The Bridge

by Robert Radcliffe

  Her gaze flickered. ‘He asks me the same question, you know. Once I knew the answer; now I’m not so sure. I feel I have a home here, and a job and purpose.’

  ‘And a husband. A good one.’

  ‘Yes.’ She nodded. ‘He is good.’

  ‘I’m glad.’

  ‘And you?’ She brushed his cheek. ‘Do you feel you have a home here?’

  He squeezed her hand. ‘I’m not sure I have a home anywhere.’

  *

  He spent a month in Kingston, resting, recuperating and building up his strength under Eleni’s relentless feeding regime. Before he knew it she had him running errands and helping around the boarding house like days of yore. In his off-duty hours he scanned the newspapers for news of the Allied advance across France. One day he read a story about the liberation of Saint-Valery-en-Caux, and how Monty had insisted the men of 51st Highland Division were first into town, where they found cheering French people waving the blue and white flag of St Andrew. The next day, and in the unsettling absence of messages, orders or instructions, he rose early from bed, donned his borrowed battledress and caught the train to Lincolnshire. Arriving in Grantham he joined the queue for military buses, boarded one for Stoke Rochford and by lunchtime was back with his regiment.

  ‘Hello.’ A dark-haired officer he’d not seen before greeted him at 2nd Battalion’s offices. ‘And you are?’

  ‘Private Trickey, sir. I was on Colonel Frost’s staff, then got detached—’

  ‘—to 6th Airborne, for the Caen bridge mission, yes, I heard!’

  ‘You did?’

  ‘Major David Wallis.’ The officer rose. ‘I’m Frost’s new second-in-command. Very pleased to meet you.’

  ‘You too, sir.’

  ‘Your arm’s in plaster.’

  ‘It’s nothing, a car accident. Another fortnight the doctor says, then it can come off. Is the colonel here?’

  ‘He’s at a brigade briefing.’

  ‘Oh. I met Major Tatham-Warter last time…’

  ‘Digby? He’s there too, and Vic Dover and Doug Crawley, all three company commanders. Another week, another operation! They come and go so fast we can barely keep up.’

  ‘What sort of operations?’

  ‘Mostly dropping ahead of 2nd Army as it charges across France. Knocking out enemy defences, securing roads and bridges, the usual. Trouble is they’re advancing so fast, by the time we’re primed and ready they’ve already moved on.’

  ‘Have there been many?’

  ‘At least a dozen by my counting. Frankly it’s driving the boys mad. Here we are, back to full strength at last, fit, trained and raring to go. Every week we come to readiness, get briefed, get packed and loaded, only to be stood down at the last minute. It’s not good for the nerves. Or morale.’

  ‘Sir, I need to report for duty. If the battalion will have me.’

  ‘Have you?’ Wallis looked surprised. ‘For God’s sake, you’re one of the originals. You’ve been on every op this battalion’s ever done. Of course we’ll have you!’

  ‘Thank—’

  ‘But not with your arm in plaster.’

  He was to go home, Wallis ordered, work on his personal fitness, lose the plaster, regain the strength of his arm and await orders.

  ‘What if something happens?’

  ‘Then we’ll call you in, if it actually happens.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘You’d want your old role, I presume. On the colonel’s intelligence staff?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘As a combatant?’ Wallis shuffled papers.

  ‘I…’

  ‘It’s all right. Frost told me. And I do understand. But we need to know.’

  Theo studied the floor. It’s time for the madness to end, Rommel had said. Before it kills us all.

  ‘We have to get this over with. That’s all that matters now.’

  ‘Agreed. Now go home, get fit and make ready. We’ll be in touch soon enough.’

  But it was four weeks, and another four cancelled missions, before he finally got the call.

  CHAPTER 13

  Sunday 17 September dawned clear, sunny and windless, perfect conditions for a massed parachute drop. Embarkation was set for ten in the morning; 2nd Battalion’s buses began arriving at Saltby Aerodrome soon after nine. Theo’s stick gathered beside their Dakota, smoking, chatting, studiously feigning the nonchalance none of them felt. Around the aerodrome, hundreds more were making ready, with yet more thousands assembling at other airfields all over eastern England. Always the worst time, Theo recalled, sensing the familiar hollowness in his stomach. Once aboard and airborne, Paras turn from passive passengers to eager soldiers and the nerves melt like the mist. But the waiting, the dallying about like overladen pack animals, so burdened you can’t even stand properly, but only stoop, crack bad jokes, share a last smoke, and yearn for the order to emplane, that was the worst.

