'Not exactly inspiring, Sarge.'
'That's an understatement. I saw one machine-gun team, but otherwise I didn't see a single man carrying anything bigger than a rifle.' And as the Norwegians had trudged back, so the Rangers' C Company had been sent forward to reinforce A Company to the south of Lillehammer. Tanner had watched them head off towards the fray. Aircraft, like black insects, had swirled over the lake to the south. Smoke had pitched into the sky. Explosions, some muffled, some sharp, had resounded up the valley. By the time dusk finally began to fall, the remains of A Company had been streaming back to Lillehammer too. Apparently, the newly arrived C Company had tried to hold the line as A Company withdrew, but since then news had been scarce. With no radios, each company had been depending on civilian telephone lines; they had now been cut.
As darkness had fallen, the sounds of battle had died down. A sense of defeat had hung heavy over the town. Sure enough, just after midnight, Hepworth, the platoon runner, had reached the warehouse with news from Battalion Headquarters. General Ruge had ordered a general withdrawal to a position a mile north of Lillehammer. The stores that Tanner and the rest of Four Platoon had spent an entire day unloading were to be moved to the new position with all urgency.
That had been nine hours ago, and still piles of boxes lay stacked in front of the warehouse and along the platform. Sykes flicked his cigarette clear of them, then said, 'Better see where the rest of the boys are,' and stood up and walked off.
Tanner rubbed his eyes again. Lillehammer lay perched on the lower slopes overlooking Lake Mj0sa. It was a small town - Tanner guessed the population was probably no more than a few thousand - and like every other town and village he had seen so far, the houses were mostly made of wood and brightly painted. It was one way of cheering up the drab two-tone landscape, he supposed. It was another grey day, but above the high, steep outcrop known as the Balberg, there was a patch of blue. Smoke still rose into the sky from the south and Tanner peered up again at the town, prettily snug against the mountain, and wondered how long it would stay that way once the Luftwaffe were bombing the place. Stretching away above, the mountains were covered with snow-clad pines. The whole country, it seemed, was the same: deep U-shaped valleys, wide rivers and mountains. He had fought in mountains before, in the North West Frontier between India and Afghanistan, but those had been quite different: jagged, dry and dusty. Here, everything seemed so much closer: the report of a gun could be heard reverberating across the valley, while the roar of aero-engines seemed to suck in all the air around them, blocking out any other noise.
Another German aircraft thundered over, then banked in a wide arc across the northern end of the lake. Tanner tried to remember his aircraft recognition chart - a Junkers, he was sure of it. A Junkers 88. Like all the German aircraft he had seen so far, this had twin engines, but the Dorniers had had twin tail fins and more rounded wings, like those of the larger Heinkel 111s. The wings on this one were more aquiline and it had a bulbous head that made it seem oddly out of proportion.
Hepworth brought over a mug of tea. 'There you go, Sarge,' he said, and stood holding it out while the Junkers banked round the far side of the lake. 'Feels like they're toying with us, don't it?'
'Recce planes, Hep,' said Tanner. 'They're making sure they have a damn good look before they start up again.'
'Probably can't believe it's so easy.'
'Defeatist talk, Private? Don't let Mr Dingwall hear you speak in such a way.' Tanner grinned at him, then took a sip of his tea. 'Great char, this, Hep. Good on you.'
A civilian car pulled into the yard outside the warehouse and Lieutenant Dingwall stepped out. A young thin-faced man in his mid-twenties, he strode over to Tanner. His face was ashen.
'Hepworth, go and find Captain Webb,' he said, then turned to Tanner and, in a conspiratorial tone, said, 'Grim news, I'm afraid. Looks like most of D Company's had it. The Norwegians had promised transport to get them out, but apparently it never showed up. We're hoping most are PoWs, but we've had no contact from Company HQ since the early hours and Jerry's only just south of the town. The colonel's beside himself. Looks like a company of Leicesters have been overrun too.' Tanner nodded. 'Amazing to think I was talking to Captain Kirby only last night,' Lieutenant Dingwall continued. 'And poor old Richie - I mean, Lieutenant Richardson. I was at school with him, you know. We joined up the same day. Hard to believe. Hope to Christ he's all right.'
'I'm sure he will be, sir.'
