by Iain Gale
A Durhams officer passed him with a handful of men.
‘Is it true? That you’re falling back on Vimy?’
‘Yes. Doesn’t seem right, does it? We won the bloody battle and now we’re running away.’
‘Where were you?’
‘Near a place called Aubigny. We wouldn’t have got out if it hadn’t been for some French tanks.’
Lamb grimaced. Aubigny. That was the village he’d told Briggs’s section to fall back on. He realised that Kurtz was standing right beside him.
‘You look troubled, Lieutenant.’
‘No, not at all, Captain.’
Kurtz smiled. ‘I know why you are troubled. It is because you know that we will win. We must. We are the superior race.’
‘That’s nonsense and you know it. It’s all bluster. You’re no better a man than I am.’
‘But you are better than a Jew, aren’t you? Or a Russian peasant. You are English. Anglo-Saxon. Aryan like me. But you have been perverted by alien blood. That is why we will win. You can still join us.’
Lamb stared at him. ‘What makes you think I’d ever join you after what I’ve seen in this campaign? Killing women and children.’
Kurtz shrugged. ‘It’s war, Captain.’
Lamb said nothing but thought of the civilians he had ordered blown to pieces on the bridge and felt desperately ashamed that he might have something in common with this man. ‘It may be war, Captain, but it’s war by no rules that I recognise.’
Kurtz laughed and shook his head. ‘Rules? There are no universal rules in this war, Lieutenant. Didn’t you know that? We have made new rules. For the entire world.’
Lamb turned his head. ‘Sarnt Bennett, double the guard on this man.’
It was useless trying to reason. Kurtz was a slave to Nazi doctrine, and Lamb realised that there must be hundreds, thousands of German officers out there who shared the same mindset. And if that was the case, then this was going to be a very long war.
Valentine noticed it first. The noise in the air. ‘Planes, sir. Best take cover.’
The noise was clear now: a steady drone of engines. Lamb and Bennett yelled at the men: ‘Get down. Get in the ditches. Enemy aircraft. Take cover.’
The men ran to the roadside and threw themselves down into the mud-filled drainage ditches at either side, covering their heads with their hands and trying to inch ever further into the grass-covered earth. Kurtz, dragged by Lamb into the nearest culvert, did the same, although he tried to push away Lamb’s grasping hand.
Bennett was beside them and placed his hand on the German’s shoulder. ‘Now, now, sir. Be a good German officer and don’t try and get away. Wouldn’t want to have to shoot you, sir, would we?’
Kurtz turned on him. ‘Lieutenant, tell your sergeant not to be so insolent.’
Lamb looked puzzled. ‘Oh, was he being rude? Sarnt Bennett, do be polite to the officer. He is in the SS, after all.’
Bennett looked at him and smiled. ‘Oh yes, sir. Polite, sir. I forgot.’ Lamb looked away and Bennett swung his huge fist and smashed it into Kurtz’s lower abdomen. The German doubled over with surprise and pain, spluttering. ‘That better, sir? Sorry to have forgotten my manners.’
Kurtz rose to respond but found himself looking straight down the barrel of Bennett’s rifle, and as he did so the planes began to come in. They were Stukas, six of them, and their sirens wailed like banshees as they went into their attack dive.
Kurtz looked up and, still holding his stomach, smiled and said nothing.
The lead plane was above them now and they watched as its single bomb whistled down towards the road. The long columns of troops and refugees had split and scattered at the first sound of the planes, and most had found some safety in the ditches, but others had not and were running up the road as fast as they could towards the relative cover of the village. It was too late for them. The first of the bombs smacked into the road and blew ten men to eternity and, as it came out of its dive, the Stuka rattled off its machine guns and did for another two. Then the bombs were falling all about them. Lamb ducked his head far down and prayed for deliverance.
The second and third bombs crashed in dangerously close. The fourth was closer still, and fragments from its casing came spinning through the air towards them. Lamb yelled out to stay low and heard a gurgle from his left. Turning, he saw Farrell staring wildly and then noticed the foot-long piece of bomb protruding from his upper torso. Within seconds the man was dead, but Lamb’s attention had been diverted by then from his own man, for a grey form was slipping up and over the lip of the ditch and had begun to run now, away from the road.
