Swordpoint (2011)

by John Harris

  As the signaller crawled away, Warley stared round him. Deacon had surprised him with his ability. Up to that point, he had thought of him merely as a dubious disciplinarian who sought to conceal an inner lack of self-confidence by his constant harrying of the wretched Syzling. But he had clearly got an eye for country, and the dip he’d chosen couldn’t have been bettered by a man with fifty years’ experience of fighting. It gave them more shelter than they could have expected and had even provided somewhere for the doctor’s dressing station. Nevertheless, they were struggling against an overwhelming barrage from the hills. The German gunners weren’t entirely sure where they were yet, but it was quite clear that until the artillery damped down their fire A Company were going to be unable to move forward. The British shells exploding just in front didn’t seem to be dropping in the right spots, yet they were unable to redirect them without radios.

  ‘Have we heard from the Yellowjackets?’ Warley demanded. ‘They ought to be moving down here to help us.’

  ‘No, sir.’ Deacon answered. ‘There’s been nothing. Nor from B or C Companies.’ He turned back, ‘Syzling, for the love of God, keep your stupid head down! It might not worry you if you get a bullet between the eyes, because I don’t suppose there’s much behind them, but it’ll worry me. I need you.’

  Warley began to move round the dip, checking his men. In the stone byre, the medical orderlies, the doctor and O’Mara were crouched over the wounded. Only one of them had been hit by enemy fire since they’d reached the dip. All the rest had been brought down in the rush from the river and been dragged along by their friends.

  As Warley checked, a whole new group fell into the hollow, their weapons and equipment clattering. Jago was among them.

  ‘Christ!’ His voice was thin and edgy. ‘Is this all we’ve got? Where’s B and C?’

  ‘They haven’t arrived yet,’ Warley said. ‘And we’ve had no word from the Yellowjackets. We’d better get D across. How many did you bring?’

  ‘I set off with about forty men but I seem to have lost a few en route. I heard firing further downstream, so some of them probably drifted down there. I expect we’ll pick them up as we move on.’

  ‘If we move on,’ Warley said grimly. ‘There’s firing on our left, so I suspect B and C have got lost over there somewhere. We’ll know as soon as it’s daylight.’

  When Yuell reached the river bank, he discovered that three of his companies had managed to establish themselves across the river, even if only in small groups; but opposite the point where Warley had crossed, only one of the three footways the Engineers had managed to put up on kapok bales near the stone bridge was still standing. The German fire was extraordinarily heavy and extraordinarily accurate, and his signals officer had been badly wounded.

  He called Peddy to him. ‘Sit on the rear link radio in case we re-establish contact with Warley,’ he said. ‘I’m going across with D.’

  Another flurry of German shells landed along the river bank, sending slashes of mud sweeping across the scrubby undergrowth. As Yuell plunged on to the swaying footbridge with D Company, yet another salvo landed just behind them. The last man heading across the bridge cried out and fell into the water, and one of the Engineers waded out and dragged him ashore. Looking back, Yuell saw stretcher bearers were also busy round the hollow where he’d left Peddy and Mr Zeal. And even as he flung himself down with D Company, a shell severed the thin thread of steel and wood so that, like the rest of the battalion, D Company was now also effectively marooned without the support of tanks.

  At first it seemed impossible in the dark to decide just where Warley was but, finally, Yuell stumbled into the hollow where he and his men lay.

  ‘Where are B and C?’ he demanded.

  ‘We’ve seen no sign of them yet, sir,’ Warley said, shouting to make himself heard. ‘I’ve managed to pinpoint all my chaps, though, and we’re all in contact.’

  ‘This is a bad business,’ Yuell said. ‘I think Peddy was hit as we left the bank. Zeal as well, I suspect. I’d better go and see if I can find B and C. Are you all right here?’

  ‘Yes, sir. We’re all right, especially now D’s arrived. They won’t be able to throw us back, but I’m afraid we can’t do much about moving forward for the moment.’

  Yuell found the remnants of the other two companies huddled among the ruins of a farmhouse near the disused ferry. It had been turned into a strongpoint by the Germans, and they had had the greatest difficulty in silencing it. Yuell was staggered to see how few of them were left.

