Part 6 (1/2)
OCTOBER 17, 1943.
Nice sunny day, not too hot. Roll-call at 7.30. Good breakfast. EGGS!!! It was this day Lance-Corporal Percival says, ”Ah feel like a s.h.a.g, I got an address of a safe place, do you fancy a nibble.”
”Not me,” I said, ”I don't fancy a bird that half the 5th Army has been through.” Army has been through.”
”It'll do you gud, lad, loosen yer braces and stiffen yer socks.”
I decline. ”We'll come and wait, then we can go for some grub in town.”
The walk into Castelemare is a dead straight road, dusty, and flanked by unending walls, like walking down a corridor with no roof on. Percival stops.
”Ah, this is the place,” he said, looking at an address.
It wasn't exactly a brothel, it was rather like a middle-cla.s.s block of those b.l.o.o.d.y awful 1930s faceless flats. We go up polished stone steps to the third floor. We ring a doorbell, it opens revealing a fat fifty-ish woman. She wears a loose cotton dress to her knees, bare legs and rope slip-on sandals, she has a typical brown Southern Italian skin, her black greying hair is pulled back behind her head in a bun, she is absolutely unattractive but has magnificent huge brown eyes.
”Ah Vengo,” she says with a broad smile, and ushers us in.
I couldn't help notice Percival respectfully take his hat off, or was he starting to undress? She walked ahead, rattling off a stream of Italian in Neapolitan dialect, she takes us to what looks like a dentist's waiting-room.
Before we had time to sit down, another door opened and in came a young girl, about nineteen, very plain, bobbed black hair, a short denim skirt and a white blouse, bare legs and high-heeled cork-soled shoes. She was a little on the Junoesque side. She smiled and nodded her head in the direction she came. Percival left his hat on the chair, went all soppy, and followed her out of the room. The door closed and I heard the key turn in the lock. The fat lady, I now noticed, had her left hand and wrist bandaged.
”Tedescho, boom boom,” she said, and made like a pistol. ”Tedescho Molto Cativo,” then she sat down in the chair opposite, lifted her skirt and showed me her f.a.n.n.y, which had so much hair on it looked like a black poodle on her lap.
I had never had such a thing happen to me before, and I was nonplussed. She stayed like it and smiled. ”Jig a Jig,” she said.
Unable to rise to the occasion I said, ”No, me no Jig a Jig, I Roman Catollica.” she burst into laughter and pulled her frock down and left the room laughing, with one hand over her mouth.
She came back again, lifted her skirt up (My G.o.d she was proud of it), ”Non Costa Niente,” she was telling me it wouldn't cost me anything, so I told her that may be so, but it would cost her her ten thousand lire. ten thousand lire.
She had a good sense of humour, with her figure she needed it, and she laughed heartily as she realised that she wasn't going to get it. She left me. I picked up a paper from the centre table, Corriera della Sera Corriera della Sera, a dramatic front-page drawing of Italian Paratroops attacking 'La Armata Inglise in Tunisia', it was full of such heroic drawings, why didn't our papers have some like that? Valiant British Troops eating Bully Beef. Heroic British Troops shaving, etc.?
It's all over, Percival comes into the room, much redder than I'd seen him before, the girl's demeanour hadn't changed. She indicated that I was next, I said, ”No gratizia, Io Molto stanco.” I might just as well have had it away with her because Percival now borrows a hundred lire off me to pay her! ”Is this still your North Country b.l.o.o.d.y humour?” I said.
He grinned. ”I'll pay thee back-right now I'm bludy 'ungry.”
”That's you isn't it? The three Fs.”
”Three Fs?”
”f.u.c.king, Food and f.a.gs.”
[image]
Postcard of Castelemare We set off and as we leave, the fat lady gives my arm one last squeeze. ”Per Niente,” she whispered.
”After the war,” I said.
We approach the town proper, a modest seaside resort, a Blackpool of Italy, but more elegant. We trudge around the streets looking for a reasonable cafe. We find one on a wide one-time populous street, now rather run down, on it is a Trattoria Tuscano, 'Alied Solders Welcomes'. Inside, about twelve tables, all covered in white paper, spa.r.s.ely laid out with cutlery. A few tables are occupied by what look like potential Mafia recruits, all huddled over their tables talking in low voices, an act of great self-control for Italians.
MY DIARY: MY DIARY: HAD THE FOLLOWING: SPAGHETTI, FISH AND CHIPS, MEAT AND VEG, WINE AND GRAPES ALL FOR FIFTY LIRA (2/6!) ABSOLUTE BARGAIN. HOW DO THEY MAKE A PROFIT? HAD THE FOLLOWING: SPAGHETTI, FISH AND CHIPS, MEAT AND VEG, WINE AND GRAPES ALL FOR FIFTY LIRA (2/6!) ABSOLUTE BARGAIN. HOW DO THEY MAKE A PROFIT?.
During the meal an old Italian in shabby clothes and a greasy felt hat shuffled in, and sat at a chair just inside the door (he had a guitar wrapped in a cloth). He smiled a sad tired smile at us, tuned the guitar with his ear on the side of the instrument, then launched into 'O Sole Mio'. I even remember the key was F; this was lovely, I'd never had a meal to musical accompaniment before. He next played 'Oh Za Za Za Maddona Mia', and finally 'The Woodp.e.c.k.e.r's Song'. All his harmonies were meticulously correct.
”George Formby cud play 'is bludy 'ead off,” says Percival.
The thought of a headless George Formby fills me with delight.
”Ask 'im ter play 'In the Mood'.”
”You ask him.”
”Aye, banjo player, sonari 'In the Mood'.” He then sings several bars of unrecognisable c.r.a.p.
The old musician smiles and shrugs his shoulders.
”Silly bouger, 'e don't recognise it.”
”Listen, Glen Miller wouldn't recognise it.”
”Gid aht of it,” he's getting p.i.s.sed now. ”Ah use ter play in t'local dance bund.”
He got thoroughly nasty, I paid the bill and left him asking the old man to play 'When the Poppies Bloom Again'. I for one didn't want to see him again till they did. I walk back in the cool dark evening, and just my luck, a jeep with two redcaps pulls up.
”Where you going, Corporal?” They smell of recently consumed whisky, I suppose this was their post-p.i.s.s-up Let's-go-out-and-do-somebody trip. I tell them I'm walking back to the CPC.
”Where's your paybook?”
To their dissatisfaction I produce it.
”Where's your unit?”
”Lauro.”
”Where's that?”
”Italy.”
”Don't be funny with us, sonny,” says the second one, who has to angle his head back at forty-five degrees to see out from under the peak. The first one smiles with triumph.
”You haven't signed your will,” he beams.
”How silly of me,” I said.
”Sign it at once.”
I wrote my name painstakingly across the will 'Corporal Hugh Jympton'.
They roared away breaking the speed-limit. It was a delightful surprise to reach the billet to find their jeep in the ditch, upside down, and an ambulance loading on the two redcaps. I find the billet empty save for Webb.