by John Harris
On the slope of Mont St Amarin, Captain Witkus was crouching with his men for the last dash forward to the crest. He grasped his pistol and waved.
‘Off we go!’ he yelled.
But as they started to scramble up the bank, they found they were in a minefield and the explosions cracked in their ears, deafening them, flinging them down again, blowing off feet and hands, and tossing them back into the ditch on to the sharpened stakes. Among the first men out was Captain Witkus himself. In front of him, beyond the ditch, lay a line of fir branches brought down from the top of the slope where Reinach had been cutting trees. It was sufficient to stop his men once more and stank ominously of paraffin and petrol.
He turned. Down in the valley he could see the whole length of the German column, paralysed under a hanging pall of dust and smoke. Shouts and the neighing of horses drifted thinly up to him through the firing.
His men began to appear in ones and twos. Some of them had fought with him all the way back through the desert from El Alamein into Libya, across Sicily, and finally up the length of Italy. Although he was only twenty-three, Witkus loved every tough one of them. They had never failed him as long as they were on their feet.
Heads were bobbing in the trees not forty yards away and he fired desperately at them. But his attack had lost its impetus because it was quite impossible to move forward against the weight of the weapons ahead. Then he smelt smoke and heard the crackle of flames and realized that the paraffin-soaked fir branches and the undergrowth at the end of the ditch were now burning, and the breeze was sweeping the fire swiftly towards him. A man scrambled out of the ditch and plunged back into the belt of undergrowth, struggling through the criss-crossed barbed wire, his uniform torn, and began to head down the slope to the doubtful safety of the column on the road. As he ran, he was caught by a burst of fire from the trees and rolled over like a shot rabbit. Then a sergeant, a man who’d been with Witkus since long before Alamein - a quiet, intelligent, hard-working man who’d taught Witkus his job in the days when he was a mere novice, covering his mistakes and quietly giving advice - broke from the ditch in front of him and set off for the trees with two men. They’d not gone ten yards before a bullet hit the sergeant in the face and he spun round, spraying blood, half his neck and jaw shot away. The two men immediately turned and bolted back to the ditch.
Witkus looked back again. The road had become a death-trap not only for the horse-drawn artillery but also for the mechanical transport. Dead horses, limbers and guns with human bodies scattered among them lay across the road and in the muddy dip. One of his buses, sideways across the road where a bazooka rocket had flung it, was burning furiously and he could see quite clearly that the German fire was slackening. Any moment now, a rush back into Néry would start.
He felt hot tears stinging his eyes and, knowing perfectly well that he’d come to the end of the line, he waved to what was left of his men and began to walk slowly back down the hill, indifferent to the bullets that were flying past him.
Urquhart watched the attack die away into scattered groups of running men. Among them he could see the officer quite clearly, walking slowly, his pistol hanging from his neck by its lanyard, his hands empty. Young Gaston Dring stood up and, resting his rifle on the bough of a tree, put his eye to the sights.
‘No!’ Urquhart yelled, but he was too late and, as the rifle cracked, he saw the officer stop, sway, then fall flat on his face. Urquhart’s arm scythed round and Dring was flung on to his back, startled and bewildered. Urquhart stared at the officer. He’d known exactly what was going through his mind, what shattering of the spirit he was suffering, because he’d suffered it himself - all the way back to Dunkirk, in Greece, in North Africa.
As he turned to apologize to Dring, be saw old Balmaceda, a thin stick of a figure, dancing a wild dance. His monocle had disappeared and his toupee had slipped over one ear. Beyond him Marie-Claude and Ernestine Bona were bent over Théyras.
They were far from finished yet, he knew, and he turned to the radio operator who’d pushed forward to the edge of the escarpment.
‘Where are those damned Free French?’ he demanded. ‘For God’s sake, tell them to hurry!’
‘I am doing! They’re coming as fast as they can. They’ve asked the air force to help.’
