Adolf Hitler: My Part in His Downfall (12 page)

Hailsham was this sort of place. If you look at it on the map, it’s not marked. We made friends with a young Jazz drummer named Dixie Dean. His father owned a radio shop in Hailsham High Street.↓

≡ He’s still there.

Sunday evenings he’d invite the band to his room (over the shop), and we’d sit listening to records. I brought my records from home, and the Sunday night record session was something we looked forward to with great pleasure. Dixie’s mother would come in at intervals with tea and cakes. When the regiment went overseas, I left my records with Dixie. “I’ll collect them after the war” was my parting line. I did, but alas, the house had been hit in a raid, and among the losses was my record collection, all save one, which I still have Jimmy Luncefords Bugs Parade. I daren’t play it much; it creates such vivid memories. I have to go out for a walk; even then it’s about three hours before I can settle down again.

During our stay at Hailsham a Captain John Counsell was posted to us. In those days I knew nothing about the theatre at all, so it was not until after the war I realised his connection with the Theatre Royal, Windsor. For the record I quote from his book,
Counsell’s Opinion:

Thus, I found myself promoted to Captain it is true, but as second in command of D Battery, stationed at Bexhill and later at Hailsham.

I was with it five months, during which time we had three different Battery Commanders, between the first and second of which I had several weeks in temporary command. I greatly enjoyed this short burst of authority, when I could run things more or less my own way. I tried out one idea which seemed to me to be valuable—a public meeting of all ranks which followed the Saturday morning inspection. At it, anyone could make criticisms or suggestions to improve our standards of military proficiency or domestic arrangements. In deliberate contrast to the relaxed atmosphere of the public meetings, the inspection that preceded it was tough, rigorous and exacting. There was only one point in my tour where I used to detect a whiff of indiscipline. My exit from the O.P. was invariably followed by a roar of laughter. Someone had obviously cracked a quip at my expense, and I had no doubt who it was. To me he was known as ‘Signaller Milligan’—to his mates simply ‘Spike’. Years afterwards when my daughters submitted their autograph books to the Goons, one page was inscribed: ‘To my old Captain’s daughter—Spike Milligan’.

The only ‘happening’ in Hailsham was the Saturday dance in the Corn Exchange. Somehow we picked up a clarinet player, Sergeant Amstell. He was from the Heavy Coastal Artillery. This was a huge twelve-inch cannon mounted on a railway bogey with eight wheels and pulled by an engine. It was shunted back and forth along the South Coast wherever the German Invasion threatened. The gun crew lived in a converted railway carriage. The things they did! Late night, if they were short of fags, they’d actually drive the whole train, gun and all, to Hailsham Station, nip into The George, a quick pint, ten Woodbines, then back again. When Sergeant Amstell played with us at the Corn Exchange he’d drive the train three miles to Hailsham, park it at the station siding for the evening, then drive it back after the dance. Ridiculous!

Now, whereas wartime Hailsham offered boredom of an evening, nearby Eastbourne offered a greater variety of it. As a local said “There’s nothing wrong with Hailsham, there’s always the streets.” On nights off Harry and I would thumb a lift to Eastbourne. As empty vehicle after empty vehicle went by we realised what a lot of bastards people were. A Canadian truck approached. When I saw it was not going to stop I waved it farewell. Immediately the truck stopped, backed up, and out jumped a furious noisy-voiced Canadian officer. He was incensed that I dared wave the truck farewell, “I’m not having any two bit private being a smart alec at my expense.”

“Oh there’s no expense sir,” I said, “I did it free.”

“It’s forbidden for military vehicles to stop to give anyone a lift.” Having had his moment of power he drove away, taking his tiny mind with him. What can you say or do to a person like that? I mean, I was wishing he’d get killed the first day in action. My God, he started a chain reaction from then on I never gave any Canadian officer a lift, ever. Aren’t I a swine? (Heh-heh-heh-heh.)

Our first visit to Eastbourne led us to a pub from which issued forth music. The customers were all squaddies and their girls. The music was supplied by three elderly gentlemen on a small rostrum. Piano, violin and cello. They made desperate attempts to be ‘with it’ by playing ‘In the Mood’, ‘Beat me daddy eight to the Bar’ etc., but one felt that death was nigh. Suddenly, in the middle of a tune, the violinist downed his violin, started to collect the empty glasses which he took to the bar.

“What an original arrangement,” said Harry. “Sixteen bars solo, then eight bars collecting empties. This could open up a whole new field of entertainment.” I agreed. “What’s wrong with sixteen bars solo, then eight bars painting the landing, and another eight bars chopping wood. Great.”

Harry spotted it. The fiddle player only got down to collect the empties when the tune went into more than three flats. We spent the rest of the evening listening for the key changes; “This is it, he’ll start collecting ‘em now,” said Harry gleefully, as the maestro did exactly that.

Ever on the search for money, we’ asked the landlord if he’d like us to play some Jazz one evening. He was a tall, very fat man. His face so red it appeared to have been sandpapered. He liked the idea but, “I’ll have to speak to the Missus. Florrie!” Florrie arrived from the dark recesses of the saloon bar. “Jazz?” she said, “isn’t that the noisy stuff?” We assured her that it wasn’t. It was finally agreed we would be given a try-out the coming Saturday. There was no money, but we could have drinks on the house, and we didn’t have to collect the empties. It was nearly the last Saturday of my life.

