The Bridge

by Robert Radcliffe

  ‘Sedjenane, that blasted road in Tunisia, in all that bloody rain. You went down with malaria. We looked after you, don’t you remember?’

  ‘You’re 16th Parachute Field Ambulance?’

  ‘Ronnie Gordon, at your service. We were at Primosole too.’

  ‘Yes, I remember.’

  ‘And now we’re here.’ Gordon glanced around. ‘Another cock-up.’

  16th PFA had landed on the first day, he recounted, advancing with Lathbury’s 1st Brigade as far as the hospital. Then the fighting began in earnest and the Germans drove everyone back, leaving Gordon and his team marooned.

  ‘We were busy with casualties so it made little difference. The hospital changed hands a few times – we had it, they had it, and so on. Now it’s theirs, probably for good. And they don’t take kindly to combatants sneaking about so you should clear off and quick.’

  ‘What about Division?’

  ‘God knows. Radio problems evidently. Rumours are all bad though. Apparently Urquhart’s starting to pull everyone back.’

  ‘Back where?’

  ‘A few miles west, some suburb towards the DZ.’ He hesitated. ‘Which rather leaves you chaps out on your own. Unless 30 Corps get there, and that seems unlikely.’

  ‘But 1st Battalion. And 3rd…’

  ‘I doubt they’ll be coming. In fact by all accounts they don’t exist as battalions any more, just bits and pieces scattered all over. We had a 1st Battalion major turn up here last night bringing a party of casualties. Company commander, he was, big chap name of Timothy.’

  ‘John Timothy, yes, I know him.’

  ‘He told me 1st Battalion got split up advancing on the bridge. He managed to keep his men together and moving forward, reckons they fought their way to within a thousand yards of you before being forced back. By that time he had less than fifty men left. 3rd Battalion fared even worse.’

  ‘Are you in touch with them? Division, I mean. Or anyone…’

  ‘Not for hours. The telephones were working, intermittently, and we keep trying on the radios. You never know.’

  ‘Could you pass them this?’ He produced a note. ‘If you do make contact. It’s from Colonel Frost – our location, situation, casualties and so on.’

  ‘Of course.’

  Gordon told him to wait in the storeroom until the coast was clear, but an hour later returned saying the streets outside were crawling with Germans. So he stayed, hunched on the floor, dozing when he could, listening to the muffled sounds of shooting and shelling outside. Nearer blasts set the stores rattling on their shelves. Gordon dropped by with occasional updates and what food he could spare, at one point a Dutch nurse in white uniform opened the door, collected supplies and left again without a word, but the hours passed and still Theo remained trapped. Finally, at sunset by his watch, a lull came in the shooting and he decided he must break out. As he opened the door a chink, Gordon reappeared with an orderly bearing a stretcher.

  ‘Climb on. We’ll carry you out.’

  ‘Where to?’

  ‘The mortuary. It’s round the back. After that you’re on your own, but I suggest you keep away from the street, follow the railway for a while then swing south and make for the bridge.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘My pleasure. Good luck, and tell Frost we’ll do our best to get his details to Division.’

  He lay down, they covered him like a corpse, and he felt himself borne up. Stairs followed. He tried to lie still, German voices echoed, then he was outside, smelling rain-soaked streets and the tang of smoke. Moments later he was running for cover.

  His Webley was unreachable, so too his fighting knife, but darkness and falling rain helped obscure his movements, and by keeping to the railway he made good time. Soon he was nearing 2nd Battalion’s perimeter. Which seemed to have shrunk.

  ‘Who goes there?’

  ‘It’s me, Trickey.’

  ‘Jesus, Trick, I nearly shot your bloody arse off!’

  He hurried on towards Battalion HQ, shocked by the change of scene in just twenty-four hours. As though the entire area had been struck by earthquake, barely a building stood undamaged: many were smoking hulks, and several had collapsed altogether. Fires burned everywhere, whipped by squally winds which sent flames dancing skyward and thick coils of smoke billowing along the road. The bridge itself, intermittently visible through the smog, was little more than a fire-blackened mess of steel and wrecked vehicles.

  Frost was in the basement, lantern in hand, checking on the scores of injured men lying about the floor like victims of a shipwreck. Captain Logan, the battalion medical officer, was there too, and Padre Egan, kneeling beside an inert figure in one corner.

