James Delingpole

by Coward on The Beach (epub)

  'Herr Major, I know this man and he is a traitor,' says Kimmelman.

  'Thank you, Captain, you may question him in a moment. Lieutenant Coward, you must tell me -'

  'Herr Major, his name is Dieter Maier, he is a deserter from the Wehrmacht.'

  'Is this true, Lieutenant Coward?'

  'I'm frightfully sorry, Major, but I'm afraid I didn't under­stand hide nor hair of what your man was saying.'

  'He's lying. He's lying,' shrieks Hauptmann Kimmelman. 'I can prove it.'

  And, as I rather feared he might, he makes a sudden dive for my trousers. I side-step in the nick of time. But Kimmelman, now on his knees, is grabbing at my belt and shouting 'Guards! Guards!' while I try to fend him off. If he succeeds in getting my trousers off, I'm a goner.

  Suddenly there's a sharp and terrible pain behind one of my knees, and I buckle on to the floor. Having hobbled me with the butt of his rifle, the guard has now seized both of my arms, giving Kimmelman free rein to go to work on my belt.

  'Major,' I cry, wriggling desperately. 'By the Geneva Convention I ask you to stop this man!'

  'The only convention for traitors is death,' snarls Kimmel­man, as he undoes my belt. Now he's yanking at my trouser tops, as I swerve and writhe and lash out with my head, my teeth, anything I can to stop this man exposing the tattoo which will surely give me away.

  'Kimmelman, stop!' says the Major.

  Kimmelman does not stop.

  'Kimmelman,' repeats the Major, but more in a tone of resig­nation than decisive command. And I know at this point that I'm lost. The Major has relinquished control. It is Kimmelman who will decide my fate.

  My trousers are being pulled down. The tattoo is on the verge of being revealed. But suddenly, here's the adjutant, with a Luger pointed at the Hauptmann's head.

  'What the hell do you think you're doing?' asks Kimmelman.

  'I believe the Major gave you an order,' says the adjutant calmly.

  'I was merely trying to demonstrate -' begins Kimmelman.

  'The rape of prisoners is never acceptable,' says the adju­tant.

  'Rape?' shrieks Kimmelman. 'How dare you, you homo­sexual pig? You might be interested in this man's arse but I, I was —'

  'Herr Major,' says the adjutant, 'shall I have the prisoner removed until you are in a better position to continue your interrogation?'

  'Thank you, Tretter,' says the Major.

  The adjutant, his Luger still pointed at the Hauptmann, nods to the guard. I'm pulled upwards and, trousers still half-way down my legs, I'm manhandled out of the Major's office and down another passageway which leads off from the adjutant's ante-room. At the end is another steel door, with a grille on it. I have to wait on my knees, hands behind my head, while the guard unlocks it.

  He pulls it open. Inside, an electric light flickers feebly. On the wall opposite is a poster declaiming Hitler's order regarding the treatment of captured commandos. Beneath it is a narrow camp-bed. Sitting on the bed, his back propped against the wall, his face bruised and speckled with congealed blood, is a man in khaki uniform. He looks at me, deeply unimpressed by what he sees.

  'What did you go and get yourself captured for?' he says. 'You stupid, stupid sod.'

  Chapter 18

  Adieu or Au Revoir?

  The beach we landed on just over a fortnight ago is barely recognisable. No bodies; no wire; no mines (one hopes), no obstacles save the odd defiant Czech hedgehog and stubbornly embedded girder. The burnt-out tanks have been towed clear; the smaller of the wrecked landing craft — though not the big LCT painted 'LOOTERS WILL BE SHOT' - have been vari­ously salvaged or cut up for scrap. The bunkers have been transformed into ops rooms, dressing stations, command posts, bomb shelters. The craters have been filled with fascines, there are corrugated metal strips to ensure that no one gets stuck, and signs so that no one gets lost. Where once was chaos, destruction and terror there now, on pain of arrest by the Military Police, reigns order and efficiency and relative calm.

  Sgt. Price and I are sitting atop a sea wall, not far from where we first came ashore, watching the big ships weave in and out of the Mulberry harbour with a dexterity almost miraculous when you consider that, till war broke out, half their com­manders had probably never even sailed a dinghy. We watch some of the millions of tons of supplies being hoisted and ferried and driven ashore with a swiftness that would give the work- to-rule dockers back home a coronary, and the landing craft bringing fresh waves of armour, troops and ammunition in readiness for the assault on Caen, and the Normandy breakout.

