James Delingpole

by Coward on The Beach (epub)

  'Course I'm not sure, so piss off quick, in case I change me mind.'

  Of course, the person who should really be making these decisions is Price, and though he's careful not to show it, I recognise by the faint facial twitch and the set of his jaw that he is very angry indeed. And understandably so. Kemp has just refused to obey his sergeant's direct order - an offence which Price has been forced to overlook only because of the most desperate exigency: viz. that at this delicate stage of his rela­tionship with the section he doesn't want to make himself any less popular than he is already. But Kemp won't get away with this insubordination for much longer. Not if I know Price.

  With Kemp smirking, Price glowering, and Wragg leading, we advance in silence through the shattered village.

  Rather optimistically in my opinion, our acting CO, Major Dalby, has decided that the Commando — what's left of it — will attempt to proceed to our agreed rendezvous. I say opti­mistically, because it's perfectly obvious from the amount of shooting we can hear going on ahead that our rendezvous — the church in Le Hamel — is still deep inside enemy territory. As we march, we're overtaken by a platoon of Hampshires hurrying forward to reinforce their unit in the slow, messy, house-by-house battle for the town. The dead and freshly wounded have yet to be cleared. This was not part of the plan.

  Every now and then, Price will call a halt and signal for one or other of us to go and investigate a likely corpse he has spotted, down an alley, dangling from an upper-floor window or half concealed at the mouth of a bunker. This is how Mayhew acquires the Schmeisser which he's now caressing like a new pet kitten and how McMahon gets hold of a Mosin-Nagant sniper rifle so elegant - the grain on the stock resembles polished rosewood — that I can quite understand why its late owner felt compelled to drag it all the way here from the Eastern Front. Unfortunately, so can Simpson, who spotted the gun first, and sniper or no sniper, he's buggered if he's going to give such a splendid battle souvenir without a struggle.

  When we first hear the scuffling and cries of pain from the building into which McMahon and Simpson have disappeared, we naturally assume they have met some sort of resistance. Price signals that Mayhew and I should go first with our Schmeisser and our Luger, while he follows, Colt .45 at the ready. We nose stealthily through the blackened door frame to find McMahon and Simpson wrestling and straining like puppies in a sack.

  'Sarge,' gasps McMahon, 'will you tell that wanker a sniper rifle is for snipers, not fucking thieving Cockneys who couldn't hit a fucking barn door at ten fucking paces?'

  'Tell that Fenian arsehole it's finders keepers,' says Simpson, his nose dripping blood, a livid mark beginning to appear above his left eye,

  'Quiet the pair of you,' hisses Sgt. Price. 'McMahon, the rifle's yours and you owe Simpson a tin of fags.'

  'Sarge, I don't smoke.'

  'Well, you should, Simpson, it will do you good. A lot more good than that rifle. Know what the Germans do when they catch you with one of them?'

  'Bollocks, Sarge, see if I care. Soon as we look like being overrun, I'll chuck my rifle over to that Scouse git. "Oi, son, grab 'old of this," I'll say. And being an inbreed Fenian twat —'

  'Fuck you. Cockney cunt.'

  'It will be far too late by then, Simpson, old chap,' I say. 'You see, the dead giveaway is the bruising caused by the recoil of the telescopic sight round your eye.'

  'You mean like that shiner Simpson's got now?' says Mayhew.

  'He's never given me a shiner?' says Simpson, touching the damaged area gingerly. Then without warning, he launches himself with renewed vigour at McMahon. 'You bastard -'

  'Bastard yourself,' says McMahon, laying into him once more.

  'I've had enough of this,' mutters Price, grabbing each of them by the scruffs of their collar and bringing their heads together with an almighty thud which sends them both crashing to the floor, dazed, if not concussed.

  I must say it's proving quite an eye-opener, seeing Price's modus operandi from the under-side. As an officer, I don't recall having ever been particularly bothered by his brutish effi­ciency. It kept the men in check; it got things done. From an ordinary soldier's perspective, though, I can recognise that his approach might have its disadvantages. NCOs who make themselves too unpopular do run a nasty risk that come the next firefight they'll stop a 'stray' bullet in the back of their head.

  After what he does not long afterwards, I'd happily put one there myself. Price has spotted - poking through the slit of a roadside pillbox so brilliantly concealed that we would all have been dead by now had it still been occupied — what looks like and indeed turns out to be the barrel of an MG42. Needless to say, I'm the one he sends to investigate.

