General Dwight Eisenhower was a simple man and it was with simple words that he gave the signal for the great invasion to start. It was 5 June. On that day, in Italy and after a long campaign, the Allies had taken Rome. The weather in England was tardily clearing; perhaps it would be fine for a day, or even for a few hours, but he sensed it was time, the only time. The winds and the tides would not be right again for almost a month and although it was a risk, he had to take it. He came from his headquarters, not on the face of it a man of destiny, more a man of care; a neat and thoughtful man. He walked towards his senior officers, American and British, Canadian and French, standing on the wet lawn, and said without emphasis: ‘Okay. Let’s go.’
At these words, 287,000 men, 10,000 aircraft and 5,000 ships moved into their places for action, for the most immense military assault ever known.
The words of Sergeant Harris were, like General Eisenhower’s, simple: ‘All right you lot. We’re off.’
The soldiers looked at each other, some abruptly nervous, some already gritting their teeth, others hoping for someone to make a joke. They got into their kit and slung their rifles over their shoulders. ‘What bastard ’as pinched my bayonet?’ demanded Treadwell seriously.
Gordon found it for him. It was under his pillow. ‘Ye’ve been frightened in ya’ dreams, have ye?’ said Gordon. ‘Ta keep the boonie men away.’
They trooped from the tent. All over the camp and the other muddy miles of compounds to the east and to the west, men were on the move. It was ten in the morning. ‘Anyhow they gave us a lie-in,’ said Warren in his ponderous way.
No one looked back at the tent for they had no affection for it. There were lorries revving on the road and the children in the school playground watched them climb aboard and gave them a half wave. Some boys began playing soldiers, shooting each other with imaginary tommy-guns.
The day remained damp but with the wind diminished. Warren put his hand out of the lorry and forecast: ‘The sea’ll be flatter now.’
‘Oi hope bloody well so,’ sniffed Blackie. ‘Bad enough being sick with fright.’
Harris, sitting by the tailgate of the vehicle, glanced towards him. ‘Pack up the gloom, lad. Why don’t you start a singsong?’
Blackie returned the look bleakly. ‘Is that an order, sarge?’
‘No, it’s not an order. Even I can’t order you to sing. Fight, yes.’
‘Can we just hum?’ suggested Chaffey.
‘Shut up,’ said Harris, grinning. They were like a grown family to him, naive, unruly, friendly, dependent on him and on each other. That morning he would be going past his own front door; perhaps Enid would be waiting to see him march away.
In Southampton the lorry pulled into a sports field, goalposts sagging redundantly among rows of military vehicles. Troops were jumping down, standing in squads, and forming into marching columns under the bawled orders of a warrant officer, flushed with importance and lack of breath, who was not going with them.
They were mostly Hampshire Regiment, local soldiers; like Harris, some of them would be marching past their own homes. Platoon by platoon they formed up on the grass. Gordon went to one of the sets of goalposts marooned among the lorries and Blackie pretended to head an invisible ball past him. ‘Offside,’ said Harris.
He called them to order and they formed up. He growled: ‘Squad – squad,’ in his best fashion. There were other soldiers watching. ‘Squad a-tten-tion!’ The heels of their polished boots came together. Harris glanced towards the warrant officer but he was pacing and bawling in the distance. Harris ordered: ‘Squad – right turn – by the left – quick march!’ The thirty men moved sharply, performed a brisk wheel and joined a column that was leaving the field for the main road. Then they headed for the docks, through the grey and damaged city, between the shops and houses. The civilians in the streets scarcely gave them a glance. Marching men were nothing new.
The head column disappeared into the city distance. For a moment Harris feared that they would be taking a new route, that they would not be marching down his street, that he would not see Enid. But the order was called as the first formation reached the junction. Would she be there? How many men had marched by in the last few hours? How could he expect her to keep watching from their window? And how would she be able to pick out one soldier from so many, even when the soldier was her husband?
