Peace Work (23 page)

I lay back and took my ease on the bed. “Well,” I said, “last show tonight.”

“Thank God,” he replies, “rather sad in a way, but I think we’ve had enough.”

Would I like a cigarette? Is he out of his mind? Could he say that again! Yes, he is definitely offering me a cigarette. I remember it was a classy cigarette, Churchmans N°1. Ah, it’s all clear:
he
, too, has had a parcel from home.

∗

Time for the last show. We gather chattering in the foyer, then board the Charabong through the Roman cacophony of motor horns. Toni has recovered her demeanour and I have put my Y-fronts back on the right way, and the Swonnicles are revolving normally. Tonight our strong man, Maxie, will try and break his own weightlifting record of umpteen pounds. We all watch from the wings as the dwarflike strong man strains to get the weights above his head. The silence is broken by his grunts and strains, the veins stand out on his head. Finally, with a gasp, he gets them above his head. He takes the applause.

“What a way to make a bloody living,” says Hall. “I bet one day ‘e’ll get a double rupture.”

There’s a sense of sadness in the air. This company has been together every day for three months; it has become as familiar as a family. As the Trio are taking an ensore, I think well that’s it; the next time we play will be in England. Then what? I can still hear that applause on the last night…

The stage party is very good. Chalky White and his helpers erect trestle tables which are loaded with cheese, wine and biscuits. We help ourselves. Johnny Bornheim plays the piano. The Italians have invited members of their families, big fat mommas and kids. It’s a very jolly affair. Before we finish, Lieutenant Priest thanks us for our efforts and says the show is the most successful one that Combined Services Entertainment have put on. We drink and eat our fill. We stand in circles, chatting and laughing, recalling moments that have highlighted our tour, and then the evening has run out. Time for home. Some of the Italian cast will be leaving us at Rome; there are tearful goodbyes, a lot of red eyes and red noses. Mulgrew’s nose is going red for an entirely different reason. In dribs and drabs we board the old Cha-rabong where patient Luigi waits. The engine is running, but no one else is. Finally, we set off for the hotel. We all start slightly inebriated singing: “You are my sunshine, my only sunshine, you make me happy when skies are grey” echoes along the now empty Roman streets. It’s nearly 2 a.m. by the time we get back; yawning, stretching and farting we climb wearily into bed. I can’t sleep, my mind starts to revolve around the things I have to do when we get back to naughty Napoli. I must collect all my kit from the CSE barracks, get a passport, an advance of money, presents to take home, fix the boat trip home – all this, and fix a week on Capri. Gradually I fall into fitful sleep to the sound of Mulgrew’s snoring in Scottish, plus a few postern blasts.

NAPLES

A SUNDAY

Y
et another glorious, sunny Roman day. I draw the curtains; the light falls on the slumbering Mulgrew, who stirs with a few mouthy sounds like ‘Abregibera’. I have a quick shower, singing ‘Love thy neighbour, wake up and say how be yer boo boo da de dum.’

Oh, what a waste! Mulgrew is awake; he calls out, “While you’re there, have one for me.”

The packing, and I’m baffled as to why each time I do it, there seems to be more stuff than last time. “The suitcase is shrinking,” says Mulgrew, having the same trouble. We lug the cases down to the care of the porter.

Toni is in the dining-room; she’s not eating. “No I wait for you, my love,” she says with a morning-bright smile. I mouth the words “I love you.” She smiles again, her head inclined to one side. Was her neck giving way? No, it’s just a posture of hers, ha ha. Lovely hot toast, melting butter and conserve – there
is
a God.

We are all wearing our rather shapeless travelling clothes. Toni’s are too big for her, while I’m too thin for mine. People keep knocking on my shirt to see if I’m in. Lieutenant Priest looms large. “Are you all packed?” he says. “We board in ten minutes. All hurry along.” Dutifully, we mount our motorized steed for the haul to naughty Naples. This journey will be interesting to me as we will be passing over ground that my regiment has fought over.

We leave Rome by the Via Appia Nuova, flanked on the left side by the Roman aqueduct that once fed Rome its water. Despite the ravages of time, lots of it is intact, rather like Bill Hall’s body. We pass tall cypress trees and the occasional Roman tomb, where occasional Romans were buried. “I suppose the bombin’ did all that,” said Hall, referring to the ruins. That’s right, Bill; these are specially bombed Roman ruins. Somewhere along this road would one day live Sophia Loren, who once squeezed my hand at a dinner table. But more of that in the future.

