‘What does he want?’
‘Our surrender. Says it’s hopeless, we’re surrounded, needless waste of lives, all that twaddle.’
‘I see.’ Frost gazed around, scratching absently at his moustache. Face stubbled, cheeks grimy, his jumping smock darkly stained with someone’s blood, he seemed to have aged ten years in three days. ‘Philip?’
‘Well. We are in a pickle and no question.’
‘Think we should call it quits?’
‘Absolutely not. I’m just thinking of the injured. It could be their best chance.’
‘Indeed. John?’
‘Fuck surrender, I say.’
‘What’s C Company got left?’
Ross shrugged. ‘Mortar, grenades, a few Gammons, one Vickers.’
‘Ammo?’
‘A handful for each.’
‘Men?’
‘Maybe fifty, plus the two subalterns, Ken Morrison and Dickie Spender.’
‘Hmm.’
‘Let them come, Colonel, they’ll no’ find it easy.’
‘I agree. Give Captain Hecht his answer.’
Though the slope was against them, the Germans were fresh, fit and organized. They were also numerically superior and plentifully armed. Delivered by vehicle around the hill, they hurried on to the lower slopes and swiftly set up firing positions, shooting, moving, covering each other, shooting again, ever forward, ever upward. Their weapons, mostly mortars and machine guns, were accurate and quick to reload. Assisted by smoke shells and artillery from below, they mounted Sidi Bou en masse, aiming to overwhelm the Paras by sheer numbers. Soon the sounds of small-arms fire was heard as pockets of fighting broke out. Theo, Charteris and the others of HQ Company made ready, closely watching the slopes below. In a while they glimpsed grey figures ascending, zigzagging painstakingly upward, seemingly unchallenged. Theo sighted his rifle over a boulder. It held eight bullets, with one magazine of ten left in his bag, together with two grenades. After that there was nothing. A single shot rang out. ‘Hold your fire!’ Charteris shouted. But it was a signal, and as they watched, men in smocks leaped from C Company’s positions and with blood-curdling yells fell on the enemy like animals. Furious fighting broke out, close quarters, hand-to-hand, with Scotsmen wielding clubs and daggers as well as rifles and bayonets, stabbing, bludgeoning, battering the attackers like men possessed. In seconds the Germans were wavering before the onslaught, then turning downhill to escape it. Moments more and they were in full flight, hotly pursued by screaming men hurling rocks and grenades.
The last Theo saw of the attack was a Scotsman flinging a spear. Then it was over, the Germans repulsed. Shooting died away around the hill, to be replaced by whistles and cheers, the triumphant hoot of the hunting horn, and the sight of red berets flying. Yet reprieve was temporary, all knew, and hard won, with many new casualties and the ammunition all but gone. Frost wasted no time, hurrying from position to position, redeploying his exhausted men and exhorting them to hold firm. C Company, despite its heroic stand, was virtually spent, B Company too was battered, and elsewhere on Sidi Bou Frost’s defences were weak. Many men he visited were out of ammunition, many more, crucially, out of water and suffering desperate thirst in the noon heat. Frost could do little but urge them to hold on.
The next assault came after an hour. This one was slower and more methodical in its build-up. Advancing behind a creeping artillery barrage and supported by heavy ground fire, the Germans stole upwards like a foul tide. Soon fighting was breaking out once more. Theo listened as it neared, trying to gauge direction. A flanking attack to avoid C Company seemed probable, he sensed. Ahead the ground sloped to a ridge, before dropping steeply away, offering cover to the attacker. Nearby Charteris watched through binoculars, while around him HQ Company waited, squinting nervously over their sights. Shots rang closer now. Theo breathed out, feeling a familiar stillness draw over him. Then he glimpsed movement, and a grey helmet appeared on the ridge; he sighted, the rifle kicked and the helmet vanished. More figures appeared, running in from the left, still more scrambling over the ridge, and suddenly HQ Company was under siege. Wild shooting broke out: grenades cracked, mortars thumped, a machine gun rattled. Figures in grey charged through the smoke. He found himself standing, shooting his rifle left and right. A German fell, then a second, shells burst, bullets slammed, grenades were falling everywhere. One clattered at his feet; he stooped and flung it back. Close-quarters fighting broke out, grey and khaki mingling, bayonets stabbing, rifles swinging like clubs, and still the enemy came, some running, some kneeling to shoot, some throwing grenades, two setting up a machine gun not twenty yards away. Charteris leaped up to charge it, shouting and waving his pistol, then stumbled suddenly sideways.
