Back to the Beaches

“When a soldier gets to heaven,

To Saint Peter he will tell,

‘Another soldier reporting sir…

I’ve served my time in Hell’”

- an old war slogan

A strong wind rounded in from the sea carrying with it salty air and bad memories. The sun just began to break over the crest of the Channel’s surface chasing away most of the dark shadows on Normandy’s hallowed ground. On a hillside, an old visitor witnessed this new birth of day. This now ancient version of the man’s former youthful self watched sullenly as he witnessed dawn approach on this beach for the second time in his life.

He wore a dress uniform, not worn since his early twenties, and wore a green Army cap that fell slightly to one side. A pair of dog tags hung from his neck bearing the name Pvt. Quentin Farran. In one hand he clung to an oak cane and in the other he clutched onto five scraps of paper. Each scrap was yellowed and withered with age, each bearing a name of a man long since perished. Tears began to fall down Quentin’s face as each soldier’s image crept back into his conscious.

“I’m back boys… Hear me Alex… Rick… Benjamin!” after the last shout he bowed his head, “I’m back… I promised… and I’m back.”

He took two steps into the sand before an ancient ache, not felt since his time in the war, began to work its way up his legs, permeating from his aged feet. Quentin reached down and took off each red rimmed shoe, slowly untying each knot and slipping each of the shoes off his bare feet. As Quentin straightened up as much as his old back would allow he dropped the oak cane he had been clutching next to his shoes and began to continue down the beach head.

Many of Quentin’s memories of the war haunted him, but one stood out above all the rest. The day that he became the sole survivor of a band of brothers sent to a beach code named “Omaha” to begin the penetration of the walls of Fortress Europe. It was on this day that they had written each other’s names on slips of paper and vowed that one day they would all come back to the beaches, bearing in hand the names of the fallen.

In the back of his mind Quentin could begin to hear faint whispers of the long pact that was made so long ago. As the voices became louder he could make out one of the voices… a ghost… one of the names on the five papers he clenched in his hand…

- … “All right boys, listen up. We’ve been through hell and back… and now their sending us to hell again…” Sergeant Rhodes said to the five other men that had followed him throughout the entire course of the war up to this point, “No matter what happens today, I am honored to have fought beside you for the duration of our time together.”

- “Ah. Come on sarge, your makin’ it seem like the end of the goddamn world.” a shaking soldier next to him remarked (the initial image of this soldier was unclear in Quentin’s mind, but he remembered the voice of being Alex Gotter, a jovial young man from Massachusetts)

- “I’m going to be honest with you all”, Rhodes said looking at each man with a grim expression on his face, “… not all of us are going to make it out of this one… That’s one of the reasons I wanted to talk to you all before we headed out.”

- Each of the men tilted their heads up to look at their leader. Each of them understanding what this older, burly man was telling them.

- “I have here a piece of paper. In case one or more of us should fall, I want us to remain as one unit throughout the duration of this war. If you so desire write your name five times on this paper, tear them off and give them to one of the men standing beside you. This way all of us at all times will have the name of each man in this unit with him at all times… and then… one day when this war is over… we will all come back to this beach and remember the others. Agreed?”

- Each man nodded in sullen agreement.

- “An oath then?” Sergeant Rhodes asked again.

- Each of the five looked up once again at their leader… and then all six of them promised.

“I was a coward! How could I have known! How could I have known none of them would survive! My God… I wish I could take it back… if only I could take it back… I would set everything right…” Quentin shouted out to the sea as if it could hear him.

Quentin’s crying now became fiercer as he remembered making his pact with the others. In the middle of this newer wave of grief a loud noise, like thunder, filled his ears and the ache that troubled him was replaced with a sharp pain in his right leg. Without his cane to aide him, Quentin fell down into the surf. As he went down the five papers he had been holding onto blew into the waves rolling on the beach.

“No!” Quentin cried as he lunged out into the water to recapture the long lost names. As his shriveled hands reclaimed each one of the papers, each man’s fate was blasted into his conscious.

-Private Alexander Gotter - Killed by a mortar round while pushing Quentin out from a crater that he had been hiding in.

