by Iain Gale
Clearly the bulk of the enemy force was back in the village itself, as one might have expected at this time of night. Lamb was wondering why the truck had not stopped back there at the local HQ when Valentine wandered up and spoke quickly and quietly. ‘I told him we were meeting contacts at the bridge.’
Lamb nodded and, handing Valentine the machine pistol, held his hand out for the Luger. Reluctantly, Valentine handed it over and Lamb began to herd his prisoners towards a small brick house, which stood a few yards back from the canal.
Bennett appeared from the other side of the lorry. ‘Three men. Pickets. Sub-machine guns.’
Lamb realised that they would have to act at once, or all would be lost. He nodded at Bennett and then inclined his head towards the machine-gunners on the bridge and, raising his hand to his mouth, whispered, ‘Grenades there. You and Valentine take those three. I’ll do our two.’
Still motioning his men and Madeleine towards the bridge-keeper’s house with the Luger, Lamb looked round to find the driver and guard from their lorry. The two men were standing by the bonnet, puffing cigarettes and chatting. The guard’s rifle was slung on his shoulder. The driver looked up at him and then towards where Valentine was standing lighting a cigarette, and gestured to his mate with a puzzled look. The other shrugged. This was it. Leaving Bennett standing beside the men, Lamb took a cigarette from his case and walked casually over to the driver, raising it in the air in his left hand, as if he wanted a light. The German smiled and delved into his pocket for a match, and as he did so, without any hesitation, Lamb brought up the Luger and shot him between the eyes. As the driver crumpled to the ground, his cigarette falling from dead lips, the other German turned on Lamb and attempted to get the rifle off his shoulder. It was a futile gesture. Lamb shot him in the same place with cool precision. The pistol was as good as they said, and better. In the split second between Lamb shooting the driver and the guard, Bennett and Valentine had acted. As the second man fell to the ground, a grenade exploded on the bridge, tearing into the sandbags and the four men around the machine guns who had looked back in alarm but all too late. Another finished the job. Bennett had turned the MG34 and he was firing it from the hip, using it like a Bren, on the three men on picket duty. They died instantly, their bodies torn by round after round.
The smoke cleared from the bridge and Lamb saw amid the carnage that, aside from the fact that the grenades had taken off a section of the railings and blown a neat hole in the left side of the planking floor, the structure was still intact. He turned to the men. ‘Run for it. Over the bridge.’
As one, they raced for the canal and clattered over the wooden planks, Madeleine with them. Lamb took a last look behind him and saw that a platoon of German infantry in the town was now running down the track towards them, led by the inquisitive officer. Two of them stopped and, raising their sub-machine guns, fired off a burst towards him, but the rounds fell hopelessly short. Two other men were kneeling down now, taking aim with their rifles. Lamb did not bother to wait around but turned and ran after his men. One bullet whistled past his ear and he expected another to hit him in the back, but although the fire continued nothing connected.
Rounds began to smack into the wood of the bridge and rebound off the metal railings, and then he was across and racing after his men up the road on the other side. They were running hell-for-leather, running for their lives, and now he could hear the officer on the other bank shouting orders. He half turned and saw a few of the Germans starting to run over the canal bridge. Still the bullets sang about him. Just ahead of him one ricocheted off the road and hit Bennett a glancing blow on the leg. The sergeant swore and stumbled for a moment before carrying on. They were crossing another, smaller bridge now over a thin water course and then they were among houses, in a small village. The firing behind them continued and the shouting was more distant now as they ran among the abandoned houses.
Lamb turned and saw to his relief that the Germans had not followed them. And, he reasoned, how could they? Who in his right mind would run into the no man’s land between their lines and those of the enemy in the dead of night? At least it seemed to confirm one thing. This must be the furthest extent of the German advance. There was no other reason to explain their lack of pursuit. Lamb turned and ran on, trying to catch up with the men before they should go too far and stumble into British or French positions. They crossed a narrow railway line and he managed to shout, ‘Stop. Wait.’ Mays and Smart stopped, doubled over and out of breath, at the corner of what appeared to be a signal box. Bennett turned back and stopped, yelling to the others ahead to pull up. Lamb waited until they had assembled around him and did a head count. They had all made it.
