OH, WHAT A saucy WAR
ROGER MORTIMER’S exasperated letters to his wayward son Lupin became a surprise sensation. Now revel in newly discovered dispatches from his time as a young Guards officer – and his wickedly funny skirmishes with (ooh-la-la!) ladies of the night...
HAILED as one of the great comic voices of the last century, Roger Mortimer found posthumous fame with the hilarious letters he wrote to his children — including his son Charlie, known as Lupin. Now, a further batch of dispatches has come to light, which have been edited by Charlie for a new book full of his trademark gallows humour and laconic self-deprecation. Our exclusive first extract begins with Roger’s own account of his pampered life when, after training at Sandhurst, he joined the pre-war 3rd Battalion Coldstream Guards. Each officer was assigned a ‘soldier servant’, did minimal military duties and had around 20 weeks’ annual leave, as well as each weekend off.
IN 1930, I joined the Coldstream Guards. Like all the other officers at Chelsea Barracks, I was assigned a guardsman as a servant.
A servant was exempt from most military duties, his life being almost wholly devoted to the welfare and comfort of his officer. he usually wore a dark suit, dark overcoat and bowler hat. On church parade, he paraded in plain clothes on the left of the line, with his officer’s capes over his arm.
It must not be thought that officers’ servants were unduly subservient: they knew too much about their masters to be wholly respectful. I remember a slightly pompous officer shouting down the passage: ‘Smith, I think I’ll wear my blue suit this afternoon.’
I heard Smith mutter as he passed me, ‘’e’s only got one suit and that’s blue.’
Whether it was good for a young officer of 20 to be waited on hand and foot is a matter of opinion. Some became incapable of running a bath or changing for dinner without a servant hovering in attendance. As for packing a suitcase, that was quite out of the question.
As far as the officers were concerned, the day’s work was usually over before 1pm — though most didn’t leave barracks before tucking into a three-or four-course lunch. One year, I noticed that George Pereira, an easy-going and agreeable officer, was liable to have two large glasses of gin and French vermouth before lunch. Then over lunch, he had a pint of beer followed by two large glasses of vintage port.
he once asked if I could recommend a good doctor. ‘I don’t think it’s serious,’ he said, ‘but I’m getting worried because I find it so desperately difficult to keep awake after lunch.’
Our drill sergeants had all been decorated for gallantry in the Great War. One of them, Regimental Sgt Major ‘Tipper’ Davis, sometimes played it for laughs when drilling the battalion. ‘Your drill’s ’orrible,’ he’d shout. ‘It’s lifeless — just like yer oojipoo when yer pulls it out!’
Another of our drill sergeants, called Printer, went on a search once for some minor miscreant. he ended up kicking on a locked latrine door and bellowing: ‘Who’s there?’
The surprising answer was: ‘Jesus Christ, drill sergeant.’
This witticism didn’t pay off. The next day, the perpetrator was marched before the commanding officer, the charge being: ‘Attempting to deceive the drill sergeant in waiting, stating he was Jesus Christ when knowing full well that such was not the case.’
EVERYTHING changed after the outbreak of World War II, when officers often found themselves fighting for their lives. Yet Roger — by then a 30-year-old captain — managed to wring comedy from dire circumstances. He corresponded with several people, but it was the letters from Peggy Dunne that he considered a lifeline. She’d been persuaded to write to him by a mutual friend, Guardsman Ronald Strutt. Here, Roger’s letters begin during a lull in fighting in Northern France . . .
FEBRUARY 22, 1940
1st Reinforcements 2nd Coldstream Guards 1st Infantry Depot BEF
DEAR PEGGY,
AT The risk of boring you into a complete coma, I’ll tell you of our night out here. Four of us who live fairly close together decided to indulge in the invented luxury of a small party.
We began with an admirable dinner with a good deal of excellent champagne, then decided to visit the local ‘Bag of Nails’ [nightclub]. It didn’t require a very long inspection to discover this was probably one of the dimmest and most sordid places on the face of the globe.
An elderly gramophone (probably Thos. edison’s original model) gushed up some equally ancient music, a handful of exceptionally democratic officers were behaving like the less likeable sort of undergraduate, while the picture was completed by a troupe of elderly trollops who had probably seen service during the siege of Paris.
however, we found ourselves in a state of mild hilarity by drinking a lot of very sweet champagne and I’m ashamed to say that eventually I sneaked upstairs with the lady who combined the most charm in proportion to lack of BO, while Arthur, a nice intellectual Wykehamist, sidled off with a dumpy little number who I expect was taller in the prone position than she was standing up.
I will draw a curtain over what followed and will merely add that I soon returned feeling that in addition to a regrettable lapse from self-respect and good taste, I had wasted 15 shillings.
The party continued in unabated good humour but at midnight the grins were wiped off our faces with remarkable suddenness when we found it had snowed like hell, the roads were blocked and we were marooned in these regrettable surroundings. A brief period of haggling with a hideous ‘madame’ followed, but at length we were given two rooms.
The one that Arthur Fortescue and I took was a little peculiar, as the walls and ceiling were made of looking-glass, I suppose in order that the more exotic clients, in addition to satisfying their urges, could watch themselves doing it in triplicate.
