‘Jeez,’ he said, seeing what she had produced. ‘Wire-cutters.’
‘Right. They’re my old man’s. He’s an electrician but he’s poorly just now. That’s why I’m doing this. I packed it up once.’
Soroyan said: ‘But, this wire is US property. There’ll be all hell. They’ll court-martial me.’
In the dimness she regarded him squatly. ‘Do you want it or don’t you?’
‘Sure, I do. But there must be some other way.’
‘I’m not doing that,’ she said firmly. ‘Gamming. No, I don’t like the taste.’
Soroyan looked about him nervously into the darkness, worried about their voices.
‘Look,’ she said. ‘I can only stay until the bus comes back. It’s the last one.’ She took the decision into her own hands and began to snip easily through the chicken wire. Soroyan watched, horrified, but the wire parted easily and no alarms sounded. He began to unbutton his fly.
‘Wire-cutters?’ said the captain. He glanced at the white-helmeted guard. ‘She had wire-cutters?’ He was young, no older than Soroyan.
Soroyan stood with his eyes closed. He was aware that two of his buttons were still undone. The captain had been summoned as he was about to go to bed. There was toothpaste on his chin. He sat behind the desk in the bleak light of a hut.
‘What do you have to say about this, soldier?’ he demanded.
‘She had the wire-cutters,’ Soroyan said. ‘She brought them with her.’
‘She came all prepared.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Did you make a date to see this woman?’
Soroyan said: ‘No, siree. I was just strolling there, getting some air before the invasion, thinking about things, you know, sir.’
‘Yeah, I know. We’ve all been thinking about things. But with most of us no prostitute has come along with wire-cutters.’
‘No, sir. Well, there she was and she made the offer.’
‘How much did you pay?’
‘Five dollars, sir.’
The officer turned his eyes at the snowdrop and they both shrugged as if it were not unreasonable. ‘And the idea was you stayed this side of the fence and she stayed the other and you did it through the hole she cut?’
‘That was it, sir. But the guard showed up before we got started.’
‘Did you … Were you going to wear a prophylactic?’
‘No, sir. I figured that this might be the last time I do it in my life. We’re going into action. So I didn’t.’
The captain put his head in his hands. He stared at the guard’s report on the desk in front of him. ‘You have an interesting name,’ he said. ‘Soroyan.’
‘Yes, sir.’
The captain looked up. ‘Now get this, Soroyan. I could be throwing you into the brig. Damaging, or causing to be damaged, US Government property, a wire fence. But I don’t want to do that. You might not be released for weeks, and we need you on that beach, soldier.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘So you’ll make up for the fence damage out of your pay. Otherwise get going, back to your quarters. We may be moving tomorrow.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘And you’re improperly dressed. Finish doing up your fly.’
On that rain-beaten Sunday, in the British compounds the clerics were not so busy as those ministering to the Americans. Anglicans prayed at one service, and Roman Catholics at another, but it was the evening gospel meeting that attracted the troops. By that time the penned-up, pent-up soldiers would have gone anywhere for anything, and there was a rumour that the organist was a glamorous woman, that there was a girl choir and that later there would be free refreshments and no collection plate.
The soldiers had cold showers, shaved in lukewarm tea saved from the canteen, and brushed their hair; only a few cleaned their teeth, the practice not being general. Then they trudged through the mud to the gospel meeting. By the time the tubby minister came busily on to the platform and the organist, not uncomely but older than expected, had set up the miniature portable organ, every chair had been taken. The girls’ choir consisted of six females of varying ages, sizes and, less to the point, singing ability. There were some groans.
After a prayer and the exhortation: ‘Let’s have a truly wonderful time tonight, let’s sing to the Lord and make sure He hears us.’ The minister, so young and pink that some of the troops wondered why he wasn’t a soldier like them, announced that the first hymn would be ‘What a Friend We Have in Jesus’.
Before the organist had finished the introduction Blackie and some others had recognised the tune. They sang their own words. Harris had Gordon standing next to him and Gordon sang dutifully from the hymn sheet but the sergeant had a suspicion that further along the line the words were being changed:
‘When this blinkin’ war is over
No more soldiering for me
When I get my civvy clothes on,
Oh, how happy I shall be.
