by Colin Forbes
'You're probably right - but by then our impetus may take us on to the bank. There's no other way, Colburn. We're damned lucky that farmer turned up.'
'You're right there -I wonder if he has any idea what he's risking if a German patrol turns up? Don't tell me he can push off in the dark because he can't - not with all those tons of tank tied to his tail.'
'He must know that,' replied Barnes quietly. 'If the generals had fought this war the way some of these people fight when they get the chance we'd be over the Rhine by now.' He paused. 'I want you to stay on the rear of the hull, Colburn. Then if anything goes wrong you jump. We're bound to move back at least a bit and with your legs you should be able to hit the bank.'
'What about you?'
'I'll be jumping off myself as soon as Reynolds is clear of the hatch.'
'Let's just see what happens, shall we?' Colburn suggested. 'And for your information you can stop treating me as a privileged person. There won't be any passengers on this trip.'
Reynolds moved on to the front of the turret to lower himself inside the driving compartment but Barnes stopped him.
'There's one point, Reynolds, and I'm sure you'll agree it's a good one - and no reflection on your driving abilities.' He grinned drily. 'When we do start to move be sure that you are in reverse gear!'
'I'll do, my best, Sergeant,' Reynolds replied stolidly. He climbed down through the hatch and began revving up.
At the last moment Barnes scrambled down inside the hull, collected a second torch, and handed this to Colburn when he emerged from the turret, telling him to shine it along the right-hand beam. He used his own torch to illuminate the other beam: at least they could now see where they were going and it was vital that he had as much warning as possible if they were on the edge of disaster. Any moment now. He waited a little longer to give Reynolds more time to warm up - the ultimate disaster would be an engine failure when they were halfway back along those beams. And as he contemplated the weird scene behind the tank he felt that their attempt was doomed to failure. The torchlight showed up clearly the improvised bridge they hoped to move over and above it the tow-lines were taut and strained, vanishing in the darkness where they continued across to the rear of the tractor. In the brief intervals between the deep-throated revving up of the tank's engines he could hear the snarl and spit of the tractor's motor. Would there be enough horsepower to get them clear in time before the beams sank so deep that mud engulfed and choked the tracks - because of one thing Barnes was perfectly sure: those beams were going to sink rapidly under the tank's weight and they would probably split in half long before Bert reached the bank. Standing on the engine covers at the rear of the tank, Colburn should make it so long as he jumped quickly, but if their first rush didn't carry them to the bank Barnes didn't think that he would make it - he would have to stay behind to help Reynolds, and the driver had to climb upwards out of his hatch before he was even standing on the front hull. There was every chance that the twenty-six ton weight of the tank would sink like a stone long before Reynolds had come out, in which case they would both die without the aid of enemy action just as poor Penn had died. In fact, just as Davis had died. Barnes had an awful vision of what would happen as the tank went down, the mud and ooze rising hungrily up over the tracks, enveloping the hull, welling up over his chest and neck, his head going down as the quagmire swept over him and shut out the world for ever. His hand gripped the mike and he spoke.
'Now!'
Then he immediately bawled out 'Maintenant!' three times at the top of his voice and the tank was moving backwards. The tow-lines drooped, went slack. The farmer hadn't heard him! He opened his mouth again and saw the lines whip up, tighten, twanging as the tractor lurched forward. The tracks were on the beams now and instantly he was aware of a sinking sensation. Both beams had slipped off the island and Reynolds' end was going down. He was revving up non-stop and the tracks were churning through mud, sending up great gouts of ooze which sprayed through the torchlight rays as their bridge sank deeper and deeper. They weren't going to make it. The front end of the bridge was still firmly anchored to the bank so the rear end submerged more and more and now the tank was climbing at a steep angle. He looked back and saw liquid brown ooze lap over the end of the rear tracks, bubbling and slithering over the top. Soon the hull would be under. It was going to be too late, too late ever to reach firm ground and the tank was dropping like a slow-moving lift. Colburn still stood on the hull, leaning back now against the turret but still aiming his torch along the right-hand beam. Hand over the mike, Barnes shouted to him to jump, removed the hand and sucked in his breath to order Reynolds up. Looking back he saw that the quagmire had reached the top of the hull - Reynolds must be frightened out of his life.