  And yet he felt ready, calmer and more prepared than he could remember before any operation. Dressing himself that morning, performing the ritual of packing his kit and strapping it to his body, had felt natural and reassuring, like donning long-forgotten armour. After a wash, he began with a new battledress straight from stores, in the rank of private, no officer’s stripes but with parachute wings on one arm, Airborne patch on the other, and 2nd Battalion’s yellow lanyard looped around his shoulder. ‘Army boots are cack!’ someone once told him, so below his gaitered ankles he wore the battered but comfortable desert boots he’d bought off the LRDG in Gabès. Then on his head he positioned his red beret, the one issued for the Caen bridge mission. By now it felt well worn and familiar, and checking in the mirror he’d seen the half-smile on the face in the glass and found himself coming to attention, and saluting, as though to an old comrade. Then he’d returned to his kitbag, carefully packing everything needed for the mission. Forty-eight hours’ food rations, including the dried fruit and biscuits secreted by Eleni. A full change of clothes, then his mess kit and mug, cooking and eating utensils, wash kit, medical kit, sewing kit, gas mask, gloves, waterproof cape, scrim scarf, compass, map folder, message pads and finally his blanket. Pressing them down, he tightened the drawstring and hefted the bag to his shoulder, finding it heavy but manageable – far more so than the overstuffed sacks many men burdened themselves with. For the drop it would dangle from his waist by a twenty-foot line. Some kitbags were so heavy they broke their lines and crashed to the ground, endangering other jumpers and scattering their contents like litter. Double-checking the knot on his, next he donned his webbing: canvas belts and straps criss-crossed over his body with sacks and pouches crammed with arms and equipment. Sten-gun clips, pistol ammunition, .303 rifle ammunition, grenades, flares, sheathed bayonet and the German binoculars he’d bought in Algiers. Hanging outside the webbing was his steel helmet, entrenching tool, Sten-gun stock, toggled rope and water bottle, while strapped to his thigh was a Fairbairn Sykes dagger, not just a fearsome weapon but a cutting tool if he landed in trees or had to hack through wire or undergrowth. The Denison jumping smock came next, green and brown camouflage, long and baggy; he shrugged it over everything, fastening it securely with zips, fasteners and the tail between his legs so that when he jumped nothing inside could foul the parachute. Next came the parachute harness, thick webbing straps passing around the shoulders and between the legs to join at the four-point release mechanism on his chest. The parachute itself would be issued at the airfield. Last of all came his weaponry. Looped through the harness on his chest was a Mark 5 Sten gun with the stock removed for the jump: light, compact and quick to get at. And holstered inside the smock, high against his chest, was a Webley service revolver. The Sten, the ammunition boxes and clips, the grenades and flares were for adding to battalion stocks after the drop. The Webley, as a compromise, was his.

  One final item remained. His sole personal effect, Clare’s letter, the one given to him at Grant’s office by Vera Atkins. The one asking him to look for her. Rereading it one la
st time, he folded it carefully into his battledress pocket and clumped outside to await the bus.

  Shouted orders and blown whistles sounded, and with that emplaning finally began. With his parachute now attached and his kitbag strapped to his leg, he queued up with the others of his stick, twenty men in all, flying in Major Wallis’s Dakota as a duplicate command team of officers, senior NCOs, signals, medical and intelligence staff, ready to take charge of the battalion should anything happen to Colonel Frost’s stick. Theo knew none of them except Wallis – and Padre Egan, who waved at him cheerily from across the fuselage. Soon they were all seated and strapped; the engines whined and coughed to life, then rose to a rumble as the Dakota bumped round the perimeter for take-off. Pausing only briefly, the rumble rose swiftly to a roar, everything shook, the brakes were released and the Dakota set off, slowly at first, then quicker, the tail rising, the wheels bouncing until with a final thump the shaking stopped and the machine laboured into the air. Craning his neck to a window, Theo glimpsed dozens, scores, seemingly hundreds of other aircraft, more than he’d ever seen, many towing gliders, circling near and far, clawing up into the clear Lincolnshire sky like flocking crows. Then as he watched, and as if on signal, the circling stopped, they rolled their wings level and set out on course for the target.