‘No more cleaning out my rifle,
No more asking for a pass.
Then I’ll tell the sergeant-major
To stick his bayonet up his arse.’
The minister on the stage was ecstatic. ‘Wonderfully sung,’ he enthused. ‘The Lord would have been very pleased.’
Chapter Twenty-three
General Dwight Eisenhower was a simple man and it was with simple words that he gave the signal for the great invasion to start. It was 5 June. On that day, in Italy and after a long campaign, the Allies had taken Rome. The weather in England was tardily clearing; perhaps it would be fine for a day, or even for a few hours, but he sensed it was time, the only time. The winds and the tides would not be right again for almost a month and although it was a risk, he had to take it. He came from his headquarters, not on the face of it a man of destiny, more a man of care; a neat and thoughtful man. He walked towards his senior officers, American and British, Canadian and French, standing on the wet lawn, and said without emphasis: ‘Okay. Let’s go.’
At these words, 287,000 men, 10,000 aircraft and 5,000 ships moved into their places for action, for the most immense military assault ever known.
The words of Sergeant Harris were, like General Eisenhower’s, simple: ‘All right you lot. We’re off.’
The soldiers looked at each other, some abruptly nervous, some already gritting their teeth, others hoping for someone to make a joke. They got into their kit and slung their rifles over their shoulders. ‘What bastard ’as pinched my bayonet?’ demanded Treadwell seriously.
Gordon found it for him. It was under his pillow. ‘Ye’ve been frightened in ya’ dreams, have ye?’ said Gordon. ‘Ta keep the boonie men away.’
They trooped from the tent. All over the camp and the other muddy miles of compounds to the east and to the west, men were on the move. It was ten in the morning. ‘Anyhow they gave us a lie-in,’ said Warren in his ponderous way.
No one looked back at the tent for they had no affection for it. There were lorries revving on the road and the children in the school playground watched them climb aboard and gave them a half wave. Some boys began playing soldiers, shooting each other with imaginary tommy-guns.
The day remained damp but with the wind diminished. Warren put his hand out of the lorry and forecast: ‘The sea’ll be flatter now.’
‘Oi hope bloody well so,’ sniffed Blackie. ‘Bad enough being sick with fright.’
Harris, sitting by the tailgate of the vehicle, glanced towards him. ‘Pack up the gloom, lad. Why don’t you start a singsong?’
Blackie returned the look bleakly. ‘Is that an order, sarge?’
‘No, it’s not an order. Even I can’t order you to sing. Fight, yes.’
‘Can we just hum?’ suggested Chaffey.
‘Shut up,’ said Harris, grinning. They were like a grown family to him, naive, unruly, friendly, dependent on him and on each other. That morning he would be going past his own front door; perhaps Enid would be waiting to see him march away.
&nbs
p; In Southampton the lorry pulled into a sports field, goalposts sagging redundantly among rows of military vehicles. Troops were jumping down, standing in squads, and forming into marching columns under the bawled orders of a warrant officer, flushed with importance and lack of breath, who was not going with them.
They were mostly Hampshire Regiment, local soldiers; like Harris, some of them would be marching past their own homes. Platoon by platoon they formed up on the grass. Gordon went to one of the sets of goalposts marooned among the lorries and Blackie pretended to head an invisible ball past him. ‘Offside,’ said Harris.
He called them to order and they formed up. He growled: ‘Squad – squad,’ in his best fashion. There were other soldiers watching. ‘Squad a-tten-tion!’ The heels of their polished boots came together. Harris glanced towards the warrant officer but he was pacing and bawling in the distance. Harris ordered: ‘Squad – right turn – by the left – quick march!’ The thirty men moved sharply, performed a brisk wheel and joined a column that was leaving the field for the main road. Then they headed for the docks, through the grey and damaged city, between the shops and houses. The civilians in the streets scarcely gave them a glance. Marching men were nothing new.
