The Magic Army

by Leslie Thomas

  They reached the harbour ten minutes later, sidling in among the small safe craft. Bryant looked up and saw that the quay was lined with faces, soldiers and sailors, and there were ambulances lined on the road.

  The minesweeper docked at the foot of the same steps from which they had embarked only fifteen hours earlier. First the wounded were gently taken off, then the dead, then the men who had survived the night of tragedy and mistakes. As Albie Primrose began to climb the stone flight he began to weep. Gilman who had not spoken to him during the time in the amphibian or on the minesweeper, preferring to leave him alone, now moved ahead of the men in front and put his arm around the small American’s shoulder. ‘Come on, mate,’ said Gilman kindly. ‘Don’t let them see you cry.’

  Albie looked at him gratefully. His face was smeared like an urchin’s. ‘No,’ he agreed. ‘I can’t do that.’ They began to mount the steps together.

  ‘Are you okay?’ Albie sniffed quietly.

  ‘Fine,’ said Gilman. ‘Pussy bought it, though. My pal, Catermole, you remember him.’

  ‘Sure,’ nodded Albie miserably. ‘That’s terrible. Lots of guys too.’

  ‘It puts you off the invasion,’ said Gilman oddly. Albie nodded. They had reached the top of the steps and came to the familiar view of Wilcoombe. Almost automatically Gilman looked across to the deserted gun-site. Standing there, at a stiff and seemingly permanently salute, like a fat khaki statue, was Sergeant Bullivant. Gilman turned away.

  At the top of the steps on the quay were all the military personnel, fussing and shepherding. There was a lipsticked WAAC handing out coffee. With Albie, Gilman walked by, shaking his head. They abruptly found themselves on the familiar quay, behind a barrier but with, it seemed, all the population of Wilcoombe staring at their blackened, bloodied and defeated faces. PC Lethbridge, wearing his bicycle clips, kept a token arm out to prevent the watchers moving forward. Ambulances were moving. Gilman saw Mary Nicholas at once; she smiled at him as if they were at a dance. Then he saw tears on her white face. Howard and Beatrice Evans were moving among the wounded. As the American and the British soldiers reached the point where their own trucks were waiting to return them to camp, Albie looked up into the stark questioning eyes of the civilians. The unmasked questions were not difficult to imagine. Had they tried the invasion? Had it been ignominiously repulsed? Was all lost?

  ‘It’s okay,’ Albie sobbed loudly at them. ‘We was just practising.’

  Late in the afternoon General Georgeton drove down to Telcoombe Manor, to the US officers’ mess. Colonel Schorner was in the main room, beneath the paintings of Mrs Mahon-Feavor’s defeated ancestors, writing letters to the wives and mothers of the men of his unit who had died. He stood up when Georgeton came in and the general said: ‘Sit down, Carl.’ He nodded at the task. ‘Doing the painful duty, eh.’

  Schorner, his eyes black rimmed, nodded. ‘I want to get it over with, sir,’ he said. ‘The hard thing is trying to say something that sounds convincing to a wife in Lincoln, Nebraska.’

  Georgeton sat down heavily. A steward came over but after asking Schorner if he needed a drink he was sent away. ‘Thank God it wasn’t called Exercise Lulu after all,’ he breathed.

  ‘That’s about all there is to thank God for,’ commented Schorner. He looked up. ‘How many?’ he asked.

  ‘Between six and seven hundred,’ Georgeton told him.

  ‘Oh, hell.’

  ‘Everyone went bananas,’ said Georgeton. ‘From Ike downwards. There’s a security clamp on the whole thing. Damage to morale and that kind of thing. The bodies washed up on the beaches are being blamed on a storm.’

  ‘Some storm,’ commented Schorner bitterly.

  ‘The top brass were afraid that the BIGOTS might be picked up by the Germans,’ continued the general. ‘There were stories of the E-boats pulling men out of the water. Everyone was scared to hell that the whole works was going to be given away. They’ve had squads collecting name tags from bodies everywhere, along the beaches, in the morgues, even sending divers and frogmen down to the first LST. But I think they’ve checked them all now. No BIGOT is unaccounted for.’

