The Bridge

by Robert Radcliffe

  He’s awake, lying on his cot staring at the ceiling. He’s down to one walking stick these days, able to hobble gamely about on it, and, though still weak and lame and confused, making reasonable if slow progress.

  ‘Hello, Theo.’ I squat beside him. ‘How are we doing this evening?’

  ‘Fine, thank you, Doctor. I didn’t think I was asleep. But then I had a dream and woke up.’

  A typical Trickey non sequitur. ‘Jolly good. But listen, I wondered if you were up to a few questions.’

  ‘Of course.’ He hoists himself on to an elbow. ‘What about?’

  ‘Well, ultimately, I suppose, it’s about Erwin Rommel.’

  ‘I met him, you know. More than once, so I believe.’

  ‘Yes. In fact you once told me he was your mentor.’

  ‘Did I?’ He looks perplexed. ‘I don’t remember that.’

  ‘No. But well… anyway, do the German words Fall Grün mean anything to you?’

  ‘Fall Grün?’

  ‘Yes. As in Case Green or Plan Green or something.’

  He considers, absently scratching the scar on his head. ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Take your time, Theo.’

  He ponders further. ‘Wasn’t there a Fall Gelb once?’

  ‘Case Yellow? I don’t know. I doubt it. This one was a plan, or project or something, that Rommel put together, last May or June…’

  His head shakes some more.

  ‘Concerning contact with the Allies.’

  ‘I don’t think…’

  ‘That I believe you were involved in.’

  He narrows his eyes, straining for recall. I wait, breath held.

  But then he just shrugs. ‘No, Doctor. Sorry.’

  ‘Then who the hell’s Horatio!’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Horatio, damn it! Is that you?’

  ‘I… I don’t know.’

  ‘Or Andreas Ladurner. Is that you too?’

  This is working. Shock treatment, and I can see it’s getting through. But I’m making too much noise, figures are stirring on cots, someone grumbles ‘put a sock in it’ and downstairs I’m sure I hear footsteps.

  ‘They are you, aren’t they?’

  ‘No. I… Horatio’s dead.’

  ‘For God’s sake!’ I rock back in despair. Then something comes to me. One more name. Mentioned by Gerhardt Brandt on the night of Rommel’s post-mortem.

  ‘Then who’s Aurelia?’

  He cocks his head, like an attentive bird. ‘Who?’

  The footsteps are coming up the stairs, and I know now whom they belong to. ‘Aurelia, Theo. She’s at a prison camp. Outside of Munich. Who is she?’

  And then something clicks. ‘Which camp?’

  Vorst enters behind me. ‘Was ist los!’

  ‘It’s called Dachau, Theo, she’s being held in a women’s section—’

  ‘STEHEN SIE AUF, GARLAND!’

  He’s drunk. Even in the semi-darkness I can see he’s badly drunk, glassy-eyed, puce-cheeked, swaying and stinking of the stuff. This is dangerous. He leans forward, one hand resting on the holster of his pistol. ‘What the hell do you think you are doing?’

  ‘Attending to my patient, Herr Oberstabsarzt.’

  ‘Insolence! I meant what are you doing creeping in at this late hour?’

  ‘Oh. That. I was visiting Frau Rommel, Herr Oberstabsarzt. In Herrlingen. Her family, that is. She sent a car and returned me straight here. The guard signed for me.’

  ‘Rommel was a damned traitor!’

  ‘Yes, well…’

  ‘He led the plot to assassinate our beloved Führer!’

  Movement behind him. Erik appears on the landing, followed by Prien, both looking anxious.

  ‘You repeatedly absent yourself to consort with traitors!’ Vorst’s hand twitches on the holster. ‘Do you deny it?’

  ‘I know nothing of these things, Herr Oberstabsarzt. Frau Rommel is a patient—’

  ‘LIAR!’

  ‘Actually I’m not sure he did.’ Trickey, hauling himself to his feet, is speaking in fluent German.

  Vorst looks thrown. ‘Was sagst du?’

  ‘Another man was the leader. I met him, somewhere, in a tent, I think. He had a book. Dickens.’

  ‘Are you mad?’

  ‘Herr Oberstabsarzt?’ Prien steps forward. ‘Your supper awaits you downstairs. I’ve managed to find some gherkin. And that Mosel you like…’

  ‘You!’ The gun is out suddenly, a Luger, wobbling at me, one finger hovering inexpertly on the trigger. ‘You will report to me for punishment tomorrow!’

