Winter of the World (105 page)

There was a clang. One of the men said in German: ‘What was that?’ Then the grenade detonated.

There were two explosions. The first knocked all three Germans to the ground. The second was the motorcycle’s fuel tank blowing up, and it sent a starburst of flame that burned the men,
leaving a stink of scorched flesh.

‘Stay where you are!’ Woody shouted to his platoon. He watched the building. Was there anyone inside? During the next five minutes, no one opened a window or a door. Either the place
was empty, or the occupants were hiding under their beds.

Woody got to his feet and waved the platoon on. He felt strange as he stepped over the grisly bodies of the three Germans. He had ordered their deaths – men who had mothers and fathers,
wives or girlfriends, perhaps sons and daughters. Now each man was an ugly mess of blood and burned flesh. Woody should have felt triumphant. It was his first encounter with the enemy, and he had
vanquished them. But he just felt a bit sick.

Past the crossroads, he set a brisk pace, and ordered no talking or smoking. To keep up his strength he ate a bar of Dration chocolate, which was a bit like builder’s putty with sugar
added.

After half an hour he heard a car and ordered everyone to hide in the fields. The vehicle was travelling fast with its headlights on. It was probably German, but the Allies were sending over
jeeps by glider, along with anti-tank guns and other artillery, so it was just possible this was a friendly vehicle. He lay under a hedge and watched it go by.

It went too fast for him to identify it. He wondered whether he should have ordered the platoon to shoot it up. No, he thought, on balance they did better to focus on their mission.

They passed through three hamlets that Woody was able to identify on his map. Dogs barked occasionally but no one came to investigate. Doubtless the French had learned to mind their own business
under enemy occupation. It was eerie, creeping along foreign roads in the dark, armed to the teeth, passing quiet houses where people slept unconscious of the deadly firepower outside their
windows.

At last they came to the outskirts of Eglise-des-Soeurs. Woody ordered a short rest. They entered a little stand of trees and sat on the ground. They drank from their canteens and ate rations.
Woody still would not permit smoking: the glow of a cigarette could be seen from surprisingly far.

The road they were on should lead straight to the bridge, he reckoned. There was no hard information about how the bridge was guarded. Since the Allies had decided it was important, he assumed
the Germans thought the same, therefore some security was likely; but it might be anything from one man with a rifle to a whole platoon. Woody could not plan the assault until he saw the
target.

After ten minutes he moved them on. The men did not have to be nagged about silence now: they sensed the danger. They trod quietly along the street, past houses and churches and shops, keeping
to the sides, peering into the gloomy night, jumping at the least sound. A sudden loud cough from an open bedroom window almost caused Woody to fire his carbine.

Eglise-des-Soeurs was a large village rather than a small town, and Woody saw the silver glint of the river sooner than he expected. He raised a hand for them all to halt. The main street led
gently downhill at a slight angle to the bridge, so he had a good view. The waterway was about a hundred feet wide, and the bridge had a single curved span. It must be an old structure, he guessed,
because it was so narrow that two cars could not have passed.

The bad news was that there was a pillbox at each end, twin concrete domes with horizontal shooting slits. A pair of sentries patrolled the bridge between the pillboxes. They stood one at each
end. The nearer one was speaking through a firing slit, presumably chatting to whomever was inside. Then they both walked to the middle, where they looked over the parapet at the black water
flowing beneath. They did not appear very tense, so Woody deduced they had not yet learned that the invasion had begun. On the other hand, they were not slacking. They were awake and moving and
looking about them with some degree of alertness.

Woody could not guess how many men were inside, nor how they were armed. Were there machine guns behind those slits, or just rifles? It would make a big difference.

Woody wished he had some experience of battle. How was he supposed to deal with this situation? He guessed there must be thousands of men like him, new junior officers who just had to make it up
as they went along. If only Sergeant Defoe were here.

The easy way to neutralize a pillbox was to sneak up and put a grenade through one of the slits. A good man could probably crawl to the nearer one unobserved. But Woody needed to take out both
at the same time – otherwise the attack on the first would forewarn the occupants of the second.

