Forced March

by Leo Kessler

  Matz swung the tank into a parallel street and gasped, for it was littered with the bodies of the First Company; the dead in their camouflaged uniforms seemed to cover it like a crazily patterned carpet.

  ‘Jesus, Maria, Joseph!’ the corporal breathed. ‘The First has caught a packet!’

  Schulze nodded glumly, but then his face lit up. Fifty metres ahead of them a well-known figure had dropped from the second floor of the first house. It was von Dodenburg, gesturing wildly with his machine-pistol at the house.

  Matz knew instinctively what he meant, revved up and crammed the gear lever across the bar. At thirty kilometres an hour, he crashed with full force into the ground floor. With bricks and beams raining down upon its turret and the plaster falling like heavy snow, the Mark IV came to a halt, its motor stalled and its long hooded gun poked menacingly through what was left of the window to the street.

  ‘In three devils’ name, am I glad to see you!’ von Dodenburg exclaimed as Matz and Schulze threw open their separate hatches.

  ‘Got yerself in a nice old mess without us, haven’t you, sir?’ Schulze said. ‘Some people oughtn’t to be allowed out on their own.’

  ‘Very true, very true,’ von Dodenburg said, then his grin of welcome vanished. ‘We’ve got ourselves in a nasty mess. You’re going to have to take out each second floor along the other side of the street – and be careful, our boys are in most of the houses too, on the bottom floor.’

  ‘Be as easy as pissing in a pail!’ Schulze said confidently and swung himself behind the big 75mm again. ‘All right, Frogs,’ he roared as the corporal thrust home the first shell, ‘prepare to go to your sodding heaven!’

  ‘And hurry it up,’ von Dodenburg yelled, as Schulze swung the turret round. ‘I want this damn street cleared in thirty minutes!’

  The great gun drowned his words as it roared into violent life. The first shell hissed flatly through the air and hit the farthest house with a satisfying crack. As the wall blew apart and the Maquis men stumbled into the street, they were mown down by the automatics of the waiting SS men, eager for revenge.

  Fifteen minutes later, Schulze popped his head out of the turret, sweat streaming down his grinning face and gave von Dodenburg a comic parody of a salute. ‘Have I the Major’s permission to report that the street is cleared?’

  ‘Fuck off!’ said von Dodenburg before the survivors were surging forward behind the cover of the lone tank. The road to the Goebbels Battery was open again.

  Note

  1 High explosive shell. (Transl.)

  EIGHT

  It was furnace hot now. Above the still sea the sky was the colour of smoke through which the sun glittered like a copper coin.

  On the broad sea front the German infantry waited, listening to the roar and snarl of the enemy planes, their gaze concentrated ahead, knowing that the enemy would soon be coming from the sea.

  Everything was ready for them. Along the kilometre-long front two lines of barbed wire ran, the second one two metres high. In front of them, dug into the side of the sea wall, the forward artillery observers scanned the still green sea with their glasses. Behind the wire in the pre-war boarding houses and hotels now turned into virtually impregnable strongpoints, the infantry tensed with their rifles and machine-guns, waiting for the order to fire from their HQ, the former Casino.

  Three miles away in the great concourse of little ships deployed in a wide arc advancing steadily at ten knots an hour towards their own date with destiny, five thousand other men felt a sense of impending crisis. They had come a long way for this date: from the cold, impersonal streets of Canada’s eastern cities; the burning summer heat of the western states; the farms; the logging camps; the great lakes apparently as empty and unknown as the day they had been first created. And they had waited, many of them, three years for it. Now finally it was there and suddenly a whole division was gripped by a strange tension. But it was tension greater than was normal among men going into action for the first time. It seemed to grip their limbs in its icy fingers and immobilise them – still their very heartbeats – as if the waiting men already knew that this would be the first and only time. For they were going to their deaths, each and every one of them.

  As if some invisible hand had thrown a gigantic power switch, a great flash of light split the sky and the great bombardment started. Naval guns roared, mortars belched, rockets raced across the sky trailing fiery sparks behind them. Red, white, green tracer zipped across the still water, and all around the great arc of vessels flares hushed into the air, as the God of War drew his first fiery breath.

