'He's probably just trying to cheer you up,' I say. Which isn't my usual emollient style, as you'll know, but with men like Wragg it doesn't pay to back down too soon.
'Are you being funny?'
'Standard practice before a big op,' I say. 'Keep your men busy. Keeps them from worrying.'
'You're sounding like a bloody officer. That what you are? An officer. Come to spy on us?'
'They thought you might need a linguist.'
'Oh they did, did they? And what the fook would one of them be when it's at home?'
'Language, innit? Wot, speak Frog, do you? I speak all the Frog you need. Listen, 'ows this: "Voulez-vous coucher avec moi, Madame?'" says a lanky, gappy-toothed marine with a button nose and tight curly hair. Marine Hordern, I'll later learn.
'You have a penchant for the older woman, then?'
'Wot?'
'If she's over thirty and married-looking, then Madame is perfect. Younger ones might prefer being addressed as Mademoiselle.'
'Blimey. We've got a right know-all, 'ere.'
'Fookin' cocky bastard is what I'd call him,' says Oily and he may be bigger than me and fitter than me and stronger than me, but there is at least one advantage I have over him, and I may have to use it any second now, which is why my right hand isn't holding my table knife any more, it's edging very slowly towards the sheath strapped to my left thigh.
'Where did you get a gob on you like that?' he says.
'The same place as you, I would imagine,' I say, very nonchalant.
'Same place as me?' says Oily, all hurt dignity and puffed- up outrage. He's tensing up now but he's already too late —
I've rounded the end of the table, and come up behind Wragg with my left forearm pulling his head back and my right hand pressing the blade of my dagger against his jugular.
Wonderful thing, the Fairbairn-Sykes standard-issue commando dagger. So beautifully feminine, in its curves; so perfectly balanced; so Wilkinson-razor-edged; and so ideally suited to situations such as these. Whip it out quick enough and, really, there's nothing the opposition can do except gasp, and gag, and turn puce and pray to God you're in the mood for mercy.
'I say, that man, what the devil do you think you're doing?' drawls a voice from the mess entrance. It belongs to a tall, raffish lieutenant whose dark moustache is quivering his disapproval.
I loosen my grip slightly, though not so much that Oily has any chance of gaining the advantage.
'It were my fault, sir,' says Wragg, rubbing his neck. 'I were asking him to remind me of one of them techniques we learned from Captain Fairbairn.'
'Never mind that, Wragg. I wasn't talking to you. Marine - could you kindly let go of Wragg there and tell me your name.'
I transfer the dagger to my left hand, so that I can salute smartly with my right. 'Coward, sir.'
'Ah. Just the chap I was looking for.'
Ten minutes ago, the majority of my troop didn't know me from Adam. Now, I'm more infamous than the snake in the garden himself. What I can't work out as I march out of the mess past tables and tables of men, all of them completely silent, all of them staring at me, is whether this will work to my advantage; or whether it will completely scupper my chances of ever integrating with the unit.
'Know how to make an entrance, don't you, Coward?' observes the Lieutenant as we stride across the parade ground towards a jerry-built hut. 'Name's Frost, by the way. I'm 2'1/c your troop. And the chap you're about to meet, as I'm sure you know, is your troop commander, Captain Dangerfield.'
When we enter his tiny office, Dangerfield is typing, worriedly, at a desk almost completely covered with documents, all in neat piles which instantly put me on my guard. 'Stickler,' I'm thinking. 'Pen-pusher. Teacher's pet.'
Physically he has quite a lot in common with the sensitive youth I remember my brother once teasing for looking like a 'Jew boy' — dark curly locks, a long, elegant nose, gentle brown eyes, with a slightly olive complexion. The sort of chap you can imagine a lot of girls wanting to mother - at least when he was younger. Some of that softness has gone now. He's a bit bonier about the face, darker under the eyes, with a determined set to his jaw as if at some stage he's said to himself: 'Damn it, I'm not going to be a mummy's boy any more. I'm going to be a soldier.' Dangerous sort to have around you, that, because they've so much more to prove. And I should know. I could almost be describing myself.
