Big Bang Fic: Rat and Sword Go To War, Chapter 6 part 1
Title: Rat and Sword Go To War
Author: rthstewart
Rating: T, for a soldier's salty language
Pairings/characters: Peter Pevensie, Susan Pevensie
Disclaimer: This work of historical fiction is offered respectfully and with deep admiration for the men and women herein depicted as well as C.S. Lewis and the other content owners of the Chronicles of Narnia and its related properties. Any original content in this derivative fiction is in the public domain and may be used freely and without notice to me or attribution.
Possible Spoilers/Warnings: All of The Chronicles of Narnia.
Summary: The High King and the Gentle Queen go to war, again.
Chapter 6, part 1
Chapter 6
The Longest Day
D-Day 0000 - 0016
ooOOoo
“Has the Major laid his kit yet?” Parr bellowed from the aft of the Horsa. Everybody laughed but, this one time, nobody had gotten sick.
“How about this one!” Parr began singing again, leading all 28 of them in another song, to the tune of stamping, hooting, and in between chain-smoking Player’s:
It's a long way to Tipperary,
It's a long way to go.
It's a long way to Tipperary
To the sweetest girl I know!
Gliders 2 and 3 were one minute apart behind them, and the other three behind them. The stormy Channel was beneath them.
Peter snubbed out the fag and hummed along. Glancing fore, he saw Major Howard reach into his jacket. He was probably carrying a good luck token. Most of them had something hidden away.
Peter wasn’t carrying anything. He’d already seen the Lion’s paw in the battle plans hanging on the wall of that Nissen hut back at the base.
Your will Aslan, not mine.
Somebody knew the alternate chorus, and that one sounded even better:
That's the wrong way to tickle Mary,
That's the wrong way to kiss.
Don't you know that over here, lad
They like it best like this.
Hooray pour Les Français
Farewell Angleterre.
We didn't know how to tickle Mary,
But we learnt how over there.
Hooray pour Les Français, Farewell Angleterre. He was sitting far enough fore that he could just make out a strip of white beach and crashing surf.
The glider suddenly jerked around them. Peter looked at his watch. It was 0007 and they’d cast off from the Hali. The drone of the bomber’s engine faded and with it, the song.
They were alone, in the dark, and gliding into France. The only noise was the whoosh of air over glider wings, 28 men breathing and, from the cockpit, the co-pilot, Ainsworth, counting out by stopwatch.
With a nod from Major Howard, Brotheridge shrugged out of his safety harness and stood. The Major and Sergeant Ollis grabbed Brotheridge’s gear and Danny leaned forward to open the glider’s door. The door slid smoothly back up into the roof and Ollis and the Major hauled Brotheridge back onto the glider’s bench.
The clouds of Calvados passed below them. First man to prang out of the glider would win fifty francs. Peter didn’t know how anyone would be able to pay, since Bailey and Parr had won all their money.
They were blind. Peter couldn’t see anything, not the Bridges, the river, the canal, not even the town of Ranville that surely they were flying over. Nothing. Wallwork was flying by compass, airspeed indicator and Ainsworth’s stopwatch.
They all tensed and braced as Ainsworth suddenly said, “'Now!” Wallwork threw them into a hard, full right turn, which meant they were now heading west, over the River Orne.
Peter heard Wallwork whisper something, sounding worried, but Ainsworth was an absolute brick. “Well, we’re on course, anyway,” Ainsworth said bluntly and loudly and then he began counting down, “5,4,3,2,1.” Wallwork threw them into another hard right turn, now heading north, in theory, straight up their landing zone, and straight into the Caen Canal Bridge.
At 0014, Wallwork shouted, “Ready!”
“Link arms!” Brotheridge ordered. “Feet up.”
Given that the Horsa was made of plywood, glue and spit, the whole floor could disintegrate on a hard landing, which this surely would be. They were badly overloaded and probably still going over 100 miles per hour.
Suddenly the clouds cleared the moon. The bridge was straight ahead and through the open door the trees were whipping by beneath them at 90 miles per hour.
The Horsa dropped. Everyone tensed and the wheels slammed down, hard, ripping out dirt and sending rocks and turf everywhere. Surely, coming in this fast, they’d go straight over the embankment. But if they didn’t get far enough up the LZ close to the Bridge, gliders 2 and 3 behind them would run up their back and crush them.
Wallwork yelled, “STREAM!” and Ainsworth hit the button and the great parachute billowed out behind them. There was a tearing sound and the glider lurched, probably losing wheels and skidding forward on the struts.
Peter could feel the glider shuddering and shaking; it was breaking apart around them. What good was flying in silently when the glider landing sounded like a bomb going off? There was no surprise here. They were landing in the middle of German tank divisions and infantry garrisons. They were going to crash into a bridge rigged for demolition and defended by a tank gun, machine guns, and fifty soldiers.
But they did slow. “Jettison,” Wallwork called and the parachute detached altogether.
They bounced and banged down again and a cloud of sparks and fire shot out all around them.
“Tracers!” someone yelled. They’d been spotted, they were being shot at and they’d die, still strapped into their seats.
There was an almighty crash. Peter was flung forward, his head smashed into a strut and it all went black.
ooOOoo
They had been too excited to go to bed. They’d all toasted the success of the invasion. Then, Madame Vion turned off the radio and it was time to get to work. The invasion could come anywhere within two hundred miles or more over the next 48 hours. There were two separate jobs - the care of the patients and the work of the Resistance. They had to be ready for both.
They filled all the basins with water, stocked batteries, and found the candles. Susan was folding bandages in the supply room with Lebourgeois when Desvignes came in.
“Jeanne, do you hear that?”
Susan listened, trying to tune out the clip of Madame’s heels on the floor as she joined them.
“Low flying bombers,” Susan said. “They sound like Halifaxes.”
“There aren’t any drops scheduled,” Madame Vion said, entering the room. “It is very odd.”
“We’ve never had that many at once, either,” Lebourgeois added. “Could it be paratroopers?”
“The invasion? Here?” Madame Vion asked sharply. “Not Calais?”
Susan shook her head. “If they were dropping paratroopers ahead of an invasion, there would be more of them.”
“So too many for a drop, that is not scheduled, and not enough for an invasion?” Desvignes asked. They all stood quietly, listening.
“I think they are headed to Caen?” Madame Vion both said and asked.
Susan set the bandages down. “We should go up to the roof.”
“Would the invasion come so soon?” Madame Vion said as they hurried to the grand staircase. “The message came barely four hours ago.”
They hurried up the stairs and the hum of the overflights grew louder. Madame Vion opened the roof door and they went out. In daylight, the Château de Bénouville roof gave a good vista of the whole area of Bénouville, Le Port, and Ranville, both bridges, and all around for several kilometres.
Susan scanned the sky; it was very dark and there was scant light from the cloud-covered moon.
“They are moving toward Caen,” Monsieur Desvignes said, listening to the rumbles moving west. “I didn’t think there was much left to bomb there.”
Flashes of anti-aircraft guns and tracers lit the sky of Caen, followed a moment later by the sounds of artillery. The bombers were beginning their run. Desvignes was right, though. There wasn’t much left in Caen. It was a very target poor city and what was there, the tank regiment, the Allies probably wouldn’t try to hit at night.
A diversion? What had the - there had to be at least four - Halis dropped besides bombs?
Unless… She shaded her eyes and searched the sky eagerly. “Look for something big, black, and moving fast. And silently.”
And then the cloud rolled back and a huge shape cut across the moon, blacker than the night sky, slashes of white on its wings and tail, silent, like a huge Gryphon of Narnia, or a mythical dragon, but so much bigger. The sky above Bénouville was filled with these great, soundless things.
Madame Vion gasped as the shape soared, silent and very fast, right by them on the roof, just on the other side of the canal, heading north.
“It’s a glider,” Susan said. “Probably a whole…”
And then there was a thunderous, exploding boom. Showers of sparks and flashes of fire burst from the ground just north of them, right at the Caen Canal Bridge.
The glider had crashed within a few meters of its target.
ooOOoo
D-Day: 0017 -0027
Peter blinked awake to the sounds of groans, which meant he could hear. Someone’s elbow was in his ear, and someone’s gun poked him in the ribs, which meant he could feel. Major Howard was jammed up in the roof of the glider and Peter couldn’t even see the pilots - they and their seats had been thrown out of the cockpit like stones in a slingshot.
How long had they been out? Peter glanced at his watch which was miraculously still working. 0017. It felt much longer than a minute or two. No one said anything, but everyone was looking around, waking up, and that was that. They were rats in a trap. They had to get out or they would be killed where they sat, still strapped to their seats. What was left of the Horsa wouldn’t stop bullets or a mortar. And gliders 2 and 3 would be landing any moment, right on their tail, assuming they weren’t lost or shot down.
There was jostling and muffled swearing and there was so much equipment in the way. But everyone was moving. The opened door was closest. Peter shrugged out of the harness, fell in with the other four of the brotherhood and hopped out. His feet hit French soil and barbed wire.
The pilots had managed to run the glider on top of the barbed wire. There wasn’t anything for them to cut and break apart.
He wondered who would win the fifty francs and if that person would be alive to collect it by morning.
The east end of the Bridge loomed over their heads. It took Peter too long to realise the shocking fact.