The head column disappeared into the city distance. For a moment Harris feared that they would be taking a new route, that they would not be marching down his street, that he would not see Enid. But the order was called as the first formation reached the junction. Would she be there? How many men had marched by in the last few hours? How could he expect her to keep watching from their window? And how would she be able to pick out one soldier from so many, even when the soldier was her husband?
As they marched towards the house he could see that she was not in the window. He grunted, fixed his eyes ahead and continued in stride. Then over the tramping feet he heard her girl’s voice calling: ‘Harris! Harris! Come back!’
She sped along the pavement on woolly bedroom slippers until she had caught up with him. The troops were hooting and whistling. She was wearing an RAF greatcoat over a nightdress. Her fair hair was tussled, her face pale without make-up. ‘Oh, Harris, darling, come back soon!’
Harris did the only unmilitary thing he had ever done. He broke ranks and stumbled towards her on the pavement. His men closed up and urged him on. ‘Go on, sarge, give ’er a kiss!’ She was half trotting in her bedroom slippers, trying to keep up. He caught her in his arms and they did a sort of dance alongside the marching troops. Pushing his Sten gun aside he kissed her, and she kissed him all over his hard face while the marching men cheered. They pulled apart and looked at each other at arm’s length. ‘Nice coat,’ he said.
‘Four quid,’ she replied. He kissed her again and then did another clumsy dance step to regain his place at the fore of the squad. She continued her flapping run alongside. ‘I’ve got to tell you!’ she called breathlessly. ‘I’m having a baby!’
Harris tried to look at her between the heads of the moving men. His eyes swivelled. The soldiers cheered louder. ‘I’m pregnant!’ she called again. She was breathless by now and she stood panting and holding on to someone’s garden fence. ‘Harris!’ she managed again. ‘Did you hear me?’
‘Yes!’ he shouted back over the heads of his men. ‘Lovely!’
She tried to regain her breath, the air-force-blue coat heaving. ‘It’s ours, Harris!’ she finally shouted: ‘It’s all ours!’
Some men of the Hampshires had been aboard the troop transports for three days in Southampton, waiting for the weather to change. But when Harris and his section went aboard their designated ship they set sail two hours before the light faded.
The English Channel remained sullen and the transports were not meant for comfort. They were scheduled to be in position off the Normandy coast by four in the morning. There they would transfer the soldiers, scrambling down nets over the sides into landing-craft to take them to the dawn shore.
The troops sat or half lay throughout the night, their equipment and their cumbersome rifles stacked around them. There were some sleeping in the gangways with other men clumsily stepping over them with oaths and grunted apologies. There was a smell of engine oil below decks and the floating aroma of sausages, bacon, fried eggs and chips from the galley.
‘Christ, Oi wish it was jam sandwiches,’ said Blackie, hunched in the half-light of the crowded troop deck. ‘Jam don’t niff like that.’
‘Why you grumblin’ again?’ said Chaffey, swaying as the ship pitched and creaked. ‘Don’t you like a nice fatty sausage?’
‘Oh, shut up, mucker,’ pleaded Treadwell who was sitting on the other side of the bench. ‘You’re turning my guts.’ The vessel trembled at its seams.
‘After this,’ breathed Gordon, ‘gettin’ ashore on that beach is goin’ to be pure pleasure, Germans or no Germans.’
‘There’ll be Germans,’ May assured him morosely. ‘Plenty of them.’
‘It’s not going to be like a day at Southsea,’ said Harris at the end of the line, hunched against the bulkhead. He tapped his Sten gun as though ensuring it was still there. His mind was full of Enid. He could see her now, running and funny in that air force coat. A baby. She had told him that his body was hard enough to stop a German bullet. Now he would have to survive.
The soldiers dozed against each other. Somewhere, dance music began to play on a loudspeaker and a chirpy singer sang: ‘They’ve blown all the feathers off the nightingale in Berkeley Square.’ Someone bawled: ‘Turn it off, for Christ’s sake.’
One of the crew, an old, grey seaman, asked loudly: ‘Anybody for dancing?’ There were more curses. He turned it off.