Lamb instinctively stood up and yelled: ‘He’s getting away. Stop him.’ But his words were drowned by the explosion of two more bombs and he was flung to the ground by the force.
Bennett looked up. He was cradling Farrell’s body in his hands. ‘He’s gone, sir. And the Jerry too. Sorry, sir.’
‘Not your fault, Sarnt.’
He looked through the smoke towards the trees and fancied that he could see Kurtz’s field-grey form slipping into them.
* * *
Kurtz could feel the wet warmth on his head, and putting his hand up he found that he had been cut. A piece of shrapnel from that last bomb, he guessed. He felt it again, probing and not minding the pain. It seemed about three inches long but mercifully not too deep. He took out a handkerchief and clasped it to the wound and then sat up to take in his surroundings. He was about two hundred yards from the road and he could see the British still crouching in the cover of the ditches. The Stukas had come in for a second run and their machine guns were strafing the road, bringing havoc and death. The road was a mess, peppered with bomb craters and dead bodies. The wounded moaned and shrieked and the place smelt of death and spent explosive and the sickly sweetness of burnt flesh.
Kurtz moved quickly from his position near the road and ran into open country beyond for as far as he could in a single sprint, making it into a thicket of trees. Pausing to catch his breath, he tried to get his bearings. This was where his rural childhood really paid off. He had grown up in a farm in Bavaria, and the hard life had made him fit and resourceful and had given him a keen sense of orientation. He knew that the British had been taking him towards Arras, but had then diverged and gone north west along the Calais road, he guessed, so now, after going directly west, he must be somewhere around fifteen kilometres north of Warlus and perhaps the same distance west of Arras.
If the British offensive had been as successful as it had seemed then he would be well behind enemy lines. But part of him had a hunch that things had not gone as smoothly for the enemy as had seemed. Those Tommies on the road back there had been mostly wounded and they were pouring back from the direction of the fighting. There was no time to lose. Kurtz moved out through the back of the copse and struck out across the open fields. On his left he began to pass small villages and hamlets. After about five or six kilometres, by his reckoning, he stopped and caught his breath. Lying in the hedgerow alongside a farm track, he could see up ahead a cluster of buildings and the edge of a village. There was no sign of any military presence, but Kurtz was sure that it must be held by the British. Still, his only hope of survival now was to somehow find exactly where he was and navigate his way back to his own lines. And here was as good a place to start as any. He began to run, crouching, along the hedgerow and after a few hundred yards stopped and looked again at the village. He could hear voices now, and to his astonishment they were talking in German. Kurtz stuck his head over the top of the hedge and saw, not fifty yards away, two German soldiers standing in the middle of the road, smoking cigarettes. He moved out of the hedge and shouted to them, ‘Don’t shoot. I’m SS.’
Then he saw the death’s head markings on their uniforms and not for the first time that day Kurtz couldn’t believe his luck. ‘Gradl, Bohrman. Put those cigarettes out.’
They turned together and dropped the cigarettes, half in astonishment. ‘Hau
ptsturmführer.’ They snapped to attention.
Kurtz smiled at them. ‘Boys, you’ll never know how good it is to see you. Who’s in charge?’
‘Oberschaführer Kuchenlein, sir.’
‘Then let’s go and find him.’
Kuchenlein was as amazed as Kurtz on seeing his captain. ‘We thought we’d lost you, sir.’
‘You very nearly did, Kuchenlein. I was taken prisoner. But I escaped, as you can see. No one keeps me captive. Where are the officers? Where’s Zech?’
‘Lieutenant Zech rallied the men, sir. He said to follow you, but by then we’d lost you.’
‘Where is he?’
‘He’s dead, sir.’
‘Dead? How?’
‘We’ve had a real rough time of it, sir.’
‘Then you’re promoted, Kuchenlein.’
He tousled Kuchenlein’s hair and clapped him on the shoulder. ‘You knew I wouldn’t abandon my comrades. Now fill me in. What’s happened here.’
‘After you went we managed to get away from the village and back to the battalion. Then we had orders to advance again. It seems that General Rommel had managed to destroy a number of their tanks. On his own, sir.’
