Ch3 - Quite Frankly Disastrous
Frank Zhang was terrified.
It hadn't even been three years since he came out of basic training, and here he was in the British city of Portsmouth. Hell, he hadn't even known where Portsmouth was last year.
In fact, he had learned quite a bit this past year - things he doubted a young man of 22 would need to know in any other situation except for the men about to give up their lives on the beaches in France.
He hadn't wanted to be here originally. After all, he was just a young kid, just about 17 when the war broke out in Poland.
Poland.
No respectable Canadian had any business doing anything in Poland or France, all the way on the other side of the world from his home in Lynn Canyon Park near Vancouver, British Columbia. Of course, that entire notion had gone up in smoke when the call to arms went out.
His father, an ex-soldier himself and a Frenchman by descent, thought it a sterling idea to send off his young son to Ottawa for training, and Frank, ever the dutiful son, obeyed.
He didn't regret it, contrary to his initial conception
Frank discovered fairly quickly that he was going to be singled out due to his slightly bulkier frame - an enforcer, who could be used to move big objects, to clear a route with an LMG, firing off punishing bursts from the hip. He relished the chance, yes, with the responsibility of carrying the Bren Gun, laying down covering or suppressing fire to support his unit.
It was actually a stark contrast to his childhood, full of summers spent out in the forests of Lynn Canyon Park with his father's old Winchester '94, going for small game such as birds and the like. He actually fancied himself as a decent marksman, his accuracy good over a range of an impressive 300 metres, especially for a young marksman. In fact, he had wanted to become a sniper in the Army as a child, though when he did eventually join, he was blocked from such a career path due to his physical attributes.
He didn't regret it at all, though, as it gave him a place.
Being of Chinese descent in the 1930s hadn't done him many favours at all in school, nor had the location of his home, removed from the city itself. Casual racism and silent prejudices were rife, despite his family having lived in this part of the world for years by now.
The Army, though, was an entirely different proposition. Serving under the banner of the Commonwealth, was something of a levelling factor. Here, he was just another soldier, a man who wore the uniform. Just another man who was willing to give up his life for the Free West against those who would seek to do it harm.
Frank was promoted to Lance Corporal shortly before they made the journey over to the UK, making him the 2IC, Second in Charge of his section of ten, all untested in the field of battle. The Corporal, a jovial chap with an optimistic streak the size of Baffin Bay. The man's constant dismissal of his own mortality and delusion of war being a great adventure was a great mood lifter to the men, but caught him some severe flak from the higher ups - men who had fought and seen comrades fall in the trenches in France and Belgium. Frank wasn't honestly if it was worth it or not.
The Thirtieth of April was a day of great stress as the men watched the great banks of grey clouds go over the channel from Portsmouth harbour, casting their dreary shadows over the Solent. Men in Southampton across the Solent and Bournemouth further down all gazed blankly to sea as the day for which they trained so long slipped away.
Europe would not be freed on the first of May.
And so, they waited. The drills did not cease, and neither did the poor weather. He saw men around him becoming more and more disgruntled as they spent time in the cold, rainy South English weather, away from the families they'd left behind, or the glory they'd chased through their three long years of training.
In fact, Frank secured himself a promotion in this time, attaining the rank of Corporal, and taking command of the section. Nine other men who he would be responsible for, and who he would be in command of in battle. Much if his time was now spent in the company of the Senior NCOs as he scrambled to gain a full understanding of the standard tactics employed by the army.
Then, the message came through, late in the evening of the Fifth of June, 1944.
Tomorrow was D Day.
Planes roared overhead that night, under the glow of a full moon. Frank knew vaguely that hundreds, maybe thousands of men were aboard those planes, ready to jump out and begin the fight.
He also knew that many of these men wouldn't be alive tomorrow morning when he was in France, fighting for his life.
Men clambered aboard the ship, ready for the voyage to destiny. The company to which his squad belonged was loaded up inside one such vessel, each man clutching at his Enfield No.4 rifle as though it were a lifeline, the key to life beyond one's years.
