Forced March

by Leo Kessler

  ‘Spare me the humour, Schulze,’ the Butcher said weakly, wiping the beads of sweat from his forehead with the back of his big hand. ‘A big Hamburg dummy like you simply can’t understand what pain I’m in.’

  Schulze bit back an angry retort. ‘Listen Metzger,’ he snapped. ‘Something’s happened to the Battalion at Belleville. There’s a lot of shit flying about up there and from here you can see a couple of the Frog houses are burning. I think Wotan is catching a packet.’

  ‘And what am I supposed to do about it?’

  ‘Release those Mark IVs of yours outside.’

  ‘Yeah, send them up that road at the double,’ Matz added. ‘A couple of 75mms1 would sort out the mess.’

  The Butcher thrust out both hands, clutching wads of toilet paper, as if he wished to sweep them out of the NCOs’ latrine for good. ‘Heaven, arse and twine, man,’ he cried, ‘can’t you see I’m about to snuff it? My guts feel as if they’re chucking hand grenades about in there.’

  ‘Couldn’t happen to a nicer feller,’ Matz commented in an aside to his running mate. ‘I hope the bastard blows all his gaskets.’

  Metzger didn’t hear. ‘Listen, I can’t release those Mark IVs for two reasons. One – the CO says those tanks don’t move without his express, personal permission. Two, that bunch of wet-tailed greenbeaks outside, who are supposed to man them, would be about as much use as a peterman in a home for warm brothers. They’d kill each other quicker than they would the Tommies!’

  ‘But Sergeant Major,’ Matz protested hotly. ‘Perhaps the Vulture ain’t in a position to call for the tanks. For all we know he might be up to his big beak in shit at Belleville.’

  The Butcher farted, his stomach rolling crazily like the opening to the third act of the Gotterdammerung. ‘Leave me, I feel another attack coming on.’ He gripped the sides of the thunderbox, as if he might be blown off it at any moment, the veins standing out crimson at the temples. Under his sweat-soaked shirt, Schulze could see the muscles of his stomach making alarming involuntary contractions.

  ‘Holy strawsack,’ Matz breathed in awe. ‘I do believe you’re going to give birth in a minute, Sergeant-Major!’

  ‘If I could only find the Frog who brewed that beer we drunk last night,’ Sergeant-Major Metzger groaned, the sweat streaming down his broad face in rivulets, ‘I’ll cut his nuts off with one of his own beer bottles.’

  ‘Metzger,’ Schulze cut in. ‘Son of whore, what a chance this will be for you! All right, so those wet-tails outside have still got eggshells behind their spoons. There are three of us, all experienced tankmen. We could run the show on that basis.’ He leaned forward eagerly, his blue eyes glowing. ‘Imagine it, Metzger, you’ll go down in the Wotan’s regimental history. Sergeant-Major Metzger, while suffering grievously from the shits, threw himself fearlessly into the battle of Dieppe. When his leg was blown off –’

  ‘He seized it like a club,’ Matz continued, ‘and waded bravely into the mass of buck-teethed Tommies.’

  ‘And when finally he had his yellow turnip blown off, he tucked it under his arm and snapped to attention –’

  ‘Where his severed head yelled Heil Hitler before he keeled over and fell dead, the sole victor.’

  ‘Come, you, hero, do you want to live for ever?’

  But the Butcher was not to be persuaded. ‘Yer can talk till yer rupture yerselves,’ he said. ‘But I’m not going to release those shitting Mark IVs till I get a direct order from the CO – and that’s that!’

  Thus in the end they were forced to give up. Schulze looked at Matz. ‘It’s no go, Matzi. Let’s get out of here before the yellow bastard gases us with all that green smoke he’s making.’

  As they retreated from the latrine, Schulze stopped and looked up the coast. The sun was already beginning to rise, flushing the sky a warm pink. Against it, two columns of black smoke rose lazily into the still air above Belleville. Beyond it, out to sea, he could just make out the hazy dark shapes of warships. It was obvious that the Tommies were landing in force and that the Wotan hadn’t reached the Battery yet. ‘Listen Matzi,’ he said, ‘you know how Goethe defined rape?’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘Woman with skirt up can run faster than man with trousers down.’

  ‘Did Goethe say that?’

  ‘No, of course he didn’t, you stupid little monkey’s turd!’

  ‘Well, why mention it then?’

