board our, by now, dodgy Charabong. Lieutenant Priest has a quick roll call, and has a heart attack when Bill Hall answers his name.
Trieste is a combustible city on the Adriatic, the Allies have a large force there to deter combustible Marshal Tito who is claiming that Trieste is Yugoslavian. It’s a hundred miles to go as we settle down for the trip. Our route runs across the Gulf of Venice – all agricultural land, very green, very lush. The cattle are fatter up here than their scrawny cousins in the Compagna.
Behind me, on the bench seat, Bornheim says, “Who said ‘What the fuck was that?”’ We don’t know. “The Lord Mayor of Hiroshima.”
“They should never have dropped it.”
“What else can you do with a bomb but drop it? Can’t keep it in the fridge.”
“They asked for it.”
“Wot you mean asked for it? You think they phoned up Roosevelt and said please drop honourable bomb?”
“OK, what would you have done to end the war?”
“Well, something else.”
“I think we should have dropped Cold Collation on them,” I said. “That, or watery custard. Can’t you see the headlines?”
Cold Collation destroys Hiroshima. Thousands flee Custard.
“If they’d have got it, you can be bloody sure they’d drop it on us.”
“It still wouldn’t be right. What about us and Cassino?”
“What about us and Cassino?”
“We bombed it, didn’t we?”
“There were Germans in it.”
“No, there wasn’t.”
So the argument raged. From atom bombs to wages is a big jump, but that was what they were on about next. In a sotto voce Hall is telling Mulgrew and me that he thinks we should be on more money.
“Aren’t you satisfied with ten pounds a week?”
“No, we are the hit of the show.”
“It’s ten pounds a week all found,” I said.
“I’ve never found anything,” says Mulgrew.
“We should be on twenty-five pounds a week,” says Hall.
“If you’re going on what it should be , why not fifty pounds?” says Mulgrew.
“Why stop at should be fifty?” I said. “How about should be a hundred?”
And that was the end of the should bes. Bill Hall produces his violin and launches into an insane version of a very bad musician playing jazz. He crosses his eyes, puts on a fixed maniacal grin with his head shaking like a speeded-up metronome and plays ‘Honeysuckle Rose’. Every note is exquisitely sharp or flat. To musicians, it’s hysterically funny. He plays and sings Irving Berlin’s tune.
Wot’ll I do, when you
Are far away and I am blue
Wot’ll I do
Kiss my bottle and glass*
≡ Bottle and glass (cockney slang) = arse.
Bornheim starts to conjure up tunes that have just missed being winners – like, ‘That’s Why the Lady Is a Tram-polinist’, or ‘Honeysuckle Nose’ again, ‘Saint Louis Browns’, ‘Tea for One’, ‘We’ll Meet Occasionally’, ‘On the Good Ship Lollibang’ and so on. He reverts to his Union Jack newspaper. It has a report on Dachau. “How can there be places like this and there be a God?” I told him that my mother used to answer that question by saying God works in mysterious ways.
“Seven million Jews dead. That’s not mysterious, that’s bloody cruel,” says Bornheim.
Seven million Jews killed, I couldn’t get it in perspective.
“Perhaps it is God’s will,” says Hall.
“I never knew he left a will,” I said.
The coach comes to a halt in verdant countryside, we are just outside of a town called Portogruaro. “We are here for an hour for lunch break,” says Lieutenant Priest. We carry our packed lunches and the thermos of tea to the verge that backs on to a vineyard that is delirious with grapes. In the field opposite, a plough with great white oxen: they are identical to the cattle I saw in Roman sculpture.
“They’re bullocks,” says Bornheim, our deipnosophist (look it up).
“What exactly is a bullock?” inquires Mulgrew.
“It’s when they had their knackers ofT,” says Bornheim.
“Who would do a
Trieste is a combustible city on the Adriatic, the Allies have a large force there to deter combustible Marshal Tito who is claiming that Trieste is Yugoslavian. It’s a hundred miles to go as we settle down for the trip. Our route runs across the Gulf of Venice – all agricultural land, very green, very lush. The cattle are fatter up here than their scrawny cousins in the Compagna.
Behind me, on the bench seat, Bornheim says, “Who said ‘What the fuck was that?”’ We don’t know. “The Lord Mayor of Hiroshima.”
“They should never have dropped it.”
“What else can you do with a bomb but drop it? Can’t keep it in the fridge.”
“They asked for it.”
“Wot you mean asked for it? You think they phoned up Roosevelt and said please drop honourable bomb?”
“OK, what would you have done to end the war?”
“Well, something else.”
“I think we should have dropped Cold Collation on them,” I said. “That, or watery custard. Can’t you see the headlines?”
Cold Collation destroys Hiroshima. Thousands flee Custard.
“If they’d have got it, you can be bloody sure they’d drop it on us.”
“It still wouldn’t be right. What about us and Cassino?”
“What about us and Cassino?”
“We bombed it, didn’t we?”
“There were Germans in it.”
“No, there wasn’t.”
So the argument raged. From atom bombs to wages is a big jump, but that was what they were on about next. In a sotto voce Hall is telling Mulgrew and me that he thinks we should be on more money.
“Aren’t you satisfied with ten pounds a week?”
“No, we are the hit of the show.”
“It’s ten pounds a week all found,” I said.
“I’ve never found anything,” says Mulgrew.
“We should be on twenty-five pounds a week,” says Hall.
“If you’re going on what it should be , why not fifty pounds?” says Mulgrew.
“Why stop at should be fifty?” I said. “How about should be a hundred?”
And that was the end of the should bes. Bill Hall produces his violin and launches into an insane version of a very bad musician playing jazz. He crosses his eyes, puts on a fixed maniacal grin with his head shaking like a speeded-up metronome and plays ‘Honeysuckle Rose’. Every note is exquisitely sharp or flat. To musicians, it’s hysterically funny. He plays and sings Irving Berlin’s tune.
Wot’ll I do, when you
Are far away and I am blue
Wot’ll I do
Kiss my bottle and glass*
≡ Bottle and glass (cockney slang) = arse.
Bornheim starts to conjure up tunes that have just missed being winners – like, ‘That’s Why the Lady Is a Tram-polinist’, or ‘Honeysuckle Nose’ again, ‘Saint Louis Browns’, ‘Tea for One’, ‘We’ll Meet Occasionally’, ‘On the Good Ship Lollibang’ and so on. He reverts to his Union Jack newspaper. It has a report on Dachau. “How can there be places like this and there be a God?” I told him that my mother used to answer that question by saying God works in mysterious ways.
“Seven million Jews dead. That’s not mysterious, that’s bloody cruel,” says Bornheim.
Seven million Jews killed, I couldn’t get it in perspective.
“Perhaps it is God’s will,” says Hall.
“I never knew he left a will,” I said.
The coach comes to a halt in verdant countryside, we are just outside of a town called Portogruaro. “We are here for an hour for lunch break,” says Lieutenant Priest. We carry our packed lunches and the thermos of tea to the verge that backs on to a vineyard that is delirious with grapes. In the field opposite, a plough with great white oxen: they are identical to the cattle I saw in Roman sculpture.
“They’re bullocks,” says Bornheim, our deipnosophist (look it up).
“What exactly is a bullock?” inquires Mulgrew.
“It’s when they had their knackers ofT,” says Bornheim.
“Who would do a
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