by Thomas Wood
Charlie was naturally a self-confessed introvert, forced out of his shell by his natural capability as a glider pilot. He frequently locked himself in his own mind, quite content with his own thoughts and on more than one occasion I was convinced that new and completely different worlds were constructed in that head of his. Worlds that no one else was allowed to see. We could only guess at what he was thinking and, even then, we’d probably be miles off.
An element of doubt began creeping into my mind. Why had he stuck with me? Maybe it was out of a sense of duty, and to make things less awkward for himself. Maybe he felt like he needed to keep an eye on me, making sure I was always ready to disconnect myself from a heavy bomber, and fall to the earth, safely. Or maybe it was a genuine friendship that we possessed.
The target was now over to my right, over the other side of our wreckage, the moon beating down upon the surrounding area. I was a sniper’s dream target; lit up, motionless, vulnerable.
At the thought, I thrust myself against the body of the Horsa, as if its frail, wooden frame would offer me some sort of protection when a bullet zipped through the structure.
My breathing was laboured and loud enough to be heard from miles away. I absorbed air desperately through my nose and it faltered as I expelled it back into the night. My throat wheezed pathetically as I struggled to maintain a decent level of oxygen in my lungs.
With every breath, I made so much noise I may as well have been launching pots and pans at the bridge, singing the national anthem.
Charlie could hear my wavering breathing.
“Johnny, come on,” he violently rasped.
Water streamed down from my eyes as I fought with my own mind to help my best friend, I was failing myself, but more importantly right now, I was failing him. This isn’t what he had wanted, he wanted someone who he could rely on, someone he could trust. He’d made that perfectly clear while we were training. He was a fun character, always up for a laugh or a mess about, but he always had a painfully serious side, always stopping short of taking it too far, something I regularly failed in. Maybe that’s where ‘Grandad’ had come from.
My strenuous breaths were interrupted by a desperate plea.
“Please mate,” he uttered calmly, a tone of complete resignation in his voice. It pierced my soul. The sound of a man begging to be helped is something that I would never forget. I didn’t like it when he spoke like that, he had the air of a severely disappointed parent, the kind of tone when a young child lets down their parent in front of the local vicar, by announcing how he had learnt his new swear word at the age of seven. Thirteen years had passed by now and my mum still went scarlet red at the very mention of that anecdote.
I rubbed my sweating palms over my face as I tried in earnest to pull myself together, I was letting my mind wander, something I knew I shouldn’t do, it would get me killed. I was panicking, and I wasn’t even in action yet. I began to let my sweat soaked hands slide down my oily face.
The vision that flashed across my eyes as I closed them, forced them wide open again immediately.
Even when I was a young boy, I knew that my dad was different to the way he should have been born, but it wasn’t until I was older that I came to learn what it was that made him different. I had never known my father with normal skin, in fact I had only ever seen it once or twice.
The skin around my father’s back looked tender and fragile, like a thin piece of paper stretched out after being tightly scrunched into a ball. I was mesmerised by the incredible craters that flooded his back, like a landscape of rolling hills, that unevenly bumped their way from top to bottom. The redness of his skin also surprised me. It had been years since it had happened but always looked just as raw as if it had happened ten minutes ago.
His pain, like the redness, never seemed to subside over time either. The grunts and grimaces that were felt around the house as ointment was massaged into the wound was a childhood memory, more like a normality, ingrained in the mind.
We all knew it was there, so why he tried to hide it from the family was beyond me.
I gave myself a mental slapping as I let my hands rub down my face and then down my chest to rid myself of a layer of clammy perspiration.
I didn’t want that for myself, I needed to be careful. But I also needed to help my best friend, he couldn’t lie there forever.
Cut away. Leave it, you have a job to do. Come on.
Psyching myself up with a rapid, sharp exhale, I pushed myself off the Horsa.
It was time to start fighting.
3
6th June 1944
00.18 hours
I staggered back to the door of the aircraft, which had been slid backwards ready to allow the stream of troops to disembark. It should have been a few feet from the ground, a small jump needed to hop out of it safely but, instead, it was at ground level, a few blades of grass poking up around the bottom edge.
The front wheel had broken off on impact, making us belly slide to a halt, seemingly in some bushes. I looked about foolishly for the wheel, as if finding it and mending it would make my situation somehow marginally better.
I suddenly became very thankful for the fact that there were no anti-glider poles in place. Charlie had become convinced that we would find one impaling us within seconds of hitting French soil, but, from what I could see, there were none. Just a hole here and there ready for them. They should have been in place by tonight, in fact, they should have had explosives rigged to them by now, ready to set off a chain reaction of explosions, finishing us off before we’d even begun. But there were none. I knew Charlie would be thanking God for that one later.
I hoisted myself back up into the main body of the plane and began sifting through the kit of the unconscious men. I checked pulses as I went.
They were all still alive, chins tucked firmly into their chests, just dozing. My eyes were fixed on them for a few moments, like a parent proudly staring at their sleeping children. A gut-wrenching guilt suddenly forced itself upon me, a guilt-ridden realisation that, within the next few minutes, we could all be dead.
