by Thomas Wood
Keeping us informed was all part of their job, and we couldn’t knock him for doing that. But he kept up with the infuriating smile and the stupid thumbs up all the way there. Whether he was doing it to keep our spirits up or as a nervous excitement took control of his thoughts, I did not know. All I knew that he was achieving was an irritating continuity.
It was freezing up here, even with what felt like fifty layers of clothes on, the biting chill still seemed to make its way through the fibres to impress itself upon my skin. I pressed the palms of my hands into my eyes for the hundredth time that night, letting the cold flesh relieve the stinging sensation in my eyes. It felt good momentarily, but soon the stinging was back to its annoying ways.
My hand brushed over my chest as I let it fall and I suddenly remembered the small glass bottle that was perching in the inside pocket of my smock. The Denison smock that we had been issued sat over the top of the majority of my webbing and equipment, in an attempt to make sure nothing snagged on my way out of the Horsa. The pilots had the same one on and so would Harry. Hopefully it would do its job if his plane was hit and he needed to get out in a hurry. I couldn’t think of anything worse than going down with a burning aircraft all because one strap had wedged itself in a crevice of the plane somewhere.
I would keep it on for as long as possible, and then, when I had the chance, put my webbing on over the top of it. It was important to keep all items of clothing if you could, you never knew when you might be sleeping under the stars and have the need for a windproof piece of equipment. I guessed that most of the next few nights would be spent outside somewhere, and didn’t want to risk it.
I pulled the zip that ran from the top of the smock to just below my breast bone and rummaged around inside until I felt my cold fingers wrap around the chilled glass of the bottle. The bottle of whiskey that Staff Sergeant Chambers had ‘acquired’ for me was open now, but not yet half drunk.
It was American, and Chambers assured me that it was some of the highest quality stuff that he could have got his hands on. Either Chambers was rubbish at his job, or the Americans liked the feeling of having their insides burned with petrol. It was strong stuff. I had been into whiskey ever since I had joined the army as a teenager.
The Americans stationed near us had laughed until they cried when they watched me take my first sip. It was the first drop of strong alcohol that I had had in a while, there was hardly any of the stuff in Britain until the Yanks began bringing it over by the crateful for their GIs.
“You lightweight Limeys!” They had raucously screamed as we passed it round. At first, I felt a bit offended, silly even. But then I found myself laughing with them, not polite little British chuckles, but full on belly laughs, snorts and all.
They were good lads, the Americans, they were all switched on and knew how to have a good time as well. They would be on their way to their objectives too now. Some waiting in the channel with the Brits and Canadians, others forming up in aircraft over Southern England. I hoped that their casualty rate wasn’t going to be too high. It was a long way home for them.
I held the bottle up in the air, trying to catch it in the glint of the moonlight that tried to squeeze its way down the fuselage from the cockpit. Finally, I managed to just catch a glimpse at the liquid. I shook the bottle from side to side and watched as its maple coloured fluid sloshed around, in a tidal wave before settling back down again.
“Here!” I shouted, offering to Sapper Beck, the bloke sat to my immediate left. Duly he took it, and I sank back, resting my back on the wooden fuselage once more as it was passed around. I hoped that it would give them a feeling of reassurance, if not a little bit of liquid courage.
As I plonked my head on the fuselage, I thought of Staff Sergeant Chambers once more. I wondered where in the world he was tonight. He must have been part of the invasion force, so Europe, somewhere. I didn’t really know how far reaching this operation was, or how many men were involved.
I was certain though that he must be up in the air tonight, acting as the eyes for his pilot, plotting their position continually, much like the co-pilot was doing in my glider. Manning would be scanning the horizon, looking for whatever their target was, before diving into a banking circuit, trying to bring his aircraft down as safely as possible.
My pilot had normally sat in the left-hand seat, the co-pilot on the right. But tonight, they had swapped sides. They had realised that during all the training flights the main motion had been to bank right, so it would make more sense if he occupied the right seat. I just hoped that we were released at exactly the right place, otherwise a whole heap of blind left-hand banks were heading my way.
I found myself muttering under my breath, quiet enough so that the noise of the night drowned it out, but loud enough for me to know it was happening.
“Bring those boys home safe, please…just get them home.” I wasn’t sure who I was talking to or why I was asking that they, and not my own pilots, were getting home safe. As soon as I had discovered myself saying it, I made a conscious decision to stop it.
I didn’t want any of my boys thinking that I had gone mad, not immediately before we were landing anyway. I didn’t want them to think that they could undermine me on the battlefield. I may have been older than them, slower, but I knew what I was doing, I was far more experienced. They needed to know, or think anyway, that I was in the best condition possible, mentally and physically.
The bottle was passed back to me and I quickly smuggled it back into my smock, ripping the zip back up as far as it would go.
Who had I been talking to just then? The Germans? Was I really pleading with them to spare these two men just so that I could feel better about myself? God? I wasn’t even sure if I did believe, but that would seem to be the most normal explanation for my outburst. Was I begging with myself? Was I just doing it so that I could put my mind at ease that I was trying to help as many of these young boys to get home, even if it was futile begging?