We are passing through the great frascati vineyards where the grapes are being harvested. Peasants with coloured clothes are speckled in the fields. We are on Route Six which will take us through Cassino. It’s a quieter coachload than normal; there’s a sense of anticlimax (why anybody should be anticlimax, I don’t know). Nobody talks much. Toni breaks the silence, “I so excited to go Capri,” she said and squeezed my hand extra hard.

The warmth, the rumbling along, the scenery flashing past; I nod off to sleep, waking up with a start when my head starts to fall off. “You tired, Terr-ee?” No, just sleepy. “Tell me, Terr-ee, you lak opera, Italian opera?” Yes, I love it. Good, if and when we go back to Rome, she will take me to one. “Which one you lak?” I lak
Madam Butterfly, Aida
, any romantic ones. “You lak
La Boheme
?” Yes,
mipiace molto
. Good we will go and see all of them; after, we’ll have dinner and I can sleep at her mother’s place. Good, now I can go back to sleep again.

I nod on and off until in the early afternoon we pull over under the shadow of the now ruined monastery at Cassino. I carry the sandwich box on to the grass verge while John Angove brings up the vacuum tea container. We arrange ourselves on the grass and help ourselves to the sandwiches. Toni and I sit in the shade of a tree. I lean against the trunk and look up at the sad spectacle of the ruined monastery. Bornheim sees me and reflects, “Bloody madness, eh?” Yes, bloody madness.

“You fight here, Terr-ee?” says Toni, with a full mouth.

“No, I was over that side.” I point behind me. Was it as bad as Cassino? Bad enough.

Luigi is walking round the Charabong, looking at the tyres. They are like Bill Hall, starting to go bald and will just about last the journey. I wonder if I will.

After an uneventful lunch, we are back on board. We turn left round a bend and there ahead is the skeleton of the town of Cassino, looking like a First World War setting. A road has been bulldozed through the rubble, but that is all. There are people in the ruins, but where they live, God only knows. Here and there are a few street stalls selling vegetables and fruit – how resilient is the human race.

Bornheim is reading his
Union Jack
. “You’re Irish, aren’t you, Milligan?” he says.

“I couldn’t afford anything else,” I said. “Why?”

“Well, it says here, in the human race today, the Irish came last.”

Bloody cheek. It must have been the first of the Irish jokes.

“Remember this, mate: General Montgomery and Alexander were both Irish. Till they took charge, the English were having the shit knocked out of ‘em, ha!”

We pass through the ghost of Cassino and travel down what had been called the Royal Mile. This was the road used by the Allies to reach the obliterated town. By day it was constantly shelled by the Germans, who liked that sort of thing; vehicles had to go like hell to avoid being hit. We are bumping along its heavily pitted surface, all of us bouncing up and down like a trampoline. When we hit a deep pothole, the whole lot of us give a great ‘OHHHHHHHH’.

“I wonder why we always use the letter ‘O’ to express surprise,” I said.

“Wot you mean?” says Hall, his tiny mind set ablaze by the question.

“Well, why always choose ‘O’; why not use ‘X’ or ‘K’ or ‘Z’? Like, ‘I’m sorry your cat has been run over’. ‘X!’ Or a combination of letters: ‘I’m sorry your cat has been run over again’. ‘XGHYZLP!’”

Hall looks blankly at me.

“Ow long were you in the Army?” he says.

“Same as I am now, five foot eleven.”

“You downgraded to B1, weren’t you?” Yes. “Ah,” he says and shakes his head sympathetically.

On, on, then. We reach the ancient town of Capua, at one time captured by Hannibal and his elephants. We cross the River Volturno by the same Bailey bridge that I crossed as the Fifth Army fought its way north in the mud. Ah, memories, nostalgia and goodbye yesterdays. I have been smoking cigarettes at a rate; my mouth feels like the inside of an Arab wrestler’s jockstrap. Ugh, yuck, splutter, I decide to give up smoking until the next one.

