He shows me photographs of himself outside his master’s Manor House somewhere in Scotland.
“You left all that to come here?”
He nodded ruefully. “I must ha’ been bloody mad,” he said.
Well he was now. He was interesting company even though he was on tranquillisers and occasionally fell down. I sent him on errands like scrounging fags, getting my breakfast tray, bringing extra cups of tea, he loved it, he was back ‘in service’ again, and I took every advantage of it.
“Shall I gie yer boots a clean?” he’d say and I would say “Yes,” wouldn’t I?
I felt well enough to write my first letter home from Italy.
My dear Mum, Dad and Des,
I am officially somewhere else, that somewhere else is where I am, I am not at liberty to say, the whole of this land we have arrived in is now TOP SECRET, in fact no one is allowed to know where it is, even the people who live in it are told to forget they are here, however, the bloody Germans know where it is, and don’t want to let us have it (Spaghetti). I’ve been here about a certain number of days (Spaghetti) and we all arrived here by certain transport and landed at a certain place at a certain time, of all these facts I am dead certain (Spaghetti). We are allowed to mention the sky, so I’ll say that we have in fact got one, it’s directly overhead and high enough to allow you to stand up. The weather, well it was nice and warm when we landed but is turning cool, as are the natives, and now there is rain every other day, I am not with the regiment at the moment, no, I have had an illness called sandfly fever, it’s caused, as the name suggests, by getting sand in your flies, which immediately sends your temperature soaring, so despite the cold weather I’m quite warm thank you, in fact my temperature got so high, walking patients used to sit around my bed at night to keep warm. (Spaghetti). However, I’m better now, I’ve still got a temperature but it’s normal. Next I’ll be sent to a bloody awful Reinforcement Camp, where all the mud is sent to be slept on by unclaimed soldiers. So far the Battery have not sustained any casualties except me. (Spaghetti). With the censorship as it is it’s pointless to write any more, all I want you to do is to write and tell me where I am (Spaghetti).
Your loving Son/Brother/Midwife Terry
SEPTEMBER 28, 1943
MY DIARY:
THE NEWS SAYS JERRY’S EVACUATED NAPLES. HEAVY RAIN.
A Scottish, sandy-haired, freckle-faced Doctor is at the foot of my bed, he looks at me, smiles, looks at my board.
“Temperature’s down then.”
“Is it, sir?”
“It’s ninety-nine. How do you feel?”
“I feel about ninety-nine, sir.”
I slept most of that day, waking up for meals. It was all very pleasant, the service, the sound of the rain, the bloke in the next bed dying. That evening they took him out for some kind of an operation and he never came back. I remember the name on his chart was Parkinson ACC, he was a cook aged forty-five, and he’d snuffed it. Poor bugger; still, he was an army cook, and killed quite a few in his time.
What news! there’s an ENSA Concert Party in the Big Hall this evening!
“What’s ENSA?” says Jamie.
I told him, “Every Night Something Awful.”
British troops’ triumphal entry via the side streets while the Americans take the main roads.
The Hall was packed. There is a proper stage; on the curtains are the faint outlines of the Fascists’ emblem, which has been unravelled in a hurry. A Sergeant is in the pit on a lone upright piano, he strikes up a merry medley of tunes, “Blue Birds over the White Cliffs of Dover’ (and why shouldn’t they be white with all those birds flying over?). The curtains part and there are three men and two girls in evening dress, they were the ‘squares’ of all time, they are all singing ‘Here we are, Here we are, Here we are again!” Which was an outright lie as we’d never seen ‘em before. We give them a good hand. A short red-faced male with a fierce haircut and popping eyes comes forward and starts to wrestle with the microphone to bring it down to his height.
“Thank you! Thank you!” he gushes. “Well, as we say, here we are again.”
