Airborne

by Robert Radcliffe

  We watch a little longer to be sure; then, fired up with schoolboy fervour, and conscious that every passing mile takes us deeper into enemy territory, we return inside to confront Alford. He’s busy writing up notes, Boris dozing behind him. The five of us gather eagerly around, while Redman, aware that Boris might be faking, uses his hands to signal our intent. After a bit Alford nods.

  ‘Your er, proposal for the, um, patient sounds reasonable,’ he says carefully, ‘however we are responsible for many other patients, and I must remind you what Colonel Warrack said about, er, this sort of procedure.’

  Colonel Warrack said no, and Alford’s confirming it. We’re dumbfounded. After a week trapped at Oosterbeek, two more at Apeldoorn, and now being stuck on a train heading into Germany, we’ve had enough, and feel we’ve earned a shot at freedom. Seizing this God-given opportunity, before it’s too late, suddenly seems desperately important. Mutinous glances are exchanged and orders may get disobeyed, but fortunately Cliff Poutney, ever the diplomat, reopens negotiations on our behalf.

  ‘We do understand, sir; however, we feel there are enough medics to meet the needs of the patients, and Colonel Warrack’s, er, instructions about this sort of procedure, were, we feel, only applicable at Apeldoorn.’

  Well put, and in any case, ironically, Graeme Warrack was at that very moment preparing to seal himself into the roof of his office at Apeldoorn, where he would remain until successfully escaping some weeks hence.

  But Alford’s not having everyone jump ship. And Boris is stirring suspiciously.

  ‘The procedure you propose involves too many staff.’

  ‘How many would be appropriate, sir?’

  ‘Two maximum. And that’s my final word on the matter.’

  A rather moody hiatus follows while Boris potters about carving himself a black-bread sandwich, and we feign nonchalance by smoking and staring out at the passing night. Then Cliff proposes cards, a pack is produced, and we five gather round. ‘We’ll cut, shall we?’ he suggests. ‘Highest pair wins.’ Redman scores highest with a queen, Cliff comes second with a ten, then I, cutting last, unbelievably score an ace.

  Redman and I make ready, surreptitiously donning as many clothes as we possess, loading our pockets with food and water, checking our escape kits. Meanwhile the others distract Boris with the card game, which he gladly joins. Cliff, I note, looks visibly crestfallen.

  ‘I suggest we stick together,’ Redman mutters, ‘head west by night, lie up during the day, try and link up with the Dutch underground.’

  ‘Sounds good. What about the jump?’

  ‘Go at the same moment, you go off the steps to the left, I’ll go right. Roll into the ditch, meet up when the train’s out of sight.’

  ‘Got it. When do we go?’

  He glances around and then grins. ‘Sooner the better.’

  With that he calls out to Boris in German, saying we’re going up the train to check the patients, and will be gone at least an hour. Boris, deeply engrossed and oblivious to our heavy attire, waves in dismissal. I catch Cliff’s eye and he manages a smile; Alford, too, makes a tiny nod of assent. This is it.

  Then the carriage door opens and Jack Bowyer strides in. ‘Begging your pardon, gents, but can Captain Garland come?’

  ‘What?’ I gape at him. ‘Why?’

  ‘That young private of yours. Trickey. I think he’s dying.’

  My head reels, Jack waits, everyone freezes like players on a stage, even the card players hesitate. Then Redman speaks.

  ‘You’d better go, old chap.’

  ‘But what about—’

  ‘Cliff can see your other patients, can’t you, Cliff?’

  Things then happen fast. Alford takes Cliff’s place at cards, slapping one down with a laugh, Boris and the others quickly joining in. Meanwhile Cliff grabs his haversack and follows us outside to the observation platform.

  ‘Can’t you wait?’ I plead to Redman.

  ‘They can’t keep Boris quiet for long, and we’ve only so many hours of darkness. Sorry, but we have to go now.’

  Bowyer looks confused. ‘What’s going on?’

  Cliff shrugs on his haversack and clasps my hand. ‘So sorry, old man, maybe you’ll get another chance. Wish me luck?’

  With that he descends the steps of the platform, while Redman takes the other side. They lean out, pause, judging the moment, as steel wheels clank over rails, a dark verge rolls steadily by, and beyond that misty blackness beckons.

