6
Friday, 9 July 1943, around seven p.m. Tanner sat on the forward deck of HMT Dunelm, an 11,000-ton former passenger ship, Dunkirk veteran and now troopship. On board were not only the entire 2nd Battalion Yorks Rangers but also a large number of supplies, engineers and support troops, making around twelve hundred in all. They had been at sea for four days.
Tanner was cleaning his weapons, not for the first time since leaving Port Said. It was something he had always done meticulously, no matter how bad the situation or conditions in which he found himself. His father had drummed it into him as a boy. Tanner had loved helping him clean the guns: the smell of the gun oil, the gleam of the dark metal, the sense of pride in doing a job well. And as, first, an NCO, then more recently as a commissioned officer, he had repeatedly impressed upon his men the importance of keeping weapons clean. Clean weapons, he knew, saved lives. If a rifle or Sten gun jammed, it was invariably because its user had not looked after it properly.
It was certainly true that Tanner had accrued more personal weapons than most. There was his rifle, which, now that he was an officer, he was not expected to carry; on the other hand, he had carried it, one of the pre-war Short Magazine Lee Enfield No. 1 Mark IIIs, since before sailing to Norway back in April 1940. He had had it specially fitted with mounts and pads for the Aldis scope his father had used in the last war. Having the option to snipe with accuracy from a half-decent distance had been a life-saver on numerous occasions, and he was damned if he was going to give it up now. So far, he had been careful to keep it out of sight of Colonel Creer – he felt sure that an officer carrying a rifle would be exactly the kind of thing to which Croaker would take exception. Fortunately, he reckoned there was little chance of Creer being anywhere near the front-line action so, once ashore, he could carry it on his shoulder without fear of being caught out. Until then, he had Trahair; he still felt uncomfortable having a batman, but he had to admit, a servant had his uses.
He was also reluctant to leave his MP40 behind. This was a German sub-machine gun he had picked up in Crete. Firing the same ammunition as the British Sten, it had been easy to maintain, and because the magazine could be simply removed and the metal butt folded back on itself, it could be stowed away in a rifleman’s pack or, to be precise, Trahair’s pack. He had thought of putting it in with his personal kit, which was wrapped up and tied with leather straps and kept with the B Echelon Administrative Platoon. Presumably, he thought, it was somewhere in the ship’s hold; it would catch up with him eventually. But since they were heading into battle, what was the point of having weapons if they couldn’t be used?
The rest he would carry himself. He had a small semi-automatic Sauer handgun, also German, which he liked for the ease with which the magazine could be replaced, and for its solid but light feel in his hand. That would go in his haversack. On his belt in its holster was an American .45 Colt. When he had been with the Americans in Tunisia, he had been amused by their seemingly endless fascination with German Lugers. To his mind, the Luger needed to pack a far bigger punch if it was to justify its size. It baffled him that they should be so desperate to get their hands on those German pistols when they had such a fine handgun themselves. The Colt was a little heavy, but packed one hell of a punch. When Tanner used a pistol, it was at close quarters, and when he fired, he wanted to make sure the enemy never had a chance to fire back. To his mind, there was no better handgun than a Colt for killing people. He’d managed to get two more – one for Peploe and another for Sykes; he now wished he’d got one for Fauvel too. The British-issued revolvers were hopeless – the last thing anyone wanted to do was fiddle about hand-loading every bullet into the chamber in the middle of a battle. Adrenalin, fear and anxiety made fingers shake. A simple, easy-release magazine was far better.
Finally, he had his Italian Beretta. There was not a lot to choose between that and the MP40, but the Beretta did not pack away so easily, and Tanner preferred the more solid and comfortable wooden butt. Like the MP40 and the Sten, it also used 9mm rounds, so getting enough ammunition was not a problem. This he would wear slung on his shoulder as he stepped into the LCA, and would reclaim his rifle from Trahair the moment they were lowered onto the water. All were polished, oiled and very, very clean.
He was conscious of excited voices around him, and looked up to see men crowding on the prow of the ship and pointing.