It might well have been, at this point.
The Bren gunner of his section began fussing over the weapon, checking it over and over, an almost religious practice to take his mind off the impending clash.
Frank checked his wristwatch.
0100hrs.
They set sail.
Little over half an hour later, the sky above them was filled by the deafening buzz of engines. Plane engines.
Frank's heart leapt into his mouth as he prepared for hellfire to be rained on his head, for the operation to fail before it had even started.
It wouldn't have succeeded anyway, said the niggling voice that was his conscience.
His life was given a reprieve.
The men cheered, in fact, as a veritable cloud of USAF and RAF bombers - Lancasters and Halifaxes and Flying Fortresses roared across the channel, ready to drop their payloads of carnage upon their foes. Little did the 22-year-old Corporal know that close to 1200 aircraft were deployed by the Americans alone.
The little burst of adrenaline, beautiful as it was for those few glorious moments, was now gone. What was left behind was possibly the most uncomfortable Frank had ever felt.
His entire body seemed to be shaking.
Not the little shiver that runs down your body when you're in a cool breeze.
Not even the jitters you get before a football match.
No, this eclipsed it all.
His entire body seemed to be out of control, shaking like a straw house in a storm. Nothing worked properly, and tears seemed to creep into the corner of his eyes.
He realised, with brutal realism, that he might be dead in a matter of hours.
Looking around, he scanned the faces of his men, his eyes seeming to flit from face to face in jerky, uncoordinated movements.
Some had their eyes closed, lips moving rapidly in silent prayer, others eyes wide open in the same grip of fear in which Frank found himself now.
The Sergeant also seemed to take note, walking around slowly, murmuring soft words of encouragement to those who seemed to have lost all faith in their abilities
Frank got up on shaky legs to do the same, earning himself a nod of approval and a grim smile from the Sergeant.
Yet more time passed, hours spent swaying with the chop of the unusually roiling English Channel. The roll of the ship became an almost hypnotic lull, dragging many of the mentally exhausted soldiers into the realm of sleep.
Frank checked his watch.
0130hrs.
He didn't know when or why, But Frank drifted off into a sleep of his own.
He didn't know what prompted him to wake up, but suddenly the time was 0425 hrs, and the sun was beginning to peek above the horizon.
As far as the eye could see, the surface of the sea was filled by swathes of ships of all shapes and sizes. From what he had heard, the RAF had already begun their own bombardment of Caen, one of the closest cities to the Normandy coast. Frank knew that while some of the Americans over at Omaha and Utah would be swinging round to Cherbourg, Caen was very much the responsibility of the Brits and the Canadians.
A couple of men came round now, ringing bells to rouse the men from their fitful slumber, and once more the ship was filled with suffocating tension, the harsh reality awaiting them becoming painfully clear
Time became a blur of greys and blues as the company boarded the landing craft. He had heard something along the lines of land being 23 kilometres away.
Still?
There was some way to go yet and still the tension continued to build, adrenaline once more coursing through the veins of the men of the Canadian Army.
When Frank paused his silent vigil over his section in their little part of the landing craft, he checked his watch, noting that they had stopped once more, and once more the men from their adrenaline-induced haze, chattering amongst themselves in hushed tones.
Listening in discreetly, Frank stifled a gasp as he heard one conversation.
A man, possibly in his early thirties, speaking to a friend about his wife and newborn child back home, and how it was his only desire now to make the world a better place, so his child would never have to see the tyranny of Hitler and his ilk for themselves.
It was there and then that Frank resolved that he would fight his damnedest to make that beautiful dream a reality.
The soldier now had a purpose.
So lost in his thoughts he was, in fact, that he missed the resumption of the voyage. THe distance to death, glory, history and vengeance narrowed from eleven kilometres to ten, nine, eight, seven, six…
At four, the explosions started.
