The sappers, by this time, were beginning to inspect the bridge for explosives, and were already cutting fuses and wires.

Sergeant Hickman was driving into Le Port. He had almost arrived at the T junction, where he would make a left turn to go over the bridge, when he heard Brotheridge's Sten. Hickman told his driver to stop. He knew immediately that the gun was a Sten by its distinctive, easily recognisable rate of fire. Grabbing his Schmeisser, Hickman motioned to two of his privates to get on one side of the road leading to the bridge, while he and the other two privates moved down the left side.

Romer's shout, the Verey pistol, and Brotheridge's Sten gun combined to pull the German troops manning the machine-gun pits and slit trenches into full alert. The privates, all conscripted foreigners, began edging away, but the NCOs, all Germans, opened fire with their MG 34 and their Schmeissers.

Brotheridge, almost across the bridge, pulled a grenade out of his pouch and threw it at the machine-gun to his right. As he did so, he was knocked over by the impact of a bullet in his neck. Running just behind him came Billy Gray, his Bren gun at his hip. Billy also fired at the sentry with the Verey pistol, then began firing towards the machine-guns. Brotheridge's grenade went off, wiping out one of the gun pits; Gray's Bren, and shots from others crossing the bridge, knocked out the other.

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.

Georges Gondree had wakened at the noise. Crawling on his hands and knees, he got to the window ledge and peered over. Smith looked up from his wrist at the movement, saw Gondree's head, swung the Sten towards him and let go a burst. He pointed the Sten too high and merely shattered the window; bullets tore into the wooden beams, but they did not hit Gondree, who beat a hasty retreat and took his family down into the basement.

When Private Bonck heard the first shots, he pulled on his clothes, grabbed his rifle, and dashed out of the brothel and onto the street. His comrade was already there, and together they ran down to the T junction. After one look at the fire-fight going on, they turned and ran back through Benouville on the road to Caen. When they ran out of breath they stopped, talked over the situation, and fired off all their ammunition. Then they ran back to Benouville, there to report breathlessly that British troops were on the bridge and that they had expended all their ammunition before hurrying back to report.

At 0019 Brigadier Poett hit the ground, the first of the paratroopers to arrive. He had not been able to orientate himself during his short drop, and after a soft landing he undid his harness, gathered himself together, looked around, and realised he did not know where he was. The church tower at Ranville was supposed to be his recognition point, but he was in a little depression in a corn field and could not see it. Nor could he see any of his men. He had set out to find them, especially his wireless operator, when he heard Brotheridge's Sten go off. That fixed his rendezvo"' point exactly in his mind and he began walking towards it, as fast as a man could move at night through a corn field. On the way he picked up one private.

Over England, at 0020, Captain Richard Todd's Stirling bomber began to straighten out for its run over the Channel. Todd, twenty-four years old, had set aside a promising acting career to join the paratroopers. Commissioned early in 1941, he was in the 7th Battalion of the 5th Brigade of the 6th Airborne Division. The colonel of the battalion, Geoffrey Pine Coffin, was in the same group of Stirlings as Todd - they were on their way to reinforce the coup de main party at the bridge.