‘Yes, sir,’ Taz and Frankie replied together.
‘You hold that tank until either I return or you get orders to do otherwise.’
‘Got it, sir,’ said Taz, nodding.
‘I’m relying on you boys.’
‘Yes, sir,’ Taz and Frankie answered in unison.
‘Okay.’ Blair drew his revolver, then looked around to Glass, who was kneeling behind him, waiting with his bayonet-equipped rifle at the ready. ‘Let’s go, Private.’
Up over the edge of the crater went the lieutenant. Glass scuttled after him. Frankie, Taz and the three men with them all peered over the crater’s lip to watch the pair head west at a crouching run. Within seconds, they had been swallowed by the night.
Frankie, resigned to their fate, turned to look at Taz. ‘It’s all up to us then, mate.’
‘Looks like it, Frankie,’ Taz agreed with a sigh.
Falling silent, they strained their eyes to survey the area in front of them. They’d been lying there for just a few minutes when they heard sustained machine-gun fire ahead and cheering voices that could only be Australian. It was obvious that men of the 52nd Battalion were advancing towards their objective, and German troops were resisting with their Maxims. A lot of hard fighting was going on out there in the darkness. Sporadic firing continued to the east, north and south while, to the northeast, the sky above Villers-Bretonneux glowed orange from burning buildings.
Taz withdrew from the crater wall to see how Rait was faring. When he reached the corporal, he found that Rait’s eyes were closed. For a moment, Taz thought him dead, but a gentle shake of the shoulder caused Rait’s eyes to open.
‘How are you going, Corporal?’ asked Taz.
‘How do you think I’m going?’ Rait irritably responded.
‘Can I do anything for you?’
‘Let’s see. Any good at miracles, Dutton? If you are, you could close up the hole in my guts.’
Taz smiled awkwardly with embarrassment. ‘Sorry, Corporal.’
‘I thought not.’ Rait lifted Lieutenant Blair’s flask to his lips and took another swig.
‘Can I write to someone on your behalf after, er . . .?’
‘After I die?’
‘After this is all over. Would you like me to write something to your family?’
‘I don’t have a family, Dutton. I’m an orphan. No, no, I lie. I have an aunt – my mother’s sister.’
‘Where’s she?’
Rait weakly waved a hand. ‘In Australia somewhere. She was the reason I immigrated to Australia. My only flesh and blood. I thought I might be able to create a family for myself. Needn’t have wasted my sodding time.’
‘It didn’t work out?’
‘My aunt was all right, but I didn’t get on with her husband. He kicked me out. That was years ago. Haven’t been in touch with them since.’
‘I could write to your aunt. What’s her name?’
‘And say what to the old biddy? That I cursed her old man as I lay dying?’ Rait slowly shook his head. ‘No. I’ve done perfectly well without any family, Dutton. I’m as close to being an orphan as you can get, and that suits me fine. I came into this world on my own and I’m going out on my own. You get back over there with the others and do your job. Go on – hop to it!’
With a sigh, Taz turned his back on Rait and rejoined Frankie and the others.
‘What was his lordship saying over there?’ Frankie asked.
Taz shrugged. ‘Nothing much. Nothing important.’
Lapsing into silence, they continued to scan the night for signs of approaching German troops or the return of Lieutenant Blair. Either would terminate the boredom of waiting. Frankie found himself yawning.
‘Stay awake!’ Taz cautioned.
‘Don’t worry, I won’t be dropping off to sleep, mate,’ Frankie assured him.
Time continued to drag until, a little after eleven, one of their companions called a low warning. ‘Someone’s coming! Out front.’
All of them brought their rifles up to the firing position. Taz, peering east, could make out moving shapes in the dark. The flat round helmets on their heads told him they were either Australian or British troops. ‘Lieutenant Blair or Glass?’ he wondered aloud.
Soon, scores of Australians were trotting around their crater, casting them a wary glance as they passed. The troops were heading back west, the way they’d come earlier in the evening.
‘What’s happening, you blokes?’ Frankie called.
A gaunt-faced sergeant wearing the shoulder patch of the 52nd Battalion stopped to kneel on one knee at the crater’s lip. ‘What are you lot doing here?’ he asked, studying the five men lining the eastern edge of the crater.
