Tramp in Armour

by Colin Forbes

  The farmer's name was Mandel, and without hesitation he invited them into the farmhouse, but first he asked them to hide the tank in a distant outhouse which lay about half a kilometre from the Cambrai road. Before parking Bert, Barnes and Reynolds helped Perm to walk from the tank into^the farmhouse where they lowered him into an armchair in the kitchen. Barnes was almost too exhausted to worry about other people but he did warn Mandel that it could be very dangerous for him if the Germans arrived and found them helping the British.

  'You do not worry about that,' Mandel assured him. 'Once the tank is hidden in that distant outhouse the Germans will never find it. As for yourselves, Etienne, my nephew, will keep watch. We can see the road for a long way in both directions, so if anything happens there will be time for you to bide in a ditch well away from here.'

  This was another stroke of good luck - the fact that Mandel spoke good English. Barnes asked him where he had learned the language.

  'In your country, of course! For several years I worked as an onion-seller. I come from Brest, you see, where I was employed by the Syndicate. I used to take my bicycle on the boat over to Southampton, collect my onions from the depot and then cycle all round Hampshire and Surrey. You soon learn English that way!'

  'We'd better park the tank.'

  'Etienne will show you. You go up the track and ... I will leave it to Etienne.'

  As far as Barnes could see there was no sign of a telephone, so it wouldn't be possible for Mandel to phone the Germans to tell them that they were here. Not that he thought there was any likelihood of that happening for when he looked at Mandel he felt pretty sure that he could trust him. The farmer was in his fifties, a short, heavily-built man with a strong red face and a large grey moustache which matched his great bush of hair. Even his wife, Marianne, showed no signs of alarm at the arrival of these dangerous visitors. A woman of about the same age as her husband, she wore her hair tied back in a bun and her features were shrewd and decisive. She said she would prepare a meal for them and went away before Barnes could protest. They made a formidable pair.

  Leaving Penn with the Mandels, he followed Etienne to where Reynolds had returned to the tank. The track was stony, barely visible under the grass, and Etienne had to guide them along it to the distant outhouse. He could hardly speak a word of English but frequently he banged his fist on the side of-the turret and said 'Good, good!' He was probably just under military age, Barnes decided, very close to his seventeenth birthday, the age which Seft had claimed. But Etienne was very different from the German fifth columnist. This lad was thin and wiry, his freckled face fresh and alert, and there was a took of wicked humour in his eye. He'll be a devil with the girls, thought Barnes as they reached the isolated building. Etienne jumped down off the hull to open the huge doors.

  While Reynolds was driving the tank inside Barnes walked all round the building which stood in the middle of nowhere. Green fields stretched away to the skyline and the only approach was by the track they had driven along. He was on the horns of a dilemma because his small unit was now reduced to two effectives - himself and Reynolds. Leaving Bert here meant either leaving the driver to guard it or not guarding the vehicle at all. Reluctantly, he took a decision which would have horrified his troop commander - he decided to leave Bert on his own for the night. They had to keep some sort of watch through the hours of darkness - for the sake of the Mandels as well as their own - and he knew that in their present state of exhaustion keeping awake and alert all night was impossible. He would have to split the guard duty between himself and Reynolds, so both of them would take turns in watching the road, because it was along the road where any danger would come from. As they walked back with Etienne through the gathering dusk he still wasn't happy about putting the Mandels at risk by staying with them, but the fact was they couldn't move another kilometre without rest. On one point he was quite determined: they wouldn't sleep in the house.

  Well after dark they sat down to the hot cooked meal which Marianne had prepared. Roast chicken, potatoes and some green vegetables they didn't recognize. They ate together at a scrubbed wood table in the huge kitchen at the back of the house, the stone walls hung with burnished copper pans, and the family ate with them. Barnes was famished and joined Reynolds in attacking the meal with vigour, but Penn held his knife and fork and then put them down. Marianne said something and Mandel, sitting at the head of the table, smiled sadly.

  'Your friend can't eat - it will be his wound.'

  'I'm terribly sorry...' began Penn.

  Marianne spoke rapidly in French, taking up his glass of wine and making insistent gestures that he should at least drink. Then she took away his plate and when she came back Penn was drinking. Nodding to herself with satisfaction, she said something to Mandel, who nodded in his turn.

  'I can manage a gallon of this,' said Penn.

  Mandel spoke to his wife in French and laughed at her reply.

  'She says that as long as he drinks a gallon he will be all right. And, Sergeant Barnes, do stop listening so carefully while you are eating - Etienne is outside watching the road and will warn us if there is anything coming.'

  'It's just that it's well after dark. Would he see them?'

  'Of course! These Germans drive through the night with their lamps blazing away as though they owned France. Les salles Boches!' He made a gesture of cutting a throat with his knife and Marianne frowned, which cause Mandel to laugh again as he reassured Barnes. 'Do not worry. She is a good woman. Because I want to help you that is enough for her -she wants to help you also. Certainly we are more happy to see your tank than we were to see the others.'

