Attack Alarm

by Hammond Innes

  We soon topped the brow of the hill, and before we had gone thirty yards down the slope we sighted the lorry. Langdon had judged it nicely. We ourselves were directly above it. We crouched down, moving forward more cautiously. The moon was low enough now for the sharper slope of the hill near the brow to be in shadow. This shadow completely swallowed up the detachment, so that, looking to either side of us, I could scarcely believe that we were not alone.

  The slope gradually eased off and the shadow ended abruptly. We were less than a hundred yards from the lorry and we halted’ here. I touched Langdon’s arm and pointed along the wire to the north. The slope spread out here in a shoulder and on it, close against the wire, was parked a second R.A.F. lorry. Here, too, men dressed in R.A.F. uniform were carrying cylinders along the wire.

  Langdon looked at his watch. “The five minutes is up,” he said. “I’ll go and see what they’re up to.”

  “It’s suicide,” I said. “If you force them to show their hand you’ll get killed. This is too big a thing for them to have any scruples.”

  “Well, at least I shall have died to some purpose,” he said with a boyish laugh which sounded brittle and false to my sensitive ears.

  “Let me go,” I said. “It’s my show.”

  “No, this part of it’s mine,” he said. “You’ve done enough.” His tone was quiet but final. He was, after all, the detachment commander.

  “Well, whoever you talk to, see that you don’t get in my line of fire. I used to be something of a shot when I was at school. I’ll keep him covered the whole time.”

  “Thanks.” He rose to his feet and went down the slope, his slim figure suddenly showing up in the slanting light of the moon. Beyond him the eastern sky was paling.

  It all seemed so strangely ordinary. And yet there was a difference. The slope down which John Langdon was walking and the line of dannet wire—I knew it all so well. In the stillness of the evenings I had walked along this hillside. And my rifle! It had just been something to take on night guards. Now all these familiar things took on a new significance. This hillside might suddenly become a miniature battlefield. My rifle was suddenly a weapon. And yet there was no visible indication of a change. Everything looked much the same.

  Langdon had reached the lorry now. A man in the uniform of an R.A.F. sergeant jumped out of the back of it. Langdon moved slightly so that he did not screen the man. Quickly I cocked my rifle and raised it to my shoulder. It seemed rather unnecessary. The man was unarmed. I could see no sign of hostility.

  Hood probably sensed my feeling, for he suddenly said: “Mind that thing doesn’t go off. You don’t get away with murder just because you’re in uniform.”

  I made no reply. I felt distinctly uncomfortable.

  The Guards’ sentry had continued on his beat. Langdon was alone. Two men were watching him from the tail-board of the lorry. I wished I had brought a pair of glasses with me. Langdon nodded in our direction. The R.A.F. sergeant glanced at the slope above him.

  Then suddenly the whole atmosphere of the scene changed. The man had produced a small automatic from his pocket. I saw it glint in the moonlight as he waved Langdon towards the back of the lorry.

  Automatically my forefinger had taken the first pressure on the trigger. Langdon moved slowly towards the lorry. The man covering him pivoted but did not actually move. The foresight came up into the U of the backsight. I squeezed the trigger. The recoil was pleasantly reminiscent of the ranges at Bisley. There was no sense of killing. The man was just a target. He jerked forward with the force of the bullet’s impact, stumbled and slowly crumpled. I reloaded automatically without removing the rifle from my shoulder.

  Langdon hesitated for a second, watching the man fall. It was like a “still” from a film. The two men on the tail-board of the lorry gazed at their leader, fascinated, momentarily incapable of action. The men carrying the cylinders along the wire halted.

  Then suddenly, like puppets, they all came to life. Langdon dived for the slope. The men along the wire dropped their cylinders and ran for the lorry. The two men on the tail-board disappeared inside. They reappeared, a second later, with rifles. Two more came out from behind the lorry, they also had rifles.

  Langdon had reached the steepest part of the slope. He was running hard and zigzagging at the same time. I fired at the men on the tail-board. As I reloaded I heard the crack of Hood’s rifle just to the left of me. I fired again. Sporadic fire had now developed along the whole of our short line. One of the men on the tail-board toppled to the ground. The other disappeared inside. I turned my fire on the four men who were coming up along the wire. They were spread out, and though little spurts of earth were shooting up all round them, they made the lorry without being hit.

