Tank Boys

by Stephen Dando-Collins

At an intersection, a tall German military policeman wearing a coal scuttle helmet and a long leather greatcoat energetically waved the tank down a side road to the right. Ahead, other A7Vs were lumbering along this side road, led by the motor lorries carrying their supplies and the headquarters staff. Up to this point, the tank column had been heading west. Now, it appeared they were veering north.

  ‘Amiens,’ said Wagner, looking at Richard.

  Richard shook his head and leaned in closer. ‘What?’

  ‘Amiens. This is the way to Amiens,’ Wagner yelled, grinning. ‘Look out Tommies, the panzers are coming!’

  The panzers had stopped at the French village of Rosières-en-Santerre to refuel from the supply lorries. Joachim Hock, a photographer from the Vossische Zeitung, a leading Berlin newspaper, found them there and convinced Colonel Kessel to allow him to photograph the tanks and their crews. The tanks were then formed up in their abteilungs in front of the camera, and the barns being used as their latest base formed the backdrop. Some of the crewmen sat on the tank roofs while others joined the unit’s support staff in a long line in front of the vehicles.

  Mephisto was absent. Both its engines had decided to play up just as the panzers reached Rosières, and tank number 506 was now sitting on the roadside outside the village while its mechanics worked on the problem. A bored Richard and most of his Mephisto comrades joined the group of men clustered in front of Cyklop, Baden 1 and Gretchen for Hock’s picture.

  Meanwhile, the tank commanders assembled around a battered dining table in a deserted farmhouse that was serving as their headquarters, for a briefing from their commanding officer. Accompanied by Captain Greiff, Colonel Kessel arrived, walking with the aid of a silver-handled stick. A former cavalry officer and a native of Prussia, Kessel had been seriously injured during a battle against Russian forces in 1916. His right leg had been as stiff as a board ever since.

  ‘Gentlemen,’ began Kessel, standing in front of a campaign map pinned on the faded green wallpaper, ‘here we are at Rosières.’ Propping one hand on the edge of the table to support himself, he tapped the map with the end of his stick. ‘Our objective, Amiens, is here, twenty-three kilometres distant. Tomorrow, we must help the infantry drive the British from Villers-Bretonneux and Cachy, seven kilometres to our northwest. Once we have done that, our forces will occupy the high ground overlooking Amiens.’

  ‘Will the British have panzers at Villers-Bretonneux and Cachy, Herr Oberst?’ asked Lieutenant Biltz, the commander of Siegfried.

  ‘I cannot answer that question, Biltz,’ the colonel replied. ‘However, in General Ludendorff’s estimation, the attacks of our 6th and 17th Armies to the north will have drawn British tanks away from this sector. We shall proceed on that basis.’

  ‘What if there are British panzers there, Herr Oberst?’ said Mephisto’s Lieutenant Skopnik. ‘Are we to engage them?’

  Kessel scowled. ‘The Imperial German Army never shies away from a fight, Skopnik!’ he declared. ‘You must all use your own judgement to decide if and when to engage. Our paramount concern must be to preserve the panzers for the push to the coast. Already, our numbers are depleted. We had to leave three vehicles at Charleroi to undergo major repair, and several others have broken down on the way here. Theunissen, how many operational panzers do we have left at our disposal?’

  ‘Fifteen, Herr Oberst,’ the adjutant replied. ‘And three of those are still experiencing engine problems.’

  Colonel Kessel pulled a pained face. ‘What a shambles!’

  ‘If you will forgive me, Herr Oberst, we have driven these panzers too hard, too far,’ Lieutenant Biltz observed. ‘They were not designed for long overland journeys. They are for short, sharp actions.’

  Kessel, his face flushed red, ignored the remark. ‘For all our boasts to His Imperial Majesty, the Kaiser, that the panzers were going to change this conflict, we lose machines before they can fire a shot! My God, what a way to fight a war!’ Taking a deep breath, Kessel composed himself. ‘Very well. Theunissen, for tomorrow’s operation, divide those fifteen panzers into three gruppen of five vehicles each. Gruppe 1 will support the infantry attack on Villers-Bretonneux. Gruppe 2 will push towards the Bois d’Aquenne.’ He pointed to a wood marked on the map. ‘Gruppe 3 will attack the Allied lines at Cachy. We must not let down the infantry! Do you all understand me?’ Kessel cast a glare at the officers around him.

  ‘Yes, Herr Oberst!’ they chorused sharply.