‘Euan!’ Theo scrambled after him.
‘I’m all right! Help me up!’ He staggered to his feet. ‘HQ Company forward!’ and they all charged. Chaos followed, everyone running, everyone yelling, Charteris, the medics, even the padre was charging. Theo too. His gun was empty; he threw his grenades, the air was exploding with noise and confusion. But the mad charge worked: the Germans became separated, began losing direction and momentum. They faltered, and drew back in confusion, while the men in smocks leaped after them, screaming with fury. A minute more and the attackers were turning, then fleeing headlong back down the hill to safety.
The third and final assault came at sunset. Following the second, the Germans held off, as though unsure how to proceed. But no one doubted they would try. An hour went by, two; the Paras licked their wounds, tended their injured, redistributed the last of their ammunition, food and water, and waited for the end to come. Nothing happened. The sun sank, the heat abated, still the Germans hesitated.
‘What are they waiting for?’
Charteris stared through his glasses. Gashed leg bandaged, he surveyed the hillside, now pockmarked with craters and littered with bodies and the wreckage of battle. Somewhere below was the remnants of C Company, although no word of them had been heard. Elsewhere the story was similar, with only A Company under Major Ashford reportedly intact. HQ had suffered losses, several killed and many injured, including the medical officer and the padre, his shoulder smashed by a bullet. Now he sat among the wounded, talking, comforting, patiently waiting his turn for medics with no water to clean his wounds, no disinfectant to treat them, and nothing to bind them with but bloody rags.
‘Plain as day,’ Charteris was saying. ‘All formed up and ready for the off. So what are they waiting for?’
Theo followed his gaze. ‘Sunset, do you think? More favourable light?’
Charteris grunted. ‘It’ll be dark before they know it.’
Theo shook his water canteen, then turned to study the clouds. ‘Maybe it’ll rain again,’ he mused. ‘We could certainly do with the water.’
‘I’d rather it rained 303 ammunition!’
‘What’s that noise?’ someone asked.
‘Tanks?’
‘No, too far.’
‘I don’t get it. What are they waiting for?’
Theo froze, still staring at the clouds. ‘Them! Stukas!’
They appeared from nowhere, six dive-bombers, falling from the sky like hawks, engines roaring, sirens screaming, plunging vertically; at the last moment they pulled up, levelled, and released their deadly loads.
On the wrong positions. Explosions lit the dusk, the sound rolling away like distant thunder, not on the hill but far below it. The Paras raised their heads, only to witness the impossible. Far beneath them, toy-like aeroplanes were banking round, climbing, circling, then diving again, pouring bombs and bullets on to the German positions. A third pass they made, then to complete the devastation four Messerschmitt fighters arrived and began a series of murderous strafing runs using machine guns and cannon. The noise made a crackling sound and their gun ports twinkled with sparks; the Paras could see tracer bullets arcing into the enemy, the Messerschmitts racing in at high speed and low level to kill their own people. Then suddenly
it was over, and the planes were flitting away into the sunset like swifts to the eaves. Silence descended, smoke and dust drifted, and through it flaming vehicles, wrecked tanks and scattered bodies appeared. Explosions still echoed over the valley as burning ammunition blew up, while thick coils of dark smoke rose, staining the evening sky with black.
*
A while later runners began moving among the Paras.
‘Jerry’s withdrawn,’ they repeated. ‘We descend in an hour, pull out through A Company and rendezvous at the Roman ruins one mile west. Silent order, light weapons only, the injured stay behind.’
