It has rained now continuously for five days. Sgt. Donaldson tells me that the guns are in a bad state. The carriages are starting to warp so badly that 15 and 18 Batteries are being pulled out of action.
“I wish to God my carriage would warp,” I said.
“You know what they’re going to do to reinforce them, weld railway lines round the front and the two sides.”
“I suppose this means all the bloody trains will stop running.” Sgt. Donaldson was up for some kind of vehicles’ inspection.
“I don’t know how the bloody things are still working.” He was going on about the road conditions.
“They’ve organised a one-way system, half the day it’s up traffic, the other half down traffic, if you come up early you have to wait half the bloody day before the down system comes in.”
“Don’t come up or down,” I said, “come sideways, like the Chinese.”
He stayed to have lunch with us, a lovely Stew, we sat under the altar of the church eating and telling dirty jokes. It was a bad day for God.
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 11, 1943
Armistice Day. Ha ha ha.
Lt. ‘Johnny’ Walker is at an OP on Monte Croce. He is suspicious that a white farmhouse is harbouring the enemy, so he drops a few 200 pounders around it; as they get closer a door bursts open and out rush a Jerry patrol who run like hell to a farmhouse a hundred yards away. Walker then shells that place, out runs Jerry back to farmhouse one, he does this till the Jerries are shagged out and finally double back to their own lines. “When I fight an enemy, I like to keep them fit,” says Walker.
That night fairly quiet in the Command Post, Lt. Stewart Pride not feeling very well. “I must report sick in the morning,” he says. “Any music on the wireless?”
I fiddle with the knobs. We are surrounded by hills and the reception is very bad. I get what sounds like someone singing in Yugoslavian.
“I don’t understand, Milligan,” says Stewart Pride, “you can’t get our bloody OP, which is only half a mile away, yet you can get some idiot singing in Yugoslavia.”
“That’s because he’s singing very loud, sir. If our signallers at the OP could be given training in opera, it would be easy.”
It’s two in the morning, bloody cold, Edgington has just come off Telephone Exchange duty, he comes into the Command Post for a warm. “Cor, it’s taters,” he says, making straight for the brazier. We all stand round it, the twigs crackling.
“What was the news tonight?” says Edgington.
“The Russians are advancing in all directions including upwards. The Allies are making steady progress, and Harry Roy is in hospital with appendicitis.”
Edgington grins at Stewart Pride. “Do you like Harry Roy?” he says.
“I don’t know, I’ve never met him,” says Stewart Pride.
Buttoning up his overcoat Edgington bids us goodnight. “I will see ‘ee in dawn’s rosy light,” and he slips under the canvas into the night.
We hear him fall in the dark and fade away swearing to himself. I shout through the canvas, “Don’t forget, dawn’s early light.” Came the answer, “Balls.” Oh what a lovely war. Not so lovely when we hear by the grapevine that our PBI are suffering 50 per cent casualties. Thank God I’m not in the Infantry. So ended Armistice Day, what a day to die.
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 1943
On this day my diary is blank. I think this is because I was too busy moving, as is borne out by Fildes’ diary that says: Move forward at 0500 hrs to new position. As usual the digging in the crackpot major loves so well. Beautiful country and orchard—mountains far away snow crested now. Lovely apples make place too much like England with green downs and autumn leaves. Xmas greetings mail being issued.
0500 hours! No wonder I didn’t make any entry in the diary. However I have this excerpt from a letter I wrote home on the thirteenth and in it I say:
“…today is like an English Summer’s day, birds sing their repetitive little phrases, the village overlooking the field I’m in looks like a drawing from a Hans Andersen Fairy Story, excuse the writing but I’m laying down…”
So where were we? The map reference was 999003 and that indicates a place called Monte Santa Maria. I never knew that Maria was Saint No. 999003.
OK. So what can I think up on the apple orchard position?…Well—like I said…it’s a bit of a blur, except for the orchard itself which is very clear in memory—plus the view from the corner of it, of not-so-distant peaks,* snow-capped in the chilly Autumn morning, and rose-tinted, unmistakably, and spectacularly, in the early dawn light—the very first time I had ever seen, and I suspect a few other English city-dwellers like me, such a magnificent natural phenomenon.
