Fox from His Lair

by John Harris

  His face was worn by strain so that he looked like an old man, but he managed another grimace of a smile. ‘We’ve called up the armour for help,’ he said. ‘But there’s nothing we can do until daylight. We know exactly where the Krauts are. Sergeant Duffee pinpointed ’em, just before Colonel Cornelow joined him.’

  ‘Anything else out there?’ Pargeter asked.

  ‘Just the tank and some guys behind it. What else do you want? An SS division?’

  ‘Nothing else? Nothing behind?’

  ‘Not that I can see.’

  ‘Where’s the observation post?’

  Schneider pointed. ‘See that bank? They’re there. Under that bush. Three of ’em. Colonel Cornelow, Sergeant Duffee and Pat O’Neil.’

  ‘And the Germans?’

  Schneider’s hand moved again. ‘Along the line of the hedge. Over to the left. They’ve moved up. They’ve been dropping m.g. fire on the field all night. And we know there’s a tank, because we’ve heard it moving.’ Schneider indicated the bazooka team waiting near the window. ‘The little guy stands in the window and the man who fires rests it on his shoulder,’ he said. ‘Chiefly it depends on who’s got the most nerve, because we’ve got to let it get within range, and the kid’s got to stand in full view until it does.’

  The man at the window turned. ‘If it comes, Lieutenant, it’ll come round by them dead Krauts that Lieutenant Howard knocked over before he was hit last night.’

  ‘Yeah.’ Schneider nodded. ‘And when it comes, I want nobody firing before the bazooka or the bastards’ll know where we are and then nobody’ll be standing up in any window.’

  The daylight seemed to come slowly, unwillingly, as if the events of the previous day had unnerved the new one and it was reluctant to appear.

  ‘It’s a good job he got that wound in the leg,’ Pargeter said, ‘or he’d have been away long before now. He’s only got to get to the hedge and through it, and we’ve lost him. There are bound to be Germans on the other side of the bank.’

  As the light increased they saw leaves moving briskly and Pargeter’s eyes narrowed.

  ‘There’s a gun in there.’ Pargeter frowned. ‘It’s going to be hard moving inland.’

  ‘We’re getting the tanks ashore now,’ Iremonger pointed out.

  ‘Not much good in this kind of country. They have to stick to the lanes and the Germans can lay an ambush at every bend.’

  Iremonger scowled; then he gave Pargeter a little shove. ‘Come on, Cuth. Let’s get moving. You’re frightening me to death. Yesterday was bad enough. Don’t make it worse by talking about today and tomorrow.’

  ‘Wait! Listen.’

  As they cocked their ears, they heard the sound of aircraft, and three Typhoons howled over them, the first of the light catching the underside of their wings. They saw the rockets leave them and heard the explosions as they struck. Banking about a mile away, the aircraft came back along the far hedge. They’d obviously spotted the Germans and they came down with their guns firing. The hedge was torn to shreds and a man fell through it to sprawl in the field in front of them.

  ‘He’s got to go now!’ Pargeter said excitedly. ‘He’ll not get another chance! Come on, Linus! We’re on!’

  Still staring into the increasing light and hardly hearing, Iremonger suddenly became conscious of Pargeter snatching at his sleeve. As he turned, Pargeter pounded on his arm, and Iremonger found himself following the Englishman out of the back of the building.

  Conscious of the emptiness of the land in front, his whole being screamed out to him to hug the earth; but Pargeter, looking slightly mad, was running in front of him, bent double, zigzagging from right to left and back again, and Iremonger found he could do nothing else but follow.

  Twelve

  As soon as he saw the men running towards him, the Fox knew he’d been found.

  At first he thought they were two more of the lunatic American soldiers rushing to his assistance; but then he recognised the small man in front, and the burly shape of the second man, and he knew they were the Intelligence officers who’d been hounding him for six weeks now.

  It had seemed impossible that anyone could have sieved through the vast mass of men in the invasion force to find him. He’d constantly changed positions on the beach, using the desperate hours of the previous day to hide himself, knowing the two men had been on his track in England, but he’d never for a moment believed that they could follow him and find him here in this insignificant corner of France.

