Part 15 (2/2)
I explain that it's a fine thing we are doing in our spare time to raise the morale of the troops and etc etc etc, and will he go away. Why have we blacked out the windows, the airraids have stopped. We know sir, but you never know. Have we got permission? Yes. Who from? We don't know yet, but rest a.s.sured it will be somebody.
Comes the night, it was a bomb-out success. Finished at 0400! Bornheim, Puttock and I made 10,000 lire each and as many enemies.
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At the Voodoo Moon Club, the Riding High Band sit in. 1st Trumpet: Dave Douglas; Dave Douglas; 2nd Trumpet: 2nd Trumpet: Roy Duce; Roy Duce; Alto: Alto: Billy Wells; Billy Wells; Piano: Piano: Dennis Evans; Dennis Evans; Ba.s.s: Ba.s.s: J. Mulgrew (anything for extra money!), and the singer, Norman Lee J. Mulgrew (anything for extra money!), and the singer, Norman Lee
A Day Out Seven of us hired a taxi and went swimming at Bagnoli. The beach was in the ancient Campi Flegrei, one time watering place of the Roman rich. A pumice-coloured beach, a few run-down bathing huts, the doors swung on rusty hinges, the cabins now used by beach wh.o.r.es for 'quickies'; a dying Italian hires out worn umbrellas. Several fis.h.i.+ng craft bob in the morning calm sea. A rip-roaring day with skylarking in and out of the sea. We hire a row boat and soon we are going in all directions; we round the headland of the Isle of Nisidia and turn into a horseshoe bay. We discover caves! Wow, it's an omni-directional day; totally mindless, we strip off and dive off the jagged lava rocks.
Bang, bang! Bullets are flying over our heads.
”It's World War Three and they've started without us,” I shouted, ducking for cover. From down the craggy hillside come armed carabinieri. They are shouting. We take to the oars and row like mad in all directions; we would have moved faster if we had just drifted. I am shouting ”Ferma! Sono Inglese.”
A good-looking Italian captain, speaking like George Sanders with garlic, asks what we are doing. What a sight we make, three of us naked save s.h.i.+rts, two totally naked, ; one naked with socks on, me in a pair of groin-crippling underpants pretending I am Tarzan in my brown boiled boots.
”We are swimming,” I say, forgetting I am standing on land.
”This is a prohibited area,” he says.
I tell him we we are prohibited people, but he doesn't understand. are prohibited people, but he doesn't understand.
”This is a top security island,” he says, ”where war criminals are being held.” I ask him what part are they being held by, but he still doesn't understand and waves his Beretta pistol. I wave back, he is getting angry, we must leave.
In total disarray we clamber into our craft. Have you read Three Men in a Boat? - Three Men in a Boat? - well, multiply that by seven. Everyone rowed furiously in a different direction, the boat was coming apart. As the Italians were threatening and shooing us away, the Captain said something to his men and they all burst out laughing. As they were laughing in Italian we couldn't understand it. I looked at my motley crew and realized how lucky Captain Bligh had been. well, multiply that by seven. Everyone rowed furiously in a different direction, the boat was coming apart. As the Italians were threatening and shooing us away, the Captain said something to his men and they all burst out laughing. As they were laughing in Italian we couldn't understand it. I looked at my motley crew and realized how lucky Captain Bligh had been.
My G.o.d! A squall blows up! Soon we are bailing for our lives lives! A boatman from the sh.o.r.e takes us in tow, we are very grateful until he asks for two hundred lire. We argue, he explains that we would never have made it back on our own.
”f.u.c.k off,” says Barlow to a man who has just saved our lives.
What a day!
”Dear Mother, Today we went swimming and were nearly shot at by Italians and drowned, wish you were here.”
We jump aboard one of the shuttle pa.s.sion waggons throbbing on the beach, filled with spent soldiers. Why are we waiting? ”My mate's having a s.h.a.g in that hut.” He points to a fragile beach hut shaking backwards and forwards under the a.s.sault from within, then there's a pause. ”'ees 'avin a rest,” says the soldier, the hut starts to vibrate again, the door opens and out comes a weed of a soldier who gets a desultory cheer from his mates, a portly tart hoisting up her bathing costume frames in the doorway, waving him goodbye with the money.