≡ Abruzzi Mountains.
If I can take a guess at the orientation in say the long axis of the raggedly-oval-shaped orchard, maybe sixty-eighty feet in length, was east-west, roughly, and those unearthly beautiful peaks were laying about south-east* as we peered southward over the thick hedge that completely surrounded the orchard.
≡ Wrong. It was North. He’s lost as usual.
The altitude was accentuated by the fact the peaks seemed to be at about the same level as us across a deep valley* and to its east.
≡ The Valley was the Garigliano Plain (Eh?).
Of the apples in the orchard we identified at least six familiar types, though I’m sure there were considerably more trees than that. Russets, Granny Smith’s, Big Canadian Reds, Cox’s Orange Pippins were among those I can still recall, while one tree had produced what Alf and I concluded must have been a cross between an apple and a pear, rather small, delicious to eat, and having a quite marked perfume or scent into the bargain. I recall that under each tree there was a veritable carpet of its apples—windfalls—and the scene under the Big Canadian Red tree was something to marvel at—the darkish-red, highly-polished skins glistening with diamond-like drops of moisture all catching the fitful shafts of sunlight just breaking through the foliage. Only half an hour later or maybe less we found ourselves being nearly suffocated by the onset of a large patch of very dense mountain mist, the minute droplets of water-vapour being concentrated as to bring visibility down to almost nil and clog our breathing alarmingly: it only lasted a few minutes but we got really panicky in that time.
This coloured drawing—now that I’ve finished it—won’t mean much, if anything, to a stranger reading the book, and the lads themselves—other than the Monkey 2 team—may not recognise much of it, since the guns were virtually out of sight from the road in the lower-level corner of the next field, perhaps 200 yards or more from the road.
Edgington’s crayon masterpiece, thirty years on
Certainly I’ve visualised it from a position nobody could possibly have occupied—twenty feet or so up in the air among the roadside trees of a fairly dense wood on the left hand side of the road as you came up it.
Edgington and I are off duty; to shelter from the unending rain we hole up in the back of someone’s three-tonner. We chat about anything, we sing songs together, we like doing vocal arrangements. I play the trumpet part and Harry does the Bass accompaniment. We scrounge tea from Spike Deans. Lt. Joe Mostyn is passing by. I could see his Jewish soul burning with loathing of the war, not so much against the Germans, but the fact he was only on a Second Lieutenant’s pay, when he really wanted to be in his schmutter shop in Whitechapel, doing mass-produced suits that all the Spivs would buy off the peg at five quid a go. I could see his gaze a long way from this muddy pit we were in, he was in the workroom, watching the girls on their machines, and fancying the one with the big boobs who was doing the padding in the shoulders. The times he had said to me, “Whoever designed the battle dress was a Schmock, the first thing to do when you dress a soldier is to make him look, or think he looks, attractive to the opposite sex, but look at this—” he would indicate my battle dress, “—no wonder the Yanks get all the women, what do you look like? A cripple! We all look like cripples! When we march past a saluting base, the
natives think we’re all going into a home for the deformed.”
Yet, although he was never very good at Gunnery, or, as we used to call it, Goonery, he still was the man who kept the officers’ mess topped up with little luxuries. I remember Lt. Walker coming to the Command Post, his eyes shining with orange sauce.
“Where in God’s name did he get a duck in this wilderness?” At the Apple Orchard position, Mostyn detailed three Gunners who spent all day collecting sacks of apples, he gets the cookhouse to stew them, and for several weeks there was apple puree on the table. Mind you, he was suffering; his family were all Kosher, and he had started off following the Kosher diet, but as the war entered its second year he gradually became ‘christianised’, the great temptation was upon him. At the rest camp at Amalfi, he was offered a plate of shellfish. Strained to breaking point, he said (according to Lt. Walker), “Why should I go on being hated by Hitler for being Jewish? I’m going to take the pressure off.” So saying, he plunged into the dish, beating his breast and shouting, “Mother! Forgive me, but eat, Joe, EAT.”
