At the village there was a freshly constructed fuel dump, guarded by a company of French poilus under an anxious captain, and they were able to fill their tanks. Here too there should have been, according to the schedule they had been given, those elements of the French First Army which were to carry out the northern attack, while the rest came up from the south. But they found no one at all, save for a guard and a few frightened civilians — and there weren’t many of them, as the majority had fled before the German advance.
‘I wish I knew what the devil is going on,’ Colin Destry complained. The two hundred and fifty-odd tanks were halted beneath a large stand of trees, and thus somewhat sheltered from the air, but enemy planes had flown overhead just on dawn, and although they had not stopped to strafe — they were clearly hurrying back to base to refuel — the brigade could not doubt they had been spotted. Now the feeling of being abandoned was very strong. Destry sent Ian down into Lille itself to try to raise GHQ, but all telephone communication was out, and they could not make radio contact; although the Germans had bypassed Lille in their charge for the sea, Ian reported that the infantry battalion holding the town seemed to be just waiting to surrender to the appropriate authority.
‘Total defeatism,’ Destry grumbled. ‘We don’t have a hope in hell with allies like that.’
‘They’ll get some guts back when we win a victory,’ Murdoch promised him. ‘Where the hell is the rest of the armour?’
The hour for the attack came and went, with no sign of any support, and no sound of firing from the south to suggest that the other half of the counter-stroke had commenced action. Although they were sure they could hear the sound of a large number of engines to the east of them, which was not reassuring. Destry dispatched four tanks on reconnaissance, but before they returned, just after lunch, a motorcycle dispatch rider arrived, covered in mud and dust.
Destry took the envelope, opened it, read it, and looked at the corporal. ‘When were you given this?’
‘Dawn, sir. But I had a breakdown, and then there was a Stuka raid...’ he stood to attention.
Destry looked at Murdoch. ‘The attack was cancelled last night,’ he said.
‘Cancelled? In the name of God, why?’ Murdoch demanded.
‘In the name of that bloody awful luck which is hounding us,’ Destry said miserably. ‘It seems that Weygand, Billotte and Gort met yesterday afternoon to coordinate their plans. After they split up, Billotte was driving to his headquarters when his car skidded, went off the road and rolled over. The General is in hospital in a coma as a result of head injuries.’
‘Holy Christ! But doesn’t he have a second-in-command?’
‘General Blanchard. But Blanchard had been told nothing of the offensive, and the French armour has not moved. Lord Gort only found out this morning. Weygand suggested he carry out the attack on his own, but we just don’t have the machines.’
‘So?’ Murdoch demanded.
‘So we are ordered to withdraw as quickly as possible, before we are cut off. Those planes we saw this morning definitely reported our movements, and there is German armour to the east of us, moving north-west.’
They both turned to look east. The noise was, if anything, north of east now.
‘God damn,’ Murdoch said. ‘But it looks as if we had better obey, Colin.’
Destry gave the orders immediately. The other two regiments pulled out first, with half an hour between each one. The Westerns formed the rearguard, as they had formed the advance guard of the southern movement, and they allowed the hussars a half hour start too. While they were waiting they saw the reconnaissance tanks hurrying back towards them, rolling across the fields and ditches in great haste.
Their hatches were open, and Fergus was leaning out of one. ‘German armour,’ he shouted as the machines ground to a halt. ‘Maybe a division. Huge bloody things. They’re not more than three miles away, moving along the road parallel to ours.’
Certainly the noise from the east was tremendous.
‘Did they see you?’
‘I’m damned sure they did, but they ignored us.’
Destry and Murdoch looked at the map. ‘There,’ Murdoch said. ‘They’re making for that crossroads.’
‘If they get there first...’
‘We’ll have to shoot our way through.’
‘A regiment? Against a division?’
Murdoch grinned. ‘We don’t have any choice. You weren’t thinking of surrendering, I hope, Colin?’
Destry swallowed. ‘Dispositions?’
Murdoch raised his eyebrows. ‘Or advice?’
