The White Guns (1989) Read Online Free PDF

Even the Kiel Canal was said to be mined and booby-trapped, with the same lurking horrors here in the harbour.
     
He saw the squad stamp to a halt and come about with a slap and crack of rifles. Their uniforms were none too clean, their boots even worse, while their familiar helmets still carried the twigs and grass of camouflage. These were not the troops you often saw in the pubs and dance halls in Britain. These were the real army, who had marched all the way from Normandy, who had fought through every town and village, field and sewer, winkling out snipers and crack soldiers of the Waffen SS alike. Many must have fallen on the way, for many hundreds had first begun their long hike in El Alamein.
     
Young and fit, faces round and red in the weak sunshine, they were behaving as if they were on parade. Marriott had already noted the Tommy's ability to remain clean-shaven, no matter what. He had seen it at Tobruk and in Sicily, in the Messina Strait and at Anzio.
     
He heard the sergeant say loudly, 'I don't want no loungin' about, see? The Jerries'll be gawpin' at you lot, an' I don't need some snotty subaltern takin' the piss out of my lads because they don't know 'ow to behave, see?'
     
Macnair said softly, 'That was what I was trying to say down below.' He looked at Marriott keenly. 'You and the others have got quite a task ahead of you. Some probably won't see the reason, others will only be thinking of getting back to Blighty. We won this war because we learned the hard way. We trained for it when, between the wars, the top brass became as stagnant as this bloody harbour.' He nodded to the two young seamen with belted pistols around their waists who guarded the outboard side. 'But they are totally untrained for peace – unready for it too. You'll have to watch them all the way.'
     
Marriott thought he knew Spruce Macnair well enough to ask, 'Are you really going home for the reason you gave, sir?'
     
The hawklike eyes settled on him, stripping him down as they had so often.
     
'You always were the quiet one, the thinker. I was so damn glad when –' He shrugged. 'Well, from all the odds, you should have bought it too.'
     
Bought it. So easily said in their world.
     
Then he replied, 'No, as a matter of fact, it isn't. I saw the PMO.' He briefly touched his chest. 'Not too good apparently.' The eyes flashed again. 'If you breathe a word to the others, I'll bloody well come back to haunt you!'
     
Marriott watched him leave, his hand still at the salute after Macnair had vanished aboard his own MGB.
     
He wished he had not asked, and yet he was glad Macnair felt he could share it. Another victim, just as much as one taken by cannon shell or bomb.
     
He had always thought Macnair to be indestructible. They all had. His heart felt suddenly heavy and he was reluctant to go below and join the others. His lips moved in a small smile. Get spruced up.
     
When he did go below they were already leaving to hunt for their uniforms, grumbling, voicing their uncertainties, glancing at the land where the sentries were now very much in evidence with their rifles and automatic weapons.
     
Cuff said, 'They look as if they're put there to keep us from going ashore, rather than protect us, eh?' His head swivelled round, his eyes searching. 'You were a bit sharp off the mark this morning! Made me look a bit of a prat in front of my chaps, I'd have thought.'
     
Marriott replied, 'I'm sorry about that. I wasn't thinking. Just had a feeling that someone was going to start firing.'
     
Cuff grinned, his good humour apparently restored. 'Wouldn't have seen me shed any tears!' He gave a loud laugh and Marriott could smell the gin in spite of the brandy he had used to toast their victory. It was rumoured that Cuff drank half a bottle of Plymouth gin every morning either before or instead of breakfast.
     
Marriott studied him again. A year older than himself, but he had certainly abused his health. He had once been a rugby player and