  Erik nods eagerly. ‘I… yes of course, Herr Oberstabsarzt.’

  ‘And you!’ The gun wobbles at Theo. ‘Will report for work duty!’

  ‘But, Herr Oberstabsarzt, I really must object, he is in no fit state to—’

  ‘I don’t mind,’ Theo says genially. ‘I’m happy to go out and work.’

  *

  The next day Vorst’s nowhere to be found. ‘Home nursing a hangover,’ Erik predicts, and Prien later confirms it. So I’m off the hook, it seems, at least for now. But Theo isn’t, and despite my protestations Prien’s adamant. ‘His name’s on the list,’ he says. ‘There’s nothing I can do!’

  And anyway Theo still seems unconcerned about it, determined even, to go out and spend all day shovelling rubble.

  ‘It’s a nice day, Doctor,’ he says, tottering downstairs on his stick. Wearing an odd assortment of clothes over the battledress I found him in at Oosterbeek, a battered forage cap of Italian origin and ancient sand-coloured desert boots, he’s certainly dressed for any weather.

  ‘Now, don’t you go overdoing it, Private. And that’s an order.’

  ‘No, sir.’ Then to my surprise he comes and shakes me by the hand. ‘I want to thank you for all you’ve done for me, these past months, Doctor, um…’

  ‘Garland.’

  ‘Garland, yes.’ Then he smiles his guileless half-smile. ‘I’ll try and remember that.’

  With that he holds my gaze a moment, nods and shuffles out into the sunlight.

  And I never see him again.

  CHAPTER 4

  ‘Everything set here, Private?’ Lieutenant Brotheridge moved along the line, checking men’s kit.

  ‘Fine, thank you, sir,’ Theo replied.

  ‘This must be old hat for you.’

  ‘It never seems like it.’

  ‘Well, we’re glad to have you along. Even if the lads don’t show it!’

  Brotheridge moved on, leaving Theo to contemplate the moonlit scene – and the dew-covered aeroplane standing before him. Of all the aerial conveyances he had flown in, he decided, the one he was now waiting to board, together with twenty-seven other heavily laden airborne troops, was without doubt the oddest. The list, he conceded, was short. First was the training balloon at Ringway, swaying and tugging on its tether like a stubborn cow, while he and Percy Burns clung on in sickly terror. Then there was the Whitley bomber and its infamous kiss. Next the Dakota, a significant advance, big and comfortable, but vulnerable without weapons or armour. Finally the cramped little Bisley, speeding him over the pearl-pink Atlas Mountains before he dived through its floor to the desert.

  With Antoine. The man who’d befriended him, shared his room in Algiers, showed him the city, and jumped with him into Gabès. The man whom Clare had deployed with into France. I’m not certain he’s entirely trustworthy, she’d said at the Café de Paris. Now she was missing.

  He checked his watch, forcing the thought from his mind. It was 10.45 p.m., the June air mild and calm after the previous days’ storms. Though this was the second attempt at the mission, tonight the forecast was good and everyone felt confident. Especially General Gale, who’d been round to wish everyone luck.

  ‘Jerry’s like the June bride,’ he’d quipped. ‘She knows she’s going to get it, she just doesn’t know how big it is!’

  The waiting went on. A fitful breeze sprang up, rocking the aeroplane wh
ich creaked on its wheels. Called a Horsa, it was one of six on the mission, each carrying twenty-eight men plus two pilots. Squatting there in the moonlight, it had a rather flimsy appearance, quite unlike the Dakota or Whitley. Nor was it especially streamlined or elegant. In fact it looked like something a schoolboy might build out of balsa wood and throw like a toy.

  Major Howard appeared from the darkness. ‘Right, lads.’ He rubbed his hands. ‘We’re all set!’ And with that Operation Deadstick began.

