The Bridge

by Robert Radcliffe

  Theo clung bleakly to his seat. ‘Is it always like this?’ he asked Parr.

  ‘Worse, sometimes. I expect you’d rather be jumping for it!’

  ‘I expect I would. Do you ever get used to it?’

  ‘Never. Mind you, it’s better when we drop the tow.’

  ‘Better?’

  ‘Smoother. Exciting too, like a toboggan ride. Loads of fun, you’ll see!’

  The ‘toboggan ride’, he’d already learned, was the climax of a Horsa’s flight – and its main raison d’être, which was to deliver men and equipment to the target. Six or seven minutes of free gliding, slipping silently through the darkness like an owl, it concluded with what was jokingly referred to as a ‘controlled crash’ in a field.

  The field in question, he’d also learned, was the narrow strip of pasture between the Caen Canal and the Orne River, with trees at one end and a raised embankment at the other. Three of the gliders were to land there and seize the canal bridge, while the other three landed in another field to seize the river bridge. Surprise – and therefore an accurate landing – was everything, and everyone knew the demands on the pilots were formidable. Precisely timed to land at one-minute intervals, the approach had to be made in pitch darkness and at ninety miles an hour. Come in too short and they’d hit woodland, too long and they’d crash into the embankment, while to either side stood buildings and other obstructions. Any error, however slight, was likely to be disastrous. Then, just to add to the tension, three days before the mission, fresh reconnaissance photos had arrived, and nearly put paid to everything.

  ‘Get the hell in here!’ Howard had bellowed, summoning him to his office. Two weeks they’d all been waiting, locked into their compound like fractious hounds. Tempers were fraying, arguments and bickering flared, and now suddenly everything hung in the balance. Studying the photos with Howard was the lead pilot, Jim Wallwork.

  ‘Do you know what this is?’ Wallwork asked.

  Theo looked. ‘It’s the landing field.’

  ‘It’s Rommel’s fucking asparagus!’ Howard fumed.

  ‘Rommel’s…’

  ‘Those marks in the ground. They weren’t there last week!’

  Theo looked again, and saw a faint grid-like pattern of darker dots.

  ‘It’s one of his great inventions! Big bloody posts sunk in the ground braced with wires. Designed to scupper landings. Boffins call it Rommel’s asparagus.’

  ‘The point is,’ Wallwork went on calmly, ‘it looks like the holes have been dug, but the posts aren’t in yet. And even if they get them in, everything depends on the firmness of the ground. Soft ground and we should be all right, hard ground and we’re in trouble.’

  ‘It’s soft, sir. Rather boggy, in fact, as I remember.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  He thought back. Training exercises with Kenny Rollings and the others. Crawling over the field on their bellies to simulate attacks on the bridge. The watching girls were impressed, but the boys got soaked to the skin. ‘Yes, I’m sure. It was waterlogged.’

  Wallwork nodded. ‘It’ll be OK, John, helpful in fact. If we do snag any, they’ll tear out of the ground and slow us down.’

  Howard looked doubtful. ‘As long as we don’t hit any head on.’

  The gliders flew on. Despite their discomfort the men’s morale seemed high, Theo noted. A sing-song had started, led by Wally Parr, which even the airsick men joined with. Jokes and laughter were breaking out, and someone began blowing on a harmonica. He looked on, wondering at the resilience of the British Tommy. ‘They’re keen as mustard,’ Gale had told him privately at the madhouse, ‘but few have seen action, which is why I want you there.’ And minutes before take-off, one man from the next glider had thrown down his weapon and run off into the night.

  ‘Five minutes!’ Wallwork’s shout came from the cockpit.

  Instantly the jocularity stopped and the men swung into the ritual of preparation: stowing kit, tightening webbing, donning helmets, loading, checking and rechecking their weapons.

  ‘Red light on, eh, Trickey?’ Parr quipped, buckling his helmet. And across the cabin Lieutenant Brotheridge winked encouragingly. Another man opened and latched the door, allowing a chilly blast to clear the foetid air. Through it, white-topped surf could be glimpsed far below. He turned forward, watching the dark silhouette of their bomber tug rise and fall in the moonlight. Beyond it flak flashes lit the sky, star shells too and the glow of a distant bombing raid. As he stared, Wallwork’s hand rose to a lever in the roof.