‘I would be very happy for you to take command, General. After all, you are our Colonel-in-Chief.’
Murdoch gave another savage grin. ‘All right. Those bastards are no different to the Turks or the Mahsuds.’ Or the Somalis, he thought. ‘Survival. That is the name of the game. Fergus, fuel your machines, and then fire that dump; no point in concealing our presence now. Colin, we head north. But we turn off and cut through them when the enemy approach.’
‘Yes, sir!’
The orders were given, the tanks manned. The French Captain hurried across to Murdoch. ‘You cannot fire that dump, mon Général,’ he protested. ‘I have no orders permitting that.’
‘You do,’ Murdoch told him. ‘I have just given them to you.’
The officer stood to attention. ‘I must have orders from General Billotte.’
‘General Billotte isn’t giving any orders today. And we haven’t the time to waste. Take your people and stand clear, Captain, or go up with it. Lieutenant Mackinder, when you are ready.’
‘Yes, sir,’ Fergus said. The four reconnaissance vehicles were refuelled, and while the French soldiers watched in consternation shells were pumped into the fuel dump, which exploded with a huge whumpff, sending a pillar of black smoke high into the sky.
‘That’ll bring them on,’ Murdoch said, standing in the turret of the command tank, and surveying the regiment as it swung on to the road. His regiment, he thought proudly. His men.
He sent twelve tanks out as an advance guard under Captain Soames, left twelve as a rearguard under Fergus. The remainder formed column on the road and opened their throttles, bouncing over the rutted surface. His own tank was in the lead, followed by Destry’s, then Rostron’s, then Ian’s; the rest were under the command of their squadron commanders. They had travelled about four miles when they heard shots from in front of them, and Soames broke radio silence to report that he was approaching the crossroads and in sight of about twenty enemy tanks. This was obviously the German advance guard.
‘Maintain contact,’ Murdoch commanded. ‘But move away to the west, gradually. Major Mackinder,’ he said into his mike, ‘take the remainder of C Squadron, and pull out of the column to the west. Move north and link up with Captain Soames, then turn east again and engage the German advanced units. Fight your way through them and then rejoin our main body. Understood?’
‘Yes, sir!’ Ian’s voice was excited.
‘Colonel Rostron, form your remaining squadrons into two lines, and follow me. Our objective is to smash through the neck of the enemy forces, disrupt him, and gain open country beyond. Understood?’
‘Yes, sir,’ Rostron replied.
‘Captain Mackinder, bring your rearguard across country to the east of the column as rapidly as possible. Understood?’
‘Yes, sir!’ Fergus’s voice was more faint.
‘Brigadier Destry, you will remain at my shoulder,’ Murdoch said. ‘You will take command should it prove necessary. You know my intention. It is to suggest to the enemy that we are retreating to the west, as he will expect us to do, but to break through his column with maximum effect. We cannot destroy such a large force, but we can damage his morale. And escape ourselves. Understood?’
‘Yes, sir,’ Colin replied.
Murdoch ducked down into the interior of the tank, next to Lieutenant Munro. ‘I want you to alter course to the right,’ he said. ‘Leav
e the road and advance across country.’ He looked at the compass. ‘Steer oh two oh.’
‘Oh two oh. But sir...’ he gulped. ‘That’ll take us through the enemy main body.’
‘That,’ Murdoch told him, ‘is the idea.’
He stood in the hatch again, as the tank swing off the road, lumbered through the ditch and then moved on to the meadow bordering the highway. This stretched for perhaps half a mile, before there was one of the low ridges which are so typical of the Flanders countryside. To one side of the ridge was the slag heap of a recently abandoned coal mine. Surrounded as he was by tank engines he could hear no other vehicles, but he could hear cannon fire as Soames withdrew to the north-west.
He looked over his shoulder; Ian’s tanks were rolling across the fields on the left-hand side of the road, making directly towards the engagement. Behind him, the sixty tanks of the main body had formed two lines and were also leaving the road. Behind them again he could see Fergus’s twelve machines racing up to take their places. He looked forward, at the ridge, as they began to climb.
