by Alan Evans
They came to Roy’s bridge, now hopelessly enfiladed, and turned left to run along the quayside between the blank walls of warehouses and the St. Nazaire basin, glinting under the moon now shining through scattered clouds. They came under fire from the guns mounted on the U-boat pens across the basin but they were halfway to the bridge and running hard when little Jimmy Nicholl was hit. They halted while the rest of the column ran on. Ward and Joe Krueger lifted Nicholl and carried him to cover in the darker shadow by the nearest wall. Madden and the others closed around and Beare examined Jimmy with Catherine by his side.
Madden asked, not turning, still looking along the quay towards the outer bridge where the column had halted, just short of the Old Town Square, “How is he?”
Beare answered heavily, “He’s unconscious, sir. He’s got a nasty chest wound and probably others.”
Ward peered over Madden’s shoulder. There was scourging rifle fire from the far side of the bridge and machine-guns hammered there, set high on some building at the Southern Entrance.
Madden said quietly, bitterly, “There’s no way out across the bridge.”
*
Patrick waited with the rest of the column in the cover of the warehouses by the Old Town Square, looking across its hundred yards of open ground to the bridge that spanned the Southern Entrance, bathed now in brilliant moonlight. There were a score or more of German riflemen lying prone on the quay on the far side. He could not see the men but the flashes of their rifles firing showed where they lay. There was a machine-gun in the concrete pill-box on the other side of the bridge and to the left of it, others high in houses or on roof tops.
This bridge was the way they had to go. Patrick wiped his hands on his trousers and took a better grip on the Thompson. His last magazine was loaded and half of it already fired. Sergeant-major Haines was setting up a Bren to give covering fire. Patrick was ready to go, could feel a coiled-spring tension in the men around him.
The Bren opened up, Newman shouted an order and ran at the bridge with Roy at his side. Patrick and the rest charged after them. He heard the whip-crack of firing passing close over his head, ricochets shrieked off the suspension girders of the bridge, rubber-soled boots pounded on its hollow steel frame like a drum.
The German riflemen melted away from the charge, scrambled to their feet and scattered. Patrick was over, saw Bill Copland rush at the pill-box, fire through the slit and silence the machine-gun inside. They ran up the road in a ragged column and a motor-cycle with a sidecar carrying a machine-gun swerved out of a side turning. Patrick and every other commando fired at it and the motor-cycle skidded, crashed into a wall.
An armoured car appeared in the street ahead, machine-gun firing from its turret. Patrick swerved to the right, away from the machine-gun and out of sight of the man behind it. He found himself in a side street and realised the others had swung left and he was alone. He could hear the engine of the armoured car growing louder so he went on up the street at the double. In fifty yards he came to a cross-roads and ran full tilt into a German patrol.
There were three of them, two armed with rifles, one carrying a pistol, and Patrick thought he was probably a non-com. The Thompson was empty so he grabbed it by the hot barrel and swung it like a club. The shock jarred up his arm and one of the riflemen reeled away and fell on his face. The other tried to defend himself with the rifle held out before him but Patrick smashed down the guard and the man behind it. The non-corn pointed his pistol. The stock was broken from the Thompson but Patrick hurled what he had left, barrel and chamber. The non-com ducked away from the flying chunk of steel and his pistol fired but at the ground, then Patrick was on him. He grabbed the man’s arm, twisted and broke it at the elbow so the pistol fell, smacked the edge of his hand into the shouting face, silencing it. Then he left the man lying, ran on up the street and halted at the end where it was crossed by a broader road.
His side of the road was lit by the moon, enough for him to read the plate almost over his head: Rue Henri Gautier. Shadow lay along the opposite wall. To his right the road lay wide, straight and empty, pointing roughly north and that would be a way out into the country. There was sporadic firing coming from the direction of the bridge behind him and no point in returning, weaponless, to the others. So he was on his own. All right.
