by Iain Gale
‘Well, if my calculations are correct and we’re on the right road we should be about ten miles north of Hesdin.’
‘Is that good, sir? I mean, how much further do you think we have to go?’
‘Well, once we reach Hesdin we have two options. Either we travel to the coast and then down along it until we reach the mouth of the river, then we head back inland and hope we find the 51st, or we just keep pushing further south, but that might be more tricky. Depends on where we reckon the Jerries are most in force.’
Bennett nodded. ‘I see, sir. So then we deliver the message to the General, and then what, sir?’
‘Then it’s anyone’s guess, Sarnt. I suppose we fall in with whoever we find ourselves with and hold the line until we receive further orders. I’m afraid we should give up all hope of finding the Battalion, or even the Division. We’re on our own now.’
It was true, and he had never felt more alone and vulnerable. They were well behind enemy lines, caught between the two bisected halves of a decimated BEF, a very long way from their friends in the north and still with some way to go to the safety of those he had been told remained in the south. Lamb knew that at any moment they might go careering into a German unit: infantry, trucks or tanks. His main aim now, though, was to get them down to the coast as quickly as possible. Once there, he thought it might be an easier journey to push down to the mouth of the Somme estuary. They would wait there until nightfall and then go on foot across the mud flats to the opposite bank. He only hoped that the colonel had been right and that by the time they got there the 51st or what remained of them would be in position along the Somme.
He had chosen a deliberately rural route, which took them through as few villages as possible. True, the quality of the roads had not been as good as some others, which seemed more direct, but if that meant they stood less chance of encountering Germans then so much the better. As for the exact location of the mass of the enemy, he was quite in the dark. He knew that one front line ran the length of the canal to the north and could only assume that the other might do the same in the south.
Four times in the last day they had heard vehicles. Twice they had spotted tanks moving across fields, once dangerously close to them. They had stopped and hidden the truck in cover until the threat had passed. At one point a German motorcycle dispatch rider had roared past them, but he had not stopped. Whether out of fear, or because he simply could not believe his eyes, they never knew.
The closest squeak, though, had been when a squadron of Stukas had passed high overhead. Bennett, his ear attuned to their hum, had heard them even above the noise of their engine, and Lamb had swerved off the road and into the cover of a tree-lined hedgerow. They had passed over, doubtless en route to bomb a specific target and presumably under the impression that no British units could have remained in this sector. So far their luck had held.
Now though, as they reached their objective, Lamb was ironically feeling more uneasy. It had all been too simple and straightforward. Something was bound to go wrong. Most of the tanks and motorized infantry they had seen had been moving north, so he presumed they were concentrating on going in that direction and pushing the mass of the BEF into the sea, as the colonel had said. He knew, though, that some German armoured divisions had pushed down to the south west. According to Campbell they had already reached the sea, but in what strength and exactly where they were, Lamb, like the high command, had absolutely no idea.
He felt Madeleine stir again on his shoulder and decided that the time had come to pull over and let Bennett do some driving. For the past few miles, since leaving the hamlet of Eclimeux, they had been travelling through wide open countryside with fields stretching out to either side, and Lamb knew that was one of the reasons for his unease. Now, though, as the sun began to climb he could see trees up ahead, and tall banks of hedges on both sides of the road. There was a farm to their left, but he could see no sign of any military presence, or indeed any sign of life at all. It was as good a place as any to stop.
Lamb slowed down, applied the brake, then gently coaxed the truck onto the side of the road. The question of fuel troubled him. He reckoned that they might manage the ten miles to Hesdin and knew from his map that there should be a station there. There was another marked in a village close by. They would make for that first and hope that the enemy was not in evidence. They would face that problem if they came to it.
He switched off the engine and turned to Bennett. ‘There we are, Sarnt. All change.’ Gently, he shook Madeleine’s arm and she mumbled something, then opened her eyes. Lamb smiled at her. ‘Sorry, we’re just changing drivers. You’ll have to move for a few minutes.’ She looked at him, puzzled at first, and then, as she remembered his face, smiled. ‘Of course. Thank you. Where are we?’
‘Close to Hesdin, I think. You’ve been asleep for a few hours.’
