Freefall

by Robert Radcliffe

  An eerie calm descended as the fighting petered out and the Witzigs melted back into the trees. ‘Take that, you bastards!’ someone shouted as they went. ‘Go fuck a sheep!’ shouted another. Theo slumped against his boulder. Beneath it the Bren-carrying Para he’d helped lay groaning, his shoulder smashed and bloody. ‘Get me up, lad!’ he hissed through gritted teeth. ‘Get me up, I ain’t done yet.’ Theo swung his broken rifle over his shoulder, stooped to the man and helped him to his feet. Ten minutes later they were staggering back into the clearing they’d started from.

  A lull. ‘We can’t do this alone!’ Frost was pleading on the radio. ‘Where are the Goumières? Who’s protecting our flank? Hello? Hello? Oh, for God’s sake!’ He threw down the microphone. All around the clearing Paras lay about the ground, tending wounds, reloading weapons, draining water bottles and lighting cigarettes. Some even had little stoves of tea brewing. Elsewhere on the Pimples the sounds of battle echoed. 1st Battalion was apparently making steady progress, Frost reported, while 3rd Battalion’s situation was unknown. ‘The two supporting brigades and the Moroccans are tied up elsewhere,’ he added disparagingly. ‘Brigade is trying to send help but makes no promises. Meanwhile we’re to hold the enemy as best we can.’

  ‘And what does that mean?’ someone asked.

  ‘It means—’

  A shot rang out, then a shout: ‘They’re coming! In the trees – look!’

  ‘Take cover, everyone!’

  A succession of mortar shells exploded around the clearing, throwing columns of dirt and sand into the air. Then followed bursts of machine-gun fire from several directions. 2nd Battalion was trapped, bullets and shells coming at them from three sides as the Witzigs drew near. Soon they were barely a hundred yards away at the forest’s edge. Where they stopped. Content, it seemed, to wait, and pick off the Paras one by one. Like fish trapped in a net.

  ‘Come on then, you buggers!’

  ‘What are they doing?’

  ‘Calling up reinforcements probably.’

  ‘Or a fucking air strike!’

  Frost watched through binoculars, hunched into his dug-out.

  ‘Why aren’t they advancing?’ his adjutant murmured. ‘One determined push and it’s all over for us.’

  ‘God knows.’ Frost lowered his glasses. ‘But it could be a mistake.’

  ‘So what do we do?’

  ‘What we always do. And if we go down, so be it, but we go down fighting.’

  He sent Theo to pass the word, scurrying head down from one dug-out to the next. Frost’s orders were to fix bayonets and wait for the hunting horn. The effect was electrifying, he noted, grins and cheers as the steel blades came out, and the sounds of battle cries rising all round.

  The horn went, they sprang up as one and charged, fanning out left and right and spraying the trees with gunfire as they ran. The Witzigs responded, stepping from cover to greet them. Close-quarters fighting quickly broke out, bloody and merciless; the enemy had superior firepower and more men, but the Paras had speed and aggression. And they’d surprised the Germans, and while Vickers teams poured bullets into the trees, a mortar section rained shells into the German’s rear, sowing panic and confusion among those following. Using the distraction, B Company sprinted unseen through the forest in a flanking move. Meanwhile Theo ran forward with the others of HQ Company, firing his damaged rifle at anything grey. He lost his helmet and his gun was soon empty, so he threw it aside, pulling a grenade from his pocket with one hand and his dagger from his hip with the other. Through the trees a young German was kneeling, wrenching at the jammed breech of his rifle. Theo leaped forward, dagger raised, then the youth saw him and stood to shoot. Immediately a bullet snapped his head back and he fell. Theo turned and saw Frost waving, pistol in hand; then a mortar erupted close by and flung Theo to the ground.

  As his senses returned, he knew they were losing. The fighting was still furious, the shouting, the smoke and the gunfire as intense, but it was more desperate, and more concentrated, as if the Germans were pressing in on all sides. Those Paras still on their feet were backing into each other, forming a steadily shrinking perimeter. The mortar shelling had stopped, and the heavy machine guns, the sounds now were of small arms and the occasional grenade, gasped breaths and shouted German orders.

  ‘Surrender, Tommies!’ came a guttural yell. ‘Surrender. You know it’s over!’

  ‘Fuck off!’

  ‘One last push, boys!’ Frost called. ‘Drive uphill and split them in two!’

  The Paras charged, bellowing like madmen. ‘Waho Mohammed!’ someone yelled and the cry was swiftly taken up. Then Theo heard it repeated up ahead and a moment later B Company appeared, charging down on the enemy from behind. The Witzigs turned to confront them, and at the same moment a mass of new Paras began bursting through the trees to the left. ‘3rd Battalion forward!’ someone cried and suddenly the Germans were under assault from three sides, and breaking in confusion, and turning before the onslaught and fleeing for cover.

  In barely minutes they’d gone.

