The Battle Done

by Alan David

  Yesterday was the first of many such days to come, he thought. Dread gripped him. The horror of the landings lived with him. God, what senseless, bloody slaughter!

  ‘You all right, Eddie?’ Arthur Rawlings looked anxiously into his brother’s face.

  ‘Yes, Arthur. You?’

  ‘Yes. That racket last night was an armoured counter-attack. It failed. The Jerries have met their match at last.’

  ‘What will happen now?’ Eddie drained his mess tin and began cleaning it.

  ‘We’ll push on,’ said the corporal. ‘There are a lot of air-borne troops ahead of us. They were dropped to seize key positions. We’ll try like hell to link up with them.’

  The sections prepared to move forward. They formed up and advanced. The limitless blue sky was smudged with smoke. The Navy was still shelling heavily, plastering targets far inland. The Airforces were working non-stop. The Infantry advanced slowly. It seemed that every hedgerow concealed the enemy; a resolute, fanatical enemy who had to be dislodged with bullet, grenade and bayonet.

  As the morning passed, the smoke of battle thickened. There were no horizons. Here was murk, dust, fire and fear. The villages and towns and countryside were paying a price for liberty.

  ‘D’ Company formed up to take a village. Four Platoon moved forward through smoke. Machine-gun fire streamed at them. Corporal Rawlings led Three Section along a ditch. The bren group, under Lance-Corporal Pickering, was dropped off to give covering fire, and came immediately under effective fire from a spandau.

  A row of small cottages was the objective of Three Section. One Section had moved in to cover the rear of the buildings. Brens were commanding the village street. Several houses were ablaze, hard hit by softening-up artillery fire. The thick smoke was acrid and choking. The whole action seemed unreal: the harsh clatter of very close small-arms fire, the heavier detonations of artillery, bombs and mortars, and the smoke and fire.

  This was totally different from what Eddie had expected. There appeared to be no control; orders were issued, the sections went in, and although the final result seemed satisfactory the whole action appeared distorted and confused.

  Corporal Rawlings led a dash to a low stone wall, and only half the section followed, for spandau fire came at them from several points. Those who followed the Corporal, Eddie, Smith, Lloyd and Newman, crouched with him behind the wall. The rest of the section remained in the ditch, with the bren group attempting unsuccessfully to engage the several machine-guns pinning them down.

  Bullets spattered against the stone wall with a thunderous noise. This isn’t happening to me, thought Eddie. He was not aware of fear, but knew it to be lurking inside him.

  Smith raised his rifle and his head above the wall and fired rapidly at the nearest cottage. Corporal Rawlings leaped over the wall and ran forward, and Eddie followed him, concerned only for his brother’s safety. Lloyd followed them, but Newman stayed beside Smith, firing at the cottages and their windows.

  As he ran, Corporal Rawlings pulled the pin from a grenade. A spurt of flame leaped at him from a ground floor window, and he heard the crackle of a closely passing bullet. He lobbed the bomb through the window and ducked near the wall, being joined by Eddie and Lloyd. As the grenade exploded Arthur Rawlings ran for the door.

  Eddie covered the door while his brother approached. Arthur kicked it open and rushed inside, sten at the ready. Eddie followed on his heels. His brother was already halfway up the stairs, pausing on the landing, and his sten jerked as he fired rapidly upwards. There was the thud of a falling body, and a German came rolling down the stairs. The corporal got entangled with it, and slithered down several stairs. He lost his sten, and regained it, cursing.

  Lloyd came into the doorway as Arthur Rawlings raced back up the stairs. They knew the routine of house clearing; moving from room to room like the well-trained team they were. Eddie followed his brother up the stairs. Smith appeared in the doorway. Lloyd moved to the bottom of the stairs. This was a grim game.

  There were two doors opening off the top landing. Eddie covered one while his brother approached the other. Arthur flattened himself against the wall. He thrust open the door with a quick twist of the knob, and hurled a grenade into the room. When the explosion came he raced into the room with sten at the ready.

  Almost at the same time the other door was jerked open. A German appeared in the doorway, armed with rifle and bayonet. Eddie gritted his teeth. All the muscles in his body were tensed, every joint locked. His levelled rifle did not fire. He advanced his rear foot quickly and the point of his bayonet plunged into the enemy’s stomach with ridiculous ease.