  ‘Achtung!’ the German NCOs bellowed excitedly. Men took aim. Officers blew their whistles and as the first cumbersome landing craft appeared from the smoke of war, the forward artillery observers began to talk rapidly into their phones.

  ‘Feuer!’

  As the ramps crashed down and the first khaki-clad figures started on their mad dash up the steep shingle, the snipers opened up at carefully selected targets. Officers, signallers, NCOs crashed to the wet shingle. Within minutes half the officers of the first wave of the Royal Regiment of Canada were dead and dying, a matter of mere yards from the landing craft.

  The Royal Hamiltons got as far as the first line of wire. The new blast of fire stopped them dead, leaving them hanging and trapped on the wire like so many scarcrows who twitched weakly every time a new bullet hit their defenceless bodies. The Royal Highland Light Infantry of Canada charged into the hail of death. Boxed in on all sides by the screaming steel, they fought their way desperately up the beach. Within minutes the first two companies had been reduced to shaken, battered, little groups of men, their officers killed or wounded, taking orders from anyone who cared to take command.

  The plan had been to land four troops of the new Churchill tanks in the first wave. But as the six tank landing craft of the Calgary Scottish loomed up from the smoke the defenders concentrated their artillery fire on the cumbersome craft as if they were aware of the deadly cargo they bore. On their decks, the machine-gunners of the Toronto Scottish sacrificed themselves by the score, trying to fight off the enemy with their pathetic Vickers machine-guns. As the craft heeled and reeled under shell after shell, the bodies of the Scottish piled up on their decks like sandbags.

  Tank Landing Craft 145, riddled like a sieve, her ramp smashed, her engine room ablaze, reached the beach. But she only had time to land three of her Churchills before she sank. Tank Landing Craft 127, ablaze from stem to stern, her crew dead, a lone rating at her helm, two surviving Toronto Scottish gunners defending her as best they could, staggered into the beach and began unloading her cargo. The Churchills started to clatter out of the burning oven.

  Lieutenant Colonel John Andrews, Commanding Officer of the Calgary Highlanders, watched the slaughter of his battalion with an ashen face, his eyes wide and staring. But he knew that there was no time for regret. His own landing craft Number 125 was attracting the full fury of the German fire. Next to her Number 214 was hit once again and began to drift. Andrews’ own craft gained some protection in the lee of the stricken vessel, although down on the deck the Brigade Commander Brigadier Lett was severely wounded and next to him Colonel Parks-Smith was dying.

  Andrews took a last look at the sky and his own bright battle pennant flying bravely above him and then he clamped down the hatch of the water-proofed tank which could survive to a depth of six-foot of water. As soon as they were within striking distance of that terrible shore he would give the order ‘advance’.

  The stricken landing craft lurched. The Churchill jerked forward, shot through the ramp and disappeared into eight feet of water. There was a crazy moment of panic as the water started to flood the Churchill’s green interior. ‘All right, everybody out!’ Andrews rapped curtly and the screaming died down.

  The men swiftly opened the escape hatches and like submariners coming up from a sunken sub, they surfaced and swam for the shore. Andrews was last out. He clambered on the turret and cr
ied, ‘I’m baling out!’ Then dived into the boiling, bullet-churned water.

  A Navy launch roared in, guns blazing. A gasping, soaked Andrews was dragged aboard. The launch swung round in a wild curve, but was swamped in a deluge of shells. A moment later, engulfed in flames, she sank in the shallows, everyone on board her dead. Only yards away the bright battle pennant continued to fly bravely and as the tide receded, the tank was left high and dry on the wet sand, a mocking symbol of the futility of the whole action.

  * * *

  Not all the Churchills of the Calgary Highlanders were lost on that murderous beach. Dripping with water, machine-guns blazing, a handful of them fought their way across the shingle, crashing down the wire and rattling on to the promenade. The first one was hit by direct fire and skidded to a halt, white smoke pouring furiously from its engine.

  Behind it a lone scout car stalled and the next tank rammed its squat snout into its back bumper. All at once the car lurched forward, its crew hanging on for their lives, as it accelerated down the Boulevard Marechal Foch. The Churchill lumbered after it, bursting through the German defences, pouring shell after shell into the hotels and boarding-houses. Several more followed. While the grim slaughter continued on the beaches, the lone scout car and its attendant three Churchills, flying the yellow pennant of the Calgary Highlanders’ C Squadron, rattled past the white Casino and disappeared north, heading for the Goebbels Battery.

