This is another of those woefully historically inaccurate pieces. By the way, it isn't General Horrocks who said the thing at the end, but Lt. Gen. Miles Dempsey of the Brit 2nd Army. I just used Horrocks 'cause he's more famous.
**


It was, to say the least, the most difficult, crazy, suicidal mission ever proposed.

And I had to do it.

Personally, I thought the General – the youngest General since George Custer’s days at 37 – was going crazy. I mean, everyone goes senile, but he was going mad at an unusually tender age.

He came over looking for me one evening on the 19th of September with an unusually annoyed look on his face. We had jumped into this blasted country two days before. Two days of hard fighting. Two days of no rest. Two days trying to take the bridge. Two days and we hadn’t accomplished anything.

“What’s the best way to take a bridge?” the General asked me.

“Both ends at once,” I paused a while before replying. Oh, no. We both knew what this conversation would end with. Why me? I smiled.

“I’m sending a battalion across the river. I need a man with certain qualities to lead.” At the General’s words my grin got wider. Great. Was he trying to comfort me by injecting humor?

“He’s got to be brave enough to do it. He’s got to be tough enough to do it,” my commander continued. Was he trying to eulogize me before I even died?

“And one more thing.” I waited expectantly.

“He’s got to be dumb enough to do it.”

Ha, ha, ha.

The General looked at me with sympathy in his eyes. I nodded resignedly. Only one man in the entire division fit that bill.

Me.

“Start getting ready.” The General gave me a pat on the back and hurried off. I sighed and shook my head. An aide came up to me after the General left. “What was that all about, Major?” he asked quietly.

I shook my head. “Oh, someone’s just come up with a real nightmare.”

***

We’ve been at it for ages. The Grave Bridge, boy that was a lark. That was the easy one. The moment we got to Nijmegen, slap bang – stiff Kraut resistance peppering us from every side. Somehow they had regrouped and they were fighting back. All the worse for us. And now the most audacious plan yet.

We’re paratroopers. We’re not the Navy. We’re not the Infantry. Paratroopers. America’s elite. We jump out of planes, not of ships. We can fight. But we don’t use boats. And for this mission boats are exactly what we’re going to use. No one’s ever thought of sending paratroopers across the river in boats. No one except the General. But the man is smart. If this plan works it’s the answer to all our problems.

I call my men together. One whole battalion. Four hundred men. Just us, rowing across the wide Waal river in the face of God knows how many German machine guns and 88s.

Wonder how many will survive.

“We’re being sent across the river, I tell them, to groans. Poor blokes. They’ve been through Sicily, Normandy, everything and now they’re stuck with a suicidal mission. But hell, they have to do it or the bridge will never be taken.

“Boats haven’t arrived yet. Just think of it as on the job training,” I try to cheer the men up.

On the job training? Hah. More like on the job dying.

Well, at least we’ll have the cover of night to help us. With any luck, the Krauts won’t even know we’re coming.

***

What the hell? The boats haven’t arrived yet. And it’s the middle of the damn morning already. The General looks agitated. Apparently the boats can’t get through here fast enough because vehicles of all shapes and sizes belonging to Thirty Corps have clogged the whole damn road from here to Son. Damn the British.

“You’ll have to go immediately when the boats come,” he tells me.

“And when will that be?”

“Around three o’clock.”

What is this? Pure madness? I blanch. Three o’clock is right smack in the middle of the damn afternoon. Broad daylight!

“They can’t do that!” I sputter with rage. “My men are going to be massacred!” emphasis on the ‘my’ and the ‘massacred’.

“I’m sorry,” The General says, looking at me gravely, saying it like he means it. I know he does. “I’m really sorry but you have to. The Brits have very good naturedly decided to give us a smoke screen.” He says the words ‘very good naturedly’ like it’s anything but. I know what he means.

