Attack at Night

by Robert Jackson

  In the third half-track, Willings, who was driving, had been heading across the front of the German positions on Conolly’s orders when the Irishman suddenly shouted to him to turn around. He did so, heading towards the spot where Brough and Barber were lying under the scant cover of some bushes. Positioning the vehicle between the enemy and the stranded SAS men, he slowed down briefly so that they could be hauled up on to the gun platform with the help of Conolly and Mitchell. Then, accelerating once more, he manoeuvred the half-track so that it was shielded from the Ferdinand’s deadly gun by the hulk of Douglas’s machine. He drove up nose-on to it, so that the vehicles formed two sides of a square, then jumped down, together with the rest of the crew. Given time, he knew that the Ferdinand’s gun could batter both vehicles to pieces, but they were relatively safe for the time being. Moreover, the half-tracks would provide cover if the German infantry attacked.

  Douglas, Brough and Conolly looked at one another in the light of the flares. This time, there was no way out. The ground afforded scarcely any cover, and if they tried to run for it they would be cut down before they had gone twenty yards. All they could do was stay put and wait for the inevitable assault. When it came, they would try and take as many of the enemy as possible with them.

  And Douglas, at that moment, made one of the hardest decisions of his life. When the end came, he resolved to put a bullet through Colette’s brain before he went down fighting. He would not allow her to live merely to undergo the nightmare of torture before the enemy finally killed her.

  The tank destroyer’s engines roared again, accompanied by a rumbling clatter. Although they could not see it, they knew that its great bulk was beginning to move inexorably forward, bearing down to sweep the half-tracks aside and crush the life out of their former occupants.

  In those moments, wild thoughts flashed through Douglas’s mind. He wondered if he might be able to jump on to the Ferdinand and drop a grenade down its hatch, but knew in the same instant that he would stand no chance. Better to lead his men in a last, wild charge against the German infantry.

  ‘Get ready, boys,’ he said quietly. At the same time, surreptitiously, he moved the muzzle of his MP-40 close to Colette’s head. He would have to close his eyes when he did it.

  Suddenly, a storm of firing erupted from the German positions. This was it, then; the final assault. This was where it all ended. His finger began to tighten on the trigger of his machine-pistol.

  Then he realized that no bullets were crackling around the half-tracks, and that the shouts that were coming from the enemy were not battle-cries, but screams of pain and terror. He hurled himself to the rear of the sheltering half-track and looked around it, crouching on one knee. An extraordinary sight met his eyes.

  The Ferdinand was some thirty yards away, still grinding slowly forward. On its massive armoured casing two men were balanced. In his right hand, each held something aloft — something with a small, flickering flame at one end. A moment later, as though on a given signal, one of the men wrenched open the Ferdinand’s hatch — which no one had taken the trouble to fasten from the inside — and both hurled their missiles into the crew compartment.

  Even above the roar of the Ferdinand’s engine, Douglas could hear the frantic, high-pitched screaming from inside the tank destroyer as the Molotov cocktails turned its interior into an inferno. The men who had thrown them jumped down from the casing and ran alongside the still moving vehicle, unslinging Sten guns from their shoulders.

  A man emerged from the hatch, screaming wildly, beating at the flames that engulfed him. A short burst of Sten fire caught him and he collapsed, hanging face down over the casing. Another man tried to push past the body and met the same fate. The two men who had thrown the petrol bombs turned and began to run quickly away from the Ferdinand, aware what was going to happen next.

  The tank destroyer was almost on top of Douglas’s halftracks when its stored 80-mm ammunition detonated with a shattering roar. The earth heaved and great chunks of armoured casing shrieked through the air. Douglas and the others flung themselves to one side as the blast wave caught the half-tracks, heaving them violently sideways. For an instant, it seemed as though one of them was going to topple over, but it righted itself and settled back on its tracks again.

