by Right
‘What’s it look like?’ Sykes asked, resolutely keeping his eyes averted.
Dawson glanced at the major. ‘Well, there’s good news and bad news, I suppose,’ he said. ‘The good news is that the bullet missed the bone and arteries and went straight through your leg.’
‘And the bad news?’
‘It’s a hell of an exit wound, and you’ve lost a lot of blood. You need medical treatment – and quickly. You’ll be limping for a while. Oh, and this pair of uniform trousers is ruined.’
Sykes smiled, despite the pain he was suffering.
Dawson dragged a field dressing out of one of his pouches, and placed it over the open wound. As gently as he could, he lifted Sykes’s leg and tied the bandage around his thigh.
‘Sorry about this,’ he said, ‘but I have to get this tight. It’s going to hurt.’
‘Just do it, man.’
Dawson pulled the ends of the bandage together, squeezing the dressing against the injury. He wrapped the bandage around Sykes’s thigh, then knotted it tightly.
Sykes grunted with pain a couple of times, then lay back when Dawson finished his rudimentary medical treatment.
‘Sorry,’ Dawson said again, and took back the torch from the major. He picked up the revolver and stepped back to the inner steel door. Seizing the weapon by the barrel, he again slammed it into the steel, repeating the sequence of knocks.
Again there was no response.
‘I’ll kill that fucking Verbois if we ever get out of here,’ Dawson muttered.
‘And I’ll give you a hand,’ Sykes whispered.
Then they both heard a metallic clanging sound, and for the briefest of instants Dawson assumed it was the bolts on the inner door being withdrawn.
‘At last,’ he said, but Sykes shook his head.
‘Wrong door,’ he said, and Dawson spun round, aiming the torch at the officer.
Sykes pointed at the outer steel door, the one that gave access to the casemate itself. ‘I think the Jerries have stuck a demolition charge on it.’
Dawson went white. ‘Then we’re fucked,’ he said.
‘A ten-second fuse, I think you said? It’s been good knowing you, Dawson. We ought to –’
But whatever Major Sykes had been about to suggest was lost for ever as a massive explosion rocked the narrow space between the two steel doors.
Chapter 13
10 May 1940
Eben Emael, Belgium
For a few seconds there was absolute silence, then Eddie Dawson opened his eyes.
‘Bugger me,’ he said, stating the obvious, ‘we’re alive.’
‘They must have several sizes of demolition charges,’ Sykes said, ‘and that one was too small to penetrate the steel door.’
‘Verbois said they were supposed to be proof against all conventional explosives. So at least that bit of Eben Emael has worked as advertised.’
‘Yes, but now the Germans know they used the wrong type, so I’m sure they’ll be bringing along one of those charges they used against the casemates. That’ll have no trouble blowing a hole right through that door, and vaporizing us in the process. We’ve got to get out of here, Dawson.’
The corporal staggered over to the inner door and once again rapped out the sequence of knocks they’d agreed with Verbois, smashing the butt of the pistol as hard as he could onto the steel. He waited about half a minute, then repeated the process, the steel ringing with the impacts.
Four, five, six times he sounded the signal and finally, as the last blow with the now battered Webley revolver died away, they were rewarded. This time there was no mistaking the source of the sound – it was definitely the inner door – and it was a scraping sound as the bolts were pulled out of their housings.
‘Thank God for that,’ Sykes said, staggering clumsily to his feet.
The inner door swung open, and the two men found they were facing a reception committee. Beside Verbois were a handful of Belgian soldiers, all holding rifles pointing straight at Dawson and Sykes.
‘Lower those rifles,’ Sykes snapped in French, staggering forwards into the corridor.
Verbois repeated the order and the soldiers obeyed.
As Dawson bent down to grab one section of the demolition charge, he heard an unmistakable clang from the outer door, and knew exactly what it was.
‘Get clear,’ he yelled, tossed the lower section of the charge out into the corridor, then turned back, grabbed the upper part and dragged it out. Pausing only to lower it to the ground, he spun round to close the inner door.
But Sykes had heard it too, and issued a brisk order in French.
As Dawson reached the door, three other soldiers appeared beside him and leant their considerable weight to the mechanism. Moments later the door slammed shut and Dawson turned the handle to slide the bolts home.
He stepped clear of the door, just as a massive explosion occurred in the casemate. The inner door seemed to shake, and bits of concrete and dust rose all around them, but the door itself remained intact.
‘Bet the other bugger’s got a bloody great hole blasted through it,’ Dawson said, then turned to face Verbois.
‘So where the fuck were you, matey? We bloody nearly got trapped in there. Those Jerries almost had us.’
