A Game for Heroes

For the next two or three minutes, succeeding waves failed to reach him. He lay there as if exhausted, then tried to push himself up as a great comber roiled in and flattened him. When it receded, he was still alive, but there could only be one end to the game that was being played down there.

I crouched in the shelter of the gorse bushes, waiting for something to happen. Anything that would make it unnecessary for me to play at heroes. It came from an unexpected quarter, the fold in the cliffs on my right from which a narrow track dropped to the beach.

I heard voices first, calling excitedly, then half-a-dozen men appeared and paused on the brow of the hill about fifty feet above the sea. They were Todt workers, a few of the poor wretches brought over from France to labour on the island’s fortifications. This lot were a road gang from the looks of them and carried picks and shovels. There were no guards, which wasn’t unusual. The island, after all, was as effective a prison in itself as could have been found anywhere.

They seemed to be having an argument, then one of them moved ahead and started to slide down the slope to the beach below. He dropped the last ten or fifteen feet into soft sand, picked himself up and approached the wire. He was a brave man, and closer to death than he perhaps knew.

Another great wave rolled in, washing a second body into the minefield. There was a sudden eruption and for a moment, the sea boiled. When it drew back, I was surprised to see that the man in the yellow life-jacket was still alive.

But not for much longer. He needed a miracle now and from the looks of it, it would have to be a miracle called Owen Morgan. I realized that with a kind of weary fatality as the Todt worker on the beach, who had thrown himself flat on his face, got up and paused uncertainly. He knew about the mines now and only a fool would venture into such a death trap – a fool or someone who didn’t particularly care whether he lived or died.

I took the Mauser with the SS bulbous silencer from the clip at the rear of my belt and slipped it into the pocket of my reefer coat. Then I took the coat off and pushed it into the crevasse at the back of the overhang under which I was sheltering. I transferred my knife to my right-hand pocket. The spring blade action meant that I could open it with one hand which might be useful there in the water.

What else was there? My identity discs. I checked that they were safe in the secret pocket of my belt, not that they were likely to do me much good where I was going. And the black patch which covered what was left of my right eye – I almost forgot about that. It was hardly likely to remain in place in the kind of surf that was coming in and I pulled it down around my neck on its elasticated band.

In the country of the blind, the one-eyed man is king. God knows why I thought of that as I went down a narrow crevasse for twenty or thirty feet and emerged on to a shoulder of rock. The Todt workers on the hillside saw me at once, but the man on the beach was back at the wire looking for a way through.

‘No good – too many mines,’ I shouted in French. ‘Leave it to me.’

He turned and looked up in surprise, staring dumbly, so I gave it to him in English and German for good measure. Some little way below, a rock jutted out thirty feet or so above deep water. When I was twelve, I had jumped from it to impress Simone. She had refused to speak to me for a week for the fright I had given her. It all came back so clearly as I paused there for a moment.

A good morning – a fine morning to die in. I took a quick breath and jumped.

It was cold – cold as only the Channel can be with the Atlantic roiling in all the way from Newfoundland. I went deep and kicked with all my strength as the current caught me.

I was wearing canvas rope-soled shoes, denim pants and a Guernsey fisherman’s sweater and all these things I had retained by design. If you are swimming in cold waters, clothes help to retain body heat and so it was now. I surfaced and started to swim the hundred yards that separated me from Horseshoe.

The great tidal surge that drives in through the Channel Islands raises the level of the water in the Golfe de St Malo by as much as thirty feet, and I could feel the implacable force of it pushing me forwards, lifting the waves into whitecaps in a great unbroken progression to crash in across the beach.

The swimming in itself was no great feat. All I had to do was stay afloat and the tidal current did the rest. I was aware of the Todt workers up on the hillside in the green fold between the cliffs, of the man on the other side of the wire and then a great wave took me in its iron grip and carried me in at what seemed like a considerable speed.

I touched sand, reached out for some sort of secure anchorage and found myself high on the beach as the sea drained away. The man in the yellow life-jacket was no more than ten yards to my left. Another wave washed in as I got to one knee. As it receded, I was already on my feet and moving to join him.