She let him move away from her and pushed herself back into the seat.
Lamb climbed out and met Bennett at the front of the vehicle. Both men listened, but there was no sound on the empty road, merely the chirruping of birds. It was strangely quiet after all they had been through.
Lamb opened his cigarette case and tapped an oval against the metal before lighting it. ‘One of mine, Sarnt?’
‘Prefer my own, sir, if you don’t mind.’ Bennett took a pack of Woodbines from his pocket and lit up.
‘Better check on the others. You stay here.’
Lamb walked to the rear of the truck and lifted the tarpaulin. The smell inside was appalling, though familiar: stale sweat and fart and foul breath. He peered in. ‘Everyone all right?’
There was a general groan of assent.
‘That’s fine, then. We’re almost there, chaps. Not long now.’
A voice answered, ‘Where are we, sir?’
‘In France, Smart. Somewhere in France. Don’t worry. We’re heading for our own lines.’
He dropped the tarpaulin as the usual round of wheezing, coughing and swearing began and returned to the front of the truck. ‘They seem fine, Sarnt. We might need to scrounge some rations before Hesdin, though. Water too. And fuel for this baby.’ He patted the bonnet of the truck. ‘There’s a village not far from here.’
‘Think there’ll be Jerries there, sir?’
‘I don’t know, Bennett, but we should probably assume that there will be. Safer that way, anyway. We’ll pull up outside the place and recce it on foot. Then we can decide what to do next.’
Lamb stubbed out his cigarette on the ground and Bennett did the same, then both men climbed up into the cab of the truck and Bennett took the wheel. Lamb reached inside his valise and took out the map. By his reckoning they were nearing one of the few villages through which they had to pass, almost the last before Hesdin. Incourt, it was called.
‘Take a right turn here, and then left. We’ll stop at the edge of the village.’
He nodded to Bennett, who started the engine, and they rolled off along the road. Sure enough, within 400 yards they reached a signpost for the village.
Lamb signed to Bennett and the sergeant switched off the engine. Winding down the window, Lamb listened, but heard nothing save the sounds of rural France. They would make a run for it. Changing his mind about the foot patrol, he nodded to Bennett and again the sergeant switched on. Then, revving up, he drove the truck into the village without stopping. The people of Incourt saw nothing. Half of them, probably, had already long since fled to the south, but in the houses of those who remained a few lace curtains twitched, and in a yard a dog barked, but the truck moved so fast that they presumed it must be yet another of the lorries full of German soldiers that had already passed through their quiet little village, and they turned back to their own sad lives in their newly invaded country.
Lamb looked at the map again. It would be foolish to head for the centre of Hesdin. They would make for the village to the south with the petrol station and go on from there. He turned to Bennett. ‘We’ll head for the centre and then ca
rry on through this village to the south of the town, Saint-Austerberthe.’
It did not take long. They drove quickly past quiet red-brick houses and whitewashed farm buildings, and within minutes they had come to a crossroads. To their right stood a pretty little village church, on the left an enclosed farm. Dead ahead, on the road leading away from them, Lamb saw what he had been praying for: a fuel station with a single pump.
He nodded at Bennett, ‘Thank God . . .’ but had not finished the sentence when he froze. For in a yard, not fifty feet from the pump, stood a German truck. An Opel Blitz, German infantry transport.
Lamb yelled at Bennett: ‘Christ, man. Reverse. Back up the road.’
Bennett slammed the gears into reverse and the truck slewed backwards up the road as he tried to keep her steady with the steering wheel. There was no way, thought Lamb, that whoever was with the German truck could not have heard the gears crunch or the engine over-rev. He watched to see how many men would appear. But, miraculously, not one did.
As the truck continued on its backward roll cries and shouts of protest came from the men in the rear. Madeleine woke with a start and muttered something in French before sitting up. ‘What’s happening? Peter?’
‘German truck. They must have seen us.’
Bennett kept his foot down and, eyes on the mirror, prayed that he wouldn’t hit anything. He had never been a particularly good driver at the best of times, and reversing at speed was not something he had imagined he might be called on to do. But he was doing his best and, aside from a glancing blow at a low brick wall that drew louder cries of protest from the rear, he managed to control the three-tonner until eventually they veered around a corner and lost sight of the German lorry. Bennett pulled up behind the corner of a large house with blue shutters and a painted advertisement on its wall for Dubonnet.