  *

  Learning of 2nd Battalion’s predicament, 3rd Battalion’s commander, Colonel Bill Yeldham, had immediately detached one of his companies to come to Frost’s aid. These extra men and the surprise attack by B Company were enough to save the day. More was to follow. After a respite to rearm and regroup the whole brigade advanced on the enemy ridge, only to find it abandoned. The Germans were in retreat. Two more days of fighting pursuit and the Paras were astride the road at Sedjenane once more. That night they advanced over their old positions, only to find them abandoned too. Frost stood at his old CP by the road sounding his hunting horn in triumph. The Germans had gone, falling back to Tunis and defeat. Within six weeks, though no one knew it yet, the survivors would surrender, and the war in Africa be ended.

  Not that 1st Parachute Brigade would be there to witness the victory. After five months of fighting, and more than a third of its strength gone, it was in dire need of rest. Following the Battle of Tamera, its battered remnants began pulling back in easy stages to Algiers, Theo among them. On the final stage they rode in a train, following a meandering route through cork woods and olive plantations, with the sea glinting in spring sunshine to their right. Rounding a bend they came to a wired-off compound and saw it was a huge POW camp full of captured Germans. Paras leaned from the windows, waving; the prisoners saw their berets, and before anyone knew it, began surging to the wire, cheering and throwing their caps in the air.

  ‘Blimey, look at that!’

  ‘There’s a turn-up for the books.’

  ‘What are they shouting?’

  ‘No idea. Sounds German.’

  Theo sat watching through the glass.

  ‘Roten Teufel!’ they were cheering. ‘Roten Teufel! Roten Teufel! Roten Teufel!’

  CHAPTER 8

  The brigade was sent to Boufarik, a peaceful country town thirty miles south of Algiers, to rest and regroup. Food was plentiful, the weather spring-like, the countryside was of vineyards and orange groves, in all a welcome and much-needed contrast to the mud and carnage of Sedjenane and Tamera. Individual sections were billeted in surrounding French farms, there to recover in peace and comfort. Little soldiering went on: some light training, kit replacement, talks and lectures, much paperwork and admin, but mainly it was a time for relaxing, catching up on news from home, and reflecting on the past five months of war. VIPs visited, including a new brigadier, Gerald Lathbury, General Browning, who was head of the airborne division, and, amid much excitement, General Eisenhower himself, supreme commander of Allied forces in Africa, who charmed everyone with his wit and humour, and spoke gratefully of the brigade’s achievements and sacrifices. Theo stood with the others of 2nd Battalion as he addressed them. Still pale and weak after the malaria, he couldn’t help noticing how depleted the battalion looked. Quite apart from countless dead and captured, scores were still missing, and many more lay in hospitals, where apparently they refused to rem
ove their berets, even in the operating theatre.

  A day after Eisenhower’s visit, he was called to see Colonel Frost.

  ‘And how are you feeling?’

  ‘Much better, sir, thank you.’

  ‘Good. You’re due some leave. You should go to Algiers. Visit friends.’

  ‘Friends?’

  ‘People outside the battalion. They do exist, you know!’ He sat back. ‘And you should probably check in with your SOE-handler chap.’

  ‘Has he been asking?’

  ‘Someone from his department has. I expect it’s getting busy there.’

  ‘But what about Brigade?’

  ‘Brigade’s in no fit state for anything. In any case the war here is all but wrapped up. My guess is the next step will be an invasion of southern Europe, but not for some time.’ He smiled. ‘We can spare you for a while.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Meanwhile my job’s to get 2nd Battalion back up to strength, men and officers, most especially officers. Which brings me to this.’ He produced a sheet. ‘There’s an OCTU being set up in Cairo under the Middle East Command. I’ve applied to send you there to complete your officer training.’

  ‘I... Well, thank you, sir.’

  ‘Don’t thank me; you’ve earned it. Unfortunately there’s a waiting list, so God knows when you’ll be summoned. In the meantime I’ve had a word with the brigadier and he’s in agreement.’ Frost waved the paper. ‘Field commission. Acting second lieutenant. Immediate effect.’ He leaned over and shook Theo’s hand. ‘Congratulations.’

  ‘Field...? Um, well, thank you, sir. Again.’

  ‘Think nothing of it, we’ll be needing you, and you’ll be worked hard.’ Frost began describing the job of the subaltern: his lowly status among officers, the merciless teasing, the monotonous duties. Theo half listened, his gaze drifting to the window, and the cloudless blue beyond, questioning for the thousandth time his fitness for leadership.

  Frost too became pensive. ‘… far too many,’ he murmured. ‘Willoughby, Moore, Cleaver, Charteris. Dick Ashford of course, Dickie Spender, Geoff Rotheray. Not forgetting poor Philip...’

  ‘I was sorry to hear about him. Lieutenant Spender, I mean.’

  Frost sighed. ‘Charged an enemy position with no thought for his own safety. Typical Dickie. Saved countless lives sacrificing his own.’

