The shell struck the barn one hundred metres away in an explosion of grey smoke and dust. Once the haze cleared, it was possible to see that one end of the old barn had collapsed as a result of the hit. Lieutenant Skopnik applauded as Mephisto powered on across the field. A beaming, nodding Private Wagner, one of the machine-gunners, enthusiastically repeated the applause for the benefit of his crewmates. Eckhardt’s reputation as the unit’s best gunner had been validated.
The commander of the tank group, Colonel Wilhelm Kessel, and several other German officers had come to observe the tanks train, and they now watched as the four metal monsters lumbered down the slope towards a dry stream bed. Lieutenant Skopnik took Mephisto slipping down the incline, then bucking up the other side and out again, with engines roaring and smoke pouring from the exhausts. Gretchen followed suit, and so too did Cyklop, but Baden 1 came to a sudden halt in the depression, with nose down and tail jutting into the air. The tank’s commander poked his head up through a hatchway in the top of the cupola while several of his crewmen piled out of the vehicle’s front left hatch and began a close inspection of the tank’s predicament.
Colonel Kessel, a bulky grey-haired man, turned to his adjutant with a scowl. ‘My God, Theunissen, I thought these panzers could go anywhere. Has that machine been defeated by a simple riverbed?’
‘Baden 1 has a new crew, Herr Oberst,’ Theunissen replied. ‘They are still becoming accustomed to their panzer.’
‘Humph!’ the colonel returned, unimpressed. ‘Get all the panzers ready for immediate action, Theunissen. They are needed at the front for the next phase of the offensive on the Somme.’
‘Yes, Herr Oberst.’ Taking out a notebook and pencil, the adjutant opened the book to a blank page and wrote: All machines must be ready for immediate action. By command of Oberst Kessel.
After two hours of mashing around the fields, Mephisto, Gretchen and Cyklop came rumbling back to their base at the mill. Baden 1 was still out in the stream bed with mechanics working on its repair.
Richard, exhausted by the constant battering his eardrums had received, and carrying bruises after being bounced around inside Mephisto like a baby in a runaway pram, gratefully joined the others climbing out through the hatches. Lieutenant Skopnik and Papa Heiber threw back the hatch covers on the cupola and clambered down.
‘Refuel without delay, Heiber,’ Skopnik instructed, removing his leather gloves. ‘This is a thirsty beast.’
‘Indeed it is, Herr Oberleutnant,’ Heiber returned. ‘Ten litres of fuel every kilometre, it consumes.’
Skopnik nodded. ‘Fill the fuel tanks to the brim, Feldwebel. We will soon be on the move again.’
‘At once, Herr Oberleutnant,’ Heiber acknowledged, saluting. He watched the lieutenant stride away, then noticed Richard standing close by. ‘Well, boy, what did you think of your first outing in the old fellow?’ he inquired.
‘I don’t think I’ll ever hear properly again, Feldwebel Heiber,’ said Richard, banging one ringing ear with the flat of his hand.
Heiber laughed. ‘You’ll get used to it,’ he said, before heading off with Hartmann to organise Mephisto’s refuelling.
Private Hess, the assistant mechanic and signaller, was at that moment clambering out the rear compartment hatch on the right side of the hull. Richard noticed that Hess was gingerly carrying a small rectangular wire cage containing half-a-dozen pigeons.
‘What on earth were pigeons doing in the panzer?’ Richard asked.
‘What do you think they were doing?’ Hess replied. ‘They weren’t coming along for the ride and they weren’t there for our lunch.’
‘I have no idea,’ Richard confessed.
‘For communication, dolt! These are carrier pigeons!’ Bringing the cage up to his face, Hess spoke tenderly to the birds inside. ‘Aren’t you, my beauties?’
‘Communication?’ said Richard. ‘Who with?’
‘With headquarters, of course! The commander writes a note containing vital information, I attach the note to the leg of one of my girls here, and I send her off on the wing through one of the ports, and she flies to headquarters with it. Simple.’
‘Oh.’
‘How else would we communicate with headquarters? With smoke signals, perhaps, like the wild Indians of America? Or maybe you think we could magically send our words through the air by a magic telephone that needs no wires?’ With that, Hess tramped away, carrying the birdcage and talking soothingly to the pigeons.