No one was shooting at them. There was no activity at all. The sparks had not been tracer bullets - they must have been caused by the friction from hitting the ground so hard and fast. Had they really managed complete surprise even with that god almighty crash?
No time to question their incredible luck. Brotheridge motioned to Bailey. “Get moving.”
Bailey and two others peeled off and headed across the road to the other side of the Bridge. They had to take out the pillbox with its anti-tank gun and the switch that would detonate the whole bridge out from under them. The rest of Glider 1 was to clear out the machine gun pits, trenches and barracks on the far, west, side of the canal. Glider 2 would come up behind them and clean up the east side. That meant he and his platoon had to cross the Bridge, not have it blow up under their boots, and make it across before being mowed down by the machine guns on the other side.
Brotheridge was leading.
Their five sappers were already sliding down the embankment. Even if Bailey couldn’t blow up the triggerman, the sappers would hand-over-hand under the Bridge and remove the charges and cut the explosive wiring - assuming the whole thing didn’t first explode into so many pieces there wouldn’t be anything left of their platoon to send back to England.
“Come on, lads,” Brotheridge whispered. Peter hefted his gun and began running for the Bridge, following Danny, Parr and the rest of his team.
They rushed the Bridge, guns at the hip, still meeting no opposition, when there was the sound of another crash and bang in the LZ. Glider 2 must have just touched down. A shot echoed behind him.
Peter kept going, faster.
Surely that would wake up the enemy? Two gliders crashing into the Bridge? Gunshots? Someone was sitting with a finger on the trigger. The bridge could go at any moment, he’d never know it…
And then there was the thud and bang of grenades. Bailey and his team had just killed whoever was inside the pillbox and taken the trigger with ‘em.
Peter felt a surge of adrenaline and heard beneath him, under the Bridge, not crackles of fire and detonations, but the sounds of the sappers knocking charges into the water.
This just might work.
A lone sentry emerged on the Bridge. The child turned to face the twenty of them who emerged out of the dark like avenging angels, with blackened faces and bristling with weapons.
The sentry yelped and ran, calling, “Fallschirmjager!”
Now, Peter saw another guard on the Bridge. The guard pulled out a pistol, shouted, and shot off a flare that lit them and the Bridge.
Hell opened up.
Brotheridge shot the sentry with a full clip. The man fell.
Fire erupted from the pits on both sides of the Bridge and they were running straight into it, Brotheridge leading. They kept going, running, dodging machine gun bursts right and left. Peter felt something whiz by his cheek and he hoped it didn’t find a home in one of the men behind him.
Brotheridge pulled out a grenade and tossed it into the machine gun pit on the north side. Gardner and Gray lobbed grenades into the trenches on the south side. The Sten steady at his hip, Peter pulled the trigger and sprayed bullets, low, into the smoke of the pits.
There was a new burst of fire. Peter was already running by it and he remembered now the sound he’d not heard since Narnia - the sound of a fast moving, hard projectile hitting soft flesh.
It wasn’t his own and he kept moving.
Parr charged left with Gardner and Peter followed. Their job was to take out the bunkers on the south side. From behind, Peter heard “ABLE ABLE ABLE” and that meant Bailey was running across the Bridge with his men to join them. There was no need for silence now; they had to avoid blue on blue and killing their own. They all took up the chorus, shouting “ABLE ABLE ABLE,” and ran off the Bridge. Parr exploded, “COME OUT AND FIGHT YOU SQUARE-HEADED BASTARDS.”
His mind registered a low courtyard wall he had seen in the model back at Tarrant Rushton.
More answering shouts of “CHARLIE CHARLIE CHARLIE,” which meant Number 3 glider had landed and Smith’s team was tearing across the Bridge to join them.
“Come on,” Parr said, pointing with his gun. Peter nodded and followed him and Gardner to the bunkers where the Germans were living, sleeping, and where they would die.
“You alright?” Parr asked.
“Let’s go,” Gardner said, already moving to the bunkers.
“Fine, boss,” Peter said, appreciating what Parr was really asking. They’d already seen a few of their fellows slinking off or staring ahead blankly, unable to do what even the very best training could not teach - the will to kill another man.
There were more shouts, the sound of a grenade going off, and windows breaking.
“I throw in an egg, you shoot anything still moving,” Parr said.
“Got it,” Gardner replied. Peter nodded.
The bunkers were dug into the embankment, parallel to the Canal. They ducked into the first one. Parr yanked open the door, tossed a stun grenade into the bunker, and slammed the door again. They heard shouts, panic, and an ear-shattering bang. Peter threw open the door and he and Gardner sprayed bullets into the smoke and fire.
There was a low moan. Peter fired off another round into the bunker. It went silent.
They moved to the next.
And then to the one after that, throwing a grenade into the dugout, and shooting the men who survived.
The three of them came back up above ground hearing “ABLE ABLE ABLE” and “CHARLIE CHARLIE CHARLIE.”
“We’re supposed to meet Danny at the Café,” Parr said. “We’re setting up the command post there.” They trotted across the road. They met up with Lieutenant Smith and his Lance Corporal in front of the Café.
The flesh on Smith’s right hand was a bloody mess and torn to the bone. “That bastard did it with a potato masher,” he said, nodding toward a German soldier, dead, slumped over the low wall. Potato masher was their slang for a stick grenade. “At least my trigger finger works.”
They heard noise above them, from inside the Café. Smith raised his gun and fired a round into the building, shattering the window.
Peter remembered the Café’s owner was a member of the Resistance who had told them where the trigger was for the Bridge. He hoped Smith hadn’t just killed the man.
“Where’s Danny?” Parr asked, looking around. It was near impossible to see through the smoke from the phosphorous bombs.
“Haven’t seen him,” Gardner said.
“Not since we came across the Bridge,” Peter said.
With a muttered oath, Parr took off, running around the Café. “He must be here somewhere.”
There was another burst of gunfire from the pits across the road. They all ducked and Gardner lobbed a grenade into the trench.
“Cut that out, Gardner!” Parr yelled. “Don’t throw another of those bloody things. We’ll never see what’s happening.
From the other side of the canal, there were more bangs, smoke, and shouts of “BAKER BAKER BAKER,” the codename for Wood’s platoon. Number 2 Glider was supposed to take the east side of the Bridge and clear the pits and trenches.
In the momentary lull, Peter allowed himself to think the incredible - had they done it? The Bridge wasn’t blown. Was there any opposition on it left? The creeping elation was a feeling he remembered well - in the confusion of battle, you concentrated on one enemy after another and lost the view around you. You had no way of knowing if you won until there was nothing left to kill.
Parr and Bailey appeared out of the smoke, carrying a limp body between them.
Oh Aslan, no.
Peter jumped forward and helped them move Den Brotheridge over to the modest protection of the courtyard wall.
Their Lieutenant had taken a bullet through the neck. He was staring up, glassy-eyed; blood was everywhere.
Peter knew a fatal wound when he saw one.
The man had a baby coming any day now who would never know her father now.
From the Bridge and on the other side they heard shouts of “Ham and Jam, Ham and Jam.”
Peter looked at his watch. 0026. In barely ten minutes, they had control of the Caen Canal Bridge. Gliders 4, 5, and 6 must have taken the River Orne Bridge, intact.
Ham and Jam. They’d done it.
Den Brotheridge was dying.
ooOOoo
D-Day 0026-0600
They’d all run downstairs for helmets and dark clothing, then dashed back up to the roof, staying in the shadow of a wall, trying to learn what was happening by sound alone. Allies were attacking the Caen Canal Bridge. Had they attacked the River Orne Bridge, too? They didn’t know.
The din from the Canal Bridge was terrific. There had been one crash, an explosion, a flare, and then two more crashes and shooting. Mostly Stens and Brens, Susan could tell from the sound. There was some German fire, MG 34s and Schmeissers, but not much. This meant, she hoped, that the British - she assumed they were British from the guns and not American or Canadian - had quickly obtained the upper hand.
There was shouting too, over the staccato bursts of machine gun fire.
“What are the saying?” Madame Vion asked, pushing her too-big helmet out of her eyes.
“I think they are call signs for recognition,” Susan said. “‘ABLE, BAKER, and CHARLIE’ so they recognize each other from enemy in the dark. There are probably three platoons down there.”
“Did they do it? Did they take the Bridge?” Lebourgeois asked. He had a pair of binoculars they were taking turns using but it was too dark to see anything but the flashes of fire.
“I’ve not heard anything sounding like the Bridge exploding?” Desvignes said, both question and statement.
“Jeanne?”
“I do not want to raise our hopes, but I think we would know what an explosion of that size would sound like.”
“And then there is whether they can hold the Bridge they seized,” Desvignes said ominously.
Susan nodded.
Taking the Bridge was one thing. The Caen Canal Bridge garrison was weak and ineffective, mostly foreign conscripts who probably ran at the first sign of trouble. Major Schmidt was in Ranville tonight with his girlfriend. It was the counter-attack that they needed to think about now. Two regiments of the 21st Panzer were out there, surrounding the Bridges to the east and west, and the most capable, Von Luck’s 125th, was only a few kilometres away.
“Surely there must be reinforcements coming?” Lebourgeois said.
New shouts rose from the Caen Canal Bridge. “What is that?” Madame Vion asked.
Susan listened closely. “Ham and Jam?” she repeated, in both French and near forgotten English. “I don’t know what that means. More code phrases, probably.”