'Are you? Yes, you're probably right. Probably a prisoner. I'm sure they treat their prisoners fairly. They're signed up to the Geneva Convention and everything, aren't they? But, my God, you can hardly believe it, can you? We watched them march off last night, and they've gone - a whole bloody company, devoured . . .'
'Best not to think too much about it, sir,' said Tanner.
'No . . . no, you're quite right, Tanner.' He bit his lip and then his eyes glanced from Tanner's breast pocket.
Tanner followed his gaze and realized the lieutenant was studying the tiny ribbon, blue, white and red stripes, of his Military Medal above the left breast pocket of his battle blouse. He quickly buttoned his leather jerkin.
Dingwall looked embarrassed. 'Sorry, Sergeant,' he said, and swallowed hard. Then, smiling weakly, he added, 'Our turn to face the Germans soon.'
'You'll be fine, sir,' said Tanner. He wanted to give his platoon commander some reassurance but it was a difficult line to tread; it wasn't his place to undermine the man's authority. Yet he could see the fear in Mr Dingwall's eyes and it was important the lieutenant did not show it to the men. Nonetheless it was natural that he should feel apprehensive. If Tanner was honest, the tell-tale nausea in his stomach and the constriction in his throat were troubling him now. He tried to remind himself it was the anticipation of battle that was the worst; once the fighting began, adrenalin took over. Even so, the Germans were brushing them aside as though they were little more than toy soldiers. The enemy had control of the skies and, he'd heard, had tanks, armoured cars and large amounts of artillery; 148 Brigade had none of those things, and neither, it seemed, did the Norwegians. So how the hell were they supposed to stop them? He understood now what it must have been like to be a Mohmand warrior, armed only with muskets and swords against British rifles, artillery and Vickers machine- guns. Christ, he thought. What the hell are we doing here?
Tanner looked to the south and noticed Lieutenant Dingwall follow his gaze.
'When do you think the bastards will attack?' the subaltern asked.
'Shouldn't think it'll be long.'
'What about all these stores? We've not cleared half of them.'
'We'll have to leave them, sir. Might be worth mentioning to Captain Webb that we should think about blowing it up, sir. Don't want Jerry to get his mitts on it.'
'I'll do that right away, Sergeant, thank you.'
Tanner followed the subaltern as he strode toward Captain Webb. However, just as Lieutenant Dingwall began speaking with the quartermaster, two lorries arrived back for another load.
'Jerry's not here yet,' Captain Webb told him, 'and so, for the moment, we'll do no such thing. Let's get your men busy, Lieutenant, and load up these trucks pronto.'
Tanner groaned to himself. The bloody fool, he thought.
Half an hour later, with the trucks despatched and the working party of Foresters already gone, he broached the matter with Lieutenant Dingwall again. 'Sir, I really think we need to get this place wired and move out. The Jerries could be here any moment.'
'Yes, all right, Sergeant,' Lieutenant Dingwall snapped. He paused, then said, 'Well, surely you've got other things to do, Tanner,' and strode off.
He had not gone ten paces, however, when there was a brief roar of aero-engines followed by whistling and a series of colossal explosions. Seconds later two more aircraft hurtled over, flying at no more than a few hundred feet off the ground.
Tanner immediately fell flat on the ground but turned his face to see a stick of bomb
s falling, thankfully wide of the yard but still terrifyingly close. As the bombs exploded, with an ear-shattering din, he felt the air around him sucked away before he was lifted clean off the ground by the blast and smacked back down again. He gasped, the wind knocked out of him. The air seemed full of debris and he closed his eyes as stones, grit, shards of wood and glass rained down around him. Choking dust and smoke shrouded the yard and warehouse. He pulled his handkerchief from his pocket, dampened it with water from his bottle, then clamped it to his mouth and staggered to his feet. Christ, the Germans would blow up the stores for them at this rate.
'Number Four Platoon,' he shouted, 'to me!' Men stumbled towards him, including, he was pleased to see, Lieutenant Dingwall. 'Right, lads,' said Tanner. 'Get your kit. Make sure you've got everything attached to your webbing, that your rifles are loaded, then grab as much ammunition as you can easily carry. It's time we got the hell out of here.' Wide-eyed and silent, the men did as he asked. He turned to Lieutenant Dingwall. 'I hope that's all right, sir. I'm assuming that since Jerry's started his assault we should hurry back to the new lines.'
