Firing Party

I’d never shot anyone before. Surprising really, because it was October 1943 and I’d been in the Army eighteen months, nearly a year in the front line or close to it: Algeria, Tunisia, Sicily and now Italy. I was a signaller at Company headquarters. I had a rifle but never had much call to use it: I’d only ever fired it on the ranges. I spent most of my time crouched in holes in the ground trying to talk to people.

Now I was kneeling, looking down the barrel of my Lee Enfield .303 at an unarmed German standing quietly in front of me. I was going to shoot him in cold blood - me and Fred Harris the Colonel’s batman: it was going to be his first too. The Colonel was standing right behind us. I’d never seen him angry like that - I’d seen him shouting mad, but this was different, he was like ice.

It had been a good day. The attack had gone well. We’d been pinned down in front of the main Jerry position up on the hill but the artillery had been terrific, B Company got round their left, and the whole lot had surrendered. The gunners were Yanks. We were in Fifth Army under Mark Clark - a regular United Nations.

The afternoon before I’d been up a church tower with the Yank Captain who was the observer for the attack, sorting radio nets. He was really friendly; pointed out the aiming marks and chatted like we were just blokes together. He had a couple of corporals with him, young fellers, one black and one white. They were going forward with us to call in fire from the Captain. They were like something off the films down at the flea pit back home. The way they spoke - that lazy drawl, we were all fascinated with them. All they needed were Stetsons and pearl handled six shooters. They weren’t loud or brash like you expect Americans to be - just quiet and friendly, a bit shy. They were both in their late teens. Too bloody young to be there doing what they were - but there were lots of others like them: young men breaking and killing each other to keep the old men happy.

The Colonel saw them when he came to our Company lines. He was taken with them as well. He was a regular, a gruff sod, but his heart was in the right place and his head worked too, so we had a lot of time for him. He must have watched the same films as I did. I could see his face softening as he spoke with them. He actually patted them on the shoulder when they went off to check their sets.

We kicked off before dawn, creeping through thick scrub at the bottom of the valley to get as close as we could to the German positions before the attack went noisy. I was with Major Hancock, our Company commander. We had the black lad with us too - the other American was with B Company. I reckon the Jerries had us taped the moment we got into no man’s land. They waited, laughing their boots off probably, till we were spread across an open patch at the foot of the hill and then opened up with everything they’d got. They had us cold: all we could do was drop and try to find cover. I wriggled backwards and got myself snug in a little patch of boulders.

Almost immediately our artillery came crashing down on and behind the crest and the enemy fire slackened. We were getting organised to press on when our big guns stopped. There was a short burst of shooting from the top of the hill and a red flare went up - the signal that the position had been taken. That was when B Company came in from the left. It was right out of the book and we laughed and joked as we began to climb the slope. Then the cry went up for stretcher bearers.

I passed them coming slowly back. It was the young American. As they came by I saw a neat hole through his chest. There wasn’t much blood: not a good sign. When we got up to the hilltop, the surviving Germans were sitting in a ragged circle with their hands on their heads. Then we heard that the other Yank had gone the same way - one bullet near the heart. No stretcher for him, he was clearly dead. One of our Platoon Commanders, Second Lieutenant Adcock was also dead - also a single bullet. He was about the same age as the Americans and he’d only been with us a week. That took the shine off things. There must have been a sniper amongst them - a pro, if he could drop three men with the sky falling on him.

The prisoners were ordinary blokes, much like us. I’d long since ceased to be surprised by that. When I left England I’d expected them all to be seven feet tall, blonde and blue-eyed. Someone told me that the SS was full of that sort - but I’d been lucky enough never to meet them. Then I saw him. Right out of the comic books he was, an arrogant blonde bastard, even squatting in the dirt with his hands up.

When B company had surprised them they’d disarmed them and chucked all their weapons into a heap. Our Company Sarn’t Major must have been thinking like me because he went over to the pile and stirred it with his foot, then dived in and produced a long rifle from among the heap of machine pistols. It had a telescopic sight. Then the Colonel’s jeep roared up, driven by Fred Harris. The Colonel jumped out and yelled “Where’s the bastard who killed those boys!” Fred sidled over and told me that the black lad was dead as well.

It seems silly all these years later that the Old Man should have got so worked up about the loss of the Americans and Adcock, in the middle of a war with thousands dying every day. With the Regiment since Dunkirk, he must have seen the lot. Maybe that was the trouble - the three youngsters going together was the last straw. We hated snipers. Things were bad enough without those professional killers, picking men off like they were vermin.

The CSM showed the rifle to the Colonel who paced about in front of the Germans muttering. He saw the arrogant blonde one and stopped abruptly. “Who was the sniper Fritz?” he yelled, voice crackling with fury. The German stared coolly at him like he’d gone mad, which I suppose he had. “Get up you swine, you’ll tell me or I’ll…” The Colonel paused and then his eye fell on Fred and me. The Colonel hauled the Jerry to his feet and pushed him a few yards away from the rest, then he shouted “You two! Firing position!”

Fred and I exchanged glances. Neither of us felt like arguing with him in that mood. We knelt and cocked our rifles. The German stood calmly gazing at us as if he was watching a drill, rather than looking at death. I remembered Hislop, who was surprised by a surrendering Jerry and cut him in half with a burst from his Bren. No-one spoke to him from then until he copped it outside Naples. We felt like he was a killer. What did that make Fred and me?

“Aim!” screamed the Colonel.

I thought “Tell him, you daft sod.” The trigger was cold on my finger. There was an aching pause. The German stared straight ahead, showing no emotion. Maybe he’d seen too much as well. The Colonel was still shouting at him but he didn’t seem to be listening.

“Right bastard,” yelled the Colonel, “get back with the others!”

“Thank God for that” I thought, breathing again. But it wasn’t over. The Colonel got all the Germans to stand and told the CSM to get them in a line. He called more blokes to join us; a proper firing party. Fifteen targets now, with the arrogant German in their midst.

“Ready!” Our rifles rose reluctantly. Now all the Germans just stood there quietly.

“Aim!” Oh sweet Jesus. I blinked away sweat.

A tubby German sank down holding out imploring hands, screaming and crying. Tears streaked his jowls as he fumbled out family photographs and waved them at us. In his terror they dropped from his twitching fingers into the dust. His mates stared at him contemptuously, but I thought he was the sanest man there.

“Stand easy.” said the Colonel quietly, and I realised he’d got what he wanted; not death but humiliation, for the enemy to show some fear too. But when I looked at him he seemed stooped and sickened, as if he too had been shamed by the fat German’s terror.

That was the closest I ever came to shooting anyone. I never want to come closer.