  ‘Hello, Theo,’ Frost said wearily. ‘I was beginning to fear we’d lost you.’

  ‘Sorry, got held up.’

  ‘Things pretty hot in town?’

  ‘Rather, sir.’

  Frost nodded, his face tight-lipped as Theo delivered his report. On the situation in town, on what he knew of 1st and 3rd Battalions, on the rumours of a withdrawal by Division, and finally on the fate of C Company.

  Frost listened. Scottish names on a list. His own pencilled at the top. Autumn 1941 and the birth of C Company. Now it was dead. ‘God, what a mess. Poor Victor.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Nothing on 30 Corps, I take it.’

  ‘Sorry, sir.’

  ‘Then we’re on our own and that’s that.’

  ‘1st Battalion nearly made it. Some of them.’

  ‘Yes, good old Tim. If anyone got through it would be him.’ He hesitated. ‘We lost David Wallis last night. Jerry was pushing in under the bridge, he went to see what could be done, got hit several times.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘It’s a bad blow – an old friend and terrific second-in-command. I’ve put Digby in charge of Battalion in his place. He’s out there now somewhere, checking the perimeter, chivvying up the boys, waving his bloody brolly about.’

  ‘How long can we hold out?’

  ‘Ammo’s practically gone. Food, water and medical supplies too. We’ve been reduced to fighting with bare hands, bayonets and petrol bombs, you know.’ Frost managed a smile. ‘We’re Paras, Theo. We hold out as long as it takes.’

  *

  It took one more day. And it was the shelling that finished them. During the night pickets began reporting a repositioning of enemy forces, and hopes were raised of a German withdrawal, or even a retreat. But it was no retreat, merely a change of tactics by Harzer, abandoning costly infantry assaults in favour of bludgeoning the British into submission with artillery. Moving his guns up that night, his plan was the systematic destruction of every building in the vicinity, forcing the Paras into the open so the machine guns and snipers could do their work.

  It began at first light with salvos of flak that hacked at buildings like axes. Soon larger-calibre pieces were added to the mix, including medium howitzers and the dreaded 88s which punched shells straight through walls with a noise like howling wind. Meanwhile, mortars and rockets fired incendiaries, starting scores of fires that filled buildings with flames and choking smoke. With the water mains cut, Paras were reduced to fighting fires with blankets and brooms, or fleeing burning houses altogether. And then, mid-morning, everyone paused to a new sound, a heavier thud that was felt rather than heard, like a punch to the stomach. Theo was on the battalion balcony spotting for a mortar crew when a house fifty yards away vanished in a pall of smoke.

  ‘What the fuck was that?’ the loader demanded.

  Theo swung his binoculars. ‘I don’t know, but it came from across the river.’

  Minutes later the next shell crashed in, blasting a lorry-sized crater in the road.

  ‘Christ, Trick, they’re ranging on us!’

  ‘Time to move, come on.’

  Grabbing the mortar they hurried for the stairs, already littered with rubble and debris from days of fighting. Halfway down they met Padre Egan puffing up. />
  ‘Theo! Colonel says we’re to evacuate the—’

  A blast of heat struck them, followed by a deafening explosion that flung Theo aside like a doll. Thunderous noise followed as walls collapsed, rafters splintered and an avalanche of debris came crashing down, while the whole building shuddered as though gripped by giant hands. The house was collapsing, he realized, clutching his arms over his head. But slowly the noise subsided, the floor stopped quaking, and the building swayed to a precarious standstill. Timbers creaked, lights flickered and a roof tile slid to the floor as, dazed and choking, he struggled to his senses. The ops room door was lying over him, and beyond it the bedroom was a roofless shambles. Smoke and dust swirled like fog, daylight showed where once a wall had stood, and a ragged hole in the floor now gaped in place of the stairwell. His legs were hurting and sticky with blood. Kicking the door off, he crawled to the hole in the floor and peered down. Sections of staircase were gone, he saw through the fog, so too the landing below, leaving a smoking void down to the hall.

  ‘Come on,’ he croaked.

  ‘Christ.’ The mortar section spluttered to life. ‘What happened?’

  ‘We must get down. The padre.’

  ‘How, for God’s sake?’

  ‘This way. Keep to the side.’

  He clambered unsteadily down until reaching the hall, where he found Egan buried in rubble. Bricks and timber surrounded him; his body was twisted like a broken dummy, and one leg was oddly angled.