  'The others?'

  'Yes, a tremendous column of Germans which went on and on past our front door - huge tanks, big guns, armoured cars. I think it was a whole division.'

  'When was this?'

  'Six days ago - last Saturday. There have been others since, but they are mainly supply columns. The first one was the big one. Of course, you know that the Germans are in Abbeville?'

  'We had heard a rumour,' said Barnes slowly.

  'It is true, I fear. We may have a visitor from Abbeville later tonight - my other nephew, Jacques. He comes from Lemont near Dunkirk, where he lives with his father, but at the moment he is living with his married sister in Abbeville. He may have interesting news for you.'

  'How will he get here - you're behind the German lines.'

  'I know, but this is not like the last war. The Germans are in Abbeville but only with tanks and guns - so if you can get the petrol, and if you are crazy like Jacques, you can drive about as you wish as long as you avoid their road-blocks. He has already made the journey once and he said he might come to see us again tonight. It has become a game with him but do not ask me how he gets the petrol - he will not even tell me. I am sure that he has stolen it from a German store.'

  'He'll get shot.'

  'Do not look so surprised - it may not be as difficult as you think. The Germans seem very .short of troops to guard even important places like petrol and ammunition stores. The footsloggers - is not that the right word - the foot-sloggers have not caught up with the tanks yet. I was a foot-slogger myself once.'

  Mandell nodded towards the fireplace where a frame hung above the mantelpiece. Inside the frame hung Mandel's Croix de Guerre, the medal polished, the ribbon faded. Barnes was frowning as he spoke.

  'I find that hard to believe, Mandel - that they don't guard their ammunition dumps.'

  'I did not say exactly that -I said that they have not enough troops to guard them properly, as with the petrol. You can ask Jacques yourself when he arrives, he learnt to speak English when he lived with a British family. You see, his father has ideas that one day the boy will be a great international advocate.'

  'What happens when the Germans pass here, Mandel?'

  'They make us stand by the roadside so that we can see how powerful they are.'

  'Very good of them. Where are the nearest Allied troops now? Do you
have any idea?'

  'In Arras, I believe. You are going to Arras?'

  'Possibly.'

  'It would be suicide.' Mandel waved his knife. 'The German Army is between here and Arras and the closer you get to the front line the more of them there are, naturally. You would do far better to go west beyond Cambrai and then turn north towards the Channel ports. That way you might just meet the Allies before you met the Boche.'

  They went on talking and eating but still half Barnes' mind strained to hear any unusual sound outside the farmhouse. After spending days in the open with the tank he felt nervous indoors and he coudn't get out of his mind the thought of Bert lying unprotected in that outhouse. He was picking up his last piece of chicken when he saw Penn staring at his fork. Without a word, Marianne went to the oven at the far end of the kitchen and came back with a plate which she put in front of Penn. Mandel grinned.

  'She kept his meal warm because she thought that would happen. When he sees other people eating his appetite returns.' He raised his glass to Penn. 'Bon Appetit!'

  While Penn wolfed down his chicken the others tackled their second course, an almost unlimited supply of cheese. Again Mandel returned to the question of which way Barnes should take in the morning and while he spoke Barnes listened without committing himself. Half an hour later they were all drinking strong bitter coffee when Etienne came into the room and spoke quickly, a hint of urgency in his voice. Mandel stood up.

  'A car is coming along the road from the west at high speed. It may be Jacques, but I think you should hide.'

  Mandel led the way out of the farmhouse and across a field with his torch, stopping as they reached a large haystack close to the road.

  'Wait behind here until I call you. It is rather too early for Jacques but one never can tell - he drives like the devil. If it is him, I will come out and shout.'

  'Should he know we are here?' queried Barnes.

  'The last time he was here he spent the night with my brother who lives at Fontenoy, a village close to Beaucaire. But he did not sleep much - he was up half the night with some friends. They tied a piece of telephone wire across the road just high enough to catch a motor-cycle rider. The Germans always send such patrols ahead and they caught a fish. At seventeen and a half he has killed his first German, the young devil.'

  'Pretty risky, isn't it? You might get reprisals.'

  'Like the last one, this war will last four years and we shall get many reprisals, and Jacques will join the Army soon and will kill many more Germans. But it is spirit like his which will save France. Now, I must go. And don't mention any of this in front of Marianne - she doesn't know and sometimes she understands a little English!'

  They could hear the car's engine as Mandel hurried away, the engine of a car being driven at recklessly high speed, and now the headlights were coming closer. Penn's voice whispered in the dark.

  'These people seem all right.'

  'Yes, you want to forget about Lebrun and his gang. It's people like the Mandels we're fighting for. Keep well in - I hope to God this is Jacques.'

  Jacques was more mature than Etienne, more heavily-built., and he had the face of a monkey, a monkey with jet-black hair. His eyes were intelligent and quick-moving and Barnes took to him at once as he shook hands all round with a firm grasp.