As they marched towards the house he could see that she was not in the window. He grunted, fixed his eyes ahead and continued in stride. Then over the tramping feet he heard her girl’s voice calling: ‘Harris! Harris! Come back!’
She sped along the pavement on woolly bedroom slippers until she had caught up with him. The troops were hooting and whistling. She was wearing an RAF greatcoat over a nightdress. Her fair hair was tussled, her face pale without make-up. ‘Oh, Harris, darling, come back soon!’
Harris did the only unmilitary thing he had ever done. He broke ranks and stumbled towards her on the pavement. His men closed up and urged him on. ‘Go on, sarge, give ’er a kiss!’ She was half trotting in her bedroom slippers, trying to keep up. He caught her in his arms and they did a sort of dance alongside the marching troops. Pushing his Sten gun aside he kissed her, and she kissed him all over his hard face while the marching men cheered. They pulled apart and looked at each other at arm’s length. ‘Nice coat,’ he said.
‘Four quid,’ she replied. He kissed her again and then did another clumsy dance step to regain his place at the fore of the squad. She continued her flapping run alongside. ‘I’ve got to tell you!’ she called breathlessly. ‘I’m having a baby!’
Harris tried to look at her between the heads of the moving men. His eyes swivelled. The soldiers cheered louder. ‘I’m pregnant!’ she called again. She was breathless by now and she stood panting and holding on to someone’s garden fence. ‘Harris!’ she managed again. ‘Did you hear me?’
‘Yes!’ he shouted back over the heads of his men. ‘Lovely!’
She tried to regain her breath, the air-force-blue coat heaving. ‘It’s ours, Harris!’ she finally shouted: ‘It’s all ours!’
Some men of the Hampshires had been aboard the troop transports for three days in Southampton, waiting for the weather to change. But when Harris and his section went aboard their designated ship they set sail two hours before the light faded.
The English Channel remained sullen and the transports were not meant for comfort. They were scheduled to be in position off the Normandy coast by four in the morning. There they would transfer the soldiers, scrambling down nets over the sides into landing-craft to take them to the dawn shore.
The troops sat or half lay throughout the night, their equipment and their cumbersome rifles stacked around them. There were some sleeping in the gangways with other men clumsily stepping over them with oaths and grunted apologies. There was a smell of engine oil below decks and the floating aroma of sausages, bacon, fried eggs and chips from the galley.
‘Christ, Oi wish it was jam sandwiches,’ said Blackie, hunched in the half-light of the crowded troop deck. ‘Jam don’t niff like that.’
‘Why you grumblin’ again?’ said Chaffey, swaying as the ship pitched and creaked. ‘Don’t you like a nice fatty sausage?’
‘Oh, shut up, mucker,’ pleaded Treadwell who was sitting on the other side of the bench. ‘You’re turning my guts.’ The vessel trembled at its seams.
‘After this,’ breathed Gordon, ‘gettin’ ashore on that beach is goin’ to be pure pleasure, Germans or no Germans.’
‘There’ll be Germans,’ May assured him morosely. ‘Plenty of them.’
‘It’s not going to be like a day at Southsea,’ said Harris at the end of the line, hunched against the bulkhead. He tapped his Sten gun as though ensuring it was still there. His mind was full of Enid. He could see her now, running and funny in that air force coat. A baby. She had told him that his body was hard enough to stop a German bullet. Now he would have to survive.
The soldiers dozed against each other. Somewhere, dance music began to play on a loudspeaker and a chirpy singer sang: ‘They’ve blown all the feathers off the nightingale in Berkeley Square.’ Someone bawled: ‘Turn it off, for Christ’s sake.’
One of the crew, an old, grey seaman, asked loudly: ‘Anybody for dancing?’ There were more curses. He turned it off.
Harris wondered whether he would get home before Enid’s baby was born. Would he get home at all? He tried to shut out the smells of cooking and the men being seasick and the thoughts of what might happen the next day. He tried to sleep.