  ‘I, um, read his poem. About Oudna.’

  ‘Hmm.’ Frost looked up. ‘He spoke of you, you know. That’s partly why you’re here. He said you showed great pluck. John Ross too, despite you shouting and waving my pistol at him!’

  ‘I don’t remember much of that night.’

  ‘I’m not surprised.’ He shuffled papers. ‘It was a young lady, by the way.’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘Asking about you. From SOE. A young lady named Taylor.’

  *

  They met a week later at Yale’s office. Yale was there, curt and harassed, Bryce too, as officious as ever, and several new faces, more interrogators, he assumed, and more clerks busily typing, filing and answering the phone. Yale briefed him with updates and instructions, Bryce lectured him on security, someone issued him with identity cards and passes, all the while he yearned only to speak with Clare. Because the moment he walked in, and they saw each other, he knew something fundamental had changed.

  ‘Café de Paris?’ he whispered when a moment finally arose.

  ‘Yes please!’ She grinned, and pointed to his shoulder. ‘And you’ll be legal!’

  He waited at the same window table, sipping the same rosé wine and anxiously scouring the drifting seas of khaki for her arrival. Something else had changed, he noted, apart from the number of servicemen on the streets. People’s attitudes. Simply because he wore a pip on his shoulder. Second lieutenant might be the lowliest of the low, but shopkeepers now fawned, waiters bowed, ordinary soldiers eyed him warily, girls smiled, and a young navy rating in the street even jumped up and saluted. It was a heady cocktail of caution, regard and respect, as if he’d married royalty suddenly, or won an election. He wondered what his grandfather would think.

  ‘Hello, Theo.’ He turned, his chair scraped, he stood, they embraced. Tightly and for a long time.

  ‘Goodness!’ she gasped. ‘I wasn’t expecting that.’

  ‘No. Although I was hoping.’

  ‘Me too.’

  They walked along packed streets smelling of damp pavements and hair lotion, jostled by freshly cleaned servicemen, badgered by street vendors, and skirting the rougher quarters in search of calm and privacy. Finally they arrived at the botanical gardens, a favoured venue for couples, and settled on a bench beneath a giant palm. An awkward silence grew. They watched roosting starlings flock to the trees, children playing with a hoop, and tried not to notice nearby lovers embracing. At her prompting, he began to talk of his month since they parted. His journey to Beja, the lorry ride with the sergeant, the hill, the road and rejoining the battalion. The fighting at Sedjenane and Nefza, his malaria, the return journey and recuperation at Boufarik. The losses.

  ‘Ghastly.’ She shook her head. ‘The fighting, I mean, it sounds so… desperate.’

  ‘It was. Although I don’t remember it well.’

  ‘Perhaps that’s for the best.’

  ‘Yes.’

  Another silence. His hand found hers. ‘And what about you? The office seems very busy.’

  ‘Insanely.’ She snorted. ‘And it’s all Intelligence Corps stuff, you know, processing prisoners and that. I mean, it’s important work and someone’s got to do it, but still...’

  ‘It’s not what you joined the FANY for.’

  ‘Precisely.’

  ‘Which is?’

  She nudged him. ‘Watch out. Yale’s got you earmarked for a ton of work.’

  ‘But I’ve got leave owed.’

  ‘Me too. But don’t expect to take it.’

  He hesitated. ‘How’s Antoine?’

  ‘He’s... the same. He was gone a while after you went to Gabès. He works with the Free French a lot. We don’t see much of him.’

  Then he was kissing her. Clasping her hand, eyes closed, he tasted lipstick and rosé, felt the urgency of her mouth, the arousal in her breathing, and the tightness of her hand squeezing his. As though time itself was short.

  The next day he reported for work. Which was much as before except for subtle if significant changes. Firstly, as an officer he was now entitled both to transportation and refreshment during his working day, so he travelled between camps by taxi whilst eating sandwiches bought from petty cash. He had a better billet too, in a building for officers where he also dined in starched formality. Furthermore, he was no longer filling in questionnaires with hapless Italian conscripts, but using judgement to tease information from seasoned regulars, many of them German – including officers. He was afforded a modicum of respect by camp staff, and also by the prisoners, many of whom visibly flinched at the sight of his beret and insignia. Why red devils, he began asking them, as a matter of routine. Why do you call us Die Roten Teufel? Their answers varied. Because you’re always caked in that red mud. Because of that tail hanging down from your Kampfbluse. Because of the hellish way you fight. Because of your red hats. Because of all the bloodshed.

  May came, and with it Germany’s surrender in Africa. While the Allies celebrated, the numbers of POWs soared. Most were quickly processed, cursorily questioned and moved on, destined for camps in Wales or Scotland or Canada. But a few marked themselves out for closer scrutiny. Among these were engineering officers, especially those with a scientific background. Certain key locations were also of interest.