‘What have they spotted?’ said Fauvel. He had been squatting next to Tanner, writing up his diary. On his other side, Sykes had been repacking his own kit.
‘Sicily?’ said Sykes, springing to his feet.
Tanner and Fauvel followed. There, on the distant horizon, they could see a mountain, a faint patch of white cloud around it – or was it smoke? Tanner wasn’t sure.
‘Etna,’ said Fauvel. ‘That’s Mount Etna. Christ – we’re nearly there.’
Tanner saw him swallow hard. ‘Nerves?’
‘A few.’
‘We’ll be fine.’
‘It certainly won’t be for lack of information.’
Tanner smiled. ‘That’s true enough.’
‘Remember Norway, boss?’ said Sykes.
Tanner smiled ruefully.
‘A bloody shower that was,’ continued Sykes. ‘The bloody planners who thought that one up wouldn’t have been able to organize a piss-up in a brewery. We’ve come a long way since then, I can tell you.’
‘Glad to hear it,’ said Fauvel.
Sykes was right, Tanner thought. The British Army had progressed in almost every regard. The training back in the Canal Zone had been thorough, with LCAs made available for practising beach assaults and plenty of live firing too. There had been tactical instruction, training with artillery and even armour, as well as the usual physical training, something Tanner considered important after the inactivity of the previous few weeks. He felt his men were ready. True, there were a lot of new lads – Trahair for one – but there were enough men with experience of battle to see them through. The only major disappointment, and one that had angered the men, was that they were losing their motorized status. The trucks and carriers would, for the time being, be left behind. On Sicily, in the opening moves at any rate, the Yorks Rangers would be ordinary infantry once more. Trucks would still ferry them up the line, but they would no longer live and fight in their own. It was inevitable, Tanner supposed. Sicily was different from the desert, as he well knew. On Sicily, the fighting would be different: closer, less manoeuvrable. Disappointing though it was, the decision, he knew, was the right one.
Prior to sailing, the officers had been briefed in detail. Aerial photographs of the landing beaches had been handed out, the operational plan relayed by division and brigade staff. ‘You battalion and company commanders,’ Brigadier Rawstorne had told them two days before departure, ‘are responsible for making sure each and every one of your men knows exactly what they are supposed to be doing. Make sure you pay attention at your briefings.’ Tanner had done so, largely because he understood the responsibility that rested on his shoulders and that he needed to do the best for his men, but also because he did not want to give Creer any cause for complaint; the two had kept a wary distance during their time at El Shatt Camp, but Tanner knew that Creer would welcome the chance to humiliate him.
Only once they were finally at sea were the men told their destination. No one had been surprised, despite the supposed secrecy. ‘You don’t say, sir! Well, there’s a turn-up for the bleeding books!’ The sheer scale of the enterprise, however, had dazzled them all. More than three thousand ships in two task forces, the British from Egypt, the American Seventh Army from Tunisia, had set sail, with more than four and a half thousand aircraft in support. Tanner had been staggered: in Norway, they had barely seen an Allied plane, in France only a handful. There had been Luftwaffe galore over Crete but no sign of the RAF; only in the last year had there been an obvious and growing number of Allied aircraft in the skies.
Over the ensuing three days at sea, in balmy
summer weather, Tanner had done exactly as the brigadier had told them, briefing every single man in A Company. Booklets, A Soldier’s Guide to Sicily, had been distributed to each man, platoons allocated to their assault landing craft, while Tanner had also chosen the ten men who were to be Left Out of Battle. Accurately overprinted maps had been issued to all officers and senior NCOs. Sitreps had been given: the enemy forces opposing were likely to be of varied standard; six coastal divisions protected the main ports and were thought to be undermanned and poorly equipped. Four better-trained and -equipped Italian divisions, partly motorized, were based inland. There also appeared to be two German divisions. Enemy air forces were considered slight in comparison with the Allies’, while British and American bombers were targeting ports and airfields in the south-east in the run-up to the invasion.