The craft to their right went up in a plume of smoke and a white pillar of water, the spray of water and debris a vivid reminder of the fragility of their own lives, of the tightrope on which they currently walked.
Frank checked his watch.
0850hrs.
On they went, desperately trying to block out the horrific sounds of the dead and dying from the landing crafts which had struck the mines laid in the water, like the most terrifying of predators, lying in wait amongst the darkness of the shallows.
They heard but could not watch as the landing crafts began striking the shore, opening to unleash a horde dedicated to the destruction of their enemies.
Vengeance, righteousness, even hatred.
All excellent motivators in battle.
All useless in the face of a machine gun.
When the ramp dropped, there was still a significant distance to move, and yet they knew that it was time. Frank led the way for his section, Enfield No.4 rifle braced against his shoulder as the platoon's Bren guns chattered to life, and three years of hard training was suddenly so much more real.
It's just your old Winchester '94,Frank thought to himself as he fired, hitting one, two, three German soldiers in one punishing burst of rifle fire, bolt of the rifle being withdrawn and replaced at a stunning rate. He slammed himself into one man who had frozen up, throwing himself into the damp sand, watching with barely concealed terror as three rounds slammed into the sand in front of him.
Staggering to his feet, he dragged the shocked man behind the nearest anti-ship ramp, originally designed to prevent landing craft from progressing up the beach, but now being used as much-needed cover by the pinned and stranded troops.
Rallying his section with a quick shout, Frank quickly ordered the Bren gunner to focus his fire on the next pillbox. Hopefully this would give the beleaguered men some much-needed respite.
Looking up to scan the field once more, the young Corporal noticed that there was a small amount of momentum building on the right flank. Men were rallying from their scattered positions towards an officer on that side, forcing an opening on the opposite flank as the German defenders focussed on the massing body of men.
Signalling his observation to the Platoon's Lieutenant, he received a look of shock. First Lieutenant Larry Jones had never set much stock by Frank and his abilities, but now he was being seen in a new light.
And so, they pushed.
Three Bren guns opened fire, all but silencing the first machine gun nest, and suddenly Frank's brain was overcome by a ticking sound.
Not the light, elegant tick of a wristwatch, nor the one on his grandmother's wall.
No, this was the deep, resonant tick of a grandfather clock.
Each tick, each stroke of the second hand, seemed to mark death.
Each moment represented lives lost, families broken and communities wrecked.
Tick
The advance began, nearly a hundred men breaking their makeshift cover and darting across the sands towards the machine gun nest.
Frank's 2IC went down first, a bullet tearing through his chest, then another, and yet another. Frank wanted to look so desperately, but something, some extraordinary force beyond logic and reason told him to keep going.
He wished it hadn't.
Tick
Next was the Sergeant, his head jerking suddenly back, body crumpling inwards as though sucker punched.
Blood seemed to flow like a stream from his mouth as he began to scream, shrill cries of acute agony which brought a grimace to the faces of his comrades. Still, they couldn't stop, they couldn't give up their advance.
They were fighting for the future.
Tick
The machine gun had woken up.
Three, four, five men went down, some merely wounded, others prone in the sands of the Northern French beach, never to rise again.
He didn't know how exactly it happened, but Frank seemed to sprint yet faster, grenade being withdrawn from his belt, pin being removed in one smooth motion. The grenade went off, engulfing the first position on bright orange flame. Certainly not an eye for an eye, but it would do for now. Vengeance would be wrought when the regime for which their vile opposition fought was no more, when their 'Reich' was a mere footnote in history.
Tick
One gun fell silent, only for another to awaken, spitting doom from its muzzle like a hellish viper forged from metal, its bullets striking down yet more of the bedraggled company of men. Glancing across to their right, Frank noticed that the push on the opposite side was gaining yet more traction, driving the defenders back, a wave of khaki sweeping aside their opponents, taking the fight to the enemy like the proud warriors of old who still held their lands in the mountains of Canada.