How could he reach the farther pillbox without being seen by the patrolling sentries?

He sensed his men getting restless. They did not like to think their leader might be unsure as to what to do next.

‘Sneaky Pete,’ he said. ‘You’ll crawl up to that nearest pillbox and put a grenade through the slit.’

Pete looked terrified, but he said: ‘Yes, sir.’

Next, Woody named the two best shots in the platoon. ‘Smoking Joe and Mack,’ he said. ‘Choose one each of the sentries. As soon as Pete deploys his grenade, take the sentries
out.’

The two men nodded and hefted their weapons.

In the absence of Defoe, he decided to make Ace Webber his deputy. He named four others and said: ‘Go with Ace. As soon as the shooting starts, run like hell across the bridge and storm
the pillbox on the other side. If you’re quick enough you’ll catch them napping.’

‘Yes, sir,’ said Ace. ‘The bastards won’t know what’s hit them.’ His aggression was masking fear, Woody guessed.

‘Everyone not in Ace’s group, follow me into the near pillbox.’

Woody felt bad about giving Ace and those with him the more dangerous assignment, and himself the relative safety of the nearer pillbox; but it had been drummed into him that an officer must not
risk his life unnecessarily, for then he might leave his men leaderless.

They walked towards the bridge, Pete in the lead. This was a dangerous moment. Ten men going along a street together could not remain unnoticed for long, even at night. Anyone looking carefully
in their direction would sense movement.

If the alarm was raised too soon, Sneaky Pete might not get to the pillbox, and then the platoon would lose the advantage of surprise.

It was a long walk.

Pete reached a corner and stopped. Woody guessed he was waiting for the near sentry to leave his post outside the pillbox and walk to the middle.

The two sharpshooters found cover and settled in.

Woody dropped to one knee and signalled the others to do likewise. They all watched the sentry.

The man took a long pull on his cigarette, dropped it, trod on the end to put it out, and blew a long cloud of smoke. Then he eased himself upright, settled his rifle strap on his shoulder, and
started walking.

The sentry on the far side did the same.

Pete ran the next block and came to the end of the street. He got down on his hands and knees and crawled rapidly across the road. He reached the pillbox and stood up.

No one had noticed. The two sentries were still approaching one another.

Pete took out a grenade and pulled the pin. Then he waited a few seconds. Woody guessed he did not want the men inside to have time to throw the grenade out again.

Pete reached around the curve of the dome and gently dropped the grenade inside.

Joe and Mack’s carbines barked. The nearer sentry fell, but the farther one was unhurt. To his credit he did not turn and run, but courageously went down on one knee and unslung his rifle.
He was too slow, though: the carbines spoke again, almost simultaneously, and he fell without firing.

Then Pete’s grenade exploded inside the nearer pillbox with a muffled thump.

Woody was already running full pelt, and the men were close behind him. Within seconds he reached the bridge.

The pillbox had a low wooden door. Woody flung it open and stepped inside. Three men in German uniforms were dead on the floor.

He moved to a firing slit and looked out. Ace and his four men were haring across the short bridge, shooting at the farther pillbox as they ran. The bridge was only a hundred feet long, but that
proved to be fifty feet too much. As they reached the middle, a machine gun opened up. The Americans were trapped in a narrow corridor with no cover. The machine gun clacked insanely and in seconds
all five of them had fallen. The gun continued to rake them for several seconds, to be certain they were dead – and, in the process, making sure of the two German sentries too.

When it stopped, they were all still.

Silence fell.

Beside Woody, Lefty Cameron said: ‘Jesus Christ Almighty.’

Woody could have wept. He had sent ten men to their deaths, five Americans and five Germans, yet he had failed to achieve his objective. The enemy still held the far end of the bridge and could
stop Allied forces crossing it.

He had four men left. If they tried again, and ran across the bridge together, they would all be killed. He needed a new plan.

He studied the townscape. What could he do? He wished he had a tank.

He had to act fast. There might well be enemy troops elsewhere in the town. They would have been alerted by the gunfire. They would respond soon. He could deal with them if he had both
pillboxes. Otherwise he would be in trouble.

