by John Harris
‘If we’re to get across the bridge,’ he said, ‘we’ll need to be grouped well forward so we can get across it at first light the minute it’s finished and before it’s knocked out.’
‘You go as soon as a good bridgehead’s been established,’ Heathfield agreed. ‘Until then, your tanks will remain concealed.’
‘What about the approach?’
‘What about it?’
‘How do we get into position?’
‘Why can’t you be in position already?’
‘Because in front of San Eusebio, where we’ll be, there’s only one surfaced road down to the jumping-off spot, and that’s going to be jammed with infantry, artillery and lorries carrying assault boats. To say nothing of the Engineers with all their bridging equipment who’ll have to be ready to start throwing the bridge across the minute the infantry reach the other side.’
Heathfield lifted his head. ‘A timetable’s been prepared,’ he said shortly. ‘When you want to use the road, it’ll be clear. The guns will also be in position when they’re needed. It’s been worked out carefully from timetables in other successful attacks. There’s no reason why it shouldn’t work here; especially as you’re going to be backed up with every bit of artillery we’ve got.’
‘The river’s only fifty feet wide,’ Vivian pointed out. ‘The artillery won’t be able to give all that much support for fear of hitting the infantry. And, just in case you haven’t been down there, sir, I might point out that I have. In the summer of 1939.’
‘Before the war,’ Heathfield said.
‘The countryside hasn’t changed. Along the riverside there’s a lot of tangled undergrowth. I remember it well because I was rather hopeful of taking a girl I’d met for a swim. We didn’t make it. And, from what I remember, there’s nothing down there to provide cover. For anybody. Don’t you think, sir, we ought to lay an extra track alongside the road so that when the time comes, my tanks can get down there like bats out of hell?’
The Engineer colonel frowned. ‘My men will already be working at full stretch,’ he snapped.
‘I wasn’t aware, anyway,’ Heathfield said, ‘that tanks were dependent on the roads.’
‘They’re not.’ Vivian had no intention of backing down. ‘But it’s hardly stopped raining for weeks. With the inundations the Germans caused by diverting the river, the fields are nothing but artificial marshes far too soft for tanks.’
‘It’s only a straightforward river crossing.’ Heathfield was beginning to sound exasperated.
Vivian shook his head. ‘I’d submit, sir,’ he said briskly, ‘that there’s no such thing especially by night. It certainly wasn’t simple for the Americans in January.’
‘Perhaps they hadn’t our experience,’ Heathfield retorted.
‘My men haven’t had our experience either,’ the colonel of the Rajputs in Rankin’s brigade said bluntly. ‘I’ve never come across an Indian regiment that was ever any good in boats, in fact. Like artillery and armour, it’s something they don’t seem to master.’
They moved on to supplies, the Engineer officer drawing attention to the lack of basic engineering necessities.
‘There are no standard footbridges,’ he said. ‘And all other items have become scarce since they started preparing for the Second Front in England. We have to produce around sixty wooden assault boats, forty pneumatic boats and four improvised footbridges. I’m hoping to pick up about a hundred additional craft of each type, and we’ve found fifty sections of cat-walk which will make a footbridge for the follow-up. We can provide vehicle-bearing bridges for support troops.’
‘There’s – only – one – road,’ Vivian said, dragging their attention back to his problems. ‘And it’ll have all this engineering equipment on it. An attack without suitable approach routes and blocked by organised defences behind an unfordable river could create an impossible situation.’
Heathfield frowned, realising that, with his inexperience of this theatre, his estimates and plans were running into difficulties. ‘I’ll see what I can do,’ he agreed.
‘What about the air?’ Colonel Baron of the Yellowjackets asked. ‘Are we certain of support? Because we shall need it.’
Heathfield felt more at ease. He’d already tackled that problem and received promises of assistance. ‘There’ll be a strike on the enemy positions at last light before you go in.’
