Part 24 (1/2)
”Yes, if I remember, I sipped half the bottle and you the other, we carried the bottle through Mill Wood, getting more and more p.i.s.sed, we finally got out the other side on the Ninfield Road, and you remembered this bird because you'd tried to have it away with her, but she wouldn't have it because she was getting married.”
”I know, I told her I was trying to warm her up for the honeymoon...”
”Helpful old you. Anyways, we arrived at her place, it was about mid-day, she let us in and you insisted that she play some Chopin.”
”Yes, I remember. She didn't half play me up, she took me home one night, straight into the bedroom and, laugh, she was a ma.s.s of Women's Mag cliches. When I pulled her skirt up she said, 'There was a flash of pink thigh, and a rustle of silk petticoat', then when I kissed her, she turned her head away and said, 'She turned her head away and felt his warm breath on her neck'. I began to think she was a dummy being worked by Barbara Cartland. When I gave up trying I got up to leave, and as I combed my hair, she said, 'He stood, nostrils twitching, combing his plum-black hair'. I never saw her after that, though she did leave a message with the Battery office for me to contact her. 'Tell him I've changed my mind', was the exact communication; what it was she changed her mind about I'll never know.”
Gunner White is sitting on an oscillating petrol tin, and reads from an old Bexhill Observer Bexhill Observer. ”Listen! German raiders attacked several points along the SE Coast, a bomb was dropped on a farm, the explosion blew the door off the bull pen, the bull made his way to the cow pasture and the farmer had great difficulty in getting the bull back. He himself was attacked.”
Gunner Birch, shrouded in cigarette smoke, tells us that in a letter from home his father told him there was a theory that Hitler was insane as the result of piles.
”Hitler has piles?” chuckled Edgington.
”I don't know,” said White, ”it's my father, he says-” here he picked up the letter and read, ”Ron Lester, the publican, said that Hitler went mad through piles, he was operated on by a doctor, and the operation went wrong, and he still has them.” don't know,” said White, ”it's my father, he says-” here he picked up the letter and read, ”Ron Lester, the publican, said that Hitler went mad through piles, he was operated on by a doctor, and the operation went wrong, and he still has them.”
”It was a Jewish doctor,” I said. ”That's why he had it in for the front-wheels.”*
Front-wheel skid = Yid. Front-wheel skid = Yid.
”Don't tell me,” said Edgington sitting up, ”don't tell me World War 2 is due to piles.”
”What a sobering thought,” I said. ”To think, a case of a.n.u.sol Suppositories could have stopped it.”
”It's not too late,” said Edgington. ”We should load a Lancaster and drop three tons of pile ointment on his Reichstag.”
”You see? Nothing's sacred these days, even a man's Reichstag.”
Birch blinked and listened at the conversation he had started. ”What's a Reichstag?” he said.
”Grub up,” is all someone had to say to empty the hut.
Drooling Fildes has already mentioned this, let me amplify.
The Oxford Dictionary says it's 'To drivel, to slaver'. I give you the lie, in our battery Drooling had an entirely different meaning. It started on the farm and, in our case, the cause of drooling was s.e.xual frustration. If you saw a lone gunner for no perceptible reason suddenly make a low groaning sound that sounded like OOOOLEEEEDOO-LEYYYYYY, at the same time appearing to grab an erect invisible phallus with both hands that by their position suggested a 'chopper' about five feet in length, which he then proceeds to thud against the nearest wall with a cry of OLLEEEDOOLEE, THWAKKKKK!! OLLEEEDOOLEEEE THWACK!!, this was the new Drooling craze. It was not abnormal to come into pre-parade gatherings of bored gunners all apparently holding mighty invisible choppers, thudding them against walls, trees and the ground. When Major Jenkins first witnessed this from a distance, he asked Sgt. Jock Wilson, ”What are they doing, Sergeant?”
And Wilson said, ”It's something to do with the shortage, sir.” Jenkins parried, ”The shortage of what?” Wilson replied, ”We don't know, sir.” Travelling on the back of a lorry, the sight of a pretty girl immediately erupted into ma.s.s drooling until she was out of sight. Of late, the song 'Drooling' had come to light; it was sung to the Flanagan and Allen tune, 'Dreaming'.
