Forced March

by Leo Kessler

  The Laird flung himself full length into the undergrowth, ignoring the twigs tearing cruelly at his body. With a gasp of relief, he buried his burning, sweat-lathered face into the still damp ground. Man after man crashed into the trees all around him, burrowing their way out of sight as they had been trained to do. The Laird did not raise his head to check them. He was too exhausted from the climb up the cliff and the race across to the wood. Then Freddy’s voice, a little less serene than usual, remarked. ‘It appears we’ve done it, sir, without being spotted, what?’

  The Laird forced himself up by a sheer effort of will and gasped. ‘Good, lads … very good.’ He wiped a bloody hand across his sweat-lathered brow and looked at the crimson faces. ‘First round to us, lads. Now, me band of brothers, into the breach once more, as the Immoral Bard says. Lads, we’ve got to improvise from now onwards. We can harass the buggers very effectively, if we can nab those mg posts there – there and there.’ His finger trembled as he indicated the three machine-gun nests to the nearside of the Battery. ‘With a bit of luck the Froggies will hold off the Jerries behind us, so all we’ve got to contend with – once we got the mg posts – is the guns and gunners themselves.’ He sniffed contemptuously. ‘And we all know what a pregnant duck yer average artilleryman is, don’t we?’

  There was a soft chorus of ‘ays’ from the men.

  ‘Bloody lot of soft Nellies who wear pyjamas in bed, everybody knows that. We’ll divide into three groups of six – you’ll come with me Snotty, as second-in-command. Once we’re out of these trees we’ve got to cover about two hundred yards of open ground before we hit the mg pits on this side.

  ‘Freddy you take group one. Sergeant Gillies,’ he turned to the elderly NCO who had once been his chief-gilly, ‘you take number two and remember to keep that red, whisky-drinking conk of yourn down – it’ll light us up otherwise like a ruddy beacon.’

  The men laughed while Sergeant Gillies said seriously, ‘Ah’ll bear that in mind, Laird.’

  ‘I’ll take the third group. Now we crawl the whole way there and woe betide any of you buggers that lets himself get spotted before we get in close. I’ll have him on a charge once we’re back in the UK quicker than lightning. Once we’re in position, I’ll give one blast on my whistle and then we go in with,’ he hesitated for a moment while he fumbled with his skean dhu, ‘with the cold steel!’

  Behind him the young sailor shivered.

  ‘Here come the Brylcreem boys again!’ one of the men called as another flight came winging their way in at tree-top height, flak exploded in harsh red and yellow balls all around them.

  The Laird did not hesitate. ‘Come on, lads, spread out and let’s go.’ He winked at Freddy and his mouth formed the soundless words, ‘best of luck, you long streak of piss!’

  Freddy grinned, then they burst through the trees, the noise they made covered by the tremendous roar of the planes’ engines as they began their long crawl towards the unsuspecting mg nests.

  * * *

  ‘Freeze!’ ordered the Laird.

  The handful of men sprawled in the scrub all around him stopped.

  ‘What is it, sir?’ the Snotty asked fearfully.

  ‘Wire.’

  ‘But we’ve no cutters.’

  The Laird ignored him. ‘Curtis and Menzies,’ he ordered.

  The two privates crawled forward hurriedly. Without a further order, they squirmed on their back in the short wet grass and seizing the lowest strand of wire in their horny hands, took the strain. Under their combined efforts they managed to raise it a foot or so off the ground, the sweat streaming down their faces.

  ‘All right, here, I come.’ The Colonel crawled swiftly forward, carefully dragging his skinny body through so that his tattered kilt did not catch on a strand. ‘Now Collins and Mackenzie.’

  The two commandos followed him and took the strain from their comrades. One by one the others followed and grouped around their CO. He nodded, satisfied. ‘Good lads. All right, now lower it nice and gentle. We don’t want to set off no Jerry booby traps.’

  They were less than twenty-five yards away from their objective now. They could hear the excited chatter of the mg crew quite clearly during the breaks in firing. Cautiously the Laird took out his skean dhu and raised his head. He could count four Jerries in their coal-scuttle helmets. ‘Four of ’em,’ he whispered. ‘By Christ we outnumber them!’

