Tank Boys

by Stephen Dando-Collins

  ‘Do we open fire, Feldwebel?’ asked Richard.

  ‘Let them get closer, youngster,’ Heiber whispered, carefully taking aim at the leading khaki-clad figure. ‘They don’t know we’re here. We will surprise them. Wait . . . Wait.’ And then he squeezed the trigger.

  As Frankie and Taz ran, Lieutenant Blair suddenly let out a cry and dropped down in front of them. Moments later, the pair saw muzzle flashes from beyond the crater that was their immediate goal.

  ‘Down!’ bellowed Rait.

  The men around him were already going to ground. Taz almost fell over Lieutenant Blair. Hitting the earth, he flattened himself.

  ‘Are you all right, sir?’ Rait called to the lieutenant, letting off a shot from his .303 in the direction of the muzzle flashes.

  ‘I’m fine,’ Blair answered, looking at the upper part of his left arm to find the cloth sticky with blood.

  ‘A few more inches to the right, sir, and you would’ve been a goner,’ said Taz. ‘They were aiming at your heart.’

  ‘I said I’m fine,’ said Blair, angry that he’d been hit. ‘Return fire, all of you! Rapid fire! Get those Jerries’ heads down long enough for us to make a sprint for the shell crater.’ Lifting his revolver, Blair let off three rounds in the direction of the enemy.

  Following his example, men of the platoon began firing, working the bolts of their Lee-Enfields to eject each spent cartridge and ram a new bullet into the chamber, then firing again.

  ‘Let’s go!’ cried Blair, pulling himself to his feet. With his left hand on his chest to rest his wounded arm, he dashed forward, letting off another two shots in the direction of their adversaries as he ran.

  Frankie and Taz, running close behind their commander, launched themselves feet first into the shell crater as if they were jumping into a swimming hole on a hot summer’s day.

  ‘Will you look at that!’ said Taz in amazement, once they were kneeling in the crater with the massive shape of Mephisto looming over them. ‘What a monster!’

  ‘Where’s Nashie?’ said Frankie, checking the face of each of their companions in the crater.

  ‘He was right beside me a moment ago,’ said Taz.

  ‘Well, he’s not here now,’ said Frankie, removing a spent magazine from his rifle and ramming in a fresh one.

  Taz quickly counted the men around him. ‘Two missing,’ he remarked unhappily as he, too, slipped a fresh five-round magazine into his rifle. ‘They’re still out there.’ He nodded to the exposed ground they’d just rapidly vacated. ‘Nash and Corporal Hughes.’

  Frankie looked at Taz. ‘Nashie’s copped it, then,’ he said numbly.

  Richard looked around at his companions as he huddled below the rim of the shell crater, out of the path of the .303 bullets that had come their way thick and fast. The man immediately to his right, one of the machine-gun loaders, was lying on his face and not moving.

  ‘Hey,’ said Richard, shaking the man’s shoulder. ‘Are you hit?’

  But the man didn’t respond. Only then did Richard see that his companion had been shot through the temple. Recoiling from the corpse, Richard pushed himself away, closer to Papa Heiber. The fifty-year-old sergeant was a reassuring presence to young Richard. The youngest member of Mephisto’s crew took up a new position to the left of the oldest member.

  Several other crewmen were groaning, wounded in the upper body by the same Australian fusillade that had killed Richard’s neighbour.

  ‘Those English swine are good shots, damn them!’ cursed Corporal Hartmann, wincing from the pain of his earlier leg wound.

  ‘They have rifles while we only have pistols,’ Sergeant Eckhardt said sourly. ‘What do you expect?’

  ‘Yes, but we have grenades,’ said Papa Heiber. ‘They must be in the same crater as Mephisto now. Let them have our grenades, my friends.’

  With that, Heiber yanked the ball that hung from a string inside the hollow wooden handle of one of his grenades, then lobbed the grenade with all his might, before ducking his head. Five seconds later, the stick grenade detonated with a hollow boom.

  ‘Your grenade didn’t even reach the English, Heiber,’ said Eckhardt disparagingly. ‘By my calculation, they’re a good twenty metres away.’

  With a stick grenade in his hand, the gunner came to his feet. First priming the grenade by yanking the ball and string, Eckhardt heaved it with all his might, letting out a grunt of exertion. As he dropped back to the earth, the grenade tumbled end-over-end through the air and disappeared. The grenade exploded dully.

