by Iain Gale
He turned to Valentine, who had appeared at his side. ‘Look, Corporal. We’re even beating the SS, Hitler’s elite troops.’
Valentine smiled and nodded. ‘Very good, sir, that is good. We do seem to be doing rather well.’ There was something in the tone of his words, however, almost a sense of sarcasm, that told Lamb that they were not really meant.
Bennett was with him. ‘Look, sir. These blokes in black. They’re like the Guards, aren’t they, sir? I mean, if we’re killing them we can’t be doing bad.’
‘No, Sarnt, you’re right. I don’t think we’re doing so badly at all. They seem to be breaking.’
Lamb and his men had moved into open formation, spread out across the track and into the fields on either side, in line with number 2 platoon of the DLI. He looked closely at the village ahead, watching for any sign of movement, the slightest glint of light on steel, which would give away the position of an enemy sniper.
They walked forward steadily through fields dappled with sunshine. The crops grew high, and it was an effort pushing one’s boots through the tightly packed stalks. Lamb noticed the large numbers of bright red poppies. There were other flowers too, vivid blue cornflowers among them, and while there were no birds Lamb saw a rabbit run from him away through the waving wheat, towards the village.
They continued, waiting for the first shot from the enemy position. Brigade intelligence had reported that while many of the German troops had fallen back, at least one company, if not more, had remained here in Warlus. The tanks had done their job. Now it was the infantry’s turn. Clear the village, they had been told. And that meant street by street, house by house. A bloody business, thought Lamb. It seemed that the population had gone. At least he could detect no sign of civilian life, save for the debris that littered the streets.
From their rear the 3-inch mortars of the DLI company began to throw shells over their heads and into the houses and yards ahead. Lamb and his men could hear nothing but the whine of the incoming rounds, the explosions and the more distant rumble of heavier shells as the tanks and guns that had detached to their flanks continued to fire. They were within two hundred yards of the first buildings now. Lamb could see the houses quite clearly, red pantiled, brick and lime-washed walls, muddied with the dirt of two centuries. The village was dominated by a tall church tower and he knew that if the Germans were still here that would be where they would have positioned their observers and any heavy weapons they might have. He turned to Bennett. ‘Watch that tower, Sarnt. It’s perfect for a machine-gun post.’
He had hardly spoken when there was a flash from the belfry, and instants later bullets ploughed up the earth to their left and right. One of them hit Potter square in the chest, killing him instantly; another took three fingers of the left hand of one of the runners, and he fell to the ground, moaning.
‘Christ. They’re in there. Get down.’
The platoon hit the ground as more rounds zinged past them and thudded into the clay. Rifle fire began to open up now. There was a shout as one of the men, Lamb couldn’t see whether it was one of his, was hit and died. And then another. Clark. They were pinned down. Sitting targets. There was only one thing to be done.
Lamb scrambled to his feet, the bullets striking the field around him. ‘Come on. Anyone who stays out here is a dead man. Follow me and you’ve got a chance.’ He began to run as quickly as he could. He was an able athlete, but his feet felt like lead. He was aware of other men rising from the ground around him, some of them being hit and falling over. Others, though, were running with him now. They were ten yards from the outlying buildings. Five. More small arms opened up on them from the windows. Other men began to fall.
‘Grenades,’ yelled Lamb and drew one from his belt, pulling the pin as he ran forward. Reaching the wall, he stood on his toes and dropped a grenade through the open window before dropping down to crouch, hands over his ears. It exploded inside the house with a brick-shaking thud, followed by screams.
‘Right. Get in there.’ Two of the men, Johnson and Bayfield, nipped round the corner of the house and vaulted a five-bar gate into the yard. The machine gun in the tower opened up, and both men fell to the ground. They did not move. Watching the blood seep from their bodies, Lamb cursed to himself and yelled back to Bennett, who was crouching with the others in the cover offered by the lee of the house.
