Coward at the Bridge

by : James Delingpole,

Trapped in a cupboard with a nubile blonde nymphomaniac; crossing the Waal under a hail of fire with the US paratroops of 82nd airborne; rattling in a jeep through the Dutch countryside with the men of 1st Airborne Recce Squadron; crash landing a stricken glider; trying to take out a self-propelled gun with a ruddy useless PIAT. It's all in a day's work for Lt Dick Coward and Sgt Tom Price on their second published adventure. After the horrors of D-Day, they find themselves plunged into even greater chaos and mayhem as they land in the deceptively tranquil countryside around Arnhem, Holland, as part of Operation Market Garden. What should be a pushover - the ingenious scheme that everyone thinks will end the war by Christmas - turns into Britain's biggest military disaster of the Second World War. But if it's a cock-up, by golly is it a glorious one. Rarely if ever have Allied soldiers acquitted themselves better than the British, Americans and Poles, as they fought against the might of the SS, in their bid to capture 'The Bridge Too Far." As usual Coward and Price are in the thick of it. They have to be.If Coward doesn't get a VC this time, he'll be booted off the family estate for good, and stand no chance of winning the heart of the fickle, dangerously beguiling Gina. Will he get the medal? Will he get the girl? Will Price be driven so mad by his master's Bertie Wooster-like stupidity that he ends up throttling him first?