Before the Dawn

24

SAM

With one last effort I hurled myself forwards through the shallows and onto the wet sand, collapsing behind one of the beach defences, a structure made out of heavy wooden posts with sharpened ends that had been driven at angles into the sand. I used my hands to try to scoop out a shallow foxhole, burrowing down as far as I could.

As I lay there, I found myself wishing I could go back, warn myself what I was letting myself in for. But then there would be no Ruby; did I really want to change that? I wondered if she knew where I was right now, what was happening.

The tide was creeping in, washing bodies up onto the sand; that was stained red too. After a while, the waves began lapping at my feet. I needed to move, but there was no one giving orders. Everyone who hadn’t been killed was just lying here, like me, pinned down on the beach. There was nowhere to go. Nowhere that was safe.

I heard a gurgling sound. A soldier had washed up beside me, lying face down in the shallow water; the poor sonofabitch was drowning. I raised my head and yelled. ‘Medic! MEDIC!’

The only response was a hail of machine-gun fire from Jerry. I had to press myself flat against the wet sand again, praying that bastard up on the cliffs wasn’t a good shot. When it was over, I slithered over to the soldier, keeping as close to the sand as I could. I reached out, trying to push his head sideways to get his face out of the water, and swore.

It was Jimmy.

He was half conscious, the skin around his lips turning blue. ‘C’mon, Jimmy,’ I said, pushing his shoulder. ‘C’mon. Wake up. Wake up.’

He groaned. I swore again. Looking round, I saw another soldier nearby, watching us: Freddie Gardner. His helmet was gone, and his bluster with it. He was white-faced, wide-eyed.

‘Help me get him out of the water!’ I shouted at him.

Gardner whimpered and shook his head.

‘Help me get him out, or he’s gonna fucking die!’

But Gardner just closed his eyes and turned his head away, gripping his gun so tight his knuckles turned yellow.

I spat at him. ‘Fuck you, you piece of shit.’

I got slowly to my knees, every muscle in my body taut as a violin string as I tried to pull Jimmy clear of the waves. He was too heavy, his uniform and equipment saturated with water. I grabbed the knife off my belt and cut his pack away. With it gone, I was able to drag him a little way up the sand. I shook him again, patting the side of his face. ‘Jimmy, it’s Sam. Wake up.’

He groaned again, his eyes rolled up to the whites.

Zip!A bullet flew over my head, practically parting my hair. I flattened myself to the ground again. ‘Jimmy,’ I say in a firmer voice. ‘Jim. C’mon, buddy. Speak to me. Wake the fuck up.’ I was halfway between laughing and bawling my eyes out.

Jimmy’s eyes flickered open. ‘Hey, Sammy,’ he croaked. ‘We’re in deep shit, aren’t we?’

‘We will be if we don’t get off this damn beach. You hit anywhere?’

He coughed weakly, spitting seawater. ‘Don’t – think – so.’

An impossible distance away, I could see a sea wall at the foot of the bluffs, wounded men lined up along the bottom. The position of the wall meant they were safe from German fire, and there were medics moving among them, treating their wounds. If Jimmy and I could get up there, he’d get the help he needed.

‘Jim,’ I said, pointing. ‘Jimmy. You see that wall?’

He nodded.

‘That’s where we’re gonna go. Me and you together, buddy, OK? But we’ll have to stay low so we don’t draw fire.’

He nodded again.

‘OK. Follow me.’

I began to crawl forward, using the beach defences for cover as I wriggled across the sand. All around us, men lay dying or dead – I’d never seen so many goddam corpses. Every so often I looked round to check Jimmy was still with me, and I could see the effort it was costing him; he had to keep stopping, coughs racking through him, and there was bloody froth on his lips.

Somehow we made it up the beach until we were only a hundred yards from the sea wall. Some of the men there spotted us and start calling to us, waving. ‘When I say go, we’re gonna run,’ I said through clenched teeth as Jimmy and I lay there, side by side. ‘We just gotta get over there and we’ll be safe. OK?’

Jimmy didn’t answer me. He was grey with exhaustion and cold. His eyes kept closing.

‘Jimmy. Fucking stay with me, man.’ I gave his shoulder a hard punch and his eyes flew open again.

‘Sorry, Sam,’ he slurred. ‘So… tired…’

‘You can sleep in a minute, buddy, OK?’

He nodded.

‘Go!’ I scrambled to my feet, pulling Jimmy up with me. As we ran a hail of machine gun bullets spattered into the sand all around us. We were nearly there now – fifty yards; thirty; twenty; ten—

Jimmy went down like a puppet with its strings cut, screaming and clutching his knee.

I hauled him to his feet again and half dragged, half carried him the rest of the way to the sea wall to where the medics were waiting. One of them was Wilson. He started working on Jimmy immediately, slapping a field dressing on his leg while another guy prepared a morphine injection. I collapsed with my back against the wall, gasping for breath. ‘You hurt?’ Wilson said over his shoulder. I shook my head.

‘Shit, man, I thought you were both gonna die out there.’

‘Me too,’ I gasped.

Stanley Novak crashed down next to me. ‘Jesus fucking Christ, am I glad to see you. What the fuck is happening? Why the fuck didn’t they take out the defences?’

‘I don’t know,’ I say. ‘You all right?’

‘I think so.’

‘Jimmy got hit.’ I jerked a thumb at him. He was moaning, but then another medic injected him with the morphine and he went still. ‘You seen Davy anywhere?’

Stanley shook his head. ‘We gotta get the fuck off this beach.’

‘How?’

‘I have no fucking idea.’

We stayed at the foot of the sea wall for what felt like hours, trapped there with the battle raging on all around us. More men joined us, until we were a little group of twelve. Among them was Freddie Gardner. He ran his hands through his hair until it was standing on end. ‘Shit,’ he kept saying, staring at the bodies lying on the beach, at the smoke pouring from the crippled and half-sunken craft still out at sea. ‘Shit.’

‘Shut the fuck up,’ someone told him at last.

Eventually an officer I’d never seen before made it over to our little group and we began to get organised. He ordered us to start climbing the bluffs. As I forced myself to scramble after Stanley, Gardner and the others, digging my fingers and toes into sandy rock that crumbled away beneath them, a sniper spotted us and began firing. I heard someone cry out but I didn’t look back to see who it was. I was running on pure adrenaline now. It wasn’t supposed to be like this, I thought. We were supposed to storm this place in a blaze of goddamn glory.

Because there was no glory here. It was a nightmare, one that felt as if it would never end, and I was praying and praying I’d wake up and find myself back in my hut at the camp or at the lodge with Ruby sitting in the armchair opposite, the lamplight making a halo around the edges of her hair. Or maybe, if I couldn’t have that, back home with Ma and Meggie.

As bullets whipped around me, I kept climbing, wondering if I’d ever see any of them again.