  Which he knew little of, except that it was a bridge over a river in a town in Holland called Arnhem. Like Primosole, like Caen, the bridge itself was of secondary interest; what mattered was that the river it crossed was the Rhine, forty miles behind enemy lines, and less than a dozen from Germany. 1st Airborne Division, some eight parachute battalions, plus a Polish brigade and sundry engineering, reconnaissance, field artillery and field ambulance battalions were to land there in the biggest airborne operation ever mounted, then take and hold the bridge. Two American airborne divisions, meanwhile, were to land and take bridges further south, all so that Monty’s 2nd Army, led by the tanks of 30 Corps, could charge up the road from Belgium, cross the Rhine at Arnhem, sweep into Germany and end the war.

  And Theo intended being there when they did. He settled lower in his seat, his kitbag between his knees. Around him the men of Wallis’s stick dozed or smoked, checked weapons, chewed NAAFI sandwiches and read the newspapers. Beside the gaping door Wallis studied maps, while across from him Padre Egan thumbed a paperback. Through the windows Dakotas were visible in all directions, near and far, silently rising and falling as though suspended on threads. Here and there flew their escorts, nimble Spitfires and Mustangs darting in and out like nervous sheepdogs. Yet all remained peaceful: the air warm, the sky clear, devoid of enemy flak or fighters, the sea below smooth and calm. Soon the yellow strip of the enemy coast was passing beneath, then an endless patchwork of dykes and fields, many of them flooded and glinting like mirrors. Twenty minutes more and the dispatcher appeared from the cockpit, casually holding up ten fingers, and without ado everyone rose and made ready: fussing with kitbags, helmets and harnesses, weapons and static lines, checking their own, checking the man in front’s, feeling the tension mount as they shuffled towards the waiting doorway. Above it the red light glowed, while Wallis, helmet buckled, thrust his head into the buffeting gale. More taut waiting, then Theo glimpsed lines of parachutes sprouting above a plain of brown scrub and suddenly the green light flashed and Wallis was gone, followed by Egan, then the others hobbling hurriedly rearwards and out. Theo reached the door, clasped his arms across his chest and jumped, feeling the battering slipstream, the anxious tumble, and the blessed jerk and bounce of the canopy as it opened. Swinging wildly he looked up, tugging shrouds, and saw more parachutes than he could have imagined, clouds of them drifting thickly down like blossom, while the trumpeting of engines sounded overhead. Then the ground was rising and only seconds remained: he freed his lanyard, lowering his kitbag, smelled grass, heard shouts and glimpsed smoke, tussocky gorse rushed up, he swung forward, checked, tucked and with a crash was down.

  Lying stunned on his back, he blinked up at the drifting blossom, then heard a different trumpet sound – the boisterous toot of a hunting horn. He raised his head, saw distant yellow smoke and knew his colonel was down. Banging the parachute release, he freed himself from the tangle of lines, hoisted his kitbag to his shoulder and set off, arriving at the rendezvous to find 2nd Battalion already busy gathering. Jeeps and Bren carriers, many towing trailers, drove up from the glider sites; motorcycles revved; bicycles were unfolded; men called out raucously to one another, pushing trolleys laden with weapons and equipment. It reminded him of exercises on Dartmoor: jokes and banter, everyone bustling, everyone knowing his job, while the sections, platoons and companies formed up like magic. Best of all there was no gunfire, no shelling, in fact no sign of the enemy at all – even though an entire division had just landed on its doorstep.

  Half a division. Divesting himself of kitbag, stores, weapons and ammunition, he sought out Frost, finding him in a woodland CP, deep in conference over the bonnet of his Jeep. Wallis was there, so too the other company commanders, all poring over a map of Arnhem. Frost acknowledged him with a nod and went on with the briefing, from which Theo soon learned that Operation Market Garden, as it was called, might not be unfolding quite as originally envisaged.

  ‘… so half stays behind here,’ Frost was saying, ‘to guard the DZ until the rest of the division gets here tomorrow.’

  ‘Leaving what to attack the bridge with?’ Wallis asked.

  ‘Us. The three battalions of 1st Para Brigade. Plus some odds and sods.’

  ‘But I thought everyone was arriving today.’