He was perhaps seventeen, a young German naval rating, a telegraphist according to the badge on his sleeve. His left shoulder and arm were a bloody mess which certainly explained his inability to help himself.

He was actually reaching out for the wire as I got to him and I dropped to one knee and turned him over. His eyes were dark glass, staring through and beyond me, no comprehension there at all and he was obviously in deep shock. I got an arm around him as another wave washed over us. When I shook the salt water from my eyes and looked across the wire, the Todt workers were moving down the path in company with three German soldiers, two of whom carried machine pistols.

One of them called to me, but his voice was drowned by the roaring of another incoming wave. And then, in the silence that followed, a horse whinnied and I looked up and saw Steiner sitting on a grey mare on the brow of the hill.

He called to the men below, telling them to stay where they were and they obeyed instantly which didn’t surprise me for he was that kind of man. He went down the path to join them, there was a quick conversation and then one of the soldiers scrambled back up the path to where the mare grazed peacefully and disappeared over the brow of the hill.

The other two herded the Todt workers back and Steiner came down on his own carrying three stick grenades in his left hand. He wore a three-quarter length coat with a black fur collar which I happened to know was standard issue to Russian officers of staff rank only and his Brandenberger forage cap was tilted at the exact regulation angle and no more.

He smiled as he stopped on the other side of the wire. ‘I had expected you long gone by now, Owen Morgan. What happened?’

‘The best laid schemes and all that,’ I said. ‘Does it matter?’

‘Not really. What have you got there?’

‘One of yours – a telegraphist from the E boat.’

‘Will he live?’

‘I should imagine so.’

‘Good. Stay exactly where you are.’

He moved twenty or thirty yards away along the beach and another wave crashed in. It was a big one – large enough to have us both across the wire and I hung on grimly with every thing I had.

The boy was unconscious. I was aware of that as I surfaced and at the same time saw Steiner toss the first grenade over the wire. There was a double explosion, followed by a third as mines started to detonate each other. He had turned his back briefly and I lost sight of him through a curtain of smoke and sand. As it cleared, he moved in closer, examined the ragged gap in the beach defences he had created, then tossed the second grenade.

The waves washed in again, stronger than ever and I was beginning to tire. It had been a long night and this was a hell of a morning to follow. As I came up for air, the third grenade landed. There were four quite distinct explosions and, as the echoes died away, sand and smoke lifted in a dense cloud.

Birds called, wheeling high above, rising from the cliff face, razorbills, shags, gulls and a lone storm petrel came in low through the smoke like a bomber on its final run, straight and true, skimming the waves as it turned out to sea.

Steiner was standing at one end of the ragged path he had blasted through the wire to the water’s edge. He waved and I called out to him sharply.

‘Careful – no guarantee you’ve got them all.’

‘Only one way of finding out.’

He walked through as calmly as if he were taking a Sunday afternoon stroll in the park, pausing only to kick a ragged nest of wire out of the way and splashed towards me.

There was a sudden roar of an engine as a VW field car appeared and braked on the brow of the hill. Several soldiers got out and started down towards the beach. Steiner ignored them.

‘I’m sorry about this, but there is little I can do now, you understand that?’

‘Naturally,’

‘Have you any weapons?’

‘My knife only.’

‘Give it to me.’

He slipped it into his pocket and got a hand under the young sailor’s arm. ‘Let’s get him out of here before he dies on us. This business might help you considerably.’

‘With a man like Radl? You must be joking.’

He shrugged. ‘All things are possible …’

‘In this worst of all possible worlds,’ I misquoted. ‘You look after Simone, that’s all I ask, and forget that last night ever happened. Just keep her out of this. Don’t waste your time on me. I’m a dead man walking, we both know that.’

‘You sacrificed yourself to save a German seaman. That must count for something. Even Radl has been known to listen to reason on occasion.’

‘From a sergeant-major?’ I laughed. ‘Not a habit of many colonels that I’ve known in most armies, including my own. He’ll show you the door and more than that.’

‘Oh, no,’ he said softly. ‘Never that, my friend,’ and he was no longer smiling.