2.30.
Pinchbeck has arrived, “Right, off you go.”
Pinchbeck and I had both lived in India, and often conversed in Urdu.
“Kitna Budgi hai.”
“Sara dho,” says Pinchbeck.
“Shabash.”
Lt. Price looks up. “I think we have a couple of wog deserters here,” he says to Deans.
“Shall I search them for Curry Powder, sir?”
Where is that Edgington? That Edgington is in a cave. A strange affair, the entrance hole is but the size of a man but within we see the entire Monkey crew spread around the commodious interior. He is of course clutched in his writing fever, he holds up his hand, a signal that I am to remain silent, he scribes on. I imitate a violin playing hearts and flowers, he is unamused, he is apparently in a self-hypnotic trance where he can almost feel the presence of his beloved Peg. At the start of my music he looks up with a strained sexual look, part Lochinvar, part Svengali and part-time soldier. His lovely head again bends to the letter as he finalises it with myriad kisses.
“You mustn’t get yourself into these states, Gunner Edgington, it’s not good for you, you’ll get lumps in yer groins that can only be reduced by the cool hand of the temple maiden with a pot of starters.” Question: What is ‘starters’? Well, dear reader, it is a naval term for a pot of Vaseline. It should be self-explanatory. If you can’t explain it to yourself a call to the Admiralty PR Department should clarify the situation, as 70 per cent of the officers are Gay up there. He licks the edge of the Airmail and sticks it together.
“Well,” he finally deigns to speak, “that’s that.”
“That is that,” I agreed, “and this—” I pointed to my ear “—is this, also.” I pointed at the fingers on my left hand. “Those are those.”
He could not stay grim for long. He smiled. “Ahhhhh, there’s a good boy,” I said, “diddums is smiling.”
“Diddums will give Mummy a nice little kick in the cobblers in a minute…ahhh!” He has a complete change of mood. “I’ve got a new tune, mate!” We were on common ground.
He hums the first chord to give me the key, then sings the melody, occasionally dropping in a few harmonic notes. Like all his tunes it’s beautifully melodic.
“The words,” he mused, “will be something like—” He sang, “Remember, how we kissed in the Autumn, September turning green things into auburn.”
I was never to hear the completed tune until the year 1956 at his home in Wood Green. I am standing in the half-light of the cave, listening to Edgington singing this tune, when there enters one unromantic Pedlar Palmer from Devon’s shores, a true ‘Urzlom-Burzlom’.
“Ahhh,” he says.
Why a man wants to say ‘Ahhh’ is beyond me.
“Where has the great Swede basher who says ‘Ahhhh’ been hiding?” I said.
“The great Swede basher,” he replies, “has been getting his Naafi.” He starts to empty his pockets. Toothpaste. A new toothbrush, three bars of chocolate, a packet of Wrigley’s chewing gum, a packet of Beecham Powders, pot of vaseline, and powers that be!! a dozen pairs of bootlaces. “Well,” he explains, “after the war there’ll be a shortage of them, you see, and I’m not going to be caught walking round Devon with no laces in me boots.”
As there was no bootlace drought after the War, I can only imagine that Pedlar Palmer now lives in a home crammed with World War 2 Naafi bootlaces. He could have started a panic. I mean, a man rushes into the tent and says, “There’s going to be a post-war shortage of denture fixative.” Men run out and start buying it to open post-war Denture Fixative Shops and making a fortune. They would rupture themselves carrying kitbags and big packs bursting with tins of denture fixatives across Italy. Imagine the Germans! they take prisoners who appear to own nothing but sacks of dental fixatives, to live on.
HITLER:
Dental Fixative, hein?
ROMMEL:
Ya, mein Führer.
HITLER:
It is a trap.
ROMMEL:
Trap?
HITLER:
Ya, einer dental fixative trap!
ROMMEL:
How does it work?
HITLER:
Ve don’t know yet, but ve vill soon. I haff arranged for zer 14th Panzer Regiment to haff all zeir teeth taken out, and make mit zer false choppers using zer captured British Dental Fix Mix…soon ve vill know what zer secret is!