‘This is useless. We don’t stand a chance. We’ll have to get round the flank without them seeing us. Smart, run and get Parry and Stubbs up here with the mortar. Sarnt Bennett, you stay here with Corporal Mays’s section, what’s left of them, and Briggs’s men too. I’ll take Valentine’s and the odds and sods. Get Stubbs to lay down his mortar fire over the top of this house. The rest of you keep up a steady covering fire on that bloody bell tower. And use the Bren. I don’t think we need worry about tanks here.’
Leaving Bennett with the remaining four men of Briggs’s section and Mays’s five, along with the mortar team, Lamb began to move off, keeping tight against the wall which ran to the right of the bombed house, conscious all the time that he might be spotted by the machine gunners in the tower. From behind them he heard the reassuring sound of the Bren opening up and the thud of their mortar. Directly behind him came Valentine with his four remaining men, and then the six odds and sods. They moved fast and ran across the gaps between the single-storey village houses. They were out of sight of the church tower now but could still hear the covering fire from behind. There was a small green on the right and ahead of them a crossroads, with the left fork leading down to the church. Lamb approached it and cautiously peered around the corner of a green shuttered house to their left. He ducked his head back in. Two German soldiers had positioned themselves some fifty yards down the road with a heavy machine gun covering the crossroads. Lamb signalled to the men behind him and whispered.
‘There’s a machine gun up there. We’ll go in through this house and try and flank it.’
He moved to the front door and waited. From the rear came the crump of a mortar round and Bren fire. Lamb put his shoulder to the door and splintered the lintel to open it. They filed quietly inside, guns at the ready, but it was clearly empty. As silently as possible Lamb moved across the room and then through the house until they reached the garden door. He tried it and then found a key in the lock and turned it. The garden, as he had thought, was walled to a height of six feet and they moved into it easily, screened by trees from the surrounding houses. They moved through an outbuilding and found themselves in another yard. They moved cautiously through a stable and into a garden where they were still behind cover of a wall. Lamb realised that they must now be directly opposite the machine gun and motioned to the others to keep silent. They could hear the two Germans chatting quietly. Lamb raised his hand and signalled that they should go forward. They moved quietly and quickly through another iron-roofed shed and rounded the corner into the street before the church. One more short move and they were out of the group of buildings and behind a wall facing the church. They could hear more German voices now. Lamb guessed that they must have made the church their strong-point, perhaps their HQ. He turned and made a sign, holding up four fingers, and waved them forward, then pointed to his pistol and a grenade. Valentine, White, Perkins and Butterworth each took a grenade from their belt and on Lamb’s command pulled the pins, holding down the trigger. He did the same, mouthing to them, ‘One, two, three’.
Together they emerged from behind the wall and ran towards the sound of the German voices. There were five of them, as far as he could see, two behind a low wall on the right, two behind a wall and railings on the left and one behind a pillar close to the door of the church. Three were armed with rifles, two with Schmeisser machine pistols. All, he noted, were wearing the black uniform of the SS. In an instant Lamb and his men had thrown the grenades and began to open fire. The five bombs found their targets easily and the Germans screamed as the fragments tore into them. What the grenades did not kill the bullets did. There wa
s a brief hiatus and then all hell broke loose as the machine gun above them in the tower opened up. Bullets ricocheted off the tarmac road and one hit White in the shoulder. He fell with a moan.
Lamb shouted, ‘Get in. Stay close to the tower. They can’t hit us there.’
The men moved close to the tower and found that the gun could not reach them.
Lamb realised that beside the church were gates to a park. A château, he guessed. It seemed logical that any commander would make such a place his base, a final citadel. He turned to Valentine. ‘You stay here with your three. I’m taking the others in there.’
‘Do you think that wise, sir?’
Lamb looked at him. ‘What?’
‘I only wondered whether it was wise. They still have a gun in the tower and we don’t know where else they are. They’re sure to come running after that firing.
Lamb stared at him. ‘When I want your opinion, Corporal, I’ll ask for it. Stay here.’ He shouted across to the odds and sods behind the wall, ‘You men follow me and be quick on your feet. Valentine, cover the tower.’