‘Rix!’ called Sergeant Eckhardt. ‘Don’t just stand there! Replace the used shell at once. The panzer’s ammunition lockers are to be full at all times.’
‘Yes, Feldwebel,’ Richard acknowledged, before setting off for the quartermaster’s store behind the barns.
Private Wagner fell in beside Richard. ‘So, new boy, your gun hit the target today.’
‘Yes,’ said Richard. ‘Feldwebel Eckhardt seems to be a crack shot.’
‘Just like at St Quentin. You should have seen us, Rix. Mephisto truly was a devil that day. Our guns destroyed their positions until we ran out of ammunition. Blam! Blam! Blam! And we ran down so many of the enemy, our tracks were red with British blood!’
Richard gulped. ‘Red with blood? Really?’
‘It was the most exciting, exhilarating day of my life,’ Wagner confessed. ‘And we have more such days ahead of us. You will see. Mephisto is unstoppable! Our panzers will win the war for Germany!’
‘Ah, but Leutnant Biltz thinks that –’
‘Lightning Biltz? Have you seen the Iron Cross he wears? We’ll all be wearing them before long! The Kaiser will present the crewmen of Mephisto with the Iron Cross, for winning the war. And we’ll all be heroes back home. You wait and see.’
Before Richard could say anything, Wagner peeled away and headed towards the barns. Tramping on alone, Richard weighed up the conflicting opinions of Wagner and Lieutenant Biltz. In the end, he decided it was best to wait and see. Time would tell which of the two was right. Richard hoped that it would be Wagner, not that he particularly wanted a medal. The thought of his country losing the war, as Lieutenant Biltz had seemed to predict, was too horrible a fate to consider.
He knew that the people back home were having to ration food. Before Christmas, most of Grandfather Rix’s pigs had been confiscated by the German Government, to help feed the army. Richard’s grandfather hadn’t complained. He’d written to tell Richard that he was proud to contribute to the war effort. But how much more difficult would it be if Germany lost the war? Richard knew enough about history to be aware that victors rarely treat the defeated well. Would the Allied forces come and take the last of Grandfather Rix’s pigs and perhaps even confiscate his farm? After all, the German Army had taken over this very farm where the tank group was stationed, dispossessing its farmer and his family of their land.
Suppressing these negative thoughts, Richard filled out the necessary paperwork at the quartermaster’s store and walked back to Mephisto, cradling a 57 mm shell. He reached the tank just as Papa Heiber and Corporal Hartmann were pumping fuel from large drums into Mephisto’s 500-litre fuel tank. With difficulty, Richard clambered in through the hatchway, carrying his deadly load. Once he’d gingerly stowed the artillery shell, blunt end down, beside scores of other shells in an ammunition locker behind the gun, Richard closed the hatch door and headed for the cooking fires now smoking on the bank of the stream.
As he reached the cooking place, where crewmen from all of the unit’s tanks were gathering for lunch, adjutant Lieutenant Theunissen also arrived on the scene, accompanied by Lieutenant Skopnik and the other tank commanders.
‘You men,’ Theunissen said in a raised voice, ‘prepare your personal equipment, your vehicles and the stores. Movement orders have arrived. We are boarding a goods train at Charleroi-South Station at midnight tonight.’ He waved what looked to be a telegram in the air.
Captain Greiff, deputy to Colonel Kessel, stood beside Theunissen. ‘We are to join the Michael O
ffensive,’ he told the men. ‘We are to push those British Tommies all the way back to the sea.’ Smiling, he added loudly, ‘Glory awaits us all!’
‘Where are we headed, Herr Hauptmann?’ a burly sergeant asked.
‘The Somme,’ Greiff replied. ‘First, we return to St Quentin, scene of our panzers’ last great victory. And from there, to the Somme. Our first objective is Amiens. You know, there is an ancient Roman road that runs from St Quentin to Amiens, as straight as straight can be. We and our panzers will follow that ancient path. To victory!’
Cheers rose up from the tank men.
Wagner, standing beside Richard, nudged him in the ribs. ‘What did I tell you, Rix?’ he said. ‘We are bound for victory!’
Richard smiled weakly. Victory? Perhaps, he thought, but at what cost?