  ‘All right, spread out; you four take the left. Me and this high ranking naval person will take the right. Once I see you’re within five yards of the buggers, I’ll blow me penny whistle. Off you go.’

  Obediently the four privates began to crawl rapidly to the left. The Laird looked at the pale-faced Snotty and winked. ‘Don’t worry, lad, it’ll be just like in the pictures. Come on.’ Swiftly he squirmed forward, his kilted rump moving rhythmically from side to side just in front of the Snotty’s nose, skean dhu clenched between his teeth. He could now smell the Germans, that peculiar odour of German serge uniform cloth and the hard ersatz wartime soap which he had come to know in the last few terrible years. Sending a hasty prayer winging its way to heaven that the other groups were already in position, he transferred the evil little knife to his right hand and thrust his whistle into his mouth. He took a deep breath and blew.

  The scream of hoarse Scots rage was followed an instant later by a cry of alarm, as the dust-stained, ragged, bleeding figures of the commandos burst into view.

  A German tried to swing the gun round, his face frantic with sudden fear. Curtis disobeyed orders and shot him from the hip. He went down screaming, sprawling over his spandau. The Laird dived at the man trying to take his place, ripping open his stomach.

  Next to him the Snotty was on the floor of the gunpit, trying to fight off a furious, red-faced gunner who was smashing his ham of a fist into the sailor’s face over and over again.

  The Laird sprang on to the cursing German’s back like a tartan-clad monkey. With one hand he grabbed the man’s helmet, with the other, slashed his razor-sharp knife across the exposed white flesh of his throat.

  Precisely one minute later the last gunner lay sprawled out dead at the bottom of the pit, a bayonet thrust through his chest. Five minutes later, while the boy sobbed gently next to the body of the dead gunner, Freddy dropped into the pit, minus his stocking cap, but otherwise as imperturbable as ever to report, ‘We’ve got them, sir – the other two and what do you think we found in my pit?’

  ‘Shirley Temple?’ the Laird ventured, highly pleased with the success of his operation and wiping the blood off the skean dhu on his kilt.

  ‘No, a thwee inch gun mortar. Wipping, what, sir!’

  ‘Wipping, Freddy!’ the Laird exclaimed, his heart leaping.

  They were really in business. Not only had they three German machine-guns at their disposal, but also a mortar. Its bombs would probably bounce off the thick concrete of the turrets like pingpong balls, but it would make the Jerries sit up and take notice.

  ‘Any casualties?’

  ‘Not a one. Though I’m definitely not wegimental without my cap, sir.’

  The Laird of Abernockie and Dearth grinned. ‘Silly old sod,’ he muttered affectionately. ‘All right, Freddy, nip back to your lot and tell Sergeant Gillies on the way, this is what we gonna do. I’ll give you two minutes to clean these stiffs out and set yourselves up and then we’re gonna let the Jerries have all we’ve got, aiming at the firing slits and air vents wherever possible. By Christ, Freddy you old fart, those buggers over there are going to think that the whole Seventh Commando has suddenly opened up behind them! Before this day is over, Freddy, a lot of them lads behind that concrete are going to be wetting their knickers good and proper.’

  SIX

  The squat shape of the lead tank, outlined clearly on the raised coastal road, rumbled towards the embattled village of Belleville. The other three Mark IVs followed, spaced out at regular intervals as Matz had ordered, their 75mm guns swinging from side to side like the snouts
of predatory monsters searching for prey.

  Watching their progress from the flank, Schulze nodded his approval. He pressed his throat mike and asked: ‘How’s it going down there, Matzi?’

  ‘Dicey,’ Matz’s voice came from the driver’s seat strangely unreal and distorted over the intercom, ‘there’s patches of shitty salt marsh everywhere. Miss one and we’d be up to the boogies in mud.’

  ‘Tough tittie,’ Schulze answered unsympathetically. ‘But keep up the good work. I’ll see you get the War Service Cross, fourth class for this.’

  Matz buried in the belly of the tank, muttered a gross obscenity.

  ‘Yes and your mother too!’ Schulze replied and released the pressure on his throat mike. ‘Corporal,’ he snapped at the hard-faced boy next to him.

  ‘Sir!’

  ‘Keep your eyes on that ground ahead. If you see anything that looks like marsh grass, sing out fast.’

  ‘Sir!’