  Albeit slowly, for the Horsa’s ladder was steep, the doorway narrow and the men more heavily encumbered than Theo had ever seen. Quite apart from personal kit and rations, they were festooned with rifles, Stens, Brens, PIATs, grenades, mortars, explosives, radios and enough ammunition to supply a battalion. Shuffling forward, each man had to be propelled bodily up the ladder, and even as he watched, one stumbled and fell with an indignant yelp. Lying there like a stranded beetle, it took two others to haul him to his feet. The queue moved on; Corporal Parr went up, and Doctor Vaughan, then it was Theo’s turn, until eventually all twenty-eight were safely aboard, wedged on to bench seats down either side of the cabin, which was cramped and dark and smelled of wood resin. Sandwiched between Parr and Vaughan, Theo fastened his lap strap, adjusted his back and chest packs and tried to get comfortable, uneasily aware suddenly that despite their loads, he like everyone was missing one vital piece of Para paraphernalia. A parachute.

  The door clumped shut, the pilots checked their controls and Major Howard took position behind them, watching intently through the windscreen. Nerves were taut, the cabin oppressive – and dim, with just one light in the cockpit illuminating a paltry cluster of instruments. Then somewhere out ahead heavy engines rumbled to life. ‘Here we go!’ Howard called, and the rumble rose to a roar, only to fade as the aeroplane in front pulled away. The Horsa shook in its slipstream and suddenly there was a stout jerk and it lurched into motion. It gathered speed, pitching and swaying like a boat on a sea while the pilots wrestled for control. It began to bounce and lurch more violently; it left the ground only to thump back down again, trundle on, then after one final bone-jarring bounce the jolting stopped and it was airborne, rising in a series of drunken jerks into the still night air.

  Theo patted his pocket again, checking for Clare’s letter, lowered his head to his chest and tried to rest.

  *

  Everything had happened bewilderingly fast. Somewhere between his parents’ reunion at the hospital, Grant’s outburst in Baker Street, meeting the Atkins woman and learning of Clare’s predicament, and the oddly poignant talk with John Frost at Susanna and Albert’s wedding, he had somehow agreed, at least in principle, to meet the mysterious Major Howard and hear what he had to say. Possibly, he later acknowledged, because it might get him to France. The very next morning he was shaken awake by Eleni with the news that a car was waiting outside, and the ‘corporal driver chappie’ was getting impatient. The car then conveyed him, still wearing his wedding clothes, some hours westwards to a village near Salisbury, where it pulled up outside a handsome Georgian rectory.

  ‘Where are we?’ he asked the driver.

  ‘6th Airborne HQ. Windy Gale’s place. We call it the madhouse!’

  Inside his identity was checked and his clothes searched before he was shown into a panelled sitting room, where the door was locked behind him. Plushly furnished with sofas and armchairs, by the window something box-like lay on a table covered by a sheet. A few minutes later, just as he was about to peek under the sheet, the door opened and two officers strode in, one a major and the other a major general, both tall and lean and both wearing Para insignia. The major was unknown to him, but the general he recognized from 2nd Battalion’s early days at Hardwick Hall. Unsure whether to salute or not, he straightened from the table and shuffled to attention.

  ‘So you’re the elusive Trickey,’ Gale said, locking the door shut again.

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Welcome to the madhouse. Thank you for coming at such short notice.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Not that he’d had much choice.

  ‘Now, this won’t take long. Depending on what happens, that is.’

  ‘Sir.’

  ‘This is Major John Howard, the man in charge of the op. He’s going to show you something, and we want you to look at it very carefully. Understood?’

  Op? Theo glanced towards the sheet-covered box. ‘I think so, sir.’

  It wasn’t the box. Not at first. Howard stepped forward and pulled something from an envelope, a photograph, and thrust it under Theo’s nose.

  ‘Recognize this?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘It’s a bridge.’

  Gale snorted. ‘Isn’t it always?’

  Howard seemed unamused. ‘Which bridge?’

  ‘It’s the lifting bridge over the Caen Canal at Bénouville in Normandy.’

  ‘And you know this how?’

  ‘Because I was stationed there in 1940.’

  Another photo appeared. ‘Who’s this?’

  ‘Madame Thérèse Gondrée. She runs the café by the bridge.’

  Another grunt from Gale. ‘And that’s not all.’

  ‘How well do you know her?’ Howard snapped.

  ‘Quite well. She was very kind, and helpful to me.’

  More questions followed, to do with his guard duties, the size and composition of his platoon, his commanding officer with the East Surreys, and several about the surrounding terrain. Then, seemingly satisfied, Howard finally led him to the table by the window and peeled back the sheet. Beneath it stood a beautifully crafted model of the bridge in a glass case, complete with little ships and cars, trees and vegetation, tracks and paths, road markings, surrounding buildings and even tiny people standing about on street corners. Theo bent lower, fascinated by the workmanship, which seemed perfect in every detail. Almost.

