The Iron Stallions

by Max Hennessy

  The Germans were no longer a fighting force. Whatever else happened, whatever else lay ahead, the battle for Normandy at least was over.

  Six

  ‘Germany doesn’t look all that different from the rest of Europe. Cold, uncomfortable and bashed about.’

  Tyas Ackroyd’s comment just about summed it up.

  The land had changed but it had changed so gradually they had barely noticed it. The flat northern area of France had given way to the flatter area of Belgium and then of Holland, and now they were in Germany. As Ackroyd had remarked, it didn’t look all that different, except that there were more ruins and the fighting had grown more intense.

  Late in August, Leduc was switched to 11th Armoured and took 43rd Brigade with him and by the end of the month, with Paris already liberated by the Americans, they had been forty miles from Amiens and meeting only light opposition, when an unexpected drive by moonlight had sent them crashing across country to ‘bounce the Germans out of the city.’

  Twice the night had exploded in flame and noise as the leading elements had knocked out German tanks which tried to bar their way and by dawn the Shermans, their fronts draped with spare tracks as protection against unexpected armour-piercing shots, were rumbling through the cobbled streets of Amiens. French people who had gone to bed in an occupied city had awakened to find themselves liberated and had poured out of their doors, yelling with excitement.

  There was no point in stopping. Ahead of them the German army was crumbling, and, as it struggled back to defend its own frontiers, they were ordered to push on to Brussels. Capital cities were good for morale.

  Autumn had come with the troops struggling in watery wastes of smashed dykes round Antwerp, while at Arnhem a plan for a jump across the Rhine had gone wrong due to bad weather, bad luck, and a curious lack of drive among commanders who should have been thrusting with all their power to the river. But not before it had done for Josh’s cousin Claude, who had been killed by a land mine as the Guards had tried to join up with the paratroopers. It seemed that even Robert had to pay his price and his favourite son, on whom all his hopes had rested, had been taken, too.

  Germany, oddly enough, started with a laugh. A German field cashier, brought in as a prisoner, complained that a trooper of the 19th had robbed him of over a thousand pounds and had handed over a receipt as proof that he had had the money. ‘This bastard had 11,000 marks,’ it read. ‘Now he hasn’t.’

  The villages now were sinister and alien; even the cafés had a gloomy air and the churches with their bulbous spires were dark and forbidding. To everyone’s astonishment, the German civilians were carrying on as normal, as if nothing had happened, ploughing, shopping, running their businesses. There were flocks of geese, full pigstyes and henhouses, even full larders and fully-furnished rooms. Compared with the French, the Belgians and the Dutch, they were plump and healthy-looking and their cellars contained looted French wine and more coal than the British had seen for years. It was soon brought home that there had been a change of management.

  The fighting was more vicious now and there was no quarter as the pressure was put on to finish the war: the Germans had such tremendous resilience there was a fear that if they were given the slightest rest, they would recover.

  How right the suspicions were was proved when, just as they were wondering how they could celebrate Christmas, the Germans, blazing with thoughts of revenge, fell on the Ardennes front and before they knew what was happening, aided by fog which grounded aircraft, had thrust forward into Belgium again. Fourteen German divisions moved through the misty forests, the noise of the tanks drowned by the salvoes of Hitler’s new pilotless explosive plane, which roared overhead towards Antwerp, blazing a trail which the Germans hoped to follow.

  ‘The buggers never give up, do they?’ Dodgin observed wearily.

  The whole of Northern Europe was deep in snow and the sides of the tanks were so cold they seemed to stick to the bare flesh. For several days they waited, wondering what was going to happen, concerned that the new attack might prove the beginning of a whole new campaign just when they were all thinking of going home. Within four days, the Germans had opened a gap twelve miles wide, through which their armour thundered westwards, and rumour began to take charge. Tanks were reported far behind the fighting line, paratroopers were in a score of places, saboteurs were in every town from the frontier to the Meuse. Already it was clear there was an element of panic running through the allied armies and there were stories of soldiers heading rearwards before they’d even been in action.

