Shepherd checked his barracks as the men climbed into the lorries. This day, at least, was different; they were finally going to practice an amphibious invasion. Shepherd had heard – a lowly private was not encouraged to know such matters – that several islands would have to be secured, and that some of the Marines were practicing the techniques up in the Shetlands, where most of the invasion force was being assembled.
“All aboard?” Sergeant Pike called out, ignoring the whiffs of cigarette smoke from some of the men. Smoking in public places was banned in Britain; a couple of men had been fined for the offence. “Driver, go!”
The lorry wasn’t British-made, but one sent over from America. It made a stink as it passed along the motorway, along the corridors designated for military use, and entered the city itself. The men gawked themselves; Newcastle seemed grander than New York, which had been the most glamorous city in the world to many of them.
“Niggers and wogs,” Private Buckman muttered. Shepherd blinked; there were black men, and Indians with dark brown skin and weird clothes, wandering freely through the streets. Some of them waved at the lorries, others jerked their fingers up at the Americans. “Almost as bad as the dagos.”
“Silence in the ranks,” Sergeant Pike thundered. Shepherd smiled openly as the lorry fell silent; Pike wasn’t a man to cross. Shepherd had once seen him half-strangle an imprudent Private. Black men weren’t allowed in the Marines, but there were Italians in the Corps.
“Hard luck,” he muttered to Buckman, who glared at him. Before a fight could break out, the lorry stopped inside a large harbour; a Marine transport sat there docked neatly.
“At the double, everyone out and form up!” Sergeant Pike bellowed. Shepherd hurried to obey as the men jumped off the lorry and onto the tarmac; they’d performed the same manoeuvre dozens of times before. “Line up!”
“At ease,” Captain Caddell said, as the men saluted him. Shepherd regarded him with respect; the officer, who always gave the impression of being bespectacled, was known for taking care of his men. “Stand… at ease!”
The regiment – Shepherd noted that several more men had assembled behind him – relaxed, but remained in their rows. “Our mission is to take a beach,” Caddell said. “We will be launched in the small LSTs from the transports, and then run to the beach. There will be a bottle of wine for the one who hits the shore first.”
The men chuckled. Caddell was an officer you could laugh with. “Once we’re on the shore, we have ten minutes to knock out the mock-ups of German guns and kill all of the Germans defending the place” – there were more chuckles; the British produced little mannequins of German defenders that were very realistic in bad light – “and clear the beach for the follow-up forces. Watch out for mines; the person who gets covered in purple ink is buying the drinks tonight.”
“We’re finally getting liberty?” A young Marine with more courage than discipline asked. Shepherd winced as Pike started to stalk towards him.
“Yes, we get a night on the town,” Caddell said. “There’s an entire district that helps sailors find what they want… and now will have us as well.”
Half an hour later, all enthusiasm had faded as another wave of cold water splashed against the LST, drenching Shepherd with vigour. The murky grey sky was more like winter than summer; the Marines had already lost one LST.
“Move, you bunch of poofs,” Pike screamed, as the Marines piled into the little transport. Some of them were green to the gills; it was rocking alarmingly. “Move it!”
“All aboard,” the driver shouted. Shepherd suspected that he was trying to drop Pike in the drink, but the wily old sergeant moved too quickly. “We’re off!”
The LST lurched as it spun away from the bigger ship, before turning to face the shore. It looked very realistic; smoke and flames were already billowing from positions where battleship shells would hit in reality. Shepherd took a breath to steady himself; the LSTs were moving into formation and racing towards the beach.
“Move,” Pike shouted, as the LST hit sand and the bow came down. Gamely, the Marines raced forward, splashing through the water and onto the beach, firing all the while. A German rose up in front of Shepherd, lifting a Mauser, and he fired once, seeing the plastic of the head folding away under the impact.
“With me,” Pike ordered, as they jumped towards a bunker. Buckman was already lying on the ground, pretending to be dead. The dummy Germans were firing tiny blobs of paint. “Now!”
Pike kicked open the door of a bunker; two Marines tossed in grenades and jumped back. The explosion shattered the bunker. More explosions followed as the Marines mopped up, taking no prisoners, and the scene fell silent.
A whistle sounded. Slowly, reluctantly, the ‘dead’ got back to life, covered in ink that indicated how they’d been ‘killed.’ The Marines formed up into lines again, gratefully sipping water from their flasks and wishing for something stronger.
“Good work, all of you,” Caddell said. “We’re going to have to move faster and make more use of the mine-hunting equipment, for we have to take the islands.”
Shepherd nodded. The British had supplied them with some equipment that was designed to hunt mines, even buried ones. What it wasn’t, however, was convenient; some of the Marines had left theirs behind in the LST, trusting in the preliminary bombardment to clear the beach of mines. This time… there hadn’t been such a bombardment.
“For the moment, we’re going to the bars tonight,” Caddell said, and a great cheer rose up. “Take the maps, be on your best behaviour, and have fun. Tomorrow… we do it all over again!”
“Three cheers for the captain,” some toadying Marine shouted, from the rear. The Marines cheered anyway; nothing cheered them up like rest and relaxation.
The bar was one massive room, filled with people. Bright lights flashed as loud strange music played, inciting the dancers to dance. The Americans, for the most part, had been sucked into the dance, staring at the teenage girls and their revealing clothes.
“I never knew you could dance like this,” Shepherd shouted at Private Manlito. The swarthy Italian-American smiled back, unable to hear. The girl he was dancing with, a blonde girl with wide-open breasts, smiled at him and said something. “What was that?” Shepherd shouted. She caught his hand and brought him outside the dancing floor.
“Want some raw sex?” She asked. Shepherd’s expression must have been comical, for she laughed and passed him a tablet. “Raw sex,” she explained, as Shepherd examined it doubtfully. “It makes the night go quicker.”
Shepherd peered at the little green pill. “Are you certain?”
“Big bold soldier scared of a little pill?” She asked, and balanced one on the tip of her tongue. She swallowed it in one motion and smiled at him. Shepherd saw her expression, and her body, and swallowed it in one gulp.
“Wow,” he breathed, as… something happened. Her body seemed far more desirable; her smile one of welcoming invitation. He reached out for her, to kiss her, and her lips opened to meet his. Unaware of his surroundings, he pulled her closer and…
“Get your filthy hands off my girl,” a black man bellowed. Shepherd, lost in his drug-induced gaze, saw only a rival. The man lashed out with a chair and struck Shepherd’s shoulder.
“Fuck off, you nigger bastard,” Buckman shouted, and threw his glass of beer at the man. It shattered on his face and blood started to trickle down, just before Shepherd struck him with a haymaker.
“You bastard,” someone shouted, and the entire room went mad. Several dozen fistfights had broken out and alarms were sounding. Shepherd, wavering on his feet as the drug worked its way through his system, saw dimly the fire start as someone smashed a bottle of alcohol against the fire, before the girl started to pull at him.