Again, this would have been another scenario to add to my comedy of errors, had I not felt like I was completely isolated in enemy territory. Thirty soldiers were in the back of my aircraft, thirty elite soldiers at that, all specially trained in the mission that lay ahead. Instead of having these thirty, heavily armed men standing by my side, I found myself scavenging through their kit in order to free just one other man.
I thrust my hand into one of the bags tucked under a pair of raised legs, as they rested themselves on the opposite bench. Feeling the cold metal of wire cutters, with a sense of relief and accomplishment, I began to withdraw my hand from the bag, I allowed myself a quick exhale of breath which manifested itself as a slight chuckle. Surprised at myself, I quickly put a stop to it.
My throat suddenly constricted as I felt something clamp tightly to it and the unmistakeable feeling of a barrel thrust deep into my gut, a snarling, blackened face staring back at me.
“Friendly, friendly,” I moaned in between restricted attempts to breathe. My Adam’s apple bobbed up and down rapidly in his hand as I fought earnestly to swallow, a surge of vomit fighting just as hard to find its way out.
The glaring white eyes didn’t show any forgiveness; confidence and hatred oozing out of them. His grip tightened around my neck, the barrel digging further into my belly. I felt my skin redden as I resisted the urge to close my eyes and conserve my energy. The hand felt large, large enough to almost make its way right around my neck. It was clammy, I could feel the beads of sweat forming on the surface and seeping into my neck.
I waited for an explosion of pain as a copper bullet punched its way through the barrier of my skin before wreaking havoc in my internal organs, smashing everything into oblivion, no distinction between vital organs and the plinth of wood that it would catapult itself into, on the other side.
I waited for the grip to tighten on me as I lost pint after
pint of blood, my killer squeezing every ounce of scarlet liquid from the jerking figure in front of him. My blood would inevitably cascade over the deck of the aircraft, soaking itself into the wooden floorboards that had carried these men into France. My brain began throbbing so hard it felt like it could burst out of my skull at any moment, like a balloon as it began to overinflate before the impending explosion. I could sense my eyes bulging as I began to lose my fight. I waited for the sadistic smile that would send me off from this world and into the next.
I began to experience real fear, like the petrifying fear of finding yourself stranded as a child, without your parents. All my senses were telling me to scream, to let out a shriek that would alert someone of my situation. Even if it was a German. But I couldn’t. The oversized hand crushed my voice box, and nothing more than a desperate grunt would come out.
The incredible darkness that I had experienced till this point grew darker still as I began to feel my eyes begin to give in to my attacker.
I was beginning to die.
It was in the back of that Horsa that I began to think about dying. I wondered about the immediate aftermath of my death. Who would find me? Would my killer show any remorse when he discovered who I was?
“Pilot…” I choked, “…Chambers.”
I thought of my family. Would I be listed as just another casualty of war? Would they ever find out? I thought of their happy, smiling faces, all staring at me one by one, as they waved me off to war.
I was beginning to accept death.
My body was in the early stages of shutting down and my mind was allowing me to give in. I desperately needed to fight back.
My hand was still firmly placed on the wire cutters, and I tried valiantly to bring them up and out of the bag, in an attempt to bring it crashing down on the skull of my opponent. As my arm retreated from the bag I felt my grip loosen and the cutters clattered to the ground with a humiliating thud.
I tried once more, “John…John Chambers…”
I didn’t think he could hear me, and even if he could hear me, would it register over the anger and malice racing through his body?
Suddenly, his grip released, and the barrel withdrew, causing me to crumple in a heap on the deck, like a discarded piece of food, a glum thump emanating around the cabin.
I thought I heard him apologise, but I was too busy clutching my neck and fighting for oxygen to care. At first, I didn’t think I’d ever be able to repay the debt to my lungs, he had clamped down on my throat with such ferocity that I could never imagine my airways fully opening up again. I was surprised at how quickly I was able to suck air in and out again like a normal human being.
As the stars began to fade away from my vision and I gained my senses back, a sudden burning rage overcame me and the intense desire for revenge almost overwhelmed me. Picking myself up, my boots thumped hard on the deck as I made my way over to him. Hearing me coming, he spun round, and immediately I sunk back into myself. The Captain.
In the space of sixty seconds, I went from being bent on revenge, to helping my attacker to assemble his stricken men. Groans and expressions of annoyance became more frequent as slowly, the men began to regain consciousness. Some took longer to come around than others, it was just as well we had a job to do, I had seen how merciless some of these lads could have been when another had been passed out, usually on the way back from another unsanctioned drinking session.
I looked around in relief. I wasn’t alone anymore.
The headache intensified as I recovered from my throttling, my vision almost returning to normal now. My hearing too, had returned, the subdued noises of the world now sounded with clarity. An unexpected benefit of being strangled to within an inch of your life. I could now make out the rich, clear sounds of the world, something I would rather have not had right now. The groans and clinks that resounded were loud, loud enough to be heard by an enemy sentry. We’d need to get going, and fast.
