The Bridge

by Robert Radcliffe

  Silence falls.

  Adenauer steps forward. ‘A few words would be appropriate.’

  ‘Erik!’ I nudge. ‘Your German’s better.’

  ‘Oh, ah, yes.’ Erik stutters. ‘Yes, well, indeed, we are very, honoured, to receive these, ah, historic and important artefacts. And we wish all the people of Ulm a safe and, er, orderly transition from war to peace. Thank you.’

  We turn for our seats.

  ‘Can you say a little about that?’

  ‘Pardon?’

  Adenauer beckons us back. ‘There is much uncertainty. Can you say how you will be managing the handover of power to the Allies when they arrive? And also perhaps outline the interim arrangements for services, supplies and so on.’

  No we can’t, and suddenly I realize what’s going on. With the city on its knees, its people starving and the enemy at the gates, the city elders, such as they are, are collectively washing their hands of civic responsibility, and passing the buck to us, who have no more comfort to offer than they do.

  ‘Now just a minute…’

  ‘What about food!’ someone calls from the pews.

  ‘Where’s the Red Cross?’

  ‘When’s the water coming on?’

  ‘Yes, and how will you protect us when the Russians arrive!’

  This last raises a murmur of alarm and soon everyone’s shouting.

  ‘Protect us! Food and water! Law and order!’

  ‘Stop!’ We raise our hands. ‘Stop please!’ The elders too are calling for calm but the clamour’s steadily rising. ‘Be calm, please sit down!’ Then I hear a familiar voice.

  ‘Tell us, Gar-lant!’

  A slight pause in the clamour. Somewhere across the nave a figure is on his feet. ‘Yes, you! Captain Gar-lant! Tell us precisely how you will protect the people from rioting Allies bent on bloody revenge and reprisal!’

  And off they all go again, louder than ever. The noise is atrocious, the anger growing. Erik and I exchange panicked stares, and I’m on the point of considering a hasty exit by a side door when suddenly the main doors bang open at the far end and sunlight floods in.

  ‘Hullo!’ a voice bellows in English, ‘I said HULLO!’

  He looks like a gunslinger in a western movie. Framed in the huge doorway in his scruffy clothes and boots, his pistol on his hip, ammo belts crossed across his chest, he strides inside, staring left and right.

  A respectful hush falls.

  ‘Who’s the senior person here!’

  About ten people, including Erik, point at me. ‘Him!’

  ‘You?’

  ‘Well, yes, me, I suppose.’

  ‘And you are?’

  ‘Garland.’ I stumble to attention. ‘Captain Dan Garland. The Parachute Regiment.’

  ‘You’re a Brit?’

  I nod, and then by God he’s saluting me!

  ‘Well, Captain, I’m Lieutenant Bill Phelps, Recon Company, 324th Battalion US 44th Infantry Division.’

  ‘Recon… um, 324th… Infantry…’

  ‘And you, buddy, may consider yourself liberated!’

  CHAPTER 12

  By the time he reached Lisieux, climbing painfully from the farmer’s van some four hours after the Spitfire attack, Theo knew the Fall Grün plan was dying in the water. The field marshal was critically injured and might not survive. Yet only he could enact the plan. Rundstedt hadn’t the courage, and no field commander would act alone. In short, with no Rommel there was no Fall Grün. And time was running out.

  He wandered into the same dressing station he’d visited with Brandt. It was busier than ever, every inch of the hotel now crammed with injured men. Spotting his captain’s uniform an orderly gave him aspirin, examined his arm and asked him to wait. But after ten minutes slumped restlessly against a wall he rose and left, limping outside into the gathering dusk. Men roamed everywhere, and military vehicles sped in all directions; eventually a Kübelwagen full of drunken officers offered him a lift. ‘346th?’ They joked, ‘Christ, what do you want to go there for?’

  They dropped him in the woods near the burned-out armoured column. It remained exactly as he’d seen it days earlier, eerily still in the darkness. Only the bodies had moved, and were buried at the roadside, all except the one in the tree, with the bare feet and arm that waved macabrely in the breeze. He left it behind, walking on towards a horizon lit by artillery flashes and drifting star shells, and some time later, with the sound of gunfire nearing, he reached the abandoned command post, still occupied by the forgotten troop of pioneer reserves.