He grinned at them. ‘Well done, all of you. I think we’ve lost them. Sarnt Bennett?’
‘Yes, sir. Can’t see anyone following.’
They were standing at a level crossing, and the signal box was one of two buildings, the other being a small country station with what looked like a waiting room attached, on the opposite side of the tracks. Both seemed empty, and Lamb could hardly believe their luck. He knew that the next few minutes, or hours or however long it might take for them to reach the front line and the 51st Division, were going to be tense. What he hadn’t explained to the men, of course, was that once they were through the German lines they would have to hide somewhere until daybreak when it would be safer for them to walk into the British lines.
‘Right. We’ll wait here until after dawn. Then we’re going to go in and find our lines.’
They were all thinking it but only Corporal Mays gave voice to their feelings. ‘Can’t we carry on now, sir?’
Lamb shook his head. ‘I know a night in no man’s land is something none of us would relish, but there’s nothing else for it. It would be bloody madness to try to get through our lines to night. We’d be taken for a raiding party. Our own chaps would shoot us before we had time to speak – let alone surrender to them.’ There was a ripple of laughter, and he carried on. ‘Mays, you and Smart take position in the top floor of that signal box. You’ll have a good view of the area from up there. The rest of you, try and get some kip while they’re on stag. Sarnt Bennett, change the picket after three hours. How’s the leg?’
‘Nothing, sir, just a scratch.’
‘Rest it now then. And you, Butterworth. Everyone else all right?’
They nodded and a couple attempted a smile.
‘Right, let’s turn in. I’ll take the waiting room with Mademoiselle Dujolle and two others. The rest of you, bunk down with Sarnt Bennett and Corporal Valentine in the signal box. And remember not to switch on the lights. We don’t want to attract attention to ourselves, from either side.’
The waiting room, half-timbered and whitewashed, was typical of the area and looked more like a farm building than a station house. Lamb pushed open the unlocked door. The inside smelt of generations of travellers and perhaps more recent passers-by: a subtle blend of garlic, stale sweat and urine. In the moonlight he could see that the walls were lined with four wooden benches.
Lamb walked through the waiting room and opened the door to a back room. He switched on his torch and by its faint light peered into what presumably had been the stationmaster’s office. It contained a small, cast-iron wood-burning stove, a desk and three chairs. On the walls hung a framed photograph of President Lebrun, an illuminated certificate of railway proficiency and a map of the area. Lamb felt the stove. It was quite cold. He returned to the waiting room. ‘Perkins, Stubbs, shift that bench into the back there. Mademoiselle Dujolle can sleep in there. And let’s see if we can get that stove working. Don’t try the lights, though.’
It took Stubbs, the farmer’s boy, less than half an hour to get the stove working. And although it gave out unpleasant, acrid fumes its heat was welcome. Lamb found a French tricolour folded up in a drawer of the desk and used it to make a makeshift blanket for Madeleine, who occupied the back room. Their only light was from the moon, although the
stove gave out a faint orange glow through its doors. Lamb lay, like the other two men, on the hard wooden bench in the waiting room, and stared at the ceiling with its dancing moonlight shadows. For the first time in days he had a moment for reflection, and thoughts tumbled pell-mell through his mind. The image of Captain Campbell, gagged and red-faced with rage, was the most powerful, but he thought too of the colonel, of the dead civilians on the bridge, and of poor young Tapley, calling for his mother. As he began to drift off to sleep the image of Madeleine entered his mind and he half imagined that he could hear her voice: ‘Peter. Peter. I’m so cold.’
Then he turned and saw her face. She was kneeling on the floor beside the bench. Lamb sat up and placed an arm around her shoulders: ‘Go back next door, Madeleine. You should get some sleep.’