An authoritative voice came over the loudspeaker. ‘Any ranks feeling unwell go on deck for ten minutes. No longer. Make room for others.’
Blackie sat up, groaned, and staggered between the sleeping shapes and up the ladder to the open deck.
Out there other men were sitting and standing, taking in the breeze of what was now a balmy night. Blackie gulped the air. He was surprised how easy the sea looked, not like it felt below. It was faintly luminous. He could see the shapes of other ships close around, showing no lights. He breathed deeply and sat next to another hunched soldier who said: ‘Fortnight ago I ’ad bastard malaria. I was in India once. But they got me better too quick and now I’m ’ere, bugger it.’
After five minutes Blackie moved towards the back of the ship. There were fewer men there, standing without speaking. Against orders one shielded a cigarette with his hand and lifted it to give a drag to the soldier next to him.
There was a sailor, wearing a hood like a monk, standing near a coiled rope. ‘Nice night for a cruise,’ said Blackie. The man snorted and offered him some chewing tobacco. ‘No thanks, mate,’ said Blackie. ‘Don’t want to start any more bad habits. What you doing up here then?’
‘Waiting for the day,’ said the man, pointing towards the east.
‘Like we been doin’ for a long time,’ mused Blackie. ‘Bloody months.’
‘It’s nearly here,’ said the sailor.
By their own methods Sergeant Fred Weber and Gino knew almost as much about military affairs in northern France in early June 1944 as did the German High Command.
Gino picked up shreds of information just as conscientiously as he supervised the officers’ mess dining-room, and Weber overheard even more detailed secrets, sometimes reduced to whispers, by inserting his head into the aperture of one or other of the dumb waiter lifts which took the food from the kitchen to the senior officers’ table and transported the dirty dishes back.
It had to be done with discretion but the openings for the lifts were in a partially private corner, near to Weber’s chef’s desk, and he could insert his head and eavesdrop at most times. The lifts amplified the table conversations. He gathered that Hitler was not popular. The only time that he was seen listening by one of the cooks he told him that the ropes operating the lift had become entangled.
‘Everyone is gone,’ Weber said to Gino as they finished their tasks on the night of 5 June. ‘I hear that Rome has fallen. It won’t be long now.’
‘None of the top brass were at dinner tonight,’ added Gino, keeping his voice low. ‘Your boss is somewhere overseeing something …’
‘Manoeuvres,’ said Weber. ‘Miles from here. Why they need to practise now I don’t know. The time for practice has gone.’
‘If they don’t know now they never will,’ agreed Gino under his breath. The kitchen was empty except for a local woman bad-temperedly washing up pans. Weber called for her to make less din and she replied grumpily. ‘She knows she’ll be out of a job soon,’ forecast Weber.
‘She’ll get another job with the Americans,’ said Gino. ‘They won’t bring washing-up women with them.’
‘Don’t raise your voice, Gino. It may be taken as defeatist.’
‘But where are all the top brass gone?’ said Gino.
‘I heard that Field Marshal Rommel has left Paris, gone home to see his wife. It’s her birthday.’
Gino nodded approvingly. ‘That’s nice. Not like someone else I could name who was sitting at that table last night and is this evening dining with a lover, or by now has progressed to the bedroom, in Paris.’
Weber said: ‘They don’t believe there will be an emergency. Not just now. The weather is not right. Although it seems calmer tonight. Still, they know best, they are the command.’
‘Perhaps they’ve all deserted,’ joked Gino. Weber took an alarmed glance around the kitchen. ‘No jokes, Gino, please,’ he said. ‘German officers may go to see their wives and their mistresses, but they do not desert.’
The washer-up woman walked out, flinging her dishcloth aside, and Gino said: ‘I wouldn’t be surprised if you are the senior man here tonight, Fred.’
Weber looked pleased. ‘At last, in command.’
They had been drinking steadily. ‘War affects people in different ways,’ philosophised Weber, looking at the light in another glass of calvados. He preferred schnapps but there was more calvados. They had kept a bottle of schnapps in case they were captured.