  Throughout the night, he’d been waiting for an opportunity to cross the field to the German lines. But his leg was numb and dragged behind him now like a rotten pole attached to his body. His face was swollen, and for hours he’d been fighting off the persistent efforts of his two American companions to move him to safety. Then a German machine gun, spraying the field between him and the German lines, had prevented all movement and finally he had fallen into a fitful sleep just before dawn.

  He was almost at the end of his tether now, his jaw aching with gritting his teeth to forget the grinding pain in his thigh. Only his determination kept him going, forcing him to keep his wits about him when all they wanted to do was give, relax, slip away from him; only an obsessive wish to redeem what he saw as a shameful lapse into fear the day before. He’d even wondered several times if he were dying, but then sanity had told him he was suffering only from loss of blood and shock, that he was fit and hard as nails, and that all he needed for recovery was to accomplish his mission.

  Why the Americans had been allowed to press this far inland he couldn’t understand. He’d not seen any sign of the counter-attacks by the panzers that he’d expected, nothing beyond small uncoordinated nibbles by individual companies. Even the first vicious defence had not been strong enough to withstand the advance of men and machines, which had never stopped landing despite the heavy casualties. Something must surely have gone wrong; and when the three Typhoons had appeared, he knew his chances had diminished even further because the 88 beyond the hedge had been knocked out, its barrel cocked up at the sky. He had to make a move soon.

  It was as he raised his head to spy out the land that he saw the German tank and his heart leapt. It had come from the trees where it had been hidden from the aeroplanes and was moving along the hedge, covered with branches and difficult to spot. It could be his salvation.

  Staring through the growing daylight, he waited for other tanks to follow, firmly convinced that this was the beginning of the first real drive to throw the Americans back into the sea. Then he realised there weren’t any others, that this was one on its own which, for some reason or other, simply happened to be near. But as he saw the German infantrymen behind it, his heart leapt again. Within a matter of minutes his ordeal would be over and he would be among his own countrymen with his loneliness ended.

  The two Americans with him were yelling wildly now and firing snapshots at the Germans following the tank. They didn’t seem to be hitting anyone but for the first time they’d both got their backs to him. Reluctantly he reached for the automatic rifle he’d brought with him. His stomach heaved at what he had to do but he knew he had to do it. He would have to get out of the foxhole on his own – somehow.

  Pargeter had spotted the tank at the same time as the Fox. He squeezed Iremonger’s arm, and together they dived for the ditch under the overhanging bushes.

  The ditch was less a ditch than a dip in the ground, probably dug years before to help drain the field and now overgrown with grass. As they peered over the lip there was an immediate burst of machine-gun fire that clipped the leaves above their heads, and as they ducked down again they could hear the heavy grinding sound of the tank tracks.

  ‘Here it comes,’ Pargeter said.

  There was another burst of firing but this time Pargeter looked puzzled.

  ‘That was from the observation post,’ he said.

  ‘That bastard isn’t giving in without a fight,’ Iremonger agreed.

  ‘I don’t th
ink he was firing at us. There were two men up there with him.’

  ‘You reckon he’s murdered them?’

  ‘He’d have a job running to the Germans without.’

  Iremonger’s eyes narrowed. ‘What do we do now, Cuth?’ he asked.

  ‘There’s one thing that’s pretty obvious,’ Pargeter said. ‘There’ll be no rushing up the field here to grab him. The tank’ll stop us.’

  ‘Suppose he makes a dash for it?’

  ‘In that case, we do to him what he’s done to those other chaps.’ Pargeter indicated the tommy gun Iremonger had acquired and the carbine in his own hands.

  ‘You any good with that?’ Iremonger asked.

  ‘Better than most. And he won’t take off in a hurry. He has a wound in the head and he certainly won’t be able to run very fast. It’s nearly twenty-four hours since he was hit and his leg’ll have stiffened. And, now that the drugs have worn off, it’ll be hurting like hell. He’ll be hoping the tank will rescue him.’