  ‘Because it proves a point.’

  Matz shook his head. ‘You know sometimes Schulze I think you’ve got a little bird up here,’ he tapped his temple, ‘which goes twit-twit all the time.’

  Schulze ignored him. ‘See here, if we took over those wet-tails and the Mark IVs, who’s there to stop us?’

  ‘The Butcher.’

  ‘Right and where’s the Butcher now?’

  ‘He’s making green smoke on his thunderbox.’

  ‘So, how fast is he going to run with his knickers around his ankles? Get me, dummy?’

  Matz’s wrinkled face broke into an evil smile. He winked conspiratorially. ‘Get you. Well, come on, what are you waiting for, you big Hamburg dum-dum!’

  Hurriedly they crossed to where the five Mark IVs were buried beneath their mass of camouflage, sole survivors of the thirty odd with which they entered the fighting in Russia that spring. Around them their youthful, black-clad crews stared, half in fear and half in eagerness to get into action, at the armada slowly emerging from the haze above the sea.

  ‘Pay attention, you bunch of aspagarus Tarzans, I want to talk to you!’ bellowed Schulze above the noise.

  The youths turned round curiously, staring down from the tanks’ camouflaged decks at the two NCOs, the one with his wooden leg, the other with two monstrously wrinkled white hands. ‘You all know me, I’m Schulze, the First Company’s pox-cop.’

  There were a few hesitant laughs.

  ‘That’s right,’ Schulze urged, ‘get it off yer consumptive little chests, because it’ll be the last laugh you’ll get this day! Now all of you are shitty wet-tailed greenbacks, although you might think you’re soldiers take it from an old head like me, you ain’t. But this day I’m going to do you a favour. Your days of being Christmas Tree soldiers are over.’ He poked a hideously white thumb at his broad chest heavy with the decorations of three years war, ‘Sergeant Schulze is going to turn you into real soldiers – for nothing.’

  The laughs were fewer this time. But Schulze was pleased to see the look of eager determination in the young men’s eyes.

  ‘Now you can drive and you fire a 75mm – that’s all. You know nothing about tank tactics or how to fight a Mark IV. Let us understand that right from the start. Matz here is going to give you the short course, aren’t you, Corporal?’

  Matz didn’t hesitate. He limped forward and pushed aside his big crony. ‘All right, wet-tails, I’m going to tell you this one time and one time only. The second time, you’ll be dead, looking at the potatoes from beneath. So get it! In the kind of street-fighting against infantry we’re going into, there are three things to remember. One, keep the arse of yer Mark IV covered all the time, otherwise some nasty Tommy’s gonna stick a bazooka round up it – without the vaseline. Two,’ he ticked the point on his dirty fingers. ‘Keep correct road distance – two hundred metres is best. So if the feller at the point buys it, you can still bug out – er, execute a tactical retreat. Thirdly,’ Matz rolled his evil little eyes around, taking in their tense smooth faces, wondering just how many of these innocents would survive the day, ‘watch the road verges on the roads around here. They’ll give way just like that,’ he clicked his fingers sharply, ‘under the weight of your Mark IV. And a bunch of dum-dums like you wouldn’t have a hope in hell of getting out again. You’d be sitting ducks for the Tommy infantry – and they’d just love to toast your eggs with one of those flame-throwers of theirs till they’re nice and crisp and as black as Satan’s arse!’

  ‘All right,’ Schulze broke in. ‘That’s enough of the shor
t course, Corporal Matz, we don’t want these nice lads wetting their knickers before they’ve even seen a Tommy, do we?’

  He looked up at the blond, hard-jawed young lance-corporal standing on the deck of the nearest Mark IV. ‘You, laddie. I’m going to take your tank as my command tank. Clear?’

  ‘Clear, sir!’ the boy sprang to attention as if he were speaking to the Vulture himself.

  ‘The rest of you will proceed up the road to Belleville at the distance Corporal Matz proscribed. Gunners watch out for Tommies in the field. If you see one of them carrying a long blunt thing, it won’t be his erection or his box of sandwiches, it’ll be a bazooka. Don’t hesitate, knock the bastard out before he screws you. I shall take my command vehicle and try to guard the right flank. That’s the one closest to the sea, the way the Tommies are going to come in. The ground’s dicey, but I’m relying on the talents of Corporal Matz, cripple though he is, to get us through safely. If he don’t,’ he added threateningly, ‘I’m going to hand him over personally to the Tommies and let them have a dose of him – I’ve had enough … Once we hit the village, I’ll request infantry cover from the rest of the Battalion and then we’ll go in and really give those Tommies a nasty swift kick up their skinny, tea-drinking asses. Clear?’