  A keen young platoon of Cheshires marches briskly by. A baby-faced private is trying unsuccessfully to hide his awe at our green berets, our commando flashes and our stagnant, battle-worn air.

  'Eyes front, you tosspots!' bellows his sergeant, exchanging a scowl with Price.

  'I give 'em a week, tops,' mutters Price. His mood has not been improved by the week we've just spent being eaten alive by mosquitoes, cowering in trenches and shelled to buggery by 88s and Nebelwerfers and God knows what else. For all of which, I need hardly add, he blames me.

  'Excuse me, Sarge,' says a timid little voice. 'Are you by any chance from 47 (RM) Commando?'

  'Now, what's this? A matelot who can read and count?' says Price.

  The boy who has asked the question - and he really can't be more than sixteen, but then they do recruit them young in the Navy - shrinks beneath his navy-issue hard hat.

  'Only my big brother's with 47 and I was wondering whether you knew him.'

  'Does he have a name?' asks Price, gruffly. He's a hard old bastard, as you know, but I'll bet like me his heart's in his mouth as he asks it. Please, we're both thinking, please let it not be one of the boys we've just buried.

  'Neillands,' says the boy. 'Arthur Neillands.'

  'Never heard of him. What troop?'

  'Y, I think.'

  'That'll be why, then,' says Price. 'We're A.'

  'But you'll have a better idea what he's up to. Last Mum or I heard of him, he was training in St Ives.'

  'Ah well, he's moved on since then. He took Port-en-Bessin, you heard about that?'

  'No.' 'Nice to know our efforts have been so widely appreciated, eh, Price?'

  'Sorry. We don't get to hear many of the names at sea. Just grid references. This port anywhere near here?'

  'Not far, but your brother will have moved on by now. To somewhere else you won't have heard of called Sallenelles.'

  'All right, is it?'

  'Lovely. Hot showers every day. Clean sheets. Lashings of delicious grub. Not a mosquito or Nebelwerfer for miles around,' says Price.

  Young Neillands looks askance at me: 'He's joking, isn't he?'

  'Conceivably,' I say.

  'Well, at least I know. At least I've got something to tell Mum.'

  'Tell her your brother's doing all right,' says Price.

  'I thought you didn't know him.'

  'Yeah, but your mum's not going to know that, is she?'

  Neillands smiles shyly. 'I suppose,' he says. 'Nice talking to you. Thanks.'

  He begins walking away and hasn't gone far, no more than twenty yards, when the scream of a shell sends both Price and me diving sideways for cover. It's close, very close. This is what I meant earlier when I talked about the calm being 'relative'.

  At the bottom of the crater all that's left of Neillands is his hard hat. I pick it up and stare at the name stencilled on to it. HMS EMERALD. It's familiar for some reason. Then I remember someone telling me that this was one of the ships that provided our support bombardment prior to the assault on Port-en-Bessin.

  Damn! If only I'd remembered this a minute earlier. He would have been so proud, that lad, to know of the vital part he'd played in his big brother's finest hour. And maybe, I think

  to myself as the words HMS EMERALD start to blur and swim, maybe if I had remembered that detail the conversa­tion would have gone on longer and he'd still be talking to us now, instead of . . .

&
nbsp; I wipe my eyes with the back of my hand. There are pale streaks in the dirt and I wonder to myself: why now? I didn't when Dent and Mayhew copped one. And I didn't when I buried Calladine, and Coffin and all the other boys. I didn't because, after a time, you become inured to death as a soldier, you have to or you're in trouble. But you can't keep it up all the time. Every now and then, the surface cracks and it all comes rushing out, with the hurt, the fear, the pity, the regret. They were living, breathing human beings, all those dead boys. They wanted to go on living every bit as much as you and I do. They too wanted children, grandchildren, the love of a good woman, a ripe old age.

  Price has got an arm round my shoulder and he's saying to me, in just the soft tone he did when I took a fall that snowy day on Hay Bluff with the Radnor and West Hereford and the ground was too hard and I broke my collar bone: 'It's all right, Mr Richard. Let's just get you to a medic.'