  Iremonger nodded. Neither of them felt very much like gloating.

  As they started to crawl along the shallow ditch, they were both curiously anxious that the affair should be settled with some honour. The Fox had done his job with skill and the kind of lonely courage that is the hardest of all to muster and sustain. They reached the corner of the field, and found themselves in what must once have been a German strongpoint. It was a hole in the ground with a smashed MG42, torn and scattered sandbags dribbling earth, and half a dozen German bodies, so punctured they looked like colanders. Iremonger’s eyes narrowed, but Pargeter continued crawling round the hole, skirting the bodies and the dark-stained earth, and Iremonger was obliged to follow.

  They had now moved round to the west of where the Fox was holed out, but there was no sign from Schneider. Like Dallas, his orders seemed to be to stay where he was until vehicles, guns and tanks came up; his job merely to observe and hang on to what he’d got.

  They could hear German guns firing over them towards the sea and, occasionally, the heavy concussions of the engineers setting off demolition charges to clear the beach obstacles and make the passage inland easier. Every now and then there was a sound like an express train rushing overhead as the salvoes from the heavy naval guns hurried inland to smash strongpoints, assembly areas and German formations moving up to the front.

  It was full daylight now and the Fox still hadn’t moved. A machine gun over on their right was firing across the field ahead and, while they waited, they heard the grind and clatter of fresh tank tracks behind them. Swinging round, they saw three American Shermans appear on the road near the cottage where Schneider’s men were hidden.

  Immediately, there was a crack as the German tank fired, and the leading Sherman was surrounded by a vast cloud of smoke. As it stopped and started to burn furiously, the crew jumped out and dived for the ditch. The second and third tanks hurriedly backed away into the trees and out of sight.

  But now they saw that Schneider’s men had begun to work their way from the cottage along the edge of the field towards where the Fox was hiding.

  ‘He’ll have to make a break for it soon,’ Iremonger growled.

  The bazooka team dragged their weapon behind the others, the steel pipe gleaming dully in the daylight.

  ‘Get up there,’ the bazookaman said, and his voice came to them quite clearly on the morning air. As his team mate stood up in the ditch, Iremonger stared at him, certain that now it was really light he could be seen. He seemed to be only in his teens and his cold courage tore at Iremonger’s heart.

  ‘We’ll know now,’ he heard the bazookaman observe, ‘whether this goddam thing does what they say it does.’

  ‘Get it over with,’ the boy said as the barrel was placed on his shoulder. ‘The bastards can probably see me.’

  ‘They’re watching the cottage.’ The bazookaman was too engrossed with what he was doing to be sympathetic. ‘Stand still and hold your breath. Don’t put my sights off.’

  The boy stood silently, upright, exposed in the ditch. ‘There are around twenty or thirty infantrymen with it,’ he said in a quiet even voice.

  ‘They’ll be in for a surprise,’ the bazookaman observed. ‘The bastard’s turning and I want to do this right.’

  The tank’s engine faded as it halted again, its machine gun moving slowly like the antenna of a great steel beetle.

  Then they realised that the Fox had emerged from his lair and was standing near the hedge. His clothes were torn and his face was blackened, and as he moved among the foliage, he dragged one leg behind him.

  The tank was facing the cottage where Schneider and his men had been, and the tank commander obviously hadn’t seen the Americans with the bazooka on his left. Iremonger’s heart thumped. How the boy with the bazooka on his shoulder could continue to stand upright without moving, he couldn’t imagine.

  The tank began to edge forward again, the big gun in the turret pointing towards the cottage. The infantrymen followed it, staring at the empty window.

  ‘For God’s sake,’ Schneider complained.

  ‘I’ve got him, Lieutenant,’ the bazookaman said.

  The tank had moved closer now. It looked like some great creature with an intelligence of its own, sensing danger in the cottage but still unsure. It stopped again and the machine gun fired, spraying the cottage with bullets, which they could hear clinking and thudding against the plaster. Then the turret gun fired with a harsh whip-like crack. As the shell found its target, the front wall of the cottage collapsed in a cloud of smoke and dust, bringing down part of the roof. As the uproar subsided, Iremonger heard the boy’s voice.