‘Tell them to seal up the Rue des Roches and the Chemin de Ste Reine. And Reinach -’
The carpenter’s head turned.
‘Can we spare one or two boys on bicycles to act as guides?’
‘They won’t leave here! Not now!’
Urquhart’s face twisted. ‘What the hell do they want? To be in blood up to their elbows? Send them, Reinach! They’re supposed to be soldiers of the Resistance! Make them go! Make them obey your orders!’
Reinach’s jaw dropped. Then he nodded and vanished.
The firing had slackened now, and when Reinach returned it was coming from below them only in short bursts.
They’ve gone,’ he said. ‘Henault wants to enter the Tour de France after the war so he should make it.’
There was little control among the Germans in the valley now. Von Hoelcke had been wounded in the head and Frobinius was crouching behind his wrecked tank, shocked and bewildered at the disaster. A few men were still resisting the impulse to break back to Néry and were exchanging shots, and every now and then one of them went over backwards as one of the Frenchmen pulled a trigger.
For the most part, those Frenchmen who’d served between 1914 and 1918 or had been conscripts between the wars were calm. Father Pol, a black bulk among the undergrowth, was working the bolt of his rifle without looking up, while Dring and Ernouf chattered away quite calmly and swopped cigarettes as they fired. Then the Germans’ spirit began to break, and a few of the younger Frenchmen, growing excited, stood up to get a better shot.
Near Urquhart a boy from Haute Falin, who had been firing steadily and effectively with his brother, rose to throw a hand grenade. A heavy calibre bullet flung him down at once and his brother grabbed the grenade instead. As he turned, he too was hit in the back and flung on to his face. On wobbly legs, he rose and staggered forward, but a machine-gun burst laid his leg bare to the bone and the grenade lifted into the air to fall harmlessly into the river and burst in a shower of spray.
‘For the love of God,’ Reinach yelled. ‘Keep your heads down!’
A few of me Germans who had waded the river to the narrow strip of ground beyond were clinging to the shelter of the cliff. One of them, an officer, found the steep pathway that led to the top. Gathering a few men, he led a rush up the slope. Neville’s group had worked their way instinctively higher up the hill to where the main fight was and, leaning over the edge where the escarpment bulged, they picked the Germans off one after the other. As the survivors dived back to the bottom for shelter, youngsters appeared from the trees and began to roll boulders down on to them and Neville could see the Germans cowering against the slope, firing off snapshots as heads appeared. His revulsion at the butchery churning in his guts and mounting to his throat, he signalled to one of the Rolandpoint men nearby. He had three phosphorous bombs in an old French steel helmet but was motionless, staring down in shocked fascination.
‘For Christ’s sake!’ Neville yelled. Throw them!’
Coming to life, the Rolandpoint man snatched at the grenades and the men by the cliff were enveloped in a cloud of smoke and flame.
There were still experienced Afrika Korps men clinging to the shelter of the vehicles and one group had got a heavy machine-gun working. Shells began to flash along the edge of the cliff near Neville. Then, as the gun lifted, twigs and small branches began to fall on them. One of the shells hit a Néry boy in the chest, and for one frantic second Neville saw the startled look in his eyes before he died.
He had hardly flung a blanket over the body when Yves Rapin appeared with his bazooka, running in a crouch through the trees, and began to set it up among the bushes. Under cover of the machine-gun, the few Germans le
ft across the river under the cliff began to wade back, and as one of the Rolandpoint boys leaned over to fire at them he began to slip. His face showed his horror, as he went crashing through the foliage along the edge of the escarpment to roll the whole thirty feet to the bottom. One of the Germans, a tough-looking sergeant, ran forward to kill him but he was shot as he ran, and went down, still shouting in triumph, as the boy bolted for safety. Then the bazooka fired. The machine-gun and all its crew vanished in stabbing flame and flying splinters, and the Afrika Korps men decided they were wasting their energy and their lives where they were.