Undeterred, we climbed into the master bed without even removing our boots, but unfortunately we couldn’t find the electric light switch. The result was that wherever we might choose to look, we were confronted with our own flushed features, reflected hideously in tarnished mirrors and surrounded by the revolting sanitary equipment of the room’s rightful owner.
It was looking up at the ceiling that really did us in: there the mirrors were distorted and we saw ourselves stretched out side by side in quadruplicate, surrounded on every side by innumerable ‘bidets’ — just like some monstrous surrealist picture.
Almost as soon as we had dropped off into a sort of uneasy coma that could hardly be dignified by the name of sleep, the door was flung open and in came the room’s owner with a particularly odious officer in the Suffolk Regiment who I last remember behaving with intolerable jollity on board a troop ship.
Optimistically, I asked if they’d awfully mind indulging their beastly libidos on the floor — they did mind. So we moved off to less luxurious but more normal quarters, where we soon fell into a deep sleep.
Luckily, it thawed next day and we made good our escape. What my companions did in the meantime, I cannot in all decency disclose, but I think we’re all slightly ashamed and don’t refer to the evening much.
If Ronald [Strutt, their mutual friend] is lugging round debutantes, he’s a bigger bloody fool than I ever took him for.
They’re practically all the most shocking bores and only enjoy doing the dullest possible things. I’d sooner have toothache than take out the average debutante.
Personally, I would back you to take on about six at a time, bound, handcuffed and starting after any disadvantage they cared to name. BEST LOVE, ROGER
PS: Personally my tastes are distinctly lowbrow; in fact, it’s difficult to tell where my hair stops and my eyebrows begin. I can never take the likes of James Joyce really seriously.
MARCH 1940
In rePly to your question as to whether I’m a moron, the answer is yes, pretty nearly.
given reasonable food, plenty of books and a warm room, I’m quite contented. I have no desire whatsoever for human company, fresh air and, least of all, for any emotional outlet.
I’m perfectly certain that if you can’t live with someone you’re very fond of, the next best thing is to live alone.
I don’t much like the human race (with a few exceptions) and the less I see of it, the happier I am.
not much sign of spring here yet. However we’ve got about 5,000 frogs mating in the pond: they are quite shameless and rather noisy and have given the guardsmen a good deal of amusement.
Later that month . . .
I WAS interested to hear your views about greta garbo: I’ve never fancied her myself as she’s always given me the impression of being rather a solemn bore and I don’t personally rate her sex appeal at all highly, but that is purely a case of personal preference.
I’ve had to move house this week and I’m now resident at a chateau, property of Comte de m.
I could never have believed that such a house and such inhabitants could possibly exist except perhaps in some remote corner of southern Ireland: it’s just like one of the really macabre chapters from one of Balzac’s novels.
The chateau is about 100 years old and I shouldn’t think painter, carpenter or even a charwoman has set foot in it since its completion. It comprises some 20 bedrooms, six reception rooms but no ‘ usual offices’ except a communal earth closet and a cracked sink.
The walls are discoloured and streaked with damp, the floors are stained and bare and every room is crammed with junk that can scarcely be dignified by the word ‘furniture’ — broken tables, chairs with missing legs, cupboards full of dreadful quasi- religious ornaments that you couldn’t put on the ‘white elephant’ stall at a church bazaar. A dreadful graveyard smell pervades the whole place.
In the room where I work, a long chain descends from the ceiling, but instead of supporting some form of illumination, a dreadful stuffed sparrowhawk, with a label flapping around its leg, sways sadly from the end of it, rocking monotonously to and fro in one of the many draughts that come whistling from the broken windows.
The residents fit in nicely with the furniture: the count, whose income is possibly £100 per year, is a tall, dirty man with a mop of hair like a station lavatory brush.
His aristocratic origin prevents him from working so he passes the day in regretting the Bourbons and complaining about the english. As a matter of fact, the last regiment here did strain the entente Cordiale a bit. They pulled down his newest barn for firewood, and laid him out when he protested. He is a lazy, decadent, old snob but somehow rather pathetic.
His wife is a cripple and does the work of about five english servants: she has a horrible maniac’s laugh that terrifies me.
There are two daughters, nice simple things who work like peasants but we are not allowed to mix with them. Their life must be dreary beyond words and I am terribly sorry for them. There is also a lunatic son who can’t talk: he doesn’t appear in the day much but one is apt to run into him a bit after dark. I must go off now and see a general.
APRIL
mAny thanks for that dirty postcard which has been greatly admired by my colleagues (except for one who just couldn’t see the joke).
I’ve found a place where they give the most extraordinary ‘exhibitions’. The proprietor of this place is a retired trollop called madame koko who built up a snug little business by catering for the carnal needs of german gHQ during the last war.
She is really a most amusing person with a considerable repertoire of anecdotes and I enjoy many quiet evenings talking to her in her private sanctum: it is rather fun, too, listening to her when she has to go into the bar to bargain with a client or deal with refractory drunken officers with masterly ease.
With best love and a great big wet kiss anywhere you fancy . . .