If his men could not cross the bridge, he thought desperately, perhaps they could swim the river. He decided to take a quick look at the bank. ‘Mack and Smoking Joe,’ he said.
‘Fire at the other pillbox. See if you can get a bullet through the slit. Keep them busy while I scout around.’

The carbines opened up and he went out through the door.

He was able to shelter behind the near pillbox while he looked over the parapet at the upstream bank. Then he had to scuttle across the road to see the other edge. However, no fire came from the
enemy position.

There was no river wall. Instead an earth slope went down to the water. It looked the same on the far bank, he thought, though there was not enough light to be sure. A good swimmer might get
across. Under the span of the arch he would not be easy to see from the enemy position. Then he could repeat on the far side what Sneaky Pete had done this side, and grenade the pillbox.

Looking at the structure of the bridge he had a better idea. Below the level of the parapet was a stone ledge a foot wide. A man with steady nerves could crawl across, all the time remaining out
of sight.

He returned to the captured pillbox. The smallest man was Lefty Cameron. He was also feisty, not the type to get the shakes. ‘Lefty,’ said Woody. ‘There’s a hidden ledge
that runs across the outside of the bridge below the parapet. Probably used by workmen doing repairs. I want you to crawl across and grenade the other pillbox.’

‘You bet,’ said Lefty.

It was a gutsy response from someone who had just seen five comrades killed.

Woody turned to Mack and Smoking Joe and said: ‘Give him cover.’ They began to shoot.

Lefty said: ‘What if I fall in?’

‘It’s only fifteen or twenty feet above the water at most,’ Woody said. ‘You’ll be fine.’

‘Okay,’ said Lefty. He went to the door. ‘I can’t swim, though,’ he said. Then he was gone.

Woody saw him dart across the road. He looked over the parapet, then straddled it and eased down the other side until he was lost to view.

‘Okay,’ he said to the others. ‘Hold your fire. He’s on his way.’

They all stared out. Nothing moved. It was dawn, Woody realized: the town was coming more clearly into view. But none of the inhabitants showed themselves: they knew better. Perhaps German
troops were mobilizing in some neighbouring street, but he could hear nothing. He realized he was listening for a splash, fearful that Lefty would fall in the river.

A dog came trotting across the bridge, a medium-size mongrel with a curled tail that stuck up jauntily. It sniffed the dead bodies with curiosity, then moved on purposefully, as if it had an
important rendezvous elsewhere. Woody watched it pass the far pillbox and continue into the other side of the town.

Dawn meant the main force was now landing on the beaches. Someone had said it was the largest amphibious attack in the history of warfare. He wondered what kind of resistance they were meeting.
There was no one more vulnerable than an infantryman loaded with gear splashing through the shallows, the flat beach ahead of him offering a clear field of fire to gunners in the dunes. Woody felt
grateful for this concrete pillbox.

Lefty was taking a long time. Had he fallen in the water quietly? Could something else have gone wrong?

Then Woody saw him, a slim khaki form bellying over the parapet of the bridge at the far end. Woody held his breath. Lefty dropped to his knees, crawled to the pillbox, and came upright with his
back flat against the curved concrete. With his left hand he drew out a grenade. He pulled the pin, waited a couple of seconds, then reached around and threw the grenade through the slit.

Woody heard the boom of the explosion and saw a flash of lurid light from the firing slits. Lefty raised his arms above his head like a champion.

‘Get back under cover, asshole,’ Woody said, though Lefty could not hear him. There could be a German soldier hiding in a nearby building waiting to avenge the deaths of his
friends.

But no shot rang out, and after a brief victory dance Lefty went inside the pillbox, and Woody breathed more easily.

However, he was not yet fully secure. At this point a sudden sally by a couple of dozen Germans could win the bridge back. Then it would all have been in vain.

He forced himself to wait another minute to see if any enemy troops showed themselves. Still nothing moved. It was beginning to look as if there were no Germans in Eglise-des-Soeurs other than
those manning the bridge: they were probably relieved every twelve hours from a barracks a few miles away.