Desvignes sharply inhaled. “Listen!”
It was the unmistakable sound of bombers for the second time that night. This was low, loud, and growing louder. And not the few of before. Dozens, scores, a hundred, bombers were in the sky above Bénouville, probably C-47s and Stirlings from the engine noise. They were all flying low, maybe 125 metres, the altitude for parachute drops. East, across the Caen Canal and River Orne, toward Ranville, flares lit up the sky. Allied pathfinders were lighting the way and signaling drop zones for incoming paratroopers.
Sirens came on instantly and searchlights in every village clicked on. Tracers and anti-aircraft mortars rocketed into the sky, brilliant, terrible, killing streaks of fire and light. Yellow, orange, and red lights split the black night and illuminated men dropping from the sky and floating down on parachutes. The scope, the size, the breadth was incredible. The sky was full of criss-crossing bombers and fire, and in the midst, gently falling paratroopers of what had to be an entire division.
For the first time, Susan considered the incredible. Peter was in the Glider Corps, in the paras of the 6th Airborne. Could he be among the hundreds of men now invading France?
“There are your reinforcements, Lebourgeois,” she told the old man.
In a night of strangeness and uncertainty, another new sound split the night. Someone at the Bridge was blowing a whistle, Dot-Dot-Dot-Dash. V for Victory.
She smiled. “Those are British paras,” she said, confident that only an Englishman would be blowing “V for Victory.” “The whistle is their locator, to help orient them and bring them in to the rendezvous.”
How many though would make it? There were hundreds of paratroopers blotting out the night sky east of them. And many of them would die. How large was the DZ? There was so much danger. There was nowhere safe to land out there.
Echoing her thoughts, as he often did, Desvignes said, “Rommel flooded the fields between here and the River Dives; there are patrols everywhere. They may never make it.”
“We should go, try to find them, bring them in,” Lebourgeois said.
It was insanely dangerous. They could as easily be killed by German as by touchy Allied in the confusion.
“Take the ambulance,” Madame Vion said. “Wear red cross armbands. Take rope, torches, do what you can. Notify the others in the network, if you can find them.”
“The paras are probably supposed to meet at the Bridges. Direct them there and how to follow the whistle.”
Dot-Dot-Dot-Dash.
Susan kissed both men good-bye. Aslan watch over you, my brothers.
The lights and sirens created an incredible spectacle. The paras were so vulnerable. They could be dead before they landed or could land in a tree, a well, or a flooded field and die without ever being free of the chute. Still, after so long, they were not alone. The Allies were coming. The Allies were here.
There was an ominous, clanking roar, not of aircraft, but of heavy treads on a road.
“Tanks!” Madame Vion said. “In Bénouville, heading toward the Canal Bridge.”
“The 21st is on the move,” Susan said grimly. “They are going to counter-attack and try to retake the Bridge.”
ooOOoo
Peter was camped out in an abandoned machine gun pit on the west side of the Bridge. He could hear the dreaded rumble of German tanks on the road between Bénouville and Le Port. He had his grenades all lined up, his Sten, and plenty of ammunition, but none of that would work against a Panzer. They needed the Piat, the platoon’s anti-tank gun, or a gammon bomb.
From the pit, they did have a good line of sight. They were a little elevated, sheltered by the Bridge and the darkness, and could see straight ahead to the crucial road juncture, 30 yards away. Any armour the Germans threw at them from the west, and he could hear it coming, had to come through this bottleneck first. Any armour coming from Caen to the beaches would have to pass through this same T-junction. The paras were dropping all around them and with Major Howard tooting that infernal whistle, their reinforcements should be arriving any time. Until then, D Company could probably pick off whatever came at them, assuming they weren’t rushed and overrun by an overwhelming force.
“ABLE ABLE,” came a voice behind him and Gray jumped into the pit with him.
“Goddamnit,” Gray muttered.
“What? Any word on Brotheridge?”
“Dead,” Gray said flatly.
To the many he had known who were already gone, Peter silently asked, My Friends, welcome a good man among you who will be sorely missed. With the ease of much practise, he shoved his grief aside for later.
Gray lined up next to him in the pit, pulling out his gun and setting it on the sandbag. “All three Lieutenants on this side are down. Danny’s gone and Smith and Wood are both injured. And we’ve still not heard from Captain Priday and Hooper’s platoon.”
Glider 4 was supposed to be at the River Orne Bridge. “So the whole glider never made it?”
Gray shook his head and had to shove his helmet back up as it slipped down. “Still missing. We’ve taken both bridges but we can only hold for so long. If those paras don’t start coming in soon and reinforce our positions, we could lose ‘em.”
The rumbling of treads on the road grew louder, and closer. “So who’s going to lay the gammons?” Peter asked. “What about the Piats?”
“Parr couldn’t find the gammons in the glider. And we’ve only got one working tank gun. All the other Piats broke.”
Peter uttered an oath that had Gray laughing at him. “You still sound like your mother’s listening, Pevensie.”
“So what are we doing, besides waiting to get run over or shot by a Panzer?”
Gray nodded. “Look there.”
Out of the dark, a pile of equipment trotted over the Bridge.
“Who the hell is buried under all that?”Peter asked. Whoever it was had his own pack, grenade bag, a rifle, bandoleers of ammunition strung across his chest and the Piat anti-tank gun on his shoulder.
“It’s Thornton with our one working gun.”
“And?”
“The Major’s ordered him to shoot the first tank that gets in range.”
“Better not miss,” Peter said. The Piat was rubbish. It jammed, had really limited range, and if you missed, you’d never get a second shot because it was so slow to reload. Never miss with a Piat. Never, ever miss. Because if you did, it was the last mistake you’d ever make.
“There it is,” Grey whispered.
It was dark, but they could hear it, coming around the corner, not fifty yards from them.
“Fuck,” Gray whispered.
They saw the gun poke out first, and the bulk of the tank followed, huge and deadly serious. The long cannon barrel swiveled about, as if sniffing the air cautiously, like a large carnivore before making its kill. All the Germans knew was that the Bridge had been taken and that hundreds of paras were landing all over the area. They didn’t how many of them were at the Bridge. They didn’t know how weak and vulnerable D Company really was, here in the dark and how few their numbers. They didn’t know that D Company had one gun to fight the armour the hardened veterans of the 21st Panzer could throw at men seeing their first combat tonight.
Peter’s finger itched to pull the trigger.
“Don’t,” Gray said, softly.
“I know.”
Their bullets were useless. Their grenades were useless. Firing now would reveal their positions and their inexperience and bring that tank down on top of them.
The only one who stood a chance was Sergeant Thornton, standing alone, to the side of the road, under a pile of equipment and only the cover of darkness. There was one chance to fire a single bomb at a monster.
The tank slowly began to turn, to come toward them and the Bridge.
“BANG!”
Thornton fired, hitting the tank square in the side.
“Goddamnit, beautiful shot!” Gray crowed.
The tank froze, shuddered, and all hell broke loose. Fireworks, the likes of which Peter had never seen, exploded from within the tank. He and Gray had to duck down into the pit as bullets and shells ignited in the tank and whizzed and ricocheted around, smashing into anything in their way. Brilliant colours of red and orange flew out. The tank was on fire from the inside. Four men leaped out of the top and were shot dead scrambling for their lives.
One man could not escape the tank. Even the screams of the German driver with shot off legs did not drown out the sounds of the other tanks slowly slinking back the way they had come.
ooOOoo
The racket and fireworks from the explosion down at the Bridge went on for over an hour. It was spectacular, as stunning as the tracers going up all over Caen at the planes overhead and paras coming down. Susan had, at first, been sick with worry that something terrible had happened at the Caen Canal Bridge. From their vantage on the roof, though, they could see that the fighting was not spread out but concentrated on just one big, burning thing in the middle of the road.
“A tank, maybe,” she told Madame. “Perhaps it was carrying ammunition that ignited.”
“If it is disabled at the junction, it is going to keep the Germans from moving in that area.”
The explosions and commotion were finally dying down, which seemed to confirm that this was not widespread and ongoing fighting but some single catastrophe that had, temporarily, intimidated the Germans.
“Have you decided what you will do, Jeanne?”
“I am not sure where I would be best deployed,” Susan replied, wrapping her arms about her. “It is difficult to be up here, watching, and not down there. I am worried about Georges and Thérèse. The unit at the Bridge surely knows the Gondrées are friendly but I want to make sure. As much I would like to, I cannot interrupt an ongoing military operation to satisfy my curiosity.”
“Dawn is not that far away. With morning, I think things will be clearer.” Madame Vion patted her arm. “I will need to stay here to care for our patients and any wounded who might be brought in. Given that our roof is the highest point in the area, I am going to have to beat back the Germans come dawn and make sure that they see nothing but our hospital operations. And if the unit at the Bridge thinks we are not a hospital, we will have problems with them, too.”
“I pity the Germans who dare to cross you, Madame,” Susan said. “As for the Allies, they should know better. If they start shooting at us, I’ll get over there and reprimand their CO.”
Madame Vion smiled, rare for her. “Thank you. You may convey to him my thanks and compliments. And if he shoots at a hospital he is neither an officer nor a gentleman.” She turned to return back down the stair. “And Jeanne?”
“Yes, Aunt?”
“Congratulations. If the Allies took the Bridge this night, it was due in no small part to our intelligence work.”