We Americans, we’re doing our best, all we can do to save their troops at Arnhem. And there the Brits are, refusing to send any men across the river with us, refusing to save their own boys themselves, just throwing up a damn smokescreen. Of course I don’t say all this to the General, but I know he’s feeling the same.

I call my men together again. They groan in anticipation of bad news. I grin mirthlessly. “We’re going to make the assault in broad daylight.” Oh boy. The men start protesting.

“Other than that I just wanted to tell you I intend to be standing on the prow, crossing the river like George Washington.” I attempt to lighten the mood. All I get are a few quiet chuckles. No one is feeling happy. Obviously. They were going for a suicide mission and thought it couldn’t get any worse. And now it has.

I look at my watch again. Come on. It’s nearing three o’clock already. Let’s go! Where are those damn boats?

***

The boats are here! I grab my helmet, jam it onto my head and rush off to the truck, bellowing at the boys. The boats are here! The boats are –

Wait a minute. Those are boats?!

Yes, if you consider flimsy collapsible wooden things with absolutely no paddles boats.

I stare dumbly at the boats which look liable to sink any moment. The men look in horror at the so-called boats. We can’t go in that, their faces tell me. This entire scheme has already been crazy. We’re already acting like army men. And now we have to go in these? We’ll be killed for sure!

I look at my watch. No time. “Assemble the damn things!” I yell. “Ten odd to a boa-erm, you know what I mean!” I can’t bear to call these things ‘boats’.

The things are assembled but they still look flimsy. Ah well. We’ll have to make do.

BAM! BOOM! POW! This is it, boys, this is it. We’re about to die. I wonder what for.

“Go! Go! Use anything, rifle butts, hands, anything for the paddles!” I grab one of the boats and we run charging to the water’s edge, the shells still whizzing overhead. I can see the General at the CP. I hope he knows what he’s doing and he hasn’t gone mad. His harebrained plan had better work or I’ll personally haunt him for the rest of his unfortunate life.

The boats are in the water. I jump into the lead one. A battalion commander shouldn’t be there, but the General always leads his men into battle and hell, I was brought up by him.

You know, I got thirteen men in my boat. Thirteen men that I need to protect. Thirteen men relying on me to lead them into battle and win. Thirteen families depending on me to bring their sons or brothers or fathers back home safely. Thirteen.

Thirteen is not a very lucky number.

***

Smokescreen is gone. The Krauts have to be stupid if they have no idea what’s going on. They’re not stupid. The commander has obviously figured out what is going on because artillery is raining down upon our heads. Just like rain, only much, much deadlier. Men blown up into the air everywhere. But my boys keep on going. They can’t stop. Withering machine gun fire rakes the boats on the river. One man in my boat gets hit.

One down. Twelve to go.

Got to keep rowing. Hail Mary, full of grace, I tell myself with each stroke. No time for ‘the lord is with you’. Doesn’t fit in anyway. Just keep going. An artillery blast almost overturns our dingy little boat but we manage.

Hail Mary, full of grace…

Men getting killed left and right. Another one in my boat down. Men with limbs missing. Men with blood all over their faces, floundering helplessly in the water.

Hail Mary, full of grace…

The end is in sight but it’s a hell of a long way off from where we are. Men are dying with every stroke of my rifle. Young Private Dyke has his brains blown out, some of it splattering onto my shirt. Men screaming before shrapnel tears them apart.

Hail Mary, full of grace…

Come on…that’s already five men down. Eight men left for the Germans to pick off in this godforsaken turkey shoot for the Germans. As we near the bank that means that the German machine guns will be even more accurate.

Hail Mary, full of grace…

Someone falls over the side of the boat. Don’t know where he went, don’t know if he’s alive or dead, don’t know if it’s just a ploy to get out of this impossible invasion, and there’s no time to care. We can’t afford to stop and pull him up. We have to keep moving.

Hail Mary, full of grace…

Shrapnel ricochets off my helmet. I’m still alive. So are five of my men. The boat behind us is blown to bits. Pieces of soldiers rain everywhere, bloody and bleeding, blending in with the shrapnel filling the air.