  A great shout burst from Eddie’s stiff lips. It came of its own volition. He pushed harder, and the German dropped his own weapon, his mouth wide and screaming, and his hands fluttered to grasp the cruel bayonet. Eddie, in that split second of action, thought how white the German’s teeth gleamed. Then a torrent of blood poured from the man’s mouth.

  Eddie shuddered. He withdrew his point neatly and the German fell to the floor and lay writhing. Corporal Rawlings came at a run from the room, his face taut with anxiety. Relief shone in his eyes when he saw his brother still standing, and he glanced briefly at the body and the bloody bayonet point on Eddie’s rifle, smiled grimly at his brother’s pasty face, and ran into the room from which Eddie’s victim had emerged. There was sudden rapid firing.

  Jerking himself from the shock that held him, Eddie ran into the room behind his brother. Lloyd was pounding up the stairs. Corporal Rawlings stood over a sprawled German, his sten held ready. It wasn’t needed.

  ‘Come on, let’s get on to the next one,’ said the corporal. They ran down the stairs and made for the next cottage. A grenade blasted and the little corporal ran for the door. The section. followed him. . . .

  ‘I feel as sick as a dog,’ Eddie confessed. The village had been cleared, and Four Platoon was holding the houses nearest the enemy. German mortar fire was raising dust and smoke. The battalion was moving up. The companies were digging in under increasingly heavy shell fire.

  Smith looked at Eddie’s bayonet. It was clean and shiny now. Smith shuddered. ‘You’re a blood-thirsty devil,’ he said. ‘Why didn’t you shoot him?’

  ‘I acted automatically. He came through the door and I pushed the bayonet into him.’

  ‘Good boy,’ said the corporal. ‘Save your ammo when you can. But you gave me a scare. I thought it was you who copped it when I heard you shout.’

  Eddie shuddered. He felt ill.

  The Germans counter-attacked. Mortar bombs crashed among the ruins of the village. Then enemy infantry appeared, darting forward in groups. Panzers came lumbering forward in support. Shrapnel pattered down like rain. Houses disintegrated under the hammer blows. The enemy hesitated just short of the village and got down, but they still pushed forward against murderous fire.

  A black-painted tank, its immense guns swinging menacingly, came rumbling into the village street. It stopped fifty yards short of Three Section’s position and fired a shell into a house from which machine-gun fire was directed at it. The ruins of the house collapsed in dust and smoke. A British soldier came running from the ruins and a machine-gun on the tank stuttered harshly, cutting him down.

  Eddie stared at the large black cross painted on the side of the turret of the tank. The big gun was swinging slowly, and there was something frightening in its inexorable movement. It seemed to be sniffing for targets to smash. A machine-gun in the turret was hosing bullets into the ruins opposite.

  Sergeant Rawlings came through the back door into Three Section’s position, and the platoon’s Piat team was with him. Private Varley, the Number One, cocked the cumbersome weapon. His Number Two prepared the bombs.

  ‘Get down,’ the sergeant warned the section. ‘If our boys miss, the Jerries will knock the house down.’

  Varley got up from the floor. He placed the monopod of his weapon on the shattered windowsill. His Number Two loaded the first bom
b, then tapped Varley on the shoulder. Varley took aim at the tank with apparent unconcern. His left foot was forward, the knee slightly bent. His rear leg was braced. The Piat swivelled a little as Varley centred upon the tank.

  Eddie dropped to the floor and crawled to the doorway. He peered over the wide stone step. The Panzer looked huge and frightfully invulnerable, a fearsome thick-steeled monster audaciously dealing death to its enemies from the midst of their own position.

  The Piat crashed, and Eddie saw the black bomb streak towards the tank. There was a brilliant orange flash and a puff of black smoke against the turret. The Panzer rocked a little, with black smoke clouding up to obscure it. The gun stopped firing. A heavy, hinged door on the top of the turret opened and a figure came spilling out. Smoke billowed up from inside the tank. The enemy tank-man jumped down from his doomed vehicle and began to run away. Eddie raised his rifle and fired a single shot. The tankman fell in a heap.

  ‘Nice work, Varley,’ said the sergeant. ‘Take cover here for a bit. Keep the street clear of tanks if you can. Arthur, keep a watch for enemy infantry. They’re still pushing forward out there.’