Later that month . . .
I HAD a rather troubled night dossing on the floor of a bathroom with four other officers. my feet pillowed the venerable head of some aged major, while I was alternately gagged and asphyxiated by a couple of rather warm feet which I fancy emanated from an elderly ensign in the Pioneer Corps.
The next day, I was suffering from the worst cold I’ve ever had.
I intended to go straight to bed at 5pm, but relentless authority decreed at 7pm I should be seated in a howling blizzard at the front of a lorry with no windscreen for a two-hour drive.
On arrival at our destination feeling like a block of ice, Walls’ best, I was invited to march home, which I did, getting there for breakfast. Strangely, this vigorous treatment cured my cold.
MAY 13
I’m keePIng your letter to reread in the rather frequent spasms of gloom that encompass me here from time to time.
We’re in a state of advanced military activity here at present and everyone is terribly tense.
I can’t quite analyse my own reactions to the situation (which spares you a pageful of moralising bunk, mostly untrue) but I feel as if I was going to ride a rather chancy jumper in a race tomorrow and I’m not quite sure whether I want a hard frost to postpone it or not.
Anyway, it’s all rather exciting and I was only mildly upset when I found our parson ordering 200 wooden crosses and a packet of labels for attaching to the kits of deceased officers!
I’m so glad you like the Siegfried Sassoon poems: they are the bitterest things I’ve ever read. He was a gallant and efficient soldier and knew just how bloody war is.
I know nothing about war at all, but I agree with you in loathing all that bogus heroic stuff which is so eagerly lapped up by a large proportion of the general public.
A few days after writing this, Roger, fighting a desperate rearguard action against the Germans, was knocked unconscious by an exploding shell and left for dead. when he came to he was surrounded by German soldiers. Although he didn’t write about this experience to Peggy, he set down his recollections 38 years later in the following letter, addressed to the son of General Andrew ‘Bulgy’ Thorne.
MARCH 21, 1978
I WAS captured on the Dyle Canal, the Belgians on our left having departed during the night without giving any warning of their intention.
A fairly unpleasant german officer told me I was to be shot immediately because the ‘dirty British had begun using poison gas’. That little difficulty blew over and I was given a room in a Belgian hospital for treatment for my left hand.
About two days later, I was removed — I had no belongings at all — by two german officers who drove me off in a somewhat inferior car. True to form as regards most officers, they were unable to read a map and got hopelessly lost.
I could understand a little german (having been taught some at eton) and at one point the
situation was so desperate that they were considering asking me to help them out.
We drove all through the night and the next morning ended up at a chateau with a lake in front of it. I was put in the charge of an agreeable officer who, as we sat in the garden, told me he always bought his clothes at Austin Reed’s.
I think he supposed that information would show him in a favourable light.
Eventually, I was told I was to be interviewed by [ Generalfeldmarschall Walter von] Reichenau. I was in a fairly ropey condition and perhaps someone informed him of this, as I was taken to his bedroom where he sent his servant with washing and shaving things and a comb and, soon, his doctor arrived and applied a dressing.
I was then led to Reichenau. Everyone was all smiles (except me) and I remember being asked: ‘ How is [ British general] Bulgy Thorne? I have not seen him since Ascot.’
The brief interview, which included no questioning on military matters, except about the effectiveness of dive-bombing, concluded with Reichenau’s advice to amuse myself in captivity by endeavouring to escape.
Unfortunately, the officers in charge of prison camps took a less light- hearted view of that particular activity and only became more disagreeable if told I was only following a German field marshal’s advice.
I had a quick look into Reichenau’s suitcase, which was lying, packed, on his bed, and was slightly surprised to find it crammed with very expensive, monogrammed shirts, pyjamas and underclothes, which looked as if they might have been purchased in the Burlington Arcade.
On leaving the chateau, my standard of living and treatment suffered a painfully sharp descent ...
ROGER’s first letter to Peggy as POW number 481 was from a camp known as oflag IX-A in spangenburg, central germany.
10 JUNE, 1940
THE first nine days were the worst, when I never saw another Englishman, had nothing to read and made constant train journeys in a very dusty and dishevelled condition and was the blushing recipient of considerable attention.
I’m living at present in a medieval castle, complete with wild boars in the moat. I suppose after 30 years of ease, a little discomfort is good for one, but I hate never having a bath and having only one suit of clothes.
One is so completely cut off from all one’s former surroundings that it’s like starting a new life. Still, it might be far worse and I only hope the war won’t last for years.
AUGUST/SEPTEMBER
I’M In a room with nine people. Good manners are far more important in a prison camp than they are in ordinary life, and this type of existence is apt, after a bit, to bring out the worst in everyone.
The end of the war and release seems as remote as the moon. This strange life amid strange people makes me feel that I was killed in May.
VINTAGE ROGER by Roger Mortimer, edited by Charlie Mortimer, is published by Constable at £16.99. Copyright © Roger Mortimer and Charlie Mortimer 2020. to buy a copy for £13.60 (20 per cent discount) go to mailshop.co.uk or call 01603 648155. offer valid until 28/2/20, P&P is free.