Read Online Peace Work by Spike Milligan - Free Book Online Page A

window I see that some silly bugger has chalked VIVA TITO on the side of the bus. It was Mulgrew and his Scottish Highland sense of humour. I told him, “We could all have been bloody killed.” He says that was the general idea.
    As we de-bus at the stage door of the Theatre Fred, there’s a loud explosion – a bomb has gone off Civil and Military Police start whizzing by in jeeps, armed to the teeth – some were only armed to the throat, some to the knee. The theatre was built for opera, it has an excess of Italian kitsch. We are assembled on the stage and Jimmy Molloy says that parts of the show are slack so we are to run through those bits.
    John Angove is not feeling well. He is taken to the Medical Officer who diagnoses that he has measles. Measles at twenty-five! He is put into a quarantine ward and is out of the show. I wonder if they are always caught in the plural?
    PATIENT:
    What is it, doc?
    DOC:
    You’ve caught a measle.
    PATIENT:
    Just one?
    I mean, bronchitis is in the singular.
    PATIENT:
    What is it, doc?
    DOC:
    You’ve caught bronchitises.
∗
    We try out a new gag for the show. I announce that I will fire the slowest bullet in the world. Mulgrew stands one side holding a water biscuit; I, from the other side, aim and fire.
    There’s a count of five and then Mulgrew crumples the biscuit manually with a cry of Hoi Up La.
    In our dressing-room, there are signs of occupation scrawled on the wall: ‘Harry Secombe was here’, ‘Norman Vaughan was here’, ‘Ken Piatt was almost here’. We dutifully add our names. The manager, a voluble fat Italian, tells us many famous people have been here, including Elenora Duse. He tells us the story of how after she had had a leg amputated, she returned to the stage and people wondered how she would manage with an artificial wooden leg. On the first night, the theatre was crowded with the cognoscenti. It is French theatre custom to bang a mummer’s pole thrice behind the curtain. When the audience heard ‘boom boom boom’, one said, “My God, here she comes now!”
    The first night was a packed theatre and a big success. The Town Major has invited the cast to the Officers’ Club. Great. It turned out to be a large glass-fronted building overlooking the sea. Italian waiters move among us distributing drinks. An Italian quintet on a small rostrum is playing background music. I thought I had escaped it, but sure enough they played ‘Lae That Piss Tub Dawn Bab’. All the girl dancers are pounced on by young officers; a Lieutenant Johnny Lee fancied Toni. He engaged her in conversation and even though I was standing next to her, he ignored me. I was furious, my skinny body trembled with jealousy: fool of a man, how could he compete with me? Boo boo da de de dum dum dee dee, and there was more where that came from! The swine has taken her on to the floor for a dance. Not for a moment did he realize that I was once the winner of the Valeta Contest at the Lady Florence Institute, Deptford! And the best crooner with the New Era Rhythm Boys at the New Cross Palais de Danse??? If he wanted credentials I had them! She’d come begging for me to take her back, you’d see.
    The evening wears out and we are all on the Charabong back to the Hotel Fred.
    “He want to see me again,” said Toni.
    “Oh yes,” I said, as near to Humphrey Bogart as possible.
    “Yes, I told him, no.”
    “Of course, you told him no.”
    There was no other answer. I mean I was a ten pounds a week man, with a great back-up of underwear.
    It’s late, we are flagged down by the Military Police. Who are we, where are our papers? Lieutenant Priest explains that we are the untouchables and are left to go our way. It’s one o’clock as I stand snogging outside her bedroom door. “Can I come in?” No I can’t. Blast! Mulgrew or someone has struck again. As I pull back my bedcovers there in the middle is a replica Richard the Third with the message ‘The phantom strikes again’. And so to