  “They’ve got down behind the wheels of the lorry,” Hood said. Little spurts of flame showed in the dark behind the bulk of the lorry. I could hear the thud of bullets as they lashed into the grass at Langdon’s feet. I concentrated my aim on the pin-points of flame, firing rapidly. Others were doing the same. I don’t know whether we hit any one, but our fire seemed to put them off their aim, for Langdon reached the shadow and slumped down beside us, panting heavily.

  I stopped firing. I had only six rounds left. “What do we do now?” I asked.

  “Send a runner back,” Langdon replied breathlessly. “Helson!” he called.

  “Yes, Sergeant,” came his voice from the right of us.

  “Get back to the bicycle. Ride to the pit and ’phone Gun Ops. Tell ’em what’s happened. We want reserves to put these lorries out of action. Tell ’em to issue an Attack Alarm, have all ground defences manned—to prepare for an air invasion of the ’drome within the next half-hour. O.K.?”

  “Right.” Vaguely his form loomed up out of the grass as he scrambled to his feet and started back up the slope.

  “What about the armoured car over by Station H.Q.?” said Hood. “It’s just the thing for this job.”

  “You’re right. When you’ve done that, Helson,” Langdon called after him, “go down to Station H.Q. and rout out the R.A. lads who run that armoured car. Bring it back here.”

  “O.K.” He disappeared from sight, merging into the shadow of the hillside.

  “They’re getting a Bren gun out,” Hood said, and his rifle cracked. One of the men, who had appeared on the tail-board again, ducked. I raised my rifle and fired. I had the satisfaction of seeing his legs give under him. But he still continued to hand down first two guns and then four boxes of ammunition. I fired again at the men on the ground. Fire crackled out along the hillside once more. But they got the two guns into cover behind the lorry.

  “Hold your fire!” Langdon yelled.

  There was no alternative. Every one’s ammunition was getting very low. We had to keep some reserve until reinforcements came up.

  Langdon nudged my arm. “The Guards are coming up, along the wire. See?” Two men were running along the wire with bayonets fixed and others were moving along the slope of the hill in extended formation.

  I suddenly felt sorry for the poor devils behind the lorry. They were doing their job as they saw it, just as we were doing ours—and they hadn’t a hope, unless the time fixed for the landing was very near indeed. The sky was perceptibly lightening. I glanced at my watch. It was nearly four-twenty. I began to feel anxious. There were those other three lorries. So far we had done nothing about them. And though the cylinders which had been carried out along the barbed wire to the south of us were useless, this lorry could still contribute to the smoke screen with the cylinders that had not yet been removed from it.

  “We must do something about those other lorries,” I said to Langdon.

  “Yes, but what?” he replied. “The armoured car is the only thing that will fix them.”

  “But that may be too late.”

  “Yes, but what the hell can we do? We’ll have to wait for that.”

  The paling night had become quiet again. It seemed like the lull before the storm. H
ow long would this quiet last? I had a vision of those big Ju. 52’s coming in through the smoke, disgorging their hordes of field grey. Two a minute, we had been told, was the speed at which they could land. Something had to be done.

  The quiet was shattered by the ugly chatter of a Bren gun. The fire was not directed at us, but at the line of Guards advancing along the slope.

  In a flash inspiration came to me. “My God!” I said to Langdon. “The Bofors. Number Five pit has a field of fire right down the slope. It should be possible to bring it to bear on one of the lorries at any rate.”

  “You’re right, by God,” he said. “Take charge, will you, Hood. Hanson and I are going up to Number Five pit.”

  “Wait,” Hood said. We checked, half standing. “Christ! he’ll never make it.” Hood’s voice was a tone higher than usual in his excitement.

  We both crouched, breathless. I felt a horrible sick sensation inside me. At any moment I expected that small figure to double up and pitch headlong down the slope.

  It was Micky. He had jumped to his feet and was running down the slope like a mad thing. His rifle, complete with bayonet, was slung across his shoulders. “What the hell is the fool up to?” I muttered.