  ‘That didn’t reach the English, either,’ said Krank. He took up a grenade and came to his feet. ‘I threw the javelin as a boy. Let me show you how it is done, Feldwebels. With a good throw, these things can go thirty metres.’

  ‘And Krank is always right,’ said Eckhardt, under his breath.

  With his feet planted and right arm well back, Krank heaved his grenade then ducked back down.

  The explosion from his grenade brought a shriek of pain from the direction of their adversaries.

  ‘Aha!’ Krank exclaimed with satisfaction. ‘As I thought. That grenade reached the English.’ Jumping back to his feet, he primed and tossed another as several of his comrades followed his example.

  First one German grenade, then another and another came flying into the shell crater and detonated. As shrapnel flew all around them and clattered against the armoured skin of the tank, Frankie and Taz hugged the ground. A platoon member close by cried out. And then there was silence. So far the two youngsters had been protected by the abandoned German tank. But those on the other side of the tank, nearest to the Germans, received the full force of the blasts.

  ‘Come on, boys, grenades!’ yelled Lieutenant Blair. ‘Give them as good as we got!’

  Crawling on his hands and knees, Taz came around Mephisto’s hulking rear end. He found Rait and three other men lying beside the tank. Rait was trying to sit up. The other three were clearly dead. Taz quickly came to his feet and was joined by Frankie. Each taking Rait under an arm, they dragged him into a seated position, with his back resting against the tank’s track mechanism.

  ‘Where’d it get you, Corporal?’ said Taz, as Frankie knelt and fossicked in Rait’s ammunition pouches for more grenades.

  ‘Don’t worry about me, Dutton,’ Rait responded, his face twisted with pain. ‘Get those sodding Fritzes!’

  ‘I’ll get you inside the tank,’ said Taz, moving to lift Rait under both arms. ‘It’ll be safer in there.’

  ‘Leave me!’ Rait growled. ‘Fritz probably booby-trapped the tank.’

  ‘Let them have it, boys!’ yelled Lieutenant Blair, as he ran to the far end of the crater and lobbed an egg-shaped British grenade – a Mills bomb – in the direction of the Germans. Frankie followed suit, jumping up with a grenade he’d taken from Rait. Hurrying to the end of the crater, he whipped out the pin and bowled the grenade overarm towards the Germans, before ducking low.

  ‘Good job, Pickles!’ Lieutenant Blair cried with delight, hunching beside him and looking for another Mills bomb in his pouches.

  Taz took out his only grenade and looked at Rait. ‘You’ll be all right, Corporal.’

  ‘Like hell I will!’ Rait barked, wincing with pain as he spoke. ‘Just go, Dutton!’

  Taz nodded. Leaving his rifle leaning against the side of the tank, he rose and ran towards the end of the crater. ‘Heave ho, Frankie!’ he yelled, before letting go of his grenade and ducking for cover.

  There was another dull explosion.

  ‘I don’t think that one reached the Jerries,’ Lieutenant Blair remarked.

  ‘Pathetic, Taz,’ said Frankie. ‘I used to open the bowling at school. I bet mine go further than yours every time!’

  ‘Any more Mills bombs?’ Taz asked.

  ‘Just this one,’ Frankie replied, taking out the last of Rait’s grenades. ‘Watch this. Jerry clean-bowled by Pickles, middle stump, for no score!’ With a powerful swing, he launched the grenade.

/>   Krank, having plundered two more stick grenades from the belt of the dead machine-gun loader, was on his feet and about to prime another when a small oval shape came sailing over the edge of their crater towards him.

  ‘Attention!’ yelled Sergeant Eckhardt. ‘Grenade!’

  Every man in the crater threw himself away from the flying Mills bomb. Except Krank. He stood there looking at it as if mesmerised. The grenade was still in the air when it exploded. Krank sank to the ground, crumpling like a marionette whose strings had been cut. More grenades came flying into the crater, exploding lethally. Then, silence.

  Heiber lifted his head. ‘See to Krank,’ he instructed Richard. ‘And get his grenades.’

  Richard, amazed that he’d survived the blasts, crawled to where Krank lay on his stomach and rolled him over. ‘You should have taken cover,’ he said, looking down at Krank.

  With blood trickling from the corner of his mouth and soaking one side of his neat beard, Krank gazed up at him. ‘As I told you, youngster,’ he said weakly, ‘Mephisto has turned out to be a coffin on tracks.’ He smiled. ‘Krank is always right.’