Lieutenant Dingwall nodded.
By the warehouse, Captain Webb was also barking orders for them to retreat. 'Everyone fall back!' he shouted. German guns had opened fire too. Shells were now thumping into the southern parts of the town. 'Leave everything!' yelled the quartermaster. Tanner saw him hurrying to the civilian car the lieutenant had been driving earlier with the regimental quartermaster sergeant.
'Goddamn it,' said Tanner, as he grabbed his own rifle and kit. Two shells hurtled overhead, whooshing through the air like a speeding train, before exploding some several hundred yards to the north.
'All right, men!' shouted Lieutenant Dingwall. 'Let's move.'
Tanner hurried to his platoon commander. 'Sir, I'll follow you out.' Lieutenant Dingwall swung his arm above his head, then down below his shoulder, signalling to the men to run from the yard.
Tanner stood back. 'Move it!' he shouted. 'Come on, get going!' Spotting Hepworth, he grabbed him, and said, 'Not you. I need you to help me with something.'
More shells whistled overhead. Hepworth looked distraught. 'But, Sarge, the Jerries'll be here.'
'We won't be long. Now, follow me,' he snapped. Tanner was fuming - with Captain Webb for not thinking ahead and for cutting and running before the others, but also with the lieutenant for not pressing the quartermaster hard enough. As a result, they were leaving the stores in too much haste and risking letting a mass of valuable war materiel fall into the enemy's hands - weapons and ammunition that any advancing force would gladly use against them.
They ran to the side of the warehouse. There, out of sight of the yard and platform and partially covered by overgrown bushes, they saw a small shed.
'What's this place, Sarge?' asked Hepworth. 'Can't say I'd noticed it before.'
'That'll teach you to have a proper scout round in future, won't it?'
Hepworth was not alone, however, certainly, no one else had thought to use it. But Tanner had, the previous day, and as dusk had fallen, he had quietly, without being spotted in the darkening night, moved half a dozen four- gallon tins of petrol there. He had also taken the opportunity to discard some of his kit and replace it with a number of items carefully put aside during the day's unloading. His gas-mask had been taken out and instead he had filled the respirator bag with a tin of detonators and two five-pound packs of Nobel's gelignite. From his large backpack, he had taken out several other items of kit. His hairbrushes and canvas shoes had been pulled out with barely a thought, but abandoning his greatcoat had been a harder decision. However, he had kept his thick, serge-lined leather jerkin, which would keep him warm and also allowed him to have his arms free; he had always hated them to feel restricted ever since he had begun shooting as a boy. Anyway, he reckoned he could always find another greatcoat if necessary. He filled the pack with a number of cartridges of Polar dynamite, a round tin of safety fuse, half a dozen hand grenades, ten rounds of Bren-gun tracer bullets, and as many clips of rifle rounds as would fit.
'Leave your pack and rifle here for the moment,'
he told Hepworth now, 'and help me with these cans.'
'What are we doing with them, Sarge?' Hepworth asked, as he pulled the large green canvas pack off his back.
'Just grab that fuel and do as I say, Hep. Come on, iggery.'
'Iggery, Sarge?'
'Yes, Private, iggery - it means get a bloody move on.'
They ran back to the yard. Tanner pulled out his seventeen-inch sword bayonet and stabbed the top of the flimsy tins, while Hepworth returned to the shed for the rest of the fuel. The sergeant then poured the petrol liberally over the remaining stores. When Hepworth returned, they finished their task. A dozen Heinkels thundered overhead, no longer concerned with the station but with the new front line. Small-arms fire from the Allied lines two miles ahead could faintly be heard, followed by a dull ripple of explosions. Suddenly there was a clatter and squeaking from the buildings to the south of the station yard.
'Tanks,' said Tanner. 'Quick! To the shed.' They sprinted back, Tanner putting on his jerkin, then heaving his respirator bag and pack onto his shoulders. They were heavier than he'd imagined, and he cursed to himself. Slinging his trusted Enfield on his back, he said, 'Right, let's go. Follow me, Hep.'
As they ran round the front of the warehouse, the sound of tank tracks grew louder. Then, from the side of a house, the front of a German tank swung into view. The two men ran on, until Tanner slid into a ditch by the far side of the yard.
'You'd better be quick, Sarge,' said Hep, his face taut with fear.