  ‘BIGOT,’ muttered Schorner. ‘I know a different meaning to that word, general. Not just their goddamn code. I’d like to know who let that foul-up happen? I lost half my men. They came to fight, not get drowned, picked off like that. Who was it?’

  ‘Blame God if you like,’ muttered Georgeton. He looked grey and fat and old. ‘Or Roosevelt or Churchill or Eisenhower. Blame who you like, Carl.’

  ‘I’d like to know,’ returned Schorner. ‘Maybe he’d like to write these letters.’ Then he said, ‘I’m sorry about Scarlett.’

  ‘So am I. A good guy. He made sure he went. Said it was necessary for experience.’

  ‘He had that all right, poor man.’ He looked almost pleadingly at Georgeton. ‘How,’ he asked, ‘can anyone who’s supposed to be sane send a convoy of eight slow transports on a voyage to nowhere – back to where they started – and with two, crappy old warships, later reduced to one, to protect them? How many navy ships do we have for the invasion – three, four, five hundred?’

  Georgeton sighed. ‘I know, I know, Carl. They’re yelling the same questions at each other in Supreme Headquarters right now. There were warships operational, but they were spread out over such an area that your convoy got left short. There was also a mix-up in timed sailings because of fog at Plymouth. But in any case there’s nothing any large ship can do against those E-boats. The Germans took them overland, by railroad, to Cherbourg, would you believe. They can still teach us a lot about war. We’ve got to have them eliminated by air attack or they’ll cripple the invasion too. They could have done it last night.’

  ‘I hope that sounds convincing to my boys,’ said Schorner. ‘Some of them don’t want to fight any more, and I don’t blame them. They’re blind goddamn furious at the way they were left exposed like that.’

  ‘The shipping situation is not good,’ sighed Georgeton. ‘Admiral King – sitting on his ass in Washington – is the dumb bastard who’s screwing it up. You think your soldiers never heard of Europe before they got here, well here’s an admiral who never heard of it either. It was only two weeks ago he released anything like the US naval forces we’ll need for the invasion. Half of them haven’t even gotten here yet. And when you realize at the last count there were available more than thirty thousand landing craft of various types, all over the world – thirty thousand – and we’re going to have to mount the invasion of Europe with less than ten per cent of that total. Some have been sent to the Pacific from the Mediterranean, goddamn it.’

  He paused and glanced at Schorner as though he hoped he was convincing him. ‘If the Germans had carried on with their work last night,’ he confided, ‘instead of high-tailing it out. If they’d sunk all eight of the LSTs in that convoy, which they could have done with ease, Carl, I doubt very much if the invasion would have been able to go ahead. The transport situation is that tight. Everything is tight.’

  Schorner was regarding him steadily, almost sorry for him. ‘And we think we’re going to win,’ he sighed at last.

  ‘That seems to be the idea that’s being put around,’ said Georgeton. ‘But we’ve got to do better than we did last night.’

  ‘I’ll go along with that,’ sighed Schorner miserably. ‘We’ll never get a single GI above the high water mark otherwise.’

  Georgeton sat hunched and heavy. He looked down at the letters on the low table before Schorner. They made him remember, and he reached to his tunic pocket. ‘I had a letter,’ he said. ‘From the old guy, Major-General Hickson. Remember we went to his home?’

  ‘Sure,’ said Schorner. ‘The night after his son died, and we didn’t know.’

  ‘Right. He wrote me, wishing us well and that sort of thing, from himself and his wife. And he enclosed a letter for you.’ The general handed over the envelope. ‘It’s a little curious,’ he added. ‘See it says it must not be opene
d until the eve of the invasion.’

  Schorner smiled a trifle. ‘Just like Christmas,’ he said. He put the envelope away. ‘I’ll need something to read just then. As long as it’s not the old guy’s plan of battle.’

  ‘There’s a debriefing tonight,’ said Georgeton. ‘After Exercise Lion. At Exeter. I’ll send a car for you.’

  ‘Right, sir,’ agreed Schorner. ‘My driver is pooped. And he lost his buddy. I’ll be there.’