-Private Benjamin Wheeler and Private Patrick Muel - Cut down by machine gun fire. Both of them running into the open while expecting covering fire from Quentin as he froze up watching the scenes of horror around him.

-Sergeant William Rhodes - Killed while helping a wounded man to safety, after Quentin refused to help out of sheer terror.

And finally as Quentin grabbed the last yellowed paper the image of his friend that he had met at boot camp was also blasted into his conscious.

-Private Richard Newman - Killed while protecting Quentin from a sniper on the hillside.

As Quentin slowly stood back up and turned to face the beach head once again, with each of the papers tightly clenched in his fist, the pain in his leg disappeared and a new image flashed in front of his eyes. This one however seemed to be more than just a memory, or playful mirage; for as Quentin looked back up at the beach head his eyes revealed to him a version of the beach that had not been seen for over sixty years.

The once grassy hillsides were covered with freshly moved dirt, and farther on the tops of each hill sat the old German bunkers (not crumpled and caved in as they should have been, but instead they each stood tall and sturdy as they once had). Slowly, Quentin was able to see movement on the hillsides, the movement of people scurrying back and forth… lots of people… moving… pointing… and firing… Quentin couldn’t believe his eyes as the vision became more real, and then, slowly he began to hear faint sounds that grew louder and louder with each second… sounds of a battle that had not been fought since his last visit to this beach… in a war that ended more than six decades before.

The sounds became more distinct, and the vision more real with each passing second. Soon it all came back to him, knocking him to the ground as the sand around him exploded into the air.

“ Farran! What the hell do you think you’re doing?” a familiar voice shouted out to him from behind.

“Huh. What.” was all Quentin could manage to say.

“I said get your ass moving Private or we’re all going to die out here”, Sergeant Rhodes shouted again as he grabbed the collar of Quentin’s uniform and forced him down into a crater made by one of the near by explosions.

“But… what the… how are… this is impossible!” Quentin shouted as he stared into his Sergeant’s face with amazement.

“Tell that to them after we’re off the beach Quent”, a voice he recognized as Alex’s said as the long dead man from Massachusetts jumped down next to him.

“Enough! We’ve gotta move up the beach or they’ll get a lock on our position”, Rhodes interrupted as he scrambled out of the hole and ran down the beach.

The rush of the past coming back to him paralyzed Quentin in a state of panic and disorientation.

“Come on Quentin!” Alex shouted back to him trying to get the misplaced soldier to move out of the crater. After a few seconds of hesitation Alex began to push Quentin out of the hole.

“Come on Quentin or we’re both going to get butchered”, Alex said as he pushed his stunned comrade to safety.

All of a sudden Quentin recognized the situation with terror and shock. In one fluid motion Quentin used the weight of his body to pull Alex out of the crater and thrust them both down onto the sand outside of it before the familiar whistling sound approached them. Within seconds the mortar round exploded in the crater where they both had been laying, digging deeper into the beach.

“Holy shit! I’ll be goddamned! You saved my life Quent!” Alex screamed at his saver.

“Come on Alex! We’ve got to get to where Benny and Pat are! Their next!” Quentin wheezed as he began to scramble away.

“ Next? What? I can’t move Quent! A piece of that shell hit me pretty bad, my leg’s bleedin’ all over the place.”

Quentin turned around and saw the damage the shell had done to Alex’s leg, “Get yourself down and out of sight till a medic comes by. I’ve got to get to them now!”

With that Quentin left his first brother behind and searched the battlefield for the next of the fallen. Huddling behind a beach obstacle he found them.

“Quentin! Get over here! Now!” Benny shouted to him looking up the beach towards the trench just outside of the German positions.

Quentin sprinted for the twisted metal obstacle his friends were hiding behind, replaying his past memories of the time and place in his mind.

When Quentin reached them Benny and Pat pulled him close.

“Listen up Quentin”, Benny said, “Some of the men up the beach are preparing to breach the sea wall. Pat and I are trained demolitionists, if you can provide us with some covering fire we could probably make it up the beach to their position. Understood?”

Quentin nodded his head and raised his rifle to show them he was ready. On the count of three Pat and Benny threw themselves away from the obstacle and began to run towards the sea wall. Quentin, remembering his frozen state of terror the last time this sequence of events occurred, raised his rifle and aimed at one of the German machine gun nests. Into to quick bursts the German gunner laid over his weapon; two exit wounds flowed blood from his back.

