If ever we had to retreat we were in tip top condition.
In the first week herds of men reported sick with sore feet. Busty Roberts told us the cure: “Piss in yer boots, lads, let ‘em stand overnight.” By God, it worked! There were accidents; forgetful sleepers got up and plunged their feet into boots full of cold urine. What an Army! What a life! I still can’t believe it happened. But of course, the Russians were advancing on all fronts, the Yanks were coming, and we had our first case of Crabs. I had no idea what the crabs (or, as Smudge Smith said, “Sandy McNabs”) were. The victim was Sergeant Cusak—he discovered he got them on the eve of a week’s leave. The M.O. told him to apply ‘Blue Unction’. Now blue unction has only one use—to destroy crabs. Knowing this, Sergeant Cusak entered Boots in Piccadilly with a prescription during the rush hour on Friday—it was crowded. He whispered to the assistant, “Can I have some blue unction?” In a voice that could be heard up Regent Street the assistant said “BLUE UNCTION??” Cusak replied twice as loud, “YES, I’VE GOT BLOODY CRABS!”
BARRACK ROOM HUMOUR JOKES PRANKS
What I am about to relate is bawdy and vulgar but as it’s true, it stands on its own merits.
It was after lights out that some of the most hysterical moments occurred. Those who had been drinking heavily soon made it known by great asphyxiating farts that rendered their owners unconscious and cleared the beds all round. There were even more gentlemen who performed feats with their unwanted nether winds that not even great Petomane could have eclipsed; simply, they set fire to them. The ‘artiste’ would bend down, his assistant stood by with a lighted match. When the ‘artiste’ let off, he ignited it. Using this method I have seen sheets of blue flame up to a foot in length. Old timers, by conserving their fuel, could scorch a Tudor Rose on the wall. There was Signaller ‘X’ whose control of the anal sphincter allowed him to pass Morse code messages. With my own ears I heard him send S.O.S. On these occasions I, like others, lay in bed crying with laughter. But the most unbelievable ‘act’ was Gunner ‘Plunger’ Bailey, who did an entire twenty minute act with his genitals.
It was done on a very professional basis. After lights out a gunner would use a torch as a spot light, which lit the ‘artiste’s’ genitals: the third member of the ‘act’, Bill Hall, sang ‘Bird Song at Eventide as the star manipulated his genitals to resemble ‘Sausage on a Plate’, ‘The Last Turkey in the Shop’, ‘Sack of Flour’, ‘The Roaring of the Lions’, and by using spectacles ‘Groucho Marx’. Finally for the National Anthem he made the member stand. Each manipulation was received with a storm of clapping and cries of ‘Encore’.
Snoring. Each one had his own unique sound. Gunner Forest’s was like gargling with raw eggs through a gently revolving football rattle. For sheer noise, Gunner Notts. He vibrated knives, forks and spoons on the other side of the room. Before he went to sleep we secured all the loose objects with weights. Syd Price gave off snores so vibrant, his bed travelled up to six inches a night. On bad nights we’d find it out in the passage. Next, the teeth grinders! Gunner Leech’s was like a dry cork twisting in the neck of a bottle, followed by the word, “Fissss-ssshhhhhhh!”
This next story was passed on from A Sub-section, stationed at Alfriston. The gun crew were billeted in a beautiful old inn. The men were given the whole length of the attic. At one end was the Great Gun Bucket that gunners place in their midst for use in inclement weather. It was worth its weight in gold, but there were the ‘spoilers’. These men, when the tub was full, would sneak up in the dark, and silently relieve themselves: this caused ‘spillage’, and gradually, without their knowledge, the floor and the ceiling underneath were starting to rot. Came the terrible night, when Lieutenant Sebag-Montefiore, sleeping soundly below was awakened by the sound of the ceiling falling through on him, followed by some twenty gallons of well-matured urine.,
There was a hell of a row, the landlord demanded compensation, etc. The ceiling was made good, the Gunners reprimanded, and it all bleu over, all except the smell. For months after if you were down wind you could always tell where Lieutenant Sebag-Montefiore was.
