Gray was standing on the end of the bridge, on the northwest corner. Brotheridge was lying in the middle of the road, at the western end of the bridge. Other men in the section were running over the bridge. Wally Parr was with them, Charlie Gardner beside him. In the middle of the bridge, Parr suddenly stopped. He was trying to yell ‘Able, Able’, as the men around him had started doing as soon as the shooting broke out. But to his horror, ‘my tongue was stuck to the roof of my mouth and I couldn’t spit sixpence. My mouth had dried up and my tongue was stuck.’
Attempts to yell only made the sticking worse, and his frustration was a terrible thing to behold. His face was a fiery red, even through the burnt cork, from the choking and from his anger. With a great effort of will, Parr finally broke his tongue loose and shouted, ‘COME OUT AND FIGHT YOU SQUARE-HEADED BASTARDS’. Pleased with himself, Parr started yelling ‘Ham and Jam, Ham and Jam’, as he ran the rest of the way, then turned left to go after the bunkers that were his task.
The moon emerged from behind the clouds. As it did, Sergeant Hickman crept to within fifty metres of the bridge. He saw no. 1 platoon coming over:
… and they even frightened me, the way they charged, the way they fired, the way they ran across the bridge. I’m not a coward, but at that moment I got frightened. If you see a para platoon in full cry, they frighten the daylights out of you.
And at night-time when you see a para running with a Bren gun, and the next with a Sten, and no cover round my back, just me and four youngsters who had never been in action, so I could not rely on them – in those circumstances, you get scared. It’s my own poor little life there. So I pull my trigger, I fire.
He fired at Billy Gray, reloading his Bren by the corner of the bridge. Billy finished reloading and fired a clip back. Both men were shooting from the hip, and both were pointing their guns just a bit too high, so each sent a full clip over the other man’s head. While Hickman put another clip into his Schmeisser and started spraying the bridge. Billy popped into the barn on his right. As soon as he got inside. Billy rested his Bren gun on the wall and did his Jimmy Riddle.
Hickman, meanwhile, had run out of ammunition, and besides he was furious with the bridge garrison, which was hardly putting up a fight at all. He was scornful of such troops -‘they had a cushy life, all the war years in France. Never been in danger, only did guard duty.’ The British, Hickman concluded, had caught them napping, and he decided to get out of there. Motioning to his four privates, he got back to the staff car and sped towards Caen, going the long way around to get to his headquarters, which were only a few kilometres straight east. Thus Hickman was the first German to pay the price for the capture of the bridge: what should have been a ten- or fifteen-minute ride took him six hours (because he had to work his way around bombed-out Caen), and by the time he arrived at his headquarters to report the landing, his major had long since been informed.
As Hickman turned to leave. Smith came running across the catwalk on the south side of the bridge, huffing more than he was running because he had wrenched his knee in the crash. Brotheridge’s men were throwing grenades and firing their weapons, there was some German return fire. When Smith got to the other side, he saw a German throwing a stick grenade at him. As the German turned to leap over the low courtyard wall in the front of the cafe. Smith gave him a burst with his Sten gun. The German slumped over the wall, dead. Simultaneously the grenade went off. Smith did not feel anything, but his corporal came up to inquire, ‘Are you all right, sir?’ Smith noticed holes in his battle smock and his trousers. Then he looked at his wrist. All the flesh had been torn away, there was nothing but bone. Smith’s first thought was, ‘Christ, no more cricket.’ Curiously, his trigger finger still worked.