  ‘Where’s Lieutenant Schäfer?’

  ‘Who’s Lieutenant Schäfer?’ they replied blankly.

  He moved on through the trees, hugging his broken chest, and as he did so the gunfire and flashes fell silent, as if on a signal, so that all he could hear suddenly were his feet in the undergrowth and his own pained gasps. Then he came to the edge of the woods, and the tree where Schäfer had stood. Below him the grey meadow led down to the shadowy hump of the bridge; beyond it the outline of Troarn stood out in the darkness. Shrugging off his uniform jacket with difficulty he hung it on the tree; then unravelling his sling, he tied it to a stick and stepped from the woods into the open. No one saw him, no shots or shouting came as he trudged steadily down the slope, flag high, then up on to the bridge itself, still debris-strewn and cratered from battle. Then halfway across he heard the sliding of a rifle bolt.

  ‘That’s close enough, Fritz laddie.’

  ‘I’m not Fritz, I’m British.’

  ‘Bollocks. I just watched you come from their lines.’

  ‘I know. I escaped.’

  ‘Ha! Deserted, more like…’

  ‘You’re Scottish. 51st Highland Division. I fought with you in 1940. My name’s Trickey, I’m a Para, attached to 6th Airborne Division under General Gale. He’s based in Ranville, barely five miles from here. Arrest me, take me to his HQ and—’

  ‘Will you shut your fucking gob!’

  He was escorted to a CP in Troarn where he was searched and questioned by an intelligence officer from the Black Watch. With only his identity discs for proof, it was some time – and a radio call to Ranville – before his bona fides were finally verified. In the meantime a borrowed British battledress was found, and a medic stitched his scalp wound, bound his ribs and rebandaged his arm.

  ‘You only just got here in time.’

  ‘Why, what’s happening?’

  ‘We’re pulling back.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘Can’t say. And this arm will need to be reset properly.’

  ‘Can’t you get me to General Gale? It’s important.’

  They couldn’t, all troop movements were strictly controlled, and later he was withdrawn another mile to a dressing station in Bures. Here, semi-conscious from morphia and sleeplessness, he passed the remainder of the night tossing and turning in a tent full of wounded Scotsmen, until shortly before dawn when they were all shaken awake by the sound of approaching thunder.

  ‘What the hell’s that, Sarge?’

  ‘Sounds like engines. Hundreds of ’em.’

  ‘Aye, laddie, that’s the RA-bloody-F!’

  Minutes later the first bombs were falling, the prelude to Operation Goodwood, and more than a thousand bombers were raining high explosives on the German positions all along the front. Then the Allied guns were joining in, over seven hundred medium and heavy artillery, plus supporting fire from Royal Navy ships patrolling the coast. Lying in their canvas shelter a full two miles behind the lines, the effect was still shocking, and the noise deafening as shells screamed overhead and the ground shuddered as though in spasm.

  ‘I guess that’s why they pulled everyone back last night!’ one Scotsman shouted above the din. And as daylight emerged from night, the barrage could be heard beginning to move slowly forwards, as the massed troops of five infantry and armoured divisions followed in its wake – including the Highlanders.

  ‘There go the lads.’

 
; ‘Forward the 51st!’

  ‘Christ, I wish I was with them.’

  ‘No you don’t!’

  Gradually the sounds of battle moved away as Goodwood advanced. Theo fell back into exhausted slumber, roused at stages during the day to be fed and have his dressings changed. At some point a doctor came, reset his arm and swathed it in plaster of Paris. Later in the afternoon he rose stiffly from his bed and hobbled outside into hazy sunshine, there to sit beneath a tree like a sickly octogenarian. A few minutes later a Jeep roared up and Dennis Grant jumped out.

  ‘There you are at last! Been looking for you everywhere.’

  ‘Hello, Dennis.’

  ‘Bloody hell, what have you done now?’

  ‘It’s nothing. I was lucky.’

  ‘One day, Trickey, that luck of yours is going to run out!’ Grant shook his head. ‘And what’s happening is they’re sending us home.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Now. Today. By air no less, the full VIP treatment. Looks like we’re surplus to requirements!’