I decided to chuck it all out of my mind, immediately. Even if I didn’t believe in a God, I found myself praying to Him that they, and Harry, would make it back okay. I didn’t know why, but my brush with him moments before had comforted me; I needed them back safe.
Besides, I was going to need a new bottle of whiskey soon.
15
The irritating grin and stupid thumbs up was back again as the pilot turned into the fuselage fleetingly once more.
“We’ve just crossed the coast!” This bloke was winding me up more and more by the second. It was as if the anger that had been stored up in me for so long was slowly bubbling its way back up to the surface, and if he threatened to do the grin and thumb routine one more time, I would spill over. And I much preferred the idea of bubbling over at an enemy soldier, rather than one of my own.
“What’s he got to be all smiley about?” Shouted Willis, sitting across from me. His voice was smooth, quite high pitched, like he was still waiting for his voice to break properly. He probably was. His voice didn’t fit his body and stature at all well. He was muscly and very well built, and had been a professional rugby player up in the Midlands somewhere. He was a positive sort of bloke and one that I would have liked to have had in my company after this operation. He was in the Engineers though, and although we worked together a lot, he would never officially be one of ‘my boys’.
“Perhaps he’s got wind!” Willis found the joke much funnier than I planned and he guffawed almost as loud as the Albemarle engines in front. Perhaps it was all the nerves that had made me seem like the best comedian he had ever heard.
“Yeah, well,” he continued, after he had calmed down and wiped the tears from his eyes, “if he puts his thumb up like that again…well, you know where it’ll be going after that.”
He threw his head back again in laughter as he looked around at the others for approval for his latest gag. A smattering of chuckles and smirks peered back at him, clearly not the response he was going for because the smile quick
ly disappeared from his face and he skulked in his position.
I was about to lose my rag as the pilot’s head reappeared in the fuselage. But this time there was no smiles, no thumbs up. This time he didn’t have good news.
“Standby, lads. Searchlights ahead!” We all took that as a signal to readjust ourselves on our benches, and I felt my buttocks numb as I tried to reintroduce the blood supply into them. I leant forward and tried to peer out of the cockpit windshield. There was nothing but darkness from what I could see, apart from the faint glisten of the moon which made the clouds an eerie, wispy, almost magical white colour.
Suddenly, two streams of light, swept over our path in front of us. I cannoned backwards into the fuselage, as if I was trying to hide myself from its deadly clutches. I realised there was nothing I could do, apart from watch.
The two streams crossed over each other, making an elongated ‘X’ shape, before parting, scanning the rest of the skies. I began panicking, how had they known to switch the lights on, surely, they wouldn’t have been put on every night or they would just alert our bombers to where they were? Were they somehow expecting us?
Had they installed more ack-ack guns because they had somehow found out about our airborne operation? I suddenly found myself feeling guilty, and began retracing my steps over the last few days, weeks even, to see if I had let anything slip to someone I shouldn’t have. We’d barely been allowed off the base for weeks, so surely there was no danger from someone like me?
As I began to convince myself that I, and the majority of my boys must have been in the clear, a burst of light shot through the front of the Horsa.
I heard the pilot scream something but couldn’t quite make out what he had said. I imagined he wasn’t smiling and he wouldn’t be putting his thumb up soon however.
The darkness of night had been quickly replaced with the brightness of day and it took a while for my eyes to readjust to the sudden brightness. I almost felt my pupils constricting as they fought to retain some control over my eyesight, the stinging sensitivity in my eyes taking longer to die down than usual.
I wondered what we had looked like to the Germans. Were we like a rabbit who looked at his prey, pleading for mercy? I hoped that’s what we looked like. I found myself praying again that the Germans couldn’t see the tow rope from up here, otherwise they would know for sure that we were an invasion force. If that happened, every man and his dog would be tooled up to his teeth in anticipation of our arrival.
As I felt the searchlight pass under the belly of the aircraft, I hoped that it wasn’t producing a giant crosshair from which my limbs could be plucked from my body.
The bomber boys that I had become friendly with over the last few years had told me of their petrifying fear of searchlights. They more or less guaranteed that if a searchlight caught you in its gaze, then it was game over for you and your crew.
I tried to distract my thoughts from what I had convinced myself was inevitable and set about checking out each of the passengers in this glider. I quickly scanned each of their faces to see if there was anything that I was going to need to deal with soon. I checked for tears or trembling lips, madman-like murmurs or screaming. But there was none. Each of them sat completely still, radiating confidence and pride. Their body language seemed to suggest that each of them was in acceptance of what was about to happen, and that they were proud that they had made it this far.
One man had whipped out his lighter and, instead of using it to light a cigarette, set about to open it up, flick it on, before extinguishing it and starting again.
Flick. Click. Ting. Flick. Click. Ting.
After I’d scanned their faces, I began skimming through them again, this time making sure I looked right into their eyes. The searchlights seemed to act as a beacon for looking straight into their mind, into their soul. Each one of them was petrified about what was going to happen. None of them wanted to die, they weren’t ready yet.