  There's a gaping hole where the entrance should have been, as if a shell has gone straight through the embrasure and out the other side, leaving the interior eerily intact. The scene, as I push cautiously through the rubble, is like a waxwork tableau.

  The crew are still standing in position, one hunched over the gun and staring sightlessly at his target, his number two with the belt of ammo draped across a pale hand - dusty and still. There's a third German, resting in the corner, eyes open, half-smiling. None of them looks remotely damaged. It can have that effect, sometimes, a large-calibre shell. You might escape the shrapnel, but not the pressure wave which simply crushes all your internal organs.

  Having inspected it for booby-trap wires, I retrieve the machine gun and call for help removing the cases of ammo, which, as we've seen on the beach, it consumes at quite a rate.

  Sgt. Price is delighted, though you'd never guess it from the reward he gives me: 'Right. I'm making you number-one gunner. Coffin, you can be his number two.'

  'Coward and Coffin. There's undertakers who'd murder for that monicker,' chortles Simpson.

  'Kemp,' adds Sgt. Price. 'You can borrow Coward's Luger.'

  Now, the thought of humping that blasted MG42 cross­country for the next twelve miles is bad enough - twenty-five pounds the bastard things weigh: you carry them across both shoulders, like Jesus en route to Golgotha — but what really takes the biscuit is Kemp's expression on seeing he's going to 'borrow' my Luger. Like the Cheshire cat that got the whole Jersey herd.

  'Borrow,' I stress, reluctantly unbelting the pistol and its bloodstained holster. I can't think what has got into Price, I really can't. Sure, he knows that after what I went through in Russia, I'm quite a dab hand with a Spandau. Even so, if anyone ought to be manning any captured LMGs, it's Kemp. He's our section's number-one Bren gunner and Bridgeman is his number two. So what on earth does Price think he's doing picking on me and Coffin? Is he nervous about being disobeyed by Kemp yet again? Is he going out of his way not to show any favouritism?

  'Oh, you can trust me, Yeller. I'm good at borrowing,' says Kemp, as he tries the Luger for size. He's grinning so hard that you'd think his face was about to split in two.

  'Price,' I mutter under my breath as I heave the wretched Spandau on to my shoulders, 'you are a prick of the first order.' And I find myself drifting into the most delicious reverie in which I inherit the estate and create for Price the new posi­tion of Head of Privy-Cleaning, Sty-Swilling and Septic-Tank Maintenance.

  We're turning away from the centre of Le Hamel now. Word has come down the line that we're going to bypass our rendezvous and head instead for somewhere rumoured to be in our possession, a place called Les Roquettes. En route we pass through two minefields, sticking carefully to the paths cleared by the two flail tanks trundling just ahead of us. So long as we stay between the two trails of chalk that pour down from the side of the tanks as they move forward, we should be reason­ably safe. It's a very comforting thing for an infantryman, armour. But it's slow-moving; it's noisy; and it's deeply ill- suited to negotiating the tall-hedged Norman fields we've begun to encounter, now that we're moving beyond the coastal strip.

  Les Roquettes, once presumably a tranquil Norman hamlet, is now a pile of rubble.

  We pass through a gap in the he
dge, where a section of the 1st Dorsets are setting up their defensive positions. 'They went thataway,' says their corporal, leaning on the gatepost, smoking a fag, thumbing behind him. Ahead of us, keeping close to the hedgerows, an undulating line of green berets vanishes towards the horizon.

  From now on, we are behind enemy lines, which in some respects is a safer place to be than in front of them. For one thing, your enemy is not expecting you so you have the advan­tage of surprise. And for another, when you do see a stranger in uniform, you don't need to worry overmuch whether he's one of yours or one of theirs: you just shoot.

  The great disadvantage, though, is that the whole time you're there you have to stay on full alert. You may be cold, damp, and exhausted; you may not have eaten for hours, or slept properly for days; yet not for a moment can you let your aching body sink into the dull stupor it craves: if you do you'll end up a goner.