'Morning, Coward. At ease. I understand Sarnt Price needs you for remedial training, so I shan't keep you long,' he says. 'I just wanted to say: Welcome to the troop. And if you have any problems Sarnt Weaver can't sort out don't hesitate in the first instance to speak to Lieutenants Frost or Truelove. And in the unlikely event they should be unable to help, then do please come and see me. Do you have any questions?'
'No sir.'
'Now, I don't mind telling you, Coward, that you have been allowed into this troop against my better judgement. We formed - 47 Commando that is — at the beginning of August last year and we've been training together ever since. We're a tight unit. We work well together. And I’m still not sure of the wisdom, frankly, of parachuting in some Johnny-come- lately with no understanding of our corps, our traditions, nor of the specialist mission we have been asked to undertake. So you're very much on probation and should you at any time fail to maintain this troop's considerable standards, I shall not hesitate to have you RTU'd. Understand?'
'Yes, sir.'
'Whatever unit that might be,' Capt. Dangerfield mutters irritably to himself. He looks across at Lt. Frost and mouths: 'Papers?'
Lt. Frost shakes his head.
'In the absence of any supporting documentation I'm just going to have to take the Brigadier's word of your suitability for this operation. I understand that you have had previous commando experience.'
'Yes, sir.'
'May I ask where?'
'I'm afraid a lot of it's classified, sir,' I say, which isn't altogether untrue, but both he knows and I know that I could be a lot more helpful than I've chosen to be. Problem is, I don't like the man. He's a stickler and a prig and I can't for the life of me think why Gina feels so protective towards him.
Capt. Dangerfield bristles, and is perhaps about to say something rather unpleasant, when Lt. Frost glides smoothly into the rink.
'I can certainly vouch for his expertise in self-defence techniques, after what I saw this morning,' says the Lieutenant.
'Trouble?' says Capt. Dangerfield, frowning.
'High spirits I'd call it,' says Lt. Frost.
Capt. Dangerfield gives me a hard, sceptical look. 'Coward, I think you've tested my patience quite enough for one morning. Let me ask one more thing. Have we met before?'
'I don't believe I've had the pleasure, sir, no.'
'You're no relation, then, of James Coward. James Coward the war hero?' He enunciates the last two words with a noticeable curl of the lip.
'War hero is he, sir? No, sir. Never heard of him.'
For a moment Capt. Dangerfield half smiles. It's the first time I've seen him almost content.
'Very good. Dismissed,' he says.
Lt. Frost escorts me some of the way towards my appointment with Sgt. Price.
'Thanks for that, sir,' I say.
'Thanks for what?' he says.
'For not mentioning the, er, incident,' I say.
'Oh, don't thank me. I did it for the most selfish of reasons. Couldn't bear to see the troop a man short again. And it would have been, you know.'
'I do know, sir. I've already gathered that Captain Dangerfield expects very high standards of his men.'
The Lieutenant sees instantly what I'm driving at, that I think this captain of ours is an S H one T of the first order, and when he drops his voice confidingly I assume that what he's about to do is agree with me. But he doesn't and at the time I put it all down to brother officers closing ranks. It's only much later that I begin to grasp the sense of what he's said.
'Yes, old boy. But the thing is: they're not nearly as
high as the standards he sets for himself.'
The next couple of days are a blur of remedial fitness-training sessions with Sgt. Price, drill, rifle practice and endless last- minute briefings on everything from escape-and-evasion techniques (by a splendid Kiwi brigadier named Hargest with much personal experience of same) and the mores of Frenchwomen (not as lax as we'd been hoping for, apparently) to the topography of our landing beach and mission objective (about which Price and I have made an interesting discovery, of which more later). It's all I can do to snatch a moment long enough to write to Gina.
'Dear Gina, here I am in sunny can't-say-where about to embark for your-guess-is-as-good-as-mine. Wish you were here,' I begin. Then I suck my pen, wondering what on earth I'm going to say next and how to phrase it because it's crucial that I get the balance exactly right here. Not too needy or maudlin because then she'll think I'm wet. Not too gung-ho because she'll think I'm an insensate brute. Not too forward — and certainly no innuendo — because then she's sure to think I'm a cad who's only after one thing. But then, not too platonic either. I've got to show her I mean business. Spare me, Lord, that terrible limbo known as 'just good friends'.
But now my train of thought has been broken by the nasal voice of Arthur Kemp, our section's resident skiver, pilferer and general ne'er-do-well, known to all by his nickname 'Arfinch'.
