Tempest Squadron

by Robert Jackson

  She reached up and touched Yeoman’s cheek lightly. The latter smiled, although he had not understood a word she had said, and watched her as she turned back to the bubbling pot on the fire. Then he looked at his unaccustomed surroundings, feeling the warmth of the fire seep through to his bones.

  He was in a cottage kitchen, and for a moment he felt that he had been catapulted back in time a hundred years or more. The focal point of the room was the big open fireplace, with its built-in brick oven; two rocking chairs stood one on either side of it, facing each other. Around it, hanging on hooks, were pots and pans of various shapes and sizes, and a long shelf above it bore a row of pewter mugs and plates, gleaming dully in the mellow light. More plates and dishes were ranged on a dark wooden dresser that occupied an adjacent wall. In the centre of the room stood a roughly-hewn table, its spotless top scrubbed white, flanked by two wooden benches. A door in one corner led, Yeoman guessed, into another room that was doubtless reserved for special occasions, while a narrow staircase in the corner opposite ended at a trapdoor which presumably gave access to sleeping quarters.

  Yeoman’s appraisal of the kitchen took no more than a couple of seconds, after which his attention turned to the two men who had made him their prisoner. One of them, the younger of the two, had seated himself on one of the benches by the table; a bland, round-faced youth with fair hair and pink cheeks, he was gazing at Yeoman with a mixture of curiosity and admiration. Embarrassed, the pilot turned his eyes away and surveyed the other, who was standing with his back to the door, smiling at him.

  The man was tall and dark-haired, with a lantern jaw, a long, straight nose and thin moustache. There was a livid scar running down one cheek, from his temple to the corner of his mouth. His smile did not reach his eyes, which were a pale, icy blue.

  ‘Well, old boy,’ the man said, in his cultured English, ‘here we are. Time for some introductions, I think.’

  He looked at the pilot questioningly. The latter noted that he still cradled the shotgun, and looked prepared to use it. Hastily, he told the man who he was, producing his identity disc and adding that he had been shot down that morning.

  ‘Oh yes,’ the man told him, ‘we saw that. One of our friends told us that you’d legged it for the woods, too. Young Henrik here guessed where you’d hidden yourself; he knows the woods like the back of his hand. Thought it best to leave you where you were until nightfall and then make contact, just in case Jerry got to you first.’

  Suddenly, the man gave a disarming grin, laid the shotgun to one side and stuck out his hand.

  ‘Mike Chapman,’ he said. ‘Major, 1st Airborne Division. And before that, Second Battalion the Sherwood Foresters.’ He pointed at the gun. ‘Sorry about the ironmongery, but we have to be very careful, as I’m sure you will appreciate.’

  Vrouw van Oosten interrupted the conversation briefly by setting bowls of steaming porridge on the table, together with some cheese and dark bread. She motioned to them to sit down and they fell to hungrily after first shedding their wet outer clothing, which she placed by the fire to dry.

  Yeoman, his bowl half finished, swallowed a mouthful of hot porridge and looked at Chapman.

  ‘First Airborne Division, you said. Were you at Arnhem?’

  The other nodded. ‘That’s right. Went into the bag with all the other poor devils — those who were left, I mean. I managed to jump off a prisoner of war train just over the German border, somewhere near Venlo, and started walking north-west. Fell in with some friendly Dutch people and ended up here. Couldn’t get any further, so decided to stay on and wait for the Allied advance to catch up with me. Quite a nice set-up, don’t you think?’

  Yeoman set down his spoon and stared at him.

  ‘Surely,’ he said, ‘it must be possible to get across the enemy lines? Damn it, we can’t just sit here and wait for something to happen! After all there are only two of us!’

  Chapman chuckled. ‘Two of us! My dear fellow, please forgive me if I correct you. Within a five-mile radius of this village there are forty-three Allied soldiers and airmen, some survivors of the Arnhem operation, others shot-down aircrew like yourself, all in hiding and waiting for a chance to get out!’ He shook his head. ‘No, old boy, it’s impossible. We’d have to get across the Deurne Canal, and the German defences there are so tight that even a bat couldn’t get through. The best thing for us is to stay underground and wait for the next Allied offensive. It can’t be long now.’