  ‘That was the plan, but apparently there aren’t enough pilots, or Dakotas, to lift the whole division in one go.’

  ‘So we’ve only half a division, and half of them have to stay here.’

  ‘Correct. Now—’

  ‘Trickey!’ Another Jeep roared up, the familiar figure of Brigadier Gerald Lathbury at the wheel. ‘My God, it is you, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, sir, it’s me.’

  ‘Then we’re saved!’ Lathbury joked, jumping out. ‘Last seen on that blasted bridge in Sicily. What a fiasco that was. Let’s hope we don’t need any battleships to rescue us this time. Johnny, there you are. Are we all set?’

  ‘All set, sir.’

  ‘Excellent, let’s hear it.’

  The three battalions of Lathbury’s brigade were to advance on Arnhem, then continue through it to the bridge, which was some eight miles east of their present position. This long march was unfortunate, as it gave the enemy ample time to observe and respond, but the planners had insisted there was no alternative. So 1st and 3rd Battalions would take separate routes through the town centre, while 2nd Battalion followed the course of the river. Frost’s orders were to advance swiftly to a railway bridge downstream from the road bridge, seize it, send a company across to the southern bank, then advance on the road bridge, taking it from both ends at once by coup de main. They were then to hold it until the other two battalions arrived. Speed was crucial, while opposition was expected to be light.

  ‘Old men and boys, so we’re told,’ Lathbury said. ‘But you never know, so for God’s sake—’ He broke off as shooting rang out across the drop zone. ‘Sounds like they’re waking up at last.’ He grinned. ‘Right, Johnny, off you go. I’ll be following with Brigade HQ. Keep in touch on the radios, and move as fast as you can – we need that bridge secured before nightfall.’

  ‘Yes, sir. Do we know when 30 Corps might arrive there?’

  ‘Any time from noon tomorrow, apparently.’

  And with that 2nd Battalion moved off. The time was 3.00 p.m.

  *

  From the DZ, they followed sandy woodland tracks for three miles, passing the occasional curious onlooker and scattered farms and houses from which enthusiastic Dutch people emerged cheering and waving flags. Theo spoke to a few who confirmed Germans were in the vicinity, but in unknown strength. Advancing in battalion order, he stayed in mid column among Frost’s HQ Company, while
Frost himself hurried back and forth in his Jeep. To his frustration the new portable walkie-talkie radios didn’t seem to be working, so keeping tabs on his column meant old-fashioned legwork. And soon that column was spreading out over a mile or more as the lightly equipped A Company, led by Digby Tatham-Warter, scouted on ahead, leaving the rest to follow at a more measured pace. Digby’s company were well-known ‘thrusters’ – nothing seemed to slow them – and twice early on Theo heard bursts of shooting up ahead, only to pass dead Germans at the roadside a while later. Apart from these, and some sporadic shooting further off, opposition still seemed light and the battalion made good progress.

  For about another mile. As woody countryside gave way to Arnhem’s western suburbs, the battalion entered the town of Oosterbeek, passing rows of trim houses with tidy gardens and picket fences. More locals hurried out to greet them, younger ones running alongside excitedly, the more elderly reaching out to clasp their hands. Several joined the column on bicycles, somewhat to Frost’s consternation. Then he came to a crossroads with shops and a hotel called the Schoonoord where he turned the battalion to descend towards the river, now occasionally visible through trees to their right. Dappled sunlight bathed them in warmth; the smell was of dog rose and river meadow. Passing an old stone church, the trees thinned suddenly and the railway bridge hove into view, half a mile away across open fields. Sizing up the situation, Frost called a halt to regroup his battalion.

  ‘Go and fetch Vic Dover,’ he murmured to Theo, squinting through binoculars.

  A few minutes later C Company’s commander arrived.

  ‘It’s awfully open, Vic.’

  ‘So it appears.’

  ‘Can’t see any sign of Jerry this side of the river, and the other side’s too far to tell. Think you can manage it?’

  ‘We’ll be careful.’

  ‘Good.’ He pulled out a map. ‘I’d stay and offer support, but time’s short and we must crack on for the road bridge. All being well we’ll meet in the middle of it in a couple of hours. If you can’t get across here, then make your way to Brigade HQ which is earmarked for this building here, just north of the road bridge, and we’ll rendezvous there. Clear?’