Then the surf gripped them, drove the boat onto the beach and left it grounded. Anna’s mobility was hampered by the heavy wool, knee-length coat she wore, and hoisting her over a shoulder, Macurdy stepped out, a petty officer leading, hurrying a few paces to avoid the next wave. Once on dry sand, he put her down. They had no baggage, only Anna’s purse and Macurdy’s wallet, neither with anything incriminating except their skillfully counterfeited papers and English money.
“Everything is all right?” the petty officer asked Anna. He’d been told she was in charge.
“Yes.”
“Well then, good luck.” The man took time to shake their hands, then with the other seamen, pushed the boat back into the cold surf, and paddled out of sight in the darkness. Mac felt faintly guilty watching them leave, for wishing them a safe arrival, to their ship if not their port. This war, he told himself, needs to be over, and wished he could make it so.
Then the two spies crossed the sand to the thick bank of heath shrubs behind it. Beach contact, they knew, was the most uncertain point in such landings . The beaches were pa trolled, or said to be, and their would-be pickup team might have to lay back, might even have been captured. Another possibility was that the captain had miscalculated, and put them ashore on the wrong beach.
Anna looked at her English watch. “it is about two hours till dawn,” she said. “You might as well sleep. I’ll stay awake and watch for our contacts. If I get too sleepy, I’ll wake you and we will change places.”
Macurdy lay down on the sand, protected from the damp chill by the Web of the World, and a heavy sweater with a Scottish label.
He fell asleep almost at once, and in that sleep dreamed: He was aboard the liner Queen Elizabeth, with the men he’d served with at Camp Robinson, at Benning, in the 509th, the 505th. Shuddering, he remembered dreaming this before, and had let it get away. The liner became a landing craft, one of many, but he was the only man on his, as if it were some derelict caught up unintended in the assault. Shells rumbled, warbled, roared. The craft staggered in the surf, then grounded. The ramp dropped, and he rushed off into chest-deep water, waves lifted him, set him down, and he was on the beach, no longer alone, one of thousands that packed the sand.
From between two dunes came giants, 50-foot redheaded monsters carrying great chains, anchor chains, wielding them like fly swatters, beating the beach with them. With each blow, dozens of men died. There were shrieks. A chain smashed the sand in front of him, jerked upward thick with blood and flesh, started back down … and he awoke, panting.
The beach had no crushed bodies. There was only Anna standing watch a few yards away, looking at him. He wondered if he’d cried out in his sleep. Shivering not with cold, he got to his feet, thinking of the Voitik sorcerers scheduled to meet the invasion army with spells and monsters. To the east, a band of faint silver lay on the horizon, and already he could see farther than before. Soon it would be daylight, and they had not been picked up. Anna had a decision to make.
Anna still watching, he began to do side-straddle hops to activate his body. When he’d finished, she said “let’s go,” and they began walking along the beach until they came to a path leading inland through the heath. They took it.
Macurdy’s attention was not on where they were. It was on the dream beach where monsters tramped among G.Ls, crushing them beneath great clawed feet, smashing them with bloody chains. He hadn’t dreamt it idly, he told himself. It was a reminder of duty, a duty he’d only now recognized.
For a moment both the sentry and Macurdy gawped, then Macurdy added, “I’m Lieutenant Curtis Macurdy. We’re an OSS mission-the Office of Strategic Services, U.S. Army. I need to get in touch with our superiors, at once.”
The sentry gathered his wits. “Sergeant!” he shouted, forgetting protocol. “Come out here right away”