Yes, Joe Mostyn was an unforgettable character. I last saw him in the foyer of the Cumberland Hotel at Marble Arch in 1952. He was a bit offish with me, and seemed loath to talk, but he did impart the info that he was ‘Teaching the Israeli Army Gunnery’. If so, but for him the Six Day War would have been over in two.
The war is gradually having its effect on the officers. Bdr. Sherwood is at the foot of a hill on which our OP is sited. He is in his little bivvy by his bren carrier when the link phone buzzes. In Sherwood’s own words this is what transpired.
SHERWOOD:
OP. Link Answering.
LT. BUDDEN:
Ah, Sherwood?
SHERWOOD:
Yes, sir.
LT. BUDDEN:
I’m bored.
SHERWOOD:
What you want me to do, sir?
A PAUSE, SLIGHT BREATHING, THEN
LT. BUDDEN:
Sing.
SHERWOOD:
(Singing) Lay that Pistol down Babe, Lay that Pistol Down, Pistol Packin’ Momma, lay that pistol down. (He continues thus till the song is finished.)
LT. BUDDEN:
Thank you.
Above: Lt. Cecil Budden, taken just before the asbestos roof behind nearly decapitated him. Today he is alive and well and living in Essex.
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 1943
Because of the OP’s field of view, and a thousand feet height added to the guns’ range, the targets are never ending. Despite the cold the gunners are actually sweating. A casualty! my boots are leaking. I examine them seated in the back of G truck. White passes by sipping tea.
He stops. “What’s on?”
“My boots are leaking.”
“Oh? Outwards?”
“Outwards my arse, the bloody water’s getting in, Jerry’s got the right idea. Jack Boots, no lace holes. Great.”
“Have you tasted the apples here?”
“Not yet.”
“They’re bloody marvellous, better than English ones, full of juice.”
Army conversations were unique, from leaking boots to apples in one line. I reported to the Quarter Master Courtney for new boots, he makes me take mine off and examines them. “Like a jeweller’s glass,” I said sarcastically.
“Well,” he says, “we haven’t got your size, see; you take an eight, we’ve only got twelves.”
“Twelves? TWELVES? Christ!”
“Take it or leave it.”
A choice! Size twelves or bare feet. It was like wearing landing barges. I used to haul myself around in the mud walking like Frankenstein’s monster, my feet kept coming out of the bloody things, and I had to stand on one leg trying to tug the monster boot out of the mud. It was impossible, I told the Quarterbloke and he relented. “I’ll send a truck to Base Depot and get you a pair of eights.”
The new size eights arrive and are like iron. They have been in store since World War 1. I have to attack them with a hammer to break them down. I cover them with great loads of dubbin, put them near the fire; I watched those boots absorb two pounds of dubbin, with a noise of Glug Glug. “The bloody things are alive,” said Gunner White, watching fascinated as the boots devoured the dubbin. After half an hour’s battering with a Tent Peg Mallet I tried them on. Great! they were as soft as buckskin.
We have news that 17 Battery has had a premature. No one killed but one gunner injured. This was strange as the gun had just come back from workshops, where it had been repaired for a previous premature.
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 1943
REGIMENTAL DIARY:
Weather once again wet windy and cold (That sounded like most of us.).
ALF FILDES’ DIARY:
Rain making things awkward.
BDR. MILLIGAN’S DIARY:
GAVE BOOTS ANOTHER GOOD HAMMERING.
Lt. Budden is a greeny-yellow colour when he enters the Command Post.
“You look off colour, sir—yellow to be precise,” I said sympathetically.
“No, I feel jolly rotten.”
Jolly rotten?
“I’ve just come to collect my prismatic compass.” He goes to a little ledge, picks up a few belongings. He looks dreadful. “I’m going into hospital, Milligan.”
“Congratulations, sir.”
He manages a wry smile and exits. I will miss him, he is a splendid fellow; the only trouble was, he didn’t understand Jazz.
We are visited by Vic Nash, who has just come back from the OP with Jam-Jar Griffin.