‘Orders,’ Frankie replied.
‘To hold the Jerry tank,’ added Taz.
‘Where are you all going?’ Frankie inquired.
‘Our company’s been ordered to withdraw to the road that runs from Villers-Bretonneux to Domart and dig in there,’ the sergeant replied. ‘We’ve had to fall back a good mile.’
‘Why?’ Frankie asked. ‘I thought the battalion was supposed to advance beyond Villers-Bretonneux.’
‘Don’t ask me why, son,’ the sergeant responded. ‘I only follow orders.’
‘Have you seen Lieutenant Blair, Sergeant?’ Taz asked. ‘He went forward to find the company commander.’
The sergeant shook his head. ‘I haven’t seen any officers in a couple of hours. We’ve lost quite a few of them tonight. Wouldn’t be surprised if your lieutenant’s bought it.’ Rising up to his full height, the sergeant looked down at the men in the shell hole. ‘Good luck,’ he said, rejoining his withdrawing men.
Before long, they were on their own again.
‘Taz,’ said Frankie after a while, ‘do you reckon our lot have pulled back all around us?’
Taz shrugged. ‘Don’t know.’
‘If they have, we’re stuck out here on our own, like a pimple on a pig’s bum.’
‘Could be.’
Billy Blizzard, the private who’d been wounded in the shoulder, was lying close by. Overhearing their conversation, he piped up. ‘Do you reckon we should pull back too?’
‘Yeah, it might get a bit hairy here if there aren’t any more of our blokes between us and the Jerries,’ said Frankie. ‘Maybe we should pull back to the road with the others.’
‘And leave the tank to the Germans?’ Taz shook his head. ‘You heard what Lieutenant Blair said, Frankie. We have to keep that tank out of German hands, no matter what.’
Frankie sighed. ‘All right. Then we might be having some company pretty soon. The kind that eats sauerkraut and knackwurst.’ He raised his voice to call to the others. ‘What’s the ammo situation like with you blokes?’
They totted up their ammunition supply. Between them they had an average of just ten rifle rounds apiece plus a total of three grenades.
‘Not real encouraging if we’re going to hold this bugger of a tank,’ Frankie lamented. ‘I wish we had more bombs.’
Taz suddenly put his rifle aside and withdrew from the edge of the crater.
‘Hey! Where are you going?’ Frankie called after him with surprise.
‘Nash had some German stick grenades in his belt the last time I saw him alive,’ Taz called back.
‘Just keep your head down, mate.’
Taz hurried past Mephisto and Rait, who sat staring blankly ahead, then clambered up the far side of the crater and onto level ground. Walking in a crouch, he didn’t have to go far before he came across the bodies of Nash and Corporal Hughes. Hughes lay on his back, with one knee raised and bent. Nash was nearby, on his face, with the back of his head a bloody mess. Dropping to his knees, Taz rolled Nash over. The dead private stared up at him sightlessly. There was a neat bullet hole in his forehead.
‘Sorry, Nash,’ said Taz. In his mind, he could hear Nash talking about hot pikelets running with melting butter, about The Invisible Man and invisible paint. And he remembered the
irony of Nash’s comment one day, ‘Tell me a good way to go in this flaming war.’ Taz shook his head. He could hardly credit that the young private was dead. He knew nothing about Nash, not even where he was from. Yet Nash and Frankie and Taz had shared something almost sacred over the past few months. For a brief time, they had been brothers in arms.
A rifle shot rang out nearby, then another and another. Frankie and the others were firing at something. And then a bullet came humming past Taz’s ear, fired from a German rifle somewhere to the east of Mephisto’s crater. The crater was under attack. Quickly, Taz removed the three German stick grenades that jutted from Nash’s waistband and then scuttled back to the crater, jumping into it as more German bullets whizzed by. He dashed past Mephisto and Rait and threw himself to the earth beside Frankie, who was firing calmly, methodically into the darkness. Around them, the others maintained a slow, steady rate of fire at dark shapes in the night, conserving their ammunition.
Laying two of the German grenades on the earth between himself and Frankie, Taz retained the third. ‘Where are they?’ he asked urgently.
‘Directly in front of us,’ said Frankie breathlessly. ‘Lots of them.’