  Georgeton felt in his briefcase. ‘I have a casualty manifest,’ he said reluctantly. He handed it to Schorner. ‘You’ll probably want to see it.’

  Wearily Schorner took the typed pages. His eye went down the lists, his own unit first. He turned over. ‘The Grave Registration unit is no more,’ he said.

  ‘Strange isn’t it,’ agreed Georgeton. ‘And the British lost a lot of sailors.’

  ‘Including Lieutenant Clive Younghusband, RNVR,’ said Schorner sadly reading the name. He put the list on the table.

  Georgeton rose to go. ‘Everything’s going to be okay, Carl,’ he said quietly. ‘It’s got to be.’

  Schorner stood up tiredly. ‘Maybe I could put that in the letters,’ he said.

  June

  The long, clear and serene days of May changed with June to low and rainy weather. Over the Atlantic the meteorologists saw a trough advancing on Europe. The generals in England looked at the collecting skies and wondered if they had missed the chance. Only two early June days were left when the tides and the moon would be right.

  At Wilcoombe, the cool summer rain wandered from the sea, in a way thoroughly familiar to the Devon people, but causing affront with the Americans. Bryant moodily drove along soaking lanes to the camp at Telcoombe Magna on 2 June and found Schorner squatted in his hutted office. He smiled, however, when he saw Bryant and they shook hands. It was the first time they had met since the night of the E-boats.

  ‘So you’ve volunteered for glory, I hear,’ mentioned Schorner.

  The British lieutenant pulled a face. ‘I don’t know about glory. After the other night I shall do my best to keep my head very close to the ground, sir.’

  ‘We’ll be glad to have you, Bryant,’ continued the American. ‘It’s the best news I had all week.’

  ‘Thank you, sir. It was a choice …’ continued Bryant. He was staring at a map on the desk. Embarrassed he took his eyes from it. ‘It was a choice,’ he repeated. ‘Between glory, as you call it, and Ross and Cromarty.’

  Colonel Schorner was puzzled. ‘That sounds like a department store,’ he suggested.

  ‘If it were I might have considered it,’ laughed Bryant. ‘It’s way up in the north-west of Scotland. Very wild. It’s not that I mind, I’d probably enjoy it. But Captain Westerman, well …’

  Schorner understood. ‘Ah, I got you. Your former CO. He’s gone there?’

  ‘Right, sir. I couldn’t see us spending the rest of the war together, like a couple of old biddies, so I volunteered to continue the liaison job. Once your chaps link up with the British force there’ll be plenty for me to do. And my French isn’t too bad.’

  ‘Great.’ Schorner picked up the map from the desk. ‘You might as well see where we’re headed,’ he said. ‘Recognize that?’

  Bryant studied the map, a long straight beach, wide bay, a road also, immediately along the shore and, within the road, the amoebic shapes of lakes.

  ‘If I didn’t know differently, sir, I’d say it was Telcoombe Beach. Apart from the outcrops of rock, just offshore, and the disposition of these houses, which are different to Wilcoombe, it looks the same.’

  ‘Utah Beach,’ said Schorner. ‘Our landing beach.’

  ‘That’s why this area was picked,’ realized Bryant. ‘It looks the same.’

  ‘It was. It was difficult not being able to explain to all those folks who wanted to know why we didn’t go some other place,’ nodded Schorner. ‘It’s almost identical, even to the lakes, for which, incidentally, the Germans are responsible. They’re artificially flooded areas. But the beach, even to its camber, the road, the rising land just inland, the general compass directions, just about north to south in both cases, and even the sea currents, are very approximate.’

  Bryant said: ‘Where is Utah Beach, sir? Is that still secret?’

  ‘Until tomorrow,’ said Schorner. ‘There’ll be a briefing then. Anyway, I’m glad you’re going to be along, son. My French is worse than my English.’