Lamb made a sign and Bennett switched off. Lamb looked at him with wide eyes. ‘Well done, Sarnt.’
‘D’you think they saw us, sir?’
‘No idea. But we’ll know soon enough.’
The men in the back were groaning now. Lamb stuck his head through the slit behind the driver’s seat: ‘Keep it down in there. Jerry lorry.’ The voices subsided, and then Lamb and Bennett listened and waited. Madeleine reached out and clasped Lamb’s hand in hers, and although he realised that Bennett might see he did not push her away. The street was curiously silent. They must have heard us, thought Lamb, but still no sound came from the direction of the enemy truck.
After a few minutes, which seemed to last an eternity, he looked across at Bennett, and as he did so, as gently as he could, he let go of Madeleine’s hand.
‘Right, that’s long enough. We should take a look. If they have seen us we’re just sitting ducks here. Get the men out and stay in cover.’
Slowly and silently the two men left the cab and moved to the rear. The flap of the tarpaulin was up and the men were recovering from their unexpected journey, rubbing bruised arms and legs. But no one seemed badly hurt.
An educated accent came from the blackness. Valentine. ‘Have we stopped, sir? Pity. I was starting to enjoy that. Just like the dodgems at Margate.’
Bennett growled at him, ‘Put a sock in it, Corporal, or I’ll have your stripes. There’s a Jerry truck up there and we don’t know if we’ve been spotted, so we’re leaving the bus here. Right. Everybody out.’
The men clambered over the tailgate and down onto the cobbled road, making as little noise as possible. As Lamb was moving towards the wall of the house something caught his eye and he cursed. Where their truck had collided with the brick wall, the rear axle had been bent so badly that the near-side tyres stood at an angle. The damage was beyond hope. He called to Bennett and pointed: ‘That’s it then. Truck’s US.’
Bennett gawped. ‘God, I’m sorry, sir.’
‘Not your fault, Sarnt. You did your best.’ He went to the cab and looked in. ‘Madeleine. I’m afraid the truck’s kaput. You’ll have to come with us.’
Now they would see if his judgement had been right to allow her to come. She would have to keep up and perhaps even go with them into combat. She climbed down from the cab and followed Lamb and the others to the shelter of the wall. They were in single file now, with Mays and two others at the front, then Lamb, Smart and Bennett, with Valentine and the odds and sods bringing up the rear. Slowly, with rifles at the ready, they walked to the end of the house. Mays went forward and, crouching on one knee, peered gingerly around the corner.
The German truck was still there. A soldier in a forage cap was leaning against the side of the truck, looking quite relaxed. The driver, presumably. As Lamb watched, another man, with short, wiry fair hair, appeared from the doorway of a small house next to the fuel station. His tunic was half unbuttoned and he had a flagon in his hand. He laughed and shouted to the man by the truck, and although Lamb could not make out his words it was clear that he wanted him to join him. Mays whispered: ‘Christ, sir, he’s bloody drunk.’
It was true enough. The man in the doorway looked four parts gone. Clearly whatever men were in the truck had temporarily lost their unit but had found a store of local wine or cider. Again the man in the door shouted, and this time the driver shrugged and walked across to join him. Both of them went into the house. Lamb ran back to Bennett.
‘Jerry’s in there right enough. Probably no more than a platoon of them, though. And by the look of them they’ve had a skinful of local plonk. We’re going in, fast, while they’re still on the sauce. We’ll take both flanks at once. You and Valentine’s mob take the left flank, I’ll take the right with Mays. Smart can stay here with the girl.’
Bennett nodded and silently motioned to the men to his rear to follow him. Then at a running crouch he crossed the road and they followed. Lamb looked behind him, signalled to Smart to stay where he was with Madeleine, and waved his hand forward for the others, then he rejoined Mays on point and, leading from the front, pistol in hand, moved fast across the road towards the truck.