  ‘Then, Rommel’s plan…’

  ‘It’s over, Theo. Here, look, I’ve brought the rest of your kit.’ Grant helped him to his feet and over to the Jeep.

  ‘Was it ever, Dennis, you know, taken seriously? Fall Grün?’

  ‘We have to believe so, initially at least by some of the SHAEF people. But Rommel left it too late; his negotiating position was getting weaker by the hour. Also many doubted he really could deliver a ceasefire.’

  ‘He could. Everything was ready.’

  ‘I suppose we’ll never know. Come on, we’ve a plane to catch.’

  They were driven a few miles north to a temporary airfield ripped from French farmland by engineers in a hurry. From there they boarded a home-going Dakota laden with walking wounded. After an untroubled flight over the glittering waters of the Channel, in no time they were crossing the English coast, and gazing down on neatly hedged fields of ripening corn.

  ‘It all looks very peaceful,’ Theo murmured.

  ‘Don’t it just. How long since you left?’

  Operation Deadstick, the night of the D-Day landings, John Howard and the men of the Ox and Bucks. ‘Six weeks.’

  ‘Quite long enough.’

  ‘Clare’s in Germany.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘The Gestapo moved their prisoners out of France.’

  ‘To where?’

  ‘I don’t know. Special camps for captured agents.’

  ‘I’ll see what I can find out.’

  Theo turned to him. ‘And what do I do?’

  ‘You need to go home, Theo. I’m afraid I have sad news.’

  *

  Vic had died while Theo was in Normandy with Rommel. Although expected, his final passing had been sudden, so neither his wife and daughter nor ex-wife Carla were with him at the end. Arriving back at Kingston that night, Theo, having first been scolded by Eleni for his battered physical condition, and then fed leftovers omelette using her egg ration and powdered milk, was given all the details, learning that in accordance with directions left by Vic, the hospital had arranged his cremation at Acton crematorium, with the ashes forwarded to Theo’s address in Kingston – together with the bill. And instructions for a party.

  Theo reread the note. ‘What kind of party?’

  ‘Lor’ knows. Vic a bloody rascal all right, but he always know how to have damn good knees-up.’

  ‘Who would we invite?’

  Eleni shrugged. ‘Everyone. Vi and the little girl, you mama and Abercrumble. Vic still has a mother somewhere, I think, and a sister up Willesden Junction; maybe they know cousins and whatnot. You could ask some your friends from school too, be nice chance to catch up. We could do it here, you know, bring-a-bottle and that.’

  ‘Vic’s mother? You mean I have a grandmother I know nothing about?’

  ‘Think so, if she still alive.’

  She was, although long since remarried – Vic’s father had died when he was young. She arrived at Burton Street at noon the following Saturday, a prim, bustling old woman called Mrs Balsam, who studied Theo closely before sweeping inside with a muttered: ‘Nothing like him.’ Then there was a half-brother to Vic from Mrs Balsam’s second marriage, plus his family, then Vic’s sister Joan and her family including several cousins, Vi’s parents plus brother and sister, and even some of Vic’s former ‘business associates’ who seemed to materialize out of nowhere. ‘How did you know?’ he asked of one at the door. The man winked. ‘Jungle telegraph!’ Some of Eleni’s former lodgers came; then Nancy charged in, throwing herself at Theo with a delighted shriek, and the newlyweds Susanna and Albert Fitch plus several others from his grammar-school days. Carla arrived late, and looked ill at ease surrounded by her ex-husband’s relatives, but Nicholas Abercrombie proved an animated guest, cheerfully escorting her from one group to the next. Crates of beer and sherry bottles appeared, Eleni fussed about with sardine sandwiches and semolina cake, the mood became relaxed and noisy; meanwhile, Theo looked on in bemusement, hosting as best he could.

  Just one attendee arrived in uniform: Henry Winterbottom, Carla’s erstwhile suitor, standing awkwardly on the front step fingering his cap. ‘Sorry for intruding. Mrs Popodopoulos invited me.’

  ‘It’s quite all right. Won’t you come in?’

  ‘For a minute perhaps.’