  Redman glances up. ‘Red light on!’

  ‘Fuck me,’ Bowyer mutters.

  ‘Green light on… Go!’

  They go. I hear a muffled whump and lean out Cliff’s side, peering into the darkness. Nothing; then a shadowy figure appears, raises itself to standing and waves.

  And a shot rings out.

  *

  We’re stopped for an hour. At first all doors are locked, with no one allowed in or out, while guards run back and forth outside shouting angrily. More guards check inside the train, counting and recounting us repeatedly. Finally our door opens and the German major steps in. He beckons Alford forward.

  ‘Two?’ he says, holding up two fingers. ‘And do not lie, Herr Colonel.’

  Alford can only nod. ‘Yes, two.’

  They descend from the carriage. Five minutes later Alford’s back. ‘Redman made it, Poutney didn’t,’ he reports grimly. ‘A guard was looking out his side. We can collect him now.’

  I go, taking Jack Bowyer with me. Cliff’s lying fifty yards behind the train, dead from a bullet to the head. His eyes are open; he looks up at me with disdain. As well he might. For the man who got me through the nightmare of Oosterbeek, camped with me in our blood-soaked storeroom, shared his tea and cigarettes and knowledge and warm good humour with me, has just died in my place.

  CHAPTER 7

  Theo Trickey arrived in France in March 1940. He got there through chance, military expediency and personal machinating. His army career had begun, as Henry Winterbottom predicted, as a part-time amateur – a weekend warrior with the Territorials. This undemanding role would have remained the status quo, but for the outbreak of war, which changed everything. Within days plans were in hand to send a force across the Channel to help stop Germany advancing into France and the Low Countries. This force, known as the British Expeditionary Force, would soon number more than 500,000 men, amply equipped with the latest in warfare technology: tanks, artillery, anti-aircraft guns, support vehicles, plus a thousand RAF fighters and bombers providing air cover. Ferried into ports in Normandy, then transported east by train and truck, they amassed along the borders with Germany, dug in beside their French and Belgian counterparts, and waited for the enemy to attack. But once deployed and growing daily in size, the War Office soon realized it was short of men to support the BEF. Every bullet, every tin of bully beef, every gallon of fuel for its vehicles had to be shipped over the Channel, stockpiled in depots, and then transported across France to the Front. Tens of thousands of extra soldiers were needed to keep these supply lines flowing, and the reservists were first to be called upon.

  Shortly after his seventeenth birthday Theo became a full-time Territorial. Eight weeks’ basic training followed at the barracks in Kingston and on Salisbury Plain where he marched and drilled, learned to tie knots and dig trenches, ate field rations and bivouacked in the rain, mostly without kit – including boots, greatcoat and rifle – because there wasn’t enough to go round. Nevertheless he passed with flying colours and by December was home on leave ‘awaiting further orders’. Rumours were soon circulating that the East Surreys might be deployed in support of the BEF; impatiently he and his co-recruits wandered Kingston’s wintry streets waiting for news. Meanwhile Carla was on the telephone to Henry Winterbottom.

  ‘Nothing to worry about, old girl.’

  ‘What you mean? He keep talking about going to France!’

  ‘Not a chance. I’m sending him to an OCTU.’

  ‘Oct— what is this?’
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  ‘Officer Cadet Training Unit. Down in Hampshire. It’s a sort of military college, to teach him to be an officer. There’s an induction first, then the course proper, so he’ll be gone for months. If the 2/6th does get sent to France, it’ll go without him.’

  ‘But what ’appen after he finish this OCTU thing?’

  ‘Good heavens, the war will be over long before then.’

  After an uneasy Christmas with Carla at the boarding house, Theo reported to 167 OCTU in Aldershot one freezing day in January 1940.