He trotted across the road and headed north in the shadow cast by the wall, passing houses where people lived, ordinary Frenchmen, awake now and perhaps watching anxiously from their windows. He could perhaps seek shelter in one of their houses but not for long—Jerry would certainly mount a search in the morning. He checked when he came to a narrow side turning, peered into it, saw only darkness, and decided it was a blind alley. He had just started across it when another German patrol spilled out into the street from a cross-roads a hundred yards ahead. He side-stepped into the alley and watched. This was not just a patrol, he thought, but reinforcements headed for the dockyard. There were already around thirty men advancing towards him and more still poured out into the road. They were spread right across it as they hurried towards the sound of the firing.
He swore under his breath, turned and moved quickly, soft-footed, deeper into the alley. There was a shed of some sort blocking the end of it, with double doors and one of them ajar. He slipped around it and in. A window at the back let in moonlight that showed him an old van. Transport? He slid along the side of it, then froze momentarily as he saw the figure of a man sitting inside it, behind the wheel. Patrick yanked open the passenger’s door and dived in, left hand clamping around the man’s throat and the other whipping the commando knife from its sheath on his thigh. He jabbed the knife against the side of the man’s neck until he winced as its needle-sharp point pricked his skin.
Patrick held him thus and watched the end of the alley through the half-open door. The troops passed in a noisy stream, then a trickle…that ceased. The alley was quiet again except for the distant firing. Patrick said hoarsely, quietly, “Silence! Oui?” The man nodded fractionally against the clamping hand. Patrick released its pressure but did not take it away, nor the knife. In the moonlight that filtered in through the rear window he saw his hands were black with blood from the earlier fighting.
Henri whispered, “You are English.” And when Patrick nodded: “I am of the Resistance. You understand? I have to leave St. Nazaire , also. There is a way for us.”
Patrick asked, “In this?”
Henri shook his head. “One of us was…taken last night, so my cover may be worthless. I dare not risk being stopped.” He explained about the truck from Nantes. “In the truck we can keep out of sight. It is a chance at least. There is an old suit—overalls, yes? In the back, here. You wear those.”
Patrick took away his hand, then the knife. He had understood Henri easily enough, still remembered the French he had learned in Paris. He sat back in the passenger’s seat, suddenly very tired. For the first time since he had stood on the deck of Campbeltown he thought of Sarah. Not of their nights together, not of her body, but of Sarah herself. He hoped she was safe and happy, but that she would be glad to see him when he got back. He would get back. Nobody would stop him.
Henri rubbed at his throat and looked at the tall man now easing himself back in the other seat. His soldier’s helmet was missing and a lock of black hair hung over his brow. His eyes were dark and determined in a face that was filthy and streaked with sweat runnels. His hands were big, strong and seemed to have been dipped in blood. His grip on Henri had been like iron, and there had also been the knife.
Henri said, “I thought I was close to death, then.”
“You were.”
A flat statement. Henri believed that this man would kill anyone who stood in his way. He said in careful English, “I was in England a little time. I learned to speak, a little. You are a commando?”
Patrick grinned at him. “Me? Don’t you know a bloody artist when you see one?”
*
Ward watched the incredible charge across
the bridge and Madden said, “They made it!” And then softly, “Oh, hell!”
In front of them the Old Town Square had filled suddenly with German troops, barring the way to the bridge. There was no hope of escape across it for Ward, Madden and the rest.
They fell back towards Roy’s bridge, stealing along in the darkness close against the warehouses. The firing on the other side of the basin faded into the distance. Ward wondered how Newman and his men were faring.
Lockwood and Driscoll carried Jimmy Nicholl between them, limp and unconscious, his legs dragging. German voices shouted all around them, from the ships in the basin, from beyond the warehouses that briefly sheltered them, from behind them on the quay and ahead, from the other side of Roy’s bridge.
There was no crossing it so they turned the corner and were back in the area of the Old Entrance. Madden, in the lead, halted at the open door of a warehouse. He and Ward stood for some seconds listening, and Ward looked across the quay to the black water in the rectangle of the Old Entrance. The skipper of that E-boat sneaked in here ahead of the destroyers…
Madden muttered, “Sounds empty. It might be a place to hide—or a death trap.”