  The Bren gun was chattering away. But its fire was still concentrated on the advancing Guards. Apparently they saw Micky too late, for when they checked their fire in order to train their gun on to him, he was already at the foot of the steep part of the slope and within some thirty yards of the lorry. He suddenly stopped and swung his right arm back. For an instant he stood poised like a javelin thrower. Then his arm came forward and a small object curved lazily through the air. At the same instant the Bren gun set up its rat-a-tat again, and Micky checked and staggered.

  I lost sight of the Mills bomb he had thrown. But it must have been well aimed, for he had barely fallen to the hail of bullets that bit into the turf all round him, when there was a sudden flash beneath the lorry, followed by the sound of an explosion; not loud, but sharp. The lorry rocked slightly and several pieces of wood were flung into the air.

  Complete silence followed the explosion. Then quietly, menacingly, smoke began to rise out of the back of the lorry. At first I thought it must be on fire. But the stuff began to pour out in a great cloud, thick and black like funnel smoke. Then I knew that the smoke cylinders had been hit.

  Micky was on his feet again now and running rather jerkily towards the lorry. He made it just as one of the Bren gunners staggered out from behind it. Micky had unslung his rifle. The fellow tried to dive back into the cover of the lorry. But Micky was on him before he could turn. I saw a flash of steel in the moonlight and the man fell, pinned to the ground by the force of Micky’s lunge. The last I saw of Micky as the smoke enveloped the lorry, he was tugging to get his bayonet out of the poor wretch.

  The smoke lay close to the ground like a thick amorphous blanket, gathering volume with every second. In an instant the lorry was lost to sight as the breeze rolled the smoke up the slope towards us.

  “Come on,” said Langdon. “Let’s get to the Bofors.”

  We scrambled up the slope and struck northwards along the brow of the hill. As we ran I asked Langdon what had made the fellow he had spoken to produce a revolver. “He said he was acting under instructions from Winton,” Langdon replied. “They were going to test smoke as a means of defending the ’drome against heavy air attacks. I asked to see his instructions. When he said they had been given to him verbally, I told him he would have to get the cylinders back into the lorry and return to Station H.Q. for written instructions. We argued for a bit, and when I made it clear that I suspected him and that I was determined to prevent the cylinders from being set off, he showed his hand.”

  We were now in sight of Number Five pit. The slender barrel of the Bofors showed above the sandbagged parapet. Tin-hatted figures were moving about inside the pit and other members of the team were standing about outside their hut, fully dressed. The pit was perched just on the brow of the hill. One of the lorries was almost directly below it and another was just visible about seven hundred yards farther north along the wire.

  When we arrived at the pit the sergeant in charge was at the ’phone. We were challenged, but the guard recognised Langdon and let us enter the pit.

  “Sergeant Guest.” Langdon’s interruption was met by a silencing wave of the hand. Langdon went over to the fellow and tapped him on the shoulder.

  The sergeant turned impatiently. “Keep quiet,” he said. “This is important. They’re expecting an invasion at dawn.”

  “I know, I know,” Langdon said. “It’s one of my fellows reporting to Gun Ops. Put that ’phone down and listen a minute.”

  Guest handed the receiver to his bombardier. “What do you mean—one of your fellows? What’s happening? There’s been firing”

  “That was us,” Langdon interrupted. Briefly he outlined the situation.

  When he came to the point of our visit—that the Bofors should open fire on the two R.A.F. lorries visible from the pit, Sergeant Guest said: “I can’t very well do that without an officer’s permission. I mean, how am I to know that they aren’t really R.A.F. lorries?”

  “Well, get your men on to tearing down the sandbags so that we can lay on the lorries while we talk the matter over,” Langdon said.

  We had barely convinced him of the need for opening fire by the time sufficient parapet had been taken down, and then it was only with great reluctance that he gave the order to load and lay on the lorry immediately below the pit. He didn’t like it. I must say I couldn’t blame him. He had only our word for what was going on. I don’t think he would have done it at all if he hadn’t seen the dense blanket of smoke creeping over the brow of the hill to the south and spreading across the landing field.

  “All right,” he said at last. “Layers on. Load! Lay on that R.A.F. lorry. Vertical zero, lateral zero.”

  “On, on,” came from the two layers.

  “Set to auto. One burst. Fire!”

