大象传媒

No. 8 Command Pay Office, Centocelle, Rome, had commandeered a school building. We, the draft from Algeria left the tipper-trucks which had carried us from Naples and were given a meal - the worst of my Army career. We were paraded before the Adjutant, a Major with a withered arm, the withering of which - we were to find - had spread to his mind. Sergeants and upwards would occupy village billets. The rest would go into a tented camp erected in the playground. Some groans. 'Silence!'

Before our draft arrived there had been an internal diversion which might have altered the shape of No. 8 Command Pay Office... permanently. The basement was stacked high with bombs. The Luftwaffe had operated from the nearby airfield and this was a weapon-store. Our Colonel surveyed the scene with distaste. 'We need this space for our files.' he announced. 'These,' indicating the bombs, 'are to be carried out and stacked at the end of the playground.' Order carried out. Two days later a Field Security Officer drove up and surveyed our pile with suspicion. He took a piece of red chalk and drew a circle around it.

'These must not be touched. They are almost certainly booby-trapped. I'll send for a bomb-disposal squad.'

The school had four floors with a wide (fake) marble staircase surrounding a central well. The sergeants' Mess was on the top floor. Twenty-four hour guards were mounted at front and rear. A few weeks after our arrival we underwent a medical re-grading - the operation described by some War Office humorist as 'combing the Lion's tail to sharpen his teeth.' Among those now graded A1 was a beanpole of a private known to all as 'Teeth and Trousers'. At rest he reminded me of a carelessly thrown down puppet. He and his fellow victims were loaded into a three-tonner to join an Infantry Training Centre. Our Adjutant stood in the road, watching. As the truck drew away 'Teeth and Trousers' raised two fingers accompanied by orally produced rectal sounds. In less than a month he and most of the others were back again, accompanied by a sharpish memorandum from the Training Centre C.O. Our Adjutant's bite became worse than his bark.

My billet, which I shared with four other sergeants, had four walls and no furniture. We bedded down on the tiled floor. I slept well, but swore that a bed must be found. I scoured the village and while passing some market gardens saw a rusty old wire-mattress lying on top of a chicken-house. A packet of cigarettes bought it. It had three legs only, but a few bricks settled that. Problem solved. Unsolved problem. Electricity was severely rationed. Light came every fourth evening. Letter-writing was difficult.

At the school a letter from another planet: 'This morning,' wrote my wife Minna, 'it occurred to me how you would laugh if you were able to follow my morning manoeuvres - and I think it good for you to laugh. At 7 sharp the alarm clock creates its usual polite din and I turn over, just as of old. At about ten minutes past, unless I go to sleep again, I actually get up. First, my morning tub - regulation five inches or less, and only lukewarm. With the first October chill I am considering raising the temperature. Then dressing until the strains of "Up In The Morning Early" exercises for men and women - only tolerated because this radio programme leads to the bright spot of the morning, the daily dose of "This Week's Composer" - Verdi this week. A marvellous idea, this. For me it means wakening up as gradually as I like, even enjoying the items in my semi-conscious state.

'Having dressed I make my tea in order to enjoy the first cup while doing my hair. Yes, that is the drawback of long hair. This procedure takes about a quarter of an hour. But then the darned thing stays put for the rest of the day and I look incredibly tidy. I have no-one to ruffle it with you so far away. Breakfast and the news at eight. There is even time for a little sweeping and dusting before the time-signal, also for shoe-cleaning. I take my time over breakfast (as if you did not know!) and then comes the most agonising quarter of an hour of the whole day. Will there be a letter from you?'

Me? My day began when, unwashed (we had no facilities in the billet) I trailed down to the school ablution benches. No baths available. Lumpy porridge and tinned bacon for breakfast. Parade at 8.1. My first job was of a stupefying dreariness unknown to me since my 'rookie' days at Sidcup. When working at War Office in 1941-2 I handled confidential matters leading up to 'Operation Torch' and the landings in North Africa. In Algiers where our unique 'unit' consisted of Brigadier Rabino, Major Gosling, me and Private England I felt my mind being stretched. In Centocelle it was being mummified.

No. 8 Command Pay Office seemed like some huge, anti-progressive school where all the pupils had ceased mental development at the age of twelve, but had contrived to reach a semblance of maturity. Battledress accentuates the effect and I saw middle-aged men talking and behaving like characters in a typical school novel. Then, I reflected, we were in a school-building. This feeling became overpowering when I recognised one of the Warrant Officers as a classmate at my Roman Catholic college in Clapham. When I saw him last in 1929 he was a nasty, snotty-nosed little boy in short trousers. Now he wore long trousers. A month after our arrival one sergeant was forcibly bathed at the request of his suffering room-mates. When stripped, a kind of carapace appeared, composed of dried sweat and ingrained grime.

I am unfair of course. There were delightful exceptions. Sergeant Grose who shared my billet was an amateur yachtsman who opened up a new world for me. Sergeant Vatcher was a devout Christian who fielded my cynical bowling with charm and dignity, often sending my 'body-line' balls clear out the hypothetical ground. Then there was Staff-Sergeant Gordon Milne, a Scotsman born and raised in the Argentine, a fact which left him as cynical about Scottish traditions as I was about religious ones. Gordon had a wonderful story about Taranto in which southern Italian city his Pay Corps unit had been stationed.

He and his mates were billeted in a rather splendid, empty, house. They were aroused in the small hours by a hubbub. Outside was a cohort of the 51st Highland Division who demanded entrance. There were shouts of 'Do you (multi-adjectival) b-----ds want to keep all the girls to yourselves.' It transpired that the Army Town Major, desperate to find new billets, had commandeered a whorehouse, the fame of which had spread far and wide.

Gordon introduced me to a Staff-Sergeant Pickles whose shrewd observations enlivened many a blacked-out evening. There was a Sergeant Frost whom I never met but who had a reputation as a poet. I believe he published a book about his experiences after the war. Then, suddenly, I saw Sergeant Mackenzie - he of the gleaming eye, he the teller of tall tales whom I had last seen in my early Algerian days. He had now assumed the role of Scottish Calvinist. When I asked him if he had enjoyed his visits to Rome he quelled me with: 'And why should I wish to taint myself by visiting the Hoor o' Babylon?'

I? I could not wait to make her acquaintance. To the Eternal City I would go on my first day's leave.

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