There wasn’t much in the way of accommodation at the tank farm near Rouen, where they finally stopped for the night, and Dawson ended up sleeping on the back seat of the staff car, parked next to the lorry in the back of which Michaels and Rochester had bedded down. It wasn’t the first time he’d done that, and while it wasn’t particularly comfortable, he was so tired by the time they finally stopped that he fell asleep very quickly.
He was awoken, almost equally quickly, in what seemed like only a few minutes later. The staff car rocked on its hinges as a shell from a field gun or a howitzer exploded about a hundred yards away. That was an alarm clock, or an attention-getter, like no other.
Dawson was out of the car in seconds, and then spent a couple of minutes hopping from one leg to the other as he pulled on his boots. He’d just got the laces tied when Captain Rochester jumped down from the back of the lorry and ran over to the gates of the tank farm, Michaels a few yards behind him.
‘Quick as you can, Dawson,’ Michaels called out as he ran past him.
Dawson looked over towards the east, at the horizon that was now sharply delineated by the rising sun, scanning the far distance for any sign of the advancing Germans. But he saw nothing to suggest that enemy forces were anywhere near, and he briefly wondered if the weapon that had fired the shell was being operated by a bunch of incompetent French soldiers somewhere, and that they’d laid in the wrong firing coordinates. But then a second shell detonated slightly closer, maybe around 70 or 80 yards away, and it was perfectly obvious to him that it had been fired from somewhere over to the east. And that meant it must have been a German artillery piece that had fired it.
It also meant that the Nazi advance couldn’t be that far away. Dawson knew that the standard German heavy infantry gun was the 15-centimetre – roughly 6-inch – calibre sIG 33 howitzer, which could fire a high-explosive shell weighing over 80 pounds a distance of about 5,000 yards, or almost 3 miles. Applying logic to the situation, and assuming that that had been the weapon used, that meant the Germans had to be no more than 3 miles away, whether Dawson could see them or not. And if the weapon that had fired the rounds had been a smaller artillery piece with a shorter range, then equally obviously the enemy was even closer to the tank farm than that.
Though he couldn’t see any signs of German forces, he could certainly hear the sounds of combat – the heavy thumping of field artillery, the zipper-like sound of machine-gun fire and the almost constant crackle of rifle shots – coming from the east. What he neither saw nor heard were German aircraft, though he had no doubt that both fighters and bombers were stationed and ready at nearby commandeered airfields. He guessed that the Luftwaffe had been ordered to hold their forces in reserve to avoid the possibility of bombing or machine-gunning Wehrmacht soldiers by mistake in the confusion of the probably rapidly shifting front line.
Even as his slightly sleep-fuddled brain began processing what he was seeing and hearing, Dawson knew they had to move, and move quickly. He guessed that the first two rounds might have been ranging shots. If so, that meant that within a few minutes the German shot placement would be much more accurate. And they definitely needed to be somewhere else before that happened. Either that, or they were just a couple of really badly aimed shots from the fighting a few miles distant.
He reached for his Lee-Enfield and checked that it was loaded, then began running towards the entrance to the tank farm into which the two officers had vanished. He was still a few yards away when he heard an irregular series of cracks, like distant rifle shots, and guessed that the first of the gun cotton charges the sappers had wrapped around the valves and feed pipes had just been triggered.
Inside the facility, one of the first people he saw was Captain Rochester.
‘Good of you to join us, Dawson. Sleep well?’
‘Not particularly, sir, no. You heard those two shots, I suppose?’
Rochester nodded.
‘We were expecting something like this to happen. We got another intelligence briefing during the night, delivered by a dispatch rider from Le Havre. Based on information culled from the front line, which we’re now really close to, British intelligence suggested that the German advance would probably start at first light. And the fact that we’ve just had a couple of rounds from an artillery piece landing close to us, means that the deduction was correct and that the Germans must have broken through somewhere over to the east. Captain Michaels decided the time was right, and that’s why we’ve fired the charges.’
‘What can I do, sir?’
‘What you seem to do best, Dawson, which is making things blow up. Just go and make sure that our lads are doing a good job in the tank farm, and then we’ll get on the road away from here before the first wave of Jerries turns up. I just have one job to do first.’
With that, Rochester walked into the building next to where he’d been standing, and through the open doorway Dawson saw him pick up a telephone and dial a number.
Everything was surprisingly quiet when Dawson walked into the oil storage area, and the only sound he could hear was a steady gurgling and rushing sound from various tanks as they vented their contents into the bunds that surrounded them. Even the noise of the field artillery barrage was significantly muted. But the smell was something else, the reek of heavy oil and kerosene was an assault upon his nostrils.
Two of the KFRE soldiers appeared from around the back of one of the tanks, carrying a dripping wool blanket between them, and began walking briskly towards the rear of the tank farm. One of them saw Dawson approaching and called out to him.
‘This is the last igniter, Corp,’ he said, ‘so can you pick up those torches over there and bring them along?’
Dawson looked at where the soldier was pointing, and grabbed the metal bucket he was indicating. It contained about a dozen lengths of wood, each with one end tied with lengths of fabric and submerged in a few inches of petrol in the bottom of the bucket. Simple, but effective fire starters.
