The Bridge

by Robert Radcliffe

  ‘And where’s that coming from?’ Howard demanded.

  ‘There, I’d say.’ Theo pointed. ‘Bénouville, possibly the water tower.’

  ‘Well, they’re shooting blind, at least until it gets light. Right now our problem is reinforcing this bloody junction.’ He nodded at the café. ‘Any news?’

  ‘Ranville direction shouldn’t be the problem. Serious opposition will come this side of the canal.’

  ‘Tanks? Armour?’

  ‘Both, sir, probably.’

  ‘As I thought.’ He hesitated. ‘Den Brotheridge died a few minutes ago.’

  ‘Oh…’

  ‘Vaughan said nothing could save him.’

  ‘I’m very sorry.’

  ‘Not your fault. But with Wood down too I’m out of platoon commanders. And I still don’t know what’s going on at the river bridge.’

  ‘Do you want me to find out?’

  ‘What I want, Lieutenant…’

  ‘Perhaps the bridge party could spare some men, if not too pressed.’

  ‘… is to get the perimeter strengthened, and to do that—’ Both men ducked as a third mortar round crashed in.

  ‘That was closer!’

  ‘Yes it was.’ Howard straightened. ‘All right, yes, go. Tell Priday to send any spare men he can, Gammons and a two-inch mortar. Also our PIAT got damaged in the crash; see if they can lend us theirs.’

  Theo set off at a jog, recrossing the canal and out along the darkened Ranville road. The sporadic sounds of gunfire and mortar faded behind, above him poplar leaves rustled in the breeze, and soon the River Orne loomed into view, together with its road bridge. The good news, he quickly learned from the men there, was that it had been swiftly taken against little opposition; furthermore, a weapons cache, including grenades and a mortar, had also been seized. The less good news was that Howard’s second-in-command, Captain Priday, together with an entire platoon, was missing.

  ‘His glider never arrived,’ a lieutenant told him. ‘We fear it crashed.’

  ‘Major Howard’s under fire, and expecting enemy in strength. Can you spare some men and equipment?’

  ‘But what if we get attacked?’

  ‘His need is greater just now, don’t you think?’

  ‘I don’t know…’

  A discussion ensued, Theo prevailed and the arrangements were made; then, just as the relief party was about to set off, an open-topped staff car careered into view from the Ranville direction and sped on to the bridge. A furious barrage of small-arms fire greeted it, whereupon it swerved and crashed into the barrier. Its driver, they discovered, injured but alive, was none other than Major Schmidt, officer in charge of the Ranville garrison.

  ‘Some idiot said there are British Fallschirmjäger on my bridge!’ he bellowed drunkenly in German. Theo checked the vehicle for weapons but saw only empty bottles and women’s clothing.

  ‘Yes, there are, Major.’

  ‘This is an outrage! I’ll have you all arrested and shot!’

  A few minutes later the relief party, together with extra weapons and the injured Schmidt, arrived back at the canal. Howard was visibly relieved, especially when informed the river bridge was secure.

  ‘Ham and Jam!’ he gave his radio operator the code words for double success. ‘Start sending them and don’t stop till you get a reply!

  ‘What’s his story?’ he then asked, nodding at Schmidt.

  ‘Apparently he was entertaining a lady friend when he heard of our arrival. He tried to phone for confirmation but the lines have been cut.’

  ‘Thanks to your Resistance chums. So he hasn’t called up reinforcements?’

  ‘It seems he decided to investigate first.’

  ‘Good. Right, you’d better get him to Vaughan—’

  They broke off, heads cocked to an ominous new sound. The growl of heavy motors, followed by the unmistakable clatter and squeal of tank tracks. Then, before their eyes and with exaggerated slowness, a single machine rumbled ponderously into view at the T-junction, as though on to a stage, paused, and rumbled off again.

  ‘Mark 4 Panzer,’ someone commented.

  ‘Big bastard too. Having a shufti, you think?’

  ‘God knows,’ Howard replied, ‘but he’ll be back for sure.’

  Ten minutes later the battle for the bridge began in earnest.

  First came a more intense mortar barrage, inaccurate but hazardous, the salvos crashing in at random to fling shrapnel, earth and stones at the crouching defenders. Gunfire was added, from several locations at once, including the emplacement on the water tower which hosed lethal arcs of machine-gun tracer. These softening-up tactics failed to dislodge the men but presaged the return of the tank, plus two more, which soon appeared from the Bénouville direction. Moving in line astern, each was followed by a gaggle of crouching infantrymen, in classic German style. Waiting to meet them was half a company of Ox and Bucks, inadequately armed with light weapons and grenades, but concealed along both sides of the approach road. Their orders were to stay down and hold fire, not waste ammunition on the tanks, but wait until the infantry drew close. As they crouched, and watched, the tanks reached the T-junction, paused, clattered into the turn and began advancing slowly towards them.