  The pit shook to the sudden utterances of the gun—Umm-pom, umm-pom, umm-pom. The flame guard belched fire and the barrel thrust backwards and forwards at each shot. The tracer shells flew through the air like little flaming oranges chasing each other to the target. They hit the lorry square amidships and burst with soft plops. Five shots and the lorry had disintegrated into a great billow of smoke that poured out from its shattered sides and, began immediately to creep up the hill, hugging the ground.

  “By God, Langdon, you’re right,” cried Guest excitedly. “It is smoke.”

  “Get that other lorry,” shouted Langdon. “This stuff will be on top of us in a moment.”

  The gun traversed left. More sandbags had to be removed from the parapet before the layers could get on target. The smoke rolled up the hill, thick and black and strangely menacing. The vanguard of it topped the hill to the south of us, putting a dense screen between ourselves and the dispersal point below which we had attacked the first lorry. It was clear we should miss the bulk of it, but the fringe of the wretched stuff was only a few yards from us when the layers reported “On, on.”

  A moment later the Bofors spoke. It was like the sound of tom-toms in a mountain gorge, steady and angry. The first two little balls of fire hit the slope in the foreground. The layers elevated slightly and the fourth shell registered a direct hit on the cabin. Two more shells and Guest ordered “Cease fire!” The last shell so shook the wreckage that it slowly toppled over on to the wire. Great volumes of black smoke poured lazily from it just as it had from the other two.

  “Nice work,” I said. I had a horrible feeling of exultation. “Now there’s only one left and the armoured car ought to be able to deal with that.”

  “If it can get through all this smoke,” said Langdon.

  “No matter,” I said. “One lorry won’t make much of a smoke screen.”

  “Yes, but supposing they came over now.” He looked anxious. “The whole field will be covered with smoke. The ground defen
ces couldn’t do a thing.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” I replied. “They couldn’t land. Don’t forget the whole thing depends on their having balloon markers at each end of the runway to guide them in. Besides, they won’t come yet. It must have been worked out to an intricate time-table. The cylinders wouldn’t have been distributed for at least ten minutes. And they would have had to allow some slight margin. I should say we have got another quarter of an hour. But we must warn other aerodromes.”

  At that moment the Tannoy sounded faintly from the depths of the smoke, wisps of which were beginning to curl over the pit: “Attention, please! Attention, please! Attack alarm! Attack alarm! All ground defences to report immediately to their action stations. Crews to stand by at dispersal points. All other personnel to take cover. Anti-aircraft defences will be fully manned. All personnel throughout the camp will put on gas masks immediately.” The message was repeated.

  And then: “Tiger and Swallow-tail Squadrons to readiness immediately.”

  “Thank God for that,” I said. “Helson has persuaded someone to take action.”

  The ’phone rang. Sergeant Guest answered it. Then he put his hand over the mouthpiece and turned to us. “It’s the C.O. Thorby on the ’phone. He wants to know if any one in this gun pit has any accurate knowledge of what’s going on.”

  “I’ll talk to him,” said Langdon.

  He took the receiver. “Sergeant Langdon here, sir. The position is this: There was a plan to land troops on the aerodrome at dawn this morning under cover of a smoke screen. Four R.A.F. lorries entered the camp at roughly three-fifty hours carrying smoke cylinders and manned by fifth columnists in R.A.F. uniforms. Gunner Hanson of my detachment saw a large number of these lorries being loaded up in a gravel pit in Ashdown Forest. Mr. Vayle was in charge. Yes, Vayle. The four lorries that entered Thorby distributed themselves along the wire to the north-east of the landing field—that is, to windward. My own detachment dealt with one of them and two more have just been destroyed by Bofors fire from Number Five pit. Yes, sir, as far as we know it’s only smoke. Gas would hamper their own troops as much as ours. Well, the cylinders must be fairly well shot to pieces. It shouldn’t take long to clear. No, they were to be guided in by balloons flown at a fixed height at each end of the runway. The last one must be practically at the north end of the ’drome. The wind is north-east, you know. Yes, the runner who reported to Gun Ops. has gone on to get the armoured car. You’ll come out with it, sir? Very good. I’ll wait here at Number Five pit. Well, we think in about quarter of an hour. Can you send an urgent warning out to all ’dromes in the south-eastern area? Yes, there isn’t much time. Very good, sir. I’ll be here.”