Arnhem

The two of them settled down to a meal of corned beef and mushed-up biscuits, washed down with tea made from a tea-tablet. Afterwards Billy pulled two very crumpled cigarettes from his pocket. ‘I’ve been saving these for such an occasion,’ he said, and the two pals lit up. It was the finishing touch to what Ennis would describe as ‘the best meal I have ever tasted in my life’. In the distance they could hear that dull rumbling of heavy guns that could just be from the relief column, perhaps 15 miles or so away. They lived in hope, still. ‘I was certain we would be relieved tomorrow.’ And the next day there was a glimmer of light in the gloom. The rain lifted and the clouds that had covered the battlefield for days on end cleared briefly. Fighter aircraft appeared overhead and, to Ennis’s joy, they were Typhoons not Messerschmitts. He was worried, however, that the indistinct and indecipherable British lines might be accidentally strafed. ‘Our perimeter had shrunk out of all resemblance to its shape and size of a few days before. It must have been very difficult for the pilots to distinguish our positions from those of the enemy. But the Typhoons did a wonderful job. Their rockets streaked down into the German lines with a roar like a Tube train. We heard terrific explosions as they met their targets and sent clouds of black smoke towering high into the sky. It was a heartening sight to us. We wondered if any of the enemy mortar batteries had been knocked out. Whether they had or not, the attack would certainly shake Jerry up and make him realize that he wasn’t going to have everything his own way.’ Yet, once the Allied planes had gone, the enemy shelling continued, as relentlessly as before, and Ennis felt his patience and his morale wearing thin. ‘I had to keep a tight hold on myself now. I felt that if I relaxed my grip on myself in the slightest degree, my nerve would snap.’ His prayers for the relief column to come were more extreme than ever. He offered a deal to the heavens. ‘Oh, please, dear, dear God, send the Second Army tonight and I will never, never sin again.’

But, divine intervention apart, it was Billy’s cheerfulness that kept Ennis going. ‘Every time a shell landed close and showered us with dirt, he would sing out “Yah, yer missed me – try a bit nearer.” I felt that was pushing our luck and told him to shut up. He then started to sing, out of tune. I realized that this was his way of preventing himself from thinking too much about the pickle we were in, and so let him carry on.’ Ennis knew that each man had to get through the hell of battle as best he could, and if that meant laughing and singing uproariously in the face of fear, then so be it. The limited number of cigarettes they managed to scrounge also acted as a diversion from the reality of their situation. They would debate for hours when to have the next one, then test their willpower against the clock until the agreed time. ‘The moment I said it was okay to light up, the cigarette was between Billy’s lips. He took two puffs and passed it over to me. Inhaling was positively glorious. I felt my whole being lift up. I passed it back. It was burning away too quickly. Very soon it was completely finished. It glowed feebly on the bottom of the trench. I hesitated for a few minutes and then squashed it into the earth.’

But his spirits were about to get a huge boost. Billy went to try to find water in one of the nearby airborne houses and returned with an empty bottle but brimming with excitement. He had met some troops from the Signals section and been told by them that advance elements of the Second Army were 5 miles away. The only real obstacle standing between them and the depleted force at Oosterbeek was the river and, said Billy enthusiastically, that very night they were going to assault and cross it further downstream. Help was at hand. As if on cue, the background noise of artillery rose to a crescendo and bright-coloured flares shot up into the air over in the direction of the river. ‘This would be the Second Army coming to relieve us, at last,’ Ennis assured himself, and muttered a prayer of thanks. ‘With a bit of luck we would see our homes again.’