From inside the house they could now hear the sound of voices and music. A crackling gramophone was pumping out some jolly French dance-band song. Someone shouted louder. Others laughed. Lamb and his men had reached the door now, and as he looked round to Mays, ready to attack, another voice spoke from their front, in German, getting closer, and then the driver walked out of the building, laughing and looking back the way he had come, with a parting word. It was the last thing he ever said. As he turned and glimpsed the khaki figures, Mays rose and clamped a hand over his mouth, at the same time sliding his bayonet neatly into the German’s side. Then, as the man fell in agony, he twisted his neck for good measure. Lamb heard the crack. He looked at Mays and nodded, surprised at his efficiency. He knew the corporal had a shady history, and some said he had once been part of a Brighton razor gang. Perhaps they were right. They left the corpse, and on a count of three Lamb and Tapley hurled a grenade into the house. At the same moment Bennett’s men did the same at the rear door. They turned away for a second and heard the terror in the voices of the drunken Germans as they saw the grenades fly in. Then it was too late. The explosions pushed a pocket of dust and debris out of the doorway and into the yard, instantly followed by screams. Lamb yelled ‘Now’, and they burst in through the door, firing as they went, into the general darkness and the dust. Bennett, he knew, would hold back so as not to get caught in their fire.
Their surprise was complete. Coughing, they continued firing until Lamb yelled for them to stop. The interior of the house was a shambles. What the drunken Germans had not wrecked in their search for booze, Lamb and his men had done with their grenades. Shattered possessions lay everywhere in what had been the house’s dining room. On a bullet- and shrapnel-scarred table in the centre of the room four German soldiers lay slumped in death. One was missing half of his head; another, a sergeant, had a hole clean through his forehead, although the exit wound had taken away the back of his skull. Another two lay sprawled across the terracotta-tiled flo
or in pools of their own spreading blood. Their booty, a dozen bottles of wine and several flagons of cider, lay shattered around the room, the red wine mixing with the blood on the floor. Gradually the dust settled and Bennett and his men came in from the back of the house.
Lamb saw him. ‘Any more?’
‘Two dead in the kitchen out the back, sir. Grenades got ’em.’
‘Good. That must be the lot. Tell the men to watch out, Sarnt. We can’t be sure there aren’t more further into the village.’
Lamb took a second look at the corpses and was struck by a thought. That truck out there was now theirs for the taking. And if the driver was worth his salt and a good, efficient German, it would also be full of petrol. If not, there was more in the pump waiting to be taken. Corporal Mays and his men moved through the house and into the yard. Lamb gazed around the room. Although the grenades had torn into some of the corpses, some of the uniforms had hardly been touched at all.
He turned to Bennett. ‘Help me get these Jerries out of their clothes. Just three of them will do.’
Bennett stared at him. ‘Do, sir?’
‘Camouflage, Sarnt. We’re taking that lorry out there and we’re going south, and we can’t very well do that dressed in this, can we?’ He tugged at his sleeve. ‘You, me and one of the others. They look about the right size.’
Bennett started to help him unbutton the uniforms of the sergeant and another of the men at the table. It took a matter of minutes.
Lamb called across the room, ‘Stubbs, take the clothes off that man there and put them on.’
‘Sir?’
Bennett spoke. ‘Just do it, Stubbs.’
Lamb unbuttoned his own tunic and trousers and within minutes was pulling on the German NCO’s uniform. It was reasonably neat, with a single shrapnel rip on the arm and unexpectedly crisp and hard after his soft British army battle-dress, which he had had made at some expense. The grey trousers were narrow, allowing them to be tucked neatly into the jackboots; the tailored tunic fastened, he felt like he was wearing a corset. He did up the collar and placed the hat on his head, just as Bennett and Stubbs finished adjusting their own dress. Lamb picked up the leather belt with its eagle badge and the inscription ‘Gott Mit Uns’. As he did so he took a moment to survey the piece of equipment which had caught his eye when he had first seen the dead sergeant: a holster, and within it an .08 Luger pistol. He clipped it around his waist, undid the button and slid the Luger from the pouch. It fitted nicely into the palm of his hand, and instinctively Lamb opened the breech in the handle and checked the ammo. Seven bullets.