  It's twelve miles as the crow flies from Le Hamel to Port- en-Bessin. About half as much again, if you take the meander­ing cross-country route we took, and do you know, even after six decades, I can recall every inch of that nerve-racking trudge as if it were yesterday: the menacing swish of the tall grass; the quavering shadows; the camouflaged 88 that turns out to be a rotting farm wagon; the cloying pollen which burns your lungs and eyes like mustard gas; the murmuring and whining of the superabundant insects, so loud to our hypersensitive ears they might almost be a squadron of heavy bombers with full fighter escort; the confounding sense of unutterable peace.

  Now here's a herd of creamy Charolais - perhaps the best indicator there is of the presence, or otherwise, of mines - come to greet us over the hedge, lowing plaintively, their unmilked udders fit to burst.

  And there's an old farmer with a gnarled, medieval face, ploughing his field with two horses, with an innocence and unconcern that makes you wonder whether the destruction you witnessed not half an hour ago wasn't a figment of your imagination.

  If it weren't so fraught it would all be so beautiful. You hear everything, smell everything, see everything. It's like being born anew. The greens are richer; the wildflowers brighter; the scent of the uncut meadows more grassy and verdant.

  Can this really be war, you wonder? The smell of cordite and death has vanished. The naval bombardments are being directed elsewhere. There is birdsong in the air, such as you never find on a battlefield. We are advancing with purpose, at last. Indeed, I've just begun to ask myself whether perhaps I've misjudged the threat we're facing. The Germans will be directing all their attentions to the front line. As long as we remain unseen -

  A shot rings out. A green beret drops.

  Almost simultaneously, the rest of us drop, too - 'instantly, as if dead', says the bible — Infantry Training (1944) — then roll and crawl for what cover we can find, before pausing to take stock. I rest my MG on its bipod, pointing uncertainly in the vague direction of the single shot, while Coffin crawls to join me with a box of ammo.

  It's no use, of course. The sniper's not going to give away his position.

  'How is he?' calls forward Sgt. Price.

  As next in line, Bridgeman has crawled forward to inspect.

  'Dead,' he calls back.

  'Sure?' says Sgt. Price.

  'Dead,' he repeats, disbelievingly. He's in a very shocked state - we all are, but none more so than Bridgeman. Kemp was his mate. His brother in moaning, bad jokes and petty crime. Arfinch Kemp, who was never in a million years going to cop one. With his gift for ducking and diving and shirking, not even the Grim Reaper himself was ever going to get one over on him.

  There's nothing to be done. We can't even stop to bury him. While Bridgeman kneels, pathetically cradling the broken, bloodied head of his dead comrade, Sgt. Price stoops to rip off the red cardboard ID tag from the string round Kemp's neck. Then he gives the signal that we should move on.

  We pick ourselves from the ground, and file quickly past, unwilling to intrude too deeply on Bridgeman's grief, but quite unable to resist a prurient glance to see what a mess the sniper has made of Kemp. Sometimes, these shots are quite clean. But the results of this one remind me rather of a childhood picture I remember, of a cloven-shelled Humpty Dumpty: the skull split right down the middle, the brain spilling out like Humpty's yolk.

  As I pass, Bridgeman says bitterly, 'I suppose you want this back?' And begins unbuckling the Luger from Kemp's waist.

  'If you'd rather keep it to remember him by,' I say because I feel so damned awkward. The way he's looking at me, you'd think I was personally responsible.

  'Oh no,' he says. 'I know what your game is. You and your mate Sergeant Price.'

  He holds out the gun and holster.

  'Thanks,' I say.

  '"Thanks" he says. "Thanks",' repeats Bridgeman. 'Bloody idiot.'

  You say some funny things when, without warning, your mate has vanished from your life for ever. You want someone to blame and, since there's no German to take it out on, who better than the newcomer, the alien, the Jonah? But as I trudge on, turning his remark over in my head, it occurs there might be something more sinister, even life-threatening, in what he has just said.

  Before I can mull this one over properly, though, I find myself being distracted by a matter of more immediate concern. About a minute ago, our section passed through a gap in one of those tall, impassable Norman hedges and into one of those sunken Norman lanes from which there appears to be no exit.

  If you were prone to claustrophobia, this would be your cue. It's dark, it's enclosed, you've no idea what's round the next corner — like being stuck half-way through the maze at Hampton Court, but with no dad or mum or nanny waiting to get you out again.