They sat and drank and talked. It was surprising how easily and swiftly the bottles were emptied. At one in the morning they decided to go fishing at first light if the weather continued to improve. They went drunkenly to their quarters, neither conscious of the sounds of many heavily laden aircraft passing overhead.
Gino had an alarm clock and, even confounded by calvados, he opened his eyes at its summons. It was three thirty and dawn would not be long. Just enough time to get to the harbour. He knocked on Weber’s door and heard him groan but he knew he would get up. He went to the kitchen and made a pot of coffee.
At four o’clock they were in the enclosed harbour with old Glovis, a deaf but deft local fisherman. None of the three men had heard anything in the hours of darkness. Even now Weber and Gino, with their aching heads, were only distantly conscious of the sounds in the sky. Clovis heard nothing. He never did.
They took the small boat from the harbour. Grey light was showing in the east. The fishing gear was in the stern. Clovis rowed strongly. The German and the Italian thought sadly that this might be the last time they would be able to go fishing.
When they were clear of the harbour and the short promontory that sheltered it from the east, Clovis sniffed the air and decided this was the place to fish. Weber and Gino began to bait the hooks. Then Clovis sat up. They looked at him, then in the direction he pointed – to the lifting mist in the Channel. ‘They are here,’ he said without emphasis, then in an even flatter voice: ‘Vive la France.’
All three men stared east and then north. The curtain of mist was rising quickly and they saw that there were hundreds of ships out there; every piece of the sea seemed to be covered with their shapes, their shadows. Ships on ships. Then they saw and heard the planes for the first time. Distant big guns sounded.
‘Regardez,’ muttered Clovis.
‘Mama Mia,’ said Gino, crossing himself.
‘Scheisse,’ said Weber grimly.
It had been one in the morning when the Dakotas took off. They moved heavily and noisily down the runway, their engines clamouring in the Suffolk night, loaded with paratroops.
‘You don’t mind me flying with you?’ Miller said to Caldy.
Blumenthal, intent on his listening, bent forward encased in his earphones, glanced up and nodded at Miller. Miller returned the nod. ‘Sir, I requested that you be sitting here with me,’ said Caldy.
‘I thought maybe you’d calculate I was bad luck.’
‘No, sir. Some of the other guys kinda thought that but not me. Could be I’ll be needing you.’
‘I’ll take that as a compliment. Thanks,’ said Miller.
‘Don’t mention it, sir.’
The boyish pilot straightened the cumbersome plane, its lights full on. It was a settled June night now, after all the rain and wind, cloudy but steady. As they taxied Miller picked out the outline of the trees along the rim of the airfield, the dark patches that were buildings, barns and houses where civilians were deep in their every-night sleep.
The pilot, with his fair hair protruding from his flying helmet, was concentrating on the aircraft in front. They were to be number three to take off. The rest of the squadron was strung out, back into the darkness. A door opened in a hut at the edge of the airfield and a flitting shaft of light came out. It was Major Pitt’s office. He waved but no one saw him.
Each of the Dakotas had a full load of paratroops, fifteen to each aircraft, sitting unspeaking in rows along the dimly lit hull, their parachutes, their weapons and their heavy kit piled around them. To every man’s left leg was fastened an extra bag, packed with tools and ammunition. Slotted in each man’s boot was a long dagger. By morning they intended to be in occupation of defence installations, communications posts, concrete strongholds, and emplacements of heavy guns whose long barrels traversed the landing beaches.
After their normal waddle to the end of the runway the transports took off, each with a shattering roar, three minutes apart, and rose to five thousand feet through shredded cloud and into the clear places below the unhidden stars. Everywhere was placid, airy, calm, and they were floating through a flat sky. Carefully Caldy observed other planes in the formation; there would be many other squadrons at the rendezvous above England’s southern coast. ‘We have a lot of people up here,’ he said casually as if to himself. The paratroopers in the back could scarcely stir. Some drifted into dozing, some nibbled at chocolate. Some merely stared ahead. This is what they had come for.
