When we reached the signal station, General Hargrave was hovering over a carrel, demanding of the wireless operator, “Anything from Jones yet, Corporal?”
“No, sir.” The signalman’s desk was covered with message logs and two code books.
“When was your last message from his 2nd Infantry?”
“Forty minutes ago, sir. Lieutenant Barkley of the 2nd HQ Company reported planes overhead. Haven’t been able to get through to them since.”
Hargrave stabbed his pipe at the corporal, “Try the radio.”
“Sir, our security requirements—”
“To hell with that. Raise them over the air. And what about Singleman?”
“Last report from the 4th Motorized was at 0310, twenty-five minutes ago, and I’ve got nothing now but a dead line.”
When agitated, Hargrave set his face in cement and gave away nothing. His lips barely moved as he said in a candied tone, “Tell me, Corporal, can you reach any of my divisional HQs?”
“Yes, sir.” The signalman lifted another receiver and passed it to Hargrave. “Here’s Colonel Sellers, 1st Armored’s G2.”
Hargrave spoke with the intelligence officer a moment, then was switched to Major General Franks, the 1st’s CO. Hargrave put a finger in an ear to shut out the noise as more headquarters personnel flowed into the room and the TWX started to rattle. Clay and Girard waited nearby, discussing something I could not hear. Outside, an AA gun began its rolling peal, then another, nearer and more insistent. I stepped closer to Clay’s circle.
Hargrave slipped the telephone into its case. “Franks says little is going on in his area. Luftwaffe fly-overs, nothing else reported.”
“General Hargrave, I’ve got 2nd Infantry HQ on the radio, an unsecured line.” The corporal reached for a pencil and a one-time pad.
Hargrave waved the signalman’s encoding effort away. He again stopped his free ear. He said into the transmitter, “What’s going on, Burt?” He was speaking with General Jones, commander of the 2nd Infantry. Hargrave frowned. He listened for a full minute without interrupting.
General Girard crossed the room, followed by his G2, Colonel George Dayton. They also gathered around the communications carrels, demanding connections from other signalmen. More radiomen from the HQ signal company sprinted through the French doors and manned their posts. Lorenzo joined them, a map trailing behind him. The hubbub around the carrels grew.
Clay stepped away from the signal station. He wandered back to his desk, his hands clasped behind him. I followed. He scanned the room, then pulled a Pall Mall from the pack in his pocket. He tapped the cigarette against his thumbnail before lighting the other end. He appeared disengaged from the growing commotion at his command.
I ventured, “You don’t seem concerned, sir.”
He exhaled a cloud of smoke. “The higher the rank, the less an officer should have to do, Jack. Remember that.”
“Well—”
“And Darius’s defeat at Gaugamela was at least partly due to his inability to delegate. Remember that, too.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I tell you, Jack, this ceaseless grooming of you for higher rank can be tiring.”
I was impressed. This could have been the invasion—on the south coast of England, proving that the Defense Committee had been disastrously wrong—and General Clay had the time and inclination to be sarcastic with his aide.
We made our way slowly to his desk in the center of the billiard room. His secretary and two stenographers stood by, glancing anxiously at him. Clay stubbed out his cigarette in his ashtray, a cut-down howitzer shell. The AA battery fell silent.
His corps commanders soon joined us. General Hargrave began, “There is occurring in East Sussex an attempt to disrupt our communications. Lines are down between the 2nd and the 4th’s headquarters, although we can raise by radio a number of their units—the 8th and 12th regiments—and we’re working on others. There have also been a number of firefights tonight in my sector prompted by more dummy paratroopers.”
“Anything at all from those divisional HQs?” Clay asked. “Are you in contact with them?”
Hargrave shook his head. “And several bridges over the River Ouse, a few miles inland from Newhaven on the channel, have been seized by Wehrmacht paratroopers. Firefighters are reported at other bridges, and the road between Hastings and Battle apparently has been disrupted, held by enemy troops at least at one point. But much of the reported small arms fire has turned out to be firecrackers again. The 8th Regiment has suffered six casualties, all inflicted by its own troops, startled by the noisemakers.”
Clay turned to Gene Girard, who reported, “We don’t know much yet. There have been several sightings—we think legitimate sightings—of paratroopers in Romney Marsh, behind Dymchurch on the channel. But there have also been reports of paratrooper scarecrows, like last month.”
Girard was interrupted by Colonel Dayton who pushed a report into his hand. The general glanced at it. “And we’ve got more sightings by the moment. Wehrmacht paratroopers, they think.”
“Who else would they be?” Hargrave asked testily.
Girard smiled tightly. “There’s a lot of night out there, Alex, and it’s hard to tell whom you’re fighting when the only light is from the enemy’s muzzle flashes.”
Dayton handed Girard another sheet of paper. After a moment Girard said, “The 134th Infantry Regiment behind Folkestone is engaged in a firefight with Wehrmacht paratroopers.”
David Lorenzo joined us. “A Home Guard unit at Tenterden, fifteen miles west of here, reports that a telephone exchange in the city has been destroyed. Another exchange in Canterbury has also been knocked out. Ground action in both cases, not air strikes. Telephone communications in Kent and East Sussex are scrambled.”
General Clay turned to a stenographer. “Order Captain Branch to dispense with first level security to corps and divisional units. Notify all divisional signal headquarters not to waste time trying to patch through over telephone lines. Use wireless. Eliminate radio codes until 0500.”
I made notes along with the stenographer. One of my duties was to push orders down the line. Apparently Clay believed it more important to rapidly determine the situation in southern England than to have units take the additional time to code and encode messages.
Twenty minutes elapsed. Clay stood at his desk with Hargrave and Girard. General Pinkney and AEFHQ’s deputy commander, Lieutenant General Patrick Neil, gathered around Clay. It had taken Neil a while to get to the manor, because Clay insisted that his deputy not live in the same building, nor ever travel in the same plane or jeep. Neil was billeted in a farmhouse a mile north.
Ninety-nine percent of incoming information about a battle disappears without a trace. The commanders sifted through the messages reaching Eastwell, searching for patterns, digging for clues, trying to wave aside the smokescreens they knew were being laid.
General Clay was immensely calm, issuing orders dispassionately. Those who did not know him well may not have noticed that his hand was bunched in his trousers’ pocket, the only indication he was doing anything other than chatting idly about the weather for a picnic. He had once referred me to Corinthians 1:14: “If the trumpet produces an uncertain sound, who will prepare himself for battle?”
At four in the morning, Clay polled his corps commanders, his deputy, and his G2. There was agreement only on what they did not know. The green phone was out, so he and I walked to the signal carrels. He said to the corporal, “Put me through to the prime minister.”
Lieutenant Gupta quickly joined us. Clay received the handset from the corporal and passed it to Gupta. Sixty seconds later, Gupta said, “I have Lieutenant Handi, sir. The prime minister is standing next to him.”