  Schulze sniffed and turned his attention to the smoke-shrouded village a kilometre or so away. He bit his bottom lip anxiously. There was no doubt about it. He could make out both the high-pitched hiss of the SS assault rifle and the slower chatter of what must be Tommy weapons. Wotan was in action up there and by the sound of it the Tommies had them by the short and curlies.

  He dismissed the worrying thought from his mind and concentrated on the problem of how he was going to get his little command with its raw unskilled crews into action. Once they reached the village, he decided, he’d let them try a dash down the main street, while he swung round behind the village with his command tank. With a bit of luck he’d pull it off. Infantry was usually shit-scared of armour, especially if it were moving fast. The only problem would be if the Tommies had bazookas. Then they would be sitting ducks in the tight village street with no room to manoeuvre.

  ‘Sir!’ the Corporal’s voice broke urgently into his thoughts.

  ‘What?’ Schulze swung round. The boy was staring at the dark shape of a man which had risen from the long parched grass at the side of the road just behind the lead tank. He had a strange bell-shaped object in his hand.

  ‘What do you make of it, sir? What is it –’

  ‘Get your shitty body down inside the turret!’ Schulze cried and pushed him down. As the man started to run forward to the rear of the slowly moving Mark IV, Schulze whirled the 10-ton turret round. At the same time he swung up the turret machine-gun, ready to go into action immediately, and fumbled feverishly until he had the running man in his sights, bisected neatly by the metal bar. He squeezed the trigger. Four hundred metres away, the running man stopped in mid-stride, his spine arched, his hands raised, as though he were appealing to the heavens for mercy. Then the bell-shaped object tumbled from his nerveless fingers and he pitched forward to lie still in the grass.

  Schulze breathed out hard, ‘Christ on a crutch, that was close!’

  ‘What was it, sir?’

  ‘Sticky bomb. Held by magnet and –’ He broke off suddenly. Another tiny figure had sprung up from the grass and was racing up the road after the tank with a bomb in his hand.

  ‘A suicide squad!’ Schulze yelled, and grabbed the mg to fire another burst. The first man hit the road, his back torn open. But just as Schulze’s slugs scythed through his legs, the leading soldier managed to attach the grenade to the rear of the unsuspecting Mark IV. Even at that distance they could hear the hollow clang as the magnets gripped.

  ‘Holy strawsack,’ Schulze groaned. ‘Wake up you shitty dum-dums, don’t yer know you’ve got a cuckoo up yer arse.’

  The Mark IV rolled on, leaving the dying man behind it, until suddenly there was a thick asthmatic explosion, and it reared up on its back sprockets like a bucking horse. As it crashed down again it began to burn fiercely.

  ‘Get out! Oh, come on, get out!’ Schulze cried despairingly, hammering his white fist on the side of the turret. ‘Make it, lads!’

  But no one emerged from the stricken tank and suddenly the air was full of the sweet stench of burning flesh. The young corporal next to Schulze began to vomit over the side of the turret.

  There was no time to concern himself now with the fate of the lead tank’s crew, for two hundred metres behind it, the second Mark IV had come to a halt, its commander obviously at a loss to know what to do. Schulze grabbed for the throat mike. ‘Reverse, you son of a whore!’ he yelled urgently. ‘Reverse.’ But the tank commander had obviously not got his set tuned to receive. He couldn’t hear. Panicked by the fate of the lead tank, exposed as it had been on the elevated road, he decided to get into the grass.

  ‘No!’ Schulze cried in despair. ‘No!’

  But the tank commander could not hear his desperate cry and his driver began cautiously to edge his thirty-ton monster over the steep verge. Almost immediately what Matz had predicted happened and the verge began to crumble. A horrified Schulze could clearly see the sandy soil start to yield. Frantically, the driver revved his engine, trying to keep the tank from slipping more, but slowly and inevitably the Mark IV began to slide into the ditch.

  The enemy suicide squad did not need a second invitation. Covered from Schulze’s fire by the stricken monster’s bulk, they swarmed forward to attach their deadly bombs to its sides.

  Further down the road the gunner of number three tank tried to swat them off the Mark IV’s deck. Man after man fell, but they were invincible. A moment later the Mark IV in the ditch was torn apart. Its ten-ton turret sailed high into the air. Its tracer ammunition zig-zagged crazily in all directions. A crewman tumbled out of the wreckage and attempted to walk on bloody stumps towards number three tank, but a blast of shotgun fire caught him before he had staggered ten paces.

