Young Lions

by Andrew Mackay

  Colonel Hook finished strapping on his Sam Brown belt and checked that his revolver was fully loaded. “What is it?” he asked following Mason.

  “Hundreds of refugees are heading towards us, sir. They must’ve come from King’s Lynn.”

  Hook and Mason arrived at the B Company position at the entrance to Fairfax. Refugees were spread out in a line in front of him stretching as far as the eye could see from left to right the line was at least twenty people deep and the crowd included men, women and children. There were hundreds of them. The mob carried large grubby white sheets hanging from branches.

  Hook looked left and right at his men. Most of them were standing up, looking and pointing at the spectacular sight in front of them. Hardly anyone of them were in their foxholes and few of them were carrying any weapons. The refugees were still coming. They were less than three hundred yards away.

  “Where are the Germans, Paul?” Hook asked, speaking to himself. “Battalion, stand to.” He grabbed Mason’s arm, “quickly, but quietly,” he whispered. Mason sped away, spreading the word.

  Hook raised his binoculars to his eyes and scanned the crowd. He couldn’t spot any tell tale grey. Where could they be? They couldn’t have pulled out, surely? Two hundred yards away.

  “R.S.M. Order them to halt.”

  “Very good, sir,” R.S.M. Witherspoon snapped to attention and saluted. All of the Fusiliers were now in their foxholes, weapons at the ready. “Refugees-halt!” He bellowed.

  The refugees kept coming. One hundred and fifty yards away.

  “Gunner,” Hook tapped a machine gunner on his shoulder, “fire a burst above their heads.”

  The machine gun burst shattered the morning stillness. The refugees started screaming. One hundred yards away. Every one hit the ground.

  That was the signal. The S.S. troops crouching behind the refugees opened fire with their own machine guns, charging forward, firing from the hip. At the same time mortar rounds began falling on the RRiFF positions, throwing up showers of earth and grass, scoring direct hits on foxholes, adding flesh and blood to the debris. Some Fusiliers took cover in their foxholes whilst others fired back. “Rapid fire! Rapid fire!” The officers and N.C.O.s screamed.

  Sam and Alan worked their bolts furiously, hardly taking aim before firing. The Germans were getting nearer. Seventy-five yards. Fifty yards. S.S. troopers falling, but more taking their places. A mortar round fell short and tore a gaping hole in the German ranks, felling soldiers like trees. Shrapnel whistled through the air and thudded into the trees above the RRiFF’ heads. A scream of pain. “My face! My face!” Shell splinters finding a target. The Germans charging on, bayonets fixed and glistening, shouting their war cries, throwing their grenades at the Fusilier positions. Here they come! An S.S. trooper ran towards Sam. Sam squeezed off a shot and caught him in the stomach. He fell over writhing and clutching his wounds. A second German appeared firing his Schmeisser machine gun from the hip. A RRiFF to the right of Sam crumpled and fell. Sam pointed his rifle at the S.S. man and squeezed the trigger. Click. An empty chamber. He was out of bullets. The German swung his Schmeisser towards him. Sam felt his bowels empty. “This is it,” he thought to himself.

  “Hande hoch!” The S.S. trooper ordered, motioning with his machine gun.

  Sam remembered his schoolboy German. He raised his arms above his head. It saved his life.

  Hook led Battalion H.Q. in a counter attack with fixed bayonets. “Plug the gaps!” He shouted, “hold the line!” He screamed. He emptied his Schmeisser machine gun at a group of Germans charging towards him. Hook looked to his left and right. S.S. were breaking through everywhere. Fusiliers were streaming away from their positions and abandoning their weapons. Germans were tearing after them and shooting them in the back as the British tried to escape. RRiFFs were starting to surrender on their own, in pairs and in groups. It was no use. They’d put up a good fight. “Bugler, sound the cease fire,” Hook said calmly.

  “Sir?” The bugler queried.

  “The cease fire, son. Surrender. It’s all over.”

  Hook raised his hands above his head. The bugle notes signaling the cease-fire sounded through the air. It was a universal symbol. The firing slackened in intensity and gradually died away as the soldiers stopped fighting.