  ‘Have every machine in position at Marcelcave before dark, well camouflaged to avoid detection by enemy aircraft,’ Kessel went on. ‘From Marcelcave, we will join the assault across our front line at dawn tomorrow.’

  Wearing a bowler hat and a dusty brown suit, Joachim Hock sauntered along the country road, carrying his camera and tripod on his shoulder, and stopped beside the stationary Mephisto. Most of the crew, including Richard, lay sprawled on the grass, enjoying the warm late-afternoon sunshine as mechanic Hartmann and his assistant, Hess, continued to labour inside the tank. Lieutenant Skopnik and Papa Heiber sat on the lips of their open cupola hatches, the lieutenant scribbling in his diary, Heiber puffing contentedly on his pipe.

  ‘Leutnant, may I photograph you and your crew?’ the photographer called up to the commander.

  Skopnik lifted his eyes from his diarising, looked at the photographer, then looked at the crewmen lounging nearby. ‘Who wants to have their photograph taken with the machine?’ he asked unenthusiastically.

  ‘I do!’ yelled Wagner, jumping to his feet. He looked around at his crewmates, but none of them showed the same enthusiasm for portraiture.

  ‘We have already had our pictures taken,’ Krank said glumly, without raising his eyes.

  ‘Yes, but this will be a photograph with our panzer – with Mephisto,’ Wagner countered. ‘Come on, you lazy devils, this will be something to show your children and grandchildren. “It was in this very panzer that I won my Iron Cross,” you will tell them as you proudly display the photograph above your mantelpiece.’ He grinned. ‘Come on, comrades!’

  ‘It would be a good personal memento,’ said Richard, getting up. ‘Can we order copies of the photograph?’ he asked Hock.

  ‘Of course,’ the photographer replied. ‘I’ll give you my address in Berlin, and you can send payment to me there.’

  ‘How would you send us the photograph?’ Krank asked. ‘We’re on the move almost every day. The mail rarely catches up with us. It would be a waste of time.’

  ‘I could send copies to your families at home,’ suggested Hock.

  Krank shook his head. ‘They would never reach them. The German postal system will break down, like everything else has broken down in Germany. You wait and see. Krank is always right.’

  ‘Well, I think it’s a good idea,’ said Richard, supporting Wagner, the only crewman apart from Papa Heiber who’d been friendly towards him. ‘I know that my grandmother would have been proud to see me with Mephisto.’ His grandfather, he guessed, wouldn’t give a damn about anything other than his pigs, but his late grandmother Lotte Rix had always shown concern for him, and pride in him. ‘Do it for your families.’

  ‘I don’t have a family,’ said Krank.

  ‘Then don’t get a photograph,’ Wagner said impatiently. ‘Come on, the rest of you peasants.’

  In the end, half the tank’s crew posed for the photograph. Richard clambered up onto Mephisto’s roof, near the cupola, and knelt there beside Papa Heiber and Lieutenant Skopnik. Three machine-gunners perched on the rear roof while Wagner and three other machine-gun men stood beside the tank. Darkly bearded Wagner, with his hands jammed into his pockets and cap set at a jaunty angle, was the only one of the nine to smile for the camera. With a flash of phosphor, Hock took the photograph.

  From inside Mephisto, Hartmann the mechanic now called up to the commander. ‘I think we have solved the problem, Herr Oberleutnant. Give the Daimlers a try now.’

  ‘Good. Very good,’ said Skopnik. ‘What was the caus
e of the problem?’

  ‘Fuel line blockage, Herr Oberleutnant,’ came the brief reply.

  ‘Start both engines,’ Skopnik instructed.

  Richard and the others remained where they were, waiting to see whether or not the tank was ready to get underway. The engines had to be started by turning a crank handle inside the tank’s cabin. Hartmann, a well-built man, turned one handle with a powerful twist, and the right-hand Daimler sprang into life. The entire tank vibrated as it turned over. Moments later, Hartmann had achieved the same result with the left-hand engine. Both were now ticking over.

  Lieutenant Skopnik sat listening to the running engines. Once he was satisfied that they sounded as they should, he turned to his crew. ‘Mount up!’ he commanded loudly. ‘We are on the move, men. Let’s rejoin our comrades!’

  The crewmen who had remained on the grass quickly clambered onto the forward and rear roofs to join the others. With Papa Heiber at the controls, Mephisto lumbered away to trundle into Rosières to refuel and stock up on ammunition for the next day’s battle.