  Because of cut telephone wires, intercepted despatch riders and shot military policemen, the confusion grew, and it was actually beginning to look dangerous when Rydderch arrived.

  ‘Ike’s sorted it out,’ he said. ‘He’s decided that everybody north of the breakthrough comes under Monty’s command. He’s had the courage to do something in the face of his own country’s interest and I think it’ll see the Germans off. I just hope Monty doesn’t throw his weight about too much.’

  Christmas found 43rd Brigade round an ugly little village charred and scarred with explosives, facing southwards to contain any northward push. The Germans were sixty miles into Belgium now but the Americans were holding in Bastogne and, far from reaching Antwerp as they had intended, the Germans hadn’t even captured the large quantities of petrol they’d hoped for and were beginning to run out of steam.

  They spent Christmas Eve staring into the bitter weather, half-frozen and tired, but on Christmas Day Ackroyd produced a Christmas pudding which had been sent out to him from home and which he’d carried round for a month stowed in the tank’s toolbox. At one point it had disappeared and they’d assumed it had been stolen but, after a lot of secretive moves and a private fire of his own, he offered it, cooked, at midday. On Christmas night, they heard the Americans were hitting back.

  With the weather cold and clear again, the allied air forces fell like vultures on the German armour. The air was loud with the noise of engines and the thud of explosions and the enemy’s gamble began to turn into his worst defeat.

  As the allied columns began to move again into Germany, the world seemed to consist only of soaked soldiers in dripping woods, where stretcher bearers moved among the dark trees to extricate the wounded. Overcoats were caked with freezing mud and almost too heavy to wear, while the constant rain made the radios useless and the sheer physical strain of advancing through the debris wore them out. There were even losses from frostbite and often they found Germans dead in their foxholes from sheer exhaustion.

  The newcomers seemed to grow younger, while the veterans grew older and, compared with some commanders, Josh was an old man. As usual, the Government did stupid things and men in offices behind the fighting lines made asses of themselves. An intelligence pamphlet warning them against fraternising with German women, was greeted with delight.

  ‘Listen to this,’ Harbottle said as he read one. ‘“Do you know they have been trained to seduce you–?”’

  ‘That’s all right with me,’ Ackroyd observed. ‘I wouldn’t complain.’

  ‘Listen, though: “Is it worth a knife in the back? A weapon can be concealed by a woman on the chest between the breasts, on the abdomen, on the upper leg, under the buttocks–”’

  ‘Make sure you search ’em, Cyril!’ Robinson urged.

  Because they had defied Hitler longest, the British were hated most of all. There was no comfort, the weather remained bad and, with the crossing of the Lower Rhine just ahead of them, the ground was nothing but a waste of mud. There were mines and barbed wire everywhere and in the mud and sleet the earth itself appeared to have gone sour. Every house seemed to be roofless, pitted with shrapnel and surrounded by the rubbish of two vast armies. The only thing that made it bearable was that it was German.

  Josh’s headquarters were in a shattered school, a broken, comfortless place cr
owded with men, its walls still bearing the legend, ‘Ein Reich, Ein Volk, Ein Führer.’ During the night he was awakened by a signaller and sat up, assuming that what had arrived was the order to move forward. Instead the message read ‘11th Armoured to 19th Lancers. Personal from Major-General Leduc to Lieutenant-Colonel Goff. Congratulations on bar to DSO.’

  There were also a DSO for Reeves and MCs for Aubrey and Winder, to say nothing of a string of medals for the men. It seemed ages since anything pleasant had happened and it came as a cheerful surprise.

  The barrage started at five p.m., a continuous ripple of bangs and cracks as the guns started firing. Sitting in a cellar, Josh was handed a signal. It had come up from Brigade and before that from Division – ‘Personal to Lieut-Colonel Goff.’ For God’s sake, he thought, it couldn’t be another gong! Instead the message was brief. ‘Mrs Goff safely delivered today of a boy – Joshua Rollo Colby. Both well.’

  He grinned at Ackroyd and pushed the telegram at him. ‘There’s another Goff at Braxby, Tyas,’ he said.

  As he sloshed whisky into a mug and handed it across, Ackroyd grinned,

  ‘It’d seem damn funny, sir,’ he said, ‘if there weren’t any Goffs at Braxby.’