  Richard watched as the life ebbed from Krank. How ironic, he thought, that the man had died with a smile on his face.

  ‘Bring his grenades, boy!’ Heiber yelled impatiently.

  Grabbing the grenade that Krank had dropped, and dragging the second from his belt, Richard scuttled to rejoin his sergeant. As he did, Eckhardt and several others were on their feet and lobbing grenades at the Australians. Heiber, taking one of the grenades from Richard, came to his feet to throw.

  ‘Look out – grenade!’ Frankie yelled, just as he and Taz were getting to their feet again.

  The pair threw themselves back on the ground, trying to curl up into balls to avoid the blast. The stick grenade hit the lip of the crater, then rolled down the side, coming to a rest at the bottom.

  ‘A dud?’ Frankie wondered aloud.

  ‘Must be,’ said Taz, looking in amazement at the unexploded grenade.

  ‘Don’t touch the sodding thing!’ called Rait.

  ‘More of the same, boys,’ called Blair, ‘then we’re following the eggs over there to finish off those Jerries!’

  Half-a-dozen men joined Blair in lobbing grenades. Even as the deadly eggs were sailing through the air, Blair was clambering to the top of the crater. As soon as the grenades boomed, he was over the lip, pistol in his right hand and left arm now dangling uselessly.

  As Frankie began to mount the crater wall, he looked back to see Taz turning away. ‘Taz?’

  ‘Just getting my rifle, Frankie. I’ll be right behind you.’

  Blair was cheering like a maniac as he ran in the direction of the Germans. Frankie and the others who joined the dash ran, yelling, with rifles levelled and bayonets jutting out ahead like the spears of charging Roman legionaries.

  Richard saw more grenades come over the edge of their crater. Beside him, Papa Heiber was standing upright, about to toss a stick grenade. Richard buried his head in his arms. There was an explosion, and Sergeant Heiber collapsed lifelessly onto Richard. Moments later, the youth felt an anonymous crewman fall onto Heiber.

  Lying there, pinned beneath the sergeant and the second man, Richard heard bloodcurdling cheers and the sound of scuffling feet. From his limited viewpoint, close to the earth, he could see the wounded Corporal Hartmann attempt to stand, firing his pistol, only to fall back with a bayonet in his chest. Richard saw a blur of figures and heard Sergeant Eckhardt cursing loudly.

  ‘English swine!’ Eckhardt bellowed. ‘I will take some of you with –’

  A rifle shot silenced him.

  And then a boot stomped down beside Richard’s face. Certain that the foreign soldier would spot him, and that he was about to die, the young man prepared for a bullet or a bayonet.

  Taz was only a half a minute behind the other members of his platoon when he slithered into the shell crater on his backside, rifle at the ready. All the death-dealing work had been done by the time he arrived. In a few savage seconds, Lieutenant Blair and the men with him had swept into the crater and overwhelmed what remained of Mephisto’s crew, putting an end to their resistance.

  As the moon appeared from behind a cloud, lighting the scene, Taz could see dead British and German soldiers lying about the crater, some singly, some in mounds. To his relief, Taz spotted Frankie unscathed. He was collecting pistols and grenades from the bodies of the fallen Germans. One Australian, Private Billy Blizzard, had taken a bullet in the shoulder during the charge, but otherwise, the attackers were without a scratch. The speed and mad intent of their charge had come down on the Germans like an avalanche of smothering snow, with the tank crewmen’s pistols proving no match for rifles and bayonets.

  ‘I think I got me a sergeant,’ Frankie said to Taz. ‘He pointed a pistol at me. I saw him pull the trigger. But it must have been empty. It didn’t go off.’ He smiled weakly as he spoke, and then, with shaking hand, reached to his tunic pocket to find tobacco and cigarette paper to steady his nerves.

  ‘Nice work, boys,’ said Lieutenant Blair, joining them. ‘That’s put paid to those guys.’

  ‘What now, sir?’ Taz asked.

  ‘We should push on to the battalion objective,’ Blair replied, ‘but that Jerry tank over there bothers me.’ He nodded towards the crater they had just left, and Mephisto.

  Taz looked over at the German beast. ‘But it’s abandoned, sir.’

  ‘Yes, but it didn’t look damaged to me. What if the Jerries decide to come and drag it out? They could turn it against the rear of our advance and cause havoc. Might destroy this entire operation and result in the death of hundreds of our boys.’

