They had been drinking steadily. ‘War affects people in different ways,’ philosophised Weber, looking at the light in another glass of calvados. He preferred schnapps but there was more calvados. They had kept a bottle of schnapps in case they were captured.
They sat and drank and talked. It was surprising how easily and swiftly the bottles were emptied. At one in the morning they decided to go fishing at first light if the weather continued to improve. They went drunkenly to their quarters, neither conscious of the sounds of many heavily laden aircraft passing overhead.
Gino had an alarm clock and, even confounded by calvados, he opened his eyes at its summons. It was three thirty and dawn would not be long. Just enough time to get to the harbour. He knocked on Weber’s door and heard him groan but he knew he would get up. He went to the kitchen and made a pot of coffee.
At four o’clock they were in the enclosed harbour with old Glovis, a deaf but deft local fisherman. None of the three men had heard anything in the hours of darkness. Even now Weber and Gino, with their aching heads, were only distantly conscious of the sounds in the sky. Clovis heard nothing. He never did.
They took the small boat from the harbour. Grey light was showing in the east. The fishing gear was in the stern. Clovis rowed strongly. The German and the Italian thought sadly that this might be the last time they would be able to go fishing.
When they were clear of the harbour and the short promontory that sheltered it from the east, Clovis sniffed the air and decided this was the place to fish. Weber and Gino began to bait the hooks. Then Clovis sat up. They looked at him, then in the direction he pointed – to the lifting mist in the Channel. ‘They are here,’ he said without emphasis, then in an even flatter voice: ‘Vive la France.’
All three men stared east and then north. The curtain of mist was rising quickly and they saw that there were hundreds of ships out there; every piece of the sea seemed to be covered with their shapes, their shadows. Ships on ships. Then they saw and heard the planes for the first time. Distant big guns sounded.
‘Regardez,’ muttered Clovis.
‘Mama Mia,’ said Gino, crossing himself.
‘Scheisse,’ said Weber grimly.
It had been one in the morning when the Dakotas took off. They moved heavily and noisily down the runway, their engines clamouring in the Suffolk night, loaded with paratroops.
‘You don’t mind me flying with you?’ Miller said to Caldy.
Blumenthal, intent on his listening, bent forward encased in his earphones, glanced up and nodded at Miller. Miller returned the nod. ‘Sir, I requested that you be sitting here with me,’ said Caldy.
‘I thought maybe you’d calculate I was bad luck.’
‘No, sir. Some of the other guys kinda thought that but not me. Could be I’ll be needing you.’
‘I’ll take that as a compliment. Thanks,’ said Miller.
‘Don’t mention it, sir.’
The boyish pilot straightened the cumbersome plane, its lights full on. It was a settled June night now, after all the rain and wind, cloudy but steady. As they taxied Miller picked out the outline of the trees along the rim of the airfield, the dark patches that were buildings, barns and houses where civilians were deep in their every-night sleep.
The pilot, with his fair hair protruding from his flying helmet, was concentrating on the aircraft in front. They were to be number three to take off. The rest of the squadron was strung out, back into the darkness. A door opened in a hut at the edge of the airfield and a flitting shaft of light came out. It was Major Pitt’s office. He waved but no one saw him.
Each of the Dakotas had a full load of paratroops, fifteen to each aircraft, sitting unspeaking in rows along the dimly lit hull, their parachutes, their weapons and their heavy kit piled around them. To every man’s left leg was fastened an extra bag, packed with tools and ammunition. Slotted in each man’s boot was a long dagger. By morning they intended to be in occupation of defence installations, communications posts, concrete strongholds, and emplacements of heavy guns whose long barrels traversed the landing beaches.
After their normal waddle to the end of the runway the transports took off, each with a shattering roar, three minutes apart, and rose to five thousand feet through shredded cloud and into the clear places below the unhidden stars. Everywhere was placid, airy, calm, and they were floating through a flat sky. Carefully Caldy observed other planes in the formation; there would be many other squadrons at the rendezvous above England’s southern coast. ‘We have a lot of people up here,’ he said casually as if to himself. The paratroopers in the back could scarcely stir. Some drifted into dozing, some nibbled at chocolate. Some merely stared ahead. This is what they had come for.