NOVEMBER 22, 1943
MY DIARY:
RAIN! TALK OF SPECIAL PITS FOR GUNS SO THAT THEY CAN FIRE AT MAXIMUM ELEVATION.
FILDES’ DIARY:
Terrible guts due to this prolonged tinned food.
Strange? I didn’t know our tinned food was prolonged! When did I last hear a gunner asking for a tin of ‘ ‘Prolonged Meat Stew’? We now have a serious problem with Wireless Communication, that is, we haven’t any. Talk of putting out a half-way wireless relay station.
Gunner Edgington’s Public Appearance
“Crabs! They’ve got crabs!” the cry runs through the serried ranks.
The ‘Theys’ were the crew of Monkey 2, it was the first mass outbreak of crabs in the Battery, how proud we were of them, at last the label dirty bastards could be added to the Battery honours. The only other mass outbreak of crabs was Gunner Neat in Bexhill. He told the MO he got them off a girl in Blackpool. “I brought them south for the sun, sir,” he said.
Among the crab-ridden is Gunner Edgington. Let him recount the grisly details.
We hadn’t had our clothes off for some considerable time, much less our underwear, such as it might have been, and as I’ve said, a bath was something we only vaguely remembered from long ago. My hair was a matted lump. The whole world we knew at that time was to get phone lines out and keep them going—all else was sleep and food and a good deal of the latter was often scrounged from strange outfits we encountered while out on the line.
Nor surprisingly we began to smell strongly and then to scratch: the irritation became incessant and something obviously had to be done: I don’t think Bentley came to us…it was just arranged by phone calls, that we go over to RHQ.
I think there must’ve been more than the M.2 team, for the ‘crab-ridden’ were taken in a three-tonner to where some showers had been erected in the corner of a field. The showers were a Heath Robinson contraption mounted under a tin roof on angle-iron supports, but they were thoroughly efficient.
Capt. Bentley, keeping a distance, called down instructions from the safety of his room on an upper floor of an adjacent building.
“Strip off!” he called to us, and this was just the Monkey 2 gang at this point. “Have a thorough wash-down all over as hot as you can possibly stand it.”
In the middle of this field, in full view of civilians and soldiers alike, we disported ourselves joyously under four very efficient jets of steam and near-boiling water to the accompaniment of screams, yells and cackles.
“Blimey, you can see the bloody things! See ‘em moving under the skin? Those little bastards.”
Sure enough, I could see my collection in the skin of my belly just above the ‘short-and-curlies’.
Some five minutes, and Bentley calls: “OK, that’s enough—get up here like lightning!”
Away we went in a tight bunch for the steps which led up the side of the building; these being only wide enough to permit one at a time, it meant some of us had to ease back to create a single-file rush up the stairs, all naked and freezing. Into a small bare room we thundered, its only furniture a bare table, on which stood in a row seven empty cigarette tins, and a large dob of cotton wool alongside—no sign of Bentley though.
Looking round puzzled, we see his grinning face peering round a distant door at the far end of the room—he had no wish to get near us. The legend ‘crabs can jump six feet’ still lingered on.
“Right! Each man grab a tin and a blob of cotton wool. Dip the cotton wool into the tin and dab it generously all over the affected parts…quickly now, quic
kly!” He slammed the door, in case any escaped.
Looking in my tin I saw a clear mauve liquid. The lads were all still chortling and crying in mock agony—“Unclean! Unclean!”, the war-cry we had been bellicosely hollering from the lorry that brought us—and ringing imaginary handbells.
The fluid was liberally applied—backs, balls and bellies as well—not one of us having guessed what it was, it took about ten to fifteen seconds to act. Then everyone’s balls caught fire. It was raw alcohol.
The first “Cor-mate!” was rapidly echoed all round, followed by a growled “Awww! Gawd blimey!!” Faces were transfixed with pain and cross-eyed agony, they yelled, they screamed, they fell and rolled, they jumped, they ran back and forth, they twisted, cannoned into walls—each other—they fell over the table. At the height of the chaotic fandango I was sat on the floor, knees drawn up, left arm wedging my trunk half upright, right hand fanning my ‘wedding-tackle’, when through the melee of flailing arms, legs and prancing bodies I saw the inner door open again slightly and Bentley’s face appear in the narrow gap. “Merry Christmas,” he said and was gone! For Edgington to remember that occasion in such detail thirty-five years after the event is quite a feat of memory.