After a couple more shots at other German machine gun nests, Quentin squinted up the beach head towards the sea wall. Finally, he saw them (Benny and Pat) crouched next to an officer pointing at the barbed wire sea wall; both of the men very much alive. Quentin was startled by a hand on his back. As he turned around he saw the face of his Sergeant staring back at him.

“Good to see you’ve made it this far Private”, Rhodes said as he stared at the sea wall, “Seems like Ben and Pat have made it, too.”

“Alex as well?” Quentin said dryly.

“Yep. Saw him down the beach a ways back there. Leg looks pretty bad… said something about you saving his life-”, Rhodes was interrupted by another explosion of to the side.

A soldier laid sprawled out in the open missing one of his feet near the impact site. The man cried out in pain as he screamed out for help.

“Get over here and help me move this man down to a fox hole Private!” Rhodes said as he pointed to the crying man, “Get moving fast before those gunners decide to mow this area down again.”

Quentin hesitated as the moment replayed in his subconscious.

“I can’t do it by myself Private! Get moving!”, and with that said Sergeant Rhodes dashed out to the wounded soldier and put one of the soldier’s arms over his shoulder.

Seconds later Quentin lifted the soldier’s other arm and both of them began to run the wounded man to the nearest dug out position. As soon as all three of them were safely crouched in the hole the German machine gun nests lit up the area they just finished running across with bullets and tracer rounds.

“Listen up Private”, Rhodes said, “I’ve got to stay here with this man until a medic arrives. Move up the beach to that wall. Regroup with anyone you find, and I’ll see you when this is all over. Go… NOW!”

Rhodes kicked Quentin out with the heel of his boot and forced him to run towards the sea wall. When he got there, Quentin noticed that most of the men who sat behind it just minutes before, were now rushing through a newly made breach in the barbed wire. One of the men who still sat crunched down behind the dunes, he recognized as Rick.

Forgetting momentarily the memory of this situation in the past, Quentin moved toward his friend.

“Hey Ric-” was all that escaped Quentin’s mouth when a loud noise, like thunder, was heard above the chaos of the battle; bringing him to his knees. The sniper round hit him in the back of the right leg sending a sharp pain through his body.

Rick, overhearing the loud thunder of the sniper round turned and scrambled toward his friend.

“Get down Quentin”, Rick said as he raised his own sniper rifle, “I’ll get him.”

With a sick realization of horror, the memory of Rick being killed by the sniper clouded his mind. To Quentin’s dawning terror Rick sat up, and looked over the sea wall for the sniper. The speed behind his actions was surprising and spontaneous. Quentin threw his body against his friend, knocking Rick to the ground just as a second loud clap of thunder sounded across the battlefield.

Rick sat bolt upright again, aimed his rifle towards the direction of the sniper’s shot, and found his mark; ending the German sniper's day in the battle in one quick burst.

“I think I got him Quent”, Rick said smiling, but there was no answer. Quentin’s bleeding body laid sprawled against the sea wall, his hand clenching the pocket which contained the names of his comrades.

***

A strong wind rounded in from the sea carrying with it salty air and bad memories. The sun just began to break over the crest of the Channel’s surface chasing away most of the dark shadows on Normandy’s hallowed ground. On a hillside, five old visitors witnessed this new birth of day. This now ancient version of the men’s former youthful selves watched sullenly as they witnessed dawn approach on this beach for the second time in their life.

They wore dress uniforms, not worn since their early years in the service, and wore green Army caps that fell slightly to one side. A pair of dog tags hung from their necks bearing each one’s name. These five men came back to fulfill a promise… a promise they made… oh so long ago… to a member of their band of brothers that did not survive to see the end of the war… a man who, in turn… saved each of their lives. They clenched pieces of paper bearing his name in their hands as the made their way towards the sea.

The first of the old men, Lieutenant Alexander Gotter, took two steps into the sand before an ancient ache permeated from a wound he received long ago. He bent down to take off his shoes… and was startled… for there… sitting next to him… was an oak cane and a pair of red rimmed shoes.