James Delingpole

by Coward on The Beach (epub)

  'Just gone to sort out our embarkation. I didn't say — we've been called back to England. I'd been planning to drop in on you.'

  'I would have liked that,' she says, her voice beginning to crack. 'If I'd known you were coming, I might not . . . gosh, it's all so confusing, I don't know, I might —'

  'Ow!'

  'God, Dick, I'm so, so sorry,' she says, pulling away from my arm.

  'No, it's OK. Just stung a bit, that's all.'

  'No, not just for that. For everything. It's all my fault. You must hate me!'

  'Gina —'

  'And you'd be right to hate me, too. I’m a stupid, stupid girl and I know it and I’m trying to change, I promise. It's why I came here, to be in the thick of it, because I knew I'd either grow up or end up dead, and I don't mind which, just so long as I stop being the hateful, hateful person I was.'

  'Gina, stop it. You're loved. You're very loved. I love you.'

  'That's sweet of you to say so but I don't deserve it. I could have got you killed. Price too. And all because of some idiot schoolgirl whim.'

  'I chose to come, Gina. I didn't have to. Perhaps, hateful as you are, I'd made up my mind that you were worth it.'

  She snorts. 'Then you're as big a fool as I am.'

  'Maybe I am,' I say. 'Maybe we deserve each other.'

  She replies with a quick, nervous smile. Then she looks away, lost in thought.

  After a time, she says: 'Come on. Let's have another go at that shrapnel.'

  I try hard not to jump about too much as she prods and probes, but by the time she's done there are beads of cold sweat on my forehead and I'm feeling so weak I'm ready to collapse. Gina seats me in the back of the car, under a blanket, and the next thing I know there's a mug of tea steaming under my nose and Gina's pressed up on the seat next to me, calling in my ear, 'Dick? Dick?'

  I've been asleep for nearly half an hour, she tells me gently. She would have left it longer but Price is here saying if we don't leave soon we're going to miss our boat.

  'He said some wonderful things about you,' she whispers.

  'What, Price? Never!' I say.

  'No, Guy. In his letter,' she says. 'He told you, then. About us?'

  'He did.'

  'And still you don't hate me, for fibbing to you like that?'

  'You had your reasons, I'm sure.'

  'I did. I DID. I felt so dreadful not telling you but I couldn't tell anyone. If ever my father had found out - which of course he has now.'

  'Oh dear, was it bloody?'

  'Frightful. A telegram arrived addressed to Mrs Guy Dangerfield and he wanted to know what it was all about. Then I read it and broke down in tears and Daddy was hovering uselessly, quite undecided whether to comfort me or throttle me. And I said: "Some father you are, I've just lost a husband." And he said: "Some daughter you are, marrying behind my back." Well, as far as I was concerned, that was it.'

  'What do you mean, "it"?' I say, a bit nervous.

  'I told him I wanted nothing more to do with him. I said from now on I'd make my own way in the world. And I've stuck with it, too. This job — I landed it without any help from Daddy at all. It was all down to me. With only the tiniest bit of help from one of Mummy's friends in the FO,' she says. 'What? Did I say something funny?'

  I stop smiling because no, now I think about it, it isn't at all bloody funny. 'Are you going to make it up with your father?' I ask.

  'Not a chance. I can't tell you how liberating it has been saying goodbye to all that silly inheritance. You don't quite realise till you've lost it what a burden it is. I want people to appreciate me for who I am, not who my father is or how much money I'm worth. That's one of the reasons I so loved Guy. He simply didn't give a damn. He would have loved me just the same if all I'd had to my name was a rusty tiara and a cast-off ballgown.'

  'And I'm —' Just the same, I'm about to say, when Price leans into the car.

  'Pardon me for interrupting, Lady Gina, but Mr Richard has a boat to catch,' he says.

  'Yes, yes, you can have him in just one second. And Price, please, the Lady is unnecessary. Miss Gina will be quite suffi­cient from now on,' says Gina.

  'As you wish, Miss Gina,' says Price, not unamused.

  'So you see,' beams Gina, 'I'm free.'

  'In a manner of speaking.'

  'What do you mean?'

  'Well, I'm not saying you should make your peace with your father -'

  'Nor will I!'

  '- but I do think that before you commit yourself irrevo­cably to a life without money, you ought maybe, I don't know, to suck-it-and-see first. I mean, it can come in quite useful sometimes, the odd bit of cash.'

  Gina looks at me very seriously for a moment. Then breaks into a smile.

  'Oh, you tease, I know you don't mean that really. You're not at all like that grisly brother of yours. You're more like Guy.'

  'Do you think?'

  'I've always looked up to you, Dick. You're brave, you're honest, you're steadfast, you're safe.'

  'Safe?'

  'Remember those walks we had down to our cave? So many other men would have tried to take advantage of me. And, do you know, I'm such a terrible, terrible girl — well, I was then — that I might not have resisted. But you, you didn't do that and I respect you all the more for it. One day, you're going to make some lucky girl the most perfect husband. In fact, if I weren't such a wretch, I'd almost think

  Maddeningly, she leaves her sentence hanging.

  'What, Gina? What?'

  'Guy, bless him, thought the same. Here, let me read you what he says,' says Gina, opening her late husband's letter. She reads haltingly 'I want you to get on with your life. Think of me, sometimes. But don't waste your precious youth mourning what is lost. Look to the future. Find someone who cares for you. And if it so happens to be the bearer of this letter, you have my fullest approbation.'