Tanner said nothing. Instead his shaking hands struggled to pull out a single .303 tracer round and push it into the breach of his rifle. German troops were now moving up round the sides of the tank, half crouching in long, field-grey coats and their distinctive coal-scuttle helmets. So, face to face with Germans at last, he thought.
One of the enemy troops shouted and, with his rifle, pointed to the stacks of boxes.
'Sarge!' hissed Hepworth.
'Wait, Hep, wait,' whispered Tanner. He watched as a dozen or more German troops ran across the yard towards the stores. He pressed the wooden stock of the rifle against his cheek, gripped the wood surrounding the barrel with his left hand, and felt his finger press against the metal trigger. Just over a hundred and fifty yards. Closing one eye, he aimed at a box of gelignite he had doused heavily with petrol and upended to make it stand out. Holding his breath, he squeezed the trigger.
The flash of the tracer round streaked across the yard and struck the wooden box. Immediately an explosion ripped the air, sheets of flame burst out and engulfed the largest stack of stores, followed in succession by a second, third and fourth explosion as the fireball engulfed the yard. The first half-dozen Germans were caught in the inferno, and Tanner saw three more catch fire amid screams of shock and pain.
'Run!' shouted Tanner. 'Run, Hep!' Then the two were scrambling to their feet, minds closed to what was going on behind them, concentrating on sprinting northwards for all they were worth, away from the yard and warehouse to safety.
Above the din of further explosions, the rattle and whizz of bullets detonating, Tanner was aware of a cannon shell whooshing past him only a few feet away and punching a hole through a wooden building up ahead. A few seconds later, machine-gun bullets fizzed over their heads. He and Hepworth dropped to the ground a few yards short of the bridge over the Mesna river. Tanner rolled over, unslung his rifle and pulled it into his shoulder. A little over three hundred yards, he reckoned. He could see the black-jacketed tank commander's head sticking out of the turret; he was now firing the machine-gun towards them. Tanner pulled back the bolt and fired. The man's head jerked backwards. When it righted itself, half his face had gone and the machine-gun was silent. He yelled at Hepworth to start running again. More soldiers were crouching by the tank. Tanner pulled back the bolt again and, without moving his face from
the stock, hit a second man. Two. Pull back the bolt, fire. Three. Again. Four. This time he only clipped a soldier. Back came the bolt. Five. Six. Seven. Three rounds left. That'll do.
He turned and ran, ten yards, twenty, thirty - over the bridge and away from the inferno, away from the startled enemy. Ahead, the road turned, still running parallel to the railway but, he knew, out of sight of the yard. A bullet fizzed past his ear. He could see Hepworth had already made it. Another bullet zipped by, and another, and then he was safe, for a moment at any rate, out of sight of the enemy.
Hepworth was up ahead, slowing now, and Tanner paused, hands on his hips, leaning backwards, gasping for breath. Now that he had momentarily stopped, he felt his pack cutting into his shoulders. Bending double to relieve the weight, he grimaced, then began running again, albeit more slowly. Behind him, vast clouds of pitch-black smoke rolled into the sky.
Tanner drew level with Hepworth, who grinned. 'Some explosion, that one, Sarge. I reckon there's a few Jerries there who won't be bothering us no more.' He watched as Tanner pressed another clip of bullets into his magazine. 'Shoot a few of the buggers, did you, Sarge? Did you get that tank man?'
'Less of the chit-chat, Hep,' said Tanner. 'Let's concentrate on catching up with the others and getting out of here in one piece.'
They were nearing the edge of the town. A few frightened civilians were peering from their houses, but the streets were still empty. He had hoped to come across a car, a motorbike or even bicycles, but there had been nothing and no time in which to look more thoroughly. The houses thinned and then they were in the open, running along a cleared road, patchy snow at either side and yellowed grass showing through. Of the rest of the platoon there was no sign. How much of a head start had they had? he wondered. Fifteen minutes? No wonder he couldn't see them.
'How much further, Sarge?' gasped Hepworth.
'A mile. Not much more.' Tanner could see the mass of the Balberg strutting imperiously above them. German field guns continued booming behind them. They could see the dark shells as they hurtled across the sky and exploded among the Allied positions, the sound of the detonation always arriving a moment after the flash. 'Keep going, Hep,' urged Tanner. 'Soon be there.'
The Odin Mission Page 3