Free Adolf Hitler: My Part in His Downfall by Spike Milligan Page A

the confused mass into one coherent whole, Colonel Harding started to sing ‘Send him vic-tor-rious, happy’ etc., etc. He was joined by a few promotion-seeking officers. At the end, the small band of brave singers were given a tremendous ovation with shouts of encore enriched with farts. Edgington, thinking the applause was for him, appeared grinning through the curtain, a waste of time, as the house lights went off, blacking him out.
    The ring now stood candescent in the floods, the light bouncing off the taut white ropes. Two miserable looking boxers sat in their corners, with towels draped over their shoulders. R.S.M. Warburton, scrubbed, gleaming in crisp S.D., tight at the neck, climbed into the canvas arena, his hair grease glistening in the lights, his brass buttons flashing. Referring to a card, he spoke in a voice like prodding bayonets, “Mi-Lords! Lay-does! and gentlemen!!!” A voice from the dark shouts, “Go home, you Welsh bull shiner!” Warburton machineguns the crowd with his eyes. “Gentlemen, please! The first fight on your programme is a fly-weight contest of three three-minutes rounds. At the weigh-in, Reynolds, in the red corner, weighed eight stone, two pounds!”
    “Give the poor sod some grub!”
    “Gentlemen, please!” This R.S.M. versus the rest continued until Warburton left the ring. The first three fights went through their thudding, sweating, grunting course—the animal in the crowd had been released, and tension lessened. Now came the bout we had come to see. “In the red corner, from D Battery, fifty six, fife-six-er Heavy Regiment Royal Artillery, Gunner Andrews.” We cheered as Lofty stood. But the sight of his skinny body, with shoulder blades protruding from his back like wings, didn’t look very promising. At the sight of him Bombardier Rossi’s odds changed dramatically: he refused to take bets. In the opposite corner sat a red thing called Rifleman G. Motts. He was five-foot-six, covered in muscles, hair, scars, and tattoos of snakes disappearing into every orifice. Under neolithic brows, two evil black eyes stared out from hair which grew on his forehead. There was no neck, the head seemingly joined to the shoulders by the lobes of his ears. At the first sight of this creature Lofty tried to scramble out of the ring. “I’m not fightin’ that until I ‘ear it tork,” said Lofty.
    “Don’t let appearances fool you,” smoothed Conroy.
    “They haven’t,” said Lofty.
    “Seconds out, first round!”
    The two grossly ill-matched contestants approach each other. The Bexhill air raid sirens went. Lofty, a nervous lad, immediately took cover lying face down on the canvas. The referee was puzzled. “You all right lad?” he said to the figure on the canvas.
    “Yes.”
    “Then you’ll have to stand up, or I’ll start counting you out.” Lofty looked to Conroy for professional advice. He got it. “Get up you silly cunt.” The remark was lost in the booing and jeering in true British sporting fashion. Lofty rose, the fight continued. Another disaster. The lights fused. More uproar and whistling. The lights went up. The referee was unconscious on the canvas. Lofty went to pick him up. Motts, seizing the opportunity, let go with a hay-maker that connected with Lofty’s cheek and down he went. The bell went. Conroy dragged Lofty to his corner. R.S.M. Warburton dragged the referee out of the ring. The lights went out again. The bell for the second round. Someone in Motts’s corner struck a match. The lights went on again. Lofty was still sitting on his stool and was crying.
    “The rotten sod ‘it me when I wasn’t looking,” he sobbed.
    Conroy threw in the towel, and Lofty joined Naze in retirement. It wasn’t the end. Lofty waited outside, and when Motts appeared, kicked him in the cobblers; then ran. I suppose you’d call it a draw.
    Next, Rugby! Sergeant Griffiths fished around for players, rather, volunteers. In a hammer lock, I admitted I’d played