Droooooooolingggg Droooooooolingggg Droooooooolingggg Droooooooolingggg Each night you'll find the lads all Droooo-lingg Each night you'll find the lads all Droooo-lingg A little Drool don't hurt no body A little Drool don't hurt no body And if it does then we don't give a Sod-dee And if it does then we don't give a Sod-dee Droooo-ling Droooo-ling Droooo-ling Droooo-ling It's so much better than Tom Foolingggg It's so much better than Tom Foolingggg A little drool can ease your heavy load A little drool can ease your heavy load So keep Drooling till your b.a.l.l.s explode. The author is unknown, he wants it that way. The farmyard square (now that it had been cleared of three hundred years of dung) displayed a fine cobbled courtyard; the farmer, who had lived on the farm since he was born, said he didn't know it existed. The lovely tall tower of the main farm block afforded a good all-round view from its oval windows that was repeated all up the staircase at ten-feet intervals. The tower had nothing at all to do with farming, nor had the building. It was obviously some landed gentry's country manor that had been vacated or sold cheaply to a farmer. The farmer kept horses and a few cattle and grew crops, along with a few fruit orchards.
Devine has returned from a fruitless fis.h.i.+ng trip, ”Are they sure there's fish in this ca.n.a.l?”
”Where else, you silly sod?”
”Then why didn't the f.u.c.kers bite? All I caught was this.”
”That's a...er...it's not a salmon,” said Liddell; not a bad guess, the creature was three inches long and black.
”It's a n.i.g.g.e.r's d.i.c.k,” said White.
”Oh, great,” grinned Devine, ”I'll smuggle it back to Liverpool and hire it out to old ladies.”
”Oh dear,” said Deans in a female voice, ”and I've cooked all these chips.” He stamped his foot on the floor, from which arose a cloud of coal-dust.
Bombardier Fuller has arrived, ”There's a little line-laying to be done-no panic it's only a short one, about a quarter of a mile.” As we clamber aboard M2 truck, we witness the spectacle of a Driver Ron Sherwood of Reading, riding a bicycle backwards. Ask him to do a job and he's gone in a flash, but ride a bicycle backwards, oh yes, he'll do that all day. Sherwood was a lovely footballer on the wing with a slight tendency not to pa.s.s to anybody, and he wasn't a bad pianist, no, he was terrible. He could get the right-hand melody going, but with his left hand he would hit any any note, but he did it with such panache, a smile and a wink, that cloth-eared gunners would say, ”Corrrrr, you can't half play the piano.” and they were right, he could only half play that piano. note, but he did it with such panache, a smile and a wink, that cloth-eared gunners would say, ”Corrrrr, you can't half play the piano.” and they were right, he could only half play that piano.
Very quickly we laid the line to RHQ. I opened the door to see a gaggle of our top officers all swigging whisky; among them was dear Major Chater Jack, now a Lt.-Colonel. It had not changed him, he was still knocking it back.
”h.e.l.lo, Bombardier Milligan,” he said warmly.
”Nice to see you again, sir-can you see me?” He laughed.
With a few pleasantries exchanged, I connected up the D 5 telephone.
”There's some of the lads outside, sir.”
”I'll come out and see them...”
From the top he waved down to the lads on the truck, we all wished he'd never left us. It was the last time I would ever see him. The date was December 16, 1943.
I remembered the first time I'd seen him in Bexhill, a smallish, very dapper man, a weathered face, always ready to smile. I had noticed he was wearing a very fine brand-new pair of brogues.
”Very nice shoes, sir.”
”My batman doesn't like them.”
”That's because he has to clean them, sir.”
This Christmas Concert is bothering me, I tell BSM Griffin, ”If we don't get a piano we can't do the concert.”
”Oh, we can't have that,” he said, his Welsh accent thick as the Brecon peaks. ”It's going to be alright, Spike. Lt. Walker's going with you in a truck tomorrow to look for a piano.”
Great. I tell Harry. ”Oh good,” he said, ”pick a good one.”
”Pick one? They don't grow on b.l.o.o.d.y trees.”
”A twenty-foot Beckstein, otherwise I refuse to play it.”
He and others were on 's.h.i.+t sc.r.a.ping' duties. This was the general t.i.tle given to any cleaning jobs, and as the farm and the buildings seemed never to have been cleaned since the Renaissance, the c.r.a.p was everywhere.
MONDAY, DECEMBER 20, 1943.
MY DIARY: MY DIARY: 0830. OFF WITH LT. WALKER LOOKING FOR A PIANO, SPARANISE FIRST, PLACE HAS BEEN HAMMERED TO BITS BY ARTILLERY BUT PEOPLE STILL LIVE IN IT. NO PIANO. ON TO CAPUA, NO PIANO. ON TO SANTA MARIA LA FOSSE, NO PIANO. 0830. OFF WITH LT. WALKER LOOKING FOR A PIANO, SPARANISE FIRST, PLACE HAS BEEN HAMMERED TO BITS BY ARTILLERY BUT PEOPLE STILL LIVE IN IT. NO PIANO. ON TO CAPUA, NO PIANO. ON TO SANTA MARIA LA FOSSE, NO PIANO.