The tank topped the rise, and he could see into the next valley, and a sight he had never expected to witness in person. Below him the main body of the German division, some five hundred tanks, were hurrying to gain the crossroads, but still on the road, in single file; they stretched back as far as the eye could see. To the left, some fifty of them had deployed across the fields in hot pursuit of Soames’ advance guard, which was conducting a fighting withdrawal; there were three fiercely burning vehicles, but Murdoch could not immediately tell whether or not they were British.
The tank was descending, and with a roar the first squadron of the Westerns gained the ridge behind it. Murdoch looked down at the handset he still held, and grinned. This was modern warfare, mechanized, grim, unromantic and horrifying. But he was Murdoch Mackinder, and this was his regiment. He flicked the switch.
‘Dragoons,’ he said. ‘This is your Colonel-in-Chief speaking. I wish you to join me in prayer.’ He waited a moment, then continued: ‘May the great God of battle, who has guided the fate of this famous regiment on many a hard-fought field, and never failed to lead it to distinction, grant that on this day, faced as we are with a host of enemies of our King and our Country, every man will do his duty, so that should we fail in our ordained task, it will yet be said of us, they were the Royal Western Dragoon Guards, who fought and died according to the ancient valour of their regiment and their blood.’ He raised his arm. ‘Gentlemen, there is your enemy.’
He had no idea what the Germans thought of it, but the radio trembled and the dragoons cheered. Murdoch dropped through the hatch and closed it above him. ‘She’s all yours,’ he told Munro. ‘Just keep her on course.’
The Germans had seen them and were swinging off the road to face the threat to their flanks, but they had been caught napping in their supposition that obviously the British regiment would attempt to withdraw to the west, round the head of their column, rather than engage so superior a force.
‘Fire as you bear, Mr Munro,’ Murdoch said.
Munro was already lost in his rangefinder. ‘Shoot,’ he said, and the thirty-seven-millimetre gun roared. Murdoch had never been inside a tank when the gun had been fired and for a moment he supposed he had gone deaf, while the stench was suffocating.
Munro seemed unaffected. ‘High,’ he muttered, fiddling with his instrument. ‘Shoot!’
Murdoch got his eyes adjusted and peered through the narrow slit in front of him. He could see about a dozen of the German tanks, and watched their gun muzzles flame as they fired, but equally as he watched one of them developed a much larger flame and half slewed to the right, one track shot off and smoke issuing from inside.
‘Brewed the bugger,’ Munro said with some satisfaction.
Murdoch felt vaguely sick as he watched a man emerge from the hatch, his clothes on fire, and fall heavily to the ground, while flames were now issuing from inside the tank as well. None of the crew had had a chance. And it could happen to them. Anything less like the glorious impetus of a cavalry charge could hardly be imagined.
But Munro was shooting again and again, as was the entire regiment, while to the left Ian’s troop had swung in to join Soames and was taking on the German advance guard on almost equal terms, crumpling it up with the fury of their assault.
And suddenly, in front of him, was open country. He threw up the hatch and looked back. Only a third of the Germans had deployed in time, and they had been smashed through by the Westerns. Most of the Westerns. He watched the British ranks rolling behind him, and counted desperately. There were about fifty of them. This meant at least ten had been knocked out. He didn’t dare allow himself to wonder which ones.
The Germans were turning in pursuit, but they would know that they were now closing the rest of the British brigade, and indeed Murdoch suddenly saw in front of him a body of tanks topping the next rise. For a moment his heart stopped, then he recognized the hussars, who had heard the sound of firing and turned back.
‘Munro,’ he said. ‘Turn this machine. Let’s have another whack. Brigadier Destry! Brigadier Destry!’ There was no reply. ‘Colonel Rostron!’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘We have support. Let’s have another go.’
‘Yes, sir.’
All the Westerns were now turning, and Ian and Soames were bringing their forces down as rapidly as possible. The enemy had also gained the north side of the road by now, and for a few minutes there was a furious melee, but the Germans, as Murdoch had estimated, had had it too easy on their drive through France. The vigour and determination of the British attack, as well as the accuracy of their shooting, was too daunting, and soon those enemy tanks actually engaged, began to pull out of the battle and withdraw towards their main force, which was still hurrying up from the east.
