Darkest Hour sjt-2

by James Holland

  'The enemy is also attacking strongly across the Arras-Doullens road towards Wailly. We're to move on towards Beaumetz and, with Regiment 2, push the enemy back towards Berneville and Warlus,' Schultz told him, handing him a hastily scribbled wireless message.

  Timpke looked again at the enemy tanks. They were out of range, and seemed interested only in the 7th Panzer column directly in front of them. He unfolded his map, his eyes running over the mass of roads, villages, rivers and contours. They were five kilometres from Beaumetz and there were thick woods to the west of Berneville that would offer good cover for an attack. He could see now that the enemy armour must have swept in an arc southwards from the west of Arras; if General Rommel's artillery could stem this advance then the Totenkopf, swinging their forces wide, could outflank the enemy tanks and come round the back, ensnaring them in a deadly trap.

  He took out his binoculars and looked again at the tanks crawling across the fields to the north-east. British, he reckoned. Some appeared only to have machine-guns, but others were jabbing away with their heavier guns, small flashes of fire appearing from their muzzles. Thick black smoke and flames were billowing from the 7th Panzer column behind; he could hear screams and shouting too. But already German anti-tank guns were responding and he saw now that one of the smaller British tanks had been hit.

  'Schultz,' he said, climbing into the turret of the scout car, 'get a signal out. I want the battalion to rendezvous on the Arras- Doullens road to the east of Beaumetz and then we'll attack towards Berneville.'

  It was already past four o'clock. With luck they'd be in position sometime after five.

  'Kemmetmuler!' he shouted to his adjutant. 'I'm going to stay in the scout car.' He wanted to be able to see clearly, which was impossible from the low, recessed seats of the Citroen. He ordered the column forward once more, drumming his fingers on the metal top. A memory had entered his thoughts: he had been sixteen, at a deer-shoot on his uncle's estate in Bavaria. He remembered the excitement of spotting his first stag, of watching it come closer to him. He could almost smell again the thick resin of the firs around him. And he remembered the intense thrill of capturing it in his sights, of squeezing the trigger and watching it drop to the ground, dead. He had dreamed of that moment from the instant his uncle had invited him to shoot, and when it had come, he had not been disappointed. His triumph had been every bit as thrilling as he had hoped. The Tommies might have caught the Wehrmacht boys off guard, but soon they would find themselves hunted. Timpke grinned. A stag or dead Tommies, what was the difference? He was looking forward to experiencing again the sensation of triumph that had been so indelibly imprinted on his memory.

  Twelve Platoon crossed the main Arras-Doullens road in sections, one man at a time. It was not a true crossroads: the men had to dash, crouching, diagonally some forty yards to their right to reach the track. Artillery fire was booming regularly, as well as from the wooded copse ahead. British tanks still lumbered down the crest to the east of Berneville, and they could hear others firing even closer.

  Tanner had led the men across the road, then ducked down against the track's bank. A hawthorn hedge grew from the top on the left-hand side, but it was sparse and intermittent on the right. The road was sunk below the hedge line, but only by a few feet. As he was taking this in, Lieutenant Peploe dropped down beside him, breathing heavily.

  'This side'll be all right, sir,' said Tanner. 'We'll have to crouch, but we should be able to reach the edge of the farm undetected. We don't know what's behind that ridge, though. There's a village, but we've no idea whether Jerry forces are down there, and whether it's simply a battery up in that copse or a mass of infantry taking cover and waiting to counter-attack.'

  'I see,' said Peploe. He bit at a fingernail.

  'And I can't quite see where that other gun's firing from.' He pointed towards the right.

  'I suppose there's only one way we're going to find out.'

  Tanner smiled. 'Yes, sir. I think you might be right.' The track ahead rose gently towards the farm, just under a mile away. Peering through the hedge, he could see the farm buildings - the track turned left sharply towards them near the top of the ridge and he wondered what cover the buildings might offer at that point; it depended on whether the track ran behind or in front of them. Bloody hell. If only they had a proper map rather than the hasty sketch Peploe had made from Captain Barclay's. It was a tall order.

