Freefall

by Robert Radcliffe

  Rommel was appalled, yet unsurprised. Hitherto a loyal supporter of Hitler and his expansionist aims, his experiences in Africa caused him to see his leader in a new light: irrational, dishonest, deluded, disastrous for the future of Germany. Yet Rommel was a career soldier, and orders were orders. So he would stand and fight as told. And of one thing he was certain. Afrika Korps would not go down easily.

  My dear Manfred,

  I send you warmest congratulations on your 14th birthday! How swiftly time passes these days. I only hope this doesn’t come too late. The war is hard and it is doubtful whether I will be permitted to return to you. You must realize the seriousness of the situation and study as much as you can. I’m displeased the Hitlerjugend makes such demands on you when you should be at school. Times may become very hard, dear Manfred, so be guided by your mother and know that you are always in my thoughts. Be brave, young man!

  Your loving father

  CHAPTER 4

  The three battalions of the 1st Parachute Brigade arrived in Algiers in November 1942. Part of the new 1st Army under the American general Dwight Eisenhower, 1st Army’s task was to take and secure Tunisia, especially the vital port of Tunis, before advancing to annihilate Rommel. 2nd Battalion arrived last, clumping down the gangplank in bemusement like tourists on a cruise. None had experienced North Africa before; few had even travelled abroad. Imposing waterfront colonnades lined the port, while jostling houses with sun-bleached faces crowded the hills above. The wide harbour was busy with shipping; the air was filled with blaring horns, revving motors and the guttural shouts of Algerian dockers, while the smell was of engine fumes, oily water and sewage. And everywhere was the accumulating paraphernalia of war. Cranes swung overhead bearing stores, vehicles and weaponry. Supplies and equipment lay stockpiled along the docks. Tanks, trucks and armoured vehicles filled the quays, troops marched, Jeeps sped in and out, and Hurricanes thundered overhead.

  The Paras formed up, their baggy jumping smocks and rakish red berets drawing curious glances. Two passing infantry officers scowled with disapproval, watching sailors smirked, and Algerian labourers pointed and laughed. In a while Colonel Frost appeared and stepped up on a crate, and everyone waited to hear his first words to the battalion. But instead of the stock lecture about tidiness and good behaviour, he instead produced a little brass hunting horn and blew a ragged fanfare. ‘We’ve a job to do!’ he shouted. ‘You’re ready, so let’s get on with it!’ And with that he jumped down. Glances were exchanged, wry murmurs heard; ‘Well, well, Johnny,’ muttered a Scotsman. Then the NCOs were barking their orders, and with that the five hundred men of 2nd Battalion stamped to attention, turned smartly about and marched off to war.

  Frost was at their head, sniffing vaguely at the foetid air and wondering at the events that placed him there. After the success of Operation Biting, he had been promoted from C Company to the role of second-in-command of the whole battalion, under its leader Colonel Gofton-Salmond. He then spent an enjoyable and undemanding summer on a Bruneval lecture tour, catching up on leave, and training with the men down in Dorset. Then in October came news of an overseas deployment and Salmond put him to work preparing for departure. Finally, amid much excitement, 2nd Battalion was ordered to entrain for Scotland. But on the very night it embarked the troopship at Greenock, Salmond suddenly fell ill and had to be taken off. Within an hour Frost was standing before Brigadier Gale.

  ‘You’ll have to lead the battalion, Johnny.’

  ‘What! But for how long?’

  ‘God knows. Gofton’s seriously ill. It could be permanent.’

  ‘What about Philip?’ Philip Teichman, still technically senior to Frost, might reasonably expect this promotion.

  ‘He may not like it, but I want you. He’ll be your second-in-command. Don’t worry, I’ll handle it, you just see to your men.’

