Read Online Where Have All the Bullets Gone? by Spike Milligan - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Spike Milligan
Tags: Humor, General, english, History, Biography & Autobiography, Humour, World War II, Military, Political, Entertainment & Performing Arts, Topic, Biography: General, Humorists - Great Britain - Biography
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room?) and he is billeted with us awaiting an operation. This has been delayed by Brigadier Henry Woods who is a ‘rupture expert’ and wants to get the Major the right hospital and the right surgeon. So, I receive my prize from a ruptured major who was a professional artist in Civvy Street! Did he chalk the pavements? He laughs not. My drawing is very good, had I done any artistic training? I told him I’d done a bit in Goldsmith’s College. He said never mind her, would I like to do murals? Had I ever done any murals? Yes, I did ‘All Coppers are Bastards’ outside the Lady Flo’ Institute, Deptford, 1936. He shows me a drawing of Hyde Park Corner in high Victorian days. He wants to do an enlargement on the wall of the Officers’ Mess. “There’ll be something in it for you,” he says. OK, I’ll do it. Murals; mean swines, anything to save buying wallpaper. Evenings I don my denims and start work.
I square off the wall and then draw the enlargements.
Officers’ Mess Maddaloni on a Bad Day, 1944
Military supplies showing liver cripplers, Maddaloni, 1944
To my delight it comes very easily. It means working late after the Officers’ Mess closes, but in lieu I’m given time off in the mornings. I am praised. “My word, you are talented, Terence,” says Stanley, Sir. “You play the trumpet and guitar and you can paint. Is there anything you can’t do?” Yes, sir, Sheila Frances.
The Colonel is to do a tour of the front lines. Would I like to come too? The front line? Does he think I’m mad? He does. No sir, my days of sitting in an OP trench full of water with 88s air bursting over your head and your bottle bursting underneath are over. “Goodbye, good luck, God be with you, but not me.”
O2E is womanless, save for tall lovely ATS Captain Thelma Oxnevad, six foot with sparkling blue eyes and certain things…We like each other, but alas, she is an officer and a gentleman and I am a gunner, the stuff that gutters are made of.
“No Spike, I can’t walk out with you.”
I don’t want her to walk out, I want her to walk into my bedroom. No, if Brigadier Henry Woods heard this, she’d be cashiered and I’d be shot. I tell her that’s OK with me. I tell her that when we take our clothes off she wouldn’t be able to tell the gunner from the Captain! Nay nay nay. When I dance with her, she is three inches taller. I explain that lying down we will both be the same height. Even as I dance with her, I can feel the eyes of other officers on me, jealous with rage. Like Major Rodes, he wants to dance with me. Thelma gives me hope.
“Your lust will soon be allayed Spike, a consignment of Virgin ATS are to be posted here.”
Meantime I still try to home in on Sheila Frances. She jives in! Yes, she will meet me. She’ll never regret it! With toe in my Prime and all parts in Grand Prix order. Ah yes, She’ll love my Grand Prix. 8 o’clock outside the 604 ATS Company HQ Caserta.
I am there, beautiful, radiating Brasso, Blanco, Brylcreem and Brio, with all my things revolving at high speed. I am there dead on 8 o’clock, I am also there dead on at half-past eight, I am also dead on there at nine, and I am there dead on again at nine-thirty, and I went on to be dead on at ten o’clock. Where was she, my little darling dirty rotten little tart, letting me and it down! Today I wonder, was I at the right address? Somewhere in the street of Caserta is a grey-haired old lady in a ragged ATS uniform still waiting for it.
I withdraw to the Forces Canteen in the High Street and am found drinking tea, eating a sandwich and finding consolation watching the wobbling bum of the manageress. Next Hay Major Rodes and his rupture hear of my adventure. “So your little soldier tart didn’t show, eh?” He hands me a drawing.
Band Biz
W e want to expand the band. We would like a string section. There is a fine fiddler, one Corporal Spaldo. At concerts he plays Montés’ Czardas. Would he like to play in our band?
I square off the wall and then draw the enlargements.
Officers’ Mess Maddaloni on a Bad Day, 1944
Military supplies showing liver cripplers, Maddaloni, 1944
To my delight it comes very easily. It means working late after the Officers’ Mess closes, but in lieu I’m given time off in the mornings. I am praised. “My word, you are talented, Terence,” says Stanley, Sir. “You play the trumpet and guitar and you can paint. Is there anything you can’t do?” Yes, sir, Sheila Frances.
The Colonel is to do a tour of the front lines. Would I like to come too? The front line? Does he think I’m mad? He does. No sir, my days of sitting in an OP trench full of water with 88s air bursting over your head and your bottle bursting underneath are over. “Goodbye, good luck, God be with you, but not me.”
O2E is womanless, save for tall lovely ATS Captain Thelma Oxnevad, six foot with sparkling blue eyes and certain things…We like each other, but alas, she is an officer and a gentleman and I am a gunner, the stuff that gutters are made of.
“No Spike, I can’t walk out with you.”
I don’t want her to walk out, I want her to walk into my bedroom. No, if Brigadier Henry Woods heard this, she’d be cashiered and I’d be shot. I tell her that’s OK with me. I tell her that when we take our clothes off she wouldn’t be able to tell the gunner from the Captain! Nay nay nay. When I dance with her, she is three inches taller. I explain that lying down we will both be the same height. Even as I dance with her, I can feel the eyes of other officers on me, jealous with rage. Like Major Rodes, he wants to dance with me. Thelma gives me hope.
“Your lust will soon be allayed Spike, a consignment of Virgin ATS are to be posted here.”
Meantime I still try to home in on Sheila Frances. She jives in! Yes, she will meet me. She’ll never regret it! With toe in my Prime and all parts in Grand Prix order. Ah yes, She’ll love my Grand Prix. 8 o’clock outside the 604 ATS Company HQ Caserta.
I am there, beautiful, radiating Brasso, Blanco, Brylcreem and Brio, with all my things revolving at high speed. I am there dead on 8 o’clock, I am also there dead on at half-past eight, I am also dead on there at nine, and I am there dead on again at nine-thirty, and I went on to be dead on at ten o’clock. Where was she, my little darling dirty rotten little tart, letting me and it down! Today I wonder, was I at the right address? Somewhere in the street of Caserta is a grey-haired old lady in a ragged ATS uniform still waiting for it.
I withdraw to the Forces Canteen in the High Street and am found drinking tea, eating a sandwich and finding consolation watching the wobbling bum of the manageress. Next Hay Major Rodes and his rupture hear of my adventure. “So your little soldier tart didn’t show, eh?” He hands me a drawing.
Band Biz
W e want to expand the band. We would like a string section. There is a fine fiddler, one Corporal Spaldo. At concerts he plays Montés’ Czardas. Would he like to play in our band?
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