  Alan woke up with a massive headache. His ears were ringing and his temples were pounding. He was stiff and cold. He couldn’t move. He was paralyzed. His heartbeat sped up and his breathing quickened. He started to hyperventilate. Calm down, calm down, he said to himself. Check yourself. . He slowly flexed and stretched his fingers. Fine so far. He rotated his wrists. No problem. Alan bent his elbows. They seemed to work. He shrugged his shoulders. Everything seemed to be in ship shape. At least his upper body was. He tried his legs. He couldn’t move them. He tried to open his eyes. He couldn’t open them. He slowly raised his hands to his face. His eyes were dry and glued shut. “Please God,” he begged, “don’t let me be blind. Anything but that.” Alan blindly groped for the water bottle on his webbing belt. He found the bottle, unscrewed the top and poured some water on his hands. He splashed the water on his face, gently wiping the muck away from his eyes. He emptied the entire water bottle cleaning his face. He opened his eyes. He was not blind. He was sitting in his foxhole. A dead Fusilier was lying down head first in the foxhole trapping Alan’s legs. It was his blood that had glued Alan’s eyes shut. Alan pushed and pulled the RRiFF out, grunting and groaning as he did so. Alan looked at the dead man. He didn’t recognize him. He cautiously peered out over the edge of the foxhole. A sudden stab of intense pain hurt his temples. It was the sun, but at least the sun was setting. What time was it? He didn’t know. His watch was broken.

  Alan looked across at the field. Fusiliers were digging as Germans looked on. They were collecting bodies from all over the field and were carrying the corpses to the freshly dug graves. Burying the dead. Alan looked around him, searching for his rifle. He couldn’t find it. Alan looked around the RRiFF position. Plenty of dead Fusiliers, but no dead Germans. The burial party must’ve collected them. No weapons either. They must all have been collected. Alan suddenly remembered his captured Luger pistol, a spoil of war from the successful ambush at Wake. He patted it underneath his jacket to reassure himself.

  “No rest!” a German barked. “Work! Schnell!” Sam was exhausted. They had spent the whole day burying the dead from the two battles of Fairfax. They had buried the German dead and now they were burying the civilians. Hundreds of refugees had been killed and wounded in the crossfire. The S.S. had loaded the shell-shocked survivors on to their lorries and had driven them away in the direction of King’s Lynn.

  After they had buried the last civilian the Fusiliers were at last allowed to rest. They collapsed in an exhausted heap on the ground.

  “What now?” Sam asked.

  “Sleep,” Lance-Corporal Vincent answered.

  “Alan could be alive though, couldn’t he, Lance-Corporal?” Sam asked Vincent. “I mean we haven’t found his body, have we?” He carried on. “That means that he could be alive.” Sam looked at Vincent quickly, his eyes darting away. Reassure me. Tell me what I want to hear. Tell me that Alan’s still alive.

  “Sam lad,” Vincent said gently, “we haven’t found him, but that doesn’t mean that he’s alive,” he said, pointing to the other digging Fusiliers. “Don’t get your hopes up, Sam.”

  “But he can’t be dead,” Sam said, “he can’t be…” He sank to his knees and rested his head on the spade handle. Vincent walked up behind him and placed his hands on Sam’s shoulders. “Chin up, lad. Here come the Huns. Don’t let them see you cry.” He put a finger under Sam’s chin and tilted it up.

  “Yes, Lance-Corporal,” Sam answered quietly.

  “That’s the spirit, lad,” Vincent smiled. “Stiff upper lip.”

  “I’m bloody knackered,” Sa
m exclaimed, leaning on his spade. “When are going to get something to eat?” He moaned.

  “I’m bloody starving too, lad,” Vincent said. “I don’t know.”

  They had not eaten since the day before yesterday. The German attack had caught them at dawn before they had had time to eat breakfast and they had not had anything to eat since.

  “We’re dealing with people who use women and children as human shields, Sam,” Vincent observed. “I don’t think that feeding us is a top priority.”

  “I was afraid that you’d say that,” Sam said.

  “Hallo?” Vincent asked.

  “What’s going on?”

  “The S.S. officer in charge is asking a question to a group of prisoners.”

  They saw Captain Mason step forward. The S.S. officer spoke to him. Mason turned around; “Listen in men!” He bellowed. “We are to march back to the field where we will be fed.”

  A spontaneous cheer. Mason smiled at his men. It was refreshing to be the bearer of good news for a change.