  ‘You have to stop the front one,’ Theo murmured to Wally Parr. They were crouching against a wall outside the café. Around them men lay prone, their weapons raised ready. ‘He’s the leader; if he stops the other two won’t know what to do.’

  Parr peered into the gloom. ‘Wagger Thornton’s up there somewhere with the PIAT. He may get one shot in before they spot him.’

  Theo followed his gaze. The PIAT was an unreliable weapon, slow to load and notoriously inaccurate. You had to fire it standing up, and suicidally near the target to have any hope. Paras thought little of it. ‘A Gammon might do better. If you could get close enough.’

  Parr hefted a bag. ‘Be my bloody guest!’

  The clattering grew louder. The Mark 4 Panzer had a 75-millimetre gun, packing a punch almost as powerful as the dreaded 88. Three of them could probably wreck the bridge if so ordered, and the mission would then be lost. He eyed Parr’s bag. Gammon grenades. Unscrew the cap, run at the tank, throw, and hope for the best. Do it. Don’t drop it. The tanks ground on, turrets hunting left and right, their infantry bunched behind, and still no sign of a shot from the PIAT. Around him the men waited nervously, the ground now trembling beneath them as the monsters neared. Suddenly a flash lit the night and the PIAT went off, a metallic clang rang out, and everything vanished in a cloud of smoke. Everyone waited, darkness returned, nothing happened; then the engines rumbled, the smoke cleared and the tanks reappeared, rolling inexorably on. But as they watched, the front one jerked suddenly, lurched to a halt and yellow smoke began leaking from its turret like blood from a wound, then flames appeared, and with a blinding flash and ground-shaking explosion the whole tank blew up, flinging men, metal and debris high into the air.

  ‘Jesus, he hit the bloody magazine!’

  ‘Get down, everyone!’

  A spectacular firework display ensued as the tank’s ammunition exploded, shooting red-hot bullets and shrapnel in all directions. Men dived for cover as lethal shards hummed and whistled overhead; meanwhile, the wrecked tank burned like a beacon, flames roaring, bathing the scene in a sickly glow and thick choking smoke. Through it Howard’s men saw the remaining tanks hesitate, then lurch into reverse, their infantry following like confused sheep. Within a minute they were gone and the attack was over, leaving only the flaming tank and a chorus of ragged cheers. Not one shot, save the single PIAT round from the amazed Corporal Thornton, had been fired.

  *

  Dawn came, tentative tendrils of grey creeping from the coal-black night. The angular shadow of the bridge solidified, the abandoned gliders materialized in their field, and faces, fatigued, stubbled, still streaked with burned cork, became recognizable as individual men. As an accompaniment to the dawn a new sound drifted, like very
distant thunder sensed rather than heard as a vibration beneath the feet. As though the earth itself was shivering.

  ‘Naval barrage.’ Howard checked his watch. ‘Bang on time too.’

  Parr grinned. ‘It’s really happening then.’

  ‘Yes it is. And God help any Jerry caught under it.’

  Theo turned to listen. It was a sound he’d last heard with the San Felice partisans, high in the hills above Naples, the night the Allies landed at Salerno. The pulverizing of a shoreline by naval artillery of unimaginable strength. Scores of ships, hundreds of guns, all firing together at the land behind the sea, to smash the enemy’s defences prior to sending men on to the beaches. And those men, some 160,000 strong, he’d heard, were at that moment wallowing in the grey waters of the Channel, cold, cramped and tense, waiting for the moment their landing craft charged the surf, and the ramps came down, and they ran ashore to meet the enemy.

  Among them was a battalion of Royal Warwickshires, who were due to relieve the men at the bridge that evening. Before that, commandos from 1st Special Service Brigade were expected to arrive at around noon. Six hours or so after Paras from Gale’s 6th Airborne Division, who’d been dropping throughout the night, turned up to help, theoretically, at any moment.