  We've been wandering down this lane for what seems like an age, all of us quietly wondering when it's going to end because in combat you never like to put yourself in a position you can't get out of sharpish. The hedges are too high to climb over and the only cover is provided by the meagre drainage ditches running either side. It's at just this point that we hear in the not too far distance the sound that every infantryman dreads: the ominous clanking of chain on cobbled stone and then the roar of rapidly approaching engines.

  Armour. Tanks if we're really unlucky. Half-tracks, if we're to stand a prayer. German, almost without a doubt.

  Perhaps it's just as well that I'm not in charge at this moment, because my instinct is to chuck my MG into the nearest ditch and leg it as quickly as I can.

  'Section, hold fast,' Price commands.

  'You are joking, Sarge?' mutters Hordern.

  'And no one go near that ditch. It's booby-trapped!' Price says.

  Calladine and Simpson step back from the edge, only just in time.

  We flatten ourselves against the road. You'd be surprised by how intimate you can get with cobbled stone when it's the only protection you have against umpteen tons of Panzerkampfwagen.

  'On my command, fire at will,' hisses Price.

  The clanking draws nearer. Whatever it is, it's moving fast. If we'd tried running, it would have outpaced us, for sure. But, as we wait for it to come into view, it seems to take an eternity.

  'Gawd, I wish they'd hurry up,' says Coffin, beside me.

  'I wish they'd drive into that ditch,' I say.

  'You reckon it really is booby-trapped?' says Coffin.

  'I've never known Sarnt Price wrong yet,' I say.

  'What is he, psychic? If this is what I think it is, I fucking —'

  And suddenly, they've rounded the corner and they're upon us. One, two, three of them. Bren Carriers. Ours.

  'Fuck me, I think I've been hit,' says Coffin, straightening up. 'I don't want to look. Is it bad? Is it bad?'

  'Where?'

  Pale-faced, he nods towards his crotch.

  I quickly assess the damage.

  'That isn't blood. You've er —'

  'Oh my God. I've pissed myself!' he says, genuinely delighted.

  We have now reached a hamlet called Buhot and, though we're badly behind schedul
e, the Commando has had to pause for yet another halt, apparently so as to allow the Hampshires to carry out some kind of flanking manoeuvre.

  Like most of the hamlets round about, Buhot is dominated by a handsome chateau encircled by a high wall. By the time we arrive, the four lead troops - X, B, HQ and Q — are already well ensconced, partially concealed behind laurel bushes and in the undergrowth around the walls, but fairly evident none the less owing to the profusion of cigarette smoke and the sound of low, contented chatter around the billycans and stoves.

  Sgt. Price sends me off to find our section some tea. 'What, no char?' says a surprised marine from X troop, one of the luckier ones which managed to reach shore with its full comple­ment of officers and men. 'I'd have thought that that thieving bastard Arfinch could have nicked you some by now.'

  'I'm afraid he's dead.'

  'What? When? Poor bugger.'

  'Just now. Sniper.'

  'Bastard snipers!' says someone.

  'Aye. Fuckers.'

  Another marine starts telling his mates what, according to his brother, they do to captured snipers in Italy. I leave them to it and return to my section with my booty of tea, powdered milk and sugar.

  As I push my way through the bushes, I hear Bridgeman say something which gives me pause.

  '— fucking murdered him. That's my view and you won't change it.'

  'You know, mate, I can see a great future for you after the war. Lisa Bridgeman - the new Agatha Christie.'

  'You wouldn't be laughing, Hordern, if it were your mate those bastards killed. And I swear to you now — hey, who's that?'

  'Char wallah,' I say, pushing on through, hoping to God I'm not blushing too obviously.

  Bridgeman scowls and looks away.

  'Any news?' asks Mayhew.

  'The CO's back. Hitched a lift on the ammunition sledge of an SP gun.'

  'Any good news?' asks Hordern.

  'You haven't heard the best of it yet. First thing he asks Major Dalby is what the hell we're doing brewing up when we could be digging slit trenches.'

  'And what does Eric say?'

  'Oh, you know. Jolly bad form to dig up a Frenchman's lawn, unless strictly necessary. Tea good for the morale. Departure imminent, so is it really worth it? At which the CO explodes that there's never a time when it's not worth digging a slit trench and the only reason he's going to make an exception just this once is that Eric has given an order and if he goes and countermands it now, it'll only make Eric look a fool in front of the men.'