by Ken Follett
Upstream, the river turned a right-angled bend, so the infantry could not move out of range of the French without retreating a long distance.
There were already many dead and wounded men on the ground.
‘Let’s pick this one up,’ Hermann said decisively, and Erik bent to the task. They unrolled their stretcher on the ground next to a groaning infantryman. Erik gave him water from a flask, as he had learned in training. The man seemed to have numerous superficial wounds on his face and one limp arm. Erik guessed he had been hit by machine-gun fire that luckily had missed his vital areas. He saw no gush of blood, so they did not attempt to staunch his wounds. They lifted the man on to the stretcher, picked it up, and began to jog back to the dressing station.
The wounded man cried out in agony as they moved; then, when they stopped, he shouted: ‘Keep going, keep going!’ and gritted his teeth.
Carrying a man on a stretcher was not as easy as it might seem. Erik thought his arms would fall off when they were only halfway. But he could see that the patient was in greater pain by far, and he just kept running.
Shells no longer fell around them, he noticed gratefully. The French were concentrating all their fire on the river bank, trying to prevent the Germans crossing.
At last Erik and Hermann reached the farmhouse with their burden. Weiss had the place organized, the rooms cleared of superfluous furniture, places marked on the floor for patients, the kitchen table set up for operations. He showed Erik and Hermann where to put the wounded man. Then he sent them back for another.
The run back to the river was easier. They were unburdened and going slightly downhill. As they approached the bank Erik wondered fearfully whether he would panic again.
He saw with trepidation that the battle was going badly. There were several deflated vessels in midstream and many more bodies on the bank – and still no Germans on the far side.
Hermann said: ‘This is a catastrophe. We should have waited for our artillery!’ His voice was shrill.
Erik said: ‘Then we would have lost the advantage of surprise, and the French would have had time to bring up reinforcements. There would have been no point in that long trek through the Ardennes.’
‘Well, this isn’t working,’ said Hermann.
Deep in his heart Erik was beginning to wonder whether the Führer’s plans really were infallible. The thought undermined his resolution and threatened to throw him completely off balance. Fortunately there was no more time for reflection. They stopped beside a man with most of one leg blown off. He was about their age, twenty, with pale, freckled skin and copper-red hair. His right leg ended at mid-thigh in a ragged stump. Amazingly, he was conscious, and he stared at them as if they were angels of mercy.
Erik found the pressure point in his groin and stopped the bleeding while Hermann got out a tourniquet and applied it. Then they put him on the stretcher and began the run back.
Hermann was a loyal German, but he sometimes allowed negative feelings to get the better of him. If Erik ever had such feelings he was careful not to voice them. That way he did not lower anyone else’s morale – and he stayed out of trouble.
But he could not help thinking. It seemed the approach through the Ardennes had not given the Germans the walkover victory they had expected. The Meuse defences were light but the French were fighting back fiercely. Surely, he thought, his first experience of battle was not going to destroy his faith in his Führer? The idea made him feel panicky.
He wondered whether the German forces farther east were faring any better. The 1st Panzer and the 10th Panzer had been alongside Erik’s division, the 2nd, as they approached the border, and it must be they who were attacking upstream.
His arm muscles were now in constant agony.
They arrived back at the dressing station for the second time. The place was now frantically busy, the floor crowded with men groaning and crying, bloody bandages everywhere, Weiss and his assistants moving quickly from one maimed body to the next. Erik had never imagined there could be so much suffering in one small place. Somehow, when the Führer spoke of war, Erik never thought of this kind of thing.
Then he noticed that his own patient’s eyes were closed.
Major Weiss felt for a pulse then said harshly. ‘Put him in the barn – and for fuck’s sake don’t waste time bringing me corpses!’
Erik could have cried with frustration, and with the pain in his arms, which was beginning to afflict his legs, too.
They put the body in the barn, and saw that there were already a dozen dead young men there.
This was worse than anything he had envisaged. When he had thought about battle he had foreseen courage in the face of danger, stoicism in suffering, heroism in adversity. What he saw now was agony, screaming, blind terror, broken bodies, and a complete lack of faith in the wisdom of the mission.
They went back again to the river.
The sun was low in the sky, now, and something had changed on the battlefield. The French defenders in Donchery were being shelled from the far side of the river. Erik guessed that farther upstream the 1st Panzers had had better luck, and had secured a bridgehead on the south bank; and now they were coming to the aid of the comrades on their flanks. Clearly they had not lost their ammunition in the forest.
Heartened, Erik and Hermann rescued another wounded man. When they got back to the dressing station this time they were given tin bowls of a tasty soup. Resting for ten minutes while he drank the soup made Erik want to lie down and go to sleep for the night. It took a mighty effort to stand up and pick up his end of the stretcher and jog back to the battlefield.
Now they saw a different scene. Tanks were crossing the river on rafts. The Germans on the far side were coming under heavy fire, but they were shooting back, with the help of reinforcements from the 1st Panzers.
Erik saw that his side had a chance of winning their objective after all. He was heartened, and he began to feel ashamed that he had doubted the Führer.
