Shortly it was Wilkins’ turn to step up to the front of the room to brief those who hadn’t yet had the misfortune of facing the dead directly. He felt he needed to make them understand the magnitude of the threat which they had been tasked with trying to contain. The information he imparted was met with a curious mix of concern and incredulity. He thought they’d all grasp the seriousness of the situation soon enough. Indeed, the direness of his warnings was compounded with an update from the front: the US troops to the north and south of the German advance continued to struggle to hold back the undead masses. At the western tip of the bulge, where the British 6th Airborne and 53rd Infantry Division fought to contain the Nazis, the first contact with the ungodly creatures had been reported east of Namur.
The briefing was all but complete, and yet Colonel Adams didn’t dismiss the men. He had still more to say. He cleared his throat and looked around the room. ‘Gentlemen, please hear me out. You are all of you under the most extreme pressure imaginable, and I am well aware that I am sending you into one of the most – if not the most – dangerous places on the face of the Earth today, but I fear I must increase that pressure still further. Understand this, your mission must succeed. There is no room for failure. The undead scourge simply cannot be allowed to continue its progress unchecked. I feel I have a duty to tell you all that there is an alternative solution should your mission be a failure.’
Absolute silence. Not a movement. Not a murmur.
‘The Americans are developing a weapon of untold power. Whilst I do not have any specifics – and some of you yanks here in the room with us today might – I have it on good authority that this new bomb could change the direction of the war with a single blast. I hope to goodness that such an awful weapon is used sparingly in battle, but consider this: if we are unable to stop the progress of our new ungodly enemy, total annihilation of great swathes of mainland Europe may be our only alternative. This is no understatement. The weight of the entire world rests on your shoulders tonight, men. God speed to you, and God help us all.’
16
The British had continued to hold back the German advance, even reverse it for a time, but the battle was taking its toll. Sergeant Daniel Phillips was losing track of the days. He seemed to have been stuck in this damned spot forever. He and his men had taken over a derelict farmhouse just east of Namur, and from there they’d beaten back the advancing enemy again and again and again. Each time the Germans seemed to just keep coming. Phillips had, for a while, wondered if they’d been fighting those unstoppable undead monsters he continued to hear so much about. It was reassuring to see that when he shot a man these days, he still stayed down.
‘All right there, Sergeant?’ Private Harry Wilson asked, nudging Phillips in the ribs.
‘I’m all right, Wilson,’ he answered quickly. Instinctively. Better to give an immediate and flippant answer like that than to get bogged down in reality. It was hard being out here like this, damn hard. They all felt it, and it wasn’t getting any easier. ‘Keep talking will you, there’s a good chap.’
‘But you’re usually telling me to shut up, sir,’ he said in his broad Yorkshire accent. His voice was deep and wide. It sounded too old for the soldier’s youthful face.
‘I know, but occasionally I like to hear you talk rubbish. It reminds me of home.’
‘Hear a lot of rubbish at home did you, sir?’
‘That’s not the point I’m making and you know it. Your accent is irrefutably British.’
‘As is yours, sir. Yours is a bit more proper than mine, that’s all.’
‘It’s not about status, it’s about geography,’ Phillips told him. ‘Now tell us some of your bloody awful jokes. It’s Christmas, after all.’
‘Very well, sir. Why did the penny stamp?’
‘Because the thruppenny bit,’ someone shouted from another corner of the ransacked farmhouse kitchen.
‘Very good,’ Wilson laughed. ‘Right, try this one. What did the sea say to the shore?’
‘Nothing, it just waved,’ another voice offered from the other side of an open door.
‘We’ve heard these all before,’ a third man said.
‘I came here to kill Germans, not tell jokes,’ Wilson reminded them. ‘You don’t win wars by telling jokes.’
‘And thank goodness for that,’ Phillips said, chuckling to himself. ‘With your jokes we wouldn’t have a hope in hell!’
For the moment, the farmhouse was filled with noise and good cheer.
In war, everything can change in a heartbeat.
Phillips and his men were resting. Fred McCarthy was on lookout, watching from the hayloft of an adjacent barn. It had been quiet these last few hours, and Private Neville was due to relieve him in thirty minutes or so, so he allowed himself to lie back in the shadows and close his eyes for the briefest of moments. It was all clear outside, not a soul to be seen in any direction. He wasn’t going to sleep, he just wanted to rest for a while and get out of the icy breeze which gusted through the open hatch.
Private McCarthy had chosen the worst possible moment to lower his guard. When Neville stepped out of the farmhouse to cross the short distance to the barn, he thought his eyes were deceiving him. They had to be. How could so many of them have got here so quickly and so quietly? Hundreds of men approaching, revealed by the moonlight.
But this was no illusion. The ungodly Nazi army had reached the western front.
‘Attack! We’re under attack!’ McCarthy shouted, and he doubled-back to the farmhouse when he saw several of the figures up ahead break into awkward sprints and come hurtling towards him. By the time he’d made it indoors his comrades were crowding every available window, firing at the shadowy shapes which swarmed silently nearer.
Sergeant Phillips took up position and began firing. ‘Hit them with everything we have,’ he shouted to his men. The moonlight struck the frost and snow and made everything appear brighter than it should have at this early hour. Phillips took aim and fired at one man who’d chosen to move criminally slowly. He hit him square in his chest, knocked him off his feet. But then he picked himself up again and continued his unsteady advance.
Phillips knew exactly what this meant.
The undead.
There were hundreds here, and there would be thousands more marching behind them.
From his hayloft look-out, Private McCarthy could see untold numbers emerging from the forest.
There’d be no more sleep here tonight.
17
Several hours later, and hundreds of miles away, and Wilkins could still taste Jocelyn’s last kiss on his lips.
They baled out south of Polonezköy as planned, the men dropping from a relatively low height in quick succession, their rapid descent camouflaged by two Hawker Typhoons which circled and dived in the air well away from the landing site, putting on a firework show to distract the enemy and divert their attention away from Polonezköy.
It was a low altitude drop where time played tricks on the mind, slowing down and speeding up at the same time. The ground – unremittingly dark here, disorientating – rushed towards Wilkins and the others. There was a huge amount to do to arrest and control their descent: checking body position, deploying the canopy, turning into the wind and preparing to land, and – most importantly – keeping a look-out. Lieutenant Henshaw scanned the area beneath his dangling feet, watching out for signs of enemy movement whilst planning where he was going to touch down and which way he’d run and lead his men. It was almost completely black and devoid of life. Nothing to be seen anywhere.