Frank imagined the great conquests of old, as his father had once described to him. Caesar, Hannibal, Attila and their mighty ilk. He knew now, as he watched the brutal fighting on the beach, that history would remember this day. It was merely his job to ensure that the day would be heralded as the beginning of the freedom of Europe, as opposed to its disastrous alternative.
Tick
Frank led his section up the beach, ducking and barely surviving as a burst of fire was sent in their direction. One of his men was not so lucky, his black-booted foot being caught by one round, his life being ended by an excruciating burst of automatic fire mere moments later. Less than a second to end a life of twenty years.
Frank withdrew a grenade from his belt, blinded by the grief of losing one of his men, one of his brothers in arms.
He withdrew the pin in one fluid motion, and flung it into the concrete structure.
The defenders had no chance as the fragmentation grenade exploded, throwing shrapnel in every direction.
The machine gun nest was silenced.
Tick
The fight went on for hours, and Frank had lost count of the number of comrades he had lost. Adrenaline alone drove the dwindling platoon onwards, not an Officer or SNCO to speak of.
There was no time to look back, no time to stop and gather their thoughts. It seemed to slip away, like sand through their fingers.
Maybe it was the sand in their fingers.
Or was it blood?
Nobody knew the difference.
There wasn't a difference, come to think of it.
Only two things remained in the world.
Only death and survival.
It was a bleak outlook on their situation, and yet only those present would ever be able to appreciate the truth of the matter.
They didn't know how many soldiers they had killed by the end of the fighting. They didn't even know that the fighting had finished.
The section of ten, now knocked down to eight, seemed to drunkenly stumble on the tarmac of the road, the hellish sounds of fighting still ringing in their ears.
Come to think of it, it was getting dark, the sun setting over the Normandy trees. The shadows seemed to extend beyond their natural right, almost seeming to envelop the narrow path on which they walked.
The burning amber of the sunset lit up the sky like a blazing fire, The colour itself seemed to invoke images of the fight that the group had just now left, the looming shadows transporting them back to the hell from which they had emerged. The world seemed to be against them, and Frank, for the first time since he left his home in British Columbia, regretted that he had.
Gone was the strong support of his superiors, gone was the comfort of knowing that there was someone, anyone looking out for them.
They were stranded, alone in this foreign land, surrounded by people who would sooner see them thrown to the dogs than give them the safe space to sleep the so desired at this moment.
The harsh reality of war indeed.
The party finally gave up a mere half-hour later, legs giving way to exhaustion and arms feeling like lead weights on their shoulders from the weight of their rifles and packs. Water provided scant relief to their burning throats, and their rations felt tasteless, like cardboard in their mouths.
Too wary of the threats of this unfamiliar land to light a fire, they chose to rely on the heat of the summer's night as they turned in for the night.
It would only be the after the campaign that they would realise that there was no guard that night.
The next morning came with its own litany of new problems.
The beach as they looked to sea was unfamiliar, and the trees all seemed to be the same. The clouds masked the sun, ruining any chance of attempting to return to their Canadian compatriots. That was, of course, before one accounted for the fact that the Germans would no doubt be advancing to retake the beaches seized by the Allies the previous day.
There was only one logical solution to the young Corporal Zhang - Keep going.
And so they went, following the path to heavens knew where. Surely, they would find friendly troops somewhere, surely.
This was the mantra repeating in Frank's head as they trudged along, rifles at the ready in their aching and Bren gun being passed around from man to man, being held on their backs due to its weight.
Frank checked his watch.
It was broken, a shattered mess of glass and exposed gears, the hands ripped from their place and the strap little more than a mangled wreck of leather. The buckle was coated in a macabre rusty red, caused by congealed blood. He didn't know whose.
They trudged on still, five kilometres, six. Not a sign of soldiers or warfare - they may well have entered a new universe, the lush green pines and blooming flowers of Normandy were a sight to behold.