  The Algiers weather was mild; the rain-splashed streets smelled rank and exotic and, climbing up from the harbour, everyone marching in step behind him, Frost felt a sudden surge of pride. 2nd Battalion really was his! Soon they were swinging along elegant tree-lined boulevards where French colonials waved and doffed their hats. Then they were entering poorer quarters crammed with ramshackle dwellings of rough stucco. Children in Arab dress ran alongside, women in black watched from doorways and dogs nipped at their heels. Above them a domed basilica brooded portentously. They marched on, their boots ringing on cobbles, then crunching on dirt as urban areas gave way to tracks and brown fields. Palm trees, olive groves and eucalyptus began appearing, and after an hour they reached a suburb called Maison Carrée. Frost checked his instructions, continued past a military airfield, and then turned between wrought-iron gates into the former girls’ college where 2nd Battalion was to be billeted. The buildings looked careworn but functional; a floral mural decorated one wall, a dusty sports field stood to one side. ‘Any lassies still here?’ someone quipped. Frost handed over to the NCOs and went exploring, commandeering the headmistress’s office for his own, then spending the rest of the day attacking the bottomless catalogue of chores commanding officers must cope with at a new barracks: messing, washing and catering arrangements, transport, signals, and communications, weapons and ammunition supplies, standing orders and duty rosters: the list went on and on. Still technically a major and with barely a fortnight’s experience leading a battalion – all of it in the bowels of a troopship – by midnight he was exhausted and demoralized. To cap it all a knock then sounded on his door and Philip Teichman appeared.

  ‘Heard about 3rd Battalion?’ he said, his eyes scanning Frost’s desk.

  ‘What about it?’

  ‘Dropped into Tunisia three days ago.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘Some town called Bône, barely a hundred and fifty miles from Tunis.’

  ‘Really,’ Frost replied testily. He did know 3rd Battalion had been deployed, as had 1st Battalion. Both had arrived in Algeria before 2nd Battalion, and both were now busy making names for themselves, 1st Battalion going great guns ‘harassing and disrupting’ the enemy inside Tunisian lines, and now this Bône thing with 3rd Battalion. Apparently the men were laying bets on which battalion would be primus in Carthago – first into Tunis. 2nd Battalion was the long-odds outsider.

  Frost picked up his pen. ‘What of it?’

  ‘Well, evidently they arrived in Bône to find it unoccupied by Jerry, see, but crawling with subversives and spies – you know, dodgy French colonials and untrustworthy locals.’

  ‘Philip, I am rather busy...’

  ‘So their CO marched the whole battalion right through the centre of town, you know, as a show of force.’

  ‘Really.’

  ‘Twice.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Once with their tin hats on, then a second time ten minutes later wearing their red berets. So word will get back to Jerry there are two battalions occupying Bône, not just one! Brilliant, no?’

  It was, Frost conceded, and typical Para brio. But with inter-battalion rivalry fierce, and 2nd Battalion lounging around a girls’ school hundreds of miles from the action, it didn’t make him feel any better.

  Teichman gestured at his desk. ‘How’s it going?’

  ‘Fine, thank you.’

  ‘Doesn’t look like it.’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘I’ll do it.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’ll do it, you go and get some rest.’

  ‘I couldn’t possibly allow that!’

  ‘Yes you could.’ Teichman smiled. ‘I’m a lawyer, remember. We love paperwork.’

  ‘Yes, but—’

  ‘Listen, Johnny. We have to make this work, you and I. For the sake of the regiment. And we will. So here’s what I propose. Leave the admin to me, that’s what I’m good at. You get some sleep, then tomorrow go and find 1st Army HQ and get us a job. That’s what you’re good at.’

  *

  The forty-four Dakotas began taking off at 11.30 a.m. Already late due to
last-minute plan changes, confusion over loading and a waterlogged airfield, it took another hour to get them all airborne and formed up. Finally, three hours later than scheduled, the formation turned east and set out on the four-hundred-mile trip to Tunis.

  Theo rode in Lieutenant Charteris’s aircraft. After Bruneval the youthful Charteris had been promoted to intelligence officer for the battalion, reporting directly to Colonel Frost. Theo had been transferred to his section, where, as well as combat duties, he was to assist Charteris ‘as required’. Albeit without any promotion.

  ‘I’m sorry, Theo,’ Colonel Frost told him before they left England. ‘I put in the paperwork, but the East Surreys are being tiresome, and it seems there’s a problem with your OCTU. You’ll have to do it all again and that’ll take months. You can if you wish, but you’ll miss the deployment...’

  ‘OCTU can wait, sir.’