Susan was embarrassed to admit the thought had not occurred to her. “And to you, Madame.”
ooOOoo
D-Day
0600-1330
There was no uncertainty at dawn. Anyone who might have slept through the firefight in the night woke to artillery barrages coming from the sea. The ground was shaking beneath their feet. The windows of the hospital rattled and dust and spiders billowed from the rafters. The noise was terrific. Huge shells flew overhead; they were so large it was as if the naval guns were hurtling jeeps and boulders into Calvados.
It was controlled chaos in the hospital. The women were terrified and clutched their crying babies to their breasts, who could not sleep or settle with the racket and debris. What had already been difficult became near impossible. Even before the invasion, there had not been enough of anything to ease anyone; not enough food, water, soap, alcohol, clean linens, or medicine. With food so scarce, they had had to replace the lost calories with wine so that mothers could at least survive and nurse their children. Madame Vion and the staff, however, had become concerned with how the change to more wine seemed to affect the babies.
Five pregnant women, already under stress, began premature labour. People in the community, injured during the night, limped into the hospital with broken bones and bandaged heads, not daring to attempt the trip to a doctor in Caen.
Susan was sure it would only get worse. She did what she could. Care of the frightened and wounded was not something Mrs. Caspian or Jeanne Lambert knew. So it was Susan Pevensie who had survived the London Blitz and Queen Susan the Gentle who moved among the patients, assisting the professional staff, trying to prioritize who needed help the most, and separating the critically ill from those who were frightened and uncomfortable but could endure a long wait. She held hands, wiped brows, handed instruments to the doctor and nurses, rocked the babies, and spoke soft words of reassurance.
It was not what she had trained to do in the SOE, but it reminded her of why the battle raged outside the hospital walls.
In the midst of the misery and need, Lebourgeois and Desvignes returned, gray with exhaustion and tightlipped. Susan went into the garage and helped them remove the bodies from the ambulance. The men had managed to squeeze in six, four British paras and two German soldiers. Together, one by one, they carried the corpses to the cool cellar.
Susan took charge of the dead. She had seen corpses before and these were no less and no more. They could not spare linens to cover the bodies. Susan carefully copied the men’s names from their ID tags and removed their weapons. All of them carried tokens: there were pictures of wives and children, a baby shoe, unsent letters, a pressed flower. She remembered what it had felt like to remain at home while others she loved rode off with her tokens in their armour and bags. She carefully set the items aside, next to the body, and clearly labeled so that these small things of immense weight might someday, some way, find their way back to those who were not forgotten. There would be so very, very many more before the day was over. Surely there would be arrangements for respectful disposition of the dead and return of personal effects.
Once they had washed up, they met in the office and Susan poured the men a strong, fortifying wine and gave them some biscuits received from a Lysander drop.
“The fields are littered with dead paratroopers,” Desvignes said wearily, sinking onto Madame Vion’s couch.
“Dozens, hundreds.” Lebourgeois took a steadying drink of wine. “We did find some alive. They were wandering about in the dark and listening for that damned whistle. They were supposed to rendezvous in Ranville so we directed them there.”
“And what of…”
An explosion rocked the building and shook the walls. They could hear glass shattering and falling to the ground outside. Women screamed.
The three of them bolted up and hurried into the hall. Plaster and dust were raining down. They followed the cries and panicked shouts to the foyer just as another explosion hit. Pictures fell from the walls and shattered.
These weren’t bombs. This was shelling. Someone was targeting the hospital.
Susan pushed her way into the crowded reception area, squeezing by the harried staff trying to cope with panicked patients.
Madame Vion was at the front doors. With arms outstretched, she blocked the hospital entrance with her body, furiously defying three German soldiers trying to push her aside.
ooOOoo
With paras coming in all night, Major Howard was able to pull D Company back from the west side of the Bridge. Peter was ordered to the pillbox with Parr, Grey, Bailey, and Gardner to guard the anti-tank gun.
The roar coming north from the beaches meant the incoming force was landing. The smoke, explosions, and mortars flying overhead were like nothing they’d ever experienced. It was an earthquake that never stopped.
“Glad I’m not one of those poor buggers,” Bailey muttered as the ground shook beneath their feet. The ships were moving closer to shore and raising their barrage inland, right over their heads.
That was all the good news. The bad news was that with dawn, snipers on the west side of the canal had them all pinned down. Moving around was bloody dangerous. There was plenty of cover for snipers- there was a big building just south of the Bridge, a water tower, and heavy tree cover. The snipers could be anywhere and they were very good. The five of them were protected in the pillbox but it was ugly business outside. The snipers had targeted even their doc’s aid station set up in a trench. Snipers had shot at both Lieutenants Wood and Smith who had been wounded and were in the trench with the doc. Their company medical orderly had taken a hit to the chest from sniper fire.
D Company had been pulled back for reserve to hold the area between the River Orne and Caen Canal bridges, but the paras were seeing some pretty hot fighting on the west side, in Bénouville and Le Port. D Company had trained in urban combat, so Peter thought they’d be sent over, assuming they could get across the Bridge without the snipers picking them off. Reinforcements were due to come up from Sword Beach by noon, and they could use them.
Air operations had begun, too. A wing of Spitfires flew overhead and Major Howard had them lay out a signal that all was well and the Bridge under control. Given that none of them could move without possibly taking a bullet to the head from sniper-fire, the Major was probably a little optimistic. It was terrific to see the three Spitfires, with the white bars painted on their wings, fly over the Bridges and do victory rolls.
“Looks like they dropped something,” Peter said, peering out from the pillbox. Major Howard was already ordering a patrol out to see what it was.
Dodging snipers, the chaps came back with bundles that sure weren’t worth the risk. The Spitfire had dropped the day’s early Fleet Street papers. Lot of good it did. There was nothing about the second front, or D Company and everybody started fighting for the Daily Mirror so they could read Jane. Well, you didn’t really read Jane. You looked to see what new, ridiculous circumstance would contrive Jane to remove her clothing and reveal a shapely body in nothing but a brassiere, towel, curtain, or bedsheet.
Gray handed him the paper with a grunt of disgust. “You’d think after today Jane would strip to skin just for morale?”
Peter glanced at it - Jane was blonde and had nice legs - and passed it along. “Parr, you want Jane?”
“I’m a married man, Pevensie,” Parr replied, not even looking up from the big gun he’d been tinkering with since being assigned to the pillbox. Parr kept poking at it and had made them take the breech out and bring up the mortars from the bunkers below them and he really wouldn’t leave off.
Gardner nudged him in the ribs. “Hey, Pevensie, Gray, what do you make of that?”
He pointed out into the LZ where their glider had crashed. Two little, shabby men were running around in the field, waving shovels and shouting at one another.
Bailey looked up over the Daily Mirror. “Thornton and Fox caught them this morning. They’re Italian, from the Todt. They wouldn’t leave, said they had to be here. So, the Major gave them a biscuit and let them go, figured they were harmless.”
“What are they doing out there?” Gardner asked.
One of them picked up one of the big poles that was on the ground and was teetering around with it, nearly taking out the other when he swung it around.
“Impossible,” Gray said. “They aren’t? Are they?”
“Sure looks like,” Gardner said.
“I don’t believe it,” Peter added.
They watched, beyond shocked, as the poor man tried to plant his unwieldy pole into a hole in the ground. His co-worker ran forward and frantically shoveled dirt around the pole to keep it steady.
“Guess we won’t be taking off in the gliders from here, right?” Bailey said.
They all started laughing. The morning of the second front, over 100,000 men coming ashore, thousands of planes overhead, three crashed and broken gliders at the foot of the Caen Canal Bridge, and two Italians were trying to plant the dreaded glider poles.
“So where’s the trigger?” Parr asked, breaking up the laughter. “We got it loaded. I’ve got the gun pointed at where those ruddy snipers are hiding. How do we fire it?”
There wasn’t much room in the pillbox and there were only so many levers and buttons that could be the trigger on a 75 mm anti-tank gun.
“What's this?” Gardner asked.
“What’s what?”
“This.”
In a night and day of the biggest explosions imaginable, this one near burst Peter’s ears. A shell screamed out of the cannon in the direction of Caen.
The gun shuddered and belched a huge case out the back that sent them all scrambling to be clear of it.
They were all silent for a moment and Peter couldn’t have heard anyone anyway for the ringing in his ears.
Parr grabbed the gun and spun it around, south. “We’ll get those square-headed bastards now.”
“You’re a bloody lunatic, Parr,” Bailey said.
“The snipers are on the roof of that big building down there. They’re not going to get any more Tommys today. Let’s see if we can’t bag us some Nazi sniper bucketheads.”
This time, Peter put his fingers in his ears when the gun went off and stayed clear of the heavy casing that spit out the back. It’d break bones if it hit you.
The next mortar sailed south, straight and right into the uppermost floor of the big fancy Château down the canal. They all whooped it up - it felt great to shoot something big at people who were trying to kill them. Parr was grinning like a maniac.
The next was a brilliant, beautiful shot. The accuracy on the gun was incredible, nothing like the Piat.
Major Howard suddenly stuck his head into the pillbox bellowing loud enough to rival the gun. “For Christ’s sake, what in blazes are you doing?! Parr!? Are you shooting at a maternity hospital?!”