  Once the men were safely on the track, they moved off once more, Tanner and Peploe leading with sections following, spread out but now hugging the left. It was back-breaking work, bent double all the way, rifles and Bren in hands, ammunition pouches and packs bumping against bodies. Then, just a couple of hundred yards from the top of the ridge, they reached a railway line, a single track of old, rusting rails running across their path and parallel with the Arras-Doullens road below. Tanner had not spotted it before and, again, cursed the lack of a map. Would the enemy see them as they crossed it? He peered through his binoculars. The guns were firing ever more regularly now, the blasts sending tremors through the ground. Lying flat, he wriggled forward to the edge of the track. A British tank, some three hundred yards away to their left, had almost reached the railway, but had been hit. It was one of the more heavily armoured Matilda IIs, but it was burning, smoke and flames gushing from the turret. He wondered whether the crew had got out. Probably not. Poor bastards. He looked again at the copse but while he could see muzzle flashes and hear the guns ever louder, he couldn't distinguish a single enemy soldier.

  'If we can't see the enemy, sir,' said Tanner, 'then hopefully he can't see us.'

  'Then we must make a dash for it, Tanner,' said Peploe. He sighed. 'Come on, then.'

  Platoon Headquarters went first, then Sykes's section, followed by Cooper's and Ross's, the men nipping one by one across the narrow stretch of the railway.

  'Well,' said Peploe, once they were all over, 'if they did spot us, they're not letting on.'

  They pushed on, keeping low or crawling, along the dusty, stony track until they reached a bend where the hedge thinned. They were now almost at the summit of the ridge. Forty yards ahead, the track forked. To the left, it ran straight to the farm, but in front of the buildings. To the right, it ran down the other side of the ridge - presumably, Tanner guessed, to the village of Wailly. He glanced around. Where was that other gun? About a mile away there was a wood - in there. Yes, he was sure of it. Those Jerry gunners would have hidden themselves well: near the edge of the trees with plenty of aerial and ground cover, but with a clear line of fire in front of them. On the far side of the wood there was another village - Beaumetz? - while directly behind them Berneville was as clear as day. Warlus must be behind the next ridge, where he hoped the rest of the company were still waiting. He could now see several burning tanks, stopped between the two ridges, their tracks having carved dark lines across the fields of young crops. Others were still wheeling about, creeping in beetling lines across the open countryside, easy targets for the German gunners now only a hundred yards or so away. The battery in the copse was doing its job effectively, round after round being fired. Past the copse, away to their left, machine- gun fire and the dull thump of the Matilda IIs' guns could still be heard amid the din of German artillery. Suddenly a shell hit the edge of a barn, knocking out a chunk of stone. Probably, Tanner guessed, a two-pound shell from one of the Matildas. Good. They're still coming.

  'What do you think, Tanner?' said Peploe, sidling up to him.

  'We need to find out what's on the other side of the ridge. Then we'll know if we can use the barns to cover our approach or even sweep round the back of the position undetected. But the less movement the better, so let me have a dekko on my own.'

  'All right.'

  Still crouching, Tanner hurried to the summit, past the track that veered left to the farm. Reaching the crest at last, he lay flat and squirmed forward on his stomach. He realized the track he was now on was the long side of a triangle. The fork to the fa
rm was one of the short sides, while another led at right angles to join the main track by a walled cemetery. A number of vehicles - two Krupps, an eight-wheeled armoured car and three half-tracks - were clustered there. But no massed infantry. He looked down towards the village. Several houses were on fire, the flames dulled by the smoke. Through the haze he saw vehicles moving. The battery, still booming a short way to his left, was hidden by the farm and he breathed out heavily, the tension momentarily eased, then wriggled back a few yards and signalled urgently to Peploe to bring the rest of the men up.

