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Spike Milligan's fourth volume of war memoirs, ''Mussolini: His Part in My Downfall'', spans the landing in Salerno, Italy, September 23, 1943, to his being invalided. While this is only four months, the text is nearly as long as the three earlier volumes together. Although the humorous writing is similar, there are no ersatz communiques and almost no sketches; the photographs are fewer and smaller. Losing patience with criticism about his veracity, the preface reads, "I’ve spent a fortune on beer and dinners interviewing my old Battery mates, and phone calls to those overseas ran into over a hundred pounds." Also, "I wish the reader to know that he is not reading a tissue of lies and fancies, it all ''really happened''." (Following this book Milligan was even more upset, by comments from the people he wrote about. His manager Norma Farnes wrote that she thought the next volume would never be written on their account.) Farnes wrote that Milligan's diary was kept daily, except when the fighting was too fierce but there are also days when he is too sick or bored to write.〔Spike Milligan, compiled by Alexander Games. ''The Essential Spike Milligan'' Fourth Estate 2003〕 Sometimes the diaries of others supplement Milligan's in the text. ==Summary== Milligan's Italian adventures start well, as one of their battery guns knocks the top off an enemy hill just sighting down the barrel. The next day he has a temperature of 103 and is sent to a hospital. Although he's released in a few days, transport back to his group is not available until October 19, during which time he gets leave in Naples and Pompeii. Otherwise, he is so bored he volunteers for work. He defends his favorite comics to a North Country soldier: :"Gracie Fields," I guffawed, "she's as funny as a steam roller going over a baby." :"You must be bludy thick, she's a scream." :"Yes, I scream every time I hear her sing." :"Ooo do you think is foony them?" :"W.C. Fields, Marx Brothers." :"Oooo?" The other preferred George Formby, who "cud play 'is bludy 'ead off." The idea of a headless Formby fills Milligan with delight. A threat to desert sent to Major Jenkins, finally elicits a truck to return Milligan to his group. He returns to find his pack of war souvenirs was lost, with his Nazi war loot, including an Iron Cross and pornographic photographs taken from a dead German soldier in Africa. (Milligan was going to send them home to the soldier's mother.) The war has been a religious turning point for Milligan: On December 5, the men are billeted in a four-story Victorian Gothic farmhouse, including utility buildings. They clean vigorously, including a yard so heavily covered with manure that when they uncover the cobblestone, the farmer who had lived there since a boy says he didn't know it existed. During the night, rain fills the courtyard with manure again. Before Christmas the men organize a show, however lack of facilities reduce it to nudity, instead of the more rarefied skits and music — in spite of Italian farmers and their wives being invited. On the 27th, they are on leave in Amalfi: Of the many complaints Milligan and the men have about their Major Jenkins, are his poor musical abilities, lack of humor and not keeping the men notified about orders. In the end of the book, an observation post is in a "dodgy" situation and Jenkins has sent up everyone for duty there, except himself. Milligan is sent up but doesn't come back under his own power, after being hit by a mortar bomb: Major Jenkins criticizes him but Milligan can't stop shaking and crying. He's invalided and "court martialled" by Jenkins, despite a discharge certificate reading "This man must be rested behind the lines for a period to stabilise his condition". Tranquillizers turn him into a zombie. "All the laughing had stopped," he writes. For the moment. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Mussolini: His Part in My Downfall」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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