Milligan takes his unwary reader from the outbreak of war in 1939 – ‘it must have been something we said’ –  through his attempts to avoid enlistment – ‘time for my appendicitus, I thought’ –  and his gunner training in Bexhill –‘There was one drawback. No ammunition’ – to the landing at Algiers in 1943 ‘I closed my eyes and faced the sun. I fell down a hatchway.’ And of course, his mission to cause Hitler’s downfall…‘At Victoria station the R.T.O. gave me a travel warrant, a white feather and a picture of Hitler marked “This is your enemy”. I searched every compartment, but he wasn’t on the train…’  Loads of bathos, pathos and gales of ribald laughter, this is a barely sane helping of military goonery and superlative Milliganese.