Kurtz frowned. Rommel. Why was it always the Wehrmacht who saved the day, and the nation’s golden boy, General Erwin Rommel?
‘Yes, go on.’
‘So we went back and found that the British had abandoned Warlus and we just carried on. There was no resistance, sir. None at all. Our Stukas had done a good job though. We must have seen hundreds of dead Tommies and burnt-out tanks and lorries. And so we came to this place. It’s called Aubigny. Bit of a dump. We managed to storm the town, sir. There were only five Tommies holding it, but they had a barricade on the bridge. Reckon they were helped by the villagers. They shot down some good men, sir. Richter, Bunzl and Lieutenant Zech.’
Kurtz shook his head. ‘You did well, Kuchenlein. And the British? Where are they now?’
‘One of them was killed, and we took the other three prisoner. It’s OK, we beat them up a bit. For the Lieutenant.’
Kurtz wiped the blood from the cut on his forehead. ‘Kill them.’
‘Yes, sir. Right now?’
‘Yes. Now in the town square. Hang them from lamp-posts. Then report back to me. No, wait there. I’ll come and watch.’
Chapter 9
Lamb looked across at the lifeless body of Private Farrell and cursed. No doubt Kurtz would rejoin his unit. It would not be hard to find, unlike theirs. How could he have let this happen? He stood up and shouted, ‘Sarnt Bennett, Mays, Valentine. Is anyone hit?’
He looked around and at once saw carnage. The length of the road was strewn with the bodies of the dead and wounded. Someone was shouting for a stretcher-bearer. A man close by who had been hit by a bomb fragment and lost an arm and half his face was calling for his mother. Lamb stared and then snapped out of his trance: ‘Christ almighty. Sarnt Bennett, who’s left?’
Bennett was standing at the roadside, beside the smoking wreck of a cart and its dead dray horse. ‘There’s Smart, sir, Corporal Mays, Wilkinson, Tapley, that’s all from number 1 section. Stubbs and Parry, sir. Valentine, of course. Perkins, Butterworth and Hughes. And then there’s the odds and sods. Four of them.’
‘I make that twelve of us plus four hangers-on. Good God. We’ve lost half our strength.’
Lamb walked over to Bennett and looked him in the eyes. ‘I promised all of them I’d bring them through. All of them. I’ve failed.’
Bennett shook his head and managed a smile. ‘No, you haven’t, sir. You’ve saved half of us. And don’t forget, some are wounded.’
‘But the others. Perhaps I expect too much.’
‘We’d have done it anyway, sir. Even without your orders. It’s not you, Mister Lamb. It’s the war. And don’t forget Corporal Briggs’s section. Back at Warlus, sir.’
‘Yes, of course. You’re right. We’ll head back to the town. Although it’s possible that they’ve fallen back further north in all this mess. We had better make sure. It’s entirely in the wrong direction of course, but the only thing to do is to make for Aubigny and then work our way back down towards Warlus from there. And we should bury Farrell, Sarnt. Can’t leave him like that.’
‘Very good, sir.’ He turned to the men who had crawled out of their ditches and were brushing the mud from their battledress. ‘Come on you lot. Wilkinson, Tapley. We’ll bury Farrell here. Then we’re off to find Corporal Briggs’s section.’
Valentine said nothing but Lamb could tell from his expression that there was something about the plan of which he did not approve.
The shallow grave dug, four of the men helped to heave Farrell’s body into the mud and then covered it with soil. They pushed his rifle, minus the firing pin, deep into the mud at its head and hung his tin hat on the butt. Lamb bowed his head and the others followed suit. He felt a hollowness in his stomach. He had known that this moment would come, that he would be obliged to conduct a field burial service for one of his platoon, but that knowledge made none of it any easier. He began, ‘Lord God, who givest and takest away, look down upon this thy servant and grant him everlasting peace.’