  ‘Clear, Sergeant!’ they bellowed back.

  Schulze looked at them for a moment as they stood there above him, silhouetted against the blood-red rays of the rising sun and his face softened. ‘Don’t worry, lads, old Schulze won’t let you down,’ he said. Then his voice hardened again. ‘All right mount up!’ he bellowed.

  They scrambled into their vehicles, gunners and drivers sliding hastily into their separate hatches. On the turrets the commanders slipped into their earphones. Schulze pushed past the lance-corporal. Below Matz pressed the red button. The tank’s 400hp engines coughed throatily like a heavy smoker on a cold morning. Nothing. He pressed the button again. A faint whirr. Something stirred behind. ‘Come on, Matzi,’ Schulze bellowed impatiently. ‘The Tommies’ll be back in England for tea by the time you get shitting well started!’ Matz stabbed the button for a third time. Suddenly the great engines sprang into noisy life and the whole massive metal monster shook wildly. Matz gunned the engines. Schulze quickly checked the line to see if everybody had started up. Then he waved his hand round his head and pointed forward. ‘Roll ’em, my lucky lads,’ he yelled above the tremendous racket. ‘We’re going to pay the English gentlemen a visit!’

  Behind them, Sergeant Major Metzger staggered out of the latrine holding up his unbuttoned trousers with both hands. ‘Stop,’ he cried desperately, ‘you can’t shitting well go off like that.’

  He attempted to run forward to stop Schulze. But his pants dropped to his knees. He staggered, tried to prevent himself from falling but sprawled full length in the dust, his trousers around his knees, his massive bottom thrust towards the sky.

  ‘Will wonders never cease?’ a happy Schulze laughed, ‘the moon has risen already!’

  Note

  1 The calibre of the gun carried by the Mark IV tank. (Transl.)

  FIVE

  ‘Awfully nice of the old Hun, what, sir,’ Freddy remarked airily, surveying the gully packed five foot deep with wire which led up the cliff from the shore. ‘Weally makes a chap feel welcome.’

  ‘Yer ain’t bloodily well kidding, Freddy,’ returned the Laird, taking in the scene on the lonely, still beach. A haze of mist and smoke had drifted across the sea behind them. Nevertheless it was clear that theirs was the only Eureka of the 7th Commando’s force which had survived the E-boat attack. Nearly four hundred of his men had bought it within a matter of minutes, dead or drowned even before they had had a chance to have a go at the Jerries.

  ‘Well, Freddy,’ the Colonel concluded, ‘it looks as if at least the buggers haven’t spotted us.’

  The tall Scots Guards’ officer nodded. ‘But somebody’s getting a bit of a pasting not far off.’ He swept his cane in the direction from which the persistent crackle of small arms fire was coming.

  ‘That’ll be the lads of the Froggie Resistance – the op Lord Louis laid on for us. All right, let’s get down to cases.’ He swung round to the men crouched in a semi-circle around him in the wet sand, weapons at the alert, their craggy, long Highland faces tense but determined. ‘Look lads, I won’t joss yer, we’re right up the proverbial creek without a sodding paddle. But we’ve been in worse fixes than this before. Think of the ruddy ballsup at Vaagso for example.’

  ‘Ay, ay, yer right there, Laird,’ came the rumble of agreement from the men.

  The little CO breathed a sigh of relief and thanked God for the steadiness of his Jocks; cockneys from the Big Smoke would have reacted a lot differently. ‘Okay, lads, we’re gonna have a bash at that Battery. There are only eighteen of us and I don’t think we can take the ruddy place as originally planned. But I do think we can have a bloody good try at harassing them.’ He looked carefully round at their red Highland faces, the product of years of open-air life. ‘I know what yer all thinking,’ he said carefully. ‘Yer thinking we’re not gonna get out of this mess alive, eh?’

  The men lowered their eyes, and he said hurriedly. ‘I can’t guarantee nothing. But I’ll tell you this, the Canucks depend on us and if we don’t pull it off, well we’ve still got snotty here to take us away in his little sailboat. Haven’t we Snotty?’