  Groggily, Douglas and the others got to their feet, Colette being helped upright by Brough. Apart from some sporadic single shots, the firing from the German positions had ceased. Advancing round the rear of the half-track, Douglas came face to face with a man carrying a Sten gun — one of those, he thought, who had thrown the Molotov cocktails. He stood silhouetted in the glare of the wrecked and fiercely blazing tank destroyer.

  ‘It seems we got here just in time,’ he said in a cultured English accent. ‘I am Auguste. You, I presume, are Captain Douglas?’

  ‘That’s right,’ Douglas said, shaking the man’s hand. ‘And I can’t begin to say how glad I am to see you.’

  Auguste smiled in the light of the flames. ‘Quite all right, old boy. I see you did quite a job on Istres. No time to talk about that now, though; we’ve got to get going. German reinforcements are starting to pour into the area. That’s the bad news. The good news is that the Royal Navy MTB will be picking you up from the Camargue coast at first light — if you can get there in time. You’d better get your men together. There’s still a long way to go.’

  ‘We’ve still got one half-track,’ Conolly pointed out. ‘It hasn’t got much fuel left, but it’s good for another few miles.’

  ‘Excellent,’ Auguste said. ‘Incidentally, my men are holding the road as far as Port-St-Louis. We’ve also commandeered a barge to take you across the Rhône. Everything depends on how long we can hold off the Germans; they are already in Arles and are probably moving south at this very moment. Once you are across the Rhône and in the Camargue you’ll be safe enough; they can’t follow you there.’

  ‘But what about you and your men?’ Douglas wanted to know.

  ‘We’ll be crossing the river, too,’ Auguste said, ‘once we’ve seen you safely on your way. Afterwards, we’ll be dispersing northwards into Languedoc for a while until things quieten down again. Anyway, who knows? We might be kicking the Germans out of France in a few months’ time.’

  ‘I hope so,’ Douglas said. ‘Anyway, thanks again for your help. Maybe we’ll meet again in more favourable circumstances. One last thing — you’d better give us an escort of some sort, otherwise your chaps might get trigger-happy when they see a German half-track trundling down the road towards them.’

  ‘Here’s your escort,’ Auguste told him, as a man came striding up to stand in the light of the blazing tank. He carried a German Mauser 98 rifle slung across his shoulder.

  Colette, who had been leaning weakly against the half-track, gave a gasp of recognition and took a few short steps forward to embrace the man. It was Etienne Barbut.

  ‘Tell him I’m glad to see he’s alive and well,’ Douglas instructed her. ‘And now let’s move, before things get unhealthy.’

  Colette and Barbut climbed into the cab of the half-track alongside Willings, who once again volunteered to do the driving. Douglas and the remaining SAS men clambered on to the gun platform, where they were joined by two or three Maquisards, each armed with a Sten and wearing a bandolier into which were stuffed German ‘potato-masher’ stick grenades.

  Willings drove past the shattered Ferdinand and over the crossroads, which were littered with dead Germans. Cheering Maquisards, holding their guns aloft, saluted the half-track and its occupants as it churned past, and some ran alongside for a while before dropping back.

  The vehicle drove steadily on past more patrols, slowing down as each one was approached so that Barbut could call out to the Maquisards. Half an hour later, having passed under a canal, it came to another crossroads and its occupants climbed down. Barbut spoke rapidly with Colette, who translated.

  ‘This is as far as we go,’ she told Douglas, ‘at least in the half-track. The le
ft-hand fork goes down into Port-St-Louis, the other follows the Rhône to Arles. We go on across country for a mile or so before reaching the river.’

  As she finished speaking, there came a sudden outburst of firing from along the Arles road. It was still some miles away, Douglas guessed, but there was no telling how long it would be before the Maquisards who were holding the road succumbed to mounting enemy pressure. He indicated the Resistance fighters who had accompanied them on the half-track, and said to Colette:

  ‘Tell them we’ve no longer any use for the vehicle. It’s theirs. No doubt its firepower will come in handy. And tell Monsieur Barbut to come with us.’

  After a further exchange of words, Colette turned back to Douglas in obvious distress.