And so 2nd Battalion came down from Sidi Bou. If German pickets saw or heard them, they gave no sign, nor made any attempt to stop them. As though the failed assaults and the final devastating attack from their own air force had knocked the stuffing from them. As though they couldn’t face any more fighting that day. So, section by section, the Paras descended through A Company’s positions and made their way to the rendezvous. HQ Company was last to leave, and before departing Theo paid a final visit to the padre, who had chosen to stay behind with the wounded.
‘Goodbye, sir, take care of that arm.’
‘Goodbye, old chap, and thanks for, you know... during the shelling.’
‘Yes.’ Theo peered round the darkened summit. About fifty casualties sat or lay there, shadowy humps like the boulders around them, while, poignantly to one side, the many dead were stretched out in unmoving silence.
‘Was it in vain, Trickey?’ The padre followed his gaze. ‘Is that what you’re wondering? Their sacrifice?’
‘I’m not sure it’s what they volunteered for.’
He and Euan Charteris waited until the last HQ stragglers had gone, then descended. Navigating by moonlight, and with Euan leaning on a stick, they made slow but steady progress, and were among the last to reach the rendezvous. There they reported to Colonel Frost, whom they found in heated discussion with Major Teichman.
‘How can they not be here?’ Teichman was saying. ‘Didn’t they get the order?’
‘As far as we know.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘It means as far as we know!’
‘Then where are they?’
‘Perhaps they were held up. Or took a different route.’
‘Or never got the order!’
‘Ross knows what he’s doing, he’ll work it out.’
‘No. I’m going back.’
‘You can’t...’
‘I’m not leaving them.’
‘Philip, listen...’
‘No! They were mine before they were yours.’
A while later Frost called the remaining officers together. ‘Major Teichman has gone back to find C Company,’ he told them in a voice that invited no comment. He then went on to explain that rather than make for Medjez as a single column, which would be glaringly obvious to the enemy, he proposed splitting into smaller units, each making its own way and aiming to rendezvous at night. All agreed it was a sound plan.
‘Furthermore,’ he continued, ‘I want to send someone ahead to make contact with 1st Army, with a view to bringing armed support and transportation.’
Euan’s hand shot up. ‘I’ll do it!’
‘But your leg’s injured.’
‘It’s nothing, a scratch, won’t slow us a bit, will it, Theo?’
And Theo found himself volunteering too, an offer Frost gratefully accepted, especially when Euan said Theo spoke Arabic. So with little further discussion, nor much planning it seemed, he and Euan loaded up with whatever food, water and ammunition they could find, hoisted it on to their backs and set off into the darkness.
They walked all night, slogging up hills and down vales, through sodden fields of plough criss-crossed with water-filled wadis and steep dykes. In no time they were soaked and exhausted, their boots huge with mud and their clothes rain-drenched. Furthermore, Euan’s leg grew troublesome, so Theo had to help him. Their navigation was not sound either: with a ragged overcast obscuring the stars, Euan kept turning them in different directions. Towards dawn, after an estimated ten miles’ trudging, they could go no further and began seeking shelter, eventually stumbling upon an abandoned farm.
‘That hut, look!’ Euan pointed. ‘Maybe there’s food, or straw for bedding and whatnot.’
‘No, Euan, wait!’
But he was hobbling to the door and pushing it open. And in a flash of white light the booby trap exploded, blowing the door off its hinge and flinging him ten feet backwards into the dirt. A wave of smoke and dust rolled over him. For a moment he just lay there, staring down at his shattered body, his blackened face a mask of surprise, then with an amazed laugh he fell back.
Theo rushed up. ‘Euan, can you hear me?’
His eyes were still wide. ‘Oops.’
‘Hold on. It’ll be all right.’
‘Did it again, didn’t I?’
‘Don’t talk. We’re fixing you up and getting out of here.’
He tried, but the damage was devastating, the front of Euan’s body torn open as though by a wild animal, the flesh shredded, the bones smashed. Theo mopped and dabbed as best he could, bathing his face, dribbling water between his lips, but with no field dressings, no sulphanilamide or morphia, and nothing to stem the bleeding, he could do little but hold him and murmur encouragement.
An hour passed. ‘Remember Bruneval?’ Euan whispered at one point.
‘Of course. You were terrific.’