‘Nice night for it,’ said Caldy, peering at the stars.
‘After all the rain,’ said Miller. It was like two men, father and son perhaps, conversing in an ordinary place; safe, on the ground, at home.
‘Maybe we’ll see the ships,’ mentioned Blumenthal. ‘Down there somewhere in the ocean.’
‘They had just better be there,’ said Caldy.
The sergeant loadmaster, who would be overseeing the paratroopers’ jump into space, came from the rear and offered them chocolate. They each took a piece. He said everything was fine at the back. He had not asked the airborne men but he knew they were fine. They knew what they had to do. ‘At times like this I wish I was jumping too,’ he said. ‘Getting out of this crate.’ He went back to his men.
The south coast was indistinctly luminous, the shape of the sea more visible than the land. Blumenthal was muttering in his confiding manner into the radio close to his face. Caldy nudged Miller sitting behind him and then nodded out into the surrounding sky. The pattern of planes was all around them. ‘All going in the same direction,’ said the young pilot. ‘Everything’s going to plan. So far.’
‘No fighter escort,’ said Miller, regretting immediately that he had said it. But Caldy only shrugged. ‘The sky is too crowded anyway,’ he said. ‘It’s better those guys operate in daylight.’
Far ahead, where there was only darkness, the horizon was suddenly bruised by a warm, brief glow. Then another, erupting in a half-orange shape, then dying at once. No sound reached them. ‘Bombing,’ said Caldy. ‘They’re dropping the big stuff. That should wise them up, tell them we’re on the way.’
Miller detected the nervous inflection in his voice. ‘They’re strafing the anti-aircraft guns,’ he said.
‘Could be,’ said Caldy.
They were well over the sea now and Blumenthal looked downwards for the ships but saw nothing. Caldy suddenly said: ‘Let’s get this thing over with.’
He leaned over the controls as if he wanted to press an accelerator and send the plane forward like a fast car. Then to himself he muttered: ‘Anti-aircraft fire.’
They could see the flash of the guns and the explosions in the sky. ‘Way below,’ said Caldy. ‘They won’t hit a God-dam thing like that.’ He laughed tautly. ‘They must be crazy.’
They saw the Dakotas in front begin to gain height. ‘Don’t forget us,’ said Caldy. Blumenthal spoke to him and he said: ‘Glad they remembered,’ and eased the labouring plane to a higher altitude. ‘Can’t go too high,’ he called to Miller as if he might not know. ‘Those guys in the back don’t like to have to fall too far.’
A silence fell between them as they crossed the French coast. Blumenthal was keeping up what seemed to be his private conversation, occasionally leaning towards Caldy so that he could make a terse comment. Miller observed that the anti-aircraft fire was thickening ahead. Caldy saw it too. ‘We have to get through that?’
‘Right through it,’ confirmed Miller. ‘Then we go straight ahead to the dropping zone.’
There was another silence. The coloured shell-bursts were directly in front. The Dakota began to bounce with the impact of the explosions.
Suddenly Caldy said: ‘I can’t go through with this.’ His voice was just pitched above the di
n of the engines but it was a statement, he did not shout.
‘You’re going through with it,’ Miller told him stonily. ‘We all are. That’s why we came.’
Blumenthal was muttering swiftly either to himself or into his mouthpiece. He glanced up once, sideways at Caldy.
‘I can’t do it,’ said Caldy with a choking sound. ‘I’m not letting myself die up here in this fucking crate.’
‘Nobody is going to die,’ Miller told him, leaning over from behind. He found himself undoing the flap of his revolver holster and laying his palm on the butt of the Smith and Wesson. ‘We’re going to drop these guys. They’ll have to float down through that flak. When we’ve dropped them we’ll turn around and go home. Got it?’
Caldy nodded sharply but he was weeping with fear. ‘No,’ he stumbled. ‘I can’t do it.’ Then, with an odd kind of hope: ‘I’ll be saving the lives of these guys behind too if we go back. You’ve got to let me go back, captain.’
