He counted bursts of rounds that hit the water, then the interval between. Four maybe six seconds.
“Move!” he shouted to Callish, then hit the water just as another burst opened on them. He counted and they were on the move again, clawing their way toward the beach.
Several yards ahead, Lovat with his piper close behind, stormed the beachhead, bullets from machinegun fire in those rocky emplacements beyond the beach popping all around him in a macabre accompaniment to the pipes.
Lying in the sand, the freezing water of the channel washing around him, Paul Bennett took out the camera as others raced past, hit the beach, then died.
It was still Tuesday, June 6, the longest day of all their lives. And for so many, the last day.
He counted again as the rounds whizzed past. Then came the silence between, even as chaos swarmed around them. He used the camera like a weapon, catching the determination, desperation, fear, in their faces, taking cover behind another body as Callish crawled behind him.
One word came to mind—Armageddon.
There were no words spoken as they crawled across the beach, ironically took shelter behind one of those steel hedgehogs the Germans had installed, then lunged ahead, past bodies, then parts of bodies, and followed others as they made for the base of those cliffs with those gun emplacements above. Keep moving, he reminded himself.
They were scattered among the rocks, common soldiers side-by-side with green lieutenants who'd studied war and now found themselves in the midst of something no one could study for.
He suspected there was no book that prepared them for the carnage, looking back at the beach they'd crossed, out across the channel with every boat imaginable deployed, dirigibles hovering overhead, a communication lifeline with a bird's-eye view of those emplacements and the countryside of Normandy that stretched in both directions while aircraft swept over their heads, flying inland, raining death down on a tough, determined enemy.
The enemy.
He hadn't understood it, the ruthless German push into Poland, then Czechoslovakia and a half dozen other countries, and the horror stories that came out of it.
Then the bombings in London. Even then, he didn't understand. Not until he was sent out by the newspaper to capture pictures of the devastation at a school, children's bodies scattered about like dolls, images that would haunt him for the rest of his life.
“Take your pictures, kid,” a soldier beside him said as he struggled to comprehend man's inhumanity against man.
“Someone has to show what happened here.”
He nodded, because he couldn't speak, his throat raw from the salt water, the smoke, from yelling, from retching his guts out at the sight of a man's head half blown away. His hands shook, but he kept shooting with the camera, barely taking time to focus, catching a shot, then another.
Click, click, click.
“Smoke?” A soldier next to them offered a cigarette.
He didn't but he took one anyone. The accent was pure American, a Yank, his face smudged black.
“They say tomorrow will be worse.”
He glanced back at the surf that rolled in and the bodies that bobbed beside tanks and transports, the channel beyond crowded with tankers and landing craft while Allied aircraft swept overhead. He swallowed past the tightness in his throat.
He took more pictures, because he had to. Would anyone believe this?
They were trapped, exchanging gunfire, trying to find a way up that slope. Then, others were rushing past, commandoes along with Yanks, all clustered together, their units scattered, in a desperate surge to take the bunkers above, success by attrition.
Explosions rocked the hillside, sending rock and shattered concrete down the slope. Then the bunkers were silent except for scattered rifle shots, and they were all moving up that hill.
“Bloody Christ!” Callish swore again as the order went out and they scrabbled up the embankment, trying to get a foothold, swarming like bees to a hive, exposed like targets in a shooting gallery, except they were now doing the shooting.
They reached the summit, and stared at the carnage, the bodies of Germans who'd made a last stand in those bunkers along with those who had charged past them.
“Keep moving! Keep moving!” The order went out as bombers swept overhead.
Their unit was scattered, a handful here, a handful there among Yanks and Canadians. They had no idea where the main body of their unit was, or if it existed any longer.
The view of the beaches below and the channel beyond was organized chaos as waves of infantry continued to wade ashore now accompanied by military armament, trucks, more landing craft, transports with equipment, while farther out in the channel seven thousand ships and other craft off-loaded more equipment.
It was amazing, incredible, and at the same time horrific. He was seeing history through the lens of his camera, loading,shooting, reloading, then reloading again even as they were ordered into a sort of formation. They were headed inland on the heels of retreating Germans.