‘Let’s hope it is on the enemy positions,’ Baron said dryly. ‘There’ve been too many instances lately of them landing on our positions.’
‘I’ll get in touch with the RAF and ask what they suggest. The infantry can carry iridescent panels to show where they are. At least, we can assume they’ll quieten the Germans enough for the Engineers to get on with their job.’
‘There’s one other thing, sir,’ Yuell said. ‘We still haven’t put a patrol across the river and we don’t know a damn thing about what’s waiting for us on the other side.’
At roughly the moment when the conference was drawing to a close, General Tonge’s car was braking to a halt outside Corps HQ.
The general in command of corps was a tall, hook-nosed man with so many medal ribbons it was difficult to separate t’other from which. He had a sense of the dramatic and a flair for publicity that went with it. He was also intelligent and knew a lot about war. He listened to Tonge with sympathy and, when he’d finished, offered him a cigarette before sitting back and studying the map on the wall.
‘Unhappily, James,’ he said slowly, ‘I’m afraid it can’t be called off. Fresh orders have just come down from Army Group. They’ve set up an attack of their own. The New Zealanders are having another go. Unfortunately, the weather’s been against it and they’ve been sitting on it over a week already.’
‘I’ve heard nothing of it,’ Tonge said.
‘They’ve kept it pretty dark.’
Tonge glanced at the envelope the general had pushed across the desk. It contained his orders.
‘You have the doubtful honour of opening the bowling,’ the corps commander went on. ‘They reckon the Germans will be so damn busy holding you off, they’ll not notice what’s going on elsewhere.’
Brigadier Heathfield was inclined to be indignant at the thought that Tonge had tried to put aside his plan.
‘I got the impression we had a straightforward go-ahead, sir,’ he said stiffly.
‘We did indeed, Wallace,’ Tonge explained patiently. ‘But I decided that it was a whole lot harder than we’d imagined. As it happens, it makes no difference, anyway, because orders now are that it will go ahead.’
Heathfield made no comment and Tonge went on. ‘Unfortunately,’ he said, ‘the imponderables of war are beginning to appear. What was merely an idea which could be called off if it wasn’t likely to work now has to go on willy-nilly. However, we might make it a bit easier all round. I’m not sure I like the idea of using just two roads – the Foiano-Castelgrande road for the Yellowjackets – what you’ve called Route B – and the San Bartolomeo-San-Eusebio road – Route A – over the bridge for Yuell’s men.’
He jerked a map forward and jabbed a blunt finger at it. ‘This cluster of houses here – Capodozzi – between Foiano and San Bartolomeo. There’s a cart track runs down from there through these orchards to the river where there used to be a ferry for getting the fruit across to the railway. It’s gone now because they built the bridge and tarmacadamed the road from San Bartolomeo, but I think we ought to use the track. We’ll call it Route C.’
Heathfield gave a little sniff at the suggestion that he hadn’t thought of everything. Tonge heard it and looked up.
‘We could use it for Yuell’s men,’ he said, ‘and prevent congestion on the San Bartolomeo road. So let’s have it recce’d. I want a strong patrol put across the river to the east of San Eusebio and I want this cart track from Capodozzi to the river examined. The San Bartolomeo road’s going to be crammed with vehicles because it’s the only hard-surface road that’s wide enough. Therefore, we’ve got to
make sure it’s not cluttered up with infantry. There’s a good path along the river bank on the other side so I think we should send the North Yorkshires down from Capodozzi and have them join the road to San Eusebio where it leaves the river by the bridge.’
‘Very well, sir.’ Heathfield’s indignation was still marked but he was recovering quickly. ‘I understand. I’ll see to that.’
‘Right away, Wallace.’
‘Of course, sir.’
The officer Heathfield chose was a middle-aged man of no great drive or skill on the staff of the GSO1. But, with everybody else occupied with the plans for the crossing, he was the only one left.