The Allied plan was to land the two armies side by side by sea in the south-east of the island, supported by two airborne divisions. The role of XIII Corps was to land on a two-division front, secure a bridgehead, advance north and capture the port of Syracuse, then the Simeto river, the larger port of Catania and the surrounding airfields. Their own role, Tanner explained to his men, was to land in the 15th Brigade sector at the small coastal town of Avola. Their part of the beach was codenamed ‘How Green’. The beaches there, he told them, using aerial photographs and detailed maps, consisted of a small narrow sandy foreshore, enclosed by low cliffs leading up to grassy verges. Beyond were orchards of almond trees and the main road. Further beyond, about two miles inland, there was a high ridge, with a deep and obvious V-shaped cleft, directly west of their landing point at How Green. Capturing that would be the task of 50th Division on their left. Their own job was to get quickly off the beach, secure the road and advance north. They could expect wire and a few concrete pillboxes. These would have to be taken out. ‘Learn your maps,’ he told them. ‘Study them and study them again.’
There were also repeated embarkation rehearsals. The men would be sent down to the bowels of the ship, then ordered up in their correct landing serials along the various companionways, narrow, hot and dimly lit passageways, and ordered to marshal alongside their allotted assault craft. Glistening, irritated soldiers grumbled but Tanner approved of such drill. It kept the men busy, but it also gave them confidence – confidence that they were prepared, trained and ready for their part in the biggest seaborne invasion the world had ever known.
For now, though, the training was over. The men had been given an extra tot of rum a couple of hours earlier, in the hope that it might help them sleep, but few could, judging by the number on deck. Tanner knew that he, for one, would not be sleeping: he was far too tense for that. He wandered away from Fauvel and Sykes and leaned on the ship’s railing, staring first at Etna in the distance, then at the men around him. A number were sitting down, writing letters – to parents and girlfriends mostly, he guessed. There were a few older ones but most were boys. He wished he had someone to write to. His father had been dead eleven years now, and there was no other family; there had been a girl in Crete, but he had not heard from her since the day he had sailed away two years before. For a while he had lived with a half-French nurse in Cairo, but they had drifted apart too. She’d written a few times but the letters had dried up. What was the point? They had both known they would not see each other again. He sighed and thought of that farm in England he’d promised himself. Maybe then he’d find himself a girl – someone who would want to marry him and settle down. Perhaps then he could create a new family all of his own. Just so long as he survived the next day, then the days and weeks after that. How long would the campaign last? It was impossible to say. Perhaps he would be wounded. Perhaps he would be killed. Christ, he thought, it was about time. He’d cheated Death so often – one day his luck was bound to run out.
‘You look wistful, Jack.’
Tanner turned to see Peploe beside him. ‘Miles away,’ he muttered.
‘It’s the waiting, isn’t it?’
‘Actually, I was thinking of home.’
‘Feels a long way away.’
‘I’ve had enough of fighting,’ said Tanner. ‘I’m beginning to want to go home.’
‘You and me the same. Maybe we will after this.’ Peploe paused, then said, ‘Actually, Jack, I was wondering whether you’d mind coming down to my cabin a moment.’
‘Of course.’
They walked back along the deck and down one of the companionways to the officers’ cabins, Tanner with his haversack and weapons slung over his shoulder.
‘It’s two letters,’ said Peploe, as they entered his small, sparse cabin and closed the door. ‘One to my parents and one to my sister, Jenny. Will you look after them? In case anything happens?’
‘Of course.’
‘I’m not being morbid, and I don’t want you thinking I’ve had some ghastly premonition or anything, because I haven’t. But you never know, do you? This invasion, it seems such an incredibly, overwhelmingly large enterprise, don’t you think? I know nothing has been left to chance, but I’ve no idea what to expect. I’ve never been to Sicily before. Or Italy for that matter. I’ve looked at the photographs and read that silly little blue book they’ve handed out, but I still don’t feel much the wiser. Do you?’ He sat down on the narrow bunk and motioned to Tanner to take the single chair.
‘Actually, I’ve been there,’ said Tanner. ‘To Sicily, that is.’ After all, he thought, what did it matter now?
‘You have? When?’ Peploe looked surprised.