  Yeoman was far from convinced, but decided to keep his opinions to himself for the time being. Instead, he asked: ‘Are there German troops in the village?’

  ‘Oh yes, old boy,’ Chapman assured him cheerfully, ‘dozens of ’em. Or rather, there were until a couple of days ago, when there was a hell of a commotion and they all went off somewhere. All but a few, that is.’

  He popped a piece of cheese into his mouth and said, chewing:

  ‘As a matter of fact, there are a couple of German officers billeted in the house next door. They sometimes pop in for a cup of coffee. It’s their own coffee, of course. They generously let Vrouw van Oosten have a packet from time to time. Nice of ’em, what?’

  Yeoman stared at him in amazement. ‘Good God!’ he spluttered. ‘Do you mean to tell me that enemy officers actually come here, to this house, while you are in it?’

  ‘Of course they do, old chap,’ smiled Chapman. ‘But then, I’m in hiding for most of the time, so I don’t actually see ’em face to face. Anyway, they’re very obliging fellows — if they do turn up for coffee, it’s always at the same time. No chance of being taken by surprise, or anything like that.’

  ‘But — don’t they ever carry out house searches?’ the pilot wanted to know. Chapman looked faintly astonished.

  ‘Good Lord, no! The Dutch folk around here are noted for being very co-operative. The Germans trust ’em. After all, just a few miles further east and these people would have been Germans themselves, what?’ He laughed hugely, and despite his fears Yeoman saw an amusing irony in the whole situation. He was sitting in the middle of an incredible escape network — and one that functioned, moreover, right under the noses of the unsuspecting enemy.

  Nevertheless, he felt uneasy. The Dutch people who ran the escape line were taking an appalling risk, and if they were discovered by the Germans, they would receive no mercy. Yet when he glanced at the rosy faces of Vrouw van Oosten and her son, Henrik, he saw no trace of anxiety there. To them, helping Allied soldiers and airmen was a simple duty, and one they would not have shirked for all the rewards in the world. Yeoman felt very humble.

  He finished the last of his bread and cheese, took a drink of hot milk and stretched out his hands towards the fire, sighing contentedly. As an afterthought, he pulled out his pipe and asked if he might smoke.

  Chapman translated his request to Vrouw van Oosten, then looked at Yeoman and nodded.

  ‘She says it’ll be all right, old boy — but sit by the fire, if you don’t mind, so that your smoke goes up the chimney. Then if anyone comes in unexpectedly, the house won’t be smelling of English tobacco!’

  While the pilot sat by the fire and smoked, the housewife bathed his face tenderly and applied some sort of ointment to the cuts. When she finished her task she patted him on the shoulder, then busied herself with clearing away the dishes. Yeoman stared into the fire and went on puffing at his pipe, his eyelids drooping drowsily. He was suddenly aware of how tired he felt; his head throbbed and he ached all over as the strain and reaction of the day’s events finally caught up with him.

  His chin fell on his chest and he jerked awake with a start, looking round and wondering for a moment where he was. His pipe, still held tightly in his hand, had gone out. Chapman was sitting in the chair opposite, looking at him sympathetically.

  ‘You look absolutely done in, old chap,’ he said. ‘You’d better get off to bed — the others went ages ago. I’ve organized some blankets and things for you.’

  He picked up Yeoman’s battl
edress blouse from the clothes-horse where it had been drying in front of the dying fire and threw it across to him.

  ‘Better take this with you. Remove the evidence, just in case, eh?’

  He led the pilot up the staircase and through the trapdoor into a low attic. It had been converted into two small bedrooms, and Chapman explained in a whisper that Henrik slept in one of them while his mother slept downstairs to make room for her ‘guests’.

  By the light of the lamp, Chapman showed Yeoman the makeshift bed he had made in one corner.

  ‘There you are, old boy,’ he said. ‘It’s all yours. I suggest you sleep with your clothes on; it can get pretty cold up here. And try not to snore too loudly. Remember the Jerries next door!’

  Yeoman looked at the bed and thought that he had never seen anything so inviting. Pulling off his boots, he burrowed his way into the blankets and was asleep in seconds.