  Whatever his preconceptions about officer training, nothing could have prepared him for the reality. Firstly his fellow cadets appeared an odd breed, quite unlike his Territorial friends back in Kingston; all nasal vowels, buck teeth and braying laughs, they reminded him of Alpine donkeys. Crammed eighteen to a hut, with no heating, communal washing and abysmal food, they enjoyed no favours or privileges, despite their elevated status. On the contrary their treatment was uniformly harsh, with their instructors driving them like pack animals, bullying and bellowing until they dropped from exhaustion. Special emphasis was placed on physical training, which meant a run before breakfast, PT and drill after, forced marches in the afternoon, and a final run before bed. Sometimes a session on the assault course was added for variety, which involved climbing walls, swinging on ropes, crawling through mud and swimming an icy lake. Designed to root out the weak, this baptism of fire proved too much for some cadets, who were returned to their units as unsuitable officer material. The survivors, Theo included, could only collapse on their cots and wait for the ordeal to end.

  Which eventually it did. One morning, instead of being sent running, they were taken to the rifle butts and shown how to assemble and fire a Vickers machine gun. The next they received small-arms instruction. Map-reading followed, and compass work; signals and radio were introduced, as was vehicle driving, including lessons on a BSA motorcycle which Theo declared the finest machine ever. Different instructors appeared who shouted less and addressed them as ‘mister’; there was also classroom instruction with lectures on army history, command structures, conventions of war and something called officer-like conduct. January passed, February; they began to be allowed into town on Saturday nights, albeit to specified pubs, where they spent their meagre pay drinking watered-down beer and bragging to army-wise Aldershot girls. They also took turns queuing to call home on the telephone. As well as dutifully ringing Carla, Theo used his time to phone his friend Kenny Rollings, stuck in barracks back in Kingston.

  ‘How long you going to be there, Ted?’ Kenny always asked.

  ‘Heaven knows. Months probably.’

  ‘Your voice sounds different. It’s gone all plummy.’

  ‘Has it?’

  ‘It’s those bloody toffs you live with. I’ll have to start calling you sir.’

  ‘You can practise now if you like.’

  ‘Piss off.’

  ‘Piss off, sir. How’s Susanna Price?’

  ‘Walking out with Albert Fitch, last I heard.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Got bored waiting for sir.’

  ‘Piss off.’

  Always he pestered Kenny for regiment news, which meant word of deployment to France. Kenny’s replies were unchanging – no news, only rumour. But then one evening in March he heard the words he’d been dreading.

  ‘It’s happening!’ Kenny shouted. ‘We’re off!’

  ‘What! When?’

  ‘Drawing kit the next couple of days, transport arrives Thursday, Portsmouth Friday, be in France Saturday!’

  ‘Christ, you lucky bastards.’

  The next morning Theo asked to see the colonel commanding his OCTU. After a long wait in a corridor he was finally admitted to a panelled office.

  ‘Well, and who are you?’ the colonel demanded.

  ‘Officer Cadet Trickey, sir.’

  ‘Acting Officer Cadet, if you don’t mind. Aren’t you supposed to be in lessons?’

  ‘Yes, sir, only something important has happened.’

  ‘That’s a curious accent you have there, Trickey, where are you from?’

  ‘Oh, um, South Tyrol, sir, it’s in—’

  ‘Ireland, yes. Well, that explains it. Now, what’s happened that’s so important?’

  ‘My unit, sir, the 2/6th Territorials, of the East Surreys.’

  ‘What about it?’

  ‘It’s leaving for France, sir. Tomorrow.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘I should be going with it.’

  ‘Do you have orders to rejoin it?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Then it’s out of the question. You will stay here and finish your course. Dismiss.’

  He returned to his hut, packed his kit, borrowed four pounds from classmates and slipped away to the station. He spent that night and the next day hunched in a bus shelter outside the main gates at Portsmouth docks, closely watching the comings and goings. Traffic was non-stop, and vehicles were carefully checked by guards, but he saw nothing to indicate troops. Then at noon the next afternoon a convoy of army trucks pulled up, the lead one with East Surrey colours fluttering on one wing. As they waited for entry he approached the rearmost lorry.

  ‘Two/sixth?’ he murmured at the tailgate. No answer. He tried the next truck, and the next, then at the fourth, the canvas flap lifted.

  ‘Who the fuck are you?’

  ‘Trickey, 2nd Platoon, B Company.’

  ‘Then you’d better hop in quick, you nearly missed the boat.’

