Back to Battle

by Max Hennessy

  It was easy to break the journey back to Portsmouth at Thakeham and Kelly decided that, since there was no immediate prospect of the invasion for a few days, he’d take advantage of the fact to go to Felixstowe and find Charley.

  He was just packing an overnight bag when the telephone rang. Frowning, thinking it was a recall after all, he snatched it up. To his surprise, the voice was Hugh’s. He seemed to be under some severe emotional strain and was gagging on his words.

  ‘Hugh! What’s wrong?’

  ‘It’s Paddy!’ The voice came shakily over the wires. ‘She’s dead!’

  Five

  A column of troops on the way to the coast was passing through Thakeham when Hugh brought his wife home.

  She’d been released because of her pregnancy and had been on her way to Kirkwall when the drifter had been run down by a destroyer. Eight nursing sisters and three soldiers had been drowned. Hugh had met the coffin at Thurso and had accompanied it by train to London and then by road to Thakeham. The roads were packed with trucks full of soldiers heading south into the invasion area and nothing was allowed to interfere with their movement – neither birth, marriage or death – and the hearse had to wait as they rolled past.

  Kelly felt bereft. Standing alongside Verschoyle, staring at the cold wooden box on the hearse, he found it impossible to believe that it contained Paddy. He’d taught her how to sail, how to play cricket, how to use ju-jitsu – suffering a wrenched elbow in the process as she went at it too enthusiastically. He’d seen her grow from an impudent child to a young girl and watched as she and Hugh became aware of each other, their wrestling matches changing abruptly to swimming, cycling and long walks together, both of them suddenly solemn and full of earnest questions.

  Had he even unknowingly been a little in love with her himself? It seemed too silly for words, but there had always been a curious rapport between them, a certainty of each other, a feeling that each had always known what the other was thinking, a shared conspiracy of humour and knowledge. Or was it because she was like Charley – the old Charley he remembered with warmth from his youth, not the Charley he’d last seen, angry with him and mourning all the lost years? Was it just that, or was it – could it have been? – that Paddy with her infectious laugh and her immense enthusiasm had meant more to him than he’d realised?

  He couldn’t believe that he’d never hear her giggle again, or that faint trace of Irish she’d inherited from her mother, and was bewildered that her fey forthrightness had vanished forever. Not long before, he’d been congratulating himself on his luck and hoping, with the end of the war drawing near, that they might all survive. There was no justice, he thought. The clerics could preach about God’s mercy and God’s will but he was damned if he could see how it worked. And why, he wondered, the lump in his throat big enough to choke him, why did it always seem harsher when the dead were young and attractive and full of joy?

  Hugh was straight-backed, showing no emotion beyond his taut white face and clenched fists. Rumbelo’s face, like his son’s, was wooden, and even Biddy’s was unmarked by tears. Naval training was a funny thing; however hard they tried to mock it, it rubbed off.

  They didn’t have time to absorb that Paddy was dead because, as they returned to the house, Latimer rang to say that they were expecting the invasion to take off at any moment and, while Hugh vanished northwards again, the others drove down to Portsmouth together, the dead girl’s father and brother and Kelly, unspeaking, each of them busy with his own thoughts.

  The roads were packed with vehicles moving in long brown columns southwards – lorries, tanks, jeeps, ambulances, Scammells, mobile workshops, every kind of military vehicle imaginable. There were no bands, no flags, and no crowds to shout ‘Goodbye.’

  Latimer had everything under control, and that afternoon Kelly sat in a sealed cinema, its stage set with large maps and blown-up photographs, and listened as the plans for the invasion were laid bare, with the names of their landing points, the men who were to run the show, the ships which were to carry the troops, the warships which were to support them. The secrecy was ended at last and this time they got the whole plan, the exact landing places, the enemy forces opposite and the details for every assault, even the date. Force X was part of an American group, O Force, escorting American troops ashore at Vierville-sur-Mer.

