Read Do the Birds Still Sing in Hell? for Free Online Page A

information with her friend.
    ‘How long do you think it’ll last, Jim? How long before you’re back home rattling Eva’s bones again?’
    Horace shrugged his shoulders and gazed out of the window as the train pulled out of the station. ‘That all depends on Mr Hitler, Arthur. He wants peace with us, of that there’s no doubt, but Chamberlain won’t have it.’
    ‘Rumour has it there are 200,000 British troops in France now. Surely the dozy bastard will call it a day and pull his squareheads back home?’
    ‘I hope so, Arthur. I hope so. Then I can get back to Eva and give her a good seeing to.’
    The two soldiers laughed but despite their vocal optimism both feared the worst. The French Premier, Edouard Daladier, had rejected Hitler’s offer of peace, and earlier that month Hitler had orchestrated the first air attack on Britain when the Luftwaffe had bombed ships in the Firth of Forth. Just a few days ago, the British government had released information about the Nazis building concentration camps for the Jews. Horace wasn’t daft; he knew that in modern warfare the battle of propaganda needed to be worked on too. But building camps to exterminate an entire race? That was just plain daft. It was like something out of the dark ages, Genghis Khan reincarnated. Surely Hitler wasn’t that evil?
    The train eventually arrived at Folkestone under the cover of darkness and the regiment of the 2nd/5th BattalionLeicesters waited patiently on the dockside to be loaded onto the huge cross-channel ferry. As the ship set sail for France, Horace cast his eye on the fast-disappearing silhouette of the English coastline as a cramp gnawed away in the pit of his stomach. He couldn’t explain it and couldn’t understand the feeling that he was experiencing. Something in his head told him this was his last look at England for a long time.
    The regiment arrived in the early hours of the morning at the small town of Carentan, 30 miles south of Cherbourg. The following morning they were set to work on the railway. It was backbreaking work and the men moaned constantly.
    ‘Fuck me, Jim, it isn’t what I expected,’ shouted Arthur Newbold from across the other side of the track as he shovelled another spade full of stones onto the already huge pile. They moved to one side, glad of the two-minute break as a steamroller followed in their wake to compact the stones into the earth, ready for the next sleeper to be laid.
    ‘Nor me. Give me a few Germans to shoot at any day of the week.’
    Mile after mile they laid the stones and the sleepers for the new railway line that would run from Cherbourg to Bayeux and eventually on to Paris. They worked ten hours a day, but were fed and watered well and spent their evenings reading and listening to the war reports on the radio in a huge, stone-fronted building on the outskirts of the village. It was two weeks before they were given a night out in Carentan.
    Two lorries dropped the troops off in the centre of town and strict instructions were given to be in the same place to be picked up three hours later. Horace and Arthur had an amble around the town before making their way into what looked like a dated, run-down old hotel. The paint flaked off the blue-fronted shutters, their hinges and clasps worn and rusted.The English troops were greeted warmly as they ordered a few beers and sauntered over to a table. The bar was almost deserted but for a few more Allied troops from a different regiment and two old men conversing in French. The bar smelled musty and damp and the wallpaper peeled from the walls at the corners. Not like a good old traditional English bar, Horace thought to himself. He tasted the beer. Not bad, but not as good as a nice dark bitter.
    A lady in her mid-forties approached the table and spoke in broken but good English.
    ‘Gentlemen, I have some entertainment lined up for you.’
    Oh well, thought Horace, it’s getting a little better. The lady pointed up to the top of a