Coward On The Beach

by James Delingpole

  As Major Dalby finishes, he gestures with a smile, as if in invitation of applause, to the Colonel, who is standing very stiff and awkward and po-faced next to him. There are one or two desultory claps, but that's as far as it goes, perhaps because the Colonel looks so thoroughly appalled, perhaps because the whole thing feels a bit forced and embarrassing - a generous but naive attempt by the Major to try to engender towards Lt. Col. Partridge a warmth the Commando simply doesn't feel. Respected the Colonel may be; but loved he most definitely ain't.

  It's only once most of the men have filed out of the briefing tent that I can get a proper look at the scale model of this anonymous fishing village. Those Eastern and Western Features, it's clear, are going to be a pig to deal with: the defences look all but impregnable . .

  'I know why we're here,' says a voice next to me.

  'Well, Sergeant,' I say — the habit's been drilled into me now, see. 'If it's my fault, then I'm frightfully sorry.'

  'Course it's your fault. If you hadn't mentioned it the Brigadier would never have been interested.'

  'Mentioned what, Price?' (Well — almost drilled into me.)

  'Look,' he says sweeping his hand over the model.

  I look again and this time I see it perfectly.

  This anonymous fishing village — we have been there before.

  Chapter 8

  The Great Crusade

  Picture it: the biggest invasion fleet ever sets sail for Normandy. The waters of the south coast so thick with shipping you could stride from one side of the Solent to the other without once getting your feet wet. Battle cruisers, destroyers, frigates, tugs, cross-Channel ferries, rocket ships - their freshly painted disruptive-pattern stripes of battleship grey and snow and dove and grey green and black stark and handsome in the June sun. And on those ships, 156,000 soldiers, sailors, marines, airmen in slouch hats and kilts and cap comforters and kepis and berets in all the hues of the rainbow, leaning over the railings, waving what may well be their last goodbye to the thousands of tearful wives, excited children, hysterical mistresses, rueful parents and stoical grandparents all gathered on the docks while brass bands play and the bunting and the Union flags ripple in the summer breeze.

  Well, that's how it would have been if I had been directing the film. Unfortunately I wasn't — some other bugger was, with a much bleaker outlook. For one thing it wasn't sunny, it was louring and miserable, with seas so ugly you'd take one look and go: 'Thanks, but I think I'll sit this one out by the fire with my stamp collection.' And for another, there weren't nearly the crowds you'd imagine nor was there anything by way of pomp or occasion because the whole thing was supposed to be a secret. Nobody was to know anything about anything.

  None of us did in my troop.

  One minute we're swinging across the assault course like the monkeys in Regent's Park Zoo — I'm still a bit slower than most, but I'll give Price credit: I'm in better shape than I would have been if he hadn't been such a sadistic bastard these last ten days - the next, the order comes through: we're to be ready for embarkation at 1600 hours.

  It all happens so quickly that it's too much to take in at first. Even when we're sat in the back of our truck, watching those humourless white-helmeted US MPs closing behind us the gates of the hated camp we've nicknamed our 'Stalag', not even then can we quite believe that it's really happening; that, after all that waiting, it's on. It's finally on.

  'Hey, this is my road. We're about to pass my house,' says one of the younger marines, a sweet fellow named Tobias, peering through the opening at the back of the tarpaulin which is all we're able to see of the outside world. "Ere, Sarge. Can we just stop really, really quickly, so I can say goodbye to my mum? She doesn't even know I'm here.'

  'And that's just how we're going to keep it, Tobias,' says Sgt. Weaver, firmly but not unkindly. We've all been given strict orders that under no circumstances are we to speak to bystanders. Apparently some idiots tried it earlier today - 'This is it!' was all they said, but that was more than enough — and were damned near court-martialled on the spot.

  'I can see her. There! There at the window!' says Tobias, straining forward.

  'Down, son,' says Sgt. Weaver.

  The marines either side of him pull him gently back into his seat.

  She's in an apron and she's got her hair up. She's holding a duster but has been distracted by the rumble of this convoy trundling slowly by. She looks nice. She could be anyone's mum.

  'Mum!' calls Tobias pathetically.

