Winter of the World (Century Trilogy 2)

Woody realized that the dead Americans on the bridge would forewarn any approaching enemy forces that the pillboxes had been captured. Otherwise he might retain an element of surprise.

That meant he had to get rid of the American corpses too.

He told the others what he was going to do, then stepped outside.

The morning air tasted fresh and clean.

He walked to the middle of the bridge. He checked each body for a pulse, but there was no doubt: they were all dead.

One by one, he picked up his comrades and dropped them over the parapet.

The last one was Ace Webber. As he hit the water, Woody said: ‘Rest in peace, buddies.’ He stood still for a minute with his head bent and his eyes closed.

When he turned around, the sun was coming up.

(vii)

The great fear of Allied planners was that the Germans would rapidly reinforce their troops in Normandy, and mount a powerful counter-attack that would drive the invaders back into the sea, in a repeat of the Dunkirk disaster.

Lloyd Williams was one of the people trying to make sure that did not happen.

His job helping escaped prisoners get home had low priority after the invasion, and he was now working with the French Resistance.

At the end of May the BBC broadcast coded messages that triggered a campaign of sabotage in German- occupied France. During the first few days of June hundreds of telephone lines were cut, usually in hard-to-find places. Fuel depots were set on fire, roads were blocked by trees, and tyres were slashed.

Lloyd was assisting the railwaymen, who were strongly Communist and called themselves Resistance Fer. For years they had maddened the Nazis with their sly subversion. German troop trains somehow got diverted down obscure branch lines and sent many miles out of their way. Engines broke down unaccountably and carriages were derailed. It was so bad that the occupiers brought railwaymen from Germany to run the system. But the disruption got worse. In the spring of 1944 the railwaymen began to damage their own network. They blew up tracks and sabotaged the heavy lifting cranes required for moving crashed trains.

The Nazis did not take this lying down. Hundreds of railwaymen were executed, and thousands deported to camps. But the campaign escalated, and by D-Day rail traffic in some parts of France had come to a halt.

Now, on D-Day plus one, Lloyd lay at the summit of an embankment beside the main line to Rouen, capital city of Normandy, at a point where the track entered a tunnel. From his vantage point he could see approaching trains a mile away.

With Lloyd were two others, codenamed Legionnaire and Cigare. Legionnaire was leader of the Resistance in this neighbourhood. Cigare was a railwayman. Lloyd had brought the dynamite. Supplying weaponry was the main role played by the British in the French Resistance.

The three men were half hidden by long grass dotted with wild flowers. It was the kind of place to bring a girl on a fine day such as this, Lloyd thought. Daisy would like it.

A train appeared in the distance. Cigare scrutinized it as it came nearer. He was about sixty, wiry and small, with the lined face of a heavy smoker. When the train was still a quarter of a mile away he shook his head in negation. This was not the one they were waiting for. The engine passed them, puffing smoke, and entered the tunnel. It was hauling four passenger coaches, all full, carrying a mixture of civilians and uniformed men. Lloyd had more important prey in his sights.

Legionnaire looked at his watch. He had dark skin and a black moustache, and Lloyd guessed he might have a North African somewhere in his ancestry. Now he was jumpy. They were exposed here, in the open air and in daylight. The longer they stayed, the higher the chance they would be spotted. ‘How much longer?’ he said worriedly.

Cigare shrugged. ‘We’ll see.’

Lloyd said in French: ‘You can leave now, if you wish. Everything is set.’

Legionnaire did not reply. He was not going to miss the action. For the sake of his prestige and authority he had to be able to say: ‘I was there.’

Cigare tensed, peering into the distance, the skin around his eyes creasing with the effort. ‘So,’ he said cryptically. He raised himself to his knees.

Lloyd could hardly see the train, let alone identify it, but Cigare was alert. It was moving a lot faster than the previous one, Lloyd could tell. As it came closer he observed that it was longer, too: twenty-four carriages or more, he thought.

‘This is it,’ said Cigare.

Lloyd’s pulse quickened. If Cigare was right, this was a German troop train carrying more than a thousand officers and men to the Normandy battlefield – perhaps the first of many such trains. It was Lloyd’s job to make sure neither this train nor any following passed through the tunnel.

Then he saw something else. A plane was tracking the train. As he watched, the aircraft matched course with the train and began to lose height.

The plane was British.

Lloyd recognized it as a Hawker Typhoon, nicknamed a Tiffy, a one-man fighter-bomber. Tiffies were often given the dangerous mission of penetrating deep behind enemy lines to harass communications. There was a brave man at the controls, Lloyd thought.