If Capitaine Verbois objected to being shouted at by a mere corporal, he gave no sign of it. He simply shook his head and apologized.
‘I’m truly sorry. The commanding officer summoned me and I’ve only just got back here.’
‘Didn’t you think of leaving somebody here to listen for us?’ Sykes asked.
Verbois nodded. ‘Of course I did. The problem was, there were so many bangs and noises from inside the casemate that the soldiers I’d left here weren’t certain they’d heard the proper signal.’
Sykes and Dawson had to acknowledge that that, at least, was a valid argument.
‘When he first heard the banging on the door, one of the men fetched me urgently. Then you banged much louder, and we were certain it was you two on the other side of the door.’
‘Well, at least we got out of the casemate,’ Sykes said.
‘Your leg, Major,’ Verbois said, clearly noticing Sykes’s injury for the first time. ‘What happened?’
‘He took a bullet in the thigh,’ Dawson said, ‘and he needs medical treatment right away. Can we get him down to the hospital?’
‘Of course.’ Verbois issued orders to one of his men, who ran down the corridor and quickly returned with a stretcher. He opened it up, and Dawson helped Sykes lie down on it. The major looked even worse than before, much weaker and clearly in enormous pain.
As he lay back on the canvas stretcher, Sykes beckoned to Dawson, who bent closer to hear what he had to say.
‘Get that demolition charge back to British lines, Dawson, and this time that really is an order. Get it to somebody in authority. If possible, find Lieutenant-Colonel Brace-Williams of the Royal Scots Greys, my regiment. My boss, in fact. Explain what we saw it do to the fort here.’ Sykes gestured for Dawson to get closer still.
‘But for fuck’s sake don’t give it to the bloody Belgians,’ Sykes whispered. ‘They’d just hand it straight back to Adolf’s minions, or give it to the French, which would be just as bad. You must get it into senior British hands.’
Dawson nodded. ‘Any idea how, sir?’
A ghost of a smile flitted across Sykes’s face. ‘As I said the very first time we met, Dawson, on the quay at Cherbourg last year, just use your initiative. You seem to be quite good at that.’
‘I’ll do my best,’ Dawson said thickly, a lump forming in his throat as he looked down at the battered body of the man he’d shared the last few days with. Then he stood back as two of Verbois’s men lifted the stretcher and headed off down the passageway.
‘We need to get out of here,’ Dawson said briskly, turning to Verbois. ‘The Germans have probably blown a hole in the outer door, and the inner one won’t hold them up for long, so we’d better scarp
er.’
‘Scarper?’ Verbois asked.
‘Doesn’t matter. We need to shift our arses. Allez bloody vite.’
Dawson glanced down the passageway and saw what looked like a metal box on wheels. ‘What’s that?’ he asked.
Verbois looked where Dawson was pointing. ‘An ammunition cart,’ he said.
‘That’ll do nicely. Can you get one of your men to fetch it, please? This charge is heavy.’
Verbois detailed one of his men to bring the cart, then looked with interest at the object Sykes and Dawson had recovered. ‘Is that what the Germans used to destroy our fortifications?’ he asked.
‘We think so, yes.’
‘It doesn’t look like much.’
‘It’s not what it looks like that’s important – it’s how it works. And this is a bloody complex bit of gear.’
The Belgian soldier appeared with the ammunition cart. Dawson picked up both sections of the demolition charge and placed them on the top of it, then started pushing the cart down the corridor.
‘You’re intending to take that back to your own lines?’ Verbois asked.
‘Yes.’ Dawson didn’t elaborate.
‘We should retain it here,’ Verbois said. ‘It has been used against us, not against you British.’
‘No chance, Capitaine. If I hand that over to you, I’ll be disobeying a direct order from Major Sykes. And you know as well as I do that this place is doomed, so if it stays here, the bloody Jerries will just grab it back and use it to blow a fucking great hole in another one of your forts.’
Verbois looked at the big corporal for a moment, then shrugged. ‘You could be right,’ he said, his voice resigned. ‘Getting back as far as Block One is not a problem, but the Germans are attacking with Stuka dive-bombers against it. I have no idea how you will get out of this fort, or anywhere else.’
‘Right now, mate,’ Dawson replied, ‘nor have I.’
He saw more evidence of the damage caused to the fort as they made their way along the corridors to Block One. Many of the lights had been blown out, leaving long stretches of the passageways in darkness, and flakes of concrete and other debris littered the floor. Dawson wasn’t prepared to use one of the various ammunition elevators to transport the two sections of the demolition charge down to the lower level, in case the power failed halfway between floors and left it stuck and inaccessible, so he insisted on carrying both sections down the staircase himself.