  'Mum!' echoes someone else more loudly.

  Then, almost involuntarily, as if in answer to some deep inner call, we all of us find ourselves saying it.

  'MUUUM!' we all cry out to Tobias's mother, in a tone which we'd like to pretend is mordant and mocking, but which we know is quite agonisingly heartfelt. You don't tend to talk about these things because if you did you might cry. But those of us who've been on a battlefield know who it is that dying soldiers cry out for and it's always the same.

  Sgts Price and Weaver, the only two men in the back of the truck not to join in, look disapproving but make no comment.

  It's hard to tell for certain because by the time we call out, the window of Tobias's two-up two-down is very nearly out of view. But it's my impression that the very last thing we see Mrs Tobias doing is begin to turn her head in the direction of the voices she has just heard.

  Pity. Next she'll hear of him is a telegram beginning 'We regret to inform you'. Poor Tobias doesn't even make it as far as France. He's killed on the way in when his landing craft is struck by a shell.

  Here's another thing none of us was quite expecting: the interminable wait on board ship. On the first day — Friday 2nd — we didn't even leave the dockside. The only excitement, before we were sent to our quarters below, was when a chap on a troopship just the other side of the harbour dived, in full uniform, into the sea.

  'Don't blame you, mate,' says Marine Bridgeman, and I'm sure he's not the only one of us who's feeling that way. First the sealed camp; now the sealed ship — there's a horrible inexorability about this process that makes what little impetuousness that hasn't been drilled out of you on the parade ground want to resist at every turn. The only thing that stops you doing so is the certainty that there's no way out.

  And now this deserter chap, whoever he is, has gone and blown that small comfort out of the water.

  We watch him swim to the jetty, waiting for the inevitable moment when the police or the MPs turn up and take him away. But the moment never comes. To tremendous cheers from everyone in uniform, he makes it ashore, hobbles, dripping, up a flight of concrete steps, and with a defiant wave disappears amid a line of onlookers standing on the shore.

  The euphoria of witnessing so daring an escape soon evaporates. 'Why him, not me?' is the mostly unspoken thought.

  Or as Marine Bridgeman puts it: 'The jammy bastard.'

  That night is one of the more unpleasant I can remember. Cross-Channel pleasure boat our ship may be in peacetime, but in war, below decks, the Josephine Charlotte more closely resembles a sardine can gone rotten. The officers, no doubt, get quarters of their own. But we men have to sleep two-to- a-berth, end to end, and because no one wants to share with me because I'm nobody's mate, the chap I end up with is Oily Wragg.

  By the time I'm ready even to attempt some shut-eye, Wragg is already spread over our mattress like a beached whale and snoring loudly. It's all I can do to squeeze on the mattress - there's only a tiny sliver, right next to the edge, and because it's the top bunk there's quite a drop. With every slight roll of the ship I threaten to crash on to the floor. So all I can do is lie there, rigid with anxiety, nose thrust as far as is physically possible away from Wragg's pullulating feet, and pray for morning to come soon.

  Sometime in the small hours, I swing myself down and pad barefoot down a pitch-black slippery corridor to the nearest heads which, needless to say, are awash with urine and yet more vomit. I feel my way back to my bunk, loathing every o
ne of the men I can hear snoring and snuffling away either side of me - How can you, you bastards? How can you? — and I reach to pull myself up when my palm comes into contact with a patch of something slimy and chunky. This patch extends over every last square inch of available sleeping space. Yet the author of this mess is sleeping like a baby.

  I give him a good prod: 'Wragg!' I hiss. 'Wragg! You've got to clear up this mess at once. Wragg! Wragg?'

  'Oi, pipe down, will you?' comes a voice down the corridor. 'Some of us was having a nice kip.'

  Wragg sleeps on, utterly oblivious to all my attempts to wake him.

  After that I give up even trying to sleep where I'm supposed to. We've orders to stay below, not to go on deck, but the only person I see when I sneak upstairs is a weatherbeaten matelot who says chummily: 'Bit rich for you down there, is it?'

  'Just a touch.'

  'Listen, if you need to get your head down, I'd recommend that lifeboat there. It's quiet and no one's going to notice you.'

