Peace Work by Spike Milligan Page B

house.
    Chalky White is in the lounge holding a housey-housey game. I get a card and play a few games. Italians and Aus-trians alike are baffled by the language. “Number Nine, Doctors Orders, Legs Eleven, All the Sixes, Clickity Click, Kelly’s Eye.” I don’t win a thing so we go to lunch. A beaming, fat, bald Austrian in an ill-fitting suit greets us and shows us to our table. He introduces himself, “Hi ham Ludwig zer Herr Ober.” We order a couple of salads. “Tank you,” he says. He smells distantly of cod liver oil. He keeps checking the diners. “ Allesgut? ” he says and nods approval. After lunch, it’s weekly NAAFI ration.
    In Jimmy Molloy’s room there’s a lot of bartering – swopping sweets and chocolate for cigarettes. There are also toothpaste and bootlaces for sale and I don’t see the connection. Why not toothpaste and potted shrimps? Or toothpaste and tinned carrots? Old debts are repaid but only after reminders.
    “Come on Mulgrew, you owe me six cigarettes.”
    “Six? I only borrowed five.”
    “It’s with interest.”
    “I have no interest,” he said and gave me five cigarettes.
    We carry all our goodies back to the chalet, where lovely Bill Hall is washing socks in the sink. “NAAFI’s up,” I tell him. He drops the socks and hurries from the chalet. Mulgrew sits by the window and writes letters.
    “How do you spell sophisticated?” he says.
    “I don’t. I only say it.”
Mulgrew cleaning his teeth at an open window, Krumpendorf.
    I spend the afternoon reading Edgar Allan Poe’s mystery stories, then have a doze. I awake at tea-time and meet Toni in the dining-room.
    “Hello, Terr-ee. You like my hair?” She revolves to show a new hair style.
    “Very nice,” I say. It’s a good thing to say to women.
    Cream buns and tea. Lovely. “Theese make you fat, Terr-ee.” If only they would. Oh, for a few ounces of fat on my emaciated Belsen body.
    That night, the show passed uneventfully except for a string on my guitar breaking in the middle of the act. Manfully, I played on the remaining five strings. After dinner, we sit in the lounge drinking coffee and listening to Bornheim play the piano. I am looking at Toni. Toni is looking at me. It’s like electricity.
    “What you think?” she says.
    “I think I love you,” I say. Love? I’m besotted with her!
    Bornheim stops playing. “Get this,” he announces – to the tune of ‘The Girl That I Marry’, sings:
The child that I carry will have to be
Dumped on the steps of a nunnery
The man I call my own
Has turned into a poofta and smells of cologne
He polishes his fingernails, tints his hair
He’s known in the ‘dilly as Old Doris Hare
“Stead of flittin’, he sits knittin”
For a sailor who comes from Thames Ditton
I once had a lover, now he loves my brother, not me.
    So much for Irving Berlin. Time for turning in. I accompany Toni to her chalet. A goodnight kiss in the shadows and I’m off to my own bed, bent double with erections. Down boy, down. Not tonight.
SUN, SNOW, SLEIGH
    N ext morning, I’m up first and it’s down boy again. Mulgrew and Hall are both still asleep, both sharing what sounds like the same snore. Hall’s laundered socks, now stiff as boards, swing gently in the breeze from the window. Ah, the poetry of an Austrian morning. I take a vigorous shower, singing boo boo boo da de dum dee dee. Ah, yes, as good as Crosby. “Spike,” it’s Mulgrew, “we’re trying to sleep.”
    “What?” I said. “How dare you try and sleep when I’m singing.”
    I’m looking forward to breakfast and backward to sleep (Eh?). I leave the slumbering duo and make for Toni’s chalet. I tap on the door. “It’s me, Toni. I’m coming in.” There are shrieks of No! No! from Toni. I push the door ajar and see Toni and her companions clutching towels to hide their nudity.
    “I come very quickly,” she giggles.
    Breakfast is very British: eggs and bacon. Toni joins me halfway through. “You are very naughty