“What a bloody time,” he says. “Fuckin’ mud and fuckin’ shells, and fuckin’ Jerry dead stinking away, now I’ve discovered I’ve got bloody Dhobi’s Itch.”
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 15, 1943
TORRENTIAL RAIN
I thought we’d had the heaviest rain possible, but now, today, it is unbelievable! It’s so damp that even under cover you get wet. The only good thing is the rum ration. I can’t stand the taste of it, I keep it in my water bottle and put it in my tea during the night shift. We bake apples and chestnuts by our Command Post fire. The path to the Command Post is very slippery and poor old George Shipman slid off it last night down a sixty-foot bank; he entered the Command Post covered in slimy mud. “I just fell over the bank,” he said.
“I thought they were closed on Mondays.” There’s a lot of illness in the Regiment, we are well below full strength, especially me. It’s come to something, our Medical Officer, Captain Bentley, is in hospital with ‘Chinese Flu’ (Jaundice). 15 and 18 Batteries have been pulled out of the line for a rest, and their guns are at REME Workshops in Naples. The Attack on Monte Camino was halted because of appalling weather. All that blood-letting for nothing. After the war a note in the 14th Panzer Corps (they were defending Camino) Diary for 13th states, “THE ENEMY HAS WON THE BATTLE FOR THE MIGNANO GAP!”…that was the day that General Mark Clark had told Alexander that we would have to suspend the offensive because our troops were exhausted. Kismet.
Our Gunners are so shagged, they have been falling asleep on the guns; Signallers, Specialists and Karzi attendants are all rounded up to do a spell on them. The Gunners sleep in their tents and don’t even wake up for meals. The platforms of the guns are nothing more than pools of mud three feet deep. For the first time the entire Regiment is out of action. A strange silence settles on us.
“I can’t sleep,” says Signaller White. “It’s too bloody quiet.”
We all sit in our tents, watching the mountain of water falling.
“I’ve worked out that the rest of the world must be bone bloody dry!” says Edgington, putting a damp cigarette in his mouth.
“Cheer up,” I said.
“Why?”
“I don’t know why, give me time, I’ll think of a reason.”
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 1943
We have both run across to the cookhouse with our gas capes over our heads, it’s early morning and what a treat! someone has got us a fried egg each for breakfast.
&
nbsp; “Oh, magnificent egg,” I intoned.
“Egg! oh Egg!” echoed Edgington like a Shakespearean actor. “I feel a powerful inspiration on the egg coming to me.” He then launched into, “Oh long live the fried egg, even though for it we have to beg. The fact that these eggs are Italian, will have us bound up like a…” I couldn’t think of a rhyme, then Edgington says, “Like a stallion.”
“Did you hear Jerry’s long-range guns last night?” I said.
“Noo, I wasn’t on duty, for once I had a good kip.”
A period of eating and tea sipping.
“Here; last night I picked up some jazz from Naples AFN, they had a half-hour of Goodman with Charlie Christian on guitar, it was bloody marvellous, then about ten minutes of Jimmy Lunceford, they played that great sax arrangement of Sleepy Time Gal, it was great, I think Willy Smith was on first Alto, what a great lead he is.”
“I wonder when we’ll ever play again.”
“Alf’s guitar strings are all going rusty. He’s going to try to get some new ones when he gets a trip into Naples.”
Bombardier Fuller is calling for me. Despite my silence he finds me. “We’re going to move soon.”
“In this bloody weather?”
“In this weather…there’s no rush, but start getting things ready, we can close down on Wireless, but we’re keeping the OP Line open.”
“Ours is but to do and die—and try and get bloody dry!” says Edgington.
It continues as a nothing day, we attempt to write letters. Some play cards, some sleep, some just sit and stare. New Disaster, the shit-pit has been flooded by the rain so it’s all floating around the landscape; poor Sgt. Jock Wilson and his crew are all gently sleeping in their tent when the contents of the Shit-Pit float under the tent flaps. Chaos.
Memoires 04 (1978) - Mussolini, His Part In My Downfall Page 11