Swordpoint (2011)

by John Harris

  Warley reflected on what they’d achieved. He was saddened by their losses, though he knew casualties were not supposed to depress you because battles weren’t won at the cost of a few black eyes. Jago was relieved it was over. He couldn’t shake off the feeling that he was different. The violence of the night had jerked him out of his brooding, but he had decided he’d taken one chance too many and that from now on he was going to be more careful. Suddenly, he desperately wanted to survive the war.

  They all reacted differently. Fletcher-Smith, now a corporal to fill one of the gaps that had been left by the dead, found himself pleased to be attached to HQ Company and told to keep his wits about him because, if he did, there was more promotion in the offing. Duff became a lance-corporal in his place. ‘They’re going to give ’im command of the war babies’ platoon,’ Parkin said, patting his head. ‘All little fellers.’ 000 Bawden, still lost without 766 Bawden, supposed that eventually he’d get over it because they’d never really had much in common beyond their names and the fact that they came from the same town. McWatters, who had fought his way from the river in his usual dour fashion, conducting his own little hate-filled war, expecting no mercy and giving none, considered the battle a victory for World Socialism. Henry White, looking like Mr Punch without his teeth, joined him in the view that the Germans were bastards. After all, they’d lost him a good set of dentures, hadn’t they? Parkin’s reaction to this disaster was as predictable as it had been to Duff’s promotion. ‘Always did say you’d lose them teeth, ’Enry,’ he insisted. ‘You shoulda changed ’em at the time of the Boer War.’

  Lieutenant Deacon was proud that he’d added his name to the history books – because when the war was over and the history of the Italian Campaign was written, somebody would refer to Deacon’s Dip just as they already referred to other such bumps and hollows on the world’s surface as Fig Orchard, Aberdeen, Snipe and Kidney Ridge. He was still euphoric about Syzling who, scruffy as ever, was growing worried that his success might prove a dangerous thing, because Deacon now seemed to be expecting all sorts of things from him – even smartness.

  Not a few of them were writing letters. Tallemach was trying to express to his wife his feelings about his son. ‘I suppose we must be proud,’ he was saying, unhappily conscious that his words were meaningless, ‘and, since there are now only the two of us, we must learn to lean on each other more.’ Gask, apparently unmoved by his destruction of a tank with a grenade, for which he’d been awarded an immediate Military Medal, was writing to his mother to tell her he’d been promoted sergeant. He was now aiming for company sergeant-major, he said, and was also increasing her allowance. He didn’t mention the Military Medal in case she worried he’d been in danger.

  CSM Farnsworth, aware that he would inevitably step into the dead Mr Zeal’s shoes, wrote to his wife calmly, avoiding all talk of shells and machine-gunning, as he always had, making the battle sound like nothing much worse than a rough game of football. ‘We’ve just been in action,’ he said, ‘but we came out of it not too badly. How’s Jean’s school report showing up, by the way? You didn’t mention it in the last letter.’ Just like a father away on business.

  It was clear to them all now that the battle for Cassino had clarified. As they’d hung on grimly in front of San Eusebio the New Zealanders’ attack on the town had finally succeeded, and they were now on Castle Hill, while the Gurkhas had got their entire battalion atop Hangman’s. Slowly, gradually, the Monastery was being pinched out and they must now surely be in a position to throw the final punch. Next time, the Teds would not merely be pushed back a few miles. Next time the battle would be a masterpiece, a major operation with full orchestra and chorus. And, with clear indications that the winter weather was ending at last, they’d be able to mount it, not by companies and battalions, but by massed divisions.

  It was barely dawn when Warley’s men prepared to troop down the winding road from San Eusebio to the river. It still didn’t pay to linger, because although San Eusebio was now in Allied hands, the Germans on the upper slopes could still drop shells in the flat fields along the riverside.

  The Punjabis had taken over the town now. They were virtually untouched and were due to be supported by the King’s Own from the 11th Indian Brigade. The bridges were still intact and the RAF was already seeking out the German guns higher up.