‘Just before I rejoined the battalion. I parachuted in with a couple of Yanks – an agent and an intelligence officer.’
Peploe laughed. ‘My God, you’re a dark horse, Jack! What on earth were you doing?’
‘I’m still not entirely sure, to be honest,’ he said. ‘Pre-invasion groundwork, I think.’ He told Peploe about the mission: about Don Calogero, the emptiness of the countryside, the backwardness of the people, and about the escape on the British submarine. ‘It was only a small part of the island that I saw, but if the rest is anything like it, I’d say we haven’t got too much to worry about.’
‘That’s good to know.’
Tanner rubbed his chin. ‘Don Calogero was a strange bloke. The Yanks think he’s one of the most influential men in Sicily, but looking at him you’d never think so. A Man of Honour, apparently.’
‘Mafia,’ said Peploe.
‘You what?’
‘Mafia – it’s what they’re known as. Mafiosi call themselves men of honour, but they’re known elsewhere as the Mafia. There are strands of it in America too. Bugsy Siegel, Lucky Luciano. Gangsters, really.’
‘What name did you just say?’
‘Siegel. Lucky Luciano?’
‘Luciano – yes, they mentioned him. Not to me, but I heard his name when they were talking. It was all Italian to me, but they definitely mentioned him. So he’s a gangster, is he?’
Peploe nodded. ‘Quite notorious. I have a feeling he’s now in jail, though. The Mafia operate by running protection rackets. If he’s head of the Mafia, your Don Calogero probably is one of the most powerful men in Sicily.’
‘Jesus,’ said Tanner. ‘The things you have to do to win a war.’
Peploe smiled. ‘To think I joined up with such strong ideals. But it’s hard to keep the moral high ground when you’re bombing cities, killing women and children, and cutting deals with racketeers. I still think Nazism is an evil, though, that has to be wiped from the face of the Earth.’
They were silent for a moment, then Peploe said, ‘We should get to the wardroom. They’re serving dinner shortly. Be there early and you can choose who you sit next to.’
Tanner smiled. ‘Anyone you’re trying to avoid?’
Peploe grinned sheepishly. ‘You know perfectly well.’ He patted his legs, about to stand up. ‘I do hope he behaves himself once we’re ashore.’
‘You’ll barely see him. Croaker’s a master at avoiding the action. I just hope he doesn’t start is
suing any stupid orders, because if there’s one thing I’ll put money on, it’s that he’ll give A Company the dirtiest jobs.’ He stood up. ‘I’m relying on you, John.’
‘With a bit of luck, he’ll just let us get on with it,’ said Peploe. ‘You’ve survived so far, Jack. I mean, it’s clear as day the pair of you can hardly bear the sight of each other, but he’s not actually interfered with your running of the company, has he?’
‘Bastard gave me out the other day.’
‘No disgrace being LBW to Hedley Verity.’
‘I bloody hit it. Even Hedley said so. The only man to appeal was the bloke at mid-off. And me and young Hawke were going well. We might have won if I’d been able to stick around with him a bit longer.’
Peploe laughed. ‘Jack, we’d have never won. What were Hedley’s figures? Seven for eighteen. I’m sorry we lost, but to be honest, I was just happy to have the chance to play against one of the finest spin bowlers who’s ever lived.’
‘I suppose so,’ admitted Tanner, then felt the ship roll. Out in the narrow passageway, it rolled again. They stumbled and had to brace themselves against the wall.
‘Christ, what’s going on?’ said Peploe. ‘Is that the wind?’
Tanner shrugged. ‘I suppose it must be.’
‘Well, let’s hope it doesn’t get any worse.’
The ship seemed to be rolling more gently as they reached the wardroom. A few other officers were there, milling around the table that was freshly laid. Stewards in white coats were offering drinks when Creer arrived. He glanced at Tanner, then moved on. He had his favourites – Ivo Macdonald, the D Company commander for one, and especially Captain Masters, the battalion intelligence officer. All smiles, all charm, a gentle pat on the shoulder for Masters. Tanner sipped his tea. Bastard.
The Devil's Pact (2013) Page 9