Inside the nose of the tank Reynolds was more terrified than he had ever been while under German bombardment, and he had been terrified from the moment he lowered himself through the hatch. His seat was jacked up so that when he sat down his head was well clear of the hatch rim and he could see exactly what was happening. It was the change of angle which finally confirmed that he was going to die horribly. Before Barnes had given the order to move the tank was tilted so that the nose was higher than the tail and this had been of some comfort to Reynolds while they waited for him to rev up. If the tank did start to go down at the rear he might have time to get out and jump back on to the island. It was at least a chance. In the earphones he heard Barnes' order. Now! The tank began to move backwards, dropping to an even keel as the nose left the island and proceeded over the beams. Seconds later the angle began to change, so that now the nose was sinking, leaving the rear higher, and Reynolds knew that he was finished. The floor seemed to go down at an alarming pace and he could see mud flying past the headlights as the tracks churned deeper and his compartment went on sinking. The downward angle let him see the mud rising up over the tracks and he knew that in the next few seconds it would come over the line of the hull and creep towards his chin. Then, suddenly, it would be pouring into the hatchway, flooding his compartment as the quagmire swamped him. But Barnes hadn't yet given the order to bale out, so he stayed.
Colburn still hadn't jumped and Barnes had taken in breath to order Reynolds up when a tuft of grass flew past his torch ray. A second later the rear of the tank dropped and there was a slight bump as the tracks hit something solid. Colburn was shouting sentences Barnes couldn't hear but he understood what had happened. Climbing up over the steeply-angled beams the tracks had moved on upwards into the air until the centre of gravity had passed the end of the beams and they dropped. They had reached firm ground. The tracks went on up the shallow slope of the bank as he spoke quickly into the mike.
'Keep it up! We've done it!'
At that moment the engine coughed, sputtered, stalled, but they were ashore. The tow-lines were still taut as the tractor heaved at its immense load so Barnes jumped to the ground and ran forward to tell the farmer to stop. When the engine was switched off he thumped the Frenchman on the back and kept on thanking him regardless of the fact that the man couldn't understand half he was staying. He stopped suddenly as he heard Colburn calling out urgently and when he turned round to face the quagmire his body went completely rigid and he froze.
The giant vehicle must have driven along the road while they were preoccupied with saving the tank. They wouldn't have heard its motor because of their own engines and that of the tractor, and Reynolds, the only one facing the road, must have been too concerned with what was happening to notice the road. Worse still, the new arrivals could easily locate their position because Bert's headlights were still on, to stay nothing of the tractor's lamp. The moon had now risen and this enabled Barnes to make instant recognition of the huge vehicle and the silhouette of its load - a tank transporter with a tank aboard. As if to complete the process of recognition a soldier walked past the headlights of the transporter, a soldier carrying something which could only be a machine-pistol and wearing a pudding-shaped helmet. The Germans ha
d arrived. It took a very short time for Barnes to recover from his stunned state, and this was replaced by an upsurge of cold, murderous fury. They had come all this way; they had lost Davis and Penn; they had almost lost their tank and their own lives a few minutes ago, and now this lot was poking its nose in to snatch it all away from them. Running back to the tank, he leapt on to the hull, grabbed a machine-pistol off the ledge inside the turret, and jumped down behind the tank. He spoke briefly to Reynolds and Colburn.
'Wait here - behind Bert. Don't switch the lights off - that will alert them.'
