Arnhem

The skittles were falling one by one to overwhelming force. Another forward position was lost when Mordecai’s unit was ordered to evacuate the building it was in and pull back. ‘We picked our way out of the wreckage and out through the back door into a small garden, then over a high wall into the next one.’ It was a risky manoeuvre, involving one set of lads sitting on the top – an easy target for snipers – to heave up those on the ground. Fortunately, they managed it without being spotted and scrambled inside the house. Here, fellow paras were trying to fashion a safer escape route by ‘mouse-holing’. They were using their bayonets and spades to knock through the dividing wall into the next house in the terrace. ‘It was better than going out along the street and being met by machine-gun fire.’ But going out into the open could not be put off indefinitely. Two houses away, the building was on fire and the flames were spreading their way at a rate of knots. Staying put was no longer an option. ‘The heat was already terrific and we knew we had to get out or be burnt alive.’

Choking from the black smoke now creeping around them, they prepared to dash through the twilight for the cover of an archway under the bridge itself. Jittery men lined up in a back alley, blackening their faces with mud as camouflage in the darkening Arnhem night. It was a pointless precaution because, with flames taking hold all around them, the whole area was illuminated. A road had to be crossed, although it was as bright as day out there. Mordecai steeled himself and went in the first group, head down, hell for leather, and just made it to safety when a machine gun opened up. The next dice with death was a race across a patch of waste ground before flopping down in a ditch alongside a hedge. ‘As we lay there, we heard the clank of a tank moving towards us, getting nearer every minute. We hugged the ground, not daring to lift our heads in case the Germans spotted our faces. The clanking came nearer until I could see the shape of the tank through the hedge about 3 feet away. I prayed that it wouldn’t swivel in my direction.’ Not a muscle moved as the tank went off down the road, then turned and came back, making another pass by the hidden British troops. ‘We knew better than to fire at it. Sten guns weren’t much use against armour, and we’d only have given ourselves away.’ Finally, it moved off, and the men breathed sighs of relief.

But the obstacle race was not over. In another mad dash towards the archway under the bridge, they were silhouetted against the flames of a burning building and spotted. German machine-gunners let rip. ‘We put on a spurt and dived for cover behind a low wall.’ They were now right down by the river, and it occurred to Mordecai that there might be a way out of all this. He turned to his mate Harry with a radical suggestion. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘it seems obvious to me that we’re not going to be relieved. Why don’t we swim across the river and make our way towards our own lines?’ It was clearly a very long shot that they would make it, but even so the odds might be better than the ones facing them if they didn’t try. Stick or twist? But Harry said no. ‘We should stick together with everyone else and hope for the best,’ he replied. The moment passed.

‘By now, we were almost under the bridge,’ Mordecai recalled, ‘so we ran across the remaining distance and linked up with a unit already there.’ Beneath the span they built up a barricade with anything they could find. A party of sappers mined the ground 75 yards ahead, ‘then we took up position and waited to see what would happen next. We were all exhausted and thankful just to lie on the ground to rest. But it was now quite obvious that we were on our own, completely hemmed in and gradually being compressed into an ever decreasing circle.’