He turned away from the grave and wondered whether he had said enough. Enough to honour the final moments and precious memories of a man. He was haunted again by the men he had lost, saw their faces and heard their voices in his head. They were good men, whatever the colonel had said, men who believed in what they were fighting for, however well trained and fit they might be. He looked at those who were left: Bennett, his trusted cockney sergeant, Smart, loyal to the end, Parry and Stubbs, Frank Mays, Wilkinson and Tapley, Perkins, Butterworth and Hughes, and of course the enigmatic Valentine.
They shuffled away from Farrell’s grave. Lamb heard a few muttered goodbyes. Some of them touched the tin hat for luck. He looked at Bennett and nodded. The sergeant spoke. ‘Right lads. Let’s get on.’
They turned and moved into column, moving off quickly down the road, and Lamb prayed that he would be in time, that Briggs’s section would not have been overrun.
He took out his map and, seeing that there was a turning off the road to the left, led the men into the hamlet of Ecoivres. They skirted the place to the north and passed through three other settlements which, unlike those on the main road, were not deserted. Why, he wondered, were the people still here? Why did they not join the stream of refugees? Some were fleeing, certainly. A dozen or so laden horse carts passed by, moving in the direction of Arras. But for the most part the French watched from their windows as Lamb and his handful of men passed through their villages.
Lamb wondered whether Briggs and his men had fallen back. Perhaps they might even be in Aubigny at the projected rendezvous point. The thought of adding them to the depleted platoon cheered him, and he rounded the bend in the road with an unusually buoyant feeling. It was then that he heard the firing: a machine gun, some distance up ahead. Lamb crouched and signalled to the men to do the same. There was an embankment to their right and he motioned to Bennett to come with him and peer over the top. The two men climbed slowly and raised their heads above the crest.
It took all of Lamb’s self-control to remain silent at the sight that met his eyes. Bennett stared, wide eyed. Across the field before them, perhaps 300 yards away and down a shallow slope in what looked like a chalk quarry, a German officer was walking past some lifeless bodies. From their clothes they seemed clearly to be civilians. To the right, beside the quarry, stood two half-tracks with more Germans milling around their open doors. Lamb watched as the officer drew his pistol and emptied the chamber into one of the bodies. It jerked, then the man climbed from the pit and rejoined the machine-gun teams, and as he turned Lamb caught sight of his face and recognised him as their former prisoner, Kurtz. For a moment his hand went to his pistol and he looked at Bennett who was also instinctively moving his rifle. But Lamb placed a hand on the barrel and shook his head. The range was not a problem, but he knew th
at the consequence might be disastrous, whatever their sense of outrage.
Lamb knew at once that it was more than likely Briggs and the others were among the dead, and he cursed himself again for having allowed Kurtz to escape.
He shook his head, tapped Bennett on the shoulder and together they slithered silently down to the men.
Lamb spoke quietly. ‘It’s no good. The Jerries have taken the town. They must have captured Briggs and the others.’ He paused. ‘I think you know what that means.’
They said nothing.
Lamb went on, ‘We need to get out of here pretty sharpish before they spot us. Follow me.’
Running at a crouch, they moved quickly back across the fields the way they had come. Lamb’s only hope was that, his thirst for blood temporarily slaked, Kurtz would stay in the village. They could move on by night, he thought, try to skirt the German front line. He guessed that Kurtz’s unit must be one of the furthermost advanced of the Germans in this area. In any case it was the only hope he had. To go directly west was madness now, but perhaps they could head north and then cut across and outpace the advancing Germans to the Somme. Paramount in his mind now was to deliver the message to General Fortune. It was clear to him, after witnessing the débâcle at Arras, that the Germans were winning, and winning fast. The British might have the power to mount a good, quick attack, but the sheer weight of numbers and firepower in the advancing German army was overwhelming.
The colonel had told him that once they took Arras the Germans would surely head due north to cut off the BEF in an ever-tightening pocket. By heading north east and then south west rather than directly into the advancing Germans, Lamb reasoned, he and his men stood a fighting chance of just missing the Panzers and jumping out of the deadly noose.
After they had gone perhaps two miles from the town, Lamb held up his hand. They stopped for a moment and he listened for the sound of pursuit, but heard nothing. To their left he saw a building – a barn. He waved to Bennett and indicated that they should make for it. It would keep them under cover from enemy planes and motorcycle riders until dark, and then they would start off again.
