Page 58 of Blood Game

‘True son,’ Vilette had called James of Montfort. A true son of a father who refused to acknowledge him, a true son who returned from Spain—from that failed last Crusade, with a secret.

Was that the story Cate was after?

A story in a photograph, like hundreds of other photographs taken during the war.

CHAPTER

FIFTEEN

JUNE 6, 1944, NORMANDY, COAST OF FRANCE

“What is your name, soldier?” Brigadier Lord Lovat demanded as the transport lurched beneath them.

“Private Paul Bennett, sir.”

“Ah, the photographer. Do you have a weapon other than that bloody camera?”

“Yes, sir.” He adjusted the rifle at his shoulder, the camera secured around his neck.

“You're Scot?” Lord Lovat asked.

“Aye, sir. Inverness.”

“Thought as much. Are you any good with that camera?”

“I've had some experience, sir. The Daily Mirror.” He mentioned the London newspaper he'd gotten on with three years before, after submitting those photos—life in the midst of chaos in London, the bombed-out buildings, men, and women huddled in underground rail stations, children on evacuation trains to the English countryside, even one of the young Princess Royal, Elizabeth, in her uniform, a driver for the emergency services.

His contact at the Mirror had given him a doubtful look when he told him that he'd signed on with the military in spite of aboyhood injury that had left him with a limp. He'd laid a hand on his shoulder.

“Have you told your family?”

There were just his mother and sister, safe in Scotland. He nodded. He'd posted the letter just that morning. In twenty-four hours he was on his way. That was all they'd given all of them attached to the press corps, and sworn to secrecy. Everything, the flat he shared with a staff writer, his other equipment, was left as if he were planning on returning at the end of the day. Absolute secrecy was required.

“I went over during the first war, you see,” his editor had told him. “Too old to go this time around.” He was part of the Home Guard.

“Keep your head down lad and keep moving. Did they tell you that rounds always come at you in bursts? Remember that. When they stop, move. And don't stop to think, just keep going.”

He'd thanked him for the advice and swallowed past the tightness in his throat, heading into the unknown.

Twenty-four hours later they were lining up to board the transport under cover of darkness. There had been speculation for weeks about when they might leave, along with the build-up, decoys constructed at bases to throw the Germans off while everything and anything that could float was pressed into service.

He and a young man named Callish, whom he'd taken training with, found themselves assigned to the same transport, along with the 84th.

Lovat grunted now at his response as the French coastline of Calais suddenly appeared through the early morning fog.

“Well this isn't your usual garden party, young man.”

As if to remind them all of that, an explosion rocked the transport off to their starboard, men and bodies thrown into the water—one of the mines they'd been warned about, waitingunderwater, one of the German measures against a coastal invasion.

“No, sir,” Paul replied as they swept past, and couldn't help but wonder if the same fate awaited them.

He glanced past Lovat, past the armored vehicle anchored into the bay of the transport, past the specially trained commandoes of the 1st Special Service Brigade, through the clouds of fog and smoke that engulfed the beach ahead.

The landing craft lurched on another wave, churning toward that beachhead and the cliffs beyond. The others aboard, Callish beside him, steadied themselves, expressions grim, waiting, waiting.

What were they thinking, Paul wondered as he took several shots with the 35mm Leica, ironically produced in Germany before the war, that had set him back a couple months’ wages. But it had been worth it. That and the three lenses he purchased just a few weeks earlier—a mark-down sale from a London merchant whose store had been bombed and left in ruins. People weren't buying cameras to take on holiday.

“How old are you?” Lovat asked.