Introduction
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3 Part 1 Part 2
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6 Part 1 Part 2
Author: rthstewart
Rating: T, for a soldier's salty language
Pairings/characters: Peter Pevensie, Susan Pevensie
Disclaimer: This work of historical fiction is offered respectfully and with deep admiration for the men and women herein depicted as well as C.S. Lewis and the other content owners of the Chronicles of Narnia and its related properties. Any original content in this derivative fiction is in the public domain and may be used freely and without notice to me or attribution.
Possible Spoilers/Warnings: All of The Chronicles of Narnia.
Summary: The High King and the Gentle Queen go to war, again.
Chapter 6, part 1
Chapter 6
The Longest Day
D-Day 0000 - 0016
ooOOoo
“Has the Major laid his kit yet?” Parr bellowed from the aft of the Horsa. Everybody laughed but, this one time, nobody had gotten sick.
“How about this one!” Parr began singing again, leading all 28 of them in another song, to the tune of stamping, hooting, and in between chain-smoking Player’s:
It's a long way to Tipperary,
It's a long way to go.
It's a long way to Tipperary
To the sweetest girl I know!
Gliders 2 and 3 were one minute apart behind them, and the other three behind them. The stormy Channel was beneath them.
Peter snubbed out the fag and hummed along. Glancing fore, he saw Major Howard reach into his jacket. He was probably carrying a good luck token. Most of them had something hidden away.
Peter wasn’t carrying anything. He’d already seen the Lion’s paw in the battle plans hanging on the wall of that Nissen hut back at the base.
Your will Aslan, not mine.
Somebody knew the alternate chorus, and that one sounded even better:
That's the wrong way to tickle Mary,
That's the wrong way to kiss.
Don't you know that over here, lad
They like it best like this.
Hooray pour Les Français
Farewell Angleterre.
We didn't know how to tickle Mary,
But we learnt how over there.
Hooray pour Les Français, Farewell Angleterre. He was sitting far enough fore that he could just make out a strip of white beach and crashing surf.
The glider suddenly jerked around them. Peter looked at his watch. It was 0007 and they’d cast off from the Hali. The drone of the bomber’s engine faded and with it, the song.
They were alone, in the dark, and gliding into France. The only noise was the whoosh of air over glider wings, 28 men breathing and, from the cockpit, the co-pilot, Ainsworth, counting out by stopwatch.
With a nod from Major Howard, Brotheridge shrugged out of his safety harness and stood. The Major and Sergeant Ollis grabbed Brotheridge’s gear and Danny leaned forward to open the glider’s door. The door slid smoothly back up into the roof and Ollis and the Major hauled Brotheridge back onto the glider’s bench.
The clouds of Calvados passed below them. First man to prang out of the glider would win fifty francs. Peter didn’t know how anyone would be able to pay, since Bailey and Parr had won all their money.
They were blind. Peter couldn’t see anything, not the Bridges, the river, the canal, not even the town of Ranville that surely they were flying over. Nothing. Wallwork was flying by compass, airspeed indicator and Ainsworth’s stopwatch.
They all tensed and braced as Ainsworth suddenly said, “'Now!” Wallwork threw them into a hard, full right turn, which meant they were now heading west, over the River Orne.
Peter heard Wallwork whisper something, sounding worried, but Ainsworth was an absolute brick. “Well, we’re on course, anyway,” Ainsworth said bluntly and loudly and then he began counting down, “5,4,3,2,1.” Wallwork threw them into another hard right turn, now heading north, in theory, straight up their landing zone, and straight into the Caen Canal Bridge.
At 0014, Wallwork shouted, “Ready!”
“Link arms!” Brotheridge ordered. “Feet up.”
Given that the Horsa was made of plywood, glue and spit, the whole floor could disintegrate on a hard landing, which this surely would be. They were badly overloaded and probably still going over 100 miles per hour.
Suddenly the clouds cleared the moon. The bridge was straight ahead and through the open door the trees were whipping by beneath them at 90 miles per hour.
The Horsa dropped. Everyone tensed and the wheels slammed down, hard, ripping out dirt and sending rocks and turf everywhere. Surely, coming in this fast, they’d go straight over the embankment. But if they didn’t get far enough up the LZ close to the Bridge, gliders 2 and 3 behind them would run up their back and crush them.
Wallwork yelled, “STREAM!” and Ainsworth hit the button and the great parachute billowed out behind them. There was a tearing sound and the glider lurched, probably losing wheels and skidding forward on the struts.
Peter could feel the glider shuddering and shaking; it was breaking apart around them. What good was flying in silently when the glider landing sounded like a bomb going off? There was no surprise here. They were landing in the middle of German tank divisions and infantry garrisons. They were going to crash into a bridge rigged for demolition and defended by a tank gun, machine guns, and fifty soldiers.
But they did slow. “Jettison,” Wallwork called and the parachute detached altogether.
They bounced and banged down again and a cloud of sparks and fire shot out all around them.
“Tracers!” someone yelled. They’d been spotted, they were being shot at and they’d die, still strapped into their seats.
There was an almighty crash. Peter was flung forward, his head smashed into a strut and it all went black.
ooOOoo
They had been too excited to go to bed. They’d all toasted the success of the invasion. Then, Madame Vion turned off the radio and it was time to get to work. The invasion could come anywhere within two hundred miles or more over the next 48 hours. There were two separate jobs - the care of the patients and the work of the Resistance. They had to be ready for both.
They filled all the basins with water, stocked batteries, and found the candles. Susan was folding bandages in the supply room with Lebourgeois when Desvignes came in.
“Jeanne, do you hear that?”
Susan listened, trying to tune out the clip of Madame’s heels on the floor as she joined them.
“Low flying bombers,” Susan said. “They sound like Halifaxes.”
“There aren’t any drops scheduled,” Madame Vion said, entering the room. “It is very odd.”
“We’ve never had that many at once, either,” Lebourgeois added. “Could it be paratroopers?”
“The invasion? Here?” Madame Vion asked sharply. “Not Calais?”
Susan shook her head. “If they were dropping paratroopers ahead of an invasion, there would be more of them.”
“So too many for a drop, that is not scheduled, and not enough for an invasion?” Desvignes asked. They all stood quietly, listening.
“I think they are headed to Caen?” Madame Vion both said and asked.
Susan set the bandages down. “We should go up to the roof.”
“Would the invasion come so soon?” Madame Vion said as they hurried to the grand staircase. “The message came barely four hours ago.”
They hurried up the stairs and the hum of the overflights grew louder. Madame Vion opened the roof door and they went out. In daylight, the Château de Bénouville roof gave a good vista of the whole area of Bénouville, Le Port, and Ranville, both bridges, and all around for several kilometres.
Susan scanned the sky; it was very dark and there was scant light from the cloud-covered moon.
“They are moving toward Caen,” Monsieur Desvignes said, listening to the rumbles moving west. “I didn’t think there was much left to bomb there.”
Flashes of anti-aircraft guns and tracers lit the sky of Caen, followed a moment later by the sounds of artillery. The bombers were beginning their run. Desvignes was right, though. There wasn’t much left in Caen. It was a very target poor city and what was there, the tank regiment, the Allies probably wouldn’t try to hit at night.
A diversion? What had the - there had to be at least four - Halis dropped besides bombs?
Unless… She shaded her eyes and searched the sky eagerly. “Look for something big, black, and moving fast. And silently.”
And then the cloud rolled back and a huge shape cut across the moon, blacker than the night sky, slashes of white on its wings and tail, silent, like a huge Gryphon of Narnia, or a mythical dragon, but so much bigger. The sky above Bénouville was filled with these great, soundless things.
Madame Vion gasped as the shape soared, silent and very fast, right by them on the roof, just on the other side of the canal, heading north.
“It’s a glider,” Susan said. “Probably a whole…”
And then there was a thunderous, exploding boom. Showers of sparks and flashes of fire burst from the ground just north of them, right at the Caen Canal Bridge.
The glider had crashed within a few meters of its target.
ooOOoo
D-Day: 0017 -0027
Peter blinked awake to the sounds of groans, which meant he could hear. Someone’s elbow was in his ear, and someone’s gun poked him in the ribs, which meant he could feel. Major Howard was jammed up in the roof of the glider and Peter couldn’t even see the pilots - they and their seats had been thrown out of the cockpit like stones in a slingshot.
How long had they been out? Peter glanced at his watch which was miraculously still working. 0017. It felt much longer than a minute or two. No one said anything, but everyone was looking around, waking up, and that was that. They were rats in a trap. They had to get out or they would be killed where they sat, still strapped to their seats. What was left of the Horsa wouldn’t stop bullets or a mortar. And gliders 2 and 3 would be landing any moment, right on their tail, assuming they weren’t lost or shot down.
There was jostling and muffled swearing and there was so much equipment in the way. But everyone was moving. The opened door was closest. Peter shrugged out of the harness, fell in with the other four of the brotherhood and hopped out. His feet hit French soil and barbed wire.
The pilots had managed to run the glider on top of the barbed wire. There wasn’t anything for them to cut and break apart.
He wondered who would win the fifty francs and if that person would be alive to collect it by morning.
The east end of the Bridge loomed over their heads. It took Peter too long to realise the shocking fact.
No one was shooting at them. There was no activity at all. The sparks had not been tracer bullets - they must have been caused by the friction from hitting the ground so hard and fast. Had they really managed complete surprise even with that god almighty crash?