"Ere, Oily. Bung us over your sewing kit, will you?' he says.
'What do you think I am?' bellows a voice from above me. 'Stupid or summat? You still 'aven't given back that comb you 'ad off me in St Ives.'
"Ere, Rupert,' calls out Kemp, undeterred. This time he's addressing young Jack Mayhew, whose dark, handsome looks, utter decency and close resemblance to Rupert Brooke are the source of a popular running joke about him being a 'doomed youth'. 'Rupert, give us your sewing kit.'
'Can't you see? I'm using it,' says Mayhew, who, like most of the section, is stitching on to and into his battledress the various pieces of escape kit we were issued after Brigadier Hargest's lecture — the wafer-thin maps of France printed on fine silk; the magnetised buttons which, when cut off and suspended by a thread, act as compasses; the little, pointy- ended magnetised bars, designed to serve the same purpose should the button go missing.
'Bloody waste of time if you ask me,' says Arfinch.
'Why's that?' says Mayhew wearily. 'Because I'm "doomed"?'
'That as well,' says Arfinch. 'But I was thinking more of Hitler's orders regarding captured commandos.'
'Always think positive, that's what the Brigadier said,' says Marine Dent, who may be a bit slow and literal but is just the sort of chap as an officer you like to have in your unit: does what he's asked without question; keeps his head in a firefight - at least one hopes. 'Never ask yourself "if" you can escape but "when", "where" and "how".'
'Yeah but he was never a commando, was he?' chips in 'Lisa' Bridgeman - that's as in Mona - because he's never slow to join in the complaining when there's complaining to be done.
'Could have been though. Did you see his ribbons? MC. DSO and two bars,' says 'Eggy' Calladine, the marine so far with whom I've found most cause to identify. You might assume, as I at first did, that the nickname was derived from the quality of his flatulence but in fact it's short for Egghead.
'Yeah and I wonder 'ow many of his men 'ad to die to win them for him?' asks Bridgeman.
'He's been through a lot worse than we'll ever have to face.
I heard he was at Gallipoli and the Somme and Messines,' says Mayhew.
'Ah but war was easier in them days. Men still fought like gentlemen,' declares Arfinch.
'Did they fook. Not the fookin' Jerries anyway. Remember Edith Cavell?'
'My father said it was quite ghastly. No quarter offered or given,' says Mayhew.
'What were 'e doing writing all them poems glamorising it, then?'
'Oh, ha! Ha!' says Mayhew sarcastically, while everyone else laughs. They laugh more raucously still when Oily declaims a couplet he's just written. 'Stands the clock at ten to three/Slap- up tea for Jerry 'n' me.'
'My dad won't even talk about the war,' says Calladine.
'Probably embarrassed by the killing he made selling black- market baby milk,' says Arfinch.
'More your father's line, I should have thought,' says Mayhew.
'I did ask him again, last time I was on leave,' Calladine says. '"I'll tell you about it once you've seen some action," he says to me. "Only then you won't feel like asking any more.'"
'Bet that cheered you up,' says Hordern.
'I still say they 'ad it easy compared with what we're about to do. They never had to do an opposed landing,' says Bridgeman.
'Wot. Not Gallipoli?'
'There's only one person round 'ere who might know the answer and that's Coward's friend, Sarnt Price. 'En't that right, Coward?'
'What's that?'
'Your mate Price. Seen it all, 'an't he? Lost it all too, at Passchendaele, 'en't that right?'
'Why don't you ask him?' I say.
'I'm asking you,' says Wragg. When I don't answer, he heaves a long sigh. 'Look, Coward, we're doing our best to get on wi' you but you 'en't makin' it easy for us. If you joined in a bit more instead of moping round and acting all aloof like you were God's gift to humanity —'
'Yes but, to be fair, Oily, last time he did try joining in, you said he was a cocky bastard,' says Mayhew.
'Well 'e were being a cocky bastard,' says Wragg, adding with mock concern, 'Eh. Can anyone see what he's up to? He hasn't got his knife out again, has 'e?'
'Pointing straight up, about where your arse is, Oily,' says Hordern.