While Perkins and Butterworth fired directly past the bell tower, Valentine helped the wounded White into the lee of the church and the others ran across the road. There was no sign of any Germans, but Lamb knew that any there were would come running to the sound of the guns. They moved through the entrance gates and walked along the edge of the drive. After about fifty yards they saw through the trees a modest seventeenth-century château. Lamb reasoned that six men would be more conspicuous than two and motioned to one of the hangers-on, a man from the Norfolks named Hunt, to follow him and to the other four to remain in the woods as back-up. He motioned to his watch and made five fingers. Then the two of them ran across the grass and round the side of the house towards the front.
Inside the small château of Warlus, Adolf Kurtz watched and waited for the British to enter, as he had been doing ever since the firefight had begun. He was biding his time, waiting for them, ready to fight to the last. Kurtz brushed a speck of dirt from his sleeve just as the first British soldier appeared, framed in the doorway, and fired. The bullet hit the man between the eyes and he fell backwards, stone dead. Instants later Kurtz saw another Tommy take cover at the side of the door and realised that his pistol was pointed directly at him.
The doorway did not hide the British officer and, without thinking, Kurtz squeezed the trigger gently and fired the Mauser at Lamb. A click. Nothing happened. He looked at the British officer with disbelief. Lamb stared, wide-eyed. He had thought that his last moment had come, had looked down the barrel of a gun and cheated death. He quickly extended his arm so that the muzzle of his pistol was resting on Kurtz’s tunic, just below the silver breast button. Kurtz dropped his gun to his side.
It had taken Lamb all of his self-control not to shoot, but now he realised whom he had captured: a captain in the SS. He managed to speak. ‘I believe you are my prisoner, Herr Captain. Please drop your weapon.’
Kurtz shrugged and dropped the gun to the floor. ‘I am not obliged under the rules of the Geneva Convention to tell you anything, Lieutenant, apart from my name, rank and serial number. Is that not right? And please remember I am your superior officer.’
Lamb smiled. ‘You’re no superior of mine, chum.’
‘My name is Adolf Kurtz. Hauptsturmführer, SS.’ He smiled to gauge Lamb’s reaction and scowled when there was none. ‘My serial number you do not need.’
‘And your unit?’
‘I told you, Lieutenant. I am not obliged . . .’
Lamb cut him short. ‘And I’m not bloody well obliged to take you alive. But I will. We both know that’s what I need to know. Your unit. And I think you’re going to tell me, Herr Kurtz.’
Kurtz bristled at the lack of military etiquette. ‘I don’t think so.’
There were more men in the house now, drawn in by the sound of gunfire: Briggs, Mitchell and two others, with Bennett and Valentine.
Lamb turned to Bennett. ‘Sarnt Bennett. This is Mister Kurtz. We’re taking him in. He hasn’t told me his unit yet but if you or any of the men should happen to catch anything he might say in passing, as it were, make sure you get it down. Sort of thing a man might say if he were to slip and take a fall. If you know what I mean.’
Bennett nodded. ‘Sir.’
Lamb went on, ‘I presume they’ve cleared off. This one was waiting to do the job on his own?’
‘Yes, sir, we chased ’em down the street. Shot two and captured one other.’
‘All right. We’ll leave number 3 section here on the bridge to wait for our lads. Corporal Briggs’s men, and the Bren and a mortar. If the Jerries attack in force, tell them to fall back due north, towards Aubigny.’
He looked again at Kurtz. A captain in the SS. That was a good catch. Heaven knew what information he might have. He would get him to whatever senior command there might be in Arras and see what they made of him. He gazed at Kurtz and wondered what made a man like that.
‘Sarnt, we’ll have to keep a close watch on that one.’
‘I’ll do it myself, sir. Me and Farrell.’
‘Good. I don’t want to lose him. Looks like the attack might have been a success. Let’s go and find out how far we’ve pushed them back, shall we.’