  'I don't need a medic. I'll be all right. Just give me a moment.'

  'Let's just let them have a look at you, all the same,' he says, steering me towards a tent with a red cross on it. 'You might need a few stitches in that arm.'

  My arm?

  It's only then that I become aware of the dull ache in my left bicep; and the blood dripping from the end of my fingers; and the tear and dark, sticky stain in the sleeve of my battle- dress; and the shard of twisted metal protruding from my exposed white flesh.

  What you will, of course, be wondering is just how Price and I got out of that mess we were in two weeks ago, imprisoned on the Western Feature with my old friend Franz Kimmelman itching to fulI’ve his Fuhrer's Commando Order.

  Well, I’d love to be able to spin you a yarn about how we overcame our guards, seized their weapons and blasted our way to freedom. But I’m afraid the reality was a lot more prosaic: the garrison decided to surrender.

  I remember we were having a blazing row at the time, Price and me. For most of the night we had been getting on as well as it's possible to do when you're lying, sardine fashion, on a single, narrow, lice-ridden bed in a cold, damp cell in the pitch blackness under threat of imminent death.

  First thing we did, obviously, was run through the escape options. I had in my boots, as did Price, a length of thin serrated wire known as a Gigli, which looks like a shoelace but doubles as a very handy saw. Unfortunately, our cell being underground, there were no window bars to cut through. Nor did our usual Plan B turn out to be of much use. I pretended to writhe about on the floor with stomach pains while Price banged on the cell door and shouted for assistance, but either our captors couldn't hear or they had better things to do.

  After ten minutes bellowing ourselves hoarse, we gave up. Price wanted to know how the assault had gone; I pretended to be interested in his account of his capture after being concussed by an enemy grenade, when of course all I really wanted to know was what the hell he'd done with my letter to Gina.

  "Aven't got it,' says Price.

  'What do you mean? I gave it to you to keep safe.'

  'You wanted it posted on to Lady Gina, didn't you?' 'I did.'

  'Well, that's just what I did. Bumped into some boys from the RASC as we were heading to the start line. Passed it to their sergeant. Job done.'

  'But, Price, I never wanted it sent.'

  'You said a moment ago you did.'

  'Yes, I did. But not any more.'

  'Hardly my fault if you keep changing your mind.'

  'I trusted you, Price, to look after my best interests. The fact is you have betrayed that trust.'

  'Oh, I have, have I? Sooner she reads that letter, I reckon, the better for us all.'

  'And what do you mean by that?'

  'Nothing.'

  'Have you been reading my private correspondence?'

  Price doesn't answer.

  'My God, that's why you sent it, isn't it? You want to make me look a fool.'

  'You don't exactly make it hard.'

  'Price, you are despicable!'

  'She's wrong for you, that girl. Always said so.'

  'Damn it, I'm quite old enough to make my own decisions. You have behaved -'

  'Shh!' says Price suddenly, springing from the bed and starting to pad towards the cell door. I, meanwhile, resume my groaning noises. Well, it's worth a try.

  The cell door swings open. A bright light is shone in my face.

  'Please, please. I need a doctor,' I groan.

  'Gentlemen,' comes the reply, 'there is really no need for this play-acting. We have come to offer you our surrender.'

  And so it is that Price and I make our triumphal return into Port-en-Bessin at the head of a column of twenty-six prisoners. (There ought, incidentally, to have been more, but under the terms we agreed, those Germans who wished to run away rather than surrender were to be indulged. Among them was dear old Kimmelman.)

  Now, you might think that this would be enough to put our CO in the best of moods. But not a bit of it. Having remembered — only just - to congratulate Price for having taken the surrender, the CO moves on to the business he most cares about. Which is to say he calls for my troop sergeant- major — a belligerent Scotsman by the name of Gove — and says I'm to be put on fatigues until further notice, while he decides how best to punish me for a string of alleged offences including insubordination, desertion of post, dereliction of duty and conduct prejudicial to the good order of the Commando. As for my brief promotion-in-the-field to the rank of lieutenant - I need hardly tell you that the CO refuses to ratify it. Indeed, he refuses even to acknowledge that I had anything to do with the attacks on the Eastern Feature - neither the first probing mission, nor Capt. Dangerfield's assault.

