Coward On The Beach by James Delingpole

Author:James Delingpole
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2010-10-03T23:00:00+00:00

Chapter 11

Sniper

Advancing in open file towards hostile territory is never the most relaxing of activities. But if you want to know what real tension is, try doing it without weapons.

All right, so I've got my Luger; Kemp has got his Sten; Sgt. Price has purloined a Colt .45 from somewhere or other; and two others have managed to retrieve a rifle from one of the casualties on the beach. But in a section of fourteen men, that doesn't constitute what you might call overwhelming firepower.

'If we make contact,' announces Kemp cheerily, as we make ready to climb over the sea wall. 'We are going to be fucking fucked.'

'If you make contact,' corrects Sgt. Price, 'you deserve to be fucking fucked. But since you're going point, you'll be able to make sure we don't.'

'I'm not going point. Why should I go point? Why not Coward?'

'Because you're the only one with an SMG.'

'Take it, then, I ain't that attached to it,' says Kemp, offering his Sten with outstretched palms, eyes begging someone, anyone, to be stupid enough to take it. 'Quis? Quis?' he cries, like a schoolboy trying hastily to rid himself of a catapult which has just been used to break the headmaster's window.

'Oh, for God's sake,' I mutter under my breath, because really, this is too pathetic. 'Ego!'

I grab his Sten.

'Cheers, Yeller. I always knew you was a decent bloke,' he worms.

But before I can take my position at the head of the section, the Sten has in turn been taken off my hands by Wragg.

'I owe you for me shitty trousers, mate,' he says.

'Really. Are you sure?'

'Course I'm not sure, so piss off quick, in case I change me mind.'

Of course, the person who should really be making these decisions is Price, and though he's careful not to show it, I recognise by the faint facial twitch and the set of his jaw that he is very angry indeed. And understandably so. Kemp has just refused to obey his sergeant's direct order - an offence which Price has been forced to overlook only because of the most desperate exigency: viz. that at this delicate stage of his relationship with the section he doesn't want to make himself any less popular than he is already. But Kemp won't get away with this insubordination for much longer. Not if I know Price.

With Kemp smirking, Price glowering, and Wragg leading, we advance in silence through the shattered village.

Rather optimistically in my opinion, our acting CO, Major Dalby, has decided that the Commando — what's left of it — will attempt to proceed to our agreed rendezvous. I say optimistically, because it's perfectly obvious from the amount of shooting we can hear going on ahead that our rendezvous — the church in Le Hamel — is still deep inside enemy territory. As we march, we're overtaken by a platoon of Hampshires hurrying forward to reinforce their unit in the slow, messy, house-by-house battle for the town. The dead and freshly wounded have yet to be cleared.

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