  Schulze pressed his throat-mike. ‘Back off, you stupid sods!’ He roared. ‘Back off right away!’

  This time the tank commander received Schulze’s message and his driver started to reverse up the road while the commander covered their retreat with smoke grenades.

  ‘Good … that’s it,’ Schulze chuckled. ‘You and your comrade back right up to those trees … that’s the way … Once you get there, everyone on deck with his weapons right to tackle any more of those shitty suicide squads … Keep radio watch and I’ll call you up as soon as the road is clear … Over and out!’ He released his pressure on the mike.

  ‘All right, what now, Colonel Schulze?’ Matz’s voice came up from below. ‘Go on giving orders like that and you’ll be able to take over from the Vulture soon.’

  ‘Aw, go and piss in yer dice-beaker,’ Schulze snarled. ‘You’ve got to give those shitty greenbeaks orders like that.’

  ‘Yer’ll be powdering their sweet little baby popos next, Schulze!’

  ‘Stick yer prick up yer arse and give yersen a cheap thrill,’ Schulze snorted. But his heart wasn’t in their usual repartee; he knew the Battalion needed the surviving tanks if they were going to break loose from the village. But the two tanks now hidden in the trees would never cover the last kilometre to the embattled village as long as there were still suicide squads out there in the ditches. They would have to be flushed out first and it was up to him to do it.

  ‘Listen Matz,’ he said, ‘do you think you could cross that road?’

  ‘With my eyes closed.’

  ‘Those verges are tricky.’

  ‘Little fish!’ Matz said contemptuously. ‘Didn’t I get through the Perekop Isthmus1 with my boogies up to the top in mud all right?’

  ‘All right, all right. Don’t have an orgasm! We all know you’re the best driver Wotan has. Now this is what I’m gonna do. We’ll cut the road five hundred metres further on. I hope those bastards of the suicide squad will think we’re beating it. Then we’ll come back and roll’em up. And you know what I mean, Matzi, don’t you?’

  Matz did. Wherever the suicide squad men had dug themselves in, they would crush them to death by whirling round and round until the sides of the hole yielded and the whole weight of the tank descended upon the unfortunate men huddled
below.

  ‘Hey,’ he protested, ‘we might land ourselves in the shit there. If we start doing our little pas de deux in marshy ground we could find ourselves sinking in deeper than we wanted.’

  ‘I know, you little currant-crapper, I’ve thought of that one too. This is what we’re going to do …’

  * * *

  Schulze dropped the wooden mallet, satisfied with the job he had done on the twin exhaust pipes. ‘All right,’ he nodded to the lance-corporal who had been guarding him with his machine-pistol. ‘Tell Matz to start up again!’

  The boy shouted something inside the turret. Matz pressed the starter button. The great engines sprang to life at once. The little one-legged driver gunned the motors. Thick streams of choking blue smoke gushed downwards as Schulze had planned they would.

  ‘Tell him, it’s working,’ he yelled at the boy above the roar of the engines.

  ‘What’s it for, sir?’

  ‘You’ll see, lad, you’ll see in due course. Now you watch the rear of this here battle wagon and I’ll take the front. If any of those bastards show themselves with those shitty bombs, shoot to kill. Clear?’

  ‘Clear, sir.’

  Schulze knew that everything depended upon Matz. One false gear, one moment of hesitation, one miscalculation with the speed, and they would be crippled just as the second Mack IV had been.

  Matz took his time, rolling forward at fifteen kilometres an hour, one eye on the ground ahead and one on the verges, looking for the most favourable spot to move on to the road. Three hundred metres … four hundred … five hundred metres. Then Matz spotted it. A slight indentation in the side of the road which might well give him some sort of purchase.

  Matz licked dry lips and eyed the spot carefully. He would have to go at it fairly quickly, then when he was half way up, he would have to double-declutch as quick as hell, bring the gear lever right across the gate and finish the last bit in low gear. Once on the road, he’d then have to rev up, flash through the twenty odd gears of the Mark IV and take her down the other side at speed before the loose soft earth of the verge crumbled beneath the tank.