She smiled at him in the moonlight. Then, very slowly, she took her right hand and placed it on his. It was smaller than his own and fitted inside the outline like a second skin. ‘I’m cold.’ She paused, ‘Come and warm me.’
He looked at her and knew that this was what they had both wanted since they had first met. He got up very slowly, careful not to wake the two sleeping soldiers, followed her into the office and closed the door.
The sun came up low on the horizon and cast its light through the unshuttered windows of the little back office, falling across Lamb’s body and waking him with its warmth. But that was little compared to the heat he felt from Madeleine’s softly breathing, half-naked body, which lay entangled with his own on the narrow wooden bench. The stove had long since gone out, but the stench remained. Lamb opened his eyes and felt her body on his and for a while did not, could not move. He lay there luxuriating in the intimacy, unable to believe that in the midst of such a war he should have found a feeling that had eluded him for so many years. He looked down at Madeleine and wondered if what they shared would end now, or if it might last. Was it too much to hope, at a time when for so many people all hope had vanished? Perhaps she was the person who would at last make sense of his twisted mess of a life, who would give some meaning to an existence brightened only by the passing, adrenalin-driven elation of soldiering and racing motorbikes. For, stronger even than his desire to be a good officer, there burned within him a need to give, to be a part of someone else, and through her to make him whole. He had sensed that she felt the same, and wondered if he was right.
At last he gently pushed Madeleine’s half-clothed form away from his own. She tried to open her eyes and he bent to kiss her, then climbed off the bench and straightened his uniform before opening the door to the waiting room.
Stubbs and Perkins were still asleep on the benches, even though the sunlight was flooding the room.
Lamb stepped outside the door. Bennett was up in the signal box with Hughes, and he raised a hand to him, swiftly following it with the ‘thumbs up’ to indicate a quiet night. Lamb walked over the railway line and opened the door. The six men were seated at a wooden table eating dry biscuits, all that was left of their rations. They had, however, managed to make some tea and, seeing him, Smart offered Lamb a mug. He took it and sat on the edge of the table, drinking the hot, sweet tea: ‘Ten minutes till the off. Valentine, you, Sarnt Bennett and I should change back into uniform. Don’t want to get shot by our own side, do we?’
Valentine smirked. ‘No, sir. We certainly don’t.’
Lamb turned to his batman. ‘Smart, I’ll need my uniform.’
Smart smiled at him uncomfortably. ‘Well, you see, Mister Lamb, sir, I do need to talk to you about that.’
‘What about it?’
‘Well, sir, the fact is I’ve, er, mislaid it.’
‘Mislaid it? For God’s sake, man. Where?’
Smart looked downcast. ‘’Fraid I couldn’t say, sir. Must have been back in the truck in all that hoo-ha.’
Lamb shook his head. ‘I’m surprised at you, Smart. You’re normally so careful.’
‘Sorry, sir.’
‘Well, there’s nothing for it. I’ll just have to stay like this. Can’t say I’ve got used to it. Not right. One of you will have to cover me. Pretend that I’m your prisoner.’ Then he added, ‘Just make sure that you don’t let your finger slip and shoot me.’
They all laughed, except for Valentine, and for an instant it crossed Lamb’s mind that the man might actually be tempted. But no sooner had it come to him than he banished the ludicrous thought and, putting down the empty mug on the table, left the room. Outside, by the railway line, he found the other two and Madeleine up and dressed, and looking surprisingly neat. She smiled at him. But it was not the smile of yesterday. This was a different look. A look that spoke of a newly shared happiness and of hope.
