Into the Darkest Day: An emotional and totally gripping WW2 historical novel

by Kate Hewitt

  Matthew had stood, transfixed, on the stairs from their flat above, while his father, clad in a dressing gown and slippers, had strode through the mess, demanding that the soldiers stop their needless destruction and leave the premises. For such unthinkable folly, he’d been kicked in the stomach by a stormtrooper’s jackboot, and when he’d fallen to the floor, they had continued their savagery, kicking and beating him, while Matthew had watched, his mind and body both frozen with terror, unable to comprehend that this was actually happening, that it already had.

  After a few terrifying minutes, or perhaps just seconds, his mother had urged him back up the stairs, her face gaunt, her eyes filled with mute horror. “They will come for you next,” she’d hissed as they’d crept towards the kitchen. “You’re seventeen, practically a man.”

  And so, man that he hadn’t been, he’d spent the night hidden in a cupboard, his knees up to his chin, his body aching, his mind both numb and blank, before learning the next morning that his father was dead.

  Just after dawn, his mother had handed him a parcel of food and another of clothes, with the best of her jewelry sewn into the hem of a pair of trousers. She’d hugged him tightly, and his sister Gertie had clung to him, while his little brothers Franz and Arno had stared silently. Then a man he’d never seen before had come to the door, urging him to leave all he’d known and follow him he didn’t even know where.

  He’d spent the next nine months moving from house to house, a parade of nights spent in attics or sheds or understair cupboards, until he’d made it to his uncle’s in Munich and then to Spain and then to America, the whole process an endless, exhausting fight for freedom, a blur in his mind now, of kindly faces and anxious eyes, what food could be spared bolted quickly, days and nights passing as if the same.

  Yesterday, while they’d all been kicking their heels outside an air hangar in Leicestershire, knowing the invasion was imminent, he’d felt the same sort of separation of self; they’d been told, after bad weather the night before had kept them grounded, that they would fly that evening, and then be dropped ten miles inland on the Cotentin Peninsula of Normandy. If the sea assault failed, there would be no rescue for the men stuck deep behind enemy lines.

  But Matthew was used to that sort of hopelessness.

  He’d become used to it after Kristallnacht, when the reality of what was happening in his home country finally penetrated his arrogant, teenaged naivety. He was the son of an accountant, a German before he was a Jew, proud, like the rest of his family, of his Prussian heritage, his father having served in the First World War. He’d thought those things had mattered. He’d believed, so ridiculously, so wrongly, that stormtroopers didn’t come for the likes of him and his family, good Germans with proper pedigree and education, who had fought in wars and spoke several languages, patriots rather than religious zealots.

  He thought they came for the Jews who spoke Polish and wore yarmulkes and muttered in their pidgin languages of German and Hebrew. Not that those were deserving of such treatment—of course they weren’t, but still, he’d thought back then, they were different. Perhaps a bit too different. And so Matthew had somehow convinced himself he and his family were safe.

  He’d had plenty of opportunity to learn that he wasn’t in the years since then. Plenty of time to look back on his arrogant folly, when the Nuremberg Laws had passed in 1935, and somehow he still hadn’t thought it mattered. Yes, he’d had to go to a different school, one only for Jews, but he had friends there, and, for the most part, people were still kind; his old math teachers had apologized to him, tearfully, when he’d seen him in the street. And yes, he was no longer allowed to marry a non-Jew, not that he’d even been thinking about girls at that point. His father could have only Jewish customers, but somehow he accepted even that; money turned tight, but they had enough and it would all surely pass. Hitler had to go out of favor, because no thinking German could support such craven idiocy for long. Or so his father had said.

  The C-47 stopped circling and began to straighten out. In the eerie red light that was meant to accustom them to night vision, Matthew looked out and saw that a flotilla of planes had joined them as they made for France, gliding like steel ghosts through a night sky. There would be no turning back.