  *

  At five-thirty the following morning, her accustomed time, winter and summer alike, Vrouw van Oosten awoke and got quickly out of bed, pulling a thick, warm shawl over her shoulders. She went into the kitchen and made the fire, dressing herself in its glow, then unlocked the door and peered out into the freezing darkness of the winter morning. It had stopped snowing, but now a raw, chill fog clung to the land.

  Smiling to herself, she lifted down the laurel wreath that hung from a nail on the door — an age-old village custom that probably went back to pagan times — and took it into the warmth of the kitchen. Tied to the bottom of the wreath was a faded strand of red ribbon; she carefully removed it and tied a new strip of blue ribbon in its place before replacing the wreath on the door. When the village postman came round later he would see the blue ribbon, wink at her in knowing silence, and spread the word. And before the morning was out, various callers would knock on her door, bringing morsels of food and other comforts for Vrouw van Oosten’s extra guest

  As she hung the wreath back on its nail she paused for a moment in the doorway, her head cocked on one side, listening. From somewhere far away there came a dull rumble, as of distant thunder, deadened by the blanket of fog and almost inaudible.

  Well, she thought, whatever it was, it was no threat to her or the others in her house. She shrugged her shoulders and went inside.

  Chapter Seven

  UNDER COVER OF THE FOG, THE GERMAN TROOPS HAD BEEN moving into their forward assembly areas for many hours. Now, in the chill early hours of Saturday, 16 December 1944, a comparative silence reigned over the Ardennes as though the mountains and wooded hillsides themselves were waiting expectantly for the holocaust that was to come.

  Then, at 0530, the whole length of the Ardennes front was split by vivid flame as two thousand German guns opened up simultaneously between Monschau and Echternach, hurling a devastating weight of shellfire into the forward outposts of the unsuspecting Americans. For two hours the onslaught went on, and in its wake the panzers and the mechanized infantry moved relentlessly forward to the attack.

  The German commanders knew the terrain in the Ardennes well. They had advanced across it during the Blitzkrieg of May 1940 and had retreated through it again four years later. They knew its narrow, twisting roads and the difficulties and dangers that were certain to be experienced in negotiating them in the middle of winter and in the bad weather conditions which were essential to the success of the operation. To get the guns of the artillery and flak units as well as the pontoons of the bridging engineers round the sharp hairpin bends, the guns and trailers had to be disconnected and then dragged round the corners one at a time by a winch mechanism. In many ways, it was a labour comparable to Hannibal’s passage through the Alps — and the miracle was that, like Hannibal’s venture, it succeeded.

  The initial German onslaught, smashing like a hammer blow out of the fog and aided by the artillery barrage, which had cut communications, threw the weak and thinly-scattered American defences into complete confusion. Some isolated outposts had time to organize themselves and put up a fierce resistance before they were overwhelmed, and their gallant sacrifice, by slowing down the enemy’s timetable, was to play a significant part in the final outcome of the Ardennes battle.

  For the time being, however, it seemed that nothing could stop the German thrust. By 19 December, the panzer spearheads had driven nearly sixty miles into Belgium, overrunning towns and villages whose inhabitants had so recently celebrated their liberation. It was a phenomenal success, causing almost total disarray in the Allied command structure, and as the Panzer divisions plunged on wild hopes began to grow in the hearts of even the most sceptical of the German soldiers.

  ‘We have been on our way through Belgium without a break,’ wrote one young Panzer Grenadier to his wife. ‘No rest or sleep at all. The main thing is that the Americans are on the run. We cleared an enemy supply dump ... everybody took only the things he wanted most. I took only chocolate. I have all my pockets full of it. I eat chocolate all the time, in order to sweeten somewhat this wretched life ... Don’t worry about me. The worst is behind me. Now this is just a hunt.’

  And another wrote fervently: ‘This time we are a thousand times better off than you at home. You cannot imagine what glorious hours and days we are experiencing now. It looks as if the Americans cannot withstand our important push. Today we overtook a fleeing column and finished it. We overtook it by taking a back road through the woods to the retreat lane of the American vehicles; then, just like on manoeuvres, we pulled up along the road with sixty Panthers. And then came the endless convoy driving in two columns, side by side, hub on hub, filled to the brim with soldiers. And then a concentrated fire from sixty guns and one hundred and twenty machine-guns. It was a glorious bloodbath, vengeance for our destroyed homeland. Our soldiers still have the old zip. Always advancing and smashing everything. The snow must turn red with American blood. Victory was never as close as it is now ... ’

  By nightfall on 19 December, three days after the start of the offensive, the thrusting German columns had succeeded in isolating and taking prisoner nine thousand American troops in the Schnee Eifel area. It was the worst reverse suffered on the continent of Europe by the United States Army in this war and the previous one.