  ‘Good luck, comrades!’ called Hock, lifting his bowler hat and waving it at the crew. ‘Do the Fatherland proud!’

  But Mephisto’s engines drowned out his voice, and exhaust fumes and dust churned up by the tracks engulfed him. The photographer was left coughing and hurriedly putting a handkerchief over his nose and mouth.

  Richard handed the last brass shell in through Mephisto’s front hatchway to one of the machine-gun loaders. A moustachioed private named Kreipe was helping him stock up on 57 mm shells.

  ‘Is that the lot?’ asked Kreipe.

  ‘That’s the last one,’ Richard acknowledged. ‘Feldwebel Eckhardt said the leutnant wanted three hundred shells aboard, but the ammunition lockers can only take one hundred and eighty shells. Where have you put the rest?’

  ‘I’ve stacked them in every space I could find,’ said Kreipe. ‘Between the shells and fifty cartridge belts for each of the Maxims, there’s not much room for us in here, I can tell you.’

  ‘Hurry up!’ Lieutenant Skopnik called down impatiently from the open cupola. ‘The other panzers have left for Marcelcave. We are the last to leave. This is most embarrassing for me.’

  ‘Coming, Herr Oberleutnant,’ said Richard, accepting a helping hand from Kreipe, who hauled him up and through the hatch.

  Inside, Richard found that Kreipe was right. With shells and machine-gun belts stacked all around, there was barely room for him to stand in the front compartment. Ignoring him, gunner Eckhardt was in his seat beside the gun. Eckhardt hadn’t helped load the ammunition, considering manual labour beneath a sergeant. Turning the steel doorhandle on the inside, Richard closed the forward hatch.

  The crew was to travel inside the tank for this next leg of their journey, which would take them right to the German front line. This close to the front, the massive vehicle could come under attack from Allied aircraft or artillery, and sitting on the roof was an unsafe luxury the crew could not afford.

  ‘Heiber, is the refuelling complete?’ Lieutenant Skopnik called.

  Heiber, the only crewman still outside the tank, nodded. ‘All done, Herr Oberleutnant,’ he replied, closing the refuelling port as he spoke.

  ‘Then, let us be on our way, man! We must be in position before sunset.’

  ‘Coming, Herr Oberleutnant.’ Despite his age, Heiber was a wiry, fit-looking man. He climbed up the side of the tank like a monkey climbing a tree, then slipped down into his driver’s seat in the cupola.

  ‘Start engines,’ Skopnik commanded, easing into his seat.

  First one, then both engines erupted into life.

  Skopnik pointed to the road ahead. The driver engaged both engines, and Mephisto lurched forward. The tank rumbled across the cobblestones of Rosières then jerkily turned a street corner to take the narrow road to Marcelcave. As the tank passed, men from the unit who were remaining in Rosières stood on the footpath, waving and cheering.

  A sombre Captain Greiff stood among them. His was one of two A7Vs that were still undergoing repairs. With a look of grave disappointment, Greiff stood and exchanged salutes with Lieutenant Skopnik as Mephisto rolled by and headed for its battle station at Marcelcave.

  At the village of Daours, just to the north of the River Somme, the 52nd Battalion was spending the night of 23 April in the rear. They were waiting with the other battalions of the 13th Brigade to be thrown forward to counter the expected next phase of the German Army’s Michael Offensive. All 150 men of Frankie and Taz’s company had crammed into an old barn. Lying side by side, head to toe on its hay-covered floor, the men each had a single blanket, using their packs for pillows.

  Frankie and Taz were lying near the wide, open doorway. They looked out at the fog in the distance that spread from the river, hanging low over the dips in the countryside as it crept forward like a thief in the night.

  ‘I could do with a nice hot cup of tea,’ whispered Frankie, pulling the collar of his greatcoat up around his neck and readjusting his blanket, ‘delivered by a butler.’

  ‘With a plate of hot pikelets, running with melting butter,’ added Nash, who lay to Frankie’s left.

  ‘Might as well put in an order for scones and jam as well,’ said Taz, to Frankie’s right, as he draped his khaki army blanket over his legs and chest. ‘Four each.’

  Frankie grinned in the darkness. ‘Wouldn’t want to be greedy. Two scones each will be plenty, thanks.’