  Until they did, Howard’s one company must hold off an enemy growing stronger and more organized by the hour. The next German attack came with the daylight and consisted of a barrage of shelling from mortar and artillery positions around the T-junction. Heavy machine-gun and sniper fire too was added to the mix, from high vantage points further off, catching out the poorly concealed and forcing everyone to sprint from one position to another. To counter this, and wary of another infantry assault, Howard pushed men up to the T-junction, and even on towards Bénouville itself, probing the town’s outer defences, until superior fire power and hidden snipers drove them back. Casualties inevitably followed, and Theo once more found himself helping them to Doctor Vaughan in his bunker.

  ‘What have we got here?’ Vaughan asked.

  ‘This is Private Dixon. A sniper bullet went through his arm. I put a field dressing on and a tourniquet to stop the bleeding.’

  ‘Sit him down here and let’s take a look.’ Vaughan cut away battledress to reveal the wound. ‘It looks reasonably straightforward, Dixon old chap, hopefully the arm will be all right.’

  ‘Thanks Doc. Bloody snipers.’

  Vaughan set to work dressing the arm. ‘So what’s happening up top?’

  Theo glanced at Schmidt, lying in a corner unconscious from alcohol and morphia. ‘The enemy are waiting for reinforcements.’

  ‘Before attacking again?’

  ‘I’m afraid so.’

  ‘No sign of Gale’s boys then.’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘Trickey!’ A shout from above. ‘Where’s that Trickey?’

  He emerged into pale light to find Parr and Thornton crouching behind a tree, cupped cigarettes in hand.

  ‘Know much about Jerry artillery?’ Wally asked.

  ‘I… A little. Not much.’

  ‘See that?’ He gestured towards a gun emplacement across the bridge.

  ‘Yes, I did see it. After we landed. It’s a PAK 38.’

  ‘What’s that when it’s at home?’

  ‘An anti-tank gun, 50-calibre. We came across them in Sicily. PAK stands for Panzerabwehrkanon—’

  ‘Never mind that twaddle. Could it hit the water tower?’

  Theo peered at the distant tower. ‘It’s not what it was designed for. But yes, I should imagine so.’

  ‘Good. Do you know how to shoot it?’

  ‘Well, no, but there’s usually a button, on the left somewhere…’

  ‘Right, let’s go! And keep your bloody head down. Snipers everywhere.’

  Tossing their cigarettes aside, the pair set off, Theo following, at a stooping run across the bridge. Bullets pursued them, ricocheting from the ironwork, but they made the eastern bank unscathed. There Howard had placed a picket to guard the rear; otherwise it was quiet. The gun emplacement looked new; another Rommel innovation, he guessed, with a circular parapet and concrete chamber beneath for storage. ‘Ammo galore!’ Thornton announced after a search. Loading the gun took a while, but once the breech mechanism was worked out, the shell slid home with a promising clunk.

  ‘Now for the button!’ Parr rubbed his hands. ‘Where is it…’

  ‘I’d say it’s that one.’ Theo pointed. ‘But watch out—’

  An explosion, a gout of flame, the gun leaped and the spent shell case flew from the breech, narrowly missing Thornton’s head, to lie smoking on the floor.

  ‘… for the recoil.’

  Parr coughed cordite. ‘Bloody marvellous. Now for that bloody sniper!’

  Theo left them to it, climbing from the pit to find the pilot Jim Wallwork struggling up the bank laden with supplies and ammunition.

  ‘Lend us a hand, would you?’ he puffed, his face streaked with dried blood. ‘Howard wants everything from the gliders. I’ve done three trips already but he keeps shouting for more.’

  ‘I suggest we wait a minute or two. It’ll be safer.’

  Parr’s gun barked, and they turned to see a wooden shed beneath the tower explode into fragments.

  ‘Up a bit, Wally!’ Wallwork shouted.

  They looked on as Parr elevated the gun. ‘You’re leaving,’ Theo said. ‘The pilots, I mean. After this.’

  ‘Too right!’ Wallwork patted his pocket. ‘Special order, signed by Monty himself: all glider pilots get priority transport back to Blighty. You’ve got one too, haven’t you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then this time tomorrow we’ll be on a destroyer back to Portsmouth.’

  Parr’s third shot struck the roof of the water tower, throwing up a cloud of dust and debris. Seconds later tiny figures atop the tower were seen scurrying for cover. Seizing the moment, Theo and Wallwork gathered the provisions and ran back across the bridge. Where a ferocious firefight was under way near the T-junction.

  ‘Get the ammo forward!’ Howard ordered. ‘And tell them to hang on as long as possible. Once we start falling back we’ve had it.’

  Stealing along the ditch he arrived at the T-junction to find a dozen men pinned behind a low wall. ‘Sten clips and grenades,’ he said, passing the bags to a corporal.