  As they’d been loaded onto the plane less than an hour before, the mood of joking camaraderie that had prevailed during the forty-eight hours—and really, months and even years—of waiting had become suddenly somber. Hours ago, they’d been using British money for their poker games, throwing dice, cracking jokes, but now everyone fell silent as they took their seats and a recorded message from General Eisenhower, meant for all Allied forces, was played.

  “You are about to embark upon the Great Crusade, towards which we have striven these many months. The eyes of the world are upon you. The hopes and prayers of liberty-loving people everywhere march with you. In company with our brave Allies and brothers-in-arms on other fronts, you will bring about the destruction of the German war machine, the elimination of Nazi tyranny over oppressed peoples of Europe, and security for ourselves in a free world. Your task will not be an easy one. Your enemy is well trained, well equipped, and battle-hardened. We will accept nothing less than full victory. Good luck! And let us all beseech the blessing of Almighty God upon this great and noble undertaking.”

  The import of his words, of what they were doing, was impossible to comprehend, as if someone was playing a massive joke and they were the punchline. These pale-faced men hunched over in their seats, burdened by their own equipment, were, quite literally, tasked to save the world. It was absurd. It was impossible.

  It was happening.

  Matthew glanced around at the grim faces of his comrades, bluish in the weird light, the rattling of the plane and the drone of its engine making speech impossible, not that anyone was inclined to talk. What were they thinking? How many of them would survive? Matthew knew the odds weren’t good. There was every likelihood that they wouldn’t even make it to France—their plane would be hit by antiaircraft fire before the drop and they would plummet to their fiery deaths, their war over before it had really begun.

  He prayed—and it had been a long time since he had prayed—that that wouldn’t happen. He wanted—needed a chance to go back to Germany. To find his family, and to seek justice for his father’s death. And then return to Lily…

  “Up!”

  As one, the men rose from their seats, their movements lumbered by their heavy and bulky equipment.

  “Equipment check!”

  Each man checked the static line of the man in front of him to make sure it was securely attached before jumping, so their parachutes would open properly. If they didn’t, it was just one more way to die.

  Matthew craned his head to look out the wide-open exit door, and something in him jolted in ridiculous surprise when he saw the clouds of smoke and orange lights from the tracer fire. It looked eerily beautiful, until he watched, incredulous, as a plane nearby suddenly exploded in a fireball and pirouetted gracefully towards the sea. Behind him, a man muttered something that sounded like a prayer, or maybe he’d just said “Jesus”.

  The plane shuddered beneath them, and someone cried out and then fell silent, ashamed. The air was full of crackling, thick with smoke, and still Matthew had trouble believing any of it was happening, even as the plane shuddered again, and then jerked like a living thing. It took him a stunned moment to realize they’d been hit.

  The jumpmaster cursed as the plane started to lurch like a drunk beneath their boots, and the men staggered, grabbing onto each other to stay upright, no one meeting anyone’s eyes, afraid of what they might see there.

  Time seemed to have slowed down and sped up all at once, and Matthew heard a roaring in his ears—whether it was the sound of the battle now raging all around them or simply the rush of his own beating blood, he didn’t know.

  The plane continued to twist and turn, writhing like an animal, and one of the men crossed himself, mutteri
ng the Hail Mary in a strong Brooklyn accent. Matthew wondered, in a distanced, disinterested sort of way, if this was actually the end. He might be dying, and he wasn’t even sure.

  The jumpmaster shouted for them to pay attention, and then he began to push the equipment bags out the door, a jumpsuited Santa with his sacks of crucial toys. Then, as Matthew watched, the first man went, stepping straight out into air, like a magic trick. They’d all had to complete at least five jumps during training, but those seemed like child’s play compared to this. The sky was full of gunfire and smoke. They were parachuting not into a muddy English field or a bayou in Louisiana, but enemy territory. Matthew might be dead in five minutes, maybe less.

