The Durhams D-Day Diary, Sgt Charles Eagles; Part 6. Surrender: WE were in a hole, a sticky situation, a tight spot.

The 9th Battalion of the Durham Light Infantry had progressed about 13 miles inland from Gold Beach where it had landed on D-Day eight days earlier. But it had just been massacred in a cornfield below the church of Lingvres.

There were 226 men and 22 officers who were casualties; 32 of them, including the commanding officer, were dead. This battle had lasted about 90 minutes.

Four of us who had somehow survived lay beside a farm track not knowing which way to turn for the best. Our deliberations were interrupted by a polite cough - "ahem, ahem" - and we looked up to see a German major, with a dozen German troops, staring down at us.

"Throw down your weapons. You are surrounded," he said in perfect English.

We didn't argue. They didn't search us but took us on an amiable amble a mile or so to their camp. Their officer, who'd been educated at either Cambridge or Oxford before the war, asked which of us was senior rank.

I produced my sergeant's stripes from my pocket. Normandy, with its close fields and tight hedgerows, was perfect sniper territory and they deliberately targeted officers with binoculars round their necks and stripes on their arms.

He laughed. "You must be the youngest sergeant in the British Army." I was nineteen-and-a-half.

Later, the major offered me, with apologies, a mug of revolting coffee, and said they couldn't send us back because they had no transport and Red Cross vehicles were being strafed by the Americans.

We got chatting, passing around sweets and tobacco. It was funny, considering that a few hours earlier we had been employing the most vicious weaponry in our desperation to kill each other.

Half-a-dozen Typhoon planes roared overhead, dropping their usual load of two bombs and ten rockets each. The major reminisced about the delights of Scotch whisky and English pubs.

At dusk, we lay in a ditch with warm mugs of coffee, surrounded by our new German friends and slowly dozing off. Cat-napping, stirred by the slightest noise, had become a way of life. At times I thought it was a dream and I'd soon wake up.

We awoke the next morning, June 15, 1944, and it was bright and sunny. More Typhoons flew overhead. We could hear the Germans' artillery fire as they tried to bring our planes down; then we heard our planes drop our bombs on their lines. A plume of thick, black smoke rose in the distance. It was probably a German stronghold near the town of Tilly-sur-Seulles. It was all very alarming.

The German major beckoned me over. He'd been out during the night on a recce. "Things are grim," he said in his well-spoken English. "We are cut off. There is no way we can take or send you to Germany."

A weak smile passed over his face. "In fact," he said, "I'd like to suggest that we surrender to you."

My face must have been a picture as he said he was speaking on behalf of the three platoons in his charge, dug into those woods. That's about 100 men surrendering to the four of us.

The tables were turned.

But now it was my problem to get my prisoners back behind my lines.

If 100 Germans approached out of nowhere, after yesterday's massacre at Lingvres, our boys were bound to become jumpy. And, if we led the Germans in, did we really trust our enemies behind us?

"They could bloody shoot us in the backs when we get down the road," whispered Corporal "Woodie" Wood.

The German major and I separated to our corners to work out how we could safely undertake what would probably be the most harrowing journey of our lives.

Adapted by Chris Lloyd

* On Monday: Part 7 How four Durhams without rifles captured 100 Germans with weapons.