  With that quaint custom of doing honours so beloved of the British Army, the captain of the Baluchis had conceded the privilege of leading the remnants of both battalions out of the town to Warley, and Farnsworth’s iron voice was subdued as they formed up in the square.

  ‘You will march out like the soldiers you never were,’ he announced. ‘Your own mothers won’t recognise you. You’re not scruffs. You’re soldiers. So get those heads up. We said we’d lick these Ted bastards and we did. So look as if we have. When you get to the other side, they’re going to be watching to see what we look like. So give ’em a good eyeful. You can be as mucky as you like, because you’ve been in a battle, but you’ll move like soldiers. Get it?’

  They got it. They looked like men who’d been through a whirlwind, buried and dug up again, and they were careful not to spoil the effect by shaving and washing too much. So they lined up in their torn and bloody uniforms – as they had earlier in the day for the war correspondents and photographers – several of them wearing bandages and carrying weapons which had been cleaned until they were spotless, fully prepared to create awe in the breasts of the onlookers.

  Still Farnsworth wasn’t satisfied. ‘You wouldn’t do credit to a whorehouse,’ he said. ‘Tighten that belt, that man! It’s hanging off you like something hanging off a feller’s boot. Adjust that strap, you! Up with that rifle! If I know him, the colonel’s going to be across the other side waiting, and he’s going to be proud of you or I’ll know the reason why. You may not realise it, but you’ve just won a great victory. I’ve had it from Mr Warley, who got it from the colonel of the Punjabis, who got it from the general himself, brought back by our own special hero, Corporal Fletcher-Smith. The New Zealanders are into Cassino and we – you lot! – are in San Eusebio where we defeated the whole bloody Nazi nation. When everybody else was licked, the North Yorkshires were not licked. And that’s the most important thing in a battle to any man. It’s the question we always ask afterwards. Did we win? Well, let me inform you, we did. So look like it.’

  They all knew what he was getting at – regimental spirit, that curious mystique which enabled soldiers to do things that ought to have been impossible, pride in themselves and their history. It wouldn’t really matter to the people at the other side of the river what they looked like as they marched out. But it mattered to the North Yorkshires and that was the point Farnsworth was trying to make.

  There was only one discordant note. Lieutenant Deacon’s dulcet obbligato came through the darkness.

  ‘Where’s that bloody Piat, Syzling?’ he was demanding.

  ‘I lost it,’ Syzling muttered.

  ‘You can’t lose something as big as a Piat, for God’s sake!’

  ‘Well, I did. I put it down.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘I forgot.’

  ‘I expect the bloody Punjabis collared it,’ Deacon wailed. ‘Good God, Syzling, that god-damned Piat ought to be framed and hung up in the regimental museum, the things we did with it! Didn’t you realise?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Sir!’

  ‘Sir! No, I didn’t, sir!’

  Unity and amity seemed to have been forgotten. Things were back to normal.

  Warley was occupied with his thoughts as he headed down the slope. The rain seemed to have gone for good because the sky was still clear and it felt warmer. Soon they’d be able to clean themselves up and wash and scrape off the mud without shivering. Mail would arrive and he intended to luxuriate in a bath in an avalanche of lather. They even knew where they were going – back to Trepiazze – and Warley fully intended to be billeted in Graziella Vanvitelli’s
home again.

  It was another battle behind them, another step nearer home. It hadn’t been a big battle compared with Alamein or Dunkirk, but, like Snipe and Kidney Ridge in the desert, it would be remembered. There’d be reports to write, more men to promote. There would probably even be a new colonel if Yuell’s wound proved bad enough. In the meantime, as senior surviving officer, he supposed he’d be in command, and it would be pleasant to be running the show especially in Trepiazze, under the gaze of Graziella. He could remember every line and curve of her face, and her habit – half grave, half amused – of wrinkling her eyes at the corners as she explained something for him or sought a difficult English word. Then it struck him that, as commanding officer, he didn’t have to share his billet with anyone and could have the whole house to himself if he wished, able to enjoy Graziella’s company without Deacon bursting in, loud in his complaints about Syzling. He found he was looking forward to it enormously.