  Sending for Reeves, Josh told him the news. ‘Fancy being godfather?’ he asked.

  Reeves smiled. ‘Not half,’ he said. ‘Free holidays in Yorkshire every birthday. Now I know what to do with my money. Instead of you, I’ll leave it to my godson.’

  Conscious of a warm glow, Josh was suddenly longing for the war to end. He wasn’t even sure they could carry on a great deal longer. No man had unlimited stocks of courage and he was growing afraid they were all coming to the end of it. One or two had lost their nerve after seeing their friends killed or mutilated – and he knew exactly who they were because they wouldn’t look you in the face. When he had to detail crews for an operation, he always took the willing ones because he had to be able to trust them, but he had to impose a blank on his mind to stop himself realising his choice might mean death for them.

  The river was crossed with fewer casualties than expected and the armour pushed into the bridgehead that had been made. There was no aerial opposition because the Luftwaffe was now virtually non-existent and gathering together, they set off east, surrounded by the lorries, trucks and guns of the infantry divisions. The whole of Germany lay before them.

  They stopped on the edge of a wide plain where Josh slept unevenly, with the artillery going all night, so that he dreamed of a huge demon with an enormous whip lashing him on, shouting, ‘Faster, faster, faster!’ A few of the shells landed among the tanks and towards dawn, he was awakened by Ackroyd.

  ‘Captain Cosgro’s been hit, sir,’ he said. ‘They’ve got him in a cellar further along.’

  Aubrey was sitting in a chair, looking green.

  The doctor drew Josh to one side. ‘He’s got a fragment in the ribs,’ he said. ‘He should go back.’

  Aubrey heard. ‘I’m not going back,’ he said. ‘I was with the Regiment when we landed in France. I’m going to stay until it’s over.’

  ‘You’re going back,’ Josh decided. ‘When they let you out of dock, you can go and see my new son for me.’

  He watched Aubrey depart in a jeep, twisted against the pain but still upright, and gave his tank to a corporal called Cassell. Trying to remember how many casualties they’d had since D-Day, he found it difficult to remember the names, because most of them were new and young, and in the end he gave up.

  The towns ahead of them now were sordid horrors, grotesque piles of rubble and twisted lamp standards, and the stench of the sewers and the dead in the burning buildings offended the nostrils. Contrary to what Intelligence thought, people were broken-spirited and listless, wondering only what had happened to the victory they’d been promised, and how to deal with the slave labourers who were now breaking loose, fighting, raping and murdering.

  Large numbers of prisoners were coming in, filthy grey-faced men devoid of hope. Yet German officers still met the advancing British troops with the expectation of the full ceremonial of surrender as honourable soldiers. As the 19th appeared in Ohmühl, a group of them waited on the steps of the Burgerhof wearing their best uniforms, their boots, buttons and badges shining. Alone in a jeep with Ackroyd, Josh circled the ruined square warily. As they turned towards the Burgerhof, the Germans on the steps stiffened, then, at a barked command came to attention. Armed with a camera, one of them moved forward to record the ceremony of handing over the town.

  As the jeep halted with a squeak of brakes, the Germans stiffened again. Josh studied them, hating every single one of them. Such men, with their arrogant assumption that they had the right to rule Europe, an assumption that had dragged Europe into three major wars in seventy years, were the cause of the deaths of thousands of men, women and children – among them his wife – all of them gone because the lunatic in Berlin had always managed to find sycophants like these to carry out his wishes.

  Keeping the Germans waiting, eventually he stepped out of the jeep. He was dressed in dirty overalls, a faded green Lancers’ forage cap on his head. Following him, Ackroyd helped himself to the German officer’s camera, then, producing a packet of biscuits from his pocket, casually began to feed the pigeons that were stalking about. Josh looked up, and apparently failing to see the puzzled and frustrated Germans, pushed straight through them. As they regrouped, Ackroyd appeared and they fell back again. Inside the Mayor’s hall, Ackroyd looked at Josh.