His voice rose over the close thunder of an explosion below the plane. The Dakota bounced in the sky. The door opened to the rear compartment and the loadmaster stood there. ‘How long?’ he said. ‘My guys want to get out of this thing soon.’
Miller answered. ‘Soon. Very soon.’
‘Three minutes to dropping zone,’ said Blumenthal.
‘Okay. Make it a quick three minutes, will you.’ The sergeant shut the door.
Caldy said tersely: ‘Tell ’em to jump now. What difference will it make, captain? For Christ-sake.’
‘Keep going,’ Miller ordered him grimly. ‘Quit and I’ll have you court-martialled.’ He touched his revolver again. ‘Or I’ll shoot you, son.’
‘Then we’ll all die.’
Miller said: ‘Blumenthal can fly the plane.’
Blumenthal regarded them mildly. ‘I can fly the plane,’ he said.
‘Okay, okay, okay,’ sniffed Caldy in a shamed way. ‘Since you’re going to shoot me anyway I’ll do it. But I want to go home.’
‘Drop the ’chutes in the right area and then we can all go home,’ said Miller. ‘Two more minutes.’
‘One and a half,’ said Blumenthal quietly.
Now they seemed to be bouncing on a carpet of exploding lights. It was like a frightening fairground ride. High explosive burst below the wings and directly ahead of the cockpit, shaking the screen. Caldy was shivering. But then Blumenthal said something to him, almost confiding, and the young pilot steadied himself and his voice and said: ‘Dropping zone below.’ The only way now was back.
He fumbled for a button at the side of his seat. Miller guided his hand to it. He pressed and they heard the urgent buzzer sound behind them. The door opened.
‘Okay, they’re going,’ said the loadmaster.
Miller wished them good luck.
‘You got us here anyway,’ responded the load-master. ‘For my guys’ sake I hope the flak on the ground is less than the flak up here.’
To Miller’s amazement Caldy said: ‘They’ll be fine. Nothing to it.’
The loadmaster closed the door. The paratroopers began to jump. Miller stretched to see them flying away like butterflies through the pale night. Caldy was crouched across the controls. Coloured explosions erupted around them.
It took less than three minutes. ‘Gone,’ said Blumenthal then. ‘Every one.’
The loadmaster opened the door again. ‘Just fine,’ he said. ‘I’m going to have a cigar. Thanks, guys.’ He closed the door behind him.
‘Now we can go home,’ said Miller.
‘I’m sorry, captain,’ said Caldy. ‘I was scared.’
‘So was I,’ replied Miller. ‘As shit. So was Blumenthal. So were the men in the back. But now it’s okay, it’s done.’
Caldy began to whoop and laugh. ‘Let’s go! Let’s get out of this place!’
Blumenthal was leaning to look out. He said in his flat voice: ‘The starboard engine’s on fire.’
The Dakota began to descend in an orderly way, a long dive towards the sea. It was becoming daylight and as they crossed the French coast Blumenthal said calmly: ‘There’s all the ships. I never saw so many ships.’
There was nothing they could do. ‘We’re not going to make it,’ said Caldy, oddly quiet now. ‘Should we tell the guy in the back?’
‘Let him enjoy his cigar,’ said Miller.
Caldy half turned towards him. ‘Captain …’
‘Yes, son?’
‘Will you hold my hand?’
‘Sure. I need somebody to hold mine,’ said Miller. He manoeuvred himself from the rear of the seats into a position wedged between them. He squatted across instruments that were now redundant. Caldy held out his hand and Miller took it.
Blumenthal said: ‘Would you hold mine, too?’ Miller did.
The plane, smoke and flames issuing in a plume from the starboard engine, came down at a steeper angle. It fell into the sea in mid-Channel.
There were no survivors.
Chapter Twenty-four
The D-Day landings on 6 June 1944 spread for almost a hundred miles from end to end. The Normandy invasion beaches had code-names from west to east: Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno and Sword. There was also a phantom force moving towards the Straits of Dover to keep the Germans thinking that Hitler’s arrogance was justified, that the strike would be in the Pas de Calais. The first news of the invasion was given to the world in an early-morning broadcast from Radio Berlin. The BBC continued to recite the words of Verlaine.