The Night of the Gun Bucket
MOVING TO MILL WOOD
1941: during which the sole stratagem of the Army in England was one of continual movement. They chose the most excruciating moments. After spending months making your billet comfortable came the order ‘Prepare to Move’. This time I was just about to lay my new Axminster when the order came. It was awful, I had to sell the piano. The moves were always highly secret and came in highly sealed envelopes, the contents of which usually appeared in later editions of the Bexhill Observer Secrecy was impossible, enemy agents had only to follow the trail of illegitimate births. Another obsession was ‘night occupation’. The swearing, the mighty oaths and clangs, told the whole area exactly what was happening. It was quite normal for a pub to empty out and give a hand pulling the gun. Most kids in Bexhill could dismantle one. Our first move was to a ‘specially selected’ muddy disused rubbish tip at :Mill Wood, two miles from Worthingholm. The signal section under Sergeant Dawson had to start the lark of laying new lines. This was simple: you went from Point A, the O.P., and took the line to Point B, the Gun Position. Taking a rough bearing, we set off carrying great revolving iron drums of D.5↓ telephone cable.
≡ I don’t know what it means either.
We had to cross railway lines, roads, swamps, rivers, with no more than adhesive tape. We borrowed the equipment en route from houses, a ladder here, a pair of pliers there, a bit of string, a few hooks, a three course lunch, etc.
To cross loads we had to climb telegraph poles. Basically lazy, it took some half an hour of arguing and threats to get one of us to go up. It was always little Flash Gordon, he didn’t want to climb the poles, but we hit him until he did.
We had a new addition to the family, a military ten line telephone exchange. This saved a great amount of cable laying; it also connected up to the G.P.O. It was installed in a concrete air-raid shelter at the back of Worthingholm. In 1962 I took a sentimental journey back to Bexhill. The shelter was overgrown with brambles; I pushed down the stairs and by the light of a match I saw the original telephone cables still in place on the wall where the exchange used to be. There was still a label on one. In faded lettering it said, “Galley Hill O.P.” in my handwriting. The place was full of ghosts—I had to get out. One of the pleasures of Duty Signaller was listening to officers talking to their females. When we got a ‘hot’ conversation we plugged it straight through to all those poor lonely soldiers at their OR’s and gun positions. It was good to have friends.
At the new position we were to live under canvas. “It’s very simple,” said Sergeant Dawson. He was talking about the erection of a marquee. “I’ve been camping a lot in my time, I’ll show you.” Thirty Signallers drove to the R.A.O.C. Depot at Reigate in a three-ton truck. We were shown a great piece of rolled canvas, six foot by ten foot by five foot. From it hung numerous lengths of trailing ropes. In picking the thing up it was impossible not to stand on them. We lifted. It must have weighed three to four hundredweight, and it all seemed to be on my side. It was but a few yards to the truck, but somehow we found it impossible to get there. The lump was moved in much the confused way that ants carry a twig; there was a fair bit of going round in a circle, three paces backward—a little bit sideways then lots of going round and round again. Straining around the edge were about twenty gunners, while underneath, taking the weight on their heads were ten more. There was frequent swearing, unending strings of instructions, but progress, none. The far side of the lump had started to unfold, so the carriers on that side were lost to sight and carrying blind. The whole thing was becoming absurd. The lump was coming to pieces as we continually trod on trailing ropes. Those on the outside were getting tired, and the lump was getting lower and lower as the men underneath wilted.
Finally it collapsed with seventeen gunners underneath. The second attempt started. This time we just dragged the thing by
its trailing edges and forced it into the lorry like stuffing a chicken. The lump now seemed much larger. We crawled on top of it and moved off. On arrival, we dragged what was now a long, uncontrolled canvas mess through the woods to the site. Sergeant Dawson was waiting. “What in the bloody hell have you done?” Bombardier Hart explained: “We fucked it up, Sarge.”
“We’ll never win this bloody war,” said Dawson as he circled the canvas monster. “Open it full length and try to fold it double on its side,” he said. With a lot of twisting and untwirling we finally got it like he wanted. “Now,” he said, “where are the poles?” A hush fell on the multitude. “Poles, Sarge? Poles?”
“Poles!…Bloody Poles!!!”