  As they drove back to Chichester, it was hot with a clear blue sky and, by the time they arrived, the soldiers were moving from their camps to the ships and landing craft. Everywhere you looked there were men, well-behaved and thoughtful, sitting on the edge of the pavement eating their rations among the tanks and jeeps and trucks, and drinking tea provided by moist-eyed women from the houses around.

  Orders, two large sacks of books comprising thousands of pages, had arrived and been signed for by Boyle, and they had just settled down to read them when another one arrived, containing amendments and appendices. Nothing had been left to chance and, with a bottle of whisky and a bottle of gin on the table and Rumbelo to keep them supplied with sandwiches, Pardoe, the navigator and all Chichester’s senior officers gathered in Kelly’s cabin, were sworn to secrecy and told to get on with it.

  The main points all had to be committed to memory and they finished in the early hours of the morning, only to start again the next day. Apart from a two-hour break in the evening, they went on correcting all night. The following day, as he returned from a final conference, Kelly saw that the dock gates had been closed and, though men were going in, nobody was coming out. Inside, by the police box, an elderly man was arguing.

  ‘Why can’t I go ’ome?’ he was saying. ‘I only work in the canteen and my missis’ll wonder where I’ve got to.’

  ‘Look, Dad,’ the policeman said. ‘I don’t know why you can’t go ’ome. I just know you can’t.’

  The following day they oiled, ammunitioned and stored ship, and anchored off Spithead. The day was grey with mist and the Channel was cold in the poor light. Three big motor launches crowded with men and equipment began to move slowly out to sea, and in front of them was an incredible panorama of ships and small craft stretching as far as the eye could see, over them a network of silver barrage balloons.

  As the hours passed, the wind began to freshen and, as the forecasts became more unfavourable, the atmosphere changed to one of dread. Once in motion, like a juggernaut the invasion could not be stopped and if it ended in bloody catastrophe the war could go on for another ten years.

  ‘Unsettled westerly weather setting in,’ Latimer reported.

  ‘Anti-cyclones over Greenland and the Azores, and depressions moving east-north-east across the Atlantic. This could be the most unholy mess you ever saw.’

  By the evening the forecasts had become alarming. Outside, the thin rain had changed to a downpour and everybody was on edge and ill tempered. Troops had been embarked and some ships were even at sea if the weather worsened and the operation was postponed, they would have to steam in the opposite direction, with all hopes of surprise endangered.

  ‘They’ll have to postpone,’ Latimer said.

  ‘They can’t postpone,’ Kelly snapped. ‘The plan’s tied to the moon.’

  From one of excitement, the atmosphere became one of dragging uncertainty and anxiety, and there was a feeling that instead of victory the assault could turn into a disaster. The code word postponing the operation for a day arrived just ahead of Verschoyle. He appeared dripping wet in the war room that had been constructed on Chichester’s aircraft deck. His face was grim but he’d brought with him an American colonel called Sarpiento who was to help the bombardment officer with the selection of targets. He was a small man, in civilian life a lawyer, and, to Boyle’s startled amazement after a preliminary ‘Sir’, he immediately started addressing Kelly by his Christian name.

  ‘Forget it,’ Kelly murmured. ‘If it’s good enough for him, it’s good enough for me.’

  All round them, ships tugged uneasily at their anchors, and ropes and seasick pills were b
eing handed round on the landing craft. With men cooped up in some cases for four days, the strain was beginning to tell.

  ‘Destroyers are chasing back the leading ships,’ Verschoyle said. ‘They’ll be back off Portland Bill by midday. For the small craft it’s a different matter. There are no berths available and they’ll have to churn it out near the Portland Race until we can find room in Weymouth Bay.’

  He crossed to the charts and his hand moved across them. ‘The low up near the Shetlands is filling up,’ he said, ‘and we expect lower seas and less surf for two days starting tomorrow morning. The Met boys won’t go beyond that, but I think you’ll be going and I thought I’d just come along and say bon voyage.’ He looked at Kelly. ‘Contacted Charley yet?’ he asked.