  ‘Right, sir – I mean ay, ay, sir,’ replied the boy Lieutenant.

  ‘There you are,’ the Laird beamed at his men. ‘If a little un like that, snatched from the cradle by Winnie, and a Sassenach to boot, is ready to have a go, what have a lot of hairy-arsed old Jocks like us got to fear! All right on yer plates o’ meat and follow me!’

  Without any further ado he slung his rifle more comfortably on his shoulder, hitched up his bedraggled kilt and grasped the first string of wire held by two metal pegs driven deep into the white cliff. The prongs dug cruelly into his palm. But he repressed his cry of pain. The wire was completely taut and hardly gave at all when he put his full weight on it. ‘Trust old Jerry,’ he said through gritted teeth. ‘When he does a job o’ work, he does it thorough. We can walk up this sodding stuff like a ladder, courtesy of old Hitler.

  ‘All right, Freddy, you bring up the rear, the rest will follow. If any squarehead shows his head above the top of the cliff, you’ve my permission to shoot the bugger.’

  ‘Thank you, sir.’

  ‘But what about me? Can’t I go along, sir?’ It was the Navy sub-lieutenant. He looked pleadingly at the little CO.

  ‘Better leave it to us brown jobs, we’ve been trained for it,’ the Laird began, then he changed his mind. ‘All right, laddie, come along, if you want and earn yersel the sodding Victoria Cross.’

  The climb was hell. With not a pair of wire cutters among the lot of them they were stopped time and time again by cunningly constructed wire ledgers which the Germans had designed specifically to stop such an effort as theirs. Each time the Laird, hanging on with one lacerated hand, the blood pouring down his wrist, used his free hand to throw a toggle rope up and over it. Then when it had caught there, he launched himself into space, his kilt flying wildly. As he came down again, he crashed his heavy boots against the wire barrier and wedged thus, continued the climb, heart beating like a trip-hammer, up to the next clear strand of wire.

  To the Laird it seemed as though the noise they made should have woken the Germans as far away as Berlin, and struggling painfully through the wire, he felt like one of his favourite winkles stuck on the end of a pin, at the mercy of enemy snipers.

  But at last he reached the top, and for a moment he crouched there, his kilt in tatters, his hands and bare knees cut to ribbons, his lungs wheezing like a pair of broken bellows. Then he pulled himself together and raised his head cautiously above the edge of the cliff.

  To his right lay the village of Berneval shrouded in smoke, split here, there and everywhere by the scarlet muzzle flashes of riflefire. Then came a small
stretch of woodland, approaching close to the Battery. He recognised it immediately from the hours he had spent studying it on the sand-table in training. Each of the machine-gun pits was clearly outlined against the crimson sky, while beyond he could see tiny black figures on the gun turrets with their binoculars trained on the sea, waiting for the fleet to come within range so that they could open fire and destroy it.

  ‘Hell!’ the Laird cursed as the next man came to a gasping halt beneath him. He knew they couldn’t hang on the cliff very long without being spotted. But how were they going to get over the top into the cover of the wood without being seen by one of the observers on the gun turrets?

  It was just then that the survivors of the ill-fated Seventh Commando struck lucky for the first time since they had left England.

  The first flight of twin-engined Bostons came barrelling in at 300 mph from the sea. Engines howling, tearing the silence apart, they swooped over the coast at tree-top level. The shallow curve of the bay erupted into a hell of fire. At the battery, the multiple flak chattered crazily. Red, white and green tracer zipped through the pink sky. The first Boston released its bombs. The Laird had no time to see whether they found their target. The air attack was the cover he needed.

  ‘Pass the word down,’ he yelled the clatter of the flak and the staccato rattle of the heavy ack-ack machine-guns which sounded like a walking stick being drawn across railings, ‘as soon as you get to the top, make a run for the wood. All right, here I go!’

  Grabbing his rifle and hitching his kilt above his knees, the Laird burst across the top of the cliff and set off in wild dash for the cover of the pines. Another squadron of Bostons hurtled across the coast. The flak gunners swung round with the multiple cannon. The air was full of flying steel, as they pounded away. But the Laird ran on, unobserved, twisting and turning to avoid the shrapnel flying everywhere, pelting his way furiously towards the cover of the trees, followed by a sergeant and one other man. They doubled across the cliff top to the wood.