  ‘Padre!’ He tore at the debris. ‘Padre, can you hear me?’

  Slowly Egan’s head lifted, his face white with dust.

  ‘… injured to Brigade HQ,’ he gasped. ‘Before it gets too dangerous in here!’

  Their next hour was spent transferring men, equipment and casualties to the Brigade cellar, while Battalion HQ, once a graceful town house, was abandoned as a lethal ruin. Dodging bullets and mortar shells, he and the stretcher-bearers came and went until all were safely installed. Egan, protesting manfully, was dosed with the last of the morphia and placed among them. Limping stiffly, Theo surveyed the cellar: over a hundred injured men, he counted, once proud but now beaten. Yet not entirely beaten. Able finally to tend to himself, he began unbuttoning his trousers to inspect his legs. With predictable results.

  ‘Look! Privates on parade!’

  ‘Not now, Trickey dear, I’ve a headache.’

  ‘Those knees! I’m in love.’

  His legs were lacerated but not seriously, and he cleaned and dressed them himself. All the while the relentless crash and thump of the barrage kept on, fraying nerves and showering the basement with dust and debris. And every few minutes came the visceral punch as the huge field gun fired from across the river. Reporting for duty once more, Frost told him it must be silenced: ‘… before it blows us all to kingdom come. Any suggestions?’

  ‘We could try with the mortar, sir. From up on the roof.’

  ‘You’ll get about three rounds off before he spots you.’

  Theo smiled. ‘Three’s all we have left.’

  Hurrying up through floors of offices, the mortar section following, he reached the roof and began scanning the far bank with his binoculars. Somewhere he heard a distant bell ringing, then a muzzle flash betrayed the gun’s position half hidden in bushes. Gouts of smoke followed the flash; a moment later they all felt the thump as the shell exploded two streets away.

  ‘It’s on a limber,’ he said, peering through the glasses. ‘Like one of those old horse-drawn Feldhaubitz pieces. Slow to manoeuvre, and takes a big crew to operate.’

  ‘Packs a hell of a punch though.’

  ‘Can you hear a ringing noise?’

  ‘Fuck knows, Trick, can we please get on with it before they see us?’

  Their first shell was straight but short; he called the correction and their second, to their astonishment, landed right in the bushes with the gun. Theo watched as the smoke cleared. Figures appeared, scurrying in all directions, and moments later a tractor emerged pulling the gun away.

  ‘Did we get it?’

  ‘Well, we got it moved.’

  ‘Good enough for me, let’s get off this bloody roof!’

  ‘What is that ringing noise?’

  It was a telephone, in the room below, a clerk or secretary’s office with filing cabinets, desk and shelves filled with ledgers. On the floor a phone was ringing. Gingerly Theo picked it up. Moments later he was running for the stairs.

  *

  ‘General Urquhart sends his compliments,’ Frost began.

  ‘Splendid,’ Digby scoffed. ‘Where did he get our number?’

  ‘Looked it up in the directory,’ Crawley offered.

  ‘Aye, under “i” for idiots.’

  It was mid-afternoon. Outside, as the buildings burned and crumbled around them, the Paras fought on, bravely and doggedly, but with growing desperation. The barrage had slackened, but then a new menace had threatened as Harzer’s troops returned, stealthily, street by street, house by house, permeating the British like a rising tide, steadily corralling them into a shrinking ring of death. Yet the defenders kept going, sometimes with guns and grenades, increasingly with knives, clubs or whatever came to hand. Bricks and rubble were hurled from rooftops; petrol bombs engulfed the unwary; two Germans were crushed by a dropped wardrobe. Many fell to daggers and bayonets. But the enemy tide was inexorable, and as their numbers swelled and their position strengthened, the exhausted Paras fell inexorably back.

  And then, to their dismay, they lost the bridge.

  As the perimeter shrank, Harzer launched a pincer movement along the northern bank of the river. Stealing in from both directions at once, well armed and heavily supported, the SS men drove a wedge between defender and river, opened a gap under the bridge and thus completed their encirclement. More a symbolic setback than a strategic one, the loss was keenly felt by the Paras, and their determination to fight on inevitably wavered. An A Company lieutenant named Grayburn immediately gathered a scratch force and led a determined counter-attack, but was ruthlessly gunned to the ground with no survivors. A while later Harzer’s men were seen setting up positions on the bridge itself, and with that the mission was lost.

