Free Peace Work by Spike Milligan Page B

hour to get breakfast. I dash down to the dining-room. Toni and the girls are at a table laughing and giggling. “Oh, Terr-ee, you late. You must hurry.” I wolf down marmalade and toast and a cup of lemon tea.

KRUMPENDORF
KRUMPENDORF
    “O h Terr-ee,” says Toni. “You choke yourself.” What a headline:
Man Strangled by Marmalade
    Lieutenant Priest is rounding up the latecomers. “Come on, we haven’t got all day,” he fusses.
    Aboard the Charabong, everyone is excited at the thought of Austria, especially Greta Weingarten. “Now I vill be able to speak mein own language,” she says with an air of superiority.
    Toni is in her drab khaki clothes, her hair in a bandana. She looks shapeless, but ah ha! I know what lies underneath, heh, heh, heh! She asks, “In Vienna, we see Russian soldiers?”
    “Yes, my dear.” But what’s this Lieutenant Priest is saying? “Before Vienna, we have to play Krumpendorf.” Krum-pendorf? Isn’t that a disease of the groin? He goes on, “Then we play Graz and then Vienna.”
    “You been in Austria before, Terr-ee?” No, I had travelled extensively in Catford, Lewisham and Brockley SE 26, but somehow never Austria. The trams didn’t go that far.
    Oh, no! The coach engine is faltering. We pull over and Luigi raises the bonnet. He is joined by Ricky Trowler who is a whizz kid at engines. He tells Lieutenant Priest, “It’s the distributor.”
    “Wait until I see the bastard,” says Priest.
    Trowler does some minor adjustments and we are on our way again. It’s another sunny day with a few mare’s-tails in the sky, where do they get such a name for clouds? Like mackerel – what was that poem?
Mackerel sky, mackerel sky,
Not long wet, not long dry.
    To pass the time, we play noughts and crosses. I show Toni how to play noughts and crosses for idiots.

    We are heading north and gradually climbing. On looking, we can see Trieste spread out below us with the Yugoslav coast disappearing in the morning haze. On one side, we have a sheer drop; on the other, vine terraces looking like giant steps. It reminds me of Dore’s drawings from Milton’s Paradise Lost . But then anything made me think of Paradise Lost . I remember in Lewisham where I was paying some money into my Post Office savings account, I was served by an old dear of sixty with huge ill-fitting false teeth and I thought, “ Paradise Lost .” Another time I saw a mongrel sniffing a lamppost and I thought of Paradise Lost . What a good headline:
PARADISE LOST! POLICE AND ARMY IN SEARCH
    We cross the border at Thorl. There is no customs barrier, we just motor straight through. “Ladies and Gentlemen,” says Priest in mock German tones. “Ve are now in Austria,” and gives the Nazi salute. We all give a cheer and Bill Hall, as though on cue, launches into ‘The Blue Danube’ and a selection of cloying German tunes ending with ‘Grinzing’ – that’s another name I am baffled by. What or why is Grinzing?
    MOTHER:
    Where have you been at this time of night?
    ME:
    I’ve been out Grinzing, Mother dear.
∗
    Mulgrew clips on a prop Hitler moustache, gives the Sieg Heil salute and says, “Ve are now in zer Fatherland. From now, all Jews will half their circumstances confiscated!”
Toni climbing a hill to join me and the view, Austria.
    Outside Thorl, the Charabong stops for lunch. We are surrounded by fir-tree covered hills. I climb up a hillock and get a wonderful view. I call to Toni to come up, then do a few yodels à la the von Trapp family. Toni starts to clamber up and I take yet another photo.
∗
    Mulgrew has heard me yodel, so he yodels back. Others join in and soon the hills are alive with the sound of yodels.
    Wc are looking down on a valley with a torrent running through it. Anything done in this stream today will arrive in Italy tomorrow. It was very pretty, Toni and I stood enjoying the view. Helpppp! They are breaking out the lunch rations. If we don’t get down, the bloody lot will be gone.