  ‘You’re right, sir,’ said Taz.

  ‘Here’s what we’re going to do, boys,’ said Blair, looking around at his surviving men. ‘You’ll stay here with Corporal Rait and secure that tank while I push on to see what the situation is up ahead. I’ll locate the company commander and he can decide what to do about the tank.’

  ‘You’re going forward on your own, sir?’ Taz queried with concern. ‘With that arm?’ He nodded to Blair’s limp limb.

  ‘I’ll patch up the arm,’ Blair said, seemingly unconcerned. ‘I’ll take one man with me as my runner. If need be, he can bring you fresh orders. Okay?’

  Taz nodded. ‘Yes, sir.’

  Deserting the crater they’d just taken, Blair led the way back to the crater where they’d left Rait with Mephisto. The front of Rait’s tunic was now saturated with his blood.

  ‘Let me bandage that for you, Corporal,’ Taz offered, kneeling beside Rait and reaching to unbutton the man’s tunic.

  Grasping Taz’s arm, Rait stopped him. ‘No, Dutton,’ he said firmly, ‘leave me be.’

  ‘But, Corporal –’

  ‘Listen, chum, I’ve seen enough men hit in the guts to know what’s what. I won’t be leaving this sodding shell crater alive, that’s for sure.’

  ‘But we could get you back to the RAP . . .’

  Rait shook his head. ‘Forget it. I’ll be as much use to you blokes as I can, while I can, but don’t even think about trying to get me back to an aid post. We can’t spare the men.’

  ‘You’re right about that, Rait,’ said Lieutenant Blair, coming to squat beside the pair. ‘We need every man we have here to keep this tank out of Jerry hands.’ By this time, he’d returned his Webley to its holster. Reaching to his tunic pocket with his right hand, he slipped out a flat silver flask little bigger than a cigarette packet. Removing the cap with his teeth and spitting it away, he offered the flask to Rait. ‘You don’t have any objection to Irish whiskey, Corporal?’

  Rait smiled tightly. ‘No objection, sir. Irish or Scotch, it all goes down the same hole. But what about yourself?’ His eyes dropped to Blair’s left arm. ‘You’d better go first.’

  ‘You need it more than I do, Corporal.’

  ‘But, sir,’ said Taz, ‘should the corporal be drinking whiskey in his state?’


  ‘Come on, Dutton!’ Rait scoffed. ‘What do you think it’ll do to me? Kill me?’ He laughed hoarsely and accepted the flask. ‘Don’t mind if I do, sir,’ he said to the lieutenant. Putting the flask to his lips, he took a long gulp. Wiping his lips with the back of his hand, he smiled wryly. ‘They can write on my epitaph, “He died with a smile on his face, and Irish whiskey leaking from his guts”.’

  Lieutenant Blair now chose a private named Glass to accompany him on his foray forward. A lean, hungry-looking copper miner from Tasmania’s west coast, Glass had previously proven a fast runner. Rait would command the defence of Mephisto from where he sat. The other men were located by Blair around the eastern lip of the crater, facing German lines.

  ‘If the operation is going to plan,’ Blair said to his men, ‘the 51st have cleared the Jerries from north of the Orchard, and Brits of the 7th Bedford have kept them busy at Monument Wood to the south. That being the case, you boys should only have the eastern perimeter to worry about.’

  Taz, Frankie and the others nodded.

  Before he set off, the lieutenant returned to Rait and squatted beside him. ‘You know what you’ve got to do here, Corporal?’

  ‘While I still breathe, sir, no blooming Fritz will step inside this monster,’ Rait assured him, inclining his head towards the tank. ‘You can be sure of that.’

  Blair smiled grimly. ‘Good man. You’ve exceeded my expectations today, Rait. You’ve got more pluck than I gave you credit for.’ Blair patted him lightly on the shoulder, then took his last Mills bomb from one of his own ammunition pouches and handed it to Rait. ‘Take a few Jerries with you, Corporal.’

  Rait smiled grimly. ‘I’ll do that, sir. Good luck to you.’

  Blair then moved to where Frankie and Taz were lying at the western lip of the crater, and knelt beside them. ‘Dutton, Pickles, you’re the only remaining non-coms apart from Rait. Whatever happens, Jerry doesn’t get his hands on that tank again. You got me?’