  'Don't let anyone go beyond this point, sir,' he said, as Peploe joined him. He glanced at the men approaching, then back to the farm. 'We've done the tricky bit - got here without being spotted - so we can cut across this pasture and take cover behind that brick barn. I reckon there's at least four guns there. Ideally, we want to attack from two different angles, but the most important thing is surprise. That means working out a good plan first, then hitting them hard and quick. I'll scout ahead now, if it's all right with you, sir, and take Corporal Sykes with me.'

  'Of course. I'll wait for your signal to bring the men over.'

  Tanner ran back, beckoned Sykes to follow him, then the pair climbed over the fence and ran fifty yards through a flock of anxious sheep to the edge of the barn. Pausing briefly to catch his breath, Tanner delved in his pack and pulled out his Aldis scope, unwrapping the cloth round it, then screwed it onto the pads on his rifle. Pushing his helmet to the back of his head, he said to Sykes, 'Stan, go down the other end of the barn and have a quick dekko,' then went to the nearside edge of the old brick and stone building. When he reached the rubble that had been blasted from the wall a few minutes before, he crouched as several guns boomed in succession. Another incoming cannon shell hit a building out of his line of vision. There was machine-gun fire too - a rapid chatter. A Jerry MG. The slower, more laboured rattle of a British machine-gun responded, but much further away, and no sooner had he caught its sound than it was smothered by battery guns unleashing yet another salvo. The noise was deafening; Tanner's ears began to ring and deaden.

  Taking off his helmet, fearing the silhouette of its distinctive rim would be a give-away, he peered cautiously through a gap in the rubble. No more than seventy yards away, half hidden under a large ash tree, a small anti-tank gun, the like of which he had seen several times in Norway, was pounding out its shells. His heart began to thump, though, when he realized what stood just beyond it, partially hidden from view by the trees and foliage. It was an enormous artillery piece, resembling the 3.7-inch anti-aircraft guns they had had at Manston. The difference was that, instead of pointing into the sky, the barrel was tilted straight down the ridge to the valley below, where a number of British tanks were still groping their way towards them.

  A big barrel thundered and recoiled - a double crash - then another gun boomed, and Tanner saw the tip of a second identical barrel recoil from the bushes and trees some forty yards on. Just five seconds later they fired again in staccato, their reports reverberating around the farm, shaking the ground and pulsing through Tanner's body, while the smaller gun continued hurling out cannon shells as well. Several fallen bricks near him tumbled further onto the ground. What a gun, he thought.

  They were indeed anti-aircraft guns, but were being used in an anti-tank role. A simple idea, but brilliant. He'd seen those 3.7-inch ack-ack guns fire before - they could send a shell more than twenty-five thousand feet into the sky. The velocity was incredible. And now these beasts were firing over open sights at the advancing British armour. Christ. No wonder the tanks' advance is stalling.

  Two further guns, he now realized, were also firing - howitzers of some kind, by the sound of them - from somewhere within the trees. Several men were coming out into the open between the small and large anti-tank guns - so there's a hollow - and, to his astonishment, he saw that the one nearest to him wore the collar tabs and red striped breeches of a general. Bloody hell, he thought. What's he doing there?

  Leaning on the fallen bricks and masonry, he brought his rifle into his shoulder. His ribs still hurt like hell; more so now that he was lying on knobbly rubble. He grimaced, which split his lip again. The general was peering through a pair of field-glasses. The two big guns crashed again and Tanner counted. One, two, three, four, five, six. Boom-boom. He counted again, his scope aimed at the general's head. Two, three, four. Breath out. Five. Hold breath. Six. Tanner pressed his finger against the trigger. The guns thundered again and his rifle cracked, the butt recoiling into his shoulder. In that instant the general turned, as though in answer to someone speaking behind him, and the officer standing next to him, slightly taller, was hit in the neck. Immediately he sank to his knees beside the smaller gun. The general swung back, crouching over the prostrate figure. Tanner pulled back the bolt, but two more men had emerged from the clearing so the general was almost hidden from view. Men were looking around, as though they were shocked and perplexed. They seemed unable to understand how, or from where, the officer had been hit.