  But still I can't sleep and now the darkness has given way to a miserable pre-dawn grey. I stand at the rails and watch the ships all around us beginning to materialise from the gloom.

  'Well, that's bloody it, I've 'ad enough. I'm going home right now,' announces Marine Simpson looking up from his book. 'Crab' we call him - short for 'Crab fat' — because he's so addicted to Brylcreem he should have joined the RAF.

  It's the afternoon of 3 June and we're all spread out on deck, sheltering as best we can from the wind singing through the cables above our heads, reading, dozing, staring vacantly into space. For some of us, it has been our First chance of getting any sleep.

  'What's that, Crab?' says Bridgeman, sensing a kindred spirit.

  'This!' he says stabbing the page of his book disgustedly.

  'There's no use pointing. You'll have to read it to him. And very slowly, else Bridgeman won't understand,' chips in Marine Syd Hordern.

  Bridgeman shows Hordern his middle finger.

  'If you should happen to imagine that the first pretty French girl who smiles at you intends to dance the cancan or take you to bed -' Simpson reads.

  'Eh, I like the sound of this. Where did you get that filth?' says Wragg.

  'You've got one, too, you chump. It's what Sergeant Weaver give us this morning,' says Corporal Blackwell. 'Instructions for British Servicemen in France.'

  'Should you encounter a British serviceman,' begins Hordern, as if reading out an instruction from the book, 'please handle with care. By all means ply him with alcohol - beer for preference, and none of your pissy Frog stuff, if you will pardon this guidebook's French — but do not under any circumstances expose him to bullets or shrapnel, as he is very delicate and may well break —'

  'Oi. Are you going to let me finish?'

  'Aye, go on, Simpson. Tell us what these French girls do,' says Wragg.

  'They don't. That's the whole point of what it says 'ere. Says if you expect them to go to bed with you "you risk stirring up a lot of trouble for yourself".'

  'I should say that was rather the point, isn't it?' says Mayhew. Then quickly regrets it, if his furious blush and downward- cast eyes are anything to go by.

  'Hey, did everyone hear that?' says Wragg, as ever displaying his finely tuned knack for homing in on others' discomfort. 'That were our young Rupert making a saucy joke.'

  'A saucy joke, Rupert? You naughty boy. Wait till your mummy gets to hear of this,' says Kemp.

  'He's got a sight better chance of getting his end away than you, you ugly brute,' says Cpl. Blackwell. He can't be more than two years older than Mayhew, but he treats him like a son.

  'Well, if he does, he'll have what's coming to him,' says Simpson. 'Says here that as many as one in eight Frogs may be infected with syphilis.'

  'Sounds reasonable odds to me,' says Marine Coffin. 'Better than the ones we're about to face on them beaches.'

  'And no problem at all for those of us who are prepared,' says Kemp, reaching into his ammunition pouch and ostentatiously removing what must be at least three dozen boxes of French letters.

  'You bugger! Where do you nick them?'

  'I didn't. Put in an indent at Southampton, same as you. Just while you were farting about with two or three I put in for two gross.'

  'And they didn't query it?'

  'Told them I was a specialist, didn't I? Told them I had a lot of extra equipment to waterproof.'

  'From what this ruddy book says, they're going to be no use anyway,' says Wragg.

  'Well, there is one small glimmer of hope,' says Simpson. 'Says French behaviour varies from region to region, so with luck the place where we're going the morals will be nice and easy.'

  'Why don't we ask Chad?' says Wragg.

  No one answers. Then I realise everyone's looking at me.

  'Chad?' I say.

  'Aye, as in "Wot, no fags?" and "Wot, no bananas?". It's your new nickname. Dreamed of it last night.'

  'May I ask why?'

  "Ent it obvious? You've been fookin' everywhere but you've got fook-all to show for it.'

  'I see.'

  'So go on, tell us, Chad. This part of France we're going to. Ice maidens or cancan girls?'

  'If I knew which part of France we were going to —' I begin.

  'Well, if you don't you're the only bugger on this boat who doesn't.'

  'Really?'

  'Aye. Beach we're landing on is near a place called Arrow-Monch. Objective's called summat like Port on Basin.'