Harris wondered whether he would get home before Enid’s baby was born. Would he get home at all? He tried to shut out the smells of cooking and the men being seasick and the thoughts of what might happen the next day. He tried to sleep.
An authoritative voice came over the loudspeaker. ‘Any ranks feeling unwell go on deck for ten minutes. No longer. Make room for others.’
Blackie sat up, groaned, and staggered between the sleeping shapes and up the ladder to the open deck.
Out there other men were sitting and standing, taking in the breeze of what was now a balmy night. Blackie gulped the air. He was surprised how easy the sea looked, not like it felt below. It was faintly luminous. He could see the shapes of other ships close around, showing no lights. He breathed deeply and sat next to another hunched soldier who said: ‘Fortnight ago I ’ad bastard malaria. I was in India once. But they got me better too quick and now I’m ’ere, bugger it.’
After five minutes Blackie moved towards the back of the ship. There were fewer men there, standing without speaking. Against orders one shielded a cigarette with his hand and lifted it to give a drag to the soldier next to him.
There was a sailor, wearing a hood like a monk, standing near a coiled rope. ‘Nice night for a cruise,’ said Blackie. The man snorted and offered him some chewing tobacco. ‘No thanks, mate,’ said Blackie. ‘Don’t want to start any more bad habits. What you doing up here then?’
‘Waiting for the day,’ said the man, pointing towards the east.
‘Like we been doin’ for a long time,’ mused Blackie. ‘Bloody months.’
‘It’s nearly here,’ said the sailor.
By their own methods Sergeant Fred Weber and Gino knew almost as much about military affairs in northern France in early June 1944 as did the German High Command.
Gino picked up shreds of information just as conscientiously as he supervised the officers’ mess dining-room, and Weber overheard even more detailed secrets, sometimes reduced to whispers, by inserting his head into the aperture of one or other of the dumb waiter lifts which took the food from the kitchen to the senior officers’ table and transported the dirty dishes back.
It had to be done with discretion but the openings for the lifts were in a partially private corner, near to Weber’s chef’s desk, and he could insert his head and eavesdrop at most times. The lifts ampl
ified the table conversations. He gathered that Hitler was not popular. The only time that he was seen listening by one of the cooks he told him that the ropes operating the lift had become entangled.
‘Everyone is gone,’ Weber said to Gino as they finished their tasks on the night of 5 June. ‘I hear that Rome has fallen. It won’t be long now.’
‘None of the top brass were at dinner tonight,’ added Gino, keeping his voice low. ‘Your boss is somewhere overseeing something …’
‘Manoeuvres,’ said Weber. ‘Miles from here. Why they need to practise now I don’t know. The time for practice has gone.’
‘If they don’t know now they never will,’ agreed Gino under his breath. The kitchen was empty except for a local woman bad-temperedly washing up pans. Weber called for her to make less din and she replied grumpily. ‘She knows she’ll be out of a job soon,’ forecast Weber.
‘She’ll get another job with the Americans,’ said Gino. ‘They won’t bring washing-up women with them.’
‘Don’t raise your voice, Gino. It may be taken as defeatist.’
‘But where are all the top brass gone?’ said Gino.
‘I heard that Field Marshal Rommel has left Paris, gone home to see his wife. It’s her birthday.’
Gino nodded approvingly. ‘That’s nice. Not like someone else I could name who was sitting at that table last night and is this evening dining with a lover, or by now has progressed to the bedroom, in Paris.’
Weber said: ‘They don’t believe there will be an emergency. Not just now. The weather is not right. Although it seems calmer tonight. Still, they know best, they are the command.’
‘Perhaps they’ve all deserted,’ joked Gino. Weber took an alarmed glance around the kitchen. ‘No jokes, Gino, please,’ he said. ‘German officers may go to see their wives and their mistresses, but they do not desert.’
The washer-up woman walked out, flinging her dishcloth aside, and Gino said: ‘I wouldn’t be surprised if you are the senior man here tonight, Fred.’
Weber looked pleased. ‘At last, in command.’
Waiting For the Day Page 32