  ‘For sweet Jesus’ sake – !’

  As the bazookaman fired, Iremonger saw the shell moving through the air. It seemed to move slowly and deliberately. Then it crashed against the tank, but for an endless moment nothing else seemed to happen.

  ‘The bastard doesn’t work,’ the bazookaman said disgustedly.

  But suddenly the tank’s gun swung and dropped. It was now pointing at the ground and they felt rather than heard the explosion inside, muffled and deep, and saw the wisps of smoke come through the driver’s slits and round the hatch. More explosions followed, thick and heavy, and the tank seemed to rock on its springs where it stood. They all stared at the tank. It looked as big and dangerous as ever but it didn’t move, and they saw the infantrymen who had been hiding behind it start to run backwards.

  ‘Right,’ Schneider yelled. ‘Let ’em have it!’

  Every rifle and machine gun in the ditch fired and the air was filled with the smell of cordite. They could hear the ejected cases clinking against each other and the cries of the Germans. The whole group seemed to have melted away. Most of them were sprawled on the ground, killed, wounded or hugging the shelter of the earth. Only one man was still running and, as Iremonger peered, Schneider’s rifle cracked and the running figure vanished into a hedge.

  Schneider ran towards the tank, all his men on their feet and yelling excitedly, but Pargeter’s mind was on one thing alone.

  ‘That’s it,’ he snapped. ‘He’s got to go now!’

  They almost fell into the hole where the Fox had been hiding. Sergeant Duffee and Pfc O’Neil lay on their faces, the backs of their smocks torn and covered with blood.

  ‘Shot in the back,’ Iremonger growled.

  Ducking, they ran towards where the Fox was now concealed. Then they saw him rise and climb the bank to drag himself through the hedge. Pargeter climbed after him, forced a way through the hedge, and fell out at the other side. As Iremonger followed, he saw the Fox moving across the field fifty yards away. There was a desperate look about him, as if he knew he couldn’t last much longer.

  As Iremonger crashed through the hedge, his helmet was pushed on to his nose with a jolt, bringing tears to his eyes, and as he sat up, he saw the struggling figure forcing its way across the field just ahead, strangely pathetic as it dragged its useless leg. Pargeter scrambled to his feet, and st
arted to walk. The figure in front turned and, from where Iremonger was, he saw the Fox had a machine pistol in his hands. Desperately he dived at Pargeter and, as they went down, he felt something hit him in the calf like a hammer, spinning him round.

  For a moment, he lay winded, staring at the sky, still not quite aware that he’d been wounded. As he struggled to sit up, Pargeter pushed him down again.

  ‘Thank you, Linus,’ he said in that maddeningly polite manner of his, as though he were thanking a waiter for bringing him a glass of water. ‘You probably just saved my life.’

  The Fox was still struggling away from them, and Pargeter rolled over to pick up the carbine he’d dropped. Swinging back to lie on his face, he pulled the weapon towards his cheek and worked the bolt. There was a single shot and the Fox pitched forward, rolling on to his face to lie in a crouched position, as though he were clutching at the earth.

  ‘Got him,’ Pargeter said. There was an entire absence of triumph in his voice.

  There was an angry shout behind them and they could see Schneider’s men approaching at a run. Pargeter had risen to his feet now and was moving slowly towards the huddled figure in front. Scrambling to his knees, Iremonger tried to follow but the wound in his leg made him yelp and fall to the ground again, alongside the tommy gun he’d been carrying.

  Pargeter had moved to his left, walking purposefully forward, to approach the huddled shape from behind and, as Iremonger struggled to a sitting position to see what happened, he saw the figure on the ground turn and the machine pistol move. Immediately, he swung the tommy gun forward and pulled the trigger, firing in a long burst that seemed to lift the German from the ground, poised on bent legs for a second before toppling backwards, the machine pistol flying from his hand, to lay with his arms and legs asprawl, staring at the empty sky.