‘Scared to bits. But it was a marvellous do, no?’
Theo nodded. ‘Yes it was.’ He’d managed to drag Euan into some bushes, but their position was precarious, and he’d been hearing the enemy: patrolling aircraft, a passing lorry, the rumble of distant artillery. Discovery was a matter of time. ‘A near thing, though, waiting for those boats.’
‘Better than this. For us Paras, I mean.’
‘Much better.’
Later Euan became restless, crying out in pain until Theo had to shush him like a baby. Then he complained of the cold, so Theo wrapped his own smock about him, watching helplessly as Euan’s blood soaked it through. At one point he heard a motorized column passing, and drew branches over them for camouflage. Finally, around noon, Euan’s eyes opened, and stared up at Theo with an expression of curious calm. Then he nodded and went limp. Theo sat with him a few minutes more; then, pulling him deeper into the undergrowth, he covered him with leaves and branches, collected his discs and emptied his pockets. As an afterthought he removed the leaves from Euan’s face, cleaned it again and laid his red beret over it. Then he rose and hurried away.
CHAPTER 5
Major Yale lowered the report, his expression sombre. For a minute or more he said nothing, eyeing the youth before him, one finger tapping his desk.
‘Quite a story.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘And you spent the next five days on the run, until being picked up by an American patrol, somewhere outside Quballat.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘And how long were you there?’
‘A week. Then they put me on a lorry back to their lines.’
‘At Oran.’
‘Yes.’
He flicked pages. ‘Where you had to wait a fortnight for transport back here.’
‘Yes.’
‘So you’ve been gone four weeks, give or take.’
‘Yes.’
‘And haven’t been back to Maison Carrée.’
‘I was told to report straight here.’
‘Quite right.’
‘But I’d like to get back to my battalion—’
‘In good time.’ Yale saw the youth’s shoulders sag. Beyond him the guttural chatter of Algerian tradesmen floated through the open window, together with the sounds of motor traffic, clopping carts and raucous children. The smell of cooking smoke and engine fumes wafted, while somewhere, incongruously, a radiogram played Christmas carols. It was January 1943, a month after the Depienne operation, and upon Yale�
��s desk lay two files, one on the operation, one on the youth. As he read the latter, he stole dubious glances at him. Delicate and pale, staring at the ceiling and nervously fingering his beret, this slightly built twenty-year-old did not match his paper profile. Smooth-skinned cheeks dusted with grime, hair tousled, wearing a badly soiled battledress with faded yellow lanyard, and that oversize smock thing with the dangling tail that the paratroops wore, he looked more like a schoolboy cadet than the Mediterranean bruiser he’d imagined. Unquestionably resourceful, Grant said in his notes, and something of a loner, Trickey’s loyalty appears beyond doubt. And as an asset to the Executive he is unique. But his motivation may never be understood, for it is as contradictory as the South Tyrol question itself. Indeed, Yale reflected, and how confusing. Even his name made no sense, Andreas Giuseppe Vittorio something, while Grant referred to him simply as Trickey. Which seemed apt. Yet the boy’s operational record was astonishing: 51st Highland Division in France, then 3 Commando, then 11 SAS, now 2 Para, mentioned in dispatches twice and no fewer than three special ops including the German radar raid in Normandy last year. And before that apparently he’d been training partisans in Italy. Not to mention surviving this Depienne débâcle. He swapped files and read again.
‘And Teichman actually said that to Frost?’ he asked. ‘They were mine before they were yours.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘What did he mean, d’you think?’
The boy shifted uneasily. ‘I, um, well, Major Teichman commanded C Company before Colonel Frost did. Before the Bruneval raid.’
‘So he felt responsible for it?’
‘I... suppose so.’
‘Was there friction between them about it?’
‘I don’t know. Not that I was aware of.’
Yale held the youth’s gaze, which seemed wary, and conflicted, haunted even. He should probe further, he sensed, but not now; other matters were pressing. Outside his street-level office two Algerians were beginning a noisy argument, while the baleful blare of ships’ horns signalled new arrivals in the harbour. Still reading, he wandered to the window and latched it shut.
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