They set off from the railway towards the west, away from the sun and down a road lined on either side with dense foliage. A narrow stream gurgled past them parallel to the road, down a slope to their right. They walked in single file, with Wilkinson in front and behind him Bennett, Perkins and Stubbs. Then came Lamb, disarmed again, with Valentine and Smart as his escort, and directly behind them Sergeant McKracken, Hughes, Butterworth, Madeleine and the others, with Mays bringing up the rear. The early morning sunshine dappled the road through the trees, and songbirds thronged the branches above them. They came to a crossroads and, put at ease for a moment by the glorious morning in which the war seemed a distant nightmare, walked straight across, forgetting any dangers, past a deserted farmyard. Lamb felt curiously liberated, almost euphoric, and, struggling to bring himself back to the task in hand, began to think about soldiering and the fact that the Somme had been where his father had fought twenty-five years before. Of course he was well aware how very different the terrain was here to the old battlefield of 1916 of which he had been told so often, where the river lay so still across the flatlands to the south west.
They had walked about three hundred yards from the crossroads; on the left side the road was bounded by the edge of a great wood, which stretched for as far as the eye could see. Lamb stopped, and the others followed suit. Bennett walked back to him. ‘Sir?’
‘That wood, Sarnt. It’s as good a defensive position as I’ve ever seen. I’m willing to bet that the front line is somewhere in there.’
‘You want us to go through it, sir?’
‘No, it’s too dense for us to keep formation. We should carry on up the road. But just be alert. If they see us coming they’ll jump us before we see them.’
‘Sir.’
They had gone a little further when there was a rustling noise in the woodland off to their left, immediately followed by a shout: ‘Halt. Who goes there? Friend or foe? Don’t move.’
They froze. It was a British voice, a deep, growling British voice, with a heavy Scottish accent. And to Lamb, at that moment, it was the sweetest sound he had ever heard.
Chapter 15
Ahead of them, in the trees, they heard the unmistakable, gut-wrenching sound of the bolt of a rifle being drawn back. The voice came again. ‘Who goes there? Answer or I’ll shoot you.’
Bennett replied, ‘Friends. We’re British, with a Jerry prisoner.’
‘Who are you?’
‘The Jackals, mate. We’re a bit adrift.’
There was a short pause, and then another voice, English this time. Home counties. An officer, thought Lamb. ‘Advance and be recognised. And no funny business. We’ve got you all covered.’
For the first time in days Lamb felt himself relax. Which was a little absurd, as at that moment several guns were apparently trained on him. He hissed an order at Bennett, and slowly they walked from the road across and into the edge of the wood. It seemed that, against all the odds, they had made it to the Scots. They walked forward carefully through the under-growth, still keeping up the pretence that Lamb was a prisoner, until at last the branches ahead of them parted to reveal two British infantrymen and an officer, a lieutenant, standing with their weapons pointed directly at them.
The officer spoke. ‘If you’re part of the Jackals, I should sa
y you’re a bit adrift. They’re up at Dunkirk, last I heard from the French, with the rest of the BEF. Everyone apart from us. The Navy’s trying to get them off and back to England.’
So it was true, thought Lamb. They were going to try it, just as the colonel had predicted. Now he realised just how important his own message was. For soon, apart from POWs, the 51st Division would be the only British troops left in France.
Bennett spoke. ‘Yes, sir, we lost our battalion up at Wavre, two weeks ago.’
‘I say, then you are lost. But what the devil are you doing down here, and how did you acquire that?’ He pointed at Lamb.
Lamb realised that now was the time to reveal himself. He walked forward and said, ‘Actually I acquired them, Lieutenant, in Kent, about a year ago. Lieutenant Peter Lamb, Royal North Kents.’
The Scottish officer gawped. ‘Good God. You’re English.’
‘Yes, I’m afraid so. And, by the sound of your men, you’re Scots.’
‘Geordie Crawford, 1st Black Watch.’
‘So you are part of the 51st?’
‘That’s us. Strung out along this bloody river. Sorry, seems strange telling that to a German. Where’s your uniform?’
‘Missing. I don’t suppose you could fix me up?’
‘I’m sure we can scrounge something for you at Battalion. We’d better take you in for debriefing.’