  ‘That ought to show the buggers, Tyas,’ Josh said. ‘Now we’ll give them back a little of what they’ve given the rest of the world. March the bastards in.’

  They were still occupying the Burgerhof at the end of March when news came that German forces to the east of the town were staging a new defence. The ground outside the town settled into a saucer of land called the Drosseltal which carried the only road to Osnabrück. It was about a thousand yards wide, flanked by rolling hills in the north and a steep ridge in the south. It was covered with long coarse grass dotted with wild flowers and, apart from a narrow strip of land, there was no cover. A small village stood at the western entrance where it was crossed by a canal and a double set of railway lines. The Germans had blocked the entrance by setting up batteries cunningly concealed to enfilade any attempt at a tank attack. The high ground on either side was held by strong formations in well-prepared positions and American and British infantry was ordered forward to seize them so that the armour could move into the plain beyond.

  Throughout the day, though other armoured units were heavily involved, the 43rd Brigade remained where they were, and, in the evening, Josh was told to expect the brigadier. But he didn’t turn up and the following morning it was Leduc who appeared instead.

  ‘His jeep ran over a mine,’ he said. ‘The driver was killed and Rydderch lost a leg. He’s already on his way home.’ Leduc filled his pipe slowly. ‘You’ll take his place as brigadier with effect from now.’ He offered his pouch. ‘It comes at an awkward time, Josh, but I know you’ll cope. The Americans have taken their ridge but only with heavy casualties and our people didn’t get anywhere near their objectives.’

  There was more to come, Josh knew, but he waited silently. Leduc lit his pipe and savoured the taste of the tobacco.

  ‘They kept trying, of course,’ he said. ‘But the hills are steep and the Germans are well dug in. They’ve scraped up everything they’ve got: the Parachute Regiment Hätner, staff and cadets of a Wehrmacht training school, police, SS, marines, redundant submarine and Luftwaffe crews, even boys and old men who’ve been pushed into Volkssturm. They’ve even started to counter-attack. It’s literally their last stand before the end.’

  He offered his matches and went on, staring at the ground. ‘The air force reports all the roads leading south from the eastern end of the gap full of tanks and trucks and it’ll soon be too late to intercept
them, so they’ll be around to fight again tomorrow. If we can get across their path, though, the whole lot’ll fall into our hands and we can round ’em up like cattle in the region of Luneberg. It’s up to us, Josh. There’s a whole line of guns up there with anti-tank guns ahead and on either side, and, according to the infantry, minefields right across the valley.’

  ‘What have you in mind, sir?’

  ‘There’s no time to put on another set of attacks against the high ground – so – we’re changing the plan. Instead of going over, we’re going through. It’ll cost lives but it might well bring the war to an end three months early. A hole’s got to be smashed in that gun line. It should be an infantry task but there’s no infantry available, so we have to do it. If there’s any consolation, it could be the last barrier. From there the roads all run either north to Bremen, Hamburg or Lülbeck or east to Hanover, Brunswick and Berlin. With the Americans swinging up through Lorraine and the Palatinate and pushing towards Koblenz, the thing’s over, Josh. German resistance could collapse completely.’

  Josh remained silent, conscious of his heart thumping. It was the traditional situation of the cavalry looking pretty in peacetime and getting killed in wartime. They were going to be sacrificed to save the situation.

  He thought of the men who had followed him all the way from the Normandy beaches – Toby Reeves, long due for a rest, Dodgin, Winder, Pallovicini, Packer, Greatorex, Flood, Ninian, Sergeant-Major Gillivray, Sergeant Sparks, Tyas Ackroyd, Corporal Cassell, Harbottle, Robinson, and a whole lot of others. They’d all been operational far too long and his command truck was filled with the possessions of dead men waiting to be returned to the next of kin.

  Leduc was speaking again, in short bursts between puffs at his pipe. ‘The Germans have panzer brigades here and here,’ he said, jabbing at the map. ‘You move off at 21.30, marry up with your infantry, and cross the start line at 04.00.’ He paused and looked up from his pipe. ‘I’ve ordered 92nd. Armoured up, to follow you through, but you’ve first to punch the hole – at whatever cost!’