  ‘Study it,’ Howard ordered gruffly. Then he replaced the sheet. ‘Notice anything?’

  ‘It’s the wrong way round.’

  ‘What is?’

  ‘The whole bridge. The balance, the bascule thing. It opens the other way.’

  ‘Correct. Anything else?’

  ‘The approach road’s narrower, the café’s nearer the bridge, there’s a barn missing, and that pillbox wasn’t there in 1940.’

  ‘Correct again. Could you work the bridge mechanism if necessary?’

  ‘Yes, the operator showed me.’

  ‘Do you know the town of Bénouville?’

  ‘Quite well, yes.’

  ‘Is it true you speak German and French fluently?’

  ‘German yes, French a little less.’

  ‘Good.’ Howard glanced at Gale. ‘He’s in.’

  Details followed. The operation was codenamed Deadstick. Its objective was to seize and hold the canal bridge, and another bridge five hundred yards east over the River Orne. The mission was to take place the night before the main invasion: Caen was a key objective for the first day; the bridges were essential to achieving it. Secrecy was paramount; therefore Theo was to be taken immediately to an undercover location in Dorset where the rest of the team were assembled. Further briefings and training would follow there, and a uniform would be issued in the rank of second lieutenant, plus full kit and weaponry. Finally, he would not be allowed off base, nor permitted to contact anyone, including next of kin, until the mission was over.

  ‘What happens then?’ he asked.

  ‘We relieve you,’ Gale said. ‘6th Airborne. The following morning.’

  ‘I mean after that, sir.’

  Gale shrugged. ‘We liberate France.’

  ‘And me?’

  ‘You return with the pilots – they’re urgently needed here. You’re then free to rejoin your unit.’

  Theo stared at the model.

  ‘So,’ Howard said at length. ‘Everything clear?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘There are con
ditions, sir.’

  ‘There bloody well aren’t!’

  ‘Then I refuse to go.’

  ‘You’ll do as ordered! Or—’

  ‘A moment, John,’ Gale interrupted. ‘Frost mentioned this. Now, Trickey – er, Theodor, I mean – it’s all right, just tell us what’s on your mind.’

  So he told them. He wouldn’t fight, he wouldn’t bear arms, nor would he wear the uniform of a lieutenant – or any officer. He would gladly go, as a private, and do whatever he could to assist the mission, but those were his conditions and they were not negotiable.

  Gale listened, nodding slowly. ‘John?’

  ‘Christ.’ Howard exhaled. ‘Well, I suppose it is liaison I need him for, mainly, that’s true, that and his local knowledge, radio ops, message running, questioning Jerry prisoners: all that sort of thing. Operating the bridge too, if needed. And he can do medical back-up for Vaughan.’

  ‘I’ve done quite a bit of that, sir.’

  ‘But everyone’s a combatant if it comes to it. I’ve no room for conchies and cowards.’

  ‘I am not—’

  ‘Major,’ Gale soothed. ‘This young man was on Colossus. He fought at Oudna. And Tamera. He’s a renowned partisan leader, one of SOE’s best. You’ve seen his record, and heard what Frost has to say. Christ, he practically took that Sicilian bridge single-handed! Nobody’s calling him a coward.’

  ‘No. Of course not,’ Howard mumbled. ‘That’s not what I meant. I just don’t want anyone, you know, going peculiar if things get lively.’

  Fleeing tanks in a French forest. Scots boys sprinting down a lane. A picture of camels crossing a desert. A red beret floating into mist.

  He allowed himself a wry smile. ‘I’ll do my best not to, sir.’

  *

  The ride in the Horsa glider was the worst he’d ever experienced. Yanked along behind its tug like a wayward dog, the motion was awful, as nauseating as it was unnerving. ‘Like being tossed about in a cardboard tube,’ as Corporal Parr put it. Tightly gripping their bench seats, bumping and swaying like mannequins in a lorry, barely had they left ground before men were turning pale. Minutes more and the first was doubling over to retch; others soon joined in, some stoically producing paper bags in anticipation. The stench of vomit then mingled with the tang of wood resin and engine fumes from the tug, further compounding everyone’s misery.