There was a pretty girl working with her father behind the counter of a shop on the village square, around the corner from the 52nd Battalion’s headquarters. Frankie reckoned the girl might be fifteen or sixteen years old. She was a beauty, with her wavy red-brown hair tumbling around her face and down onto her shoulders. Her green eyes shone brightly at the sight of Australian soldiers who would find any excuse to come into the shop. But she was too shy to talk to Frankie and Taz, and every time they appeared she would quickly lower her eyes to ensure her father didn’t catch her looking at the young men from the other side of the world.
‘I’m game to ask her what her name is,’ said Frankie, always the boldest of the two, as the pair stood outside the shop. ‘Are you?’
Taz looked uncomfortable. ‘Oh, I wouldn’t know what to say, Frankie.’
Frankie rolled his eyes and led the way into the shop. ‘Come on.’
While the young girl and her father were busy serving customers, Frankie picked up a Belgian lace doily from the counter. Before long, the girl finished with her customer and, with a coy smile, took the doily from Frankie and commenced to wrap it in brown paper, tying it with string.
‘You’ll have to buy it now,’ Taz whispered.
‘I know, I know.’ Frankie fished out a handful of local money from his pocket and held it out to the girl.
Taking some of the money from his hand, she handed Frankie the small package.
‘It’s for my mum, back in Australia,’ Frankie said awkwardly. ‘The lacy thing, I mean.’ He didn’t even know what it was.
‘Ask her what her name is!’ urged Taz, whispering from the corner of his mouth.
‘All right, here goes,’ Frankie responded, before smiling wide and trying out the little French he knew. ‘Quelle is votre name, mademoiselle?’
The girl didn’t have a chance to reply – her father did it for her. ‘My daughter’s name,’ said the grey-haired shopkeeper, in almost perfect English, ‘is not for you to know, young man.’ He was a tall man with a massive chest and broad shoulders. He looked like he could lift a pile of bricks in each hand and then crush them.
Frankie paled. ‘Mister, I was just –’
‘You were attempting to flirt with my daughter,’ said the shopkeeper. ‘And using rather bad French, what is more. In this part of Belgium, young man, we speak Flemish, not French. I would suggest you go away and learn a little more about the country you are in before you again attempt to engage in conversation with a member of the local population.’
Frankie flushed red. ‘Yes, sir,’ he said, before turning and hurrying out into the street.
Taz came out after him. ‘That went well,’ he remarked, smiling. ‘I could have told you about the Flemish, Frankie. Haven’t you been listening to the local lingo?’
Frankie shrugged. ‘It all sounds the same to me – French, Flemish. It’s all foreign.’
‘You two!’ a voice bellowed from across the street.
Turning, they saw Rait the Rat.
‘What do you want, Rait?’ Frankie responded.
Rait’s eyes narrowed as he stomped towards the pair. ‘Corporal Rait to you, Pickled Onions.’ He eyed the small package in Frankie’s hands. ‘What are you two up to?’
‘We just delivered a message from Lieutenant Blair to brigade HQ, Corporal,’ said Taz.
‘It was so flipping big, this message, it needed the two of you to carry it, did it?’ said Rait scornfully. ‘And you had to go via the shop?’
‘No, Corporal,’ said Taz, smiling weakly.
‘It was Pickles’ idea, I fancy,’ said Rait, glaring at them with hands on hips. ‘You’d lead the “Reverend” Dutton here astray, Pickles, there’s no doubt about that.’
‘“Reverend” Dutton?’ said Frankie, with a questioning face.
‘Didn’t you know?’ Rait came back. ‘Dutton’s old man is a Bible-basher back home. I was talking to the battalion chaplain, and he tells me he knows your old man, Dutton. They’re both in the same business. Isn’t that right?’
Taz nodded. ‘Yes, Corporal.’
‘Anyway, I don’t have time to gossip with you two. Get back to your tent and pack. The battalion’s just received orders to march at dawn.’
‘Where to, Corp?’ Frankie asked. ‘England, I hope. For a nice long rest.’
‘Not sodding likely, chum. The entire 13th and 15th Brigades are on the move south.’
‘The Somme?’ Taz asked apprehensively.