  ‘Stand by!’

  The next six minutes were unlike anything he’d ever experienced. Wallwork’s co-pilot, stopwatch in hand, suddenly shouted, ‘Release!’ and Wallwork pulled the lever. A sharp jerk followed and the glider broke free from its tug. Immediately, exactly as Wally Parr said, the ride became smooth, and eerily quiet as the engine noises faded, leaving only the whistling slipstream and the creaking of the Horsa’s wooden wings. The men too fell into practised silence, allowing the pilots to concentrate undistracted on their task. The nose went down, steeply, to keep up flying speed, while Wallwork, following the clipped instructions of his co-pilot, put the glider through a precisely timed sequence of manoeuvres designed to bring it over Bénouville, then down on to the field by the bridge. Several of the moves were alarmingly steep, with Wallwork tipping the Horsa on to one wing, then right over on to the other, or dropping the nose almost to vertical, before levelling off once more. Major Howard, meanwhile, still crouching between them, followed progress intently through the windscreen. Suddenly he pointed: ‘There it is.’

  Wallwork nodded. ‘And no asparagus.’

  ‘One minute!’ the co-pilot called. ‘Brace, everyone!’

  Legs tucked, chins down, arms tightly linked like dancers in a chorus, the men made ready. Then the Horsa began to shake as Wallwork lowered flaps to reduce its speed. Theo stole glances through the open door. Shadowy houses and trees flashed by; he glimpsed a road, and the glint of water, a lorry, then a shout came from the cockpit: ‘Chute!’ and with a jerk the pilots released a drag parachute in the tail. A sinking sensation, trees and bushes flew by terrifyingly fast, then came a stupefying crash and the Horsa hit ground. Seconds of stunned silence followed as it bounced into the air; he felt a lightness as his body rose, felt Wally’s arm tightening on his, then came a second violent crash, followed by a series of splintering impacts as the Horsa careered across the field, tearing itself to pieces as it went. Finally, still travelling fast, there was a shocking collision, everyone hurtled forward and the world went black.

  *

  He awoke amid a jumbled heap of bodies. The Horsa was motionless, the night uncannily quiet. From far in the distance drifted the crump of falling bombs, while dogs howled nearby. Muttered curses and pained groans rose from the bodies as stunned men sought to disentangle themselves and their equipment. Theo followed them blindly outside, staggering from the wreckage into the moonlight, where the first thing he saw was the Horsa’s smashed cockpit lying drunkenly askew. Two bodies were protruding from beneath it, with a third lying nearby. The next thing he saw, as though from a vividly remembered dream, was the canal bridge, rising stark and angular against the night sky, and so near he could smell its lifting mechanism. Other men too seemed transfixed, staring at the bridge in dazed awe. After weeks training for something existing only in imagination, Jim Wallwork, in an astonishing feat of flying, had just delivered them to within a stone’s throw of it.

  Furthermore, the enemy seemed unaware.

  Howard appeared, a finger to his lips. ‘See what you can do,’ he whispered to Theo, gesturing at the pilots’ bodies. ‘Vaughan’s down too, went through the windscreen.’ Theo nodded, watching as Howard and the rest set off for the bridge. In seconds they’d reached it and begun fanning out along the embankment. A moment later a rumbling noise behind heralded the arrival of the second glider.

  Both pilots were alive, he quickly discovered, and conscious, but pinned beneath wre
ckage. Following muffled instructions, he heaved and hauled at the woodwork until Wallwork wriggled free, his face running with blood from a head wound; then the two of them freed the co-pilot, whose leg was broken. Theo tended their injuries as best he could, before seeing to Doctor Vaughan, who appeared badly concussed.

  ‘Thank you, waiter,’ Vaughan said groggily, ‘I’ll try the turbot now.’

  ‘Leave him with us,’ Wallwork suggested. ‘You join the others.’ Just then a single shot rang out from the bridge. Theo gathered his bags and sprinted up the bank. By now all three gliders had arrived, with seventy men or more spread out along the embankment. Above them the road ran left on to the canal bridge, or right towards the river bridge, some five hundred yards away. To one side stood an unmanned anti-tank gun, while directly across the road, squat and solid in the moonlight, sat the pillbox he’d seen on the model.