  ‘Is this all there are?’ he said, and then set about gathering them together before sending them stumbling through the darkness in small groups in the direction of Warley. The stretcher bearers had carried the wounded down to a cellar that smelled of mice, onions and damp. There seemed to be an extraordinary number of them, including B Company’s commander who was lying on his back, his face covered with blood, making snoring noises through his mouth.

  ‘Back of the head, sir,’ the corporal in charge said. ‘I’m afraid he’s had it.’

  Yuell glanced about him. ‘Think you can manage for a while?’ he asked. ‘We’ll get back to you as soon as we can.’

  ‘We’re all right, sir,’ the corporal said. ‘There should be reinforcements across at daylight.’

  ‘Yes,’ Yuell agreed, but neither of them believed it.

  By the time he had brought the remnants of the two companies up to Warley, Yuell guessed he had perhaps three hundred and fifty men out of the battalion, either in the hollow or dug in near the stone walls of the cowshed, still capable of fighting. But there wasn’t the slightest hope of them moving forward. The rest of the battalion had been scattered by the current and lost in the darkness, and by this time, with the night almost over, he could see ahead of him a belt of barbed wire that was heavy and thick enough to hold off anything without the assistance of artillery or tanks. Forced to dig in, they were unable to reinforce or communicate with the far shore. They couldn’t even retreat because most of their boats were sunk or smashed, and they could only cling to their pitifully small gains, praying help would come soon in the shape of the Baluchis, to save them from death or captivity.

  The German fire started again and a lot of it was mortar fire. One of the first landed at the feet of the man Yuell had chosen as his runner, just as he set off to contact Deacon away on the left. Only because someone saw it happen did they know who it was, because until his name tags were found it would have been impossible to identify him.

  The mortaring and counter-mortaring went on for some minutes. Evans’ bombs were being fired at intervals but the German fire was almost continuous and their aim was only just off, so that the bombs were bursting close to their positions. Then the fire stopped abruptly, and at once they saw heads emerge from the positions opposite.

  ‘They’re trying a counter-attack!’ Warley yelled.

  As the last explosion rang out, the Germans jumped up, only to be caught by the full blast of the battalion’s weapon strength. Dodging from group to group, Warley saw Henry White and McWatters tossing grenades in a steady stream – White’s face grave and full of concentration as if he were in his usual position fielding at deep extra cover for the battalion cricket team, McWatters grinning as if he were throwing bricks at the police. The ‘Sieg Heils’ crumbled into confused shouts. One section tried to break to the right for a gap in the wire but CSM Farnsworth spotted the move and, as he redirected the fire, the Germans scattered like leaves in a gust of wind. A shower of stick grenades came out of the air, one exploding close to Warley, but McWatters dragged him down just in time and the hot blast passed over his head.

  When he looked up again the Germans had vanished and he realised they’d beaten them off. But he also knew that suddenly it wasn’t the Germans who were the defenders but themselves. They were isolated in their hollow and, though they’d beaten off the counter-attack – even if they beat them all off – without tanks they couldn’t move an inch forward
.

  ‘We need help,’ Yuell said. ‘Either to go forward or to extricate ourselves. Haven’t we a single damn communication working?’

  ‘We have carrier pigeons, sir,’ Warley said.

  ‘Then let’s have one sent off with our approximate numbers and state.’

  The call went out once more for Corporal Carter. He arrived soon afterwards, crawling forward with the pigeon tucked in his battledress. It didn’t look very airworthy and Yuell stared at it grimly.

  ‘Is that the best you’ve got?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, sir. One of the wounded fell on the basket and smashed it, sir. He was a big man. This is the only one I could save.’

  Yuell wrote out the message and handed it over. Attaching the message to the bird’s leg, Carter threw it into the air. Immediately, a German with a Schmeisser machine-pistol spotted it and fired several bursts towards it. Bewildered and shaken by the noise, the bird flew in circles over the dip for a while, watched by dozens of eyes, then launched itself off – in the wrong direction.

  ‘It’s all the noise,’ Carter said, almost in tears. ‘They were never bred for taking part in a battle.’

  ‘Neither was I,’ Jago growled. ‘They ought to send the buggers over an assault course.’