  *

  The city of Caen lies on the River Orne in Normandy between the ports of Cherbourg and Le Havre. Although inland from the coast, it is an important commercial port with large docks connected to the sea by a six-mile canal. In 1940 it was one of several ports used by the British to supply the BEF. Each night the essential paraphernalia of war – vehicles, ammunition, weapons, fuel, rations – were shipped across the Channel to Caen and other destinations, there to be unloaded and stored before onward transport to the BEF. The East Surreys 2/6th Territorial Battalion arrived there in late March, with B Company initially detailed to a fuel dump on the outskirts, before being detached to guard Caen’s vital canal link to the sea. Theo’s 2nd Platoon was stationed halfway along the canal at a lifting bridge in the little town of Bénouville and billeted in a former convent. On the afternoon they arrived their company sergeant showed them the bridge and issued them their orders. Which numbered just two.

  ‘See this?’ He pointed at the bridge. Dutifully they nodded. ‘Guard it with your lives. Now see that?’ He pointed at a little café beside the bridge. Again they nodded. ‘Keep the fuck away.’

  ‘Why, Sarge?’

  ‘Because they don’t want scruffy little bleeders like you messing up the place!’

  Bridge-guarding turned out to be routine, undemanding and hazard-free. After six months of phoney war the enemy still showed no sign of activity, and was in any case three hundred miles away on the German border. It was also facing the mightiest force ever assembled, so the chances of 2nd Platoon ever having to defend their bridge, no matter how much they yearned to, seemed remote. Even their rifles were empty. The nearest they came to warfare were the training exercises in which rival platoons simulated attacks, which they would enthusiastically repel. Then their turn would come to play the aggressor, creeping along the canal with twigs in their helmets, before charging the bridge, bayonets fixed and yelling like madmen. Often their efforts were embellished for the benefit of local onlookers, many of them girls, who came to size up the young Tommies. One such spectator, a waitress called Jeanette, made a point of congratulating Theo on his bravoure.

  He blushed. ‘Merci beaucoup.’

  ‘I work there.’ She pointed. ‘At the café.’

  ‘Ah.’

  April came, bringing a cold snap. Theo was rostered for night duty, which meant pacing endlessly back and forth across the bridge, rifle on shoulder, blowing on his freezing fingers and counting the minutes until he was r
elieved. Little traffic passed at night save for the occasional pedestrian or farmer on a bicycle. Periodically the bridge operator arrived, climbing the ladder to his cab, there to manage the lifting mechanism allowing ships to pass beneath. Once or twice Theo was invited up to watch.

  One evening it began to snow, lightly at first and then heavily as it grew dark. Crossing the bridge towards the end of his watch, frozen to the bone and with his greatcoat soggy with snow, he glimpsed a bundled figure waiting on the far bank. Forgetting to shout ‘Who goes there?’ he walked over.

  ‘Can I help you?’

  It was Jeanette, muffled up in coats and scarf. ‘Madame invite you come café for hot chocolate,’ she said in halting English.

  ‘Ah.’ Theo peered through the gloom. ‘Only the thing is, we’re not allowed…’

  ‘Who will know, apart from Madame?’

  Ten minutes later he was telling Madame his life story. In German.

  ‘I was born in Alsace,’ she explained, pouring his hot chocolate. ‘So German is my second language. And you are the boy from South Tyrol, which means we are practically neighbours.’

  ‘But how did you know, madame?’

  ‘I have my spies!’ She smiled, glancing at Jeanette who was busy washing glasses. ‘Now, Theodor… Or should I call you Teddy like your friends?’

  ‘I don’t mind, madame.’

  ‘Theodor then. So tell me: the separatist movement, that dreadful Option Agreement, the damned villain Tolomei, I want all the news.’

  From that night Theo was a regular at the café, partly because of Jeanette who brought him soup and company on night duty, but mainly because of the café’s proprietor, Thérèse Gondrée. Petite, attentive, with her humorous husband Georges and three little daughters, she quickly became like a favourite aunt. After the drabness of the convent and the lewd banter of his comrades, an evening at Café Gondrée provided a refreshing change from the norm. And a warm welcome – contrary to expectation.

  ‘You know I am not allowed here,’ he said one evening.

  ‘Yes, and do you know why?’

  ‘Because you don’t want scruffy bleeders.’