Then he was running back into the field, following as closely as he could the course the tank had taken when it first turned off the road. To avoid any risk of going into the quagmire he ran a little farther round than he thought was necessary, circling back so that he would come out on the road a good hundred yards behind where the transporter was parked. And as he ran his mind worked with icy detachment. How many Germans would there be? One transporter carrying one heavy tank to the repair shop: four men at the most, he guessed. Possibly only three - the Germans were short of ground troops. He dropped flat suddenly. The first soldier he had seen was standing in the field just beyond the grass verge, and now a second one had walked in front of the headlights and he was looking in Barnes' direction. He didn't think he had been spotted. He had kept his body crouched low and the moonlight wasn't very strong yet, its illumination blurred by a faint white mist rising off the field. The second soldier joined his companion and they both stood staring across the field. They couldn't be too worried yet because otherwise they wouldn't have walked in front of those headlights, and they could have no reason to suspect the presence of hostile troops in this area. Had they done that in the first place they would never have stopped the transporter. A third soldier appeared and stood right in front of the headlights, his machine-pistol clearly visible. He walked forward to join the others.
Barnes was very close to the road now and when he stood up the road was only a dozen yards away. A curtain of mist floated between himself and the Germans and he ran forward, crossing the road and continuing several yards into the field beyond. When he turned, the bulk of the transporter shielded him from where the soldiers waited. Why didn't they either investigate or go away? He found the answer when he looked back across the road and saw that the scene on the edge of the quagmire from that distance looked like anything but what it was. The lights of the tank were tilted downwards and he remembered the shallow slope at the edge of the quagmire.
The odd angle of Bert's headlights gave the strange impression that there had just been a car crash. The turret of the tank was invisible and the light of the tractor was too far away to show up the tank's silhouette. The Germans might well be imagining that there was another road just across the fields, and from the passive way they were standing by the roadside he felt certain that Bert's engine had stalled just in time, otherwise they must have recognized the grind of the tracks. It was a tableau made to order, if only he could take advantage of it in time. He moved across the field towards the transporter, his boots making no sound on the grass.
He was close to the rear of the vehicle when he heard someone call out in German. Peering round the end he saw two soldiers still standing on the verge just beyond the front of the transporter while a third one made his way across the field, flashing a torch in front of him. The mist was blurring Bert's lights now and hung over the quagmire like a noxious gas rising from the swamp. Was there a fourth man in the cab? The two Germans by the roadside presented a tempting target but Barnes waited. He had to try and get them all at once to avoid them scattering.
The soldier walking across the field had stopped, the machine-pistol tucked under one arm while he waved the torch with the other hand. The curtain of mist had drifted lower now and soon he would have to walk into it. He shouted across the field in German, waited, and then shouted again, several sentences. It was deathly quiet when he stopped shouting. The transporter's engine had been switched off and the mist seemed to cover the field like a leather glove which smothered even the slightest sound. Barnes waited. The Germans waited. He was fairly sure that the soldier in the field was going to give up his search and return to the others, which meant that for a brief moment all three men might be close together. He hoped so because as he stood by the elevated ramp at the rear of the transporter an entirely new idea was developing at the back of his, mind, an idea which made it imperative that he would wipe out the whole German escort. Then he heard one of the men-who stood by the roadside call out; the soldier with the torch answered and began to move deeper into the field, sweeping his torch towards the mist wall which was now less than a dozen yards ahead of him.
