Winter of the World

‘I won’t do anything for that damned Williams family. Anyway, I heard last night that your boyfriend wants to be a Member of Parliament.’

‘He’ll make a great one.’

‘Not with you in tow. He won’t even get elected. He’s a bloody socialist. You’re an ex-Fascist.’

‘I’ve thought about this. I know it’s a bit of a problem—’

‘Problem? It’s an insuperable barrier. Wait till the papers get that story! You’ll be crucified the way I’ve been today.’

‘I suppose you’ll give the story to the Daily Mail.’

‘I won’t need to – his opponents will do that. You mark my words. With you by his side, Lloyd Williams doesn’t stand a bloody chance.’

(vi)

For the first five days of June, Lieutenant Woody Dewar and his platoon of paratroopers, plus a thousand or so others, were isolated at an airfield somewhere north-west of London. An aircraft hangar had been converted into a giant dormitory with hundreds of cots in long rows. There were movies and jazz records to entertain them while they waited.

Their objective was Normandy. By means of elaborate deception plans, the Allies had tried to convince the German High Command that the target would be two hundred miles north-east at Calais. If the Germans had been fooled, the invasion force would meet relatively light resistance, at least for the first few hours.

The paratroopers were to be the first wave, in the middle of the night. The second wave would be the main force of 130,000 men, aboard a fleet of five thousand vessels, landing on the beaches of Normandy at dawn. By then, the paratroopers should have already destroyed inland strongpoints and taken control of key transport links.

Woody’s platoon had to capture a bridge across a river in a small town called Eglise-des-Soeurs, ten miles inland. When they had done so, they had to keep control of the bridge, blocking any German units that might be sent to reinforce the beach, until the main invasion force caught up with them. At all costs they must prevent the Germans from blowing up the bridge.

While they waited for the green light, Ace Webber ran a marathon poker game, winning a thousand dollars and losing it again. Lefty Cameron obsessively cleaned and oiled his lightweight M1 semiautomatic carbine, the paratrooper model with a folding stock. Lonnie Callaghan and Tony Bonanio, who did not like one another, went to mass together every day. Sneaky Pete Schneider sharpened the commando knife he had bought in London until he could have shaved with it. Patrick Timothy, who looked like Clark Gable and had a similar moustache, played a ukulele, the same tune over and over again, driving everybody crazy. Sergeant Defoe wrote long letters to his wife, then tore them up and started again. Mack Trulove and Smoking Joe Morgan cropped and shaved each other’s hair, believing that would make it easier for the medics to deal with head injuries.

Most of them had nicknames. Woody had discovered that his own was Scotch.

D-Day was set for Sunday 4 June, then postponed because of bad weather.

On Monday 5 June, in the evening, the colonel made a speech. ‘Men!’ he shouted. ‘Tonight is the night we invade France!’

They roared their approval. Woody thought it was ironic. They were safe and warm here, but they could hardly wait to get over there, jump out of airplanes, and land in the arms of enemy troops who wanted to kill them.

They were given a special meal, all they could eat, steak, pork, chicken, fries, ice cream. Woody did not want any. He had more idea than the men of what was ahead of him, and he did not want to do it on a full stomach. He got coffee and a donut. The coffee was American, fragrant and delicious, unlike the frightful brew served up by the British, when they had any coffee at all.

He took off his boots and lay down on his cot. He thought about Bella Hernandez, her lopsided smile and her soft breasts.

Next thing he knew, a hooter was sounding.

For a moment, Woody thought he was waking from a bad dream in which he was going into battle to kill people. Then he realized it was true.

They all put on their jump suits and assembled their equipment. They had too much. Some of it was essential: a carbine with 150 rounds of .30 ammunition; anti-tank grenades; a small bomb known as a Gammon grenade; K-rations; water purifying tablets; a first-aid kit with morphine. Other things they might have done without: an entrenching tool, shaving kit, a French phrase book. They were so overloaded that the smaller men struggled to walk to the planes lined up on the runway in the dark.

Their transport aircraft were C-47 Skytrains. To Woody’s surprise, he saw by the dim lights that they had all been painted with distinctive black and white stripes. The pilot of his aircraft, a bad-tempered Midwesterner called Captain Bonner, said: ‘That’s to prevent us being shot down by our own goddamn side.’