  'God, have I missed a briefing?'

  'You don't think they were going to tell us any of this, do you? No. What happened is that this afternoon the officers and NCOs were given these maps of where we're going, only with the names all wrong. And a bloke from "I" section, actually living up to the name Intelligence for once, puts two and two together and works out where it is. Tries to keep it quiet, of course, but the walls have ears. So go on, then. Port on Basin: the natives friendly or what?'

  'Well, I can't vouch for all of them, but there is one thing I know -'

  From the mooring next to us there's a blast of a ship's horn, and everyone turns to look. Moments later we watch as our sister ship, a tramp steamer called SS Victoria, carrying the other half of our commando, casts off and begins to pull away from the dock's edge. Now the decks of our own ship are abuzz with activity, the engines are throbbing and soon our ship is slipping from the harbour towards the sea.

  'It's on!' says Mayhew.

  We all raise a cheer and the thing I was going to tell them all is forgotten, which is just as well really. I doubt any of them would really have been much interested in my story about the marvellous crepe Suzette served by Grand-mere who lives down by the port.

  A day later and we still haven't left, only now the weather's much, much rougher and instead of being snug in Southampton we're rolling and pitching at anchor in the middle of the Solent. This morning we saw some of the slower ships setting out for France, and now, here they are coming back again, tails between their legs like athletes who've jumped the starter's gun. The seas are too rough and the invasion's off, definitely today and quite possibly, I heard someone say, for weeks.

  Up on deck the conditions are dreadful — sea water sloshing everywhere, thick mists of wind-whipped spray smacking into your face with a wet-haddock slap, and the whole deck heaving like a fat matron's bosom. But I'd rather be up here than in the foetid sleeping quarters down below, where the vomit is flying thick as Scotch broth and each roll of the ship sends you barrelling into the chap next to you which, if he's Oily Wragg, means the constant threat of death by asphyxiation. So, just as I did the night before, I've made my way into my secret hiding place, in one of the lifeboats, underneath a tarpaulin.

  Only three of us know about it. Me and two fellows from Q troop - Billy Brown and Ted Walters. They seem very close — so close indeed that if Brown hadn't shown me the photos of his wife and new-born baby, I'd have had them down for queer. Mind you, there's a lot of that goes on
in the military. Not homosexuality, which you don't see hardly ever. I mean buddy relationships every bit as strong and deep and caring and, well, loving you'd almost say, as the one between man and wife. He watches your back; you watch his. It works very well, but woe betide you if your buddy gets killed because your world falls apart and the pain's so great you swear you'll never let yourself get this close to someone again.

  Anyway, they're a nice enough pair are Billy and Ted, though Billy doesn't half bang on about his kid. It's 'Tommy this' and 'Tommy that', and 'the way he looks at you, it's so wise, so knowing, and he's still only six months - least he was when I last saw him, which was, Jesus, must be three fucking months ago, he'll have changed so much I'll hardly recognise him, he'll be walking almost now', which is quite understandable, I'm sure I'd be exactly the same if I were in his shoes but the point is I'm not and neither is the long-suffering Ted.

  'They need their dads at that age,' Billy is saying now and, by the flare of the match with which he's lighting his fag, I catch Ted's eyes rolling heavenwards. 'They do though, don't they? Especially sons. I reckon it's going to make a big difference when this war's over. A whole generation of kids who've been brought up without their dads around. Some of them who ain't going to see their dads ever again.'

  'Tommy'll be all right,' says Ted.

  'Yeah. He'll be all right,' says Billy. 'I'll see to that.'

  'You will, mate. You will.'

  'I wonder what he'll be doing when I see him next. Definitely be walking. Might even be talking. "Mama" he'll be saying. "Mama". Not "Dada", though.'

  'You don't know. Maybe with you being away, he'll think about you more.'

  'Doesn't work like that with babies, I don't think. If you're not there, you might as well not exist. Rips me up, Ted, I don't mind telling you. My son, the person I love more than life itself, and he doesn't know me from Adam. Any bloke could come along, tell him he was his dad, and he wouldn't know any better. A GI, even.'