  ‘That’s the second tank I’ve got today,’ said Varley. He grinned at Eddie.

  ‘I wish these places had cellars,’ said Newman. ‘I’d feel a whole lot safer.’

  They crouched low. Bombs crumped about them, dislodging bricks and rubble from the uneasy rafters above them. Dust danced in the shafts of sunlight that penetrated from the outside. Eddie remained at the doorway, watching the street, ducking his head below the level of the step every time a shell exploded. The bren group was upstairs, covering the street from the bedroom window, and the light machine-gun suddenly began firing rapidly. There was something reassuring in the clatter of the weapon. Eddie peered into the street. He saw running figures advancing, partially obscured by the smoke. He fired rapidly with his rifle. Grenades began exploding, and some of them were German potato mashers.

  Varley crawled to the door. ‘Any tanks?’

  ‘Can’t see any. But there are plenty of infantry.’

  ‘I can’t shoot at them lot with my Piat. I want tanks.’

  ‘Well, go out and look for them,’ said Eddie.

  Sergeant Rawlings came back. His battledress was dishevelled and dirty, and there was a big bloodstain on his chest.

  ‘Not my blood,’ he said, interpreting Eddie’s quick look of alarm. ‘One Section caught a packet. Turrell dead, Charley Boy and Thompson badly wounded. Now on your feet, men. We’re going forward. The Jerries are pulling out. Follow me.’

  They filed out of the cottage. The bren group came pounding down the stairs.

  ‘Single file along the back of the houses,’ the sergeant shouted. ‘All these buildings are in our hands. Advance.’

  Other sections were doubling forward across the fields, by-passing this collection of ruins. A German tank was outlined on a ridge two thousand yards away, and even as Eddie saw it, a concentration of British shells erupted about it. Over there, too, were dozens of retreating Germans, running frantically to get clear of the advancing British, and puffs of smoke around them indicated that the British mortars were busy. A dozen German tanks came trundling forward, leaving massive tracks in the good soft earth.

  ‘Extended order,’ commanded Corporal Rawlings, and the section deployed. They doubled forward across the fields, leaping obstacles, bursting through hedges. Smoke drifted about them, and dead Germans and many craters marred the lush green meadows. Spandaus opened fire at them from a great distance, spreading cones of bullets, scything the grass and the corn, killing here and there, and the blight of war moved on slowly over the face of the countryside.

  Over the ridge and down into the valley they advanced. Heavier fire came upon them, and they went to ground, panting, shoulders heaving, gasping from the exertions of their advance. They lay in ditches and crawled to the shelter of hedges, steadying themselves to snipe and shoot at the retreating enemy, pushing him back, and sometimes retreating, themselves, when they pushed too hard and the Jerries turned like wolves at bay.

  It was sten against schmeisser, bren against spandau and bayonet against enemy steel. Tanks pushed on, and Titan battles broiled through the fields. Now the Führer and his Master Race, his nation of supermen, were reaping the bloody harvest of the dark seeds they had set in the days of 1940. This was awful retribution. This was bitter vengeance to the full, and General Montgomery said : ‘We are here to stay.’

  Chapter Six

  AFTER the first few days the enemy recovered from his shock. The Allied advances slowed, as was inevitable. The enemy brought up his reserves, but too late to destroy the beach-heads. The Allies had consolidated.

  ‘What do you want, cocker?’ Smith asked a little French boy who stood watching Three Section digging trenches in a field. The company was back in battalion reserve.

  ‘Haveyouanychewinggum?’

  ‘Come again, mate. I don’t understand that pidgin talk. Say it slow and I’ll get you.’

  ‘Chewing gum.’

  ‘Chewing gum ! Do I look like General Eisenhower? Do I come from Boston? Ever heard of London, boyo? The Smoke! That’s where I live. I ain’t got any chewing gum, but have some of this Compo chocolate. The Jerries couldn’t kill you, but that stuff’ll stop your wind.’

  Eddie stood up in his half-dug trench. He sat down upon the moist brown earth, his fingers clenching upon a handful of it, compressing it into a lump. His face was brown, and his arms glistened with sweat. His shirt was opened to the waist, and his two identity discs hung suspended from his neck on a loop of string. He eyed Smith, who was attempting conversation with the French boy.