  Nevertheless, many factors combined in holding up the German advance and the prospects of a massive breakthrough on the Meuse. One key factor in the German plan had been to use some two thousand paratroops, disguised as American soldiers, to capture the Meuse bridges and several vital fuel dumps, from whose stocks the speeding panzers were to replenish; but although the paratroops managed to sow a good deal of confusion in the beginning, the Americans quickly grasped what was happening and launched a major round-up operation. Any Germans who were caught masquerading as Americans were summarily executed.

  The biggest stumbling block to the success of the German offensive, however, was the town of Bastogne, which lay directly in the path of the assault’s left flank. The Germans fully realized the importance of Bastogne in their drive towards the Meuse; at a briefing several days before the start of the offensive, General von Luttwitz, commanding 47th Panzer Corps, had told his subordinate commanders:

  ‘Bastogne must be taken eventually from the rear. If it is not taken it will always remain an ulcer on our lines of communication and for this reason will contain too many of our forces. Therefore, first clear out Bastogne and then carry on.’

  But it was not to prove as simple as that. The Americans, recognizing the serious threat to Bastogne, diverted the crack 101st Airborne Division to reinforce the units that were already there. For several days, exhausted, hungry and half frozen, suffering appalling casualties, they were to hold grimly on to Bastogne in the teeth of relentless German attacks from three points of the compass.

  Still the fog persisted, effectively keeping the air forces of both sides glued to the ground. And on the night of Wednesday, 20 December, the thermometer fell dramatically and the snow once more began to fall, covering the bodies of the dead that lay between the opposing
lines. The ground froze hard, and the defenders of Bastogne knew that the panzers — which had hitherto been restricted to the roads because of muddy conditions — would soon be rolling across the snowy plain to smash through the perimeter, while on the other side of the line the Germans were beginning to look apprehensively at a sky that was starting to show signs of clearing.

  When the sky cleared the Allied fighter-bombers would come, dealing out death and destruction on a scale approaching that of the Falaise battle several months earlier; and the German armour was still a long way short of its primary objective, the River Meuse ...

  *

  ‘I’m sorry, Mike,’ Yeoman said, his face set and determined, ‘but I’ve made my mind up. I’m going to make a break for it tonight. I’ve been here for four days, and it’s too long, especially in view of the news.’

  Thanks to a clandestine radio set operated by a neighbour, they were all aware of the great German push in the Ardennes. Yeoman and Chapman had both been stunned by the news, for neither had believed that the enemy still had sufficient resources in the west to mount such an undertaking.

  ‘Well, old boy,’ Chapman told him, ‘I think you’re being a damn fool, if you don’t mind my saying so. But I can see that nothing I can say will shake you. What are you planning to do?’

  Yeoman pondered for a moment, then said: ‘I’ve thought it out pretty carefully. I can’t get across the Deurne Canal, because all the crossing points have been blown and I’m no swimmer, especially in this weather. So I’m going to try and by-pass it. Look, here’s what I mean.’

  He fished in his pocket and withdrew a scrap of paper on which he had drawn a sketch map, partly from memory and partly with the help of Henrik. He pointed at it with the stem of his pipe.

  ‘Here we are, look, at Venraij. Now then, the Deurne Canal is only four miles away to the west as the crow flies, but as we both agree there is very little prospect of getting across it. Instead, I plan to strike out northwards, following the railway line that leads to Nijmegen. I reckon that if I keep walking in this direction, I’ll be able to reach the salient our people have pushed through into the Nijmegen area and slip through into friendly territory somewhere near Grave, just here. I calculate that about fifteen miles of walking should do it, and if I allow myself a mile an hour across country then I should cover the distance in two nights, lying up during the daytime. Now, what do you think?’