Hail Mary, full of grace…

A few more yards and we’re there. A few more yards and we’ll be off this river. A few more yards and we’ll be on the opposite shore. A few more yards isn’t that long. But then, in a few more yards I could be dead…

‘A few more yards’ suddenly seems very long.

Hail Mary, full of grace…

The boat stops suddenly and I barely stop from falling over. I jump off the boat and immediately crawl to cover. I’ve done it! We’ve done it! The Krauts are falling back now, knowing that there’s no chance to contain us at the river, intent on defending the bridge and driving us back across the watery stretch. But still, we’re on the other side. We’ve done it.

***

But the battle isn’t over yet. Crossing the river was just the first part. And it was a costly first part. Half of my battalion is gone. And now we have to take the bridge.

There are bunkers here, there, everywhere. Accurate machine gun fire kills more of my men as they climb onto the banks of this side of the river. I throw a grenade into one of the bunkers and its gun falls silent.

We crawl through dirt and soil, using the bushes and foliage for cover. Finally I make it to the foot of the bridge. Someone has to run out and find where the snipers are, where the Krauts are hiding. A young boy comes to my side.

“You ready to die?” I ask him, grinning awkwardly, crookedly.

His face is pale and drawn, but he has to do it. He nods.

“Then go.” He takes off sprinting to the other side, running for his life. I hope he’ll make it. He’s almost there…

BANG!

Oh no. The young boy falls. Oh, no. I raise my rifle and shoot the Kraut.

That young boy didn’t have to die. He was just what, seventeen? Eighteen? God. I should have gone myself. Who cares if I was battalion commander? I deserve to die. He didn’t.

I run.

Feet pounding, helmet bobbing, gun firing, I make my way across the bridge. Krauts fire at me but I dodge the bullets and continue, firing back at the Krauts. BANG. Dead. BANG. Dead.

Along the way I pick up the boy and throw him over my shoulder. Damn. Just a few feet more and he would have made it. Why did that had to happen? It was an unnecessary death. I curse myself. I should have gone instead.

This charge is turning into a rout. The Krauts are retreating and running slap bang into Thirty Corps, who’s on the other side. The first British tank gets onto the bridge. Yes. Almost there.

Wait.

There’s another German on the bridge. He seems to be fiddling around with something. I don’t know what it is, but a Kraut is a Kraut to me. The only things they’re good for is massacring innocent civilians and being used for target practice by the Allies. I shoot him. He falls. Wires dangle from his body. Wires.

Suddenly I realize something. That’s it. The wires. They were probably connected to some explosives to blow the bridge. I just shot the chaps. The wires are gone. The bridge can’t be blown.

I wait. If the Germans are going to blow the bridge, they’ll have to do it now because the Brit tank is almost across already. I hold my breath.

Nothing.

I almost forget to exhale. I’ve done it. We’ve done it.

***

There’s a rumor going around. Apparently on the day we took Nijmegen, General Horrocks, commander of the Thirty Corps, walked up to our General. The best General a man could ever wish for. Smart, brave, a man’s man. And General Horrocks walked up to him and shook his hand.

He said, “I am proud to meet the commander of the greatest division in the world.”

The General comes down to see me again. The British tanks are refusing to move. We spent half my entire battalion to take a bridge just so that they can cross it and what, drink tea? I don’t think so. The General knows what I’m thinking but he can’t do anything about it either. The troops have to wait for the infantry, or whatever excuse they’re coming up with. But it’s irrelevant.

“Good job,” The General says. That’s all he says. Two words. But those two words mean a lot to me.

He’s saying that we did it. Not the Brits. Us. Paratroopers in boats that weren’t even fit to be called boats. Paratroopers. The second Omaha Beach landing. The Greatest Division in the world. Us. Brave souls every single one of them, from the young Private to the General, and everyone in between.

Heroes.

Finis