It seems such a long journey. “Someone’s moved Naples away,” says Mulgrew who is smoking a dog end so short that it’s really fumigating his nose.

“
Che tedioso
,” says Toni, resettling her bottom on the seat.

“Ow many mile ‘ave we got to go?” inquires Hall.

Bornheim tells him, “We aren’t travelling in miles; we are travelling in kilometres. It’s shorter that way.”

A weak cheer goes up when Priest points out a roadsign ‘Napoli 10 chilometri’. To raise our morale like the 12
th
Cavalry coming to the rescue, Hall unleashes his violin and plays Italian pop songs. Fulvio sings them and the Italians join in.

“They’re happy now,” grins Mulgrew; “they can smell spaghetti.”

“This could mean the OBE for you, Bill: violinist saves demoralized passengers!” I said.

Activated by the praise, he waggles his head, crosses his eyes and plays a wobbly version of ‘God Save the King’.

Mulgrew rises to his feet and salutes. “The toast and marmalade is the King,” he says and is jerked back into his seat as the Charabong lurches forward.

In the early evening we are entering the northern outskirts of Napoli. “
Grazie a Dio
,” says Toni, yawning and stretching but not getting any longer. On to the Via Roma with its bustling life and traffic, Luigi weaves in and out, shouting and blowing his horn. He’s happy. Soon he’ll be setting up his wife for
bambino
N°8; he has already loosened his trousers. Finally we pull up at the Albergo Rabicino, where all the Italian artistes disembark. I kiss Toni goodbye; I’ll see her tomorrow morning. We wave goodbye as we turn off in the direction of the CSE barracks. It’s only ten minutes later when we draw up to the grotty façade of the barracks. I go to the Qstores and pick up my belongings, and back on the bus. Hall and I are to go to the Army Welfare Hotel in the Vumero.

“Fancy you two lucky buggers staying at a hotel,” says Mulgrew.

I remind him that Mr Hall and I are now officer status and that they are still soldiers in service of the Crown and are thus khaki minions serving their time, and good luck with the food.

“I’d forgotten how grotty these barracks are,” said Born-heim.

“Yes, it’s amazing how they suit you,” I said. “Just stand there and I’ll record your picture for posterity.”

From somewhere, he gets a hammer and strikes this pose.

Private J. Bornheim – soldier, friend and twit.

This fragrant moment in time over, Hall and I re-bus and are taken to our hotel. It’s a middle-class affair, called Albergo Corsica in the Vomero. It’s run by the WVS with Italian staff. A Mrs Laws is the manageress, a portly matron in the tweed uniform of the WVS. She hopes we’ll be comfortable; so do we. A terribly weak little Italian porter with a trolley takes our luggage to the lift, or tries to. It takes his entire energy. In the lift, sweating, he leans against the wall, giving a sickly grin that only normally comes on deathbeds.

I am shown to a room on the second floor. It is at the back and therefore, though the room is high up and the hotel overlooks the bay, I overlook the rear streets. Bill Hall is next door, not for long – what’s my room like? It’s as the matron said, comfortable, just about – a bed, a table, a cupboard, a dressing table, the standard quartet of furnishings. Bill Hall sits on my bed. What’s he going to do?

“I think I’ll hang around a couple of weeks, sort of holiday.”

Holiday?

“We’ve been on one long holiday,” I said.

“There’s some friends here I want to visit.”

We both go down for dinner. The dining-hall is crowded with ENS A and AWS bods, all no doubt having a bloody good time at the expense of the taxpayer. My God, they were good days for skiving. As the apparition of Hall enters, the buzz of conversation stops, rather like when a gunman enters a saloon bar. I order minestrone and pasta. “I’ll ‘ave the same,” says Hall, mainly because he can’t pronounce the Italian names himself.

We discuss things we have to do and both agree to visit the British Consulate on the morrow to collect our passports. It’s too late and I’m too tired for any activity save bed. When I return to my room, the maid is turning down my bed and I hadn’t even offered it to her. “
Mi scusi
,” she smiles, showing those magnificent white teeth, and that’s all she was going to show me. “
Buona notte, dortna bene
,” she says and leaves. I survey my ex-Army kit: there’s a big pack, small pack and my big stencilled kitbag. I’ll attend to that on the morrow. I fall asleep to the distant sounds of the streets.