The American landings, at Omaha particularly, met murderous resistance and they suffered multiple casualties, including Private Benjamin Soroyan who was killed within his first few steps on the sand. Juno, Sword and Gold beaches were more readily, but not entirely easily, taken by the British force and by the Canadians and French.
Twenty miles inland from the desperate battles for a first foothold in Europe, the procession of Our Lady of the North was forming up for the third day of its creeping pilgrimage across upper France. Every day the religious people of the farms and villages, egged on by their priests, had joined it and by this morning it stretched for more than two miles from the plaster figure at the fore to the children lagging at the rear.
Antoinette Barre, in peasant dress, together with Gilbert and Paget who were wearing the French workman’s bleu de travail, had joined it at early prayers in the village of St Jean des Eaux. There the church itself was filled with robed clergy and regional notables while the commonplace people sat on the churchyard walls and on the mossy and misshapen gravestones of their ancestors. Some would have to return that day to work in the fields but others stayed with the procession for, over the years, it had traditionally become something of a walking holiday. By now the pious crocodile numbered two thousand trudging souls.
Antoinette squatted on a tombstone near the church gate, her cigarette held down behind the crumbling slab. At a distance Paget observed her and Gilbert as they surveyed the walkers, the Englishman wondering at the bizarre occurrences that seemed to happen in occupied France as a matter of course. All three were armed and there were other resistance men and women among the pilgrims, singing the psalms and hymns, and responding to the incantations as they marched.
The local bishop walked before the better-class worshippers from the church, called a blessing across the tombs to the ordinary folks, and then went off convivially to breakfast with the priest and several ornately clad others. The start of the invasion had been mentioned but no more than that. There were more practical and immediate problems to be grasped as far as the procession of Our Lady of the North was concerned. The statue was several centuries old, and being borne about she was subject to wear and tear. The previous day her foot had fallen off. A man from St Nazaire, a specialist in the repair of relics, was to be summoned.
Once the leading clergy had drifted to breakfast a young, starved-looking priest, his skin drawn thinly over his facial bones, his ears almost transparent, his nose flushed, began taking fussy charge of getting the procession on
the move again. The place where the statue’s foot was missing had been covered with a piece of blue velvet, and the priest checked that it was secure, for the accident had been embarrassing for the clergy and distressing to the peasants who thought it might mean bad luck or terrible events. The thin young father then consulted a map and as he was doing so he was approached by Antoinette and Gilbert. Paget kept his distance. Antoinette enquired about that day’s route and the priest brusquely jabbed his finger at the map and gabbled the names of villages.
‘But, mon père, we should perhaps visit some other villages,’ said Antoinette, pointing firmly at places on the map.
The priest was outraged at a woman making suggestions. His skinny eyebrows went up. ‘Our Blessed Lady of the North has always gone by this way,’ he almost snarled. ‘There is no reason to change it. No authority.’
Antoinette shrugged and backed into the crowd. The priest stared after her uncomfortably and spotted the hard-eyed Gilbert who made the sign of the cross, then became immersed in the people, some of whom had started singing out of tune.
Standing on a grave the priest snapped some less than holy orders and the vanguard of the procession began to shuffle forward. Four strong men carried the platform on which Our Lady was borne. It was a subdued but fine morning and none of the sounds of battle carried to that distance although some who looked up noticed increased air activity.
Along the rural roads Our Lady was carried. The young priest trod anxiously and prayed that nothing disastrous would happen today as had happened yesterday; that the figure would arrive in one piece at the next night’s stop. The bishop had not been pleased.
After two miles between strong hedgerows, the narrowing of the way making the procession even longer, they came to a village at a crossroads. The marked route was directly across the junction but Antoinette again approached the priest and this time pushed the muzzle of a Colt automatic pistol into his protruding ribs. He knew what it was. ‘We will go to the right here,’ she said quietly. ‘Mon père.’
‘I cannot. The occupying forces forbid us to use the main roads.’
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