Many of them were wounded and every man’s hair was grey with the chalky dust, as though youth had departed, leaving only prematurely aged and grimy men. The gunner major had been shot as he tried to organize a fresh resistance and by now there was no hope at all for the lorries. They couldn’t go on and they couldn’t turn or reverse. The 88s had all been knocked out from close range and as the gunner officer fell it became a case of every man for himself. In sixes and sevens, followed by panting, terrified ex-clerks and orderlies, the Afrika Korps men tried to cut their way out. The bewilderment of the scrambling men was obvious to the Frenchmen on the escarpment as the first groups began to coagulate and join together in a mob, with no thought in their minds but shelter from the holocaust and relief from the slaughter.
Then the heavens filled with an iron howling and, looking up, they saw nine rocket-firing Typhoons turning in a steep bank beyond the crest of the hill. Reinach jumped to his feet and everybody started cheering hysterically.
‘We have them,’ Reinach howled. ‘We have them in Ducrot’s chamberpot!’
Urquhart grabbed him and slammed him to the ground, then, running back to where Dr Mouillet’s team was working, he grabbed Marie-Claude in his arms and pulled her down with him.
His toupee almost falling off and looking not only old and drunk but mad as a hatter as well, Balmaceda was doing a crazy dance of excitement as the aeroplanes howled down the valley. Their first salvo of rockets crashed into the head of the column to stop it dead, but this time there was no need for the formality because the column was already a rabble and, as the missiles slammed into the chaos of men, cycles and animals, it was as if the end of the world had come.
Rockets exploded among packed vehicles, hurling guns, wheels, wings, bonnet covers, tarpaulins, frames and human beings into the air. The fields and floor of the valley were suddenly alive with desperately running men and galloping horses. As the rockets flung vehicles one on top of another, they burst into flames and huge pyres began to blaze, filling the blue sky with mounting columns of black smoke from burning rubber. Then the running men themselves were caught in the sweeps of cannon shells as the Typhoons swung again over the burning column to complete the work the villagers had begun, all the way back to Néry and beyond. Cars lay nose-down in the river, while all the way up the hill, jammed nose-to-tail, they burned in inextricably mangled heaps, choking the road even to men on foot. Even the undergrowth in the hollow where the Germans had been dragging their wounded had caught fire now, crackling and roaring in the breeze to drown the screams of injured men unable to move and being slowly roasted to death.
The last three aeroplanes were a long way behind the others. As the men and women on the escarpment lifted their heads in awe at the destruction below them, they came howling down the valley. The first salvo landed like the others in the middle of the German column and they saw more men and animals and machines hurled from the road in a bloody mixture of flesh, steel, soil and stone. The second salvo thumped down round von Hoelcke’s wrecked tank and the heavy turret lifted as if it were a cardboard box and slid over the side, the big gun thumping to the ground in the welter of flame and smoke. The third salvo was less well aimed and, as it caught the edge of the escarpment, Balmaceda’s toupee shot high into the air in the blast as he was lifted in a whirl of arms and legs over the edge. Rocks, stone and pulverized earth flew skywards and there was a landslide down to the river which carried three men with it. A huge tree fell, crashing through the undergrowth on to the last of the group of Germans who had crossed the river and were sheltering against the cliff face below.
As the stones and dirt and pieces of splintered wood showered down on them, Urquhart held Marie-Claude tightly against him, so that he could feel her breath on his cheek and the warmth of her trembling body against his. Then the aeroplanes were gone and, as he released her and ran to the edge of the cliff, she rose to her feet, brushing the dirt and twigs from her skirt, her expression bewildered and unhappy.