”Orl finished s.h.a.ggin'?” cries the driver, cries of yes, and we lollop forward over the sand on to the road and away. As we sped down the coast road I was stricken with the divine view and had a shot at taking a photograph. It doesn't exactly do justice to the scene, but it's evidence to say that I'm not making this all up.
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Two years in the front line - - Army food Army food.[image]
At end of day to a trattoria for dinner[image]
Spike after a good dinner[image]
The waiter who served us[image][image]
Swimming starkers[image]
June 17th 1946 1946.
Barbary Coast opened at the Bellini Theatre: a packed house, with soldiers queuing all day. Again the Bill Hall Trio, with a lot more gags in the act, steal the show; a corps de ballet from Rome did next best -all top-cla.s.s dancers and only in this show because Rome Opera House is temporarily closed. opened at the Bellini Theatre: a packed house, with soldiers queuing all day. Again the Bill Hall Trio, with a lot more gags in the act, steal the show; a corps de ballet from Rome did next best -all top-cla.s.s dancers and only in this show because Rome Opera House is temporarily closed.
Great write-ups the next day! Then the icing on the cake: we are to tour, but this time we are to include Venice and Vienna! Someone should have told us, ”Man, these are the best days of your life, eat them slowly.”
Sunday morning, all bustle and packing kit on to the charabanc, Gunner Hall as usual is missing.
”She must be late paying him,” says Bornheim. All set, we pile on to the CSE charabanc with Umberto the fat Iti driver pinning Holy Pictures on the dashboard to ward off the devil, accidents, Protestants and the husband of the woman he is knocking off.
It's a sparkling day, the sun streaming through the holes in Bornheim's underwear. ”What's this Venice like?” he says. I tell him when you step out the front door you go splas.h.!.+ People don't take dogs for a walk, they take fish. Wasn't the city resting on piles? Yes, it was agony for the people underneath.
Lieutenant Priest boards the charabanc. ”Answer your names,” he says.
”Bornheim G.”
”Sah,” we all shout.
”Mulgrew J?”
”Sah,” we all answer.
He tears up the list in mock defeat; the charabanc and its precious cargo of p.i.s.s artists proceeds forth. We inch thru the unforgettable fish market off the Piazza Capuana, displaying everything from water-fleas to tuna on the barrows. The mongers douse their catches with water. ”Fools,” says Bornheim. ”They'll never revive them.” The church bells are anointing the air, each peal sending flocks of pigeons airborne on nervous wings. Through the machicolated crowds we edge, finally arriving at the peeling front of the Albergo Rabacino, which roughly translated means Rabies. Ronnie Priest flies into its front portals. He's annoyed - the Italian ballerinas from our cast are not ready. ”They had to go to holy b.l.o.o.d.y ma.s.s,” he says. We all get out and stretch our legs and are immediately beset with vendors. I am casting my eye on a tray of watches that gleam gold like the riches of Montezuma. They are in fact cheapo watches dipped in gold-plating. I knock the price down from ten million lire to ten thousand. OK, I buy the watch. Of course it doesn't give the date, phases of the moon, high tide in Hawaii, it doesn't light up in the dark, doesn't give electronic peals every half hour, and it doesn't ring like an alarm in the morning. All it does is tell the silly old time.
I paid the vendor and told him the time, I said h.e.l.lo to Mulgrew and told him the time, I called Bornheim over and told him the time and I wrote a letter to my mother telling her the time. Looking at the watch I realize it's time to close this fifth volume of my War Time Trilogy. It was the year I had left the front line and found various Base Depot jobs. I had much to be thankful for and now I knew the time. In Volume Six I will tell the time and the story of my love affair with Maria Antoinette Pontani, the Italian ballerina who in a way changed my life and made me abandon my store of second-hand Army underwear. The time is 11.20 a.m.
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Photo of Naples Bay - - to prove it was there to prove it was there
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