folksongs, for an hour - magic. Gigli is gone to his rest, but that evening goes on...

A Bitter End The curse of the working cla.s.s! Piles! I am stricken, strucken and stracken with the things! Unlike other enemies, one could not come face to face with these things. Piles! The MO is no help: he is twiddling his his things and unsympathetic. things and unsympathetic.

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