Уильям Николсон - Motherland

I’m not fighting any more.

Not meaning fighting as a soldier, fighting in a war, God knows he’s done little enough of that. He’s no longer fighting for life. Whatever that instinct or passion is that chooses life at all costs has slipped away, overwhelmed by fatigue and fear. So the fear hasn’t left him after all, it’s merely taken this new form, of loss of will. Like a dog that accepts its master’s blows in silence, hoping by lack of opposition to win reprieve.

I’ve surrendered, Larry thinks. Take me prisoner. Take me home. Let me sleep.

There comes a roar overhead and the shadow of low-flying bombers, and then the smoke rolls down the beach. Larry gazes at the veil of whiteness that curtains him in his refuge and pretends to himself that now he’s safe after all.

General Roberts on the command ship HMS Calpe receives a steady stream of messages from the assault forces, many of which contradict each other. Some of the Calgary regiment’s tanks are reported to have broken into the town itself. A platoon of the RHLI has fought its way up to the six-inch gun before the Casino. 4 Commando are back on their mother ship after successfully destroying the coastal battery behind Varengeville. The Royals have suffered heavy losses on Blue Beach, which remains exposed to the Berneval guns, but the RAF still have air supremacy, and the Essex Scottish, following the RHLI, are ashore in the centre. Reports are coming in that the beaches have been cleared. With all the information the commander has at his disposal it makes sense to commit his reserve forces. The objective remains the outright capture of the port. Fresh troops, sweeping past the units who have done so much to break the enemy’s resistance, will tip the balance of the day.

‘Send in the reserves now.’

The order is transmitted to the landing craft standing offshore, holding seven hundred men of the Fusiliers Mont-Royal, and three hundred and seventy men of 40 Commando. The smokescreen hangs heavy over the sea and shore as the barges line up and make their approach.

On Ed Avenell’s boat the order is received with a cheer.

‘About fucking time!’

For three hours now they’ve sat helpless as shells from shore batteries have passed overhead, or into the water nearby, while from the distant beach has come the ceaseless chatter of gunfire. Now at last they can go about their business.

The four boats of the commando advance in line with each other, forming the last wave after the Fusiliers. They pass through the smokescreen and out into sunlight, and so get their first clear sight of the beach, barely a hundred yards ahead. They see the Fusiliers landing, scrambling onto the beach, falling, hit by the relentless crossfire. They see mortars plop down and blow men away like dolls. They see the shells of the big howitzers rip up the beach. And most of all they see the countless corpses that lie all the way from the water to the promenade.

Ed Avenell, rising to his feet, preparing to jump, sees all this and knows that he is participating in a cruel and bloody joke.

‘This is fucking insane!’

Colonel Phillips understands that a terrible mistake has been made. He pulls on a pair of white gloves so that his signalling hands can be seen by the other boats, and standing tall in the bow he shouts and gestures the command to go back.

‘Turn about! Turn about!’

As he signals his order a bullet strikes him in the forehead, killing him instantly. Number 2 Boat, running a little ahead, does not see the signal. The others turn back.

Titch Houghton, eyes on the beach, shouts to the men in Number 2 Boat, ‘Stand by! This is it!’

The barge shudders to a stop and the commandos spring out, guns in firing position. Moving at speed they lope up the beach, spreading out as they go. Whatever plan there was has been overtaken by events. They’re hunting enemy to kill.

Now there are silver Focke-Wulf 109s up in the sky as well as the Spitfires of the RAF. As the Spitfires run short on fuel and turn for home the Focke-Wulfs fly low, strafing the men on the beach. Ed Avenell, fuelled by a toxic mixture of frustration and rage, storms the promenade wall, firing from a Bren gun as he goes. The enemy are nowhere to be seen, but their shells and bullets are everywhere. Racing down an empty street, shooting as he goes, he shouts, ‘Come on out, you bastards!’ A sniper fires at him from a house, and catching a glimpse of him at an upper window, he swings back, spraying bullets.

The Fusiliers punch their way into the marketplace just as the RHLI finally capture the Casino. But the mortars keep on coming, and the big guns on the clifftop emplacements keep on booming. An empty building on the promenade has been taken over as an assembly point for the wounded and the dead. A large contingent of Camerons has formed a defensive line against enemy forces massing in the woods on the west side of the town. There is no objective any more, no overall strategy. Men run with great urgency in opposite directions, each following some imperative of his own. In the midst of this random violence the inhabitants of the town go about their business seemingly indifferent to the danger. One man leads four cows into the shelter of a barn, and then goes back out again to fetch in hay. Another, in hat and jacket but no shirt, bicycles down the street with a baguette in his basket. Small boys stare with big eyes at the soldiers running past. Some buildings are burning, but not fiercely, issuing thin trails of smoke into the clear sky.

The tide is far out now. Between the pebble beach with its litter of corpses and the sea where the armada waits, shrouded in smoke, there lies a wide strip of shining sand. The hour is past ten. On HMS Calpe General Roberts knows the assault has failed. He gives the order to retreat.

Ed Avenell’s rage has only grown as he has taken in the scale of the disaster. He rages at the enemy who won’t come out to fight. But most of all he rages at the sheer folly of it all. Why would any sane military planner send men to storm a heavily defended beach in broad daylight? But there are no sane military planners. The world is run by fools and the outcome is and always will be chaos. So together with his rage goes a fierce gladness that his deepest instincts should be proved so visibly right. This battle, that has no structure and no objective, that takes place merely to cause men to die to no purpose, is for Ed a perfect model of existence stripped bare. His anger flows from him in a righteous stream, but he’s laughing at himself even as he deals out his vengeance, because he knows his only true justification for killing is that he too is prepared to die.

By the time he gets the order to retreat he has entered an almost ecstatic state. He should have been hit countless times, but somehow the bullets have not found him, and the shell splinters have passed him by. Now he believes his luck is impregnable, and he takes no precautions at all. He has become invulnerable.

Larry remains crouched behind the abandoned tank as the retreat unfolds. He sees men running back down the beach towards the returning landing craft. He smells seaweed, and salt water, and blood. He has no desire to get up himself and go to the boats. The space between himself and the water is a killing zone, men fall repeatedly as they run, hit by the guns in the cliffs, or the strafing of planes, or the unending boom of the mortars. But Larry does not stay where he is because he’s afraid of the danger on the open beach. He remains motionless because he has lost the will to act. He has become utterly resigned, even to his own destruction.

His dulled gaze is caught by a man who is striding down the beach with another man in his arms. Larry sees him deliver his burden to the group clustered round the landing craft. Then he returns, striding back up the beach, oblivious to the bullets flying all round him.