  “Well, well, well,” Vincent said with a smile on his face, “life is full of surprises.” He turned towards Sam.

  “About bloody time,” Sam said, his stomach grumbling as if on cue, “I could eat a horse.”

  R.S.M Witherspoon marched the Fusiliers back to the field. “Come on lads, the birds are singing! The sun is shining!” Witherspoon marched beside the men, “stomachs in, chests out! Bags of oomph! Bags of oomph!” The RRiFFs perked up and reacted as one to Witherspoon’s familiar baritone words of encouragement. They were reassuring and comforting. “Show them that you’re Fusiliers!” The men marched off as if they were on the Parade Ground, determined to show the Germans that they were still soldiers.

  One man started whistling “Colonel Bogey.” More RRiFFs joined in. Soon they were all singing the familiar song:

  “Hitler

  Has only got one ball,

  Goering has two

  But very small,

  Himmler

  Has something similar,

  But poor old Goebbels

  Has no balls at all.”

  The Fusiliers marched into a field with Lieutenant-Colonel Hook in the lead with his swagger stick stuck under his arm. Witherspoon called a halt. As if on cue, German Army lorries arrived and parked with their rears facing the RRiFFs. The Fusiliers cheered. S.S. troops positioned themselves at the rear of the lorries to help unload the food.

  “That’s a lot of lorries, Lance-Corporal,” Sam observed.

  “Well, Sam,” Vincent said, “there’s a lot of us,” pointing to the other RRiFFs, “there’s well over a hundred of us and there’ll be food in there for the Jerries as well.”

  “Oh yes,” Sam conceded, “I hadn’t thought of that.”

  “What’s for breakfast, Jerry?” A Fusilier good naturedly asked the S.S. officer in command.

  “Lead, Tommy,” he replied. The S.S. officer swung the Schmessier machine gun up in an arc and sprayed a stream of bullets, catching the RRiFF in the chest and throwing him backwards like a rag doll.

  The S.S. troops dropped the lorry tailgates with a loud sudden bang. The machine guns inside opened up, their crews methodically sweeping the barrels from left to right. The MG 42 machine guns spat out 1200 rounds per minute and tore great strips through the unarmed Fusiliers knocking them down like ten pins. Groaning in heaps and dying silently on their own. Head wounds, stomach wounds, leg and arm wounds. The crews traversed their machine guns from left to right until no one was left standing. Gradually the screaming and the shouting died out to be replaced by moaning and crying.

  “Run, Sam! Run!” Vincent screamed. Sam ran until his chest was bursting, until his lungs were screaming for oxygen. A machine gun burst stitched a line of holes in the wall of the house to his left. He didn’t know where he was going. Anywhere out of here. He was in Fairfax. I can hide in Fairfax, he thought to himself. Another burst. A yell of pain. “Keep going, Sam!” Vincent shouted his voice hoarse with pain. As Sam turned around he saw a German fifty yards behind him. Firing a burst point blank into Vincent’s back as he ran past.

  “Bastard!” Sam thought. No time to grieve. Keep running. Another burst. Sam tripped and fell. He lay on the ground. Where’s the pain? I feel nothing. Am I paralyzed? Am I dying? Is this what it’s like? His brain was still working. Not another burst. Three single shots. From ahead of him. Not behind. Sam looked over his shoulder. The German lying flat on his back. A gaping hole in the centre of his chest. Sam turned back to the front.

  “What the hell’s going on?” Lindau asked as he got out of the lorry.

  It was painfully obvious. S.S. troops were wandering around the field which was covered in a carpet of British dead. They were firing at point blank range into the heads of the wounded to finish them off.

  Von Schnakenberg spotted the S.S. officer in charge and stomped up to him.

  “Hauptsturmfuhrer, what is going on here?” von Schnakenberg demanded.

  The S.S. officer looked at von Schnakenberg as if he was the local village idiot. “The prisoners tried to escape, sir.”

  “‘Tried to escape?’”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Over one hundred prisoners tried to escape? All at once? One hundred unarmed prisoners being guarded by thirty S.S. soldiers armed with six machine guns tried to escape?” Von Schnakenberg shook his head in disbelief.

  “Yes, sir.” Hauptsturmfuhrer Zorn stuck to his guns.

  Von Schnakenberg had the distinct feeling that Zorn did not care one way or another whether von Schnakenberg believed him or not. “Hauptsturmfuhrer, what were your orders?”