  ‘It’s no use,’ she said. ‘I’ve pleaded with him, but he insists on staying. He says that his place is with the Maquisards.’

  Douglas nodded, understanding. Wordlessly, he reached out and grasped Barbut’s hand, then turned away to lead his men across the mile of ground to the Rhône. Unseen by Douglas, Colette clung to Barbut for a few moments and kissed him before also turning away. No one, in the darkness, saw the tears that were coursing down her cheeks.

  The ground was soft and boggy, and water reached over their ankles as they trudged on, the men taking it in turns to support the ailing Colette. At last they reached the river and waded through the marshy flats towards it, gazing with trepidation at its sluggish expanse. Douglas judged that it was at least half a mile across, which would not have presented a problem had it not been for one fact. There was no sign of the barge that was to have taken them to the far bank.

  ‘Something’s obviously gone wrong,’ Douglas said, ‘but we can’t afford to hang about here.’ He threw a glance upriver, where he could see flashes twinkling in the darkness. The sound of firing from the Arles road was becoming more intense. ‘We’ll just have to swim for it, that’s all.’

  A half-mile swim was well within the capability of all his men, but there was Colette to be considered. She looked at him, knowing what he was thinking.

  ‘Leave me,’ she said bravely. ‘I told you that I would be a burden to you. Leave me here.’

  ‘Not on your life,’ Douglas told her firmly. ‘You’ve come this far with us, and you’re coming the rest of the way. These overalls are designed to provide some buoyancy, and we’ll hold on to you.’

  ‘Do we ditch our weapons, sir?’ The question came from Mitchell, who was still burdened with his beloved radio set as well as his MP-40.

  ‘No, we don’t,’ Douglas told him. ‘We swim with them. You’ve all been trained to do that. Your wireless will have to go, though, Mitch.’

  The Rhodesian signaller paused, then unstrapped the set, held it between his hands for a few moments, and finally hurled it as far as he could into the river. Without waiting to be ordered, he strode down the shallow bank and into the water. The rest followed suit, Douglas staying close to Colette.

  From a hiding place among some bushes on the far bank, a man watched the swimmers’ progress through a pair of Zeiss night-glasses. He saw their heads bobbing up and down, and noted how one of the swimmers seemed to be supporting another. It should not be difficult to snare them, he thought with satisfaction, drumming his fingertips against the casing of the binoculars.

  ‘Shall we open fire on your signal, monsieur?’ The question came from one of the dozen or so militiamen who lay nearby, their carbines at the ready. The Gestapo man rounded on him furiously.

  ‘You idiot!’ He snapped. ‘How many times must I tell you, you will not open fire at all! My intention is to capture those swine alive; I have planned for that ever since I discovered the tracks of their aeroplane, days ago. When they come out of the river you will surround them and take them prisoner. That is all.’

  He resumed his vigil with the night-glasses. The others strained their eyes in the darkness, unable as yet to see anything at all. The roll of gunfire from the direction of Arles made a constant background noise.

  The swimmers ploughed valiantly on through the Rhône’s current, unaware of the fate that awaited them. The Gestapo man continued to watch them, speaking softly to himself, mentally urging them on. They were almost at the bank now, almost at the place where the water became shallow enough for them to wade ashore. Soon it would be all over. The Gestapo man glowed inwardly at the thought of the praise and promotion that would be bestowed on him for this night’s work.

  And soon over it all was, but not in the way he envisaged. The voice of the guns masked a closer sound, and the first indication the Gestapo man and the Milice had of the peril that was bearing down on them came when the ground suddenly began to tremble beneath their prone bodies. The Gestapo man released his binoculars and got to his knees, startled, and his last vision in this world was of the flying, razor-sharp hooves that cut him down.

  The tide of white horses swept over the militiamen, and long machetes gleamed dully in the night as the gardiens slashed to left and right, sending the hated Milice screaming and scattering. None fired a shot; those who survived the murderous onslaught threw aside their rifles and fled into the darkness, or the temporary sanctuary of the river.