Ten of us were sent back for them. By careful planning we returned in time to finish work for the day. Next morning the nonsense continued. “First, three men take the head of the pole each, right, now crawl under the canvas towards where the roof is, right?” Muffled cries of ‘right’. So far, so good. “Now, when you get to the roof seam we’ll prod the outside where there is a hole for the pole to go in.” Muffled Ayes. Underneath, the lumps, Gunners Cordon, Balfour and White, made their way to the holes. Two made it, but the third lump stayed still: it was Flash Cordon. “What’s up now?” shouted Dawson. “I’ve dropped me money,” said Flash. We stood idly by as the lump moved hither and thither. Finally Dawson, patience exhausted, said, “We can’t wait, we’re pulling the tent up, and you’ll have to bloody well go with it.” We were all given a rope each, eight men held the base of the two poles. “All together, heave.” Marvellous! We got it up in one go, and had it down the other side on top of us. “You bloody idiots,” yelled Sergeant Dawson. All the time Gunner Cordon’s lump groped back and forth swearing the air blue. It came to the point when the marquee was at least standing upright, but covered in mud with a dozen gaping holes. Now came the tent pegs. The hammering in passed without incident. But something looked wrong. Suddenly it dawned. “You stupid pricks,” said Dawson. “The bloody things inside out!!”
“Let’s sleep on the outside,” I suggested. He hit me. The whole lunatic job started again. By sundown the thing was up. Gunner White found Cordon’s missing money. That night we all drank Gunner Cordon’s health. A mile away, in the dark, Cordon on his hands and knees was searching the ground with a candle.
Shaving al fresco in Mill Wood, with the Germans only forty miles away. The cross eyes were the result of a blunt blade
Me, line laying. My tin hat had just fallen off and I was afraid of dine-bombers
Signallers transporting the tent
BURNING OF THE CLUBS (MILL WOOD)
It was during this time the Goons in the Popeye cartoon appeared and tickled my sense of humour, and any soldier I thought was an idiot I called a Goon. This was taken up by those with a like sense of humour. We called ourselves the Clubbers. We built a club rack outside the marquee and, in time, we fashioned great gnarled clubs from fallen branches. They all had names—‘Nurkes Nut Nourisher’, ‘Instant Lumps’. The pride was a magnificent find by Gunner Devine; it was a part of a blasted oak, five feet long, almost a replica of the club of Hercules. We added to it by driving earthing irons into the head. It was solemnly christened, ‘Ye Crust Modifier’. The way the Clubbers were assembled was by a trumpet call based on the Fanfare from the ‘Boys from Syracuse’ film. Immediately the gang would do ‘Hollywood Rhubards’, rush forth, grab the clubs, run into the woods hitting trees and shouting ‘Death to the Goons’. This exercise was our downfall. We were caught one summer night by the duty officer. Drunk and naked, we were running through the woods wielding clubs and yelling ‘Viva Joe Stalin’. We were ordered to destroy the weapons. We had a solemn funeral procession. They would have to burn in warrior’s graves. These turned out to be the disused rubbish tip at the bottom of a gently sloping hill. Rubbish was dumped by trucks via a small gauge railway. Filling the truck with clubs, we soaked them in petrol and set them ablaze. Giving the truck a start we jumped on, Edgington in front, holding on with his arms stretched backwards, looking like a ship’s figure head. The truck gathered momentum, flames built up, we were gathering speed and singing ‘Round and round went the bloody great wheel’, when suddenly it occurred to me there was no method of braking. As we careered towards a mountain of old tins, crying with laughter, I shouted, “Jump for it.” We all leaped clear, save Edgington, who seemed transfixed. At the very last minute he let out a strangulated castrati scream and hurled himself sideways as the blazing truck buried itself into the mountain of tins with an ear splitting crash.
It was a fitting Viking end for the Sacred Clubs. Occasions of insanity such as this stopped us all going mad.
The Gun Position Telephone at Mill Wood was in a small wooden but nine foot by eight foot, some two hundred yards from the gun. We were fairly isolated, off the road, in what had been a sand quarry. The but backed on to the working face of a sandy cliff about, fifteen feet high. Around and above grew gorse and brambles. It was a perfect getaway place, so much so that I used to volunteer to do any other signaller’s duty. It was simple. You sat by the phone and every hour tested the line to Battery Exchange. Twice a day we’d take down something called a M.E.T. These were figures that I didn’t understand, all to do with temperatures and barometric pressures. The G.P.O.A.↓ ‘specialists’ would work out from a book of tables what effect this information had upon the fusing of the shells and ranging.