  ‘We heard a shot,’ he murmured to Howard.

  ‘Bloody sentry at the other end.’ Howard squinted through binoculars. ‘Must have spotted us, loosed off a round and run away. Jerry’ll wake up now all right. How are the injured?’

  ‘Pilots are hurt but OK; Doctor Vaughan’s badly stunned.’

  ‘Right, then you’re MO until he comes round. Meanwhile, we need to take the far end – and fast.’

  Whispered orders were then passed along the bank and men busied themselves moving into position; with an undeniable thrill he heard the familiar click of weapons loading and bayonets being fixed.

  ‘You 2nd Battalion buggers think you know it all,’ Howard murmured in the darkness. ‘But this is how we do it in the Ox and Bucks!’

  ‘Go!’ he hissed, and two figures rose from the bank and scampered across the road. Pressing their backs to the pillbox, they reached round and dropped grenades through its slit windows. A final moment of silence followed, then the grenades exploded and the entire force leaped up and charged as one, bellowing like animals. Everyone had a role, he saw, with each move carefully choreographed. Some stormed the pillbox, kicking the door in and shouting furiously; some made for bunkers on the canal bank; others set up supporting mortar and machine-gun positions, while sappers scrambled into the girders beneath the bridge. Howard and the main group, meanwhile, sprinted across it, swiftly reaching the far end unchallenged. Theo followed, his boots ringing familiarly on the old ironwork, his eyes on the café, with its windows dark and shuttered. Around him men were already setting up firing positions, while others spread out in search of the enemy. Efforts at fortification were in evidence everywhere, with fresh trenches and bunkers dug along the canal bank, machine-gun positions and the anti-tank gun emplacement as well as the pillbox. Barbed wire surrounded the bridge, and across from the café stacks of sharpened stakes lay ready for planting – Rommel’s asparagus, he presumed. Fifty yards further on was a T-junction where the road turned left for Caen or right to the coast at Ouistreham. Then shouts were rising along the canal, followed by the clatter of Stens and the crack of a grenade. ‘Schiesse mir nicht!’ someone shouted in terror. Scattered shooting broke out, figures appeared, running in panic, some wearing only their underclothes. Other fearsome figures chased them, brandishing weapons, their faces blackened with cork, their teeth grinning in the moonlight.

  Within minutes the bridge was secure at both ends. Some valuable equipment had been captured too, including rifles, machine pistols and much ammunition. The bridge defenders turned out to be few in number and comprised mostly of reluctant foreign conscripts, plus their German NCOs, who seemed nonplussed by the sudden appearance of Tommies. Little resistance was offered; they were corralled into a corner and ordered to behave. Theo, meanwhile, set up an aid post in a bunker and attended to the casualties, which numbered two Germans injured, plus Wallwork and the co-pilot, a platoon commander called Wood with leg wounds and, to everyone’s shock, Lieutenant Brotheridge, who had been hit in the neck by a stray bullet.

  ‘How is he?’ Howard asked.

  ‘I don’t know. Unconscious. And losing blood. I could do with Doctor Vaughan.’

  ‘And I could do with you questioning the prisoners.’

  Vaughan duly arrived, limping unsteadily into the bunker. ‘An entire army will hit French soil today,’ he announced. ‘But I hit it first!’

  Theo handed over the wounded and went in search of the prisoners. As he emerged from the bunker he heard the drone of aircraft and saw searchlights scouring the sky to the north.

  ‘6th Airborne!’ Wally Parr trotted by, hefting a Bren. ‘Dropping in to reinforce us!’

  It was soon obvious that the prisoners, shivering and shrugging miserably, knew little of the bridge’s defence arrangements. But one German NCO had recovered sufficiently to muster contempt.

  ‘You boys will be blown to bits!’ he sneered. ‘There’s a battalion of stormtroopers billeted up the road. Tanks too, and artillery!’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘You’ll find out soon enough!’

  ‘He may be right,’ Howard said when Theo reported. He checked his watch. ‘And we can expect no relief from the Paras for some hours yet.’

  ‘Any word from the river bridge, sir?’

  ‘Nothing. Nor can we raise anyone on the radio.’