He and Hermann kept on retrieving the wounded, hour after hour, until they forgot what it was like to be free from pain in their arms and legs. Some of their charges were unconscious; some thanked them, some cursed them; many just screamed; some lived and some died.
By eight o’clock that evening there was a German bridgehead on the far side of the river, and by ten it was secure.
The fighting came to an end at nightfall. Erik and Hermann continued to sweep the battlefield for wounded men. They brought back the last one at midnight. Then they lay down under a tree and fell into a sleep of utter exhaustion.
Next day Erik and Hermann and the rest of the 2nd Panzers turned west and broke through what remained of the French defences.
Two days later they were fifty miles away, at the river Oise, and moving fast through undefended territory.
By 20 May, a week after emerging unexpectedly from the Ardennes Forest, they had reached the coast of the English Channel.
Major Weiss explained their achievement to Erik and Hermann. ‘Our attack on Belgium was a feint, you see. Its purpose was to draw the French and British into a trap. We Panzer divisions formed the jaws of the trap, and now we have them between our teeth. Much of the French army and nearly all of the British Expeditionary Force are in Belgium, encircled by the German army. They are cut off from supplies and reinforcements, helpless – and defeated.’
Erik said triumphantly: ‘This was the Führer’s plan all along!’
‘Yes,’ said Weiss, and, as ever, Erik could not tell whether he was sincere. ‘No one thinks like the Führer!’
(ii)
Lloyd Williams was in a football stadium somewhere between Calais and Paris. With him were another thousand or more British prisoners of war. They had no shelter from the blazing June sun, but they were grateful for the warm nights as they had no blankets. There were no toilets and no water for washing.
Lloyd was digging a hole with his hands. He had organized some of the Welsh miners to make latrines at one end of t
he soccer pitch, and he was working alongside them to show willing. Other men joined in, having nothing else to do, and soon there were a hundred or so helping. When a guard strolled over to see what was going on, Lloyd explained.
‘You speak good German,’ said the guard amiably. ‘What’s your name?’
‘Lloyd.’
‘I’m Dieter.’
Lloyd decided to exploit this small expression of friendliness. ‘We could dig faster if we had tools.’
‘What’s the hurry?’
‘Better hygiene would benefit you as well as us.’
Dieter shrugged and went away.
Lloyd felt awkwardly unheroic. He had seen no fighting. The Welsh Rifles had gone to France as reserves, to relieve other units in what was expected to be a long battle. But it had taken the Germans only ten days to defeat the bulk of the Allied army. Many of the defeated British troops had then been evacuated from Calais and Dunkirk, but thousands had missed the boat, and Lloyd was among them.
Presumably the Germans were now pushing south. As far as he knew, the French were still fighting; but their best troops had been annihilated in Belgium, and there was a triumphant look about the German guards, as if they knew victory was assured.
Lloyd was a prisoner of war, but how long would he remain so? At this point there must be powerful pressure on the British government to make peace. Churchill would never do so, but he was a maverick, different from all other politicians, and he could be deposed. Men such as Lord Halifax would have little difficulty signing a peace treaty with the Nazis. The same was true, Lloyd thought bitterly, of the junior Foreign Office minister Earl Fitzherbert, whom he now shamefully knew to be his father.
If peace came soon, his time as a prisoner of war could be short. He might spend all of it here, in this French arena. He would go home scrawny and sunburnt, but otherwise whole.
But if the British fought on, it would be a different matter. The last war had continued more than four years. Lloyd could not bear the thought of wasting four years of his life in a prisoner-of-war camp. To avoid that, he decided, he would try to escape.
Dieter reappeared carrying half a dozen spades.
Lloyd gave them to the strongest men, and the work went faster.
At some point the prisoners would have to be moved to a permanent camp. That would be the time to make a run for it. Based on experience in Spain, Lloyd guessed that the army would not prioritize the guarding of prisoners. If one tried to get away he might succeed, or he might be shot dead; either way, it was one less mouth to feed.
They spent the rest of the day completing the latrines. Apart from the improvement in hygiene, this project had boosted morale, and Lloyd lay awake that night, looking at the stars, trying to think of other communal activities he might organize. He decided on a grand athletics contest, a prison-camp Olympic Games.
But he did not have the chance to put this into practice, for the next morning they were marched away.
At first he was not sure of the direction they were taking, but before long they got on to a Route Napoléon two-lane road and began to go steadily east. In all probability, Lloyd thought, they were intended to walk all the way to Germany.
Once there, he knew, escape would be much more difficult. He had to seize this opportunity. And the sooner the better. He was scared – those guards had guns – but determined.
There was not much motor traffic other than the occasional German staff car, but the road was busy with people on foot, heading in the opposite direction. With their possessions in handcarts and wheelbarrows, some driving their livestock ahead of them, they were clearly refugees whose homes had been destroyed in battle. That was a heartening sign, Lloyd told himself. An escaped prisoner might hide himself among them.