'Look, no offence meant, chum,' says Wragg. 'But the way you carry on sometimes, you'd think you were the only one round here who knew what he was doing. But we're not all green, you know. Arfinch 'as been all over — he were a gun layer on KG V, weren't you, Arfinch?'
'Yeah, till the Captain discovered 'alf 'is fifteen-inch shells 'ad gone missing and someone 'ad been selling them on the side to the Bismarck,' quips Hordern.
'And Sarnt Weaver's been everywhere from Vichy Madagascar to Palestine; even Lisa Bridgeman was MNBDO on Crete,' continues Wragg.
'EvenLisa Bridgeman?' complains Bridgeman.
'Steady with them initials, Oily. He's a Pongo, remember,' says Arfinch.
A Pongo, in case you don't know, is how members of the Royal Navy — which of course includes the Royal Marines — refer to the Army.
'Oh, for goodness sake,' I say. 'Of course I know what it stands for. Mobile Naval Base Defence Organisation.'
'Well, it came as news to Bridgeman on Crete. When he volunteered he thought it meant Men Not to Be Drafted
Overseas,' says Hordern. 'Christ,' he says to himself as the German paratroopers come swooping down on his head. 'I'd better FOOOH ASAP.'
'So what we're saying is, just because we don't go round boasting about it, doesn't mean we don't know what it's like to be at the sharp end,' says Wragg. 'We know what we're in for. And we're not bloody scared.'
If he isn't scared, though, all I can say is that he's a bloody idiot. I know I am, after what Price and I learned yesterday about our destination.
We found out at a briefing, which for everyone else was pretty routine by now but which for Price and me was our first chance to discover where we were going or what the operation was about. Up until that point, we could have been heading to the moon, for all we knew.
All right, so we probably had a rough idea it was going to be France, because we had all been issued French money. And we'd guessed it was more likely to be Northern France, rather than somewhere further off, just because it would be quicker to get to. Exactly where in Northern France though, none of us had a clue. Not the men, anyway. Or the NCOs. A few of the more senior officers had been briefed but that was as far as it went. Even at this late stage and despite the fact that we were in sealed camps, guarded by GIs and with a snowball's chance in hell of making any contact with the outside world, it had be
en decided that the names of the places where in two or three days a good few of us would be laying down our lives were just too damned sensitive for general consumption.
The first bad news we learn is this: 47 Commando has been granted the honour of taking, single-handed, one of the most heavily defended objectives in the whole landing sector. It's a fishing village whose name, as I say, we are not permitted to know. It's guarded on either side by two huge cliffs - marked on the map as the Eastern and Western Features — each of them absolutely brimming with every form of protection you care to imagine: machine-gun nests, weapons pits, ack-ack, bunkers, trenches, mines, even concealed flame-throwers for heaven's sake.
'Now, I don't want you to concern yourselves too much about the flame-throwers,' says our second-in-command, Major Dalby, who's giving today's briefing. 'They sound unpleasant. They damned well are unpleasant. But they're easy to avoid. You're unlikely to be able to see the nozzle, hidden in the ground, but what you might well see is a sudden glow caused by the electric igniter. Soon as you spot that, step smartly to the left or right —'
'Straight into where Jerry's planted his S-mines,' mutters Bridgeman.
'And with luck, you'll miss the jet altogether,' continues Major Dalby. 'The important thing is not to let yourself get bogged down. It's imperative that you capture both heights as quickly as possible because, until you do, your comrades in the port will be sitting ducks for whatever fire Jerry cares to pour on them. Any questions? Well, chaps, I'm not going to pretend it will be a picnic. But I'm quite sure you'll all agree with me that the Colonel's plan has made a tricky job a great deal easier. It's to the Colonel's credit and our great advantage that Jerry will be expecting us - if at all - to be coming at him from the sea, not from his rear. That surprise, I believe, is going to make all the difference.'
'Yeah, all twelve bleeding miles of it,' murmurs Bridgeman — who else?
He's referring to the day's second, possibly even worse, piece of bad news. Sweet though it is of the Colonel to have decided against letting us get ourselves cut to pieces in a seaborne assault, it means that instead we are going to have to make our landfall further up the coast. Twelve miles up the coast. Twelve miles of enemy-held terrain across which we shall be forced to fight every inch of the way.
James Delingpole Page 10