He followed the soldiers deeper into the tank farm and walked over to where Captain Michaels was watching the final preparations for firing the oil.
‘I think we’re about ready to go,’ Michaels said as he approached. ‘Anything you want to check before we light it up, Dawson?’
‘Morning, sir.’ He looked around at the tanks and at the work the four soldiers had done. As far as he could see, every tank was venting its contents, and it only remained to actually apply the match. ‘It all looks good to me.’
Working as a team, Dawson and the KFRE sappers started lighting the petrol-soaked torches and tossing them onto the kerosene-soaked blankets in the bunds that were filling with heavy oil. They started at the back of the tank farm and worked their way steadily forward. By the time they had used the last couple of torches on the sole remaining heavy oil tank, and were preparing to fire the kerosene, the flames were already rising from the bund below the first tank.
‘That seems to have caught a bit quicker than those tanks in Amsterdam,’ Michaels commented. ‘Maybe these tanks were storing a slightly lighter oil.’
As they moved back towards the main gates of the tank farm, they fired the kerosene tanks as well until the only tanks not surrounded by burning fuel were the three large kerosene tanks closest to the road.
With a final check that they had done everything they needed to, the small group stopped about 20 yards from the last of these tanks. A few seconds later, Rochester emerged from the administration building and nodded to Michaels, who slipped a cartridge into the Verey pistol he was holding.
‘Keep behind me, all of you,’ he ordered. ‘It’s my turn to do this.’
He held the pistol at arm’s length, sighted it as carefully as he could and then pulled the trigger.
The Verey pistol is not an accurate weapon. In fact, it’s not really a weapon at all, just a device intended for launching flares, but in the right hands and in the right circumstances it can be used to devastating effect.
Michael
s had obviously taken careful note of the placing of the kerosene tanks, and the flare, a brilliant point of light trailing smoke behind it, missed the first tank by about half a dozen feet, the second tank by a similar margin and then smashed squarely into the side of the third tank. But that was obviously precisely what he had intended it should do, because as it passed through the cloud of vapour rising from the kerosene that had already almost filled the bund below the closest tank, the flare ignited the vapour with a tremendous whooshing sound, immediately followed by flames leaping all around the tank from the pool of flammable liquid in the bund. The fuel that had flooded out of the second and third tanks burst into flames just milliseconds later.
‘Nice one, sir,’ Dawson said.
‘Let’s hope they’re all as easy as that one,’ Michaels replied.
But that didn’t look like it was necessarily going to happen, because outside the gates of the burning tank farm, the first person they saw was Captain Laurent, with a face like thunder. He was accompanied by a couple of French soldiers carrying rifles and another soldier who was waiting by a staff car, and who was presumably his driver. As the British group approached them, the two French soldiers unslung their weapons and aimed them towards Michaels and Rochester.
‘I believe that the general’s orders were most specific, Captain Michaels,’ the French officer said with icy politeness. ‘So perhaps you could explain to me why the tank farm behind you, an expensive and vital French asset, is now a blazing ruin, in direct contravention of those orders. Who authorized you to initiate a demolition here?’
‘No bloodshed,’ Michael said quietly to Dawson, who was standing right beside him. ‘I need you to disarm those two soldiers right now.’ And then in a louder voice, and pointing towards the Morris staff car, he added: ‘Go over there and get that car started.’
‘Yes, sir. Right away.’
As Dawson walked briskly towards the Morris tilly, Michaels turned his attention to Laurent.
‘Nobody gave me authorization,’ he said in French, ‘but the Germans are now within about 2 miles of here, and if we’d waited there’s no doubt they would have seized this tank farm. My orders, from my commander, instructed me to prevent that happening at all costs.’
Laurent shook his head decisively.
‘The location of the German forces is irrelevant. I expect that we will push them back towards Paris within just a few hours.’
As if to conclusively prove the error of what he was saying, another howitzer shell exploded about a hundred yards away from where they were standing, and every man there instinctively flinched and ducked.
‘They are probably in retreat already,’ Laurent added, a clear hint of desperation in his voice. ‘But for wilful disobedience of the very specific orders you were given, you and all of your men are now under arrest, and you will be charged with sabotage. The normal penalty for that offence in wartime, is execution by firing squad. You will all hand over your weapons immediately.’
‘I don’t think we will,’ Michaels replied.
Once Dawson had walked about 15 yards towards the Morris staff car, a distance that took him behind the two French soldiers, he turned to his left and walked straight over to them.
The French officer’s driver clearly saw what he was doing and let out a warning shout, but like many things in life it was rather too little, and a lot too late.
The two soldiers swung round in response to his call to face the unexpected new threat, but by then Dawson was already on them. He reached out two ham-like hands and with brutal efficiency smashed their heads together, the metallic crack of their helmets making violent contact with each other sounding astonishingly loud.
As they staggered backwards, he dropped his arms down and grabbed a rifle in each hand, pulling them free of the soldiers’ grasps. With quick economical movements, he stripped the bolt out of each – they were armed with Berthier M1916 carbines, which looked something like a smaller version of the Lee-Enfield .303 rifle – and handed the now useless weapons back to the dazed soldiers. Then he lobbed the bolts into the undergrowth surrounding the tank farm. Finding them would not be very difficult, but it would take several minutes, and Dawson knew that by the time the carbines were ready to fire again, he and everybody else would be long gone.