‘Are they in grenade range?’ Taz asked, unscrewing the bottom of his grenade.
As if in answer, a German grenade came flying into the crater to their left, exploding on the back of the member of the platoon stationed there. The detonation, between the shoulderblades, killed the man instantly. His body absorbed the blast, leaving the men beside him without as much as a scratch.
‘They’re obviously in bombing range now!’ said Frankie, laying aside his rifle and reaching for one of the stick grenades.
Tensing, Taz sprang upright, pulling the string that primed his grenade. Seeing the shapes of Germans approaching with their rifles levelled just twenty metres from the crater, he lobbed his grenade in their direction and then dropped back down into cover, with bullets whistling by. His grenade exploded, bringing cries of pain from their adversaries. Immediately after, Frankie jumped up and tossed his grenade. As he threw himself back to earth, Frankie felt something graze his forehead.
‘They’re pulling back!’ yelled Billy Blizzard, moments after the grenade boomed.
‘Not for long!’ commented Private Battey, as he sighted down his rifle. ‘The buggers want their bleeding tank back! All we can do is –’
A parting shot from a retreating German cut the private short. Letting go of his rifle, Battey rolled onto his back, grabbing at his throat with both hands and gasping for air. He writhed in agony for a time, then stopped moving.
Helplessly, Frankie watched Battey die. ‘This is not going to end well,’ he said, half to himself, as he rammed another .303 round into the breech of his rifle and lay on his back just below the top of the crater. ‘Not blooming well at all!’
A dull, misty silence hung over the battlefield. Taz had no idea how long the fight for Mephisto’s crater had been going on, but he guessed the time was now well after midnight. The German infantry, determined to winkle the Australians from the shell crater that housed Mephisto, had come at the defenders time and again, almost reaching the very edge of the crater before being driven back each time. Now, the surviving defenders waited for the Germans to regroup and come at them yet again.
Each German assault had reduced the platoon’s numbers. One by one the Australians had been killed. Only Taz, Frankie, Billy Blizzard and Corporal Rait remained alive. Blizzard, who already sported a shoulder wound, had been hit a second time – this time in the neck – and could only speak with difficulty. All through the struggle, Rait had sat leaning up against the tank, watching his men die around him, and finishing off his whiskey.
Taz, out of rifle ammunition, had resorted to firing a captured German pistol. But its magazine was now empty too. ‘Got any ammo left, Frankie?’ he asked as they lay next to each other.
‘Nope. All I’ve got left to fight with is my bayonet, mate.’
Taz looked to Blizzard. ‘Billy, any ammo?’
Blizzard, who had tied the ripped shirt tail of a dead neighbour around his neck as a temporary bandage, slowly shook his head.
‘As long as we stay here,’ said Frankie, ‘we’re goners, like the rest of them.’ He cast a glance around the other members of their platoon scattered about the crater. Some looked as if they were asleep. Others were grotesque, frozen in their last moments, with bodies and limbs contorted. ‘And for what?’
‘We have our orders, Frankie,’ said Taz wearily. ‘The lieutenant told us we had to defend the tank, no matter what.’
‘Yeah, I know, I know. But the lieutenant has got to be lying dead out there somewhere. What good are his orders now?’
Taz looked at his friend unhappily. ‘That’s not the point. He gave us those orders, and until someone else orders us to fall back, we can’t move.’
‘What if I order us to fall back?’ Frankie responded.
Taz shook his head. ‘It doesn’t work like that, Frankie. You know that.’
‘Then we go anyway. Who’ll know the difference?’
‘We will. I’m not moving, Frankie. You go if you want.’
‘Don’t be stupid!’ Frankie snorted. ‘I’m not leaving you here on your own, Taz.’
They lapsed into silence.
‘The next shell hole,’ croaked Blizzard, after a while.
‘What about it, Billy?’ Taz asked, turning to look at him.
‘We could move there,’ Billy answered with difficulty.
‘Not a bad idea, Billy boy,’ said Frankie. ‘We could still defend the tank from over there. That’s what those Jerries were doing until we polished them off. At least over there we won’t be in the direct line of fire. What do you reckon, Taz?’