  Then someone noticed that the pigeon they’d sent off during the night had disappeared from the wall where it had settled. Whether it had been caught by a burst from a Spandau or defeathered by blast, or had finally taken off for its loft, they had no idea. They could only hope it had made it across the river.

  Fletcher-Smith heard them talking and spoke to Farnsworth.

  ‘If they want a message taking, Sar’-Major,’ he said, ‘why not let me go? The runner’s been hit and there’s nobody else.’

  Farnsworth studied him warily. He still didn’t have much time for Fletcher-Smith, whom he considered too clever by half. Farnsworth had been brought up in the days when cleverness in common soldiers was not encouraged and he was suspicious of Fletcher-Smith’s motives.

  ‘You trying to dodge back?’ he said.

  Fletcher-Smith looked indignant. ‘Christ, I’m offering to swim the bloody river!’ he snorted. ‘Would you fancy that?’

  Considering it carefully, Farnsworth decided he wouldn’t.

  ‘Okay, son,’ he said. ‘Let’s see the major.’

  Warley listened to Fletcher-Smith’s offer and took him to Yuell.

  ‘Could you get across?’ Yuell asked.

  ‘I’m a good swimmer, sir,’ Fletcher-Smith said.

  ‘Good enough for that?’

  Fletcher-Smith almost laughed. ‘I’ve swum Windermere, sir. In 1938 I had a go at the Channel. I was only sixteen. They pulled me out only four miles from Cap Gris Nez.’

  Yuell knew Fletcher-Smith well by sight but he’d never heard anything like this.

  ‘There’s nothing in your records about it,’ he said.

  ‘I never told anybody, sir. They wouldn’t have believed me.’

  Yuell still hesitated. ‘The Germans are covering the river with machine-guns,’ he said.

  ‘Sir,’ Fletcher-Smith replied firmly, ‘I used to be able to swim two lengths of the baths without coming up for a breath. If I can get into the water, they’ll only see me for a couple of seconds at a time. The worst bit will be getting down there.’

  Yuell studied Fletcher-Smith. Despite his glasses and moon face, he was built like a barrel and certainly looked like a swimmer.

  ‘All right,’ he said. ‘Major Warley will tell you the position.’

  Warley took Fletcher-Smith to one side. ‘You’ll be doing us all a favour if you can make it,’ he said.

  ‘If I can get down there, sir, I’ll get across.’

  Warley indicated the water meadows behind them. ‘There’s what looks like a ditch just down there,’ he said. ‘It seems to run all the way to the river. If you can get into it, you might make it without being seen. It looks like a drainage ditch. It might even be for sewage. I don’t know. Would you like someone to go with you to help?’

  Fletcher-Smith shook his head. This, he had decided, was his affair and nobody else’s.

  In his headquarters in San Bartolomeo, Brigadier Tallemach was struggling with the information that was coming in. It was scanty enough in all conscience. A machine-gun had been knocked out here. A tank had been reported there. The German 431st Regiment had been identified. The very scantiness of the reports indicated the scope of the disaster on the other side of the river.

  He frowned and tried to produce ideas to cope with it, but he was not being very successful because his son’s face kept intruding.

  His fears for Yuell’s North Yorkshires and the Yellowjackets were very real. Certainly they had attracted plenty of attention and it was obvious from the din – field guns of all sizes, tank guns, mortars and machine-guns – that the Germans were pushing in everything they’d got. While he was brooding, a message arrived from the signals section – ‘Both battalions across.’ Tallemach stared at it, finding it hard to believe. What he didn’t know was that both battalions had reported that elements were across, and in the confusion the message had been fined down by an over-zealous signals officer.

  He was unable to confirm his doubts, however, because since the message had been received, contact with the river had been broken just after he’d heard that Peddy, Yuell’s second-in-command, and RSM Zeal had been killed by a shell. Signallers were trying at that moment to restore the link.

  He moved to the Intelligence truck. The information about the opposing forces was marked on the transparent talc that covered the big map that hung on one wall. The hatching showed the flooded areas of the river, the trees and orchards, even the farmhouses and their outbuildings. The black crosses marking the minefields stood out like an ugly fence; the Germans were experts at minefields, and leg wounds and amputations showed how many there were.