He tells a series of terrible jokes, we roar with laughter, he announces the Something Twins, on come two girls dressed as Shirley Temples, they sing ‘On the good ship Lollipop’, and we wish they were, they do a very simple tap dance. Storms of applause, next a male about fifty sings ‘The Bowmen of England’, as if all their strings were slack, he finishes, storms of applause! On come the two girls dressed as sailors—loud whistles. They sing ‘All the Nice Girls Love a Sailor’. The third male comes on, he’s everything a comic should be except funny, about forty-five, rotund, evening dress, a flat cap, a glove on one hand, after each joke he transfers the glove to the other and says ‘On the other hand’, he ends up with a song that I forgot even as he sang it. He left an indelible blank on my mind. The pit pianist then plays ‘The Stars and Stripes’…Storms of cheers, what liars we are. So it goes on; a brave attempt to cheer the lads up, and we all appreciated it, it was as well we didn’t have to pay. We wander back upstairs to our ward, it’s night now, the black-outs are up, dinner is on its way.
“They’re letting me out tomorrow,” says Jamie.
“You going back to your unit?”
“No, I’m going before a medical board, they’re going to downgrade me.”
“You lucky sod.”
“Aye, I don’t think I’d like any more fighting, I should have stayed at home.”
So ended Jamie Notam’s dream of high adventure. I wonder what happened to him.
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 30, 1943
I’m up and about, I’m OK, I’m cured, I’m normal again, I feel fine, I’m ready to be killed again, he’s fit, send him back, etc. etc. Yes. The Scots doctor on his rounds.
“So you’re leaving us, Mirrigen.”
“Yes, sir.”
“How do you feel?”
“Very ill, sir, very, very, very ill.”
He smiles. “Well, Mirrigen, all good things come to an end.”
Was I the good thing? Help!! Two new patients arrive, and are dumped in the bed each side. Both are coughing like consumptives, what luck, if I hang around I might get it. Shall I kiss one? I wonder where the Battery are and what they are doing, going Bang! I suppose. There is a barber among the patients, Rifleman Houseman.
“Anyone want a haircut?”
There is no reply.
“Free,” he adds, and is knocked down in the rush. I let him loose on my head, when he showed me the result in the mirror, I nearly fainted.
“Howzat?” he said.
“Out,” I replied.
My head looked like someone had set it on fire.
“It was all for free,” explained Rifleman Houseman.
BRILLIANT RECOVERY FROM SANDFLY FEVER BY HUMBLE L/BOMBARDIER
So the headlines should have run, all I got was a Lance-Corporal suffering from incurable stupidity, who said, “Bombardier Millington?”
“That’s almost me,” I said.
“You are to be discharged tomorrow.”
“I understand that my name is now Millington and I am to be discharged as fit.”
“Yes, RTU*.”
≡ Return to Unit.
RTU? That had me, so I sang it to a Novello tune ‘RTU again whenever spring breaks through.’ (Groans).
He blinked and made me sign a piece of paper that in as many words said, “We have tried to kill this man but failed.”
“You will be ready by 0830 hours and take the unexpired portion of your day’s rations.”
Unexpired rations? The mind boggled. I started a series of farewells and looked deeply into the eyes of all the nurses with a look that said quite positively, “You’re lucky I never screwed you,” and they looked back with a smile that said, “When you’ve been promoted to Captain, knock three times.”
OCTOBER 1, 1943
It’s a mixed day, a souffle of sun and cloud. Outside the 76th General a 3-tonne
r truck is waiting like a wagon at the Knacker’s Yard. A short squat driver with a squint in his left eye ‘finds’ and calls our names out from a bit of tacky paper. “Lance-Bombardier Mirrigan?”
“Yes, that’s me,” I said. “Lance-Bombardier Mirrigan.”
He calls out the names of several more soldiers of the King, who at the sight of them would abidicate. I enquire where we are being taken.
“Corps Reinforcement Camp.” He pronounced the word ‘Corpse’. An Omen.
We all climb over the back of the tailboard, there’s no roof, only the supporting struts. So started a journey of much boredom. Come, let us start.
I look at the vacant stares of my travelling companions, all infantry men, they have my sympathy. We drove for half an hour, during which they never said a word.
“Like a fag,” I said to one.
“Ta,” he says.
That’s half his vocabulary gone, I thought. He was Irish. The roads are tired and dusty, tanks have ground away the surface, after half an hour we pass through Battapaglia.