Mind you, one doesn’t get crabs every day, not even at the fishmongers.
The terrible crab-ridden M.2 team
NOVEMBER 23, 1943
“Milligan? Fildes?” a voice of authority calls. It tells us we are to take twenty-four hours’ rations, drive to the top of Monte Croce and set up the wireless relay station.
“They say the reason for the bad reception is adverse metals,” said Fildes.
Adverse metals? I thought. “What are adverse metals?”
“Fuck knows,” he said.
“Do you think it’s the metal rings on the laceholes in our boots?” Fildes shrugged.
“Adverse Metals,” I intoned repeatedly. It was a lovely phrase. I buzzed up the now crab-free Edgington.
“Hello,” replied an angry voice, obviously suffering from burning balls.
“Is Edgington there?”
“Yes, I’m here, what you want?”
“How is the old Scorched Scrotum?”
“Ohhh Christ,” he groaned, “you should see ‘em, they’re goin’ up and down like yoyos’!”
“Have you any Adverse Metals?”
There is a small pause. “What?”
I repeat the query.
“Adverse Metals?” he chuckles, “I cannot tell a lie, I have no adverse metals but I have a pair of bright red cobblers.”
“Do you have any effect on wireless communications?”
“No,” he chuckled, “they aren’t picking up any signals.”
“Then you can’t have any adverse metal inside them.”
“That’s very comforting, it’s bad enough having them skinned raw without lumps of metal inside.”
Fildes has put chains on the wheels of the truck. Does he think they’re going to escape? We wave goodbye, and take the road that travels round the rear of our position skirting the foot of Monte Croce, we get on to a rough mountain road slippery as grease. The road finally disappears. “It’s come to something when the road can’t get up the hill,” I said. By steady driving Fildes gradually makes it to the top; we pull up just below the crest. The slopes are slightly wooded, with a scrubby grass floor. We look down into the valley at our gun positions; so skilful is the camouflage that we can see everything as though under a magnifying glass. Cautiously we peer over the crest into enemy territory. The view is obscured by drizzle and mist. Comfort! that’s the thing. Brew up! Hot water boiled for dinner. Make up beds in the back of truck. We stow our spare gear in the driving cab. Attempts are made to contact the OP, no luck, we report this to the Command Post, they say stay up there on listening watch, we put the set to ‘receive’ and put the earphones in a mess-tin, to amplify the sound.
“What was that place with the church?” said Fildes. He’s writing an airmail home.
“Terra Corpo,” I tell him, “freely translated it means Land Body.”
“Land Body?” he echoed.
“Yes, we’re somewhere round about the legs, the foothills you might say, ha, ha, ha.”
It’s night, we have our dinner, in beds. The back flap is buttoned down, a light run from the battery. I am smoking and listening to AFN Naples. “French Moroccan Troop reinforcements have arrived in Italy.” Japs resisting like fury on Bourganville. Tito’s Yugoslav Partisans are holding down over twenty German and Bulgarian divisions.
“It’s starting to go our way,” I remember saying to Fildes. Laconically he sang, “It doesn’t seem to matter which way it’s going, we’re still all in the shit out here.”
It’s remarkably peaceful on our mountain, the night has no sounds save the gunfire from the valleys below, the rushing sound of twenty-five pounder and five-five shells can be heard travelling overhead. We can hear mules and men.
They are bringing up rations for the infantry, I think they were the Berkshires. I wonder who they thought we were. I thought I was Lance-Bombardier Milligan, but I’d been wrong before, once back in Tunis I had been pulled up by the Military Police who asked who I was. I said, “Napoleon,” and they said, “This way to the Police Station.” I fell asleep leaving Alf Fildes scribing away. In the dark night the war went on, being able to sleep peacefully, dry, snug and warm was I suppose, Luxury.
Alf Fildes writing cheques for his wife Lily.
NOVEMBER 24, 1943
MY DIARY:
UP VERY EARLY TO CONTACT OUR GUN POSITION. RECEPTION STRENGTH 9, BUT THE OP STRENGTH 1. WILL TRY AND PUT UP VERY LONG AERIAL.
