CHAPTER 5
We rolled into the big city, and Wilf went looking for the best pub. No, not really. There were no pubs. No houses, no streets, nothing but rubble and blank-eyed locals staring at us without any life in their faces.

The Sappers had bulldozed a few roadways for us, but I suspected they didn’t actually match what had lain there before we arrived. Behind us, the Graves Registration boys had what must have been the worst job in the world.

Jerry was falling back, but our vehicles were well and truly buggered. We had done what we could in leaguer, tensioning the tracks and topping up the fluids, but Bob and Harry’s fondness for reversing had almost stripped the gearbox. Never mind. As everyone else seemed to be on their way south, we got a new issue, welded frame this time. As we climbed in, Bob was smiling.

“Try not to bugger this one as well, Harry! What we going to call her?”

Wilf was quick, as usual, “Him, mates! Stanley, of course. Oliver always says about Stan getting him into another fine mess”

Bob was grinning. “Stan it is. And it’s Harry that’s been getting us out of messes, so let’s see if we can keep this one as virgina intacta as the old one”

Over the next few days, life seemed to start emerging from the rubble around us. We were offered a billet in a field of tents, but after a pretty short chat we said ‘no ta’ and stayed with our new transport. Wilf continued to do surprisingly good stuff with powdered eggs and bully beef, and there were not only NAAFI wagons but also locals willing to swap the odd bottle for anything issue that we didn’t use.

The locals took such a long time to thaw I almost felt that we were the invaders, not the Jerries. Along with my daydreams about being a two-fisted hero I had, in my adolescent way, dreamt of French girls. We would arrive, put the Evil Hun to the sword, and girls would, well, girls just would. In the end, I heard that the girls, women, grandmothers would indeed, but it was done for food, and their eyes stayed blank as our boys had their knee-tremblers behind random piles of rubble.

I slept badly then. I would wake suddenly, soaked in sweat, a shout half-heard on my lips, and several times I found Bob beside me, a gentle presence and even a hug. I never felt that he was up to anything unnatural, no queer stuff, but rather that he was acting like a father, soothing his boy to sleep. It helped, and so did the booze we managed to acquire.

I suspect now that we were left in relative peace deliberately, for when we began a push to the South-East we were well-rested and mounted on fresh kit, and Jerry was getting a severe beating somewhere to the South. I saw pictures on the news reels when the Kinema Corps set us up a screen, pictures of a place called Falaise, and I gave thanks we had not been there. What they had done to us outside Caen was absolutely nothing to what we did to them. I thought of all the old bible lessons, the stuff about reaping whirlwinds, but all I could bring to mind was pieces of men that I had sent flying with my high explosive.

For the next push, we were teamed up with some of the Yeomanry, and they were so like our dead Officer I nearly cried. Mounted in armoured cars, they swept and sneaked till they found the enemy, and then we rolled up for some more robust and physical recon. It was different now, for Jerry was in full retreat, but that didn’t mean it was a doddle. He was a sharp bastard, your German, and we still lost mates steadily.

We had stopped and leaguered with the rest of the troop, one day in July or August, the air still heavy with Summer heat and the threat of a thunderstorm, and Sergeant Neville, Jim, of Seven Two was over with us, trying to swap some souvenir or other for some of the fresh eggs Wilf had liberated. Bob had upped the price, or rather reduced the number of eggs, and Sarge Neville was laughing out loud, calling Bob a thieving Arab bastard who had clearly spent too fucking long with the rest of the wogs in Africa, when the back of his head came off and his brains splashed all over Stan’s side plate, the sound of the shot coming a second later.

The East Riding boys were quick, but they never found the sniper. We buried Jim just off the road, and two days later a frighteningly young man was dragged into that night’s leaguer and kicked half to death before an Officer could get involved. I had sprung forward as the first kick went in, but Ernie had grabbed my arm.

“Leave it alone, mate. Look at the cunt’s collar”

I walked over to what looked like a tall fifteen year old boy, and I saw the same eyes I had seen in Caen: flat, passive, devoid of hope. There were zigzags on his collar, twin lightning bolts. One of the East Riding lads, the one who had the boy’s arm twisted so sharply I expected at any moment to hear the bone crack, saw where my eyes were pointed.

“Aye, son. Bloody SS. Adolf’s little favourites. Nothing to do with this bastard except to slit his fucking throat, but the boss says I can’t. That right, Mr Allsop?”

His Lieutenant nodded. “You are correct, Eyres. We need to see him deposited still breathing with our intelligence colleagues, but I am watching his eyes. I rather suspect that his mother enjoyed being fucked in her arse---yes, you do speak English then. I suggest you do not take up cards as a living, your face is too open. And I look forward to seeing you hanged when we have the time and opportunity. Eyres, at your own pace, and with only the most necessary of violence, remove this piece of filth and deposit it appropriately for interrogation. Name?”

The young man stared at him, sullen, silent.

“NAME!”

The boy drew himself up. “Wilders, Gunther. Sturmmann”

He rattled off what must have been his number in German, and then sprang to attention.

“Heil—“

Eyres punched him in the face.

“You can fuck off now son. Do that again, and I will start breaking bits of you. Bill, Jack, fix bayonets if you please”

They left as a group, two eighteen-inch bayonets prodding at the German’s kidneys, and I gave Bob a raised eyebrow. He sighed.

“Not nice boys, Ginge. Best avoided, if you can, but, well, best not taken prisoner. If you have the option, that is”

A remark I remembered. I didn’t realise what it would bring to me a few months later.

The locals were different now. With Jerry running like a Waterloo Cup hare, we didn’t seem to be seeing the destruction that had been Caen. There were flowers and tears, music and kisses, and it was clear even to me that some of the girls really wanted to say their thank-yous in a physical way.

She was plump, with blonde hair and dimples. The boys smiled at me for a week.