  'Damn it all,' Tanner muttered. He scrambled back from where he was crouching behind the rubble, hurried behind the barn and along to the other end. There was no sign of Sykes. Gingerly, he peered round the corner. He was looking out on to a small yard and a track that ran between the barn and an old brick farmhouse, which also gave them cover from the battery on the other side of the house but not from the vehicles some two hundred yards away down by the cemetery. Sykes was at the far side of the house, peering towards the back of the battery, when suddenly he turned and scuttled back to the cover of the barn.

  'Blimey, that was close!' he gasped. 'They've got two prisoners. And there's some big cheese with 'em, too.' Sykes turned towards the rear of the battery, Tanner following his gaze. Four men were striding towards a gate below the farmhouse that joined the track leading to the cemetery: the general, then an NCO with silver chevrons on his sleeve holding a sub-machine-gun, and two British prisoners - tankmen wearing black berets.

  Tanner glanced back towards Peploe and the others, motioned to them to keep low and out of sight, then brought his rifle to his shoulder once more.

  'He was out front a minute ago,' he whispered to Sykes. 'The silly sod moved just as I was taking a shot at him. Got the man next to him instead.' He pulled back the bolt, and peered through the scope. A British prisoner was blocking his view. 'Get out the bloody way,' he muttered.

  'Bit risky, wasn't it, Sarge?'

  'Not really. I fired in time with the guns. No one had a clue where it had come from.'

  'Sarge,' said Sykes, urgency in his voice. The general was now slightly behind, and Tanner could see half his head.

  'Sarge,' said Sykes again, 'if you fire now you'll blow our chance of surprise. And those prisoners will probably end up getting killed an' all.'

  'He's a sodding general, though, Stan. Might be a really big cheese.' The German commander's head now filled his sight. He curled his finger around the trigger.

  'Sarge, our orders was to destroy the guns.'

  'I've got a clear shot.'

  'Don't do it, Sarge. Please. You'll scupper the mission.'

  A split second. That was all it would take. His finger was on the trigger, the general's head still in his sights. The four men had now reached the gate.

  'Let him go, Sarge,' whispered Sykes. 'If he comes back, shoot him then.'

  Tanner closed his eyes a moment, then lowered his rifle. 'All right, Stan.' The four men were through the gate now and striding down the track towards the vehicles. The general signalled and the engine of the eight-wheeled armoured car roared into life. Tanner watched the four men slipping below the ridge and the armoured car drove slowly up towards them, its high profile dominating the track. It stopped and they clambered on. Tanner watched the general step onto the turret, the guns still booming on the far side of the farmhouse, although at a less frenetic rate of fire. I could get you now. He raised his rifle once more, but a moment later, the big beast was
reversing down the track. At the cemetery it turned, then headed off in clouds of dust towards the smoking village.

  Tanner cursed, then signalled to Peploe to bring the men over.

  'You did the right thing, Sarge,' said Sykes.

  'Maybe. Anyway, what do you think? What did you see from over by the house?' He looked at his watch. Ten to six. They needed to get a move on.

  'The house is in an L-shape,' Sykes told him. 'There's some outbuildings the far side, a few bushes and small trees beyond it.'

  'Before the copse?'

  'Yes. They'll give cover, I think. But 'ere's another thing. That copse is just a circle of trees that overlook a kind of dip, but the land falls away to the right where there's a track leading into it. There's a bank again the far side, though. I reckon it was a quarry once. Grassed over now, but there're two 'owitzers in it. It's a brilliant position unless your attackers are right on top of you.' He grinned. 'Then it's a bloody death trap.'