≡ Gun Position Officer’s Assistant.
It was all too much for me. A week’s duty in the but all centred around a gramophone lent by Nick Carter, and jazz records I would bring back from leave. Happiness was a mug of tea, a cigarette, and a record of Bunny Berrigan playing ‘Let’s do it’. Sharing it with a friend like Harry rounded off the occasion. What’s happened to us all since then? The world’s gone sour. Happiness is a yesterday thing.
Ablutions were primitive. We crossed the road into Bexhill Cemetery. By the grave of a ‘Mrs K. Loughborough, died 23 September 1899. Not Dead just Sleeping’ was a tap. That was it. There are few finer sights than a duty signaller scrubbing his dirty laundry on the marble slab of Mrs Loughborough’s last resting place. “‘Not Dead just Sleeping’?” said Chalky White as he read her inscription. “She’s not kidding anyone but her bloody self,” he said as he wrung his socks out on her.
In the evenings after dark, one or two of our favourite birds would visit us and bring fish and chips; once in we bolted the door.
As the days of 1940 came to an end, Dunkirk was sliding into history. The war was spreading; there seemed very little in the way of victories, there were constant reversals in Libya and Greece. On my birthday, April 16th, 1941, London had its worst raid yet. But cheering news—May 14th was the first anniversary of—wait for it—The Home Guard!
Gunner Edgington about to make his famous last-minute leap at Mill Wood Rubbish Tip from the flaming club truth
IN BILLETS AGAIN
After a winter under canvas it was good news that we were to be billeted in Turkey Road Girls’ School. It was for us a paradise—large clean rooms—white walls, ideal for nails—parquet floors, a large ballroom, showers, a well-equipped gymnasium (which we pretended not to see) and finally a brand new upright piano, on which Harry could play the bloody awful Warsaw Concerto. From here we ran our own dances. Captain Martin registered 19 Battery as a Limited Company and sold shares to sister Regiments. At this new billet we received morning visits from a W.V.S. Canteen Van. A very dolly married woman took a fancy to me and one night, after a dance, she took me home. Strange aftermath: a week later I thumbed a lift to Eastbourne, a civvy car: inside I could smell her perfume.
“My wife works for the W.V.S.,” said the driver.
“Really?” I said.
It was all sex in those days it was that or the ‘flicks’ and flicks cost money. There was a lovely busty bird called Beryl, who had hot pants for me.
During the interval of our first dance at Turkey Road I took her to the lorry park,
into the back of a fifteen hundredweight truck. We were going through our third encore when the truck drove off. Apart from the jolting it must have been the best ride we’ve ever had. It stopped at Hastings. Through the flap I saw our chauffeur was Sergeant ‘Boner’ Hughes who hated my guts (I don’t know why, he’d never seen them). He backed the truck up an alley and left it while he went into The White Lion for a drink with his bird who was barmaid. Slipping into the driving seat I drove it back, and arrived in time to play the second half of the dance. “Where the bloody hell have you been?” asked Edgington, sweating at the piano. “I, Harry, have been having it off in the back of a lorry, and I got carried away.”
U Battery band playing at Turkey Road School, 1941
7.2 GUNS AND THE TIGER SCHEME
Our 9.2 guns were past it. Every time they fired, bits fell off.
In place of bolts and nuts were bent nails and chicken wire. Gunners on leave would rummage through their sheds for screws, pinions, etc. The end came when elastic bands, which held the gun-sight together, were no longer obtainable. The Major wrote away, asking for a new gun for Christmas. One day they arrived. Dozens of them! 7.2 gun howitzers. Huge things towed behind Giant Schamell lorries.
At once we were put into vigorous training to familiarize us with the new toys. For weeks the area rang to the clang of breech-blocks, shouted orders, grunts of the sweating ammunition numbers. The guns threw a 280 pound projectile 17,800 yards, so you weren’t safe any where except at 18,000 yards. Momentum was mounting, we were getting new field telephones, wireless trucks, wireless sets, tummy guns, Tannoy loudspeakers that linked Command Post to the guns. The war effort was moving into top gear.