  An emergency meeting was called. One by one Bridge Force’s senior surviving officers hurried into the battered Brigade building until all were assembled. Frost in command, Hibbert the brigade major, Digby Tatham-Warter now leading 2nd Battalion, Doug Crawley his second-in-command, a Recce Squadron major called Gough, and Logan the MO. Theo was there to record proceedings, which told him something momentous was coming. As the officers gathered, he studied them: haggard, filthy, all were exhausted, hungry and parched with thirst. Some carried injuries. And despite their attempts at humour, a sense of hopelessness filled the air.

  ‘We’ve a decision to make,’ Frost told them, ‘and I’d be grateful for your thoughts.’

  ‘What did Urquhart say?’ Hibbert asked.

  ‘He thanked us for our efforts. And apologized for not getting through.’

  ‘So they’ve given up.’

  ‘To be precise,’ Frost sighed, ‘he didn’t know if they should come and rescue us, or we should go and rescue them.’

  ‘How droll.’

  The division was in tatters, Frost went on, and facing total annihilation, so Urquhart had decided his duty was to save what he could of it. 30 Corps might yet still arrive – it was desperately hoped it would – but in the meantime he was consolidating a position four miles west of the bridge in the town of Oosterbeek.

  ‘Didn’t we pass through there on the way in?’ Crawley asked.

  ‘Yes, we did. He’s set up HQ in a hotel called the Hartenstein, with a mile wide perimeter around it. The division, what’s left of it, is to fall back there and make a stand.’

  ‘Christ.’

  ‘Including us. If we so decide.’

  A shocked silence was followed by expected replies.

  ‘Fall back be buggered!’

  ‘Over my
dead body.’

  ‘We’re taking this bloody bridge back!’

  Frost held up a hand. ‘Commendable sentiments, and I agree with them, but we have to be realistic.’

  ‘Sir.’ Hibbert spoke. ‘There’s four miles of solid Jerry between us and Division. We’d never make it.’

  ‘And we’ve very little left to fight them with,’ Gough added.

  ‘Well, I for one am not bloody surrendering!’

  ‘All right, Digby. Anyone else?’

  ‘What about the injured?’ Logan said quietly. ‘We can’t just abandon them.’

  With the decision deferred, everyone returned to their positions. Theo was sent round to tally up remaining ammunition, while Frost and Crawley set off to check the perimeter and count heads. Conferring in a doorway, a mortar round suddenly exploded beside them, blowing them off their feet.

  It was the turning point. Both men were incapacitated, suffering blast wounds to legs and thighs. Bleeding and semi-conscious, Frost was carried in to lie with the other injured. Logan told him his wounds were serious; shortly afterwards Frost sent for Gough, the Recce Squadron officer.

  ‘I’m sorry, Freddie,’ he said hoarsely, ‘but I’m out of it. As the most senior officer remaining, you must take command of Bridge Force.’

  ‘Yes, sir. What are my orders?’

  ‘To use your best judgement.’

  Competent and resourceful, Gough saluted, left and immediately swung into action. Within an hour he had negotiated a ceasefire with the Germans to evacuate the wounded of both sides. Gradually, as dusk fell, an eerie silence descended on the scene, broken only by the crackle of fires and rumble of German motors. Trucks pulled up, and the injured were quietly loaded aboard under the enemy’s watchful gaze. Doug Crawley was among them, so too Padre Bernard Egan, and lastly John Frost, his face grey with pain and anguish.

  ‘Tell them!’ he gasped, beckoning to Theo. ‘Tell them what happened here.’

  ‘They’ll know, sir.’ They clasped hands. ‘Everyone will know.’

  Afterwards the adversaries drew apart and resumed fighting as though nothing had happened. But the outcome was foregone and both sides knew it. Gough, playing for time, issued orders for remaining survivors, variously estimated at a hundred men, to wait until darkness then slip away in twos and threes and make for Oosterbeek as best they could. Digby Tatham-Warter wanted to stay and launch an attack on the bridge, but was dissuaded when enemy tanks were seen lumbering on to it. And as darkness fell, Bridge Force gradually dispersed, stealing away into the night like thieves. Soon all but a handful were gone. Theo, as a final act, was charged with despatching one last message to the world. Sitting at the worthless radio, he dutifully tapped out the words Gough dictated.