The prisoners were lightly guarded. There were only ten Germans in charge of this moving column of a thousand men. The guards had one car and a motorcycle; the rest were on foot and on civilian bicycles which they must have commandeered from the locals.
All the same, escape seemed hopeless at first. There were no English-style hedgerows to provide cover, and the ditches were too shallow to hide in. A man running away would provide an easy target for a competent rifleman.
Then they entered a village. Here it was a little harder for the guards to keep an eye on everyone. Local men and women stood at the edges of the column, staring at the prisoners. A small flock of sheep got mixed up with them. There were cottages and shops beside the road. Lloyd watched hopefully for his opportunity. He needed a place to hide instantly, an open door or a passage between houses or a bush to hide behind. And he needed to be passing it at a moment when none of the guards was in sight.
In a couple of minutes he had left the village behind without spotting his opportunity.
He felt annoyed, and told himself to be patient. There would be more chances. It was a long way to Germany. On the other hand, with every day that passed the Germans would tighten their grip on conquered territory, improve their organization, impose curfews and passes and checkpoints, stop the movement of refugees. Being on the run would be easier at first, harder as time went on.
It was hot, and he took off his uniform jacket and tie. He would get rid of them as soon as he could. Close up he probably still looked like a British soldier, in his khaki trousers and shirt, but at a distance he hoped he would not be so conspicuous.
They passed through two more villages then came to a small town. This should present some possible escape routes, Lloyd thought nervously. He realized that a part of him hoped he would not see a good opportunity, would not have to put himself in danger of those rifles. Was he getting accustomed to captivity already? It was too easy to continue marching, footsore but safe. He had to snap out of it.
The road through the town was unfortunately broad. The column kept to the middle of the street, leaving wide aisles either side that would have to be crossed before an escaper could find concealment. Some shops were closed and a few buildings were boarded up, but Lloyd could see promising-looking alleys, cafés with open doors, a church – but he could not get to any of them unobserved.
He studied the faces of the townspeople as they stared at the passing prisoners. Were they sympathetic? Would they remember that these men had fought for France? Or would they be understandably terrified of the Germans, and refuse to put themselves in danger? Half and half, probably. Some would risk their lives to help, others would hand him over to the Germans in a heartbeat. And he would not be able to tell the difference until it was too late.
They reached the town centre. I’ve lost half my opportunities already, he told himself. I have to act.
Up ahead he saw a crossroads. An oncoming line of traffic was waiting to turn left, its way blocked by the marching men. Lloyd saw a civilian pickup truck in the queue. Dusty and battered, it looked as if it might belong to a builder or a road mender. The back was open, but Lloyd could not see inside, for its sides were high.
He thought he might be able to pull himself up the side and scramble over the edge into the truck.
Once inside he could not be seen by anyone standing or walking on the street, nor by the guards on their bikes. But he would be plainly visible to people looking out of the upstairs windows of the buildings that lined the streets. Would they betray him?
He came closer to the truck.
He looked back. The nearest guard was two hundred yards behind.
He looked ahead. A guard on a bicycle was twenty yards in front.
He said to the man beside him: ‘Hold this for me, would you?’ and gave him his jacket.
He drew level with the front of the truck. At the wheel was a bored-looking man in overalls and a beret with a cigarette dangling from his lip. Lloyd passed him. Then he was level with the side of the truck. There was no time to check the guards again.
Without breaking step, Lloyd put both hands on the side of the truck, heaved himself up, threw one leg over then the other, and fell inside, hitting the bed of the truck with
a crash that seemed terribly loud despite the tramp of a thousand pairs of feet. He flattened himself immediately. He lay still, listening for a clamour of shouted German, the roar of a motorcycle approaching, the crack of a rifle shot.
He heard the irregular snore of the truck’s engine, the stamp and shuffle of the prisoners’ feet, the background noises of a small town’s traffic and people. Had he got away with it?
He looked around him, keeping his head low. In the truck with him were buckets, planks, a ladder and a wheelbarrow. He had been hoping for a few sacks with which to cover himself, but there were none.
He heard a motorcycle. It seemed to come to a halt nearby. Then, a few inches from his head, someone spoke French with a strong German accent. ‘Where are you going?’ A guard was talking to the truck driver, Lloyd figured with a racing heart. Would the guard try to look into the back?
He heard the driver reply, an indignant stream of fast French that Lloyd could not decipher. The German soldier almost certainly could not understand it either. He asked the question again.
Looking up, Lloyd saw two women at a high window overlooking the street. They were staring at him, mouths open in surprise. One was pointing, her arm sticking out through the open window.
Lloyd tried to catch her eye. Lying still, he moved one hand from side to side in a gesture that meant: ‘No.’
She got the message. She withdrew her arm suddenly and covered her mouth with her hand as if realizing, with horror, that her pointing could be a sentence of death.
Lloyd wanted both women to move away from the window, but that was too much to hope for, and they continued to stare.
Then the motorcycle guard seemed to decide not to pursue his enquiry for, a moment later, the motorcycle roared away.
The sound of feet receded. The body of prisoners had passed. Was Lloyd free?