  He shuffled forward as one by one the men stepped out into the air and disappeared. His moment was coming, and it made him think of Lily, her letters tucked away in his pack. He hadn’t seen her since that night by the Underground, when she’d told him she’d thought he was a German spy because of those ridiculous pigeons, and then he’d kissed her. When his whole world had shifted on its axis, and he’d realized he needed to survive this war, not just for his family, but for himself—and Lily.

  Although the 82nd had been kicking their heels for the better part of May, they hadn’t been granted leave, and so Matthew had had to content himself with letters. He did not consider himself an emotional man, and any tender feeling he might have nurtured had been suppressed for the sake of his situation.

  No one had cared what he’d felt when he’d been one of a hundred blank-eyed refugees packed in the cargo hold of a Spanish freighter. And no one had cared when he’d washed up on the shores of New York, having to convince a bored immigration inspector that he wasn’t a drain on the American people or their economy.

  When the US had declared war in 1941, Matthew had found himself in the surprising position of being classified as an enemy alien, and once again no one had cared that he was a Jew, not a Nazi. When he’d first enlisted, after his basic training, he’d been regarded with suspicion; after just three months, he’d been rounded up with a dozen other German-born Jews and sent to an internment camp in Illinois, where they’d been subjected to hard labor without any explanation.

  Eventually he’d discovered he’d been sent there because a German spy had been caught off the coast of Canada whose contact had the same last name as he did. He’d realized then that in Germany he’d been made to be a Jew first; in America he was just German.

  After nearly a year of such treatment, he had, without explanation, been ordered to Camp Ritchie in Maryland, where, thanks to his knowledge of German, he’d been earmarked for the course in Interrogation of Prisoners of War. He’d changed his name to a gentile one, not wanting the same mistake to happen twice, and now he was here, about to jump, Lily’s letters in his pocket the only thing anchoring him to this earth anymore.

  Dear Matthew, I’m no good at writing letters; I don’t know what to say except that I think of you often. So often…

  Someone jabbed Matthew in the back and he realized he was next. He stepped to the edge of the plane, its floor tilting under him, nearly making him stagger right out the door. Beneath him, by the light of the tracer fire, he could see the fields of France spread out in a patchwork of dark greens, punctuated by thick swathes of pine forests. The sky was so full of sound, Matthew had somehow tuned it out, and it felt weirdly and utterly silent as the jumpmaster gave his order, and without a thought but obedience, Matthew stepped out of the plane.

  For a second or two, but what felt like an eternity compressed into a moment, he simply fell, windmilling and whirling through the air that rushed by him in a cool, surging stream. Then he felt the painful, breath-catching jerk as his parachute opened like a flower above him. His training took over and he pulled the risers to reduce oscillation as he stopped falling and simply began to float, the sensation strangely gentle in a world that was exploding savagely all around him.

  When he blinked the darkened world into focus, he saw another paratrooper floating down in the distance, too far away to call to him or even to wave. The planes that had filled the sky were now far above, a separate, fiery universe as he continued to spiral downwards, entering a dark, silent, dangerous world.

  The ground began to rush up to meet him and he saw he was going to land in a field, utterly exposed. He dropped to the ground, hitting it hard; he let out a grunt as he came to a stand and unhooked himself from the parachute before quickly bundling it up. He looked around but could see no one; the only sound was his breathing, loud and ragged. He needed to find cover.

  Fumbling for his compass, Matthew checked it and then set off to the east, where he believed their planned meeting point to be. His mind felt cold and clear and as weirdly detached as when he’d been about to jump, but his heart was hammering hard enough to hurt, and he could still hear his own breathing, as if he were gasping for air.

  Every nerve and sense was on high, tautened alert, and yet part of him felt as if he were hovering above this scene, idly wondering what might happen next. Would a German sniper blow his head off? Would he step on a mine and be torn to pieces? He had an absurd urge to laugh, and he wondered if it was shock—or hysteria.

  He stayed silent, moving steadily across the field, towards a cluster of pine trees that provided the only possible shelter. Once under their covering branches, he released a shaky, pent-up breath and the tension banding across his shoulders and clenching his jaw relaxed, if only a little.