Catherine said, “There is a loft. A ladder leads up to it.” Madden advanced a step.
“Is there, by God.”
He hesitated but Ward had already made his decision. “We know there’s no way out by the river. We’ve got to lie up during the day then try to get out overland tomorrow night. There’s no chance now. Come on, you and me first.”
Madden nodded, glanced around, saw Beare lurking close and told him, “We’ll take a look. Wait here.”
He went quickly through the door, moving right and Ward followed, moving left. A few paces inside they halted, accustoming their eyes to the deeper darkness. Ward made out alleys running between huge stacks of crates piled high above his head. Beyond lay blackness and silence. If there were windows in the warehouse then they were blacked out because none of the glare from the fires in the dockyard and the sweeping searchlights penetrated into this black cavern. There was only the faint, grey rectangle of the door.
Madden called, “O.K., Sergeant Beare, get ’em in.” And when they were all inside: “Where’s that ladder?”
They followed Catherine as she walked cautiously between the piles of stacked crates, hands outstretched before her, until she came to the wall. She worked along it slowly then said, “Here.”
It was a steel ladder, clamped to the brickwork, vertical. Madden climbed it and passed through the square opening at the top into the loft. Beare followed with Nicholl, wrists lashed together with a handkerchief and around Beare’s neck, hanging on the sergeant’s back. The rest followed and Ward was last.
There was room to stand under the roof. The timber floor was solid and did not creak. Faint light entered through wide, shallow windows like horizontal slits that overlooked the Old Entrance and were not blacked out. Well-filled sacks were piled all around the entrance to the loft, to the height of a man and right up to the windows. They seemed, from the smell of them, to contain greasy cotton waste or cleaning rags.
Madden set a watch at the head of the ladder and another at the window overlooking the Old Entrance. “But keep your heads down. Don’t be seen, for God’s sake.”
They made a nest among the sacks close by the ladder for Nicholl and those not on watch. Beare and Catherine worked on Nicholl, Madden collecting the field dressings that every man carried. The most obvious wound, in Nicholl’s chest, had been hastily dressed before they moved from the quay, but now they found the others. Catherine and Beare did all they could but it was hopeless. Little Jimmy Nicholl did not regain consciousness and died very soon after.
Madden said with bitter self-recrimination, “I should have left him on the quay. They might have got him to a doctor and saved him.”
Catherine shook her head and Beare said, “No.” He had seen wounded before, too many.
Catherine stayed kneeling beside Nicholl and prayed for the soul of the young man she hardly knew. Then she lay down like the others, and tried to sleep. But, tired as she was, she remained wakeful.
The men took it in turns to stand sentry for an hour at a time. When Ward was not on guard he slept the sleep of exhaustion, but fitfully. Catherine watched him. Once when he half-awoke he found her close, her arm around him. He put up a hand to touch her cheek, then closed his eyes and slept again.
The small-arms fire went on intermittently through what was left of the night but it had moved away. Catherine thought the Germans must be hunting down the commandos who had broken out over the bridge. With the dawn the firing ceased and Madden woke them all. They stood to as the light grew.
16: Chariot of Fire
Pianka came looking for his officer in that first light.
Engel still sat in the room on the top floor, watching the stairs. He had woken in the last of the night and heard the swift scurrying of booted feet as men ran from cover to cover. Listening to them, he could see them with his mind’s eye, moving in dashes with heads turning nervously. He heard the fighting ebb away into the distance and now the booted feet moved more slowly but still with pauses when they halted, reluctant to break from cover until a growled order started them.
He did not feel so bad now. The arm was stiff and sore but he was alive and here was another day.
Pianka’s voice came from the road outside: “Hauptmann Engel?”
Engel answered, “Wait! Is anybody with you?”
“An N.C.O. and ten men.”
“Send them in. Tell them to be careful. I think the Tommies have gone but you never know.”