Eastbourne and excitement are foreign to each other. Peacetime Eastbourne with its frail old ladies or russet-faced gentlemen dozing in wicker bath-chairs varied little from wartime. The town .had been evacuated. The great wedding-cake hotels were boarded up or occupied by the Services. A few diehards remained. You’d see them mornings, sitting in bus shelters reading
The Tames
, or ladies in deck chairs knitting Balaclavas. “Which war are we knitting for, Penelope?” They all objected to the triple skeins of barbed wire that ran the length of the sea-front disappearing towards Bexhill and Beachy Head. Who in their right mind would want to attack Eastbourne? It would get the town a bad name. They were still trying to live down the fact that Van Gogh once stayed there. I mean, trying to chop your ear off. It wasn’t good enough.

Saturday night saw D Battery band swinging away there. The pub was really full, people passing heard the Jazz, and of course came in. The landlord was delighted. Never had such a crowd. People were standing jammed against the walls. The original trio were fully employed collecting the empties and looked much happier doing it, especially the violinist, whose name I discovered was Percy
Ants!
We
had
to play it, ‘I can’t dance, I’ve got ants in my pants’. Bang. Bang. Bang. Three shots rang out, a woman screamed. Bang. The wall mirror behind me shattered. There was a struggle going on in the entrance door. More women screamed (it might have been men but I didn’t have time to check). Bang again, and I hear a projectile whizz past me and thud into the wall behind. It was a Scottish Tank Gunner, who had been thrown out because of offensive behaviour. Outside he drew his pistol and fired through the door. He had tried to get in, but a French Canadian soldier grabbed his pistol arm, and was now holding it pointed to the ceiling. This all happened in a flash. Recalling the heroism of the ship’s orchestra on the
Titanic, I
went on playing. Turning round, I discovered that neither Edgington, Fildes nor Kidgell had heard of the
Titanic
affair and had gone. Kidgell had dived through a door that just happened to be marked ‘Ladies’. There were understandable screams from the occupants within. Edgington and Fildes had rushed to the bar and demanded free drinks. The offending soldier was finally disarmed; the Military Police arrived and took him away.

Out of the ‘Ladies’ ran several females in various states of undress, followed sheepishly by Doug Kidgell. Things settled down, and we went on playing, but this time much quieter. If anything more was coming, we wanted to hear it. I visited the pub about three years ago. The place had been tamed up and Watneyised. The old landlord was gone. No one remembered him, nor the gunfight. The rostrum and the old piano were there. I went over and touched the keyboard. It was like patting an old horse you once knew.

The Great Fight at Robin’s Post

Florrie, the landlady at the Eastbourne pub we played at in 1941, as I remember her

LARKHILL

T
hings had been going too smoothly to continue as they were, it really was time we had another bout of applied chaos. It came in the shape of a sudden rush to Larkhill Artillery Camp, Salisbury, hard by Stonehenge. It was January 1942, and quite the bitterest weather I could remember. We arrived after a Dawn to Sunset trip by road. Salisbury Plain was blue-white with hoar-frost. I sat in the back of a Humber Radio Car, listening to any music I could pick up from the BBC and banging my feet to keep warm. We arrived tired, but being young and tired means you could go on all night! Ha! Having parked the vehicles, we were dismissed. The signallers were shown to a long wooded but on brick piers. We dumped our kit on the beds, with the usual fight for the lower bunk, then made for the O.R.’s mess and began queuing. It must have been the season for schemes, as the whole place was swarming with gunners. We were given pale sausages, not long for this world, and potatoes so watery we drank them. The camp had masses of hot showers and we spent a pleasant hour under them, singing and enjoying the luxury of hot water. There were the usual comments about the size of one’s ‘wedding tackle’: ‘Cor, wot a beauty’, or ‘he’s bloody well hung’, or ‘Christ, his poor wife’, etc. After a quick tea and wad in the N.A.A.F.I. we went to the large cinema Nissen hut. It was The Glen Miller Orchestra in ‘Sun Valley Serenade’, and it was a feast of great Big band sound plus at least ten good songs. Sitting in the N.A.A.F.I. later, we tried to recall them; it was this way that we learnt most of the tunes for the band’s repertoire. Seated at the piano, Harry tried to play some of the tunes from the film.

“Play Warsaw Concerto,” said a drunk Scottish voice.

At dawn the next day the Battery set off on the great, ice-cold, frost-hardened Salisbury Plain. Most of us had put on two sets of woollen underwear, including the dreaded ‘Long Johns’. We were to practise a new speedy method of bringing a twenty-five pounder gun into action. Ahead of us would go a scouting O.P.; somewhere on the Plain four twenty-five pounders drawn by quads would be moving in the direction of a common map reference, all linked to the O.P. by wireless. Ahead the O.P. would establish itself at a point overlooking the enemy. Immediately, the O.P. would send out the signal ‘Crash Action East’, or whichever compass point applied; the information was received by the gun wireless, whose operator would shout out to the gun officer the order received. The gun officer, standing up in his truck would shout to the gun crew, ‘Halt, Action East’. The quad would brake sharply, the gun crew in a frenzy unlimber the gun, and face it east; while they were doing this the O.P. would rapidly send down the Rough Range of the Target. As soon as the gun crew had done this, they fired. In our case, from the first order to the firing of the first round was twenty-five seconds. This was the fastest time for the day.

That night, in high spirits, we of the signal section decided to raid the specialists. After lights out some fifteen of us, faces blacked up, wearing balaclavas, carrying buckets of water and mud mixed to a delightful consistency, crept towards the specialists’ hut. I remember being first in. In the ensuing fight I was mistaken for a specialist and got a bucket all to myself. For the next two hours there was a game of hide-and-seek among the huts as the specialists under Bombardier Aubery sought revenge. It was just too bad about Lieutenant Hughes, sitting quietly in the dark of the officers’ toilet—he got a bucket of mud full face.