Twice, the mirage faded, and the sounds of rattling gunfire, perhaps the echoing boom of a shell exploding rang out through the trees, small bursts of fighting happening, it seemed, all sound them. Everywhere, and yet nowhere.
On they went for another two hours. Slowly, their brains settled down, their racing thoughts calming and their aching muscles growing used to the weight of the rifles in their arms.
Naturally, that was precisely when they ran into an ambush.
That horrible, baritone ticking returned to the front of Frank's mind, scrambling his thoughts and clouding his eyes with the red of bloodlust.
Shouting bloody murder, he charged, bayonet fixed and ready to bring death to the enemies of freedom.
Enemies of freedom who…
Wore khaki uniforms?
German soldiers didn't tend to give commands in English, did they?
Frank was grabbed roughly by the collar, raised a full foot off the ground and slammed into one of the trees in which he had rendered such interest, being shaken like a character in a comic as he was manhandled over.
Finally opening his eyes, the young Canadian gulped, eyes trailing down past British Army Officer's cap, past rank slides on his epaulettes…
Lord almighty he's an officer
Bugger bugger bugger
A Captain? That would mean…
Cringing heavily, he reminded himself that he had just thrown himself effectively headfirst, eyes closed, into a full company of friendly soldiers, probably a hell of a lot more experienced than him, if their postures - relaxed and yet completely alert - were anything to go by.
"Right then," the captain said, voice level, and yet with a harshness which promised fury should he step out of line. "Who in God's green and pleasant earth are you, charging an entire column of soldiers, armed with naught but a pointy stick and your apparently severely lacking wits?"
"Friendly sir, friendly! We're Canadian, see?" Frank all but yelled, cowering in fear from this imposing figure before him.
"Well I bloody well noticed that , didn't I, you fool, who are you you twice-damned moose licker?" he responded. His voice was not raised to a shout, and yet it was well enough projected that it forced Frank to cringe once more.
"Corporal Frank Zhang Sir," he said sharply, drawing himself to a position of attention. "Royal Winnipeg Rifles, Third Regiment, Canadian Army Sir."
"Better." was the response, a pleased half-smile slipping its way onto the man's battle-worn face. "Captain Perseus Jackson, highly unconventional and yet apparently exceedingly competent Second in Command of the Third Company of the Yorkshire Regiment, Third Division, British Army."
And thus, the section of Canadians joined the now rather diverse company, attaching themselves to the platoon of former seamen, though they were none the wiser to such a fact. Discrimination had no place among those risking their lives on the frontline, and it would nobody any good for such distinctions to be taken into the thought process of the inexperienced Canadians, nor the weary seamen, low on morale from the loss of the vessel on which many had served for much of their professional lives.
It was merely the beginning, a paltry two days into a campaign, a hard drive that history would one day know to have lasted many a month, and an objective which would not be achieved until well into the next year.
And yet, in the minds of eight battle-weary Canadian infantrymen , there was suddenly a hope that they might make it out on the other side of it all, perhaps even unscathed.
They did not know one thing, however;
The Americans were coming.
A/N
Short AN this time, or maybe not. It's near enough Eleven PM as I edit this chapter, removing some reprehensible grammatical errors and adding in more than strictly necessary horizontal lines.
Meet Frank! Yes, he is a good ten years Percy's junior, but it felt necessary to capture the dynamic between Percy and Frank as it really should've been, between a seasoned hero and a literal newbie in New Rome. He is skilled, yes, evidently so. I used the fact that his canonical hobby was shooting with a bow and arrow to my advantage - the Winchester really is a beautiful rifle. Lynn Canyon is canonical too, little more than a line in SoN.
Two or three chapters left before we go somewhere entirely different, with one or two characters I'm personally really looking forwards to showing you.
Do let me know what you think, it'd be nice.
Once again, I don't own this beautiful literary universe, I'm just having fun here, letting my love for history run wild.
EDITED 04/04/2023