  Yuell was sitting in a jeep in San Bartolomeo as they arrived. He looked pale and his leg was swathed in bandages. But he’d insisted on waiting for them to appear before he would allow himself to be taken away. Warley called for an eyes right and they gave him one that made their eyes click, while Warley threw him up a salute which would have done credit to the Brigade of Guards. Yuell returned it gravely. There was nothing more he asked for than this gesture from these men. His leg was agonisingly painful, he was full of dope, but he knew there was nothing now for him to do. He could rely on Warley to look after things. He’d arrived under Yuell’s command four years before, a wide-eyed youngster still wet behind the ears and with a tendency to refer to the regimental colours hanging in Ripon Cathedral as ‘those flags’. Now, he was capable of running the battalion and running it well, and Yuell intended to see that he was promoted into Peddy’s place – and further if possible.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said to the jeep driver. ‘That’s all I wanted. To see them safe back. We can go now.’

  There was hot food waiting for them in San Bartolomeo, and this time there was no shelling. And at long last there was dry straw to lie on, dry rooms to sit in, no longer the smell of damp and the chill of running water. Soon every bush and wall would be festooned with washed and drying clothing.

  Several officers he knew came in to speak to Warley and congratulate him on what they’d done. He took it all as it came. They’d been told to take San Eusebio and they’d taken it. It was as simple as that. But now, before the quartermaster arrived with his new issues and they were still wearing the dirt of battle, there was a quiet happiness about him that was reflected in the faces of Jago, Deacon, Farnsworth, Gask, Fletcher-Smith and every single man who’d conducted himself with honour in the fight. They’d been there and these others had not. Only they knew what it had been like.

  The thought ran through Warley’s mind again and again. It produced a sort of contempt for other men, an unfair contempt, he knew, because their turn would come – very likely while he was sitting safely in Trepiazze holding Graziella Vanvitelli’s hand. But it existed nevertheless. Henry of Navarre had summed it up exactly in a reply to one of his boastful generals.

  ‘Go hang yourself, brave Crillon. We fought at Arques, and you were not there.’

  That was the whole point of the thing. All that was left after you’d sifted through the rubbish dump of heroism and ineptitude, good will and jealousy, life and death – what soldiers lived on when they were too old to do anything else but remember. They’d been at San Eusebio and the others had not. Despite everything, it was curiously satisfying.

  Synopses of John Harris Titles

  Published by House of Stratus

  Army of Shadows

  It is the winter of 1944. France is under the iron fist of the Nazis. But liberation is just around the corner and a crew from a Lancaster bomber is part of the fight for Freedom. As they fly towards their European target, a Messerschmitt blazes through the sky in a fiery attack and of the nine-man crew aboard the bomber, only two men survive to parachute into Occupied France. They join an ever-growing army of shadows (the men and women of the French Resistance), to play a lethal game of cat and mouse.

  China Seas

  In this action-packed adventure, Willie Sarth becomes a survivor. Forced to fight pirates on the East China Seas, wrestle for his life on the South China Seas and cross the Sea of Japan ravaged by typhus, Sarth is determined to come out alive. Dealing with human tragedy, war and revolution, Harris presents a novel which packs an awesome punch.

  The Claws of Mercy

  In Sierra Leone, a remote bush community crackles with racial tensions. Few white people live amongst the natives of Freetown and Authority seems distant. Everyday life in Freetown revolves around an opencast iron mine, and the man in charge dictates peace and prosperity for everyone. But, for the white population, his leadership is a matter of life or death where every decision is like being snatched by the claws of mercy.

  Corporal Cotton's Little War

  Storming through Europe, the Nazis are sure to conquer Greece but for one man, Michael Anthony Cotton, a heroic marine who smuggles weapons of war and money to the Greek Resistance. Born Mihale Andoni Cotonou, Cotton gets mixed up in a lethal mission involving guns and high-speed chases. John Harris produces an unforgettable champion, persuasive and striking with a touch of mastery in this action-packed thriller set against the dazzle of the Aegean.