I headed towards the door of the Horsa behind a small paratrooper, I was a good head and shoulders taller than him, and I felt like patting him on the head like a child as he hopped out. As I ducked through the doorway, I paused. I had accepted death. I had got a taste of the pure, terrifying fear of dying. The fear of dying without any of your family or loved ones close by. And yet, in that moment, I had wanted to die. I had accepted death as a positive experience, as one that I could look forward to. That scared me more than facing the German guns. The human mind seemed much more powerful in that moment than an enemy bullet.
I made my way back to Charlie and began clipping away at the wires with the heavy, cumbersome cutters, before flinging the loose pieces over my shoulder.
The men took their focus away from cocking their weapons and checking other pieces of their kit for a moment. They hoisted Charlie up as I pulled the last bits of wire from his leg, a satisfying twang resounding across the field with each piece. We all stood like statues, as each of them listened for the tell-tale sign of a sentry alerting the garrison. Everyone held their breath in unison with one another, listening as one body. I had done my fair share of listening out already. It was comforting to know I had more ears this time to help me.
Charlie’s blood fused with my own, the fresh blood trickling down my arm as the obstruction was removed, glinting in the moonlight as the warm liquid dribbled to the floor.
I dropped the wire cutters to the ground, thumping a small hole into the French countryside, and stretched my hands as they began to cramp up from the intense grip I had subjected them to.
My arms ached from stretching up to untangle Charlie and I swung them up trying to reintroduce blood to them, it was more than likely I would need to use them again soon.
Charlie was laid out flat on his back, before the medic left his duties as a concussion expert and began attending to Charlie’s wounds.
We all stood in observation for a moment as Charlie winced while the Doc painfully cleaned each of his wounds with a soft, dabbing motion. His brown, curling hair just poked out from under the rim of his helmet as he squirmed in discomfort while his wounds were sterilised. He began to calm down as some pressure was applied to his wounds and bandages were wrapped tight around him. He even chanced a flash of a smile, he was okay.
The thick layer of sweat was beginning to stick to his face as he got cockier by thrusting his thumb in the air.
“Probably just Grandad’s arthritis playing up again,” got a chuckle out of a few of us. Charlie retaliated with a few, hushed, character mocking phrases of his own, until the Doc pressed down far too hard on one injury, making Charlie’s face return to a mess of screwed up flesh and agonising grunts. I would always wonder if the Doc had done that deliberately, punishing Charlie for being far too confident in that brief moment.
Moonlit faces all glared down at Charlie as we began to block the Doc’s light. Ushering us away, we began to disperse slightly and give them a bit more room to work with.
It wasn’t until he swung his Sten off his shoulder and hoisted it in front of his waist, pointing it like he was about to mow us all down, that Captain Jenner gave us all a reminder of where we were. His hands, covered in camo paint like the rest of his skin, was threatening to give the game away as they burned a bright red, a side effect, I told myself, of his near murder of the best co-pilot in the regiment.
“Let’s go chaps.”
He was an unusual character. He took the officer’s view of ‘them’ and ‘us’ very seriously indeed. No one knew a thing about him. Rumours, as they so often do amongst bored soldiers, flew wildly around that he was married, still only at school when the war broke out and one or two about his serial killings. They were all conjecture, and no one dared ask him any questions about his personal life, even if we were all desperate to know where he’d put the bodies.
When he wasn’t wearing his headdress or helmet, his curly locks clung closely to his scalp, as if he was wearing some sort of hair net and his eyes moved in the way someone else would move the
ir lips to convey their emotions. If he was in an aggressive, bad mood, his eyes widened, to the point where they looked as if they would burst. On the other hand, if he smiled, his eyes creased and folded up to the point where they were almost useless.
He rarely smiled though.
He possessed a curious figure, tall and wiry, young, yet far too serious, but not one of us would deny the fact that he was an excellent leader. He kept his distance from us - that much is true - but he would be the first one to volunteer us for extra nights in the field, time he took to take special attention over each of us, spending hours at a time giving company to a sentry, quietly asking probing questions, carefully pondering the answers as he built up individual profiles in his head. I often queried myself as to whether he did this out of a genuine desire to know more about us, or whether he did it to make sure that his sentries stayed awake for the full term of their duty. Either way, he knew full well that the harder we worked, the better trained we were. And, in turn, the better trained we were, the more effective the soldier that he commanded.
More importantly though, as some of the other, more experienced troops pointed out, he was level headed. Something everyone knew would be invaluable once we were in combat. We had all fired live weapons in training, but the thought of someone lining up their sights and firing at me was a completely different story. Level headed was not the response that I was expecting from myself. I needed men like the Captain by my side.
Captain Jenner’s understated battle cry was all we needed to prompt us back into being soldiers. I picked up my Sten, clunked a magazine into the well, and cocked the handle.