No time to question their incredible luck. Brotheridge motioned to Bailey. “Get moving.”
Bailey and two others peeled off and headed across the road to the other side of the Bridge. They had to take out the pillbox with its anti-tank gun and the switch that would detonate the whole bridge out from under them. The rest of Glider 1 was to clear out the machine gun pits, trenches and barracks on the far, west, side of the canal. Glider 2 would come up behind them and clean up the east side. That meant he and his platoon had to cross the Bridge, not have it blow up under their boots, and make it across before being mowed down by the machine guns on the other side.
Brotheridge was leading.
Their five sappers were already sliding down the embankment. Even if Bailey couldn’t blow up the triggerman, the sappers would hand-over-hand under the Bridge and remove the charges and cut the explosive wiring - assuming the whole thing didn’t first explode into so many pieces there wouldn’t be anything left of their platoon to send back to England.
“Come on, lads,” Brotheridge whispered. Peter hefted his gun and began running for the Bridge, following Danny, Parr and the rest of his team.
They rushed the Bridge, guns at the hip, still meeting no opposition, when there was the sound of another crash and bang in the LZ. Glider 2 must have just touched down. A shot echoed behind him.
Peter kept going, faster.
Surely that would wake up the enemy? Two gliders crashing into the Bridge? Gunshots? Someone was sitting with a finger on the trigger. The bridge could go at any moment, he’d never know it…
And then there was the thud and bang of grenades. Bailey and his team had just killed whoever was inside the pillbox and taken the trigger with ‘em.
Peter felt a surge of adrenaline and heard beneath him, under the Bridge, not crackles of fire and detonations, but the sounds of the sappers knocking charges into the water.
This just might work.
A lone sentry emerged on the Bridge. The child turned to face the twenty of them who emerged out of the dark like avenging angels, with blackened faces and bristling with weapons.
The sentry yelped and ran, calling, “Fallschirmjager!”
Now, Peter saw another guard on the Bridge. The guard pulled out a pistol, shouted, and shot off a flare that lit them and the Bridge.
Hell opened up.
Brotheridge shot the sentry with a full clip. The man fell.
Fire erupted from the pits on both sides of the Bridge and they were running straight into it, Brotheridge leading. They kept going, running, dodging machine gun bursts right and left. Peter felt something whiz by his cheek and he hoped it didn’t find a home in one of the men behind him.
Brotheridge pulled out a grenade and tossed it into the machine gun pit on the north side. Gardner and Gray lobbed grenades into the trenches on the south side. The Sten steady at his hip, Peter pulled the trigger and sprayed bullets, low, into the smoke of the pits.
There was a new burst of fire. Peter was already running by it and he remembered now the sound he’d not heard since Narnia - the sound of a fast moving, hard projectile hitting soft flesh.
It wasn’t his own and he kept moving.
Parr charged left with Gardner and Peter followed. Their job was to take out the bunkers on the south side. From behind, Peter heard “ABLE ABLE ABLE” and that meant Bailey was running across the Bridge with his men to join them. There was no need for silence now; they had to avoid blue on blue and killing their own. They all took up the chorus, shouting “ABLE ABLE ABLE,” and ran off the Bridge. Parr exploded, “COME OUT AND FIGHT YOU SQUARE-HEADED BASTARDS.”
His mind registered a low courtyard wall he had seen in the model back at Tarrant Rushton.
More answering shouts of “CHARLIE CHARLIE CHARLIE,” which meant Number 3 glider had landed and Smith’s team was tearing across the Bridge to join them.
“Come on,” Parr said, pointing with his gun. Peter nodded and followed him and Gardner to the bunkers where the Germans were living, sleeping, and where they would die.
“You alright?” Parr asked.
“Let’s go,” Gardner said, already moving to the bunkers.
“Fine, boss,” Peter said, appreciating what Parr was really asking. They’d already seen a few of their fellows slinking off or staring ahead blankly, unable to do what even the very best training could not teach - the will to kill another man.
There were more shouts, the sound of a grenade going off, and windows breaking.
“I throw in an egg, you shoot anything still moving,” Parr said.
“Got it,” Gardner replied. Peter nodded.
The bunkers were dug into the embankment, parallel to the Canal. They ducked into the first one. Parr yanked open the door, tossed a stun grenade into the bunker, and slammed the door again. They heard shouts, panic, and an ear-shattering bang. Peter threw open the door and he and Gardner sprayed bullets into the smoke and fire.
There was a low moan. Peter fired off another round into the bunker. It went silent.
They moved to the next.
And then to the one after that, throwing a grenade into the dugout, and shooting the men who survived.
The three of them came back up above ground hearing “ABLE ABLE ABLE” and “CHARLIE CHARLIE CHARLIE.”
“We’re supposed to meet Danny at the Café,” Parr said. “We’re setting up the command post there.” They trotted across the road. They met up with Lieutenant Smith and his Lance Corporal in front of the Café.
The flesh on Smith’s right hand was a bloody mess and torn to the bone. “That bastard did it with a potato masher,” he said, nodding toward a German soldier, dead, slumped over the low wall. Potato masher was their slang for a stick grenade. “At least my trigger finger works.”
They heard noise above them, from inside the Café. Smith raised his gun and fired a round into the building, shattering the window.
Peter remembered the Café’s owner was a member of the Resistance who had told them where the trigger was for the Bridge. He hoped Smith hadn’t just killed the man.
“Where’s Danny?” Parr asked, looking around. It was near impossible to see through the smoke from the phosphorous bombs.
“Haven’t seen him,” Gardner said.
“Not since we came across the Bridge,” Peter said.
With a muttered oath, Parr took off, running around the Café. “He must be here somewhere.”
There was another burst of gunfire from the pits across the road. They all ducked and Gardner lobbed a grenade into the trench.
“Cut that out, Gardner!” Parr yelled. “Don’t throw another of those bloody things. We’ll never see what’s happening.
From the other side of the canal, there were more bangs, smoke, and shouts of “BAKER BAKER BAKER,” the codename for Wood’s platoon. Number 2 Glider was supposed to take the east side of the Bridge and clear the pits and trenches.
In the momentary lull, Peter allowed himself to think the incredible - had they done it? The Bridge wasn’t blown. Was there any opposition on it left? The creeping elation was a feeling he remembered well - in the confusion of battle, you concentrated on one enemy after another and lost the view around you. You had no way of knowing if you won until there was nothing left to kill.
Parr and Bailey appeared out of the smoke, carrying a limp body between them.
Oh Aslan, no.
Peter jumped forward and helped them move Den Brotheridge over to the modest protection of the courtyard wall.
Their Lieutenant had taken a bullet through the neck. He was staring up, glassy-eyed; blood was everywhere.
Peter knew a fatal wound when he saw one.
The man had a baby coming any day now who would never know her father now.
From the Bridge and on the other side they heard shouts of “Ham and Jam, Ham and Jam.”
Peter looked at his watch. 0026. In barely ten minutes, they had control of the Caen Canal Bridge. Gliders 4, 5, and 6 must have taken the River Orne Bridge, intact.
Ham and Jam. They’d done it.
Den Brotheridge was dying.
ooOOoo
D-Day 0026-0600
They’d all run downstairs for helmets and dark clothing, then dashed back up to the roof, staying in the shadow of a wall, trying to learn what was happening by sound alone. Allies were attacking the Caen Canal Bridge. Had they attacked the River Orne Bridge, too? They didn’t know.
The din from the Canal Bridge was terrific. There had been one crash, an explosion, a flare, and then two more crashes and shooting. Mostly Stens and Brens, Susan could tell from the sound. There was some German fire, MG 34s and Schmeissers, but not much. This meant, she hoped, that the British - she assumed they were British from the guns and not American or Canadian - had quickly obtained the upper hand.
There was shouting too, over the staccato bursts of machine gun fire.
“What are the saying?” Madame Vion asked, pushing her too-big helmet out of her eyes.
“I think they are call signs for recognition,” Susan said. “‘ABLE, BAKER, and CHARLIE’ so they recognize each other from enemy in the dark. There are probably three platoons down there.”
“Did they do it? Did they take the Bridge?” Lebourgeois asked. He had a pair of binoculars they were taking turns using but it was too dark to see anything but the flashes of fire.
“I’ve not heard anything sounding like the Bridge exploding?” Desvignes said, both question and statement.
“Jeanne?”
“I do not want to raise our hopes, but I think we would know what an explosion of that size would sound like.”
“And then there is whether they can hold the Bridge they seized,” Desvignes said ominously.
Susan nodded.
Taking the Bridge was one thing. The Caen Canal Bridge garrison was weak and ineffective, mostly foreign conscripts who probably ran at the first sign of trouble. Major Schmidt was in Ranville tonight with his girlfriend. It was the counter-attack that they needed to think about now. Two regiments of the 21st Panzer were out there, surrounding the Bridges to the east and west, and the most capable, Von Luck’s 125th, was only a few kilometres away.
“Surely there must be reinforcements coming?” Lebourgeois said.
New shouts rose from the Caen Canal Bridge. “What is that?” Madame Vion asked.
Susan listened closely. “Ham and Jam?” she repeated, in both French and near forgotten English. “I don’t know what that means. More code phrases, probably.”
Desvignes sharply inhaled. “Listen!”