  Kelly shook his head. In his grief at Paddy’s death, he hadn’t had the heart to pursue the matter.

  Verschoyle sighed. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I understand. If you need any help, just ask. You’re such bloody innocents, you seem to need Father’s help.’

  Curiously, it was Verschoyle’s reminder about Charley that brought back once again the realisation that Paddy was dead. He’d always admired Kelly Rumbelo’s steadfastness and his stolidness, but the mercurial character of his sister had enchanted him, and he found the thought of her struggling in the night-black water nauseating. Drowning was a fearful and squalid way to die, and he fought to put aside the image of her terror as the cold water filled her throat and eyes and nostrils; and the icy Scapa cold clutched her limbs.

  He was thankful for the invasion, for the mountain of work that faced him, because it was the only thing that stopped him thinking.

  The gale showed no signs of abating. The rain lashed the sides of the ship and, with the anxiety real enough to touch, it seemed a good idea to hold a church service. The chaplain managed it in the mess flats, with the ship’s company sitting on stools and tables and on the floor. As he watched them, Kelly was aware of their desperate youth and wondered if he could ever have looked like that, because they looked like children waiting to go on a picnic.

  After it was over, they got down to the maps and charts of the French coast again and the captain of every ship in the squadron was ordered on board.

  ‘Our job’s to get these men ashore at Vierville,’ Kelly pointed out. ‘And then to make sure that our targets – or anything else that fires for that matter – are knocked out. As the troops go in, we’re to cover their flanks from attacks by gunfire, tanks aircraft or infantry. Nothing must divert us from these objectives, not the rescue of men from sinking ships nor anything else. As long as you have a gun to fire, it must be fired.’

  It was still blowing the following morning, with white-tipped waves and spray flying over the small boats that fussed about the fleet. The weather was miserable, especially for the soldiers. For the commanders it was one of intense anxiety as they watched fuel states and worried that in the confusion they would lose some of their commands. That evening Latimer brought the met report. Two low pressure systems had joined together in a single low, and moderating winds and a break in the solid cloud were predicted. As the day dragged into darkness, they knew the invasion was on.

  It was like taking a city to sea.

  They began to move out one after the other in a long line of ships, like a thread unrolling southwards, endless columns converging into a unified whole in the black night, then parting again as they headed for their separate destinations.

  With darkness, the wind had dropped a little, and they could hear the drone of aircraft. Thirteen miles south of the Isle of Wight, they sorted themselves into five lanes, one for each assault, and in mid-Channel each lane became two, one for the fast convoys and one for the slow.

  The sea was still rough, and the landing craft were bad sea boats, so that it was almost impossible to hold them on course. Those on the inside columns were fighting to keep station while those behind were struggling to hold back and had to keep going full astern to avoid riding up the stern of the vessel in front. Occasionally, because of sheer unmanoeuvrability, the columns kept drawing together, occasionally riding alongside each other, even crashing into each other, then separating and finding station again.

  By now the Omaha bombardment group, led by USS Texas, had caught up with the landing ships packed with troops. As far as the eye could see the Channel was covered with ships and smaller craft.

  ‘Light on the port bow!’

  ‘That’ll be the control vessel. Starboard two points.’

  As Chichester turned, Sarawak, Norwich and the destroyers swung with her.

  ‘Entrance to swept Channel Number Four coming up!’

  ‘Let’s have the lighted dan buoys ticked off,’ the navigator ordered.

  ‘Almost eight bells, sir,’ Latimer said.

  ‘Another few minutes,’ Kelly murmured, ‘and it’s D-Day.’

  Voices suddenly became hushed about the ship, and the bridge became silent. The atmosphere was alive with emotion. Overlaying the tension, there was a quiet exaltation, something more than confidence.

  ‘Divine guidance,’ Sarpiento suggested.

  ‘More likely relief after indigestion,’ Latimer said.