  As he stood there, surveying the darkened scene, he realized there was nowhere safe, not from here, all the way through a war-torn Europe, to Fraustadt. He was utterly alone, wandering around the French countryside like some sort of drunk tourist, yet in the uniform of the enemy. He couldn’t see another soul, which was both a relief and a worry. No soldiers of any description—but no friends, either.

  Where were the rest of the 82nd, not to mention the other divisions, who had parachuted down with him? The wind must have blown everyone off course.

  Matthew had no idea where he was, or how close he was to safety, or the enemy. With no alternative but to keep going, he kept to the trees as he began to make his way east. After about twenty tense minutes of skulking along the ridge of pines, he came to a road.

  He dropped to his belly at the sound of a car engine, and then watched with that same sense of unreality as a Jeep with four German soldiers in it came and went. He recognized their uniforms, as part of his training had been to learn the emblems and insignia of every single division in the German army, to help with his interrogative abilities. Yet to actually see living and breathing German soldiers wearing those gray greatcoats—four of them—made him shake his head in wonder. Again he fought that unwise urge to laugh.

  He waited another ten minutes, as several motorcycles with German riders passed. Another ten minutes, as sweat trickled from under his helmet and down his back, and then finally a further ten before he felt safe enough to dart, crouched, across the road.

  On the other side of the track, he let out another shaky breath. The unfamiliar landscape stretched away endlessly in the dark.

  He walked another half-hour, searching for someone, something, anything that looked familiar, that would mean he wasn’t alone. He halted on the edge of a clearing, some instinct making him go still even before he saw the three soldiers standing by a mounted machine gun, smoking.

  How to pass them? He didn’t trust his own ability to take them all out, and standing there, he realized he’d never killed a man. He’d never actually hurt anyone before, and yet he had two grenades dangling from his belt, another in his pack.

  He must have made some movement, some sound, without realizing, for one of the soldiers looked up, sniffing the air like a wolf as he dropped his cigarette and ground it beneath his jackboot.

  “Wer ist da?” he called. “Zeigen Sie ich!” Show yourself. Matthew stayed still, every muscle quivering with tension, with expectation. “Zeigen Sie ich!” the man called again, louder this time, his voice mo
re strident.

  “Unteroffizier auf Patrouille,” Matthew called out before he could think through his response. It was as if some instinct were taking over, possessing his mind, but as soon as he said the words, he knew they were wrong. A corporal on patrol would not be alone.

  Sure enough, the man started walking towards the sound of his voice, his pistol now drawn.

  “Zeigen Sie ich,” he said for a third time, and he didn’t sound friendly.

  It couldn’t end like this, all because of a stupid mistake. Matthew fumbled at his belt, his hands curling around one of the grenades.

  The man kept walking, the other two coming up behind him, pistols drawn as well. Three against one.

  Matthew pulled the safety ring and hurled the grenade towards the men.

  He didn’t wait to see whether the grenade had hit the intended target; he tore through the woods, his heart feeling as if it could beat right out of his chest. He heard the crack of a pistol and he jerked instinctively even though he realized after a few tense seconds that he hadn’t been hit.

  He kept running, clawing at the undergrowth as he barreled through the forest, his panting breaths tearing at his chest, everything in him rearing up, wild.

  He heard footsteps behind him, too close, too fast, and he whirled around, his hand on his pistol, only to stumble back in shock at the sight of Tom Reese chasing him, his face spattered with mud, the whites of his eyes almost glowing as he stared at him.

  “What the hell…” Tom choked out and Matthew saw he was clutching his knife. He knocked it out of his hand with one sharp movement, borne of instinct rather than intention.

  “Why were you chasing me?” he demanded.

  “Why were you speaking German?”

  Matthew stared at him; he felt as if his mind had gone very cold and clear, that first fog of fear and disbelief dissolving completely as his breathing slowed. He wasn’t being chased. He wasn’t going to die. Not right now, at any rate. “We’re not safe here,” he said shortly. “Those Nazis were following me.”