  The afternoon was calm and warm. The sun beat down at full strength. Occasional drifts of thick smoke hazed over the fields, and always there was the deep growling of gunfire or bombing.

  ‘Have you got a sister at home?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Have you got a skin and blister? Aw — here, have another bar of chocolate. Proper little pig, ain’t you? Poor little devil. You can’t help it, can you, mate? It was the Jerries, wasn’t it? Jerries! Huns! What the hell do you call them in French?’

  ‘Boche,’ said Eddie.

  ‘Hark at that.’ Lloyd rested with his spade stuck into the top of the heap he had removed from his slit trench. ‘I can tell you’ve been to school, Eddie. What Borstal was it, mate?’

  Smith’s attention was attracted to the road forty yards to the left that led back a mile to a small village. A bren carrier was going back, and behind it, in three ranks and with their hands clasped on their heads, were thirty Jerries, dirty and dejected.

  ‘The master race, I don’t think,’ said Newman.

  ‘Hey, Corp, how about us having half a dozen of those bastards to finish our trenches for us?’

  ‘Get on with it, Smith,’ ordered Sergeant Rawlings, who was talking with the corporal. ‘Get your trench dug as quickly as you can. There’s no place like a slit trench when Jerry is mortaring.’

  ‘But he ain’t mortaring, Sarn’t.’

  ‘That doesn’t mean to say that he won’t. Get on with it.’

  ‘Very good, Sarn’t.’ Smith bent to the task and worked furiously for several minutes, grunting and panting as he heaved out the clinging earth. Then he straightened his back and wiped his forehead on one brawny, black-haired arm. ‘How long do you think this war will last?’ he asked.

  ‘I dunno,’ said Newman. ‘Why, getting browned off with it ?’

  ‘Not so’s you’d notice. Say, this France ain’t so much different from Blighty, is it? I always imagined foreign countries being a lot different.’

  ‘Nothing different about France, except she’s been occupied for four years,’ said Lloyd. ‘Of course, they speak a different language to us.’

  ‘Do they?’ Smith seemed impressed. He dug again for a few moments. ‘There you are,’ he said presently. ‘That’s deep enough. If I go down any further I’ll need a rope ladder
to get out.’

  ‘If you go any deeper they’ll charge you with desertion,’ said Lloyd.

  Sergeant Rawlings came along inspecting the positions. He paused at Eddie’s trench and studied his brother’s face

  ‘You’re looking well, Eddie. Feel all right?’

  ‘Yes, Wally, I’m okay. You?’

  ‘Never felt better. Written home yet?’

  ‘Once. Have you?’

  ‘Haven’t had time yet. You write again today for the three of us, and I’ll write next time.’

  ‘Okay, Wally.’

  ‘See you later, Eddie. Be careful.’

  ‘And you, Wally.’

  The sergeant passed along.

  ‘You think a lot of him, don’t you, Eddie?’ said Smith.

  ‘I always did, Smudger. Before he joined the army, when I was a nipper, he couldn’t go anywhere without me. He didn’t mind it, either. Always took me everywhere. Used to carry me on his back for miles. I would howl down the house if I couldn’t go with him.’

  ‘Funny, that,’ said Newman. ‘I’ve got a brother. We’re like a cat and a dog. Always scrapping.’

  ‘He’s a bloody good sergeant,’ said Smith. ‘Of course, he will have his little joke about my curls. But he only does it half the time for something to make the boys laugh at. The corporal’s all right, too. I like to hear him talk about India. That must be a queer place to be stationed in. Out there, though, you don’t need to hear the natives talk to know you’re in a foreign place. Do you know what? I often sit in my trench and think to myself, Smudger, this is France. You’re in France, mate! Cor, I’m abroad. When I get back home I’ll have some tales to tell ‘em back in the old Green King. I’ll shake ‘em rigid. How long do you think this war will last?’

  ‘Jerry isn’t beaten yet,’ said Corporal Rawlings, coming up. He offered round a tin of cigarettes, and with the exception of Eddie, who was a non-smoker, they all took one and lit up. ‘It’ll take a year at least,’ the corporal went on. ‘They’re strong and stubborn, the Jerries. You mark my words. It’ll take a year.’