‘Nice night for it,’ said Caldy, peering at the stars.
‘After all the rain,’ said Miller. It was like two men, father and son perhaps, conversing in an ordinary place; safe, on the ground, at home.
‘Maybe we’ll see the ships,’ mentioned Blumenthal. ‘Down there somewhere in the ocean.’
‘They had just better be there,’ said Caldy.
The sergeant loadmaster, who would be overseeing the paratroopers’ jump into space, came from the rear and offered them chocolate. They each took a piece. He said everything was fine at the back. He had not asked the airborne men but he knew they were fine. They knew what they had to do. ‘At times like this I wish I was jumping too,’ he said. ‘Getting out of this crate.’ He went back to his men.
The south coast was indistinctly luminous, the shape of the sea more visible than the land. Blumenthal was muttering in his confiding manner into the radio close to his face. Caldy nudged Miller sitting behind him and then nodded out into the surrounding sky. The pattern of planes was all around them. ‘All going in the same direction,’ said the young pilot. ‘Everything’s going to plan. So far.’
‘No fighter escort,’ said Miller, regretting immediately that he had said it. But Caldy only shrugged. ‘The sky is too crowded anyway,’ he said. ‘It’s better those guys operate in daylight.’
Far ahead, where there was only darkness, the horizon was suddenly bruised by a warm, brief glow. Then another, erupting in a half-orange shape, then dying at once. No sound reached them. ‘Bombing,’ said Caldy. ‘They’re dropping the big stuff. That should wise them up, tell them we’re on the way.’
Miller detected the nervous inflection in his voice. ‘They’re strafing the anti-aircraft guns,’ he said.
‘Could be,’ said Caldy.
They were well over the sea now and Blumenthal looked downwards for the ships but saw nothing. Caldy suddenly said: ‘Let’s get this thing over with.’
He leaned over the controls as if he wanted to press an accelerator and send the plane forward like a fast car. Then to himself he muttered: ‘Anti-aircraft fire.’
They could see the flash of the guns and the explosions in the sky. ‘Way below,’ said Caldy. ‘They won’t hit a God-dam thing like that.’ He laughed tautly. ‘They must be crazy.’
They saw the Dakotas in front begin to gain height. ‘Don’t forget us,’ said Caldy. Blumenthal spoke to him and he said: ‘Glad they remembered,’ and eased the labouring plane to a higher altitude. ‘Can’t go too high,’ he called to Miller as if he might not know. ‘Those guys in the back don’t like to have to fall too far.’
A silence fell between them as they crossed the French coast. Blumenthal was keeping up what seemed to be his private conversation, occasionally leaning towards Caldy so that he could make a terse comment. Miller observed that the anti-aircraft fire was thickening ahead. Caldy saw it too. ‘We have to get through that?’
‘Right through it,’ confirmed Miller. ‘Then we go straight ahead to the dropping zone.’
There was another silence. The coloured shell-bursts were directly in front. The Dakota began to bounce with the impact of the explosions.
Suddenly Caldy said: ‘I can’t go through with this.’ His voice was just pitched above the din of the engines but it was a statement, he did not shout.
‘You’re going through with it,’ Miller told him stonily. ‘We all are. That’s why we came.’
Blumenthal was muttering swiftly either to himself or into his mouthpiece. He glanced up once, sideways at Caldy.
‘I can’t do it,’ said Caldy with a choking sound. ‘I’m not letting myself die up here in this fucking crate.’
‘Nobody is going to die,’ Miller told him, leaning over from behind. He found himself undoing the flap of his revolver holster and laying his palm on the butt of the Smith and Wesson. ‘We’re going to drop these guys. They’ll have to float down through that flak. When we’ve dropped them we’ll turn around and go home. Got it?’