  An hour later the Dakotas crossed into Tunisia, at which the pilots dived to low level to avoid enemy detection. The ride, already bumpy, now became violent and within minutes hardened Paras were turning pale. Just as the first man jerked forward to vomit, Charteris caught Theo’s eye and beckoned him over.

  ‘How’s your Arabic coming along?’ he asked.

  ‘Not too good, sir. I’m still studying the phrasebook you gave me on the ship, but it’s hard going.’

  ‘Keep studying. I’ve a feeling we’ll need it.’ Charteris steadied himself against a jolt. ‘Plan’s changed again.’

  ‘Oh.’ Theo knew nothing of the operation they were embarked on, except it had been repeatedly changed or cancelled.

  ‘Yes and Colonel Frost’s not pleased. We’re now dropping to knock out a different airfield, before hiking fifteen miles to a second, which we’re also to knock out before hiking another fifteen miles to meet up with 1st Army, although God knows how.’

  ‘Sounds like a lot of hiking.’

  ‘All of it behind enemy lines, with no protection and no transport. And apparently there’s a Panzer division lurking in the vicinity, although nobody really knows. Anyway, our job is to liaise with the locals, gather information about the enemy and barter for transport.’

  ‘Barter?’

  ‘Buy or rent trucks and so on from farmers and villagers, so HQ says; failing that horse carts will do, mules, barrows, anything to carry the heavy weapons and equipment. We’ve plenty of cash at least, but if necessary we’ll commandeer the stuff. So keep that phrasebook handy and stay close when we land.’

  Theo nodded, recalling a German Panzer division glimpsed through binoculars in France. Tanks, half-tracks, motorized infantry, heavy artillery, speeding fearlessly down the road. Against one battalion using horse carts?

  ‘Um, are we expecting opposition at the drop zone?’

  Charteris grimaced. ‘Haven’t a clue.’

  Another nauseating hour passed; then, through the open doorway, harsh rocky terrain gave way to a flat brown plain and the ride became smoother. Minutes later the dispatcher appeared from the cockpit and signalled to make ready.

  Charteris took first position by the door. ‘No time to recce the DZ!’ he shouted to the nineteen men queuing behind him. ‘So when the CO goes, we all go, right?’

  ‘And pray Jerry ain’t waiting,’ muttered the man behind Theo.

  Jerry wasn’t waiting; no one was. Theo exited cleanly, felt the familiar jerk and sway, and was safely down in seconds. Rising to one knee, he released his harness and shouldered his rifle, instinctively scanning for trouble. But all was quiet save the drone of receding engines and distant toot of Colonel Frost’s hunting horn. Taking stock, he saw that the ground was of rough plough, gently undulating with hills further off, wide open with little cover, and dotted with Paras far and wide. Bundling up his parachute he went in search of Charteris.

  An hour later 2nd Battalion was deployed in a defensive perimeter around the drop zone, ready to move off towards their first objective, which was an airfield a mile away called Depienne. Not a shot had been fired, no enemy had been seen, although several locals were visible watching from a distance, with some helping themselves to equipment containers and discarded parachutes. Of potential motorized transport there was no evidence. Charteris left for an officers’ meeting with Frost, while Theo waited with the others of HQ Company. Smaller than a regular company, it consisted of signals staff, the medical section, admin and clerical, and the padre. Theo didn’t know them; they seemed friendly enough if rather unnervingly cheery, completely lacking that instinctive wariness many older hands had. He sensed few had been in combat before. There was a ‘protective’ section attached, armed with mortars and Bren guns, but they too appeared unconcerned, brewing tea and cracking jokes nearby.

  He wandered to one side and took out his new binoculars. They were German-made; he’d bought them at a market stall in Algiers, not asking how they came to be there. He searched the horizon, noting how rapidly both the light and temperature fell with the setting sun, but seeing no sign of the enemy. Then a familiar sound drifted to him and with it a pang of longing. C Company, his Scottish friends: he could see them now, half a mile away across the plain, making ready for the attack on the airfield. He knew they’d be busy loading up with weapons and ammunition, stuffing pockets with grenades, sheathing knives, checking rifles and Stens. Major Ross was their leader now, the man who’d led the charge against the pillbox at Bruneval. The sound came again, a plaintive wail, and he smiled. Piper Ewing was among them evidently, complete with bagpipes.