And it so happened that, just as he was preparing to leave, the malaria he’d contracted in Sicily struck him again. The last thing he needed that evening was a drive down to the river bank. He put on every article of clothing he could manage and, shivering alongside the driver of the jeep, roared off from headquarters.
Heathfield’s briefing had been quick and casual.
‘We want to push infantry down to the river from Capodozzi,’ he explained. ‘Just do a recce on the road there, will you, and see if it’s suitable.’
Aware of his state of health, the officer was glad it wasn’t more. The job would consist merely of driving to the river and making sure the road was wide enough for the infantry to get down there safely with their Bedford lorries, Bren gun carriers and jeeps. Heathfield hadn’t explained why they were going down there, and he imagined they were going to occupy the river bank as part of the holding force for the river crossing.
As it happened also, his driver was new to the area and, with the officer half dozing with a high temperature beside him, he missed his turn so that instead of arriving in Capodozzi as darkness fell, they found themselves in a totally different village several miles further on.
Weakly, the officer cursed the driver, knowing perfectly well it wasn’t his fault. Signs got blown down by shellfire, or nudged over by lorries. Sometimes some Italian – or even some swaddy – stole them and used the wood to make a fire.
They retraced their route, the officer reading the map with a shaded torch and urging on the driver who narrowly averted collisions with ill-lit vehicles that groped their way past. By now, the officer was feeling worse with every mile they covered, and he knew perfectly well that by the time they reached Capodozzi it was going to be far too late to drive down the road to the river. It would mean waiting a whole day. They could find someone to feed them and it might even be possible to find a bed, but he didn’t relish the thought.
It fell to the Yellowjackets – the Lincolnshire regiment that had been so called because of the yellow facings they’d worn on their red tunics during the first century of their existence – to throw the patrol General Tonge had asked for across the river, and they arranged to do it from near the ferry at the end of the cart track Heathfield’s officer was about to take.
The officer in command of the patrol had been in the war since the beginning and felt as if he were a hundred years old. He couldn’t even remember what his wife looked like, it was so long since he’d seen her, and her letters lately had grown so few and far between he suspected she’d dropped him for someone else. In his heart of hearts, he felt he could hardly blame her.
He was tired because he felt he’d been fighting the war ever since he was a youth – which, indeed, he had – and the idea of crossing the river to see what was on the other side angered him. Doubtless, some little shit at headquarters had looked at an air photo he couldn’t understand and found some unimportant squiggle that needed explaining. For this, he and six men were going to risk their lives. If only, he thought wearily, the bloody rain would stop! It seemed to have been raining for ever. They’d almost forgotten what sunshine looked like, and the mud made everything so tiring.
The men with him were all volunteers. He had found their willingness to risk their necks for him surprisingly moving, because they’d certainly get no medals for it.
They climbed into the boat – one officer, one sergeant and five men – all with blackened faces and wearing cap comforters instead of steel helmets. A sergeant of Engineers and two of his men were standing by the boat ready to push it off. They’d muffled the oars and the rowlocks with rags so they wouldn’t clatter or squeak.
‘Right, sir?’
‘Yes, fine.’
‘Best of luck then, sir. Be sure you’re back before daylight.’
‘Don’t worry. We’ll be back.’
But they weren’t. During the night, the Engineer sergeant crouching among the brambles on the river bank, sucking at a cigarette and wondering how much longer the war would go on, heard shouts from across the river. Then, startlingly sudden, shattering the silence, three short bursts of machine-gun fire. Then silence again.
He waited until it was almost daylight when he knew they couldn’t wait any longer.
He and his men climbed into their lorry, three this time instead of the ten who’d driven down, and set off up the long narrow track. It was muddy after all the rain, and the driver had to handle the vehicle carefully in and out of the potholes. For most of its length the road was raised above the surrounding fields, which were flooded after the steady downpour of the past days.