  I wince - not least because of all the disparaging things I've written about Capt. Dangerfield in the letter she has yet to read.

  'Jolly decent of him,' I say.

  'He was right about so many things,' she says, with a sigh. 'Maybe he's right about this one, but it's far too soon to think about it, wouldn't you say, Dick?'

  'Well, there's a lot of sense in that line about not wasting your precious youth

  'Do you know, Dick, the thing I want most is for you to get the girl you deserve. I am not sure I am that girl. At least not yet.'

  'Even so, it's a risk I'd be prepared to take.'

  'Dick, you'd better go, Price is signalling.'

  'Gina —'

  'Goodbye, darling. Hope your arm gets better soon. And do write to me, if you feel like it. Here . . .' She writes down her contact address.

  Then we kiss, on the lips. More briefly than I would like; but still, perhaps, more tenderly than you might expect of a couple doomed for ever to remain just good friends. She stands, waving at me, as I leave and I keep looking over my shoulder to give her yet more little waves goodbye. God knows when I'm ever going to see her again. Perhaps never if my next assignment proves as thrilling as Monty is predicting; or if that splendid Merc of hers runs over a mine or gets strafed by one of our ground-attack aircraft; or if, heaven forfend, she ends up falling for her boss.

  Handsome fellow he is too, unfortunately, in his greasy, olive- skinned way. He arrives, just after Price and I have left. I'm looking back for the very last time before we disappear from view and I see she's not looking at me any more, she has been distracted by someone else — this French colonel — and what's worse, she's giving him exactly the same 'I have eyes for you only' look that not thirty seconds ago she was using on me.

  'If we miss this boat because of her —' says Price, crossly, picking up the pace as we thread and barge and jostle our way towards the embarkation zone.

  'Yes, yes, point taken,' I say.

  'Just hope it was bleeding worth it, that's all.'

  'Course it wasn't, Price. You're perfectly right, the girl's com
pletely wrong for me. They're bonkers that family, the lot of them. It's no wonder the father's so sensitive about inbreeding.'

  'Still, you've got to hand it to her, she's got spirit.'

  'You've changed your tune.'

  'Seen her in a new light, haven't I, now she's decided to throw in her lot with the workers.'

  'Really, Price, I'd hardly call it that. Even if her father does cut her off, she'll still be getting millions from her mother.'

  'Been doing your sums, have you?'

  'It's not going to make the blindest difference to me. Especially not after she's opened my letter.'

  'Come now. One letter's not going to change her mind either way.'

  'If you're trying to ease your conscience, Price, it won't wash. You read the letter yourself. You know what a damn fool it makes me look.'

  'Oh, so you're blaming me now, are you?'

  'Well, you sent the bloody thing.'

  'Suppose your only hope now, then, is that she never gets to read it.'

  'Price, it arrived today. I saw her pick it up.'

  'Ah but suppose some light-fingered person had noticed the letter in her possession and, aware of your predicament, decided out of the extreme goodness of his heart to spirit the incrim­inating item away. What then?' says Price.

  And with a flourish, he withdraws the letter from a pocket and presses it into my hand.

  'Price,' I say. 'Where would I be without you?'

  Editor's Notes

  'But how much of it is actually true?' This was invariably the first question publishers asked when I showed them the tran­scriptions of my grandfather's taped war memoirs and I can hardly blame them. The number of actions in which Dick Coward claims to have participated does indeed almost beggar belief; the fact that he lived through them to tell the tale is, as he was so fond of saying, a minor miracle.

  While I have absolutely no doubt in my own mind as to the veracity of my grandfather's recollections, there are moments where his version of events diverges slightly from the recorded facts. Perhaps the most obvious of these is his use of pseudo­nyms. Though 47 (RM) Commando did indeed capture Port- en-Bessin on the night of 7 June 1944 in an action very much as my grandfather describes, none of his given names (save those of staff officers) tally with those of the men known to have taken part. As my grandfather once said to me: 'Don't mind having my own good name dragged through the mud, that's an auto- biographer's prerogative. But I shan't be taking any risks with anyone else's. After all, some of these buggers are still alive and most of them have extensive training in the use of firearms.'

  Many of my grandfather's obfuscations, deviations and pseu­donyms were, I'm sure, intended to protect the innocent. Where I think it's a case of his memory playing tricks, though, or where I think his account needs further elaboration, I have provided some notes below. Any readers wishing to suggest corrections of their own are welcome to contact me care of my publisher. With luck I shall be able to include the most perti­nent ones in future editions.

  Jack Devereux, Great Meresby, 6 August 2025

  2 Going In

  p. 8. Lt. Col. (later Major-General) C.F. Phillips, about whom the men of 47 appear to have had mixed feelings, is presumably the model for Lt. Col. Partridge. Tall, decisive and a strict disciplinarian, Phillips was a CO with a reputation for getting things done. His, decision to take Port-en-Bessin from the rear rather than from the seaward side undoubtedly saved many of his commandos' lives. But loved by his men he most certainly wasn't. His insistence on avoiding any form of unnecessary personal risk in battle won him few friends, especially when he himself was so ready to accuse his men of cowardice whenever they showed the slightest reluctance to press home an advantage. Afterwards, in Sallenelles, there were those who never forgave him for sending out a patrol into an area known to be mined