  Once more he studied the message that indicated that both battalions were across. Alongside it were other messages. One from the artillery complained that it was impossible to help Yuell because he was too close to the German positions. One from the Engineers reporting that footbridges had been thrown across was followed closely by other messages reporting, one by one, that the bridges had been destroyed. Vivian had reported that he’d had to withdraw his tanks behind San Bartolomeo again from their wire matting stands by the road, for the simple reason that they couldn’t possibly stay there in full view of the Germans all day.

  He turned to the 19th Division gunnery officer. ‘We need more smoke,’ he said.

  The Gunner looked worried. ‘Artillery doesn’t usually lay down smoke, sir,’ he pointed out. ‘It’s normally left to the mortars.’

  Tallemach frowned. ‘The mortar bombs haven’t turned up yet,’ he said. ‘They’re missing, like the grenades. We’re still trying to find them. You’ve got to do what you can.’

  ‘The number of smoke shells at a gun site’s pretty small, sir, and we fired off a lot during the first assault.’

  Tallemach turned to his brigade major. ‘How about smoke pots? Can we get them up-river to lay their smoke over the bridgehead?’

  ‘We have no smoke pots, sir. We got a signal from Div. to say there were six hundred of them in San Bartolomeo but I haven’t been able to find them. I’ve been trying ever since the mortar bombs went missing. No information came down from Div. HQ about them.’

  Heathfield again, Tallemach thought. He turned to the Gunner. ‘Use what shells you have,’ he said. ‘It’ll give us time to find the smoke pots.’

  ‘They won’t last long,’ the Gunner pointed out. ‘We were short when we started. They collected them all for the crossing at Cassino and there’s been a shortage for months.’

  ‘Where are the nearest reserves?’

  ‘Naples.’

  ‘Then someone had better go and fetch them.’ Tallemach again turned to his brigade major. ‘Get hold of the RASC.’ He swung back to the Gunner. ‘How many shall we need?’
>
  ‘To keep the screen going all day, thirty thousand.’

  ‘Very well, let’s get on with it.’

  Turning back to his map, Tallemach tried to concentrate. It wasn’t easy, because he was not only thinking of his newly-dead son but also of his wife and what she must be feeling. They’d only just got used to the loss of one son. Now they had to go through the whole thing again over the second. Suddenly he felt desperately tired and knew he wasn’t far from a crack-up.

  With an effort, he forced his mind firmly back to the job in hand. They had reached the most dangerous point of the operation. The most critical period of any crossing was not the passing of infantry across the water but of maintaining them on the far side against artillery attacks on their bridges and counter-attacks by armour. It was a vicious circle because the infantry needed the support of tanks, but the tanks couldn’t cross until the bridgehead was so big the crossings couldn’t be swept by close-range fire.

  Since Yuell’s crossing opposite San Bartolomeo had seemed at first to be a disaster, the Baluchis had been lorried upstream to support what had seemed a better option by the Yellowjackets, advancing on Castelgrande by way of Route B, the road from Foiano. Then, as the messages had begun to come in, it had become clear that of the two crossings, only Yuell’s showed the slightest promise at all and they’d been brought back again. Now, the increasing light revealed the same flooded meadows with nowhere to hide, and with the bridges smashed the Baluchis had had to withdraw to the safety of their original jumping-off point in San Bartolomeo before the German guns could destroy them. Only Yuell’s small group was now having any real effect on the battle.

  A few wounded had managed to get back before the last footbridge had gone and from them they’d estimated Yuell’s casualties at around a hundred and fifty to two hundred, which was heavier than most units could stand. But at Castelgrande, the battle had produced an even worse mess.

  Out of one group of the Yellowjackets, not a single man had got across; out of the other, elements of only one company had managed to reach the far side, but their casualties were even higher than Yuell’s and German mortars had pinned them to the edge of the river. Behind them, two more companies had waited as Engineers had tried to locate equipment which guides were unable to find or tried to repair bridge parts damaged by shellfire. The night had been an interminable period of fear, pain, confusion and delay, and only a few men had reached the shelter of a farm near Castelgrande.