  Douglas and the others, hearing the commotion, halted their progress and trod water, looking at the darkened river bank in alarm. Then a voice hailed them out of the night, and Douglas, exhausted as he was, kissed Colette’s soaked hair and laughed aloud in relief.

  The voice was that of Raoul.

  Hands reached out, a minute later, to drag them from the water. The horses stood passively, ignoring the trampled bodies of the militiamen.

  ‘Quickly,’ Raoul urged them. ‘Mount up and ride! Nothing can touch you now. You’ve done it, by God! The boat is on its way in. The gardiens will go with you, so that you don’t miss the place. Go now, and good luck!’

  They dragged their soaked bodies on to the backs of the patient horses. Colette sat in front of Douglas, who held on to her firmly. The horses got into their stride, cantering through the marshes, their hoofbeats dulled by the soft ground so that they seemed for all the world like phantom creatures, sliding through the dark towards the coast, their manes and tails lifting with their rippling motion.

  And in the Camargue, a new legend was born.

  *

  The Dornier droned steadily on in the darkness, skirting the Balearic Islands at 10,000 feet. Hardly a word had been spoken since take-off; even von Falkenberg was silent, although Karl Preuss sensed that the general’s mind was already probing all the possibilities of finding a scapegoat on whom to pin the blame for the disaster that had overwhelmed the remainder of KG 100 at Istres.

  Preuss was not happy with the way the bomber was handling. The controls felt sloppy, and he suspected that the shell that had burst underneath the aircraft on take-off had caused some damage to the control cables in the rear of the fuselage.

  Whatever they, the crew of the solitary Dornier, might achieve now would amount to little more than a pinprick, Preuss thought moodily. If they were lucky they might sink a couple of ships, but that was all. The Allied convoy would still forge ahead to its destination, wherever that might be. Had it not been for the presence of von Falkenberg, he would have aborted the mission and turned back long ago.

  He was worried about the fuel state, too. The engines seemed to be consuming more petrol than was usual. That was an item of information he intended to keep to himself for the time being; the morale of the crew must be low enough as it was, and he had no wish to burden them further with the knowledge that they might not make it back home.

  The Dornier was fifty miles south-west of Formentera, still on course for Gibraltar, when the real trouble started. The first hint came with an urgent call over the intercom from the flight engineer.

  ‘Sir, the starboard engine is starting to overheat badly. The temperature has been fluctuating for some time, but now it has suddenly gone into the red.’

  Preuss acknowledged and throttled back the troublesom
e motor, applying some rudder to compensate for the aircraft’s sudden tendency to swing. At the same time, he glanced across at the engine itself, leaning forward in his straps and craning his neck as he did so, for the wing and the engines were positioned well to the rear of the cockpit and it was not easy to see them from the pilot’s seat.

  What he saw made a sick knot of fear grip his stomach. The cowling of the starboard engine was glowing redly in the darkness.

  Preuss ordered the flight engineer to shut down the engine and apply the fire extinguisher. Almost at once, the aircraft slowly began to lose altitude. From behind Preuss, von Falkenberg demanded to know what was happening.

  ‘We’ve got the beginnings of a fire in the starboard engine,’ Preuss told the general. ‘I’ve had it shut down, which means that I can no longer hold altitude. I’m going to have to jettison the missiles and turn back.’

  ‘No!’ Von Falkenberg’s voice rose almost to a scream. ‘I forbid it! You must press on to the target at all cost!’

  ‘Can’t be done, General,’ Preuss said laconically. ‘We’d never make it. Rainer, get ready to jettison the weapons.’

  In the nose, Rainer Becher’s hand hovered over the switches that would release the Fritz-z missiles. Without their weight, the Dornier might stay in the air long enough to make an emergency landing in neutral Spain.

  ‘No!’ von Falkenberg yelled again. ‘You heard my orders! Continue to the target. You forget that I too am a pilot, Preuss!’

  ‘Look out, sir.’ It was the navigator who spoke. Preuss half turned in his seat. Von Falkenberg was on his feet, and the pistol in his hand was pointing at Preuss’s head.