‘The Somme.’ Rait smiled. ‘The generals reckon Aussies can stop Fritz breaking through down there. So get a move on, the pair of you! Go on, look lively – sod off! At the double!’
With Rait striding along behind them, Frankie and Taz jogged along the cobblestoned streets to the field where the battalion was encamped.
‘Your old man’s a reverend, Taz?’ said Frankie as they ran.
Taz nodded.
‘Which team does he play for? The Micks? The Anglos?’
‘Methodist.’
‘He’s a Metho? Ah, that explains a lot about you, mate. They’re a strict lot, the Methos. Come to think of it, I’ve never heard a swear word cross your lips. Bet you don’t drink beer, either. Or play two-up?’
‘Nope.’
‘Crikey! What a boring life. Now you’ll be telling me you’re not interested in skirt.’
‘Steady on! The Methodist Church is all for marriage.’
‘I didn’t say anything about marriage, mate. I’m talking about a bit of fun.’
‘What opposites we are, Frankie Pickles,’ said Taz, shaking his head.
‘Yeah, but we’re in this fight together, mate.’ Frankie fell silent for several paces. ‘Crikey! The Somme! They say millions were killed down there the last time they had a big battle. A good thing I’ve signed my will.’
They trotted on in silence.
Both the 13th and 15th Brigades marched from Flanders to the Somme. The march took their battalions five days, carrying all their equipment on their backs. Once they arrived, they camped in fields near Amiens, the major town of the region, west of the River Somme, which gave the region its name.
Here, at a 52nd Battalion assembly, Lieutenant-Colonel Whitlam brought Frankie, Taz and their colleagues up to date on the situation. ‘Men,’ he began, standing on the back of a wagon, ‘on the twenty-first of March, the German Army attacked British lines on the Somme. Within hours, British defenders were either killed, captured or in retreat. In the past four years territorial gains by either side have been measured in yards. Now, the German advance can be measured in miles.’
Whitlam paused for this information to sink in. ‘As the British continued to fall back, German troops drove west as far as the town of Villers-Bretonneux, just sixteen kilometres from here. There, the advance was halted by the stubborn defence of troops including the Australian 13th Battalion.’
A cheer rang out from the ranks.
‘By this stage, the German Army’s success had been much greater and much more rapid than we believe even they expected. Jerry has paused to catch his breath and allow food, ammunition and reinforcements to catch up with the advance. That’s where we come in.’
There was a lo
uder cheer.
‘You are among 150,000 Australians who have marched down from Flanders to stand in Jerry’s way. Since our arrival, I have seen French villagers fleeing from their homes, who, upon seeing Australian troops arriving, turned around and went back home again. The French firmly believe that you are going to throw the Germans back where they came from. And so do I!’
There were more cheers. And this time, they were deafening.
In the ranks, Frankie, looking at Taz, broke into a grin and declared, ‘Can’t let the Frenchies down, can we, mate?’
At a breezy twelve kilometres per hour, Mephisto rolled into the deserted town of Roye in the Somme. As the German tank travelled the French roads from St Quentin, Richard Rix and all the other crew members, apart from Heiber, the driver, had sat outside on the roof, dangling their feet over the side. Even Lieutenant Skopnik had opened his cupola hatch and sat on the lip. Up here in the fresh spring air, the tank’s crew could escape the heat and noise of the cramped interior. There would be time enough to take their posts when the enemy was in sight.
Apart from Lieutenant Skopnik, who was always immaculately dressed in his Guards uniform, the crewmen looked a scruffy lot, with varying tunics, jackets and caps from their original units. The German tank corps was so new that the army had yet to design a tankers’ uniform. Every one of Mephisto’s crew had been issued with coveralls, but no one wore them, fearing they would identify them as tank men if captured by the Allies. There was no telling whether their captors would have a mind to avenge comrades run down and crushed by the A7Vs in the panzers’ last battle.
Richard Rix had ridden all the way from St Quentin without exchanging a word with his fellow crewmates. Even up on the tank’s roof, the noise from the Daimler engines beneath them was so loud that conversation was difficult. Not that many of Richard’s companions bothered to talk to the baby of the crew, unless it was to poke fun at his attempt to grow a moustache – a few stubbly hairs now adorning his top lip.
Tank Boys Page 4