With a final kick, his head breaks the surface and he sucks the too cold air into his lungs, which spasm with a violent cough. Something hits him from behind. He jolts away, turning to see the burnt bodies of dead German sailors in every direction.

One last charge to go and he swims through a sea of corpses while his chest tries to cough the rancid water from his lungs. The dull thud of the last explosion reaches his ears and he knows it’s too late. A second later and the shock wave hits, sending him surging high on a wave of death.

An instant later, he feels the gut-wrenching change of direction caused by the sucking void trying to fill the hole created by the U-boat surging into the air from the force of the explosion. Rip tides swirling in every direction, spinning him round and pulling him under. Gravity overcomes force and the boat reaches the apex of its climb into the sky before sinking back down as more explosions rip through the hull. When it lands, the displacement expels the water that had been pulled back into the explosive suction, pushing it out with raging tsunamis to the sides. Waves metres high surge over the harbour wall, ripping men from their firing positions as flaming debris rains down.

All sense and meaning are gone. Harry is unable to swim with or against the flow so he relaxes to let the water take him.

It is over. The battle is done. He stood a chance at getting away and if nothing else his mates will go back saying Mad Harry Madden almost made it back for that pack of smokes Tom owed him.

Five U-boats taken out with hundreds of enemy soldiers killed and this night will be remembered forever. Better to die now in the freezing water than be tortured at the hands of the jackboot-wearing SS and executed later by firing squad.

With the booming retorts of the anti-aircraft guns still firing, Harry opens his mouth and purposefully sucks in the retch-inducing water. Instant panic sets in as his body fights to rid his lungs of the liquid, but vomiting only induces an urge to breathe in and Harry keeps his head down, forcing himself to overcome the panic to suck the water in again and again. Images of his life flash through his mind. From a child playing in the woods to the stories of the comet streaking overhead on the day of his birth. Through school, working, dating and then the army. Training in the Scottish Highlands. Running. Swimming. Laughing and fighting.

No regrets now, old chap. No looking back. You did your bit. That’s all anyone can ask. Sleep now. Wait for Edith.

Edith. Her face in his mind and that single image is what he holds closest as the warming hands of death start easing him from this mortal world.

‘Where is he? Is that him?’