  NINE

  ‘What news, Mountbatten?’ Churchill put down his second whisky of the morning and faced the Admiral, with his jaw thrust out pugnaciously. Outside the sirens had died away and the ack-ack was already hammering away in Regent’s Park.

  ‘Bad, sir,’ Mountbatten answered, taking the seat offered him.

  ‘How bad?’

  Mountbatten opened the sheet of paper he had brought with him from his HQ. ‘Calpe1 reports that at Blue Beach, Puits, there had been no progress. The Royal Regiment of Canada has been virtually wiped out.’

  He hesitated and Churchill growled, ‘Go on, Mountbatten, give me it all.’

  ‘Sir. At Dieppe itself on Red and White Beaches, the Essex Scottish and the Royal Hamilton Light Infantry are fighting desperately to maintain themselves under steadily increasing fire. We have thrown in all our reinforcements – the Fusiliers Mont Royal and the Royal Marine Commando – and both have suffered very heavy casualties. The only bright spot is that Lovat’s2 Fourth Commando have destroyed the Hess Battery with relatively light casualties and are already on their way back to England.’

  Churchill drained his whisky. Almost automatically he poured himself another one from the bottle on his desk and squirted soda water into it. He didn’t offer Mountbatten one, but then he knew the Admiral would have refused anyway: it was only eleven o’clock in the morning. He nursed the drink in his hands and asked, ‘What of the Goebbels Battery?’

  Mountbatten raised his voice above the crack of the antiaircraft guns firing at another German hit-and-run raider. ‘Bad too, sir. Information is scarce, but Calpe believes the Commando ran into E-boats. I’m afraid they must have suffered heavy casualties too. In short, sir, the situation is deteriorating rapidly. We must assume that the force will soon have to—,’ he shrugged and didn’t complete the sentence.

  ‘Withdraw?’

  Mountbatten nodded glumly.

  ‘What is your estimate of the casualties?’

  ‘At present, we can only make a rough count. But two hours ago, we believed that half the Canada Division had been killed, wounded or taken prisoner. Perhaps some four to five thousand men.’

  The Prime Minister nodded slowly. Outside, the raiders had disappeared. The guns in Regent’s Park had ceased firing. Soon the all clear would be sounding and he could go across to the House. ‘All right, Mountbatten,’ he said carefully, ‘you can pull them out. Start Operation Vanquish3 – they have suffered enough.’

  ‘Thank you, sir.’

  * * *

  ‘Why did they do it?’ Hitler asked rhetorically, staring at Jodl’s pale, clever face. ‘Why did they land at Dieppe in the first place?’

  Colonel-General Jodl, Hitler’s Chief-of-Staff, opened his mouth to speak, but the Führer beat him to it. ‘Because, my dear Jodl, that old fox Churchill wanted them to be slaughtered. He wanted to appease the Ivans and prove to that Jew Roosevelt that it couldn’t be done. Look at this rubbish.’ He put on his steel-rimmed glasses and read swiftly from the Berlin intercepts of the BBC broadcasts: ‘ “A raid was launched in the early hours of today on the Dieppe area of enemy Occupied France. The Operation is still in progress and a further communiqué will be issued when fuller reports are available. Meanwhile the French people are being advised by wireless broadcasts that this raid is not an invasion.” He took a deep breath. ‘What pathetic shit!’ He bent his head again. ‘Or this: Communiqué Number Two. “The troops taking part in the raid on the Dieppe area have landed at all points selected. Heavy opposition was encountered in some places, and on the left flank one landing party was initially repulsed but reformed and later carried the beach by assault. The troops on the right flank, having achieved their objective, which included the complete destruction of a six-gun battery and ammunition dump, have now been re-embarked. In the centre tanks were landed and heavy fighting is proceeding –” ’ he broke off and dropped the intercepts contemptuously on the floor.

  Jodl bent and picked them up again; he was by nature a very tidy man.