As Urquhart began to shout orders, Witkus’ last few men, still in good order despite the butchery, tried once more to retreat, only to be caught by a new hail of fire from the escarpment which drove them into the burning brambles at the side of the road. By this time, the weapons were so hot from the sun and the continued firing, the metal burned the skin. Ignoring the pain, Urquhart emptied his Sten at them then, running along the edge of the cliff, he seized a cache of grenades and began to pull out the pins and hurl them into the valley below. There was a gush of white smoke and a German helmet flew high into the air, spinning like a humming top, end over end. Aware of a terrible power and conscious what a tremendous weapon the grenade was - as if it had been thought out specially for this particular job - he ran backwards and forwards, flinging them into the road as if he were fielding at cricket.
All the lessons he’d ever learned about throwing them were forgotten as he swung his arm backwards and forwards in a whirling motion. He couldn’t miss and there was no need even to duck because the face of the cliff took care of the splinters. Caught by the excitement of victory other men began to do the same. The road below was filled with smoke and under its cover six of Frobinius’ SS men made a despairing scramble for safety. Reinach saw them and, snatching up a rifle, jammed in a clip of cartridges and picked them off one by one.
By now, despite the orders, the excited Frenchmen were advancing steadily from the trees opposite and down the slope of the meadow to the road, and both they and the men on the escarpment were in danger of being shot by their own side. The Germans in the middle were spraying the air indiscriminately, frantic under the shower of bullets and grenades. Then, unexpectedly, a white sheet appeared on the end of a ramrod and started waving, and a tremendous shout went up.
They’re surrendering! They’re surrendering!’
More sheets, towels, even handkerchiefs, appeared. Cut off, leaderless and defeated as the hard core of battle-hardened men were shot down, the Germans began to step out from between the lorries, throwing down their weapons and raising their hands. An officer in the uniform of the SS began to shout at them and, when they ignored him, he lifted his pistol to threaten them. Ernouf picked him off as if he were shooting crows, and as he fell, more men stepped out, their hands in the air.
Leaving the old mitrailleuse, the two Dréos began to make their way to the road with rifles, struggling with their stiff ungainly legs through the undergrowth and down the rocky path, their faces grim and unsmiling. Ernouf was still chatting cheerfully with Dring as if they were working together on the harvest. Above them the sky was no longer blue but a dirty brown with the smoke of burning vehicles, branches, undergrowth, cordite, melting rubber and lifting dust. The place seemed to reek of the sour odour of Germans, the acrid smell of sweaty tunics, stale cigars and fear.
The Frenchmen were all on their feet now, cheering and chattering wildly. Hytier, the bar-owner from Rolandpoint, wearing his old steel helmet, was handling his Sten with impressive efficiency, letting off short bursts at a group of SS men still trying to hold out among the lorries. Some of the Frenchmen had reached the river now and were wading across. Among them was Brisson, the Rolandpoint garage proprietor, followed by the two Dréos. Just ahead of him was Father Pol, who had abandoned his rifle only too willingly and was holding in front of him the cross he carried on the chain round his neck, ready to give absolution to the dying. ‘Blessed be those who hea
r the will of God,’ he was shouting. ‘Blessed be God in His angels and His saints -’
‘Father!’ Urquhart yelled.
But Father Pol couldn’t hear him for the racket and, as he reached the road, one of the SS men lifted his machine pistol and fired. Father Pol’s hat flew off as his head came up with a jerk. For a second, he stood stock still in the road, a vast black bulk, his face blank and startled; then he went over backwards like a log. Urquhart saw the dust puff out as he hit the ground, and he swung round to Neville who was climbing towards him. ‘What a bloody fine plan we made!’ he shouted in fury.
The advancing Frenchmen had dropped to the ground, and Brisson began to creep forward holding a Mills bomb.
Unseen, he reached the other side of the lorry where the SS men were crouching and, pulling out the pin, gently rolled the bomb between the wheels and dived for the shelter of the river bank. As the grenade went oft and the black-uniformed figures were flung aside, flames started from the petrol tank of the lorry and Brisson stepped forward to spray the writhing men with his gun.