Taz was thoughtful for a moment. Secretly, he agreed with his friend – by staying in this shell crater with the tank, which the Germans clearly wanted to get hold of, and without ammunition, they were condemning themselves to death. ‘We’d better see what Corporal Rait thinks of the idea,’ he said at last.
‘Rait the Rat?’ Frankie scoffed. ‘He’s finished, mate. He won’t see another sunrise.’
‘He’s still in charge.’ Without another word, Taz dragged himself to his feet and went to where Rait sat.
The corporal didn’t acknowledge Taz’s arrival.
‘Corp?’ said Taz, kneeling in front of the Englishman. It then occurred to him that the unmoving Rait might be dead. Lifting Rait’s left arm, he let go of it again. The arm flopped back down. Putting a hand to the man’s cheek, he found that the warmth of life had drained from him. Taz reckoned that Rait must have been dead for a while. As he went to rise, he noticed something clasped in the corporal’s right hand – the Mills bomb that Lieutenant Blair had left with Rait.
‘Waste not, want not,’ Taz said to himself. He carefully prised the grenade from the dead man’s fingers before returning to Frankie and Billy.
‘Well?’ Frankie queried. ‘What’d he have to say?’
‘Not much,’ Taz replied, as he again lay full length. ‘He’s dead.’
‘That seals it,’ said Frankie, with a shudder. ‘We move to the next shell hole. All those in favour? Aye! Against?’ He paused to allow the other two to speak. When neither did, he added, ‘Then the motion is carried. Let’s go!’
As Frankie pulled himself to his feet, Taz held Rait’s grenade up to him. ‘You’d better take this,’ he said. ‘I’ll give Billy a hand.’
Frankie accepted the grenade, and Taz went to the wounded Blizzard and hauled him to his feet. With his rifle in one hand and the other supporting Blizzard, Taz looked at Frankie. ‘Away you go then,’ he urged. ‘We’ll follow.’
Frankie scampered away, empty Lee-Enfield in one hand and Mills bomb in the other. Taz and Blizzard made harder going of it, slipping and sliding until they were out of the hole in the ground, with Taz almost carrying his companion.
‘One big grave,’ Blizzard croaked.
‘Too rig
ht it is, mate,’ Taz agreed, then wondered if Blizzard was talking about the crater or the Somme as a whole. Either way, Taz couldn’t disagree.
Frankie pushed on ahead, stepping over the bodies of men from Germany’s 77th Reserve Division, casualties of the fight for Mephisto. A little short of his destination, Frankie dropped to one knee. It had dawned on him that more Germans from the same unit might be sheltering in the very hole that he was heading for. Laying down his rifle, he primed the Mills bomb, then lobbed it ahead of him and into the crater, before dropping flat to await the detonation. The grenade went off with the usual dull whoomp!
Taking his rifle, and holding it at waist level to jab the bayonet into anyone who stood in his way, Frankie rose up and ran towards the shell hole. In he jumped, feet first, tumbling over corpses. Regaining his feet, he stood ready to take on any German who might still be alive. But nothing moved. The shell hole was filled with the bodies of Mephisto’s crewmen and three British soldiers who’d died there earlier in the day.
Moments later, Taz and Blizzard came sliding down the face of the crater to join him.
‘Welcome to our new home, boys,’ said Frankie grimly.
Gingerly propping Blizzard up against the crater wall, Taz relieved him of his rifle, laying both their weapons to one side.
‘How’s he doing?’ Frankie asked.
‘Not real well,’ Taz answered, looking down at Blizzard. ‘Between his two wounds, he’s lost a lot of blood.’
Blizzard was trying to speak but nothing was coming out.
Taz, sinking down to sit beside him, leaned close. ‘What’s that, Billy, mate?’
‘Will you tell my mum and dad I died bravely?’ Blizzard whispered.
‘You’re not going to die, mate,’ Taz assured him, slipping the water bottle from his belt and removing the cork top.
‘How do you know?’
Taz shrugged. ‘I just know. Have you got a big family, Billy?’ He held the water bottle to the wounded man’s lips.
Blizzard nodded and swallowed hard. ‘I’m one of eleven kids,’ he whispered.
‘Eleven!’ Taz exclaimed.
‘How about you, Taz?’ Blizzard asked hoarsely.
Tank Boys Page 13