  Charteris returned. ‘Airfield’s deserted!’ he reported breathlessly. ‘Recce patrol just got back. They say there’s no aircraft, no vehicles and no Jerry. Not so much as a wind-sock on a stick!’

  ‘So what’s the plan?’ the padre asked.

  ‘Lie low till midnight then move out towards the second target. Meantime we eat and rest.’

  ‘Rather chilly for camping al fresco.’

  ‘It’s just for a few hours, Padre. Right, Theo, you’re with me.’

  They set off in search of transport. But the locals seemed to evaporate with the dusk, and in two hours they found only tumbledown farms, some Roman ruins and a few deserted barns. ‘Careful, sir,’ Theo cautioned, as Charteris shouldered his way into one, but it too was empty. The nearest they came to motor transport was a rusting motorcycle in a ditch, and reporting to Colonel Frost later could only list wheelbarrows, bicycles, mule and hand carts, and about a dozen ponies and donkeys among their purchases.

  ‘Can’t say I’m surprised.’ Frost was squatting beside a radio operator. ‘No transport, no support, no extraction plan: this whole operation’s a mess.’

  ‘Rather seems so, sir.’

  ‘To top it all the radios don’t work.’ He glanced up. ‘What about the enemy?’

  ‘They were here,’ Charteris reported, ‘but now they aren’t. Locals say they’ve seen aircraft, vehicles and, er, tanks too, though they were vague about numbers.’

  ‘Vague?’

  ‘Yes, sir. To be honest we – Theo and I, that is – formed the impression they weren’t entirely frank with us.’

  ‘Probably reporting to Jerry as we speak.’ Frost checked his watch. ‘All right, rejoin your men. We move out on my signal.’

  At midnight the hunting horn sounded and 2nd Battalion moved off. No one complained, as with freezing temperatures and only jumping smocks for protection, sleep was impossible. They walked all night, picking their way across the alien landscape like Bedouins across a desert. The terrain was harsh and exposed; the order was to proceed in silence, so the only sounds were boots on rock, muttered oaths as someone stumbled, the clatter of cartwheels and occasional clopping of hooves. Theo walked in mid-column, near Charteris who was mounted on a pony, his helmet at the saddle bow, his water canteen clanking against a stirrup. His section followed, and with their weapons slung across their backs like crossbows, and the jerkin look of their belted smocks, Theo was struck by the timelessness of the scene: the officer on horseback, foot soldiers trudgi
ng behind, the moonlit landscape, just like the Carthaginians of old. To further add to the impression, small fires were occasionally glimpsed on the tops of hills, warnings to their enemy, he presumed, of their approach.

  They stopped before dawn. As they did so, flopping to the ground for tea and cigarettes, faint flashes could be seen over the horizon to the north. ‘Tunis!’ Charteris exclaimed, checking his map. ‘My goodness, chaps, that’s anti-aircraft fire at Tunis. We’re barely a dozen miles away!’

  ‘Maybe we’ll be primus after all,’ the padre said wearily.

  After a breakfast of bully beef and biscuit, they advanced down a shallow valley towards their second objective: an airfield outside the small town of Oudna. Having seen no sign of the enemy since dropping, Frost sent them forward in open formation, led by C Company, who set off to a jaunty tune from Piper Ewing. Rather like a field day exercise, Theo felt. Drawing nearer the target the Scotsmen became more guarded, but upon investigation, this second objective, save empty hangars and one burned-out Messerschmitt, also appeared deserted. Perplexed and wary now, Frost called a halt. Beyond the airfield lay a railway station and then the town of Oudna itself. Both would need checking. ‘Proceed with caution,’ he signalled C Company. ‘I’m coming down. Everyone else wait here.’

  Theo watched through his glasses as Frost’s detachment descended. All remained quiet. A gentle breeze sighed through the grass; a train whistled in the distance; a buzzard circled high overhead.

  The padre sauntered up. ‘Everything all right, old chap?’

  ‘I hope so, Padre.’

  ‘Splendid.’

  At that moment he glimpsed smoke puffs coming from one of the hangars, closely followed by a distant popping sound. Grabbing the padre, he dived for the ground.