  Quieter and thinner than of memory, with nervous hands and wary eyes, Winterbottom said he was now a company commander with the East Surreys 1st Battalion, and recently home from overseas.

  ‘Your neck of the woods, Theo. Italy. Monte Cassino, do you know it?’

  ‘No.’ But he knew of the fighting. Everyone did. ‘I heard it was hard.’

  ‘Yes. And long. Four months, on and off. We finally got pulled back in June.’

  ‘That’s a long time in the line.’

  ‘Yes, and all for some blasted monastery on a hill. Bloody mess, we lost many good men.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘No, I’m sorry.’ He stared around the room. ‘We did you an injustice, Theo. After what happened to you in France back in forty. The regiment did.’

  ‘The regiment?’

  ‘Well, me then. And the colonel. Discharging you like that. That’s why I’m here. To apologize.’

  ‘There’s no need.’

  ‘There is, now I know something of what you’ve been through.’ He produced an envelope. ‘And your father did serve with the regiment. Briefly. As a private in the first war. I found his record.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘It’s rather short.’ Winterbottom smiled. ‘And not terribly, you know, edifying.’

  ‘I can imagine.’

  ‘He certainly had a nose for trouble!’

  ‘Yes, he did. Speaking of which, have you met my mother’s new husband?’

  He handed him over to Abercrombie, busy entertaining Mrs Balsam, then went in search of Carla, who was in the kitchen quizzing one of Vic’s prison friends.

  ‘So you knew Victor was alive?’ she was saying.

  ‘Ah, well, yes, but, you see…’

  ‘And not dead in skiing accident.’

  ‘No. That’s to say…’

  ‘And yet you agree not to tell anyone.’

  ‘Well, he made us swear, didn’t he?’

  ‘His landlady for instance. Or even his wife.’

  ‘Er, yes, true, but—’

  ‘Excuse me.’ Theo smiled. ‘Mama, may I speak with you?’

  She allowed him to lead her aside. ‘Incredible,’ she muttered, ‘these crooks and liars, not one with the courage to speak honestly.’

  ‘No. Although we went over this with Father, in the hospital, remember?’

  She studied him. ‘Theodor dearest, you look so thin, and what happened with all these plaster and bandages!’

  ‘I was in a traffic accident, Mama. It’s nothing. Tell me, is everything well with you? How is Nicholas? And your work with PPS?’

  She shrugged. ‘All
is as well as possible. Nicholas is a fine man, generous and kind, I’m very lucky.’

  ‘I’m happy for you. And the Party?’

  ‘The Party’ – Carla sighed – ‘is like an adolescent child, Theo. It grows bigger every week, and stronger and louder and more argumentative. Conflicted too, and riven by inner turmoil.’

  ‘What turmoil?’

  Factions, she explained. Since the fall of Mussolini, South Tyrol now came under OZAF governance – the Operational Zone of the Alpine Foothills. Superficially part of his puppet administration, in reality OZAF was entirely controlled by the Germans, who knew South Tyrol’s strategic importance as a last line of defence. But not content with simply controlling the province, they also secretly wanted ownership of it, and so had begun reversing the Italianization programme instituted by Mussolini and Tolomei before the war.

  ‘But isn’t that good?’

  ‘Changing a few road signs to German? Allowing Ladin to be spoken? Swapping Italian flags for Nazi ones? It’s not independence, Theodor, it’s oppression – worse oppression than before, if you ask me. Though many of my colleagues disagree.’

  Partito Popolare Sudtirolese was split on the issue, she went on. Some in the party believed German rule was a significant improvement, others like Carla saw it as a backward step. Although one development was undoubtedly welcome.

  ‘Your grandfather is to be released, Theodor. As an inducement by the Germans, you know, sweeten the people by releasing Tolomei’s political prisoners.’

  ‘Grandpa Josef? But that’s marvellous! When?’

  ‘Soon. Any day.’

  ‘Will he come here?’

  ‘Ha! I doubt it. You know your grandfather, he’ll go straight back to Bolzano and make trouble!’

  ‘I expect he will.’ Theo nodded. ‘And what about you, Mama? Will you go back too? After the war. With Nicholas.’