  ‘For all the good they’ll do!’ And as he peered round the wall a long burst of machine-gun fire tore into it, demolishing brickwork and sending lethal shards flying. On and on it went, wild, undisciplined but deadly. Shooting back was out of the question, all they could do was hug the wall and wait for it to end.

  Theo ducked low, eyes closed, holding his helmet to his head and thinking of a battered hillside in Tunisia, with Euan Charteris, Padre Egan and the others. Colonel Frost had known what to do then. And saved the day.

  ‘This isn’t a very good position,’ he said when at last the shooting paused.

  ‘Tell us about it!’

  ‘But that gunner’s wasting his ammunition. Do you know where he is?’

  ‘House across the street.’ The corporal pointed. ‘First floor. We tried lobbing grenades but can’t get near enough. There’s snipers too in those houses on the left, and one up the church tower. Mortar’s coming from further back in town. Jack Bailey’s section across the road has a Bren, but they’ve got problems of their own.’

  John Ross storming a machine-gun nest above Sedjenane. Captured intact and not a man lost. Do nothing and be beaten, or act and survive. From his great-grandfather, through Rommel, Frost, or a company of Highlanders at the bottom of a French field, if he’d learned it once he’d learned it a dozen times. Seizing the initiative invariably wins.

  ‘We need to get into that house, then we’d have a three-way field of fire.’

  ‘Brilliant, but how—’

  ‘He’s reloading now. I’ll go speak with Bailey.’

  ‘What!’

  ‘Leave half your men on this side, Bailey d
oes the same, wait for the next reload, then we storm the house together. Get ready.’

  ‘Christ, but—’

  ‘Do it fast, don’t stop and we’ll catch him by surprise. He’s one, we’re many, it’ll work, I promise.’

  ‘Well…’

  ‘Give me covering fire while I cross. Wait, wait… Now!’

  He leaped up and sprinted across. Bullets pecked at his feet as he ran, but in seconds he was tumbling into the opposite ditch.

  ‘Blimey, where you sprung from?’

  ‘Are you Bailey?’

  ‘That’s me.’

  ‘I’ve brought ammunition for the Bren. Here’s what I suggest we do…’

  He laid out the plan, Bailey and his men made ready, signals were exchanged across the road, and then they were set.

  Bailey picked up a Sten. ‘Don’t you want this?’

  ‘No. Are you ready?’

  ‘As I’ll ever be.’

  ‘Right, on my word—’

  ‘I say!’ A shout suddenly from behind. ‘I say, just a moment!’

  They hesitated.

  ‘Who the hell are you?’ Bailey demanded.

  ‘If you hang on, we’ll give you a hand!’

  Theo stared. Figures were hurrying along the ditch towards them, many figures, in green, wearing camouflage jumping smocks with the tails hanging down. Led by a man brandishing a pistol. And wearing a red beret.

  ‘Richard Archdale,’ the man panted. ‘7th Battalion the Paras. Sorry we’re late, had a spot of bother at the DZ.’

  *

  ‘You shouldn’t really be out here,’ Theo said to Thérèse twenty minutes later. ‘It may be quiet at the moment but it’s far from secure.’

  ‘I’d not miss it for the world.’ She smiled, inhaling the morning air.

  ‘We’re expecting a counter-attack any time.’

  ‘Let them try. They’re finished here and know it. As far as I’m concerned, ours is the first home liberated in the whole of France.’

  ‘You’re probably right.’

  ‘And they’re never having it back.’

  They surveyed the scene together: smashed trees, cratered roads and the bullet-pocked masonry of her house. The burned-out tank, still smouldering where the PIAT had stopped it, blanket-covered bodies lying beside it. The three gliders askew in their field, Wally Parr’s anti-tank gun roving left and right, the smoke-blackened windows of the pillbox, and the bridge itself, rusting, paint-flaked, dented but unbowed. And the men, sitting and standing, smoking and joking, the khaki of Howard’s company mingling with the green-smocked Paras. Their commanding officer, he’d discovered, now standing to one side chatting with Howard, was none other than Richard Pine-Coffin, legendary former commander of 3rd Battalion, the man who’d paraded his troops through Bône twice to confuse the enemy, and led them so bravely through the carnage of Tamera. Right now his men were setting up fresh firing positions, replenishing weapons and ammunition stocks, moving up and moving forward, pushing into Bénouville itself, going house-to-house to drive back the enemy. Doing what Paras do, utrinque paratus as the motto went. Ready for anything.