  The Cross of Lazzaro

  The Cross of Lazzaro is a gripping story filled with mystery and fraught with personal battles. This tense, unusual novel begins with the seemingly divine reappearance of a wooden cross once belonging to a sixth-century bishop. The vision emerges from the depths of an Italian lake, and a menacing local antagonism is subsequently stirred. But what can the cross mean?

  Flawed Banner

  John Harris' spine-tingling adventure inhabits the shadowy world of cunning and espionage. As the Nazi hordes of Germany overrun France, devouring the free world with fascist fervour, a young intelligence officer, James Woodyatt, is shipped across the Channel to find a First World War hero…an old man who may have been a spy…who may be in possession of Nazi secrets.

  The Fox From His Lair

  A brilliant German agent lies in wait for the Allied invasion of Nazi-occupied France. While the Allies prepare a vast armed camp, no one is aware of the enemy within, and when a sudden, deadly E-boat attacks, the Fox strikes, stealing secret invasion plans in the ensuing panic. What follows is a deadly pursuit as the Fox tries to get the plans to Germany in time, hotly pursued by two officers with orders to stop him at all costs.

  A Funny Place to Hold a War

  Ginger Donnelly is on the trail of Nazi saboteurs in Sierra Leone. Whilst taking a midnight paddle with a willing woman in a canoe cajoled from a local fisherman, Donnelly sees an enormous seaplane thunder across the sky only to crash in a ball of brilliant flame. It seems like an accident…at least until a second plane explodes in a blistering shower along the same flight path.

  Getaway

  An Italian fisherman and his wife, Rosa, live in Sydney. Hard times are ahead. Their mortgaged boat may be lost and with it, their livelihood. But Rosa has a plan to reach the coast of America from the islands of the Pacific, sailing on a beleaguered little houseboat. The plan seems almost perfect, especially when Willie appears and has his own reasons for taking a long holiday to the land of opportunity.

  Harkaway's Sixth Column

  An explosive action-packed war drama: four British soldiers are cut off behind enemy lines in British Somaliland and when they decide to utilise a secret arms dump in the Bur Yi hills and fight a rearguard action, an unlikely alliance is sought between two local warring tribes. What follows is an amazing mission led by the brilliant, elusive Harkaway, whose heart is stolen by a missionary when she becomes mixed up in the unorthodox band of warriors.

  A Kind of Courage

  At the heart of this story of courage and might, is Major Billy Pentecost, commander of a remote desert
outpost near Hahdhdhah, deep among the bleak hills of Khalit. His orders are to prepare to move out along with a handful of British soldiers. Impatient tribesmen gather outside the fort, eager to reclaim the land of their blood and commanded by Abd el Aziz el Beidawi, a feared Arab warrior lord. A friendship forms between the two very different commanders but when Pentecost's orders are reversed, a nightmarish tragedy ensues.

  Live Free or Die

  Charles Walter Scully, cut off from his unit and running on empty, is trapped. It's 1944 and though the Allied invasion of France has finally begun, for Scully the war isn't going well. That is, until he meets a French boy trying to get home to Paris. What begins is a hair-raising journey into the heart of France, an involvement with the French Liberation Front and one of the most monumental events of the war. Harris vividly portrays wartime France in a panorama of scenes that enthral the reader.

  The Lonely Voyage

  The Lonely Voyage is John Harris' first novel - a graphic, moving tale of the sea. It charts the story of one boy, Jess Ferigo, who winds up on a charge of poaching along with Pat Fee and Old Boxer, the men who sail with him on his journey into manhood. As Jess leaves his boyhood behind, bitter years are followed by the Second World War, where Old Boxer and Jess make a poignant rescue on the sand dunes of Dunkirk. Finally, Jess Ferigo's lonely voyage is over.