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Woody's platoon had to capture a bridge across a river in a small town called Eglise-des-Soeurs, ten miles inland. When they had done so they had to keep control of the bridge, blocking any German units that might be sent to reinforce the beach, until the main invasion force caught up with them. At all costs they must prevent the Germans from blowing up the bridge.
While they waited for the green light, Ace Webber ran a marathon poker game, winning a thousand dollars and losing it again. Lefty Cameron obsessively cleaned and oiled his lightweight M1 semiautomatic carbine, the paratrooper model with a folding stock. Lonnie Callaghan and Tony Bonanio, who did not like one another, went to Mass together every day. Sneaky Pete Schneider sharpened the commando knife he had bought in London until he could have shaved with it. Patrick Timothy, who looked like Clark Gable and had a similar mustache, played a ukulele, the same tune over and over again, driving everybody crazy. Sergeant Defoe wrote long letters to his wife, then tore them up and started again. Mack Trulove and Smoking Joe Morgan cropped and shaved each other's hair, believing that would make it easier for the medics to deal with head injuries.
Most of them had nicknames. Woody had discovered that his own was Scotch.
D-day was set for Sunday, June 4, then postponed because of bad weather.
On Monday, June 5, in the evening, the colonel made a speech. "Men!" he shouted. "Tonight is the night we invade France!"
They roared their approval. Woody thought it was ironic. They were safe and warm here, but they could hardly wait to get over there, jump out of airplanes, and land in the arms of enemy troops who wanted to kill them.
They were given a special meal, all they could eat: steak, pork, chicken, fries, ice cream. Woody did not want any. He had more idea than the other men of what was ahead of him, and he did not want to do it on a full stomach. He got coffee and a donut. The coffee was American, fragrant and delicious, unlike the frightful brew served up by the British, when they had any coffee at all.
He took off his boots and lay down on his cot. He thought about Bella Hernandez, her lopsided smile and her soft breasts.
Next thing he knew, a hooter was sounding.
For a moment, Woody thought he was waking from a bad dream in which he was going into battle to kill people. Then he realized it was true.
They all put on their jumpsuits and assembled their equipment. They had too much. Some of it was essential: a carbine with 150 rounds of .30 ammunition; antitank grenades; a small bomb known as a Gammon grenade; K rations; water purifying tablets; a first-aid kit with morphine. Other things they might have done without: an entrenching tool, a shaving kit, a French phrase book. They were so overloaded that the smaller men struggled to walk to the planes lined up on the runway in the dark.
Their transport aircraft were C-47 Skytrains. To Woody's surprise, he saw by the dim lights that they had all been painted with distinctive black-and-white stripes. The pilot of his aircraft, a bad-tempered Midwesterner called Captain Bonner, said: "That's to prevent us being shot down by our own goddamn side."
Before boarding, the men were weighed. Donegan and Bonanio both had disassembled bazookas packed in bags that dangled from their legs, adding eighty pounds to their weight. As the total mounted, Captain Bonner became angry. "You're overloading me!" he snarled at Woody. "I won't get this motherfucker off the ground!"
"Not my decision, Captain," Woody said. "Talk to the colonel."
Sergeant Defoe boarded first and went to the front of the plane, taking a seat beside the open arch leading to the flight deck. He would be the last to jump. Any man who developed a last-minute reluctance to leap into the night would be helped along with a good shove from Defoe.
Donegan and Bonanio, carrying the leg bags holding their bazookas as well as everything else, had to be helped up the steps. Woody as platoon commander boarded last. He would be first out, and first on the ground.
The interior was a tube with a row of simple metal seats on either side. The men had trouble fastening seat belts around their equipment, and some did not bother. The door closed and the engines roared into life.
Woody felt excited as well as scared. Against all reason, he felt eager for the battle to come. To his surprise he found himself impatient to get down on the ground, meet the enemy, and fire his weapons. He wanted the waiting to be over.
He wondered if he would ever see Bella Hernandez again.
He thought he could feel the plane straining as it lumbered down the runway. Painfully, it picked up speed. It seemed to rumble along on the ground forever. Woody found himself wondering how long the damn runway was anyhow. Then at last it lifted. There was little sensation of flying, and he thought the plane must be remaining just a few feet above the ground. Then he looked out. He was sitting by the rearmost of the seven windows, next to the door, and he could see the shrouded lights of the base dropping away. They were airborne.
The sky was overcast, but the clouds were faintly luminous, presumably because the moon had risen beyond them. There was a blue light at the tip of each wing, and Woody could see as his plane moved
into formation with others, forming a giant V shape.
The cabin was so noisy that men had to shout into one another's ears to be heard, and conversation soon ceased. They all shifted in their hard seats, trying in vain to get comfortable. Some closed their eyes, but Woody doubted that anyone actually slept.
They were flying low, not much above a thousand feet, and occasionally Woody saw the dull pewter gleam of rivers and lakes. At one point he glimpsed a crowd of people, hundreds of faces all staring up at the planes roaring overhead. Woody knew that more than a thousand aircraft were flying over southern England at the same time, and he realized it must be a remarkable sight. It occurred to him that those people were watching history being made, and he was part of it.
After half an hour they crossed the English beach resorts and were over the sea. For a moment the moon shone through a break in the clouds, and Woody saw the ships. He could hardly believe what he was looking at. It was a floating town, vessels of all sizes sailing in ragged rows like assorted houses in city streets, thousands of them, as far as the eye could see. Before he could call the attention of his comrades to the remarkable sight, the clouds covered the moon again and the vision was gone like a dream.
The planes headed right in a long curve, aiming to hit France to the west of the drop area and then follow the coastline eastward, checking position by terrain features to ensure the paratroopers landed where they should.
The Channel Islands, British though closer to France, had been occupied by Germany at the end of the Battle of France in 1940, and now, as the armada overflew the islands, German antiaircraft guns opened fire. At such a low altitude the Skytrains were terribly vulnerable. Woody realized he could be killed even before he reached the battlefield. He would hate to die pointlessly.
Captain Bonner zigzagged to avoid the flak. Woody was glad he did, but the effect on the men was unfortunate. They all felt airsick, Woody included. Patrick Timothy was the first to succumb, and vomited on the floor. The foul smell made the others feel worse. Sneaky Pete threw up next, then several men all at once. They had stuffed themselves with steak and ice cream, all of which now came back up. The stink was appalling and the floor became disgustingly slippery.
The flight path straightened as they left the islands behind. A few minutes later the French coast appeared. The plane banked and turned left. The co-pilot got up from his seat and spoke in the ear of Sergeant Defoe, who turned to the platoon and held up ten fingers. Ten minutes to drop.
The plane slowed from its cruising speed of 160 mph to the approximate speed for a parachute jump, about 100 mph.