“We’re going South!” I said.
Still no sign of animation from my companions. The buildings we pass are all much like I originally described, the colours usually white, pale blue, deep blue, sometimes a light pink, clusters of shops, small one-man affairs, all looking pretty run down and shabby. There are goods for sale but none luxury. There’s bread, vegetables, seasonal fruit, apples, walnuts, grapes, figs; ‘Casa de Scarpa’ show a poor variety of shoes, looking very pre-1939, what was I talking about? I was a pre-1920 model myself.
What was I doing in this war? it’s only three years old, I’m older than the war! it’s not fair! how can a three-year-old war understand a man of twenty-five? We are passing fresh-painted army signs, Base Ordnance Depot, Town Major, REME Workshops, and what’s this? VD Clinic? So soon? Isn’t love a wonderful thing? What isn’t a wonderful thing is sitting in this bloody lorry with seven Australo-pitheci. British PoWs didn’t give information when tortured by the Gestapo because they didn’t know how to talk.
“Dat town was called Battapaglia,” said the Irishman.
The act of speaking five consecutive words so exhausted him, he laid down. We pass Italian Military Policemen, looking scruffy and unshaved; they were performing helpful tasks like guarding German PoWs, whose arses they kicked in revenge, but they were getting weary of repeated insults from allied soldiers giving Fascist salutes with cries of “Mussolini—Spaghetti!” Suddenly the sky blackens, great thunder clouds congregate, the temperature lowers, spots of rain fall. The Irish soldier then makes an incredible prediction.
“I tink it’s goin’ ter rain.”
Immediately a deluge started.
“See?” he triumphed.
With no cover, we sat huddled in our greatcoats.
“Are you alright in the back there?” came a voice from the cab.
“Come on in the water’s lovely,” I said.
The journey seemed endless. “Where in God’s name are they taking us?”
“I tink,” said the Mick, “dey are just querying us.”
As quick as it started the rain stopped, the sun came out. Soon we were all steaming like wet laundry. At mid-day the lorry arrives at a field of tents, fronted by a farmhouse; there is a sign: Corps Reinforcement Unit. We are shown into the HQ office. A Corporal seated behind a desk:
“Name? Number? Religion? Regiment?” He tells us,
“You are here to await pick-up by your regiments.”
“How long will that take?” I said.
He frowns. I’ve broken the code! “Well, I don’t exactly know, so far no one has picked up anybody, we’ve only been ‘ere for a week, so it will take a while for ‘em to find the location. There are tented lines, two men to a bivvy. Part 2 Orders are posted on the board outside.”
We walk along the line of muddy tents. I find an empty one. I see men walking rapidly with empty mess-tins; food! I follow. We arrive at a field kitchen. Food??!! Two slices of cold bully beef, a carrot, a boiled potato. A mug of tea, two biscuits. No mess tent, eat where you stand. I see an intelligent face, his shoulder flashes, HAMPS.* We get talking, name Arrowsmith, was on the landings, shell shock. He looks a little like Ronald Colman, slim, about five foot seven, intelligent, sensitive.
“It’s simple arithmetic, the longer you are alive in action, the nearer you are to getting to your lot. You see, I think, I rationalise, and that way you see only too clearly your death approaching. If I go back to my mob, I’ll never see Blighty again. I came ashore with B Company. At the end of three days, me, the sergeant and one private were all that was left. We were given replacements; two days later, me and two of the new replacements are all that’s left. I mean, it’s on the cards; one night we are on patrol, we brush with a Jerry patrol, a grenade explodes on a tree next to my head, I don’t remember any more till I wake up in an ambulance. The quack says it’s concussion and I’ll soon be alright. Alright? The cunt! He’s talking about the outside! what about up in here?” He taps his head with his spoon, it sounded hard-boiled. “That’s where it all happens, and inside me it says no go.”
We go back to our tents.
“Can’t sleep in this bloody thing,” says Arrowsmith surveying his muddy bed.
I suggest we look around for a dry place.
“Dry?” He laughed.
“You don’t know what Basenji means do you?”
“What?”
“Never mind.” *2/4 Hampshire.