As daylight came, they were spotted by a German observation post across the river. The forward observation officer picked up the telephone and spoke to the battery on the slopes behind him. The battery commander listened carefully and then picked up his binoculars. Staring through them for a while, he turned to his men who were preparing for the new day and were directing their guns towards the road beyond San Bartolomeo.
‘Fresh target,’ he instructed.
The men in the lorry heard the whirring sound growing louder until it became a shriek and the shell dropped just ahead of them thirty yards from the track, sending up a shower of water, mud and wet gobbets of earth.
‘Get that bloody foot down!’ the sergeant snapped.
The lorry leapt forward, the springs groaning in protest as they slammed in and out of the potholes. Two more shells dropped before they reached the shelter of the trees and slipped between two small hills, the second shell spattering them with more mud, water and stones.
An officer stopped them as they retreated thankfully into the mountains. ‘Where’s the patrol?’ he demanded.
‘No sign of ’em, sir,’ the sergeant said. ‘We waited until it was almost daylight. We heard firing so I think they must have been nabbed.’
As the officer vanished, another appeared, climbing from a mudstained jeep. He was an older man, his face grey and drawn, and the sergeant realised he was ill and was shaking with fever.
‘That road, Sergeant,’ he asked. ‘What’s it like?’
‘Muddy, sir,’ the sergeant said.
‘That all?’
The sergeant stared back the way he’d come from the river, wondering just exactly what the officer wanted to know. ‘Well, there are plenty of potholes, sir.’
Heathfield’s officer grimaced. It was meant to be a smile but by this time he was feeling as if he were at death’s door.
‘I meant the width, Sergeant?’
The sergeant glanced at his own vehicle. It’s wide enough for two lorries to pass,’ he said. ‘Just.’
‘Fields on either side? Plenty of room at the end to turn round?’
The sergeant considered. If this bloke was going to do a quick belt down to the river bank in daylight for a recce, he thought, he was barmy. However, it wasn’t his job to argue and he tried to answer the question. ‘Yes, sir,’ he said. ‘There’s room to turn round.’ They’d had to do a bit of backing and filling in the dark to get the lorry facing the other way, but it ought to be a damn sight quicker in a jeep.
The officer nodded. ‘Thanks, Sergeant.’
‘You all right, sir?’
‘No, Sergeant.’ The officer was clearly struggling to stay on his feet. ‘I’m not. I think it’s a recurrence of malaria.’
‘That’s just where I’m going, Sergeant.’ The ghastly smile came again. ‘If I live that long.’
Watched by the sergeant, the officer turned away and climbed back into the jeep; then, huddling into his coat, fell almost at once into a fitful doze. By the time they reached Divisional Headquarters, they had to help him from the seat because he was shaking with fever and could barely see for the blinding headache that had attacked him. The doctor they brought to him made his decision at once. ‘You’re for hospital,’ he said.
The sick man struggled to make his brain function. ‘Just one thing to do,’ he said. ‘Have to make a report.’
‘I doubt if you’ll last that long. Is it important?’
The sluggish brain stirred. It didn’t seem to be. The road appeared to be wide enough, though muddy, and, with fields on either side, there should surely be no difficulty about lorries passing.
‘Not really,’ he said. ‘But I’d be grateful if you’d tell Brigadier Heathfield that the road he sent me to look at’s okay. It’s muddy but it’ll take lorries. There’s room for two vehicles to pass and a place to turn by the river. Can you telephone him and let him know?’
Eight
The message reached Brigadier Heathfield at the same time as the report from the Yellowjackets about their lost patrol landed on his desk.
Heathfield’s expression became increasingly grim. He had also just received a report from the brigadier of the 19th Division Artillery, complaining that the mud was hampering him from getting his guns into position and that when one of his lorries, reconnoitring the road to the river from San Bartolomeo for the move forward into the bridgehead, had had to leave the track it had immediately hit a mine.
‘Weren’t those mines cleared three nights ago?’ Heathfield asked the AAQMG hovering anxiously beside him.