‘Do we pursue, sir?’ Rostron asked.
‘How’s your fuel?’
‘Not too good. But...’
‘These God damned things aren’t horses,’ Murdoch said. ‘We’ve proved our point, Colonel. And the rest of that division is coming up fast. Brigade will continue its withdrawal to the north west.’
Now at last he could ask for the casualty list.
*
The ADC looked at the card and gulped. ‘Acting Brigadier Lieutenant-General Sir Murdoch Mackinder, sir,’ he read.
‘For God’s sake, Murdoch,’ Gort hurried forward to shake his hand. ‘That was an utterly brilliant action.’
‘If I had had a full division...’
‘You’d be in Berlin. I don’t doubt it for a moment. Casualties?’
‘Twelve lost in battle. Brewed up, the lads call it. Makes one shiver. Four lost to the air attack we had to take on just before dusk. But I estimate we knocked out nineteen Germans. Oh, and two Messerschmitts.’
‘That’ll make good reading for the papers. God knows they are going to need it. Destry?’
‘Didn’t make it.’
‘Rostron?’
‘All right.’
‘Ian Mackinder?’
‘All right.’
‘Very good. Promote Rostron to Brigadier, Ian Mackinder to Colonel.’
Murdoch nodded.
‘I suppose Fergus is all right?’ Gort asked.
‘Yes.’
‘Quite something, three members of one family in one battle. You realize that, as I intend to give this to the newspapers, your survival will now become known.’
Murdoch nodded. ‘Lee’ll forgive me.’
‘I’m sure she will. And my aim is to get you back to her as soon as possible. Make those depositions and then return here. I’ll have a plane standing by to fly you to England.’
‘Now, Johnnie, if you don’t mind, I’ll stay here. As an observer, dammit.’
Gort’s face was sombre. ‘You are going to have nothing to observe, Murdoch, except disaster. King Leopold has informed GHQ that he intends to surrender Belgium.’
‘To do what?’ Murdoch sho
uted. ‘But he can’t do that.’
‘Unfortunately, he can. I know it is against the wishes of his own government, but he is Commander-in-Chief.’
‘And where does that leave us?’
‘Up the proverbial creek without a paddle. We’re cut off from the south, and we have no support here, except for the French First. Oh, the navy is saying they’ll try to evacuate as many men as they can, and I’ve orders from home to form a perimeter around Dunkirk — it’s the only usable port still in our hands — to enable an evacuation to begin. But I don’t think we have a hope in hell.’
‘And you expect me to leave the regiment now?’
‘Murdoch, there is nothing to stay for.’
‘Oh, yes there is,’ Murdoch said. ‘Jerry might just give us another crack at his armour.’
*
‘So there it is,’ he told Rostron and his officers. ‘We make a slow, fighting retreat to the south-west, allowing the infantry to move ahead of us and reach the port.’
‘Bloody Belgians,’ someone muttered.
‘I think the Belgian army is as disgusted as we are,’ Murdoch said. ‘But there’s damn all they can do about it, either. Billy, you’re in command.’
Rostron didn’t look all that happy. ‘And you, sir?’
‘I’m an observer.’
He brightened. ‘Then you’ll give the orders, sir.’
‘Very good. Have your vehicles fuelled and re-armed. If any armoured column shows its nose on that river bank, we are going to shoot the shit out of it.’
But amazingly, while there were certainly Germans in strength on the east bank of the river, there was no armour. Murdoch knew he could probably cross and drive the infantry away, but that would be to expose himself to a counter-attack, and to an air strike — there were sufficient of those as it was. He wanted to preserve his strength for when the panzers tried to break through.
They withdrew to the Lys, as ordered, followed at a cautious distance by the Germans. When they reached their new position they found only half rations waiting for them. ‘Jerry struck our dump,’ said the RASC Brigadier.
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