  “To take care of the prisoners, sir.”

  “To take care of the prisoners?” Lindau mimicked the S.S. officer. “You were doing a pretty good job of ‘taking care of the prisoners’ when we arrived.” He spat the words out with disgust.”

  “Listen to you,” Zorn snapped, “you make me sick. It’s no wonder that we lost the War.” It had been a long, hot, thirsty morning. Slaughtering prisoners was an extremely stressful business and Zorn had finally lost his temper. “Brigadefuhrer Schuster was right. We should have finished off all of you aristo pigs at the end of the War.” Zorn ranted and raved.

  “How dare you!” Lindau shouted. His face turned crimson and he took one step forward. He heard an ominous click as Zorn flicked off his safety catch and pointed his Luger at Lindau.

  There was an answering clang as Feldwebel Alfonin, Wilhelm von Schnakenberg’s old Platoon Feldwebel, cocked his Schmeisser machine gun, sending a round into the chamber. “I’d think twice if I was you, Hauptsturmfuhrer,” Alfonin said menacingly as he stepped in front of Lindau.

  S.S. troopers moved protectively towards Zorn and raised their weapons to waist height, flicking off their safety catches.

  Von Schnakenberg’s soldiers cocked their weapons and pointed them at the S.S.

  No one said anything. No one did anything. A Mexican stand off. Everyone realized that one hasty move could spark off a firefight. But Zorn only had a platoon of thirty men whereas von Schnakenberg had several hundred. It was a no win situation for Zorn.

  Zorn realized that he had bitten off more than he could chew. He knew that he had to quickly think of a way to get both him and his men out of a swiftly deteriorating situation. Hopefully without losing face. The honour of the S.S. was at stake. But he was rapidly running out of time. Beads of sweat ran down his forehead.

  Zorn made up his mind. There was no way out. He flicked on his safety catch and lowered his Luger “Lower your weapons, men,” he ordered over his shoulder.

  “Drop your weapons!” von Schnakenberg barked.

  The S.S. men hesitated.

  Alfonin fired a Schmeisser burst above their heads. The S.S. dropped their weapons and raised their
hands in the air.

  “Now get on your lorries,” von Schnakenberg said, his voice laced with venom, “and don’t come back.”

  “But the British..?” Zorn protested. “Without our weapons we won’t be able to defend ourselves…” His eyes bulged wide with horror.

  “The British will give you the same chances that you gave them.” von Schnakenberg pointed to the sea of dead British soldiers with his Luger.

  Zorn’s men sheepishly boarded their lorries, crest fallen and humiliated. Zorn hung out of the lorry cab and turned to von Schnakenberg. “We won’t forget this insult, Oberstleutnant.” He stared at von Schnakenberg with eyes full of hate. “The S.S. has a long memory. We’ll be back,” he threatened.

  “I look forward to it.” von Schnakenberg replied.

  Chapter Three

  Von Schnakenberg drove into Hereward with his mixed convoy of motorcyclists and Grenadiers. He was challenged at the edge of the town by a paratrooper roadblock. The convoy was cheered by groups of grinning and cheering paras as they drove into the centre of the town. Von Schnakenberg had absolutely no trouble finding the Town Hall because he knew the layout of Hereward like the back of his hand. He had been studying a map and scale model of the town for months before the invasion.

  The convoy pulled up in the Town Square and von Schnakenberg and Lindau climbed down from their lorry cabs. Von Schnakenberg gave orders to his company commanders to get their men out of their lorries and allow them to stretch their legs. However, he emphasized that he wanted them to remain alert and remain focused. Von Schnakenberg did not know if the Square and the town were secure yet and didn’t want to take any chances.

  Von Schnakenberg and Lindau walked up the stairs to the Town Hall past heavily sand bagged positions guarded by paratroopers. It looked as if the British defenders of the Town Hall, if there had been any, had given in without putting up much of a fight. Certainly the Town Hall and the Square showed no obvious signs of damage. The paratrooper guards seemed to have the situation well in hand and looked confident, but vigilant at the same time. Von Schnakenberg stopped at the top of the stairs and turned around to look over the Square. Hereward appeared to be safe, secure and under control. A huge Swastika flag already fluttered from the flagpole above the Town Hall.