It happened without warning. The German walked up to the remnants of a wire fence, paused at a point where two posts tilted at a drunken angle, the wire between them sagging, and stepped over the wires, walking forward again. Then he fell forward,; losing his torch which skidded sideways over baked mud, and shouted. His shout rose to a shriek of alarm. Jesus, thought Barnes, he's in the quagmire. One of the soldiers by the roadside ran forward, flashing on a torch beam, while the other stayed to guard the transporter. It was at this moment that Barnes climbed silently up on to the side of the huge vehicle, creeping forward and taking up a fresh position behind the German tank. The soldier was running across the field now, waving his torch in front of him as his comrade in the swamp screamed his head off, a scream of pure terror. As the running soldier stopped abruptly his torch beam focussed on a horrifying sight: the first German was already up to his waist as the quagmire sucked him steadily downwards; his arms were waving frantically as he kept padding them down on the mud to arrest his sinking movement and he was still shrieking frenziedly. The third German by the roadside ran up to the transporter, feeling under the tank only feet away from where Barnes was crouched, pulled out a coil of rope and started running across the field. The soldier in the quagmire had sunk in up to the chest now, waving his arms high above his head, and only a few feet from where he struggled the lighted torch he had dropped lay on the top of unbroken crust. The man with the rope was close now and while he ran he held the rope coil ready to throw. As he reached the spot where the German holding the torch stood the struggling man sank lower, only his head and upstretched arms visible now, his voice an agonized moan. The rope was thrown, falling several feet short. The head in the swamp sank out of sight, the voice dying in a strangled gurgle, the vertical arms sliding under the surface, vanishing. Barnes wiped sweat of his forehead, slipped his finger back inside the trigger guard, stood up behind the tank and waited.
The two Germans came back slowly, machine-pistols hoisted over their shoulders, talking in low tones. They were less than a dozen yards away when Barnes lifted the machine-pistol. He fired one continuous burst, shifting the muzzle slightly from side to side to cover them both. They were still collapsing to the ground when he ceased fire, half a magazine still unused. At that moment the engine of the transporter kicked into life. There had been a fourth man - the driver, with instructions never to leave his cab. Barnes leapt down on to the grass verge and the door on his side was still open as he ran forward, pulling up short just before he reached the opening. Keeping back out of sight he shoved the muzzle of his pistol round the corner, aiming it upwards, firing one short burst. As he ran back to the rear of the vehicle, round the end and along the other side, the engine was still ticking over but the transporter hadn't started moving. He was still cautious when he reached the closed cab door. Grabbing the handle, he hauled the door open and jumped back, his pistol levelled, but the precaution wasn't necessary. As the door opened the driver's body toppled sideways, landing in the road with a soft thud. The German was dead, bis right side riddled with bullets. Switching off the motor, Barnes went across to have a look at the other two soldiers. They were also dead. Sergeant Barnes was in sole possession of one German tank transporter.
TEN
Saturday, May 25th
They
were roaring through the night like a thunderbolt, twin headlights ablaze, the long beams stretching far into the darkness, the giant transporter swaying gently from side to side as Reynolds stepped up the speed. Fifty-five, sixty, sixty-five miles an hour. On the other side of the cab Barnes gazed along the beams which still showed only endless open road, while between them Colburn turned round to peer through the tiny window at the back of the cab.
'Don't worry,' Barnes assured him. 'Bert's still there - his weight alone will keep him on board even moving at this pace.'
His mind travelled back to what had taken place at the edge of the quagmire before they started their headlong dash to the north, and he smiled grimly as he thought that whatever happened now they had been responsible for eliminating at least one German heavy tank, even if the method used had been, to put it mildly, unorthodox. When he had examined the vehicle he found that it was in perfect working order except for the machine gun and the wireless set. To Barnes' mind it should have been possible to repair the firing mechanism in a few hours but instead the Germans had loaded the tank on to a transporter. This action alone pointed up the Germans' prodigal use of equipment. He had just finished his examination when he heard a heart-warming sound - the sound of Bert's engines tuning up faultlessly. By the time that Reynolds and Colburn arrived inside the tank he had decided exactly what he was going to do.
He was going to head all-out for Calais, the last port before Dunkirk, possibly the twin keys to the whole campaign. If they could come up behind the Germans, causing the maximum possible damage to their rear, then they might be able to strike a heavy blow at a decisive moment. Above all else, he prayed that they would find a really major objective. Bert, going all-out, had a maximum speed of fifteen miles an hour, whereas the German transporter if driven to its utmost limits, could multiply that rate by four. But as a preliminary they had to get rid of one Wehrmacht heavy tank. This operation took less than thirty minutes.