  Above the clattering of the wind and the hiss of the sea, they could hear the dull rumble of explosions ahead where the bombers were plastering the area inland, and every now and then they saw the sky light up to the flashes of their bombs and could pick out the line of the coast as it was silhouetted. Kelly’s thoughts were busy one half of his mind on the job in hand, the other half divided by sorrow at Paddy’s death and the knowledge that he knew where Charley was.

  ‘Light ahead, sir!’ Latimer’s voice jerked him back to the present.

  ‘Point Barfleur,’ the navigator pointed out. ‘It’s one of the world’s tallest and most conspicuous lighthouses.’

  ‘What the hell’s it doing burning like that?’ Sarpiento asked.

  ‘Perhaps to help the E-boats home.’

  ‘I hope there aren’t any goddam E-boats out tonight.’

  There was a tense silence that was broken by the rattle of the anchor cable. An eighteen-knot wind was blowing off the Cotentin Peninsular and a heavy overcast lay over the land, though occasionally the clouds broke to allow the moonlight through. The night seemed hot after the recent storm in England.

  Sunrise was due at 0558 and to seaward landing craft loaded with tanks were closing up. Ahead, the minesweepers had swept and marked the channel with dan buoys up to eleven miles off the beach.

  ‘Germans are quiet,’ Latimer said.

  As the darkness began to pale and colour appeared in the sky, Kelly strained his eyes through his binoculars to the coast ahead. Above them the steady stream of aircraft continued. As the light increased it was possible to pick out the assault craft at the davits of the anchored landing ships. The minesweepers, their job done, were heading rearwards as the sky filled with the sound of hundreds of aircraft. As the thunder and the thud and crack of bombs died away, there was a curious pause and a quietness that seemed eerie.

  Turning to port, they saw landing craft being pulled out by a naval captain in an LCH and sent to their proper stations. LCTs carrying tanks and LCMs with demolition units on board dodged among the big ships, frightening themselves to death, but there were no collisions.

  The fire support ships were ahead of the confusion. Glasgow led the western group with Texas. Arkansas, the oldest battleship in the United States Navy, led the eastern group, with Chichester, Norwich and Sarawak and two French cruisers, Montcalm and Georges Leygues, known to the lower deck as George’s Legs. Every ship was flying a huge battle ensign and the grey dawn was lightened by the colour of the bunting fluttering at the yardarms.

  Round the transports the landing craft were forming two lines parallel to the beach.

  Sarpiento frowned. ‘Between you and me,’ he said to Kelly, ‘I think eleven miles is too far out. That goddam wind’s coming across eighty miles of Channel.’

  But orders h
ad laid down strict adherence to times and places and by 0430 the landing craft were on their way. Behind them others circled, waiting to take their places. As they passed Chichester, the men in them looked wet-through, seasick and thoroughly unhappy.

  Then, unexpectedly, because in the silence they’d almost begun to expect no opposition, a single gun fired. It came from a light battery near Port-en-Bassin on the left side of the beach. The huge Arkansas was just beginning to loom through the darkness like a fortress as the night came to an end and the shell sent up a column of water close by her.

  ‘Cry havoc,’ Latimer remarked. ‘Here we go!’

  Other batteries on the eastern end of the beach began to fire and there was a crash as the destroyers fired back together, then they began to bang away solidly at the shore defences. With a tremendous roar, the cruisers joined in, with Arkansas’ huge guns providing a deep bass chorus. Within a few minutes the shore batteries had been silenced.

  ‘Start the scheduled bombardment!’

  Texas’ fourteen-inch guns were already digging huge craters in the Pointe du Hoc, flinging great chunks of cliff into the sea. Chichester was thumping away steadily at known enemy positions and exit roads that led from the beaches, with Norwich and Sarawak thundering away alongside and the destroyers aiming at pillboxes and anti-tank guns and a radar station near the Pointe du Hoc. Watching through his glasses, Kelly turned to Pardoe. ‘I don’t think enough time’s been allowed for this, Henry,’ he said. ‘The results aren’t going to be as good as we expected. Tell ’em to step it up.’