We squat in our tents, smoke and talk. At this Camp there was a morning roll-call at 7.00, breakfast from 7.30 to 8.30, then Parade at 9.00, the rest of the day you did what you could with a muddy field and two hundred tents. There was no transport, no entertainment, no money. The boredom was unbelievable. I mean, if a man sneezed, it was considered entertainment. The camp was about three hundred yards from Red Beach, Salerno. For the next three days Arrow-smith and I just foraged around, collecting walnuts and looking for war souvenirs. We had the occasional bathe, but the water was getting that first autumnal chill that made swimming nippy.
The Pioneer Corps were on the beaches collecting war salvage, all middle-aged men. We talked to them. Why did they join up?
“Anyfink ter git away from the bleedin’ wife.”
They are all old soldiers, some from World War 1, they are well organised. At lunch they light a fire on the beach, and are soon frying eggs and bacon.
“Like some grub?” says their Sergeant.
“Christ, yes,” I said.
Salerno Beach. Soldiers treasure-hunting. 44
The Sergeant is a Londoner, he’s about fifty, big, burly and used to be a fish porter at Billingsgate.
“I wos gettin’ fed up, so I fort, ‘ave a go in the Pioneer Corps. When they knowed I bin a sergeant in World Woer I, they makes me a sergeant right away, so strite on I’m orl rite fer lolly.”
He tells us about the ‘perks’.
“The CO ‘e says, go orf and get some salvage, so we takes a day’s rations, bully bread cheese an’ all that, we piss orf somewhere and swop the bully and cheese fer Iti eggs or chickens, an’ we live like fightin’ cocks, but,”, he giggled, “we don’t do no fitin’.”
For two days we met them on the beach and gave them a hand picking up empty ammo boxes, shell cases, and were rewarded with marvellous grub; the last day they brought three bottles of white Chianti, we got back to the Camp that evening very merry. We had also solved sleeping in the mud. Three hundred yards east of our camp in a field, I spotted a small hut on legs; these are apparently farmhands’ resting places during the hot harvesting season, made of straw, with wooden slats for the supporting skeleton. It was lovely! dry and warm. We slept very cosy that night.
But all good things come to an end, in this case a cigarette end; we set fire to the place. The glow drew the attention of the enraged farmer and we had to grab our belongings and, wearing only our socks and shirt, run like hell for the camp. We were stopped by the sentry, who had us
taken to the guard room. The guard Sergeant asked what we were doing ‘runnin’ round half bloody naked’.
“Our grass hut caught fire,” explained Arrowsmith.
I couldn’t speak for suppressed laughter.
“What grass ‘ut?” says the Sergeant.
We had to tell the story and he put us on a charge for absenting ourselves from the camp. Next morning he forgot all about it. Well, not exactly, during the night he was convulsed with terrible pains in his side, he had a perforated appendix and was hurried to the hospital, so next morning I presume he had forgotten us. The subsequent guard commander said, “Piss off.” The boredom was getting me down. One grey morning I asked to see the OC.
“What for?” said the Corporal.
“It’s about Basenji.”
“Wait here.”
He knocked on a door. A very crisp voice shouted, “Come in.”
Opening the door the Corporal said, “There’s a Lance-Bombardier Mirrigan wishes to see you, sir.”
I was ushered in. The OC was a Major. He was a bright red. He wore his hat. Under a bulbous nose was a pepper and salt cavalry moustache. His chin was a mass of small broken veins, he blinked at twice the normal rate, and from time to time sniffed what was a running nose. He would be somewhere between thirty-eight and ninety-seven, it was hard to tell. He was writing an aerograph letter which, on my approach, he hurriedly covered with a blotter. Silly sod.
“What do you want?” he said curtly.
“This will come as a surprise to you, sir, but what I want is a job.”
He looked at me, blinked and sniffed.
“A job?” He stressed the word and said it again. “Job?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Being a soldier is a job.”
“Well, I want a job on top of that job.”
“What kind of a job?”
“Any kind, sir, it’s the boredom here, it’s driving me mad.”
“You think you’re alone? What’s your army trade?”