  ‘How puerile!’ Hitler cried. ‘Do the Tommies really have to send in a whole division of infantry to blow up half a dozen guns? And why land a whole battalion of their latest tanks on a raid, I ask you Jodl? … No, Churchill’s hand has been forced. He deliberately planned this raid right from the start so that it would fail. I mean, why did Canaris’s4 people get to know of it so easily in England in May?’ He stopped. ‘My God,’ he breathed. ‘Oh, my God!’

  ‘What is it, my Leader?’

  ‘Do you think that – no, it is not possible! Even that whisky-swilling cynic could not be that cold-blooded!’

  ‘Cold-blooded as what?’ Jodl asked dutifully.

  ‘As cold-blooded as,’ Hitler’s voice was full of awed admiration, ‘to leak the whole operation to us from the very start!’

  Note

  1 HQ of the attack force, HMS Calpe. (Transl.)

  2 Lord Lovat, CO of No. 4 Commando. (Transl.)

  3 The Codename for the withdrawal operation from Dieppe. (Transl.)

  4 Head of the German Secret Service. (Transl.)

  TEN

  The German positions were silhouetted harshly against the red disc of the sun, every detail revealed. Here and there scarlet flame stabbed the blackness in hesitant confusion. For even after an hour of their sniping and occasional mortaring, the. Germans at the Goebbels Battery had not pin-pointed the direction from which the eighteen-man attack was coming.

  The Laird of Abernockie and Dearth fired once again, felt the satisfying slap of the rifle butt against his shoulder and saw the spurt of fragmented stone where his bullet struck the concrete next to the firing slit of one of the guns. ‘Right up the Kyber!’

  ‘Fanny’s drawers!’ one of his men commented. ‘Wouldn’t get much for that on the range, sir.’

  The Colonel grinned. ‘I suppose you’re right, Curtis. But still it keeps their big squareheaded noggins down and so far the buggers haven’t fired those nasty popguns of theirs!’

  ‘I wonder why not, sir?’ the Snotty, sprawled next to him in the pit, asked.

  ‘I don’t know exactly, laddie. But I can guess.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Something’s gone wrong with op and the Navy’s not coming in as close as was anticipated,’ the Laird replied, casually firing again at the white blur of a face that had suddenly revealed itself at the slit.

  The blur disappeared and Curtis cried, ‘Bullseye, sir.’

  ‘Yes,’ said the CO, ‘not bad for a little bloke like me, I must admit.’

  ‘Then why are w
e hanging on here, sir?’ continued the Snotty. ‘I mean don’t think I’m windy, sir, or anything like that, sir, but I just wonder what purpose we’re serving here if the battery’s not going to fire at our people.’

  ‘I know you’re not scared, lad, and even if you was, we all are, you know, but the evacuation is scheduled to start at thirteen hundred hours. Okay, then the Royal will have to start really coming close to shore to cover it and you can imagine that the Jerries won’t miss a target like that.’ He shrugged easily and fired again an instant later. ‘I think it’s then that we really can come in useful.’

  ‘And after that, sir?’ the boy persisted.

  ‘Grr, you ain’t half a worrier, laddie! After that, it’s anybody’s guess what’ll happen. You know what they say, if me Auntie Fanny had a moustache she’d be me Uncle Joe. Let’s worry about that one when the time comes.’

  But the time had already arrived. The Laird had hardly spoken the words when the first Spitfires came zooming in at 400 mph and at tree-top height. They hurtled round and round over the coast to the left of their attackers, the smoke cannisters tumbling from their lean bellies in crazy confusion. Almost at once a great screen of white smoke began to ascend to the sky. The red ball of the sun was blotted out and the front of the battery was blanketed with the start of the smoke screen.

  It was the signal the German gunners had been waiting for, it seemed. A zinc-coloured light blinked at the furthermost turret. An orange flash, a great wild puff of black smoke. A crazy tearing noise struck the air.

  ‘There the buggers go!’ yelled the Laird and opened his mouth automatically, as the hot blast whipped against his face. ‘Come on, lads, let’s see what we can do. Aim right for the slit, as the actress said to the bishop!’

  They set to work with a will, directing a steady stream of rifle and machine-gun fire towards the apertures of the great guns. Concrete flew everywhere. Bullets whined mournfully. They could hear the regular thump-thump of the mortar bombs landing on yet another turret, sending chunks of stone hurtling in every direction. Yet the enemy guns continued to fire.