Engel heard them enter, cautiously. With a grunt of pain and muttered cursing he climbed to his feet, dragged the cupboard aside and descended the stairs. Pianka stood at the foot of them, scowling with a mixture of relief that Engel was alive, and concern at the sight of him, filthy and with a bloody rag wrapped around his arm. Pianka started, “You’d better go to the dressing-station—” Then stopped as he caught Engel’s eye.
Engel asked, “Did the ships take them away?”
Pianka spread his hands. “I don’t know. I heard they couldn’t get off from the Old Mole and tried to fight their way out through the town but that’s just rumour. It is very confused.”
Engel said grimly, “I’ll bet it is.” Then: “They took our prisoner. I heard them talking with her.” He turned to the N.C.O., “You and your men come with me.”
The corporal stood to attention and protested, nervously because he knew about this eccentric officer, “I have orders to search—”
Engel cut him off. “That’s exactly what you’re going to do: search. Come on.”
The N.C.O. swallowed his objections and obeyed.
They worked through the buildings along the side of the basin and crossed Roy’s bridge. There they met a Feldwebel who told Engel that prisoners were held in a café on the other side of the Southern Entrance. “A hundred of them charged across the bridge. God knows where they thought they were going. Maybe they had gone mad because their boats had burned. We only captured them because they hadn’t a round of ammunition.”
Engel looked at him sharply. “Were all the boats sunk?”
“I don’t know, but many were; maybe all.”
Engel went to the café, looked over the prisoners and there were some young naval officers among the commandos but not the tall man he had seen. There was no Catherine Guillard.
He took his men searching through the town and back past the U-boat pens, then crossed by the bridge to the other side of the basin and combed the area around the Normandie dock. The devastation there appalled even him. He stared at the wreck of the northern gate, Campbeltown rammed into the southern, and the heaps of rubble that had been the pump-house and winding-houses. He whispered, “My God! It will take a year to get it working again!”
He recognised a major of engineers standing on the deck of Campbeltown and bawled up at him, “Do you want a corks
crew to get her out?”
The engineer stiffened at sight of Engel but answered, “She’ll come out and the gate will be all right after some work. We looked for demolition charges but the Tommies didn’t manage to lay any here—I’m glad to say.” He grinned as relief relaxed him. “They filled up her bow with concrete so she’d hit the gate like a hammer but they got their sums wrong and it wasn’t enough, it didn’t work.”
Engel shrugged and went on with his searching. Twice Pianka suggested Engel should go to have his wound dressed and was cursed for his temerity. It was close to noon when they passed Engel’s office again, heading towards Roy’s bridge and Pianka said, “Maybe they got away.”
“No!” Engel knew that abrupt denial came from instinct, not reason. Or was it bruised pride because he had lost his prisoner? No matter; he felt in his bones that the girl and her rescuers were still here in St. Nazaire. He would find them.
Pianka tried again: “The dressing-station is not far—”
Engel sighed with exasperation, “For Christ’s sake! Can’t you shut up? You’re worse than a nagging wife!” He paused, glaring at Pianka’s stolid, square face. Pianka was looking weary, he was too old for this game now. Engel said, “Go to the dressing-station and fetch a medic. When you catch up with me he can do the job.”
Pianka knew he would have to settle for that, turned and hurried away.
Engel limped on towards Roy’s bridge again, his Schmeisser carried loosely in one hand.
*
Ward lay on watch at the window in the loft as the dawn broke. Joe Krueger, come to relieve him, lay at his side. They, with Madden, were taking turns at keeping look-out from the window, an hour at a time. Beare, Lockwood and Driscoll did the same duty at the head of the ladder. The light grew slowly that morning because of the smoke from fires still smouldering all over the dockyard that rose to hang like a false cloud-base above the port. But the day came and from the narrow window, the glass blasted from it by the demolition charges of the night, they saw something of the area around their end of the warehouse. Their angle of vision was a semi-circle from Roy’s bridge and the St. Nazaire basin on their left, past the Old Entrance like a small rectangular inlet right ahead of them, to the southern gate of the Normandie dock. The gate was buckled so that the rising tide washed into the dock and Campbeltown rested on it like a stranded whale, with her bow projecting a foot or more beyond the gate and over the inside of the dock.