To the Beaches

(Source)

Jürgen had seventeen men with him, his own squad of nine and eight men, including the squad leader Obergefreiter Sepp Wittman, from Wittman's squad. They had left their bivouac about thirty minutes before nautical twilight after permission for a reconnaissance was received from battalion.

Leutnant Acker had briefed him using his own map to check Jürgen's map, the crossing over the canal was clearly marked on both maps. "Check for Tommies, if the area is clear, go ahead and cross over. If not, send a runner back and we'll bring up the entire company. Are we clear on that?"

"Jawohl Herr Leutnant!"

Jürgen had two MG 34s with him, his own and Wittmann's. The guns gave him sufficient firepower that he felt he could hold off an entire company with his eighteen-man platoon. As long as the ammo held out, of course.

As he began to wonder just where this damned canal was, one of the scouts came back from the point. "Uffz, the canal is just ahead, maybe fifty meters. All is quiet, there is a farmhouse, but it looks deserted. Thing is, there is no bridge really."

"No bridge? Explain that, Bodo."

Schütze Bodo Hermann explained, "There is a structure carrying a pipeline over the canal just north of the farmhouse. While the map shows a road leading to the canal, and another directly across the canal leading away, there is no bridge. Just the pipeline."

"A pipeline of some sort? Could we cross it on foot?"

"I think so."

"Go back up to the point Bodo, you and them wait there. I'll be up with the rest of the patrol in a minute."

(Source)

The men were in position, one MG 34 was covering the farmhouse, which Jürgen thought deserted, there was no movement at all anywhere within or without. The Tommies over the canal were either very well disciplined, or non-existent. Knowing the situation as he did, he had to assume that the Tommies were continuing to fall back to the port. There wasn't much point defending the canal from a non-existent threat.

The pipe structure, he had no idea what it was for, was easily crossed, as long as you minded where you placed your feet and kept a good grip on the part of the structure which looked like a hand rail running either side of a walkway. Probably for maintenance of the structure.

He had his second gun set up to cover the crossing, there were a few buildings in the area on either side which worried him. But once the first two men were across, he had the other gun join the main body and they all went across, save one man, Schütze Wolf Gessler, who Jürgen sent back to report that this section of canal was undefended.

"Looks like the Tommies withdrew during the night, you can see they were here," Wittmann pointed to a few discarded ration containers in the kitchen of the farmhouse.

Jürgen nodded, he had to wonder how much closer to the town they were going to get. He and the men watched as another Luftwaffe strike passed overhead to hit the port.

"I'd hate to be an Englishman right now," Schütze Walter Schnabel remarked, "looks like the Reichsmarschall¹ means to bomb and strafe them all to death.

Jürgen looked at Schnabel, "Well, that's the idea, isn't it, Walter?"

"I suppose so, Uffz. Doesn't seem very heroic though."

"I'll take safe and sound over heroic any day," Sepp Wittmann said, "I'm too old to be charging machine guns."

Billy Wallace and his squad linked up with the company not two hours after leaving the farmhouse by the canal. He had half expected to be placed under arrest after the incident with the lieutenant. But the captain surprised him.

"Don't supposed you've seen Leftenant Miles-Roberts by any chance, Corp?"

"He didn't come back here, Sir? He came by our position yesterday evening, then left."

"He was by himself?" O'Neal looked somewhat alarmed at that idea.

"Yes Sir, he had a car, an old beat up French car. I told him it wasn't safe to travel the roads. Bleeding Luftwaffe is attacking anything that moves."

"Damn it! I told the lad to get rid of the car. No doubt he's dead in a bloody ditch somewhere, the fool. So Billy, I need to have you and your lads set up your Lewis gun at the end of this street here." O'Neal pointed at the street behind him which was littered with debris.

"I don't expect Jerry to come this way but we have to be ready. I'm taking the rest of the company down to the beaches. Supposedly the Royal Navy is going to take us off the beaches as soon as they can arrange it."

"The beaches, Sir? Not the port?" Billy asked.

"Negative Corp, the bloody port is in ruins. It's the beaches or a Jerry P.O.W. camp for us. Now we better get cracking. Again, wait until dark, then if I haven't sent a runner, then just continue down this street, it hooks to the right and will take you to the beach."

"Yes Sir, nightfall it is. Too bad I didn't bring my swimming kit, eh Sir?"

O'Neal chuckled, "Quite. Move along Billy, we've a busy few days ahead of us I think."

"Sir!"

As Billy and his men took up their positions in a ruined café, he noticed that there were a number of French troops marching away from the beaches, towards the Germans.

"Poor bastards." Jock McMillan muttered.

"Well, it's their bloody country then, innit?" Connor McGuire hissed. "Seems like they should be bloody defending it, not us."

"That'll do Connor, they're not the enemy."

"Right Corp, sometimes I forget."

McMillan shook his head, with any sort of luck they'd be back in England in a few days at most. The French would be left holding the bag. Fat lot of good they'd done coming to France. They'd have been better off at home. It didn't look to him that the war would last much longer.

¹ Reichsmarschall was the rank conferred by Hitler upon the leader of the Luftwaffe, Hermann Göring. Higher than a field marshal, Göring was the only one to ever hold that rank.