It was the unmistakable sound of bombers for the second time that night. This was low, loud, and growing louder. And not the few of before. Dozens, scores, a hundred, bombers were in the sky above Bénouville, probably C-47s and Stirlings from the engine noise. They were all flying low, maybe 125 metres, the altitude for parachute drops. East, across the Caen Canal and River Orne, toward Ranville, flares lit up the sky. Allied pathfinders were lighting the way and signaling drop zones for incoming paratroopers.
Sirens came on instantly and searchlights in every village clicked on. Tracers and anti-aircraft mortars rocketed into the sky, brilliant, terrible, killing streaks of fire and light. Yellow, orange, and red lights split the black night and illuminated men dropping from the sky and floating down on parachutes. The scope, the size, the breadth was incredible. The sky was full of criss-crossing bombers and fire, and in the midst, gently falling paratroopers of what had to be an entire division.
For the first time, Susan considered the incredible. Peter was in the Glider Corps, in the paras of the 6th Airborne. Could he be among the hundreds of men now invading France?
“There are your reinforcements, Lebourgeois,” she told the old man.
In a night of strangeness and uncertainty, another new sound split the night. Someone at the Bridge was blowing a whistle, Dot-Dot-Dot-Dash. V for Victory.
She smiled. “Those are British paras,” she said, confident that only an Englishman would be blowing “V for Victory.” “The whistle is their locator, to help orient them and bring them in to the rendezvous.”
How many though would make it? There were hundreds of paratroopers blotting out the night sky east of them. And many of them would die. How large was the DZ? There was so much danger. There was nowhere safe to land out there.
Echoing her thoughts, as he often did, Desvignes said, “Rommel flooded the fields between here and the River Dives; there are patrols everywhere. They may never make it.”
“We should go, try to find them, bring them in,” Lebourgeois said.
It was insanely dangerous. They could as easily be killed by German as by touchy Allied in the confusion.
“Take the ambulance,” Madame Vion said. “Wear red cross armbands. Take rope, torches, do what you can. Notify the others in the network, if you can find them.”
“The paras are probably supposed to meet at the Bridges. Direct them there and how to follow the whistle.”
Dot-Dot-Dot-Dash.
Susan kissed both men good-bye. Aslan watch over you, my brothers.
The lights and sirens created an incredible spectacle. The paras were so vulnerable. They could be dead before they landed or could land in a tree, a well, or a flooded field and die without ever being free of the chute. Still, after so long, they were not alone. The Allies were coming. The Allies were here.
There was an ominous, clanking roar, not of aircraft, but of heavy treads on a road.
“Tanks!” Madame Vion said. “In Bénouville, heading toward the Canal Bridge.”
“The 21st is on the move,” Susan said grimly. “They are going to counter-attack and try to retake the Bridge.”
ooOOoo
Peter was camped out in an abandoned machine gun pit on the west side of the Bridge. He could hear the dreaded rumble of German tanks on the road between Bénouville and Le Port. He had his grenades all lined up, his Sten, and plenty of ammunition, but none of that would work against a Panzer. They needed the Piat, the platoon’s anti-tank gun, or a gammon bomb.
From the pit, they did have a good line of sight. They were a little elevated, sheltered by the Bridge and the darkness, and could see straight ahead to the crucial road juncture, 30 yards away. Any armour the Germans threw at them from the west, and he could hear it coming, had to come through this bottleneck first. Any armour coming from Caen to the beaches would have to pass through this same T-junction. The paras were dropping all around them and with Major Howard tooting that infernal whistle, their reinforcements should be arriving any time. Until then, D Company could probably pick off whatever came at them, assuming they weren’t rushed and overrun by an overwhelming force.
“ABLE ABLE,” came a voice behind him and Gray jumped into the pit with him.
“Goddamnit,” Gray muttered.
“What? Any word on Brotheridge?”
“Dead,” Gray said flatly.
To the many he had known who were already gone, Peter silently asked, My Friends, welcome a good man among you who will be sorely missed. With the ease of much practise, he shoved his grief aside for later.
Gray lined up next to him in the pit, pulling out his gun and setting it on the sandbag. “All three Lieutenants on this side are down. Danny’s gone and Smith and Wood are both injured. And we’ve still not heard from Captain Priday and Hooper’s platoon.”
Glider 4 was supposed to be at the River Orne Bridge. “So the whole glider never made it?”
Gray shook his head and had to shove his helmet back up as it slipped down. “Still missing. We’ve taken both bridges but we can only hold for so long. If those paras don’t start coming in soon and reinforce our positions, we could lose ‘em.”
The rumbling of treads on the road grew louder, and closer. “So who’s going to lay the gammons?” Peter asked. “What about the Piats?”
“Parr couldn’t find the gammons in the glider. And we’ve only got one working tank gun. All the other Piats broke.”
Peter uttered an oath that had Gray laughing at him. “You still sound like your mother’s listening, Pevensie.”
“So what are we doing, besides waiting to get run over or shot by a Panzer?”
Gray nodded. “Look there.”
Out of the dark, a pile of equipment trotted over the Bridge.
“Who the hell is buried under all that?”Peter asked. Whoever it was had his own pack, grenade bag, a rifle, bandoleers of ammunition strung across his chest and the Piat anti-tank gun on his shoulder.
“It’s Thornton with our one working gun.”
“And?”
“The Major’s ordered him to shoot the first tank that gets in range.”
“Better not miss,” Peter said. The Piat was rubbish. It jammed, had really limited range, and if you missed, you’d never get a second shot because it was so slow to reload. Never miss with a Piat. Never, ever miss. Because if you did, it was the last mistake you’d ever make.
“There it is,” Grey whispered.
It was dark, but they could hear it, coming around the corner, not fifty yards from them.
“Fuck,” Gray whispered.
They saw the gun poke out first, and the bulk of the tank followed, huge and deadly serious. The long cannon barrel swiveled about, as if sniffing the air cautiously, like a large carnivore before making its kill. All the Germans knew was that the Bridge had been taken and that hundreds of paras were landing all over the area. They didn’t how many of them were at the Bridge. They didn’t know how weak and vulnerable D Company really was, here in the dark and how few their numbers. They didn’t know that D Company had one gun to fight the armour the hardened veterans of the 21st Panzer could throw at men seeing their first combat tonight.
Peter’s finger itched to pull the trigger.
“Don’t,” Gray said, softly.
“I know.”
Their bullets were useless. Their grenades were useless. Firing now would reveal their positions and their inexperience and bring that tank down on top of them.
The only one who stood a chance was Sergeant Thornton, standing alone, to the side of the road, under a pile of equipment and only the cover of darkness. There was one chance to fire a single bomb at a monster.
The tank slowly began to turn, to come toward them and the Bridge.
“BANG!”
Thornton fired, hitting the tank square in the side.
“Goddamnit, beautiful shot!” Gray crowed.
The tank froze, shuddered, and all hell broke loose. Fireworks, the likes of which Peter had never seen, exploded from within the tank. He and Gray had to duck down into the pit as bullets and shells ignited in the tank and whizzed and ricocheted around, smashing into anything in their way. Brilliant colours of red and orange flew out. The tank was on fire from the inside. Four men leaped out of the top and were shot dead scrambling for their lives.
One man could not escape the tank. Even the screams of the German driver with shot off legs did not drown out the sounds of the other tanks slowly slinking back the way they had come.
ooOOoo
The racket and fireworks from the explosion down at the Bridge went on for over an hour. It was spectacular, as stunning as the tracers going up all over Caen at the planes overhead and paras coming down. Susan had, at first, been sick with worry that something terrible had happened at the Caen Canal Bridge. From their vantage on the roof, though, they could see that the fighting was not spread out but concentrated on just one big, burning thing in the middle of the road.
“A tank, maybe,” she told Madame. “Perhaps it was carrying ammunition that ignited.”
“If it is disabled at the junction, it is going to keep the Germans from moving in that area.”
The explosions and commotion were finally dying down, which seemed to confirm that this was not widespread and ongoing fighting but some single catastrophe that had, temporarily, intimidated the Germans.
“Have you decided what you will do, Jeanne?”
“I am not sure where I would be best deployed,” Susan replied, wrapping her arms about her. “It is difficult to be up here, watching, and not down there. I am worried about Georges and Thérèse. The unit at the Bridge surely knows the Gondrées are friendly but I want to make sure. As much I would like to, I cannot interrupt an ongoing military operation to satisfy my curiosity.”
“Dawn is not that far away. With morning, I think things will be clearer.” Madame Vion patted her arm. “I will need to stay here to care for our patients and any wounded who might be brought in. Given that our roof is the highest point in the area, I am going to have to beat back the Germans come dawn and make sure that they see nothing but our hospital operations. And if the unit at the Bridge thinks we are not a hospital, we will have problems with them, too.”
“I pity the Germans who dare to cross you, Madame,” Susan said. “As for the Allies, they should know better. If they start shooting at us, I’ll get over there and reprimand their CO.”
Madame Vion smiled, rare for her. “Thank you. You may convey to him my thanks and compliments. And if he shoots at a hospital he is neither an officer nor a gentleman.” She turned to return back down the stair. “And Jeanne?”
“Yes, Aunt?”
“Congratulations. If the Allies took the Bridge this night, it was due in no small part to our intelligence work.”