Willis seemed to express a disappointment at the fact that he might die without even being able to give it a go, to have one suicidal charge towards the enemy. His eyes burned with a desire to go down fighting, darting between the front of the aircraft and the door of it. I felt myself shuffling over slightly, ready to tackle him to the ground as he made for the door to throw himself out of it. I knew he wouldn’t do it, the rational side of my brain told me that, but there was something disconcerting in those eyes, discomforting, that gave me the feeling he would do something rash if that searchlight didn’t lose us immediately.
Flick. Click. Ting.
Looking at them wasn’t helping me. I needed to do something so that I felt in control. So, I did the only thing that I could think of doing. I checked my kit once more, while I still had some light. I had checked hundreds of times already while we had been in the air, but doing it with a new-found source of light seemed to add a legitimacy to my actions.
I pulled the bolt back again on my rifle, and I held it up into the gaze of the searchlight. I hadn’t touched it since we’d left England, so I knew that there would be nothing in there. I pushed my finger into the breech and let it slide around a bit. I needed to make sure it was all oiled up and wouldn’t jam when I needed it the most.
Confident that it would do its duty if and when it was asked, I set about scanning faces once again. The light from the searchlight was still acting as an X-Ray directly to the soul and I spent a few moments more evaluating the eyes of each of the men that sat in the back of that Horsa.
Becoming aware of what my own eyes looked like, I shut them, pushing the cool palms of my hands into them once again trying to relieve them. I had smudged my cam cream all over my hands and I hoped that it wasn’t beginning to wear off my face, especially as a layer of sweat now threatened to wipe it away as well.
Flick. Click. Ting.
“Knock it off will ya? You’re doing my head in with that stupid thing.”
The nervous flicking quickly ceased.
I sat bolt upright, and opened my eyes wider than ever. I hoped that if any of the boys were doing the same as me, that they might see me, and take confidence from me. It didn’t come naturally to my personality, but it was something that I had learned over my time in the army, especially as an NCO. Younger soldiers always look up to the most experienced soldier. Even if they were meant to look at their officer, they would check to see if their more experienced NCO was doing it first, and only then, would they would follow.
I hoped that by giving off an air of serenity and confidence, that they would be able to face the inevitable ack-ack with some dignity. I found myself, for the second time in a matter of minutes, feeling like a madman, as I began chuckling, to no one but myself.
The small skull and cross bones, that had been stitched into our smocks to show we were part of the glider force, had begun to unpick itself from Willis’ smock. One of the crossed bones was flapping around his chest, and managed to turn back on itself, making it look as though the skull was smiling across at me.
Quickly, I subdued my sniggering. I had to give off the impression that I was alright. Trying to distract my mind, I felt as if my thoughts had been hijacked as I unwillingly began to think of home. My wife sauntered into my mind.
16
My Darling wife,
This is a letter I have written before and soon after sealing it, it is never to be opened saved only for you, my dear. It is one that I hope that you shall never open as it means that I am no longer roaming this earth.
It seems futile to tell you not to mourn, for I know that you will, at least I hope you do!
It also seems futile to let this letter go on for too long, as I do not want it to cause you any unnecessary harm or discomfort.
Just know this, I have no regrets. Apart from the fact that I have left you behind. I am sorry that most of my life has been given to the army but I hope you know that my life was lived for you.
Look after my old folks, would you? I worry about them ever so much and it will h
elp me rest easy knowing they’ve got you.
Give the kids a kiss goodnight from me. And when they give you one back, know that that is from me.
All my love,
Norm.
17
I wasn’t sure why I had thought of the letter to my wife, I never usually thought about the contents of it and how it would affect her, but tonight it was different. I hoped that I had said the right thing and what was written in it might have been some comfort to her. I couldn’t even remember exactly what I had put in it now. Each one I had written was completely different.
The first few were jovial, upbeat letters and I joked about how unlucky I had been to have died, but at least I had died doing what I wanted to do, to serve my country. The next couple had changed, especially after I had been promoted, I had people looking up to me now, responsibilities. But this was the first one I had written since France. This was the first one I had written now that I had the twins.
I hoped that it came across apologetic, it wasn’t that I wanted to shirk away from my parental responsibilities, but I had my military responsibilities, my moral ones to fulfil first. I hoped she saw that in the letter.
I wondered about what Harry had put in his letter. He had said that he hadn’t written one, but I knew he would have snuck off at some point to write it. Maybe he had it with him and he had written it in the back of the Dakota. It was possible.
He wouldn’t have written to a girlfriend, as far as I knew he didn’t have one, and because of that I could tell it wouldn’t be addressed to some girl he had just met. His mother had already met her demise, which left only his VC-winning father.
It would more than likely be a letter of uplifting jokes and self-mocking, most of the younger one’s letters always were. They had an incredible naivety about them, one that I wished I still had. He would have ignored his Dad’s experiences, especially his VC, because this was his moment. No one likes to admit they’re going to die, especially the young lads who had never before thought about it. But their letters were all about them, not out of selfishness, but out of pity for their family, they were more often than not letters of reassurance that they felt no pain now and that they would watch over them for the rest of their lives.