  In a strange way the great army now withdrew within itself. Movement, anyway, was strictly limited by security, but the hundreds of thousands of soldiers, mainly American, British and Canadian, in their camps throughout the south voluntarily stayed within their rain-soaked tents and waited. Soldiers plodded in mile-long queues through the dripping lines, standing in mud, eyeing at the dark June skies, waiting to be served with food. They talked in the rain-hung tents, played cards and dice, wrote their letters home; if they felt like it they prayed in private or in services held along the length of the military region by padres and rabbis. It would not be long now.

  On the evening of 3 June, Schorner trudged through the cloying mud of his own camp, the first hamlet of what had become over the months a vast army city; a land of guns and men, of piled supplies, of waiting vehicles. Off-shore and in the many harbours, the ships of the invasion force fretted in the uncomfortable sea. There was no sign of the weather abating. Another day gone. Only two remained.

  After the night of the sea action there had been many replacements in Schorner’s engineering unit. The tents and huts were full of strange, young, questioning faces. Nobody went out. They stayed and occupied themselves, checking over their weapons equipment minutely many times. Sometimes the tension provoked a quarrel among the enclosed men, but not often. There was more singing than shouting.

  The colonel was grateful to find Albie in charge of one situation at least. In the small soldier’s hut there had been an outbreak of minor dysentery, particularly among the replacement troops, but Schorner found that Albie had organized activities adapted to their needs. Four men played cards in a sheltered outside area while astride chemical toilets, and several others wrote letters seated on the same devices. Albie, who had been promoted to corporal and now walked with a strangely pushed-out arm so that no one would miss the stripes, introduced the commanding officer to the new men. Colonel Schorner shook hands all round, advising the men on the latrines not to bother to rise, and then went back into the hut and towards the hut door with a mixture of remorse and hope in his heart. At the door Albie threw up a rigid salute, as befitting his stripes, in seeing the colonel away. ‘Keep going, Albie,’ signed Schorner, standing in the rain at the door.

  ‘Sure, sir,’ said Albie. They were like old campaigners now. ‘And you, sir. Just keep going.’

  The little soldier returned into the hut. He went to the annexe, to the men in their strange sitting places. ‘Now, they crap,’ he muttered to himself.

  Schorner’s walk through the rain was desultory. He felt the drizzle thickening and tugged up the collar of his combat jacket. He stood undecided in the vehicle park and then, after the hesitation, he climbed in his jeep and drove towards Wilcoombe.

  Over the Channel was a grey evening light, winter in summer. It would not be dark before ten but there was nothing of June in the prospect that spread as he drove along the coastal road. The sea was morose and heavy, bullying the shoreline, rocking the fleet of dark ships set out in the bay. Clouds scurried like raiders from the west, fat, full of rain and wind. The vivid green land, the fields and the trees lining the inland lanes were thick and dolefully dripping. Water gurgled in the desolate streets of the abandoned villages. The rats sheltered in the houses. Now there would be no more shelling, no more tanks, no more soldiers. It was too late for all that now. Soon, in a season, the land would have almost recovered from their depredations, the ground would be turned, the crops would grow and be harvested, animals would be in the meadows again and people in the houses and farms. He wond
ered where he would be.

  All along the shore, the concrete hards were lined with war vehicles; tanks awaiting loading, trucks and strange machines; bulldozers and cranes; jeeps nose to rear like flocks of dun sheep. Soldiers moved among them, slow, wet, hunched soldiers. Schorner shook his head. At the military police barrier the sentry approached, his helmet shining wet, his oilskins like dead leaves. ‘Hope the sun shines for the big game, sir,’ said the man.

  ‘So do I, son,’ said Schorner. ‘I’d hate it to be spoiled now.’

  He drove along the smeared evening road towards Wilcoombe. There it was, cluttered on its ancient hill, its feet in the sullen sea. He realized what a familiarity and affection he had for this foreign place. He was uncertain what he was going to do now. Only with the feeling that there were those he needed to see.

  He drove first to the harbour front, mist and rain mixing, cobbles wet, the sea banging dumbly against the unyielding walls. He pulled up outside the Evans’ house and saw the curtain flick as he stopped the jeep’s engine. Beatrice was at the door before he had walked the length of the garden path. Howard stood just behind her, smiling in his serious way over her shoulder.