Laurent appeared stunned at what had just happened and the unexpected turn of events, though as he had basically just threatened all the British soldiers with summary execution for doing their jobs, he should not have been too surprised at the reaction. His mouth still open in shock, he turned back to look at Michaels and at the same time dropped his hand to his holstered automatic pistol.
‘Probably not a good idea, that,’ Michaels said firmly, pointing his Webley service revolver directly at the Frenchman, while two of the KFRE soldiers unslung their Lee-Enfields, worked the bolts to chamber rounds and then also aimed their weapons at him.
‘Look, Laurent,’ he went on, ‘we’re all on the same side here, and we mean you no harm. You know and I know that the German advance is right on top of us. They’ve already broken through the French line east of Rouen and I have no doubt at all that they’ll be here, where we’re standing, within a matter of hours, and certainly by the end of today. We don’t have time to wait around for someone to decide to give the order for the demolition. If we don’t act now, the Germans will be here, and there’ll be nothing we can do to stop them getting access to this oil. And that would be a disaster.’
‘They will be pushed back by our forces,’ Laurent insisted stubbornly. ‘I’ve already told you that.’
‘Telling me something does not make it so,’ Michaels snapped, losing patience with the man. ‘You and the rest of the French military can bury your heads in the sand for as long as you like, but we have a job to do, and we’re going to do it.’
‘No. You are to do nothing else.’
Michaels actually laughed.
‘It’s too late to stop it now,’ he said, and pointed further down the river, where the distant outline of another tank farm was visible, a sudden burst of flame and smoke appearing somewhere near the rear boundary wall. ‘This tank farm was the initiator, if you like. I have given orders to my men that the moment they see demolition beginning at any of the tank farms and refineries along this bank of the river, they are to commence their own demolition work. And Captain Rochester here has just telephoned the same instructions to be passed on to the men I have positioned at every tank farm and oil refinery between here and Le Havre.Even if I could stop it, I wouldn’t. The best thing you can do, Laurent, is to get out of our way.’
For a moment, it looked as if the captain might draw his personal weapon, despite the two rifles and two pistols aimed at him, because Rochester had now drawn his revolver as well, but then Dawson stepped silently up beside him, wrapped one long arm around the French officer’s chest, lifting him bodily off the ground, and pulled the automatic pistol from his belt holster. Then Dawson let go of him, ejected the magazine from the butt of the MAB Model D by pressing the button on the left-hand side of the frame, and worked the slide to eject the loaded round from the chamber. The single .380 ACP cartridge cartwheeled out of the weapon to land on the ground near the magazine, and Dawson flicked the pistol itself into the same patch of undergrowth that had already been the recipient of the bolts from the two rifles. Then he patted Laurent on the shoulder in a friendly fashion and walked over to the Morris staff car.
‘This is an outrage,’ the French officer spluttered. ‘I will have you—’
‘You won’t, and you know it,’ Michaels interrupted. ‘Right, lads, let’s get out of here.’
The soldiers scrambled up into the lorry, and Michaels and Rochester into the back of the staff car, and in a couple of minutes the main gate of the refinery and the four irritated Frenchman had been left behind.
‘You know where to go, Dawson?’ Michaels asked.
‘Just follow the flames, I reckon.’
‘That’ll do. And good wor
k back there. That defused a potentially nasty situation, because I don’t think Laurent had any intention of backing down. I think he might’ve ordered his men to fire on us, and that would have been the last thing any of us wanted. As it is, he’s lost a lot of face in front of his men and been made to look a bit of a fool, but all of us are still alive, and that’s far more important.’
The road they were driving along had been empty since they’d driven away from the tank farm, probably because the German advance was so close, but then Dawson spotted a motorcyclist wearing British army uniform heading straight towards them. The rider obviously saw them as well and braked his machine, waving at the staff car with his free hand. In moments, all the vehicles had come to a stop.
The motorcycle rider stepped off the BSA M20, gripped the rear pannier with both hands and pulled the bike backwards onto the rear wheel stand, audibly grunting with the effort needed. Then he walked quickly across to the staff car, where Michaels and Rochester had already climbed out.
The despatch rider gave the officers a somewhat hasty salute, and then handed over a sealed envelope containing a single piece of folded paper.
‘Most urgent, sir,’ he said. ‘From command.’
Michaels read the short, printed document and nodded.
‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘All understood. No reply.’
The despatch rider saluted again, walked back to his BSA, pushed it off the rear wheel stand and accelerated away down the road, back the way he had come.
‘This is really just giving us permission to do what we’ve already started doing,’ he said. ‘This is our authority to commence the demolition of the tank farms, but we’re going to have to crack on because according to this, some of the German forces bypassed Rouen during the night and crossed the River Seine at Elbeuf, about 8 miles down to the south of us. They’re obviously trying to surround the tank farms located on one of the bends in the River Seine.’
Operation XD Page 28