  First job I'm given is to help retrieve our boys' bodies and see that they're properly buried. This I don't mind too much, as it happens. For one thing, the corpses are still fresh and more or less intact, and it's only really when they're rotten and in bits - or worse: if you've ever tried scraping a crew from the insides of a brewed-up tank, you'll know what I mean — that it becomes seriously unpleasant. For another, it gives me the chance to say my farewells.

  We find a lovely spot for them, just above the Rue du Phare, where they can rest with a fine view of the sea. Obviously, the graves are only temporary. Eventually, they'll find their way to the British cemetery in Bayeux, where you can see them today. But even when you're burying your comrades as a stopgap measure, you want to do things properly: treat them with the same respect you like to think they would have afforded you if the positions had been reversed. That's what we decide, anyway - me and the three other marines on burial duty, Lee, Donald and Hogg. The ground would have been much more friable and easier to dig further down the hill. But the spot wouldn't have been nearly so fitting for a fallen warrior.

  Where we can, we try to ensure that the boys we knew, we bury personally.

  'Here's a handsome lad,' says Lee, peering under a canvas sheet. 'Anyone recognise him?'

  'One of mine, I think,' I say, going over to inspect. 'Yes. That's Mayhew. Jack Mayhew.'

  'Blimey, some blokes have all the luck. You'd never have trouble pulling with a face like that, would you?' says Lee with feeling. Understandably, for he has a face like a bucket.

  'I'm not sure that he ever managed, though,' I say.

  'Wot. Never got his end away? Not even once? Wot a waste. Wot a fucking, tragic waste.'

  'Carpe diem,' I murmur.

  'Eh?'

  'Latin for: grab it while you still can.'

  'A-fucking-men to that. That's going to be my motto from now on. Carp and Demon. Them Romans knew what they were talking about.'

  Capt. Dangerfield is the last to be interred. I would have liked to have spent some time alone with him to tell him how sorry I am and how grateful — for at the back of my mind there will always be the lingering suspicion that he died taking the blast of the grenade that was really intended for me. But by the time I have begun digging his grave, I've been joined by half his troop, all eager to pay their last respects to the offi
cer they so admired. The other half arrives just in time to see Lt. Truelove and me lowering him into the ground.

  'You made it up, I gather,' murmurs Lt. Truelove.

  'He told you that?'

  'He did and I'm glad.'

  The next day, more fatigues — this time at the foot of Point 72, where with two stretcher bearers named Barnard and Roberts I've been charged with cleaning up after the Germans who overran our rear HQ on the night of the seventh.

  We pause for a cigarette and a brew to survey our handi­work. The dug-out still looks mildly disgusting, but you should have seen it when we arrived — soiled bandages, turds, pools of vomit, almost as if the Germans knew they weren't going to be there for long and just wanted to make things as uncom­fortable as possible for our return.

  'Your turn, mate,' says Barnard, indicating the two buckets of sloppy excreta awaiting incineration.

  'Oh Lord. Is it really?'

  With a sigh, I take a bucket in each hand, heading for the foul-smelling diesel-fuelled pyre on the far side of the road. I'm half-way across, lost in thought, wishing myself anywhere but here I dare say, when I'm suddenly aware of something rocketing round the bend towards me. There's a screech of rubber, and I'm damned near knocked over by some idiot going much too fast on a motor cycle. Fortunately it's the bucket he catches with his tyre, not me, but the result as the bucket flies upwards and dumps its contents on top of us in a shower of brown rain isn't pretty.

  'What the hell do you think you're doing?' says the rider, picking himself off the ground.

  'I might ask the same of you,' I say. But then I notice the other motor-cycle outrider smirking at us both a few yards ahead and the convoy which has ground to a halt in front of the fallen motor cycle and all becomes clear. Second from the front of the convoy is a staff car with pennants fluttering and two top brass in the back. One is dressed conventionally with a general's peaked cap; the other has a distinctive woollen sweater tight on his slight wiry frame and a black tank-brigade beret with two badges on it. I muster a hasty salute.

  'Who is that man?' asks a reedy voice I know quite well. We have met on more than one occasion, General Bernard Montgomery and I.