Caldy nodded sharply but he was weeping with fear. ‘No,’ he stumbled. ‘I can’t do it.’ Then, with an odd kind of hope: ‘I’ll be saving the lives of these guys behind too if we go back. You’ve got to let me go back, captain.’
His voice rose over the close thunder of an explosion below the plane. The Dakota bounced in the sky. The door opened to the rear compartment and the loadmaster stood there. ‘How long?’ he said. ‘My guys want to get out of this thing soon.’
Miller answered. ‘Soon. Very soon.’
‘Three minutes to dropping zone,’ said Blumenthal.
‘Okay. Make it a quick three minutes, will you.’ The sergeant shut the door.
Caldy said tersely: ‘Tell ’em to jump now. What difference will it make, captain? For Christ-sake.’
‘Keep going,’ Miller ordered him grimly. ‘Quit and I’ll have you court-martialled.’ He touched his revolver again. ‘Or I’ll shoot you, son.’
‘Then we’ll all die.’
Miller said: ‘Blumenthal can fly the plane.’
Blumenthal regarded them mildly. ‘I can fly the plane,’ he said.
‘Okay, okay, okay,’ sniffed Caldy in a shamed way. ‘Since you’re going to shoot me anyway I’ll do it. But I want to go home.’
‘Drop the ’chutes in the right area and then we can all go home,’ said Miller. ‘Two more minutes.’
‘One and a half,’ said Blumenthal quietly.
Now they seemed to be bouncing on a carpet of exploding lights. It was like a frightening fairground ride. High explosive burst below the wings and directly ahead of the cockpit, shaking the screen. Caldy was shivering. But then Blumenthal said something to him, almost confiding, and the young pilot steadied himself and his voice and said: ‘Dropping zone below.’ The only way now was back.
He fumbled for a button at the side of his seat. Miller guided his hand to it. He pressed and they heard the urgent buzzer sound behind them. The door opened.
‘Okay, they’re going,’ said the loadmaster.
Miller wished them good luck.
‘You got us here anyway,’ responded the load-master. ‘For my guys’ sake I hope the flak on the ground is less than the flak up here.’
To Miller’s amazement Caldy said: ‘They’ll be fine. Nothing to it.’
The loadmaster closed the door. The paratroopers began to jump. Miller stretched to see them flying away like butterflies through the pale night. Caldy was crouched across the controls. Coloured explosions erupted around them.
It took less than three minutes. ‘Gone,’ said Blumenthal then. ‘Every one.’
The loadmaster opened the door again. ‘Just fine,’ he said. ‘I’m going to have a cigar. Thanks, guys.’ He closed the door behind him.
‘Now we can go home,’ said Miller.
‘I’m sorry, captain,’ said Caldy. ‘I was scared.’
‘So was I,’ replied Miller. ‘As shit. So was Blumenthal. So were the men in the back. But now it’s okay, it’s done.’
Caldy began to whoop and laugh. ‘Let’s go! Let’s get out of this place!’
Blumenthal was leaning to look out. He said in his flat voice: ‘The starboard engine’s on fire.’
The Dakota began to descend in an orderly way, a long dive towards the sea. It was becoming daylight and as they crossed the French coast Blumenthal said calmly: ‘There’s all the ships. I never saw so many ships.’
There was nothing they could do. ‘We’re not going to make it,’ said Caldy, oddly quiet now. ‘Should we tell the guy in the back?’
‘Let him enjoy his cigar,’ said Miller.
Caldy half turned towards him. ‘Captain …’
‘Yes, son?’
‘Will you hold my hand?’
‘Sure. I need somebody to hold mine,’ said Miller. He manoeuvred himself from the rear of the seats into a position wedged between them. He squatted across instruments that were now redundant. Caldy held out his hand and Miller took it.
Blumenthal said: ‘Would you hold mine, too?’ Miller did.
The plane, smoke and flames issuing in a plume from the starboard engine, came down at a steeper angle. It fell into the sea in mid-Channel.
There were no survivors.