  Better news was that the sappers had found wiring and detonators under the bridge, although the charges themselves had not been placed. But having successfully seized and secured his target, Howard now had to redeploy his men to defend it, which was a completely different prospect. Lightly armed and equipped as always, they had little to fight off tanks and artillery.

  ‘Fact of the matter is, Trickey, I need better gen.’

  Theo nodded at the café. ‘Shall I try in there?’

  *

  He had to shoulder his way through the door. Stumbling inside, the memories immediately flooded back: the smell of French cigarettes, beer and hot chocolate; listening to Maurice Chevalier on the wireless; thawing his feet and reading Le Journal by the fire; playing with the baby on the floor with Jeanette. ‘Madame Gondrée?’ he called hesitantly in French, then remembering her Alsatian lineage tried again in German: ‘Ist hier jemand?’ He stood for a moment, head cocked, but the house was silent, dark and cold. He checked in the main salon and kitchen, then went upstairs where he found the beds tidy but empty. Descending the stair once more he remembered the basement, a cellar Georges Gondrée used for storing wine, accessed through a trapdoor in the salon.

  They were all there. Huddled on a mattress in a corner, lit by a single flickering candle. Georges was shielding the girls, their faces round with fear. Thérèse, meanwhile, was levelling a shotgun at his chest.

  ‘Come no nearer,’ she said calmly in German.

  ‘Madame? Monsieur? It is me, Theodor Trickey.’

  ‘Theodor…’ A pause. Then a sigh. ‘My God, we thought you were Boche looters.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘The invasion. Tell us it’s happening?’

  ‘It is, madame. Tonight. As we speak.’

  ‘Then the heavens be praised.’

  They returned upstairs, and there in the salon she turned and embraced him, tightly, before standing him back for damp-eyed inspection.

  ‘The war has aged you.’

  ‘I am well enough, madame.’

  ‘The bridge?’

  ‘In our hands.’

  ‘It’s what we hoped but dared not believe. Then we heard shooting.’

  ‘There will be more. You should consider evacuating, at least until it’s over.’

  Thérèse lit more candles. ‘The Boche are here four years, and we never evacuate once. Now they’re going and you want us to leave?’

  She was the same as of memory: dark, petite, full of bustling energy. Georges too, although showing the strain of long occupation. The girls had grown, and the baby he’d played with was now a strapping five-year-old. They exchanged brief news; then he asked her about the garrison.

  ‘But this information was already sent!’

  ‘Madame?’<
br />
  ‘The latest update was four days ago.’

  ‘But, ah, could you repeat it to me?’

  She rolled her eyes. ‘736th Grenadiers, based in Ranville, a mile east. About fifty in all, useless troops, foreigners, poorly trained with lazy officers who’ve been in France too long. A Major Schmidt’s in charge; you should have no trouble dealing with them.’

  ‘Is that all?’

  ‘No! Don’t your people read? 21st Panzer, two battalions, arrived in Caen three weeks ago. Hardened boys, Theodor, Afrika Korps veterans, and well equipped with tanks, armoured cars and so on. A Colonel von Luck in command. He’s experienced and tough, one of Rommel’s best.’

  ‘How soon could they get here?’

  ‘As soon as ordered.’

  ‘Then I’d better inform Major Howard.’

  ‘Yes, you had.’

  He turned to leave. ‘So, you…’

  ‘Yes, Theodor. I am the Resistance co-ordinator for this sector. Our operatives in the field gather the intelligence; I pass it to the Allies.’

  ‘All along? When I was here in 1940?’

  She patted his arm. ‘I gave them your name. I said you were resourceful, brave and trustworthy, with valuable skills that were wasted guarding bridges. I told them they should strongly consider recruiting you.’

  Shouts came from outside, then the distant rattle of a machine gun, followed by the nearer crump of explosion.

  ‘That’s a mortar,’ he said.

  ‘Then they’re already here.’

  CHAPTER 5

  He emerged from the café into the moonlight in time to glimpse a German lorry race across the T-junction, bristling with troops. At the same moment a second mortar shell crashed into the pile of wooden stakes, flinging a hail of splinters in all directions. Then machine-gun bullets began pinging off the bridge’s ironwork.