Susan was embarrassed to admit the thought had not occurred to her. “And to you, Madame.”
ooOOoo
D-Day
0600-1330
There was no uncertainty at dawn. Anyone who might have slept through the firefight in the night woke to artillery barrages coming from the sea. The ground was shaking beneath their feet. The windows of the hospital rattled and dust and spiders billowed from the rafters. The noise was terrific. Huge shells flew overhead; they were so large it was as if the naval guns were hurtling jeeps and boulders into Calvados.
It was controlled chaos in the hospital. The women were terrified and clutched their crying babies to their breasts, who could not sleep or settle with the racket and debris. What had already been difficult became near impossible. Even before the invasion, there had not been enough of anything to ease anyone; not enough food, water, soap, alcohol, clean linens, or medicine. With food so scarce, they had had to replace the lost calories with wine so that mothers could at least survive and nurse their children. Madame Vion and the staff, however, had become concerned with how the change to more wine seemed to affect the babies.
Five pregnant women, already under stress, began premature labour. People in the community, injured during the night, limped into the hospital with broken bones and bandaged heads, not daring to attempt the trip to a doctor in Caen.
Susan was sure it would only get worse. She did what she could. Care of the frightened and wounded was not something Mrs. Caspian or Jeanne Lambert knew. So it was Susan Pevensie who had survived the London Blitz and Queen Susan the Gentle who moved among the patients, assisting the professional staff, trying to prioritize who needed help the most, and separating the critically ill from those who were frightened and uncomfortable but could endure a long wait. She held hands, wiped brows, handed instruments to the doctor and nurses, rocked the babies, and spoke soft words of reassurance.
It was not what she had trained to do in the SOE, but it reminded her of why the battle raged outside the hospital walls.
In the midst of the misery and need, Lebourgeois and Desvignes returned, gray with exhaustion and tightlipped. Susan went into the garage and helped them remove the bodies from the ambulance. The men had managed to squeeze in six, four British paras and two German soldiers. Together, one by one, they carried the corpses to the cool cellar.
Susan took charge of the dead. She had seen corpses before and these were no less and no more. They could not spare linens to cover the bodies. Susan carefully copied the men’s names from their ID tags and removed their weapons. All of them carried tokens: there were pictures of wives and children, a baby shoe, unsent letters, a pressed flower. She remembered what it had felt like to remain at home while others she loved rode off with her tokens in their armour and bags. She carefully set the items aside, next to the body, and clearly labeled so that these small things of immense weight might someday, some way, find their way back to those who were not forgotten. There would be so very, very many more before the day was over. Surely there would be arrangements for respectful disposition of the dead and return of personal effects.
Once they had washed up, they met in the office and Susan poured the men a strong, fortifying wine and gave them some biscuits received from a Lysander drop.
“The fields are littered with dead paratroopers,” Desvignes said wearily, sinking onto Madame Vion’s couch.
“Dozens, hundreds.” Lebourgeois took a steadying drink of wine. “We did find some alive. They were wandering about in the dark and listening for that damned whistle. They were supposed to rendezvous in Ranville so we directed them there.”
“And what of…”
An explosion rocked the building and shook the walls. They could hear glass shattering and falling to the ground outside. Women screamed.
The three of them bolted up and hurried into the hall. Plaster and dust were raining down. They followed the cries and panicked shouts to the foyer just as another explosion hit. Pictures fell from the walls and shattered.
These weren’t bombs. This was shelling. Someone was targeting the hospital.
Susan pushed her way into the crowded reception area, squeezing by the harried staff trying to cope with panicked patients.
Madame Vion was at the front doors. With arms outstretched, she blocked the hospital entrance with her body, furiously defying three German soldiers trying to push her aside.
ooOOoo
With paras coming in all night, Major Howard was able to pull D Company back from the west side of the Bridge. Peter was ordered to the pillbox with Parr, Grey, Bailey, and Gardner to guard the anti-tank gun.
The roar coming north from the beaches meant the incoming force was landing. The smoke, explosions, and mortars flying overhead were like nothing they’d ever experienced. It was an earthquake that never stopped.
“Glad I’m not one of those poor buggers,” Bailey muttered as the ground shook beneath their feet. The ships were moving closer to shore and raising their barrage inland, right over their heads.
That was all the good news. The bad news was that with dawn, snipers on the west side of the canal had them all pinned down. Moving around was bloody dangerous. There was plenty of cover for snipers- there was a big building just south of the Bridge, a water tower, and heavy tree cover. The snipers could be anywhere and they were very good. The five of them were protected in the pillbox but it was ugly business outside. The snipers had targeted even their doc’s aid station set up in a trench. Snipers had shot at both Lieutenants Wood and Smith who had been wounded and were in the trench with the doc. Their company medical orderly had taken a hit to the chest from sniper fire.
D Company had been pulled back for reserve to hold the area between the River Orne and Caen Canal bridges, but the paras were seeing some pretty hot fighting on the west side, in Bénouville and Le Port. D Company had trained in urban combat, so Peter thought they’d be sent over, assuming they could get across the Bridge without the snipers picking them off. Reinforcements were due to come up from Sword Beach by noon, and they could use them.
Air operations had begun, too. A wing of Spitfires flew overhead and Major Howard had them lay out a signal that all was well and the Bridge under control. Given that none of them could move without possibly taking a bullet to the head from sniper-fire, the Major was probably a little optimistic. It was terrific to see the three Spitfires, with the white bars painted on their wings, fly over the Bridges and do victory rolls.
“Looks like they dropped something,” Peter said, peering out from the pillbox. Major Howard was already ordering a patrol out to see what it was.
Dodging snipers, the chaps came back with bundles that sure weren’t worth the risk. The Spitfire had dropped the day’s early Fleet Street papers. Lot of good it did. There was nothing about the second front, or D Company and everybody started fighting for the Daily Mirror so they could read Jane. Well, you didn’t really read Jane. You looked to see what new, ridiculous circumstance would contrive Jane to remove her clothing and reveal a shapely body in nothing but a brassiere, towel, curtain, or bedsheet.
Gray handed him the paper with a grunt of disgust. “You’d think after today Jane would strip to skin just for morale?”
Peter glanced at it - Jane was blonde and had nice legs - and passed it along. “Parr, you want Jane?”
“I’m a married man, Pevensie,” Parr replied, not even looking up from the big gun he’d been tinkering with since being assigned to the pillbox. Parr kept poking at it and had made them take the breech out and bring up the mortars from the bunkers below them and he really wouldn’t leave off.
Gardner nudged him in the ribs. “Hey, Pevensie, Gray, what do you make of that?”
He pointed out into the LZ where their glider had crashed. Two little, shabby men were running around in the field, waving shovels and shouting at one another.
Bailey looked up over the Daily Mirror. “Thornton and Fox caught them this morning. They’re Italian, from the Todt. They wouldn’t leave, said they had to be here. So, the Major gave them a biscuit and let them go, figured they were harmless.”
“What are they doing out there?” Gardner asked.
One of them picked up one of the big poles that was on the ground and was teetering around with it, nearly taking out the other when he swung it around.
“Impossible,” Gray said. “They aren’t? Are they?”
“Sure looks like,” Gardner said.
“I don’t believe it,” Peter added.
They watched, beyond shocked, as the poor man tried to plant his unwieldy pole into a hole in the ground. His co-worker ran forward and frantically shoveled dirt around the pole to keep it steady.
“Guess we won’t be taking off in the gliders from here, right?” Bailey said.
They all started laughing. The morning of the second front, over 100,000 men coming ashore, thousands of planes overhead, three crashed and broken gliders at the foot of the Caen Canal Bridge, and two Italians were trying to plant the dreaded glider poles.
“So where’s the trigger?” Parr asked, breaking up the laughter. “We got it loaded. I’ve got the gun pointed at where those ruddy snipers are hiding. How do we fire it?”
There wasn’t much room in the pillbox and there were only so many levers and buttons that could be the trigger on a 75 mm anti-tank gun.
“What's this?” Gardner asked.
“What’s what?”
“This.”
In a night and day of the biggest explosions imaginable, this one near burst Peter’s ears. A shell screamed out of the cannon in the direction of Caen.
The gun shuddered and belched a huge case out the back that sent them all scrambling to be clear of it.
They were all silent for a moment and Peter couldn’t have heard anyone anyway for the ringing in his ears.
Parr grabbed the gun and spun it around, south. “We’ll get those square-headed bastards now.”
“You’re a bloody lunatic, Parr,” Bailey said.
“The snipers are on the roof of that big building down there. They’re not going to get any more Tommys today. Let’s see if we can’t bag us some Nazi sniper bucketheads.”
This time, Peter put his fingers in his ears when the gun went off and stayed clear of the heavy casing that spit out the back. It’d break bones if it hit you.
The next mortar sailed south, straight and right into the uppermost floor of the big fancy Château down the canal. They all whooped it up - it felt great to shoot something big at people who were trying to kill them. Parr was grinning like a maniac.
The next was a brilliant, beautiful shot. The accuracy on the gun was incredible, nothing like the Piat.
Major Howard suddenly stuck his head into the pillbox bellowing loud enough to rival the gun. “For Christ’s sake, what in blazes are you doing?! Parr!? Are you shooting at a maternity hospital?!”
Introduction
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3 Part 1 Part 2
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6 Part 1 Part 2