Chapter 8
Lamb made his way up the road, trying to preserve some sort of order among his men as they milled through the stragglers and the wounded. They had come far in the last few hours and had skirted Arras, moving to the north west in their attempt to find an officer of some seniority to whom Lamb might deliver his prisoner, but all they had seen were isolated units, at the most of company strength. They entered a small village named Mont St Eloi. British troops were moving in both directions on the road and it was hard to gauge which were moving forward to the front. Still, though, Lamb felt heartened. Clearly the offensive had met with at least some degree of success. He wished now that he could have stayed with the Durhams and shared in part of the victory. That would have felt good after what seemed like weeks of pulling back.
Sergeant Bennett drew level with him. ‘What shall we do with the prisoner, sir?’
‘We’ll have to keep him with us until we find a senior officer. They might have a use for him back at HQ.’ Lamb spotted a captain of the DLI on the opposite side of the road, at the head of his men, and turned to Bennett. ‘Come on, here’s our chance.’
Motioning Kurtz across the road, Lamb approached the captain. ‘Sir, German prisoner. He’s SS. An officer. I thought that Brigade might be able to use him.’
The captain stopped and looked at them as his men passed by. ‘Yes, I can see that. ’Fraid I can’t really help you, though, old boy. Thing is, I can’t really take charge of him. We’ve just been told to pull back. Awfully sorry. You’ll have to hang on to him.’
Lamb stared at him, unable to believe that he was hearing correctly. ‘I’m sorry, sir. Pull back? But we routed them, didn’t we? The SS. Their best men. They ran away from us.’
‘Yes, well, be that as it may, Lieutenant. It seems that now they’re coming back. Jerry turned his big guns on the new Matildas and shot up the regiment badly. Without that tank support we’re lost.’ He went on, ‘The DLI are moving back to Vimy Ridge. I should go with them, if I were you, otherwise you’ll get caught up with the tanks. The French are meant to be covering our western flank with their tanks. We know from prisoners that we’re up against the SS Totenkopf motorized division and a regiment from the 7th Panzer Division. We blocked them for a while but they won’t give up. Tanks everywhere. The French are a bit peeved too. Seems that some of our anti-tank boys got their Somuas confused with Jerry Panzers and opened up. Made a bit of a mess.’
‘Any idea as to our losses?’
‘It’s not looking good. Latest report was that we’d lost fifty tanks. But I can’t believe it. That’s two thirds of what went in.’
‘What about the infantry?’
‘Almost as bad. Fifty percent casualt
ies. But we took three hundred prisoners. If we’ve managed to keep them, that is. Sorry, must go.’ And with that the captain was gone.
Bennett looked at Lamb. ‘D’you believe him, sir? Fifty percent casualties and all them tanks. That can’t be right. Perhaps he was fifth column.’
Lamb shook his head. ‘No, Sarnt, he was the real thing. And I don’t think he was exaggerating. Look at this lot.’
He pointed to the column of infantry advancing down the road towards them: a tattered band of bandaged and wounded men, some hobbling on makeshift crutches, others huddled together in an open farm wagon. For a moment Lamb was sunk in despair. He had seen the fighting spirit of the German army out there, and it frightened him.
A dispatch rider came roaring up the side of the column. Lamb waved him down. ‘Is this right? Are we pulling back?’
The man nodded and raised his goggles. ‘Too true, sir, I’m afraid. I’ve just seen ten of our tanks blown up. Burnt to a cinder. They’ve got their heavy artillery down there. 88s. Shells screaming in everywhere. Bloody murder. You’d better scarper, sir, before you’re all picked up.’ He spotted Kurtz. ‘Don’t know where you’re going to put him.’ The man roared off, and as he did a shell came crashing in over their heads to explode thirty yards to the rear with a deafening crash.
Lamb yelled, ‘Right. We’re packing up. Quick as you can.’
But the dispatch rider had been right. Where were they to go? The colonel had advised heading west towards the Somme and what seemed to be a second line of defence, but now it was evident that the Germans were outpacing them.
As they got back on the road, Lamb wondered how it could possibly have happened so quickly. Two hours ago they had been triumphant. Now they were abandoning Arras.