  ‘I’ll just ring the bell for the butler,’ said Nash, laughing as he pretended to feel for a bellpull. ‘Hang on!’ he exclaimed. ‘Someone’s stolen the flipping butler’s bell! Aha! The butler did it!’

  Frankie and Taz both cackled with laughter.

  ‘Wouldn’t you know it!’ said Frankie. ‘Never did trust them butlers.’

  ‘Will you three stop the prattle!’ Rait the Rat hissed from further inside the barn. ‘You’re like sodding schoolkids, the lot of you!’

  Taz leaned in close to Frankie and whispered. ‘Little does he know that you and I should still be in school.’

  ‘Shush!’ Frankie cautioned, putting a finger to his lips.

  Taz nodded. ‘My lips are sealed, mate.’

  ‘Besides,’ Frankie added, ‘I ran away from school when I was twelve.’

  ‘Really? Why?’ Taz asked.

  ‘It was a waste of time – all that two plus two equals the circumference of a square. The big, wide world’s the best education for someone like me. There’s too much to see and not enough time to see it in.’

  ‘Well, you’re seeing a lot now! Swapping a Flanders trench for a Somme trench.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. I reckon the French will have a better class of trench. They’ll have it all over the stinking wet trenches in Flanders. More style, I reckon. They’d never teach you that at school back home.’

  ‘A French trench,’ Taz recited, ‘is much superior to the stench of a trench in Flanders’ interior.’

  ‘Nice one, Taz,’ Frankie chortled. ‘You’re a poet and didn’t know it!’

  ‘What did I tell you lot?’ growled Rait, who was now making his way towards them through the mass of outstretched bodies. ‘Shut up and let everyone else get some sleep. In case you’d forgotten, we could be mixing it with Fritz tomorrow.’

  ‘Bad luck for Fritz then,’ said Frankie, pulling his blanket up over his head and snuggling up against his pack.

  Rait continued past them, making his way outside to where Lieutenant Blair was sitting. Blair, with his officer’s peaked cap on the back of his head, was sitting against the barn’s stone wall. A cigarette hung from the corner of his mouth as he gazed up at the sky watching as thin clouds slid across the moon.

  ‘Trouble sleeping, sir?’ Rait asked with a half-smile.

  Blair turned his head to the corporal. ‘Just taking a quiet moment of reflection. Is everything in order with the platoon?’

  ‘Just about, sir,’ Rait replied.

  ‘Make sure the men ha
ve their gasmasks within reach. Jerry will probably lob over a bit of gas around sun-up.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Did I hear you disciplining some of the men in there?’ Blair nodded towards the barn entrance.

  ‘Just Pickles and Dutton again, sir. Those two are troublemakers.’

  The lieutenant looked surprised. ‘Is that right? I thought those two boys showed great promise. So does the colonel.’

  ‘They’re cheeky buggers, sir. I’ve a mind to put them on report.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘The pair of them were absent from camp without permission, sir, the night before we decamped up in Flanders. Flirting with some local girl, they were.’

  ‘Well, boys will be boys, Rait. Why didn’t you say something about it at the time?’

  ‘Had too many other things on my plate, sir.’

  ‘Hmmm.’ Lieutenant Blair was clearly unimpressed by Rait’s information. ‘We can worry about that when we come out of the line. How about we concentrate on the job ahead of us, Corporal? As far as I’m concerned, Pickles and Dutton are a pair of valuable non-coms. We’ll sure be relying on men like them in the days ahead.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Goodnight, Corporal.’ Blair returned his attention to the moon.

  ‘Night, sir.’ Rait gave the lieutenant a sloppy salute.

  Returning to the place in the barn where he’d chosen to settle down for the night, Rait froze. His pack was where he’d left it, but his blanket had disappeared. ‘Some bugger’s nicked it!’ he cursed to himself. Rait looked at the men curled up around him. ‘All right, which of you lot took my blanket?’ he demanded. No one replied. All were either asleep or pretending to be. Looking in the direction of Frankie and Taz by the door, Rait growled, half to himself, ‘I’ve got a pretty good idea who took it.’ But he wasn’t certain. Looking at the man nearest to him, Rait ripped the soldier’s blanket from him.

  ‘Hey!’ the soldier protested, sitting up. ‘Give that back, Corporal.’

  ‘Tough luck, chum,’ Rait replied, lying down and covering himself with the purloined blanket. ‘R-H-I-P. Rank Has Its Privileges. Shut up and go to sleep. Tomorrow, we show the German Army what the 13th Brigade’s made of.’