FILDES’ DIARY:
Officer from 17 battery arrives to pass on shoot for ‘Jenks’ (Major Jenkins), nice chap, we had an affable day.
The aerial! This was a metal interslotting series of metal poles with a cross-shaped antennae at the top. Its maximum height was twenty feet.
We contacted Ernie Hart at the Command Post.
“Any mail up, Ernie—over.”
“Yes—over.”
“Any for me or Fildes?—over.”
“Hold on.”
We wait, during which time he makes enquiries. “Yes, there’s some for both of you—over.”
“Great. Any news about leave? Over.”
“Nooo. Nothing. There’s a rumour about forty-eight hours in Naples—.”
“Can you tell Edgington that the mist is on the Swonickles? Over.”
“The what? Over.”
“The mist is on the Swonickles—over.”
“What’s it mean? Over.”
“He’ll understand—over and out.”
The pattern of the day is only broken by rushes to do a slash and cook the lunch. We keep our bit of fire area dry by laying a gas cape over it. We make tea about every two hours. Doing a ‘pony’ is difficult and entails getting a rain-ridden bum. Of course, our leader, Winston, he’s not kipping in the back of a truck, no, he and his crony Roosevelt are in sunny Cairo, and as it’s Thanksgiving Day, he’s got Roosevelt carving great lumps of turkey at his villa, and so stoned does the old man get that after the scoff, they put the gramophone on and the Prime Minister of England dances with a Mr Wilson. What’s happening to the war you say? So! Churchill is foxtrotting in Cairo; Milligan is kipping in the mud of Italy; game, set and match to Churchill.
On the 8th Army front, the 78 Div. and the Indian 8th Div. have attacked and got across the Sangro. God knows how they did it in this weather. Perhaps they had umbrellas.
The evening comes in dark and gloomy, Alf boils up a couple of tins of stew, sitting up in bed we eat it and small talk. He tells me his missus has sent him a Conway Stewart pen. I clutch the bedclothes with excitement. He shows me the latest photo of his wife Lily and their two kids. I clutch the bed clothes with excitement. On the morrow we would try and extend the aerial.
MEANTIME, NEXT DAY
“I’ll try and put it up this tree, Alf,” I said, with g
ood intentions.
“You should look good in a tree. I always thought, in your paybook where it says place of birth it should say Tree.”
“Hold this aerial, Alf,” I said, “and I will climb up and insult you from a great height.”
The words rang clear on the morning air, also clear in the morning air was my lone scream as I fell ten feet.
“You alright?” said Fildes with a whimsical smile.
“Of course, don’t you know falling ten feet from a tree is always alright?”
Clutching and swearing, twigs snapping around me, I managed to get up to the lower branches and let out a Tarzan call.
“Pass me up the aerial, Alf,” says Milligan.
It would appear I have climbed too high for him to reach me.
“You’ll have to come down a bit,” he says.
The tree is winter-green and slippery; in various contortions that are only done by a man with strychnine poisoning, I get to a lower level and give a Tarzan cry.
“Here, grab ‘old,” says Fildes, holding up the aerial. I firmly grab one of the Windmill antennae, it snaps off.
“Never mind, there’s still three more.”
I try and haul the thing through a complex of branches and boughs; now, a twenty-foot-long pole is no manoeuvrable item. It was like trying to thread a giant darning needle and I wasn’t trained for that. I gave another Tarzan call, it got to the stage where I was trapped between the branches and the aerial.
“Shall I chop the tree down?” said Fildes, giggling.
“It’s the antennae that’s in the way,” I said. “I’ll unscrew them.”
I soon have three loose antennae in one hand, and I find the other hand insufficient to climb and hold the aerial.
“Catch,” I said, and dropped the antennae. Looking up, Fildes loses his balance, and starts to slide back down the muddy slope. So smooth is his progress that he doesn’t realise he’s moving; gently the back of his nut collides with a tree. I gave the Tarzan call, and a lot of bloody good it did. The antennae are now slopped in the mud. I, in contrast, am covered in the green moss of the tree trunk and covered in scratches. This is called modern wireless communications.