  'Uncle has told me about you, Sergeant Barnes. The Germans are in Abbeville with their Panzers. I have just come from that town.'

  'How did you manage to get here past the Germans?' Barnes asked quietly.

  'By knowing the side roads very well, by keeping my eyes well open, by asking friends on the way what the situation was.'

  By keeping his eyes well open. They were large eyes and they had the same look of the devil in them which Barnes had detected in Etienne, but they were bolder, more challenging, and now they seemed humorously to challenge Barnes to call him a liar.

  'So you came most of the way by side roads?'

  'No, Sergeant.' Was there a hint of mockery in this young man's expression? Barnes thought so as the lad went on. 'I came most of the distance along the same main roads the Panzers have used, but I turned on to side roads to avoid roadblocks.'

  'There are a lot of road-blocks?'

  'There are three - all outside Abbeville. But you should not go through Cambrai, They have set up some kind of headquarters in the town hall and there is a curfew at sunset. But no one takes any notice of it because they have so few troops to see that their orders are carried out.' He grinned. 'Even so, your tank will not be welcome in Cambrai.'

  Damn! thought Barnes. I wish Mandel hadn't mentioned Bert to him. I'm sure he trusts too many people. He hesitated. It didn't seem quite the thing to cross-examine Mandel's nephew in front of them all. Marianne was washing up and Reynolds was helping her while Penn sagged in the armchair. Mandel finished lighting his pipe and laughed.

  'Go on, Sergeant Barnes, ask him questions. He expects it!'

  'So apart from Cambrai and the three road-blocks the road to Abbeville is open?'

  'It was for me this evening. I took side roads to miss the road-blocks and Cambrai but otherwise I came straight here. It was easy.'

  'Are there many Germans in Abbeville?'

  'The town is full of their tanks and guns.' He frowned, his black eyebrows close together, moving swiftly like a comedian's. 'That is not quite correct. Most of the tanks and guns were on the north side two days ago and I haven't been to that district since. There is a curfew, too.'

  'When does the curfew start?'

  'Half an hour before sunset and it goes on until half an hour after dawn. They have said they will shoot anyone they find outside during the curfew but that has not happened yet. I could take you towards Abbeville,' he added hopefully, 'and then you could turn north to Boulogne. The Allies are in Boulogne.'

  'I should damned well hope so. What about German aircraft - are there a lot about during the daytime?'

  'Yes, there are, but they fly very high. If there were many of you I think they might see you, but not just one tank if you are careful. There are many miles where you do not see any Germans except for the occasional supply column. And they will not be expecting you in this area,' he pointed out shrewdly.

  'Thanks, Jacques. There may be some more, questions I'll think of to ask you - you'll be staying here for the night, I suppose?'

  'No,' interjected Mandel quickly, 'he will be staying with my brother at Fontenoy, but there is plenty of time to ask him as many questions as you wish.'

  It wasn't a matter of more questions to be asked, but now he knew that Jacques wasn't going to spend the night at the farm, Barnes' mind was filled with foreboding, driving away in a flash the soothing effect of the food and the wine, forcing his tired brain to weigh and calculate just when he had hoped that for a few brief hours at least he would be able to relax, to recuperate from the terrible strain of the events of the past two days. The lad was probably loyal: Mandel seemed confident enough and the Frenchman was no fool. But was it only a question of loyalty? Supposing he went out again tonight with his friends on one of those wild escapades, that he was captured and interrogated, possibly even by the SS? Since there was nothing he could do about it he smiled amiably.

  'That's all right. I've asked all the questions I can think of for the moment.'

  Mandel offered them two bedrooms but Barnes firmly refused, saying they would sleep outside by the haystack in case the Germans arrived unexpectedly, and he suspected that Mandel was secretly relieved at his refusal. Before they left the house the farmer said that they must listen to the news bulletin and Barnes was interested to see that he automatically tuned in to London as though he regarded that source as being the most reliable at the moment. They listened in silence as the calm detached voice of Stuart Hibberd began speaking.-

  '... fighting in Boulogne.'

  It was after eleven o'clock when they opened their bed-rolls which they had carried back from the tank after parking it, and they laid them out behind the haystack. A
s they arranged the blankets the moon was coming up and Barnes welcomed this pale illumination since it would make their watch on the road easier; he was by no means convinced that the Germans would announce their arrival with warning headlights. Firmly, he gave Penn his instructions.

  'You-get to bed and stay there - you'll have little enough sleep as it is.'

  'When do I go on duty?'

  'You don't - I'm sharing it with Reynolds.'

  'And may I ask at what hour reveille will be blowing?'

  'At dawn - four o'clock on the dot.'

  'That's five hours away, which means you'd get two and a half hours' sleep each. It's not good enough. I'm afraid you're in for a touch of insubordination - I'm doing my whack.'

  'And you're due for a whack on the head if you don't shut up. Get down and stay down - that's an order, Penn. If I need you, I'll wake you.'