Eventually they reached Block One, where the damage inflicted on the structure by the German Stuka dive-bombers was very obvious. The entrance was one of the most exposed areas of the entire fort and, although none of the bombs had been able to penetrate the thick armoured concrete roof or walls of the building, every light bulb had been blown out and the repeated detonations had shaken most of the books, manuals and other objects off the shelves and onto the floor. None of the dazed and demoralized Belgian soldiers sitting or lying around in Block One and lining the corridors outside appeared to have the slightest interest in picking up anything. That fact alone made Dawson realize that the fort was doomed. That day, or the next day at the latest, somebody was going to walk outside waving a white flag and surrender the place to the Germans. It was a question of ‘when’, not ‘if’.
That didn’t help, obviously, but Dawson knew he’d have to be long gone – with the demolition charge – before that happened. What he still didn’t know was how he was going to achieve it.
There were observation ports in Block One, and he strode across to one of them to inspect the scene outside. That wasn’t encouraging either. The ground outside the blockhouse was pockmarked with craters and liberally covered in debris. Getting a vehicle anywhere near the main entrance to the fort would be difficult or impossible – not that Dawson had even considered it. However he managed to get out, he’d known all along it would have to be on foot, at least until he’d got away from the immediate vicinity of Fort Eben Emael. Then he’d be able to drive off in the Hillman staff car, assuming it hadn’t been stolen or been hit by a bomb. The rotor arm for the distributor was in his pocket, and with any luck he’d be able to get away ahead of the German land forces, which must by now be approaching the Belgian border, if they weren’t there already.
But first, somehow, he had to get out of Block One with the demolition charge.
Dawson stared through the observation port at the desolation outside for a couple of minutes, looking for inspiration. If he just walked out he’d be an immediate target for the enemy troops up on the roof and, until he was outside, he couldn’t know if any of them were close enough to spot him. He also knew he couldn’t run out, because he couldn’t carry even one section of the demolition charge and a rifle at more than walking pace – it was just too heavy. And even then it would still leave the other part of it inside Fort Eben Emael, and he couldn’t get back inside and pull the same trick again.
However he left the fort, it had to be with both sections of the demolition charge at the same time, with at least one other person to carry the other part. So he had to work out some way of getting two people out of the building without either of them getting shot. They had to become the kind of target that the Germans simply wouldn’t fire at.
And there was only one way he could think of that might work. But first, he’d have to clear it with Sykes.
Dawson stepped away from the observation port and turned to Verbois. ‘Can you take me to the hospital, please? There’s something I need to talk about with Major Sykes.’
Just over thirty minutes later, two Belgian soldiers carried a stretcher towards Block One, Dawson walking just behind them. On the stretcher, Sykes lay flat, his slight frame covered by a sheet that was heavily bloodstained. It wasn’t actually his blood, but that didn’t matter.
The bullet wound in his thigh had been quickly treated by the Belgian medical team, and was now properly strapped up and padded to avoid any further blood loss. As the bullet had passed straight through the muscle, they’d checked that no threads from Sykes’s uniform trousers, dirt or bullet fragments were stuck in the wound. Then they’d disinfected it, injected the area with antiseptic drugs, plugged the exit hole with a sterile dressing and strapped it up as tightly as possible.
They had no local anaesthetic, and all they’d been able to give Sykes was an opiate-based painkiller, and the major’s face told its own grim story of the painful treatment he’d just endured. He was white, seemingly drained of blood, and his speech slightly slurred, as if he’d been drinking. This was a side-effect of the morphine. In his uniform pocket were three more glass phials of the drug, to be taken when the pain grew unbearable.
‘This should be close enough,’ Dawson said, when they reached a point in the corridor where the lights were still working, and where no Belgian soldiers had taken refuge. He didn’t want to go into Block One itself until they were ready to go outside, because the Stukas were still making occasional attacks on the structure, though most of their efforts now seemed to be directed towards targets on the roof of the fort – the remaining gun emplacements.
‘You’re a devious bugger, Dawson,’ Sykes muttered as the Belgian soldiers lowered his stretcher to the ground. ‘Are you sure this is going to work?’
‘Frankly, sir, no, but I can’t see any other option. If we don’t do it now, we’ll still be inside here when the garrison surrenders. At best, we’d spend the rest of this war in a Jerry prison camp, and I don’t think that’s a great idea.’
‘Nor do I, Dawson, so we’d best get on.’
Verbois looked troubled. ‘There are – implications, shall we say – about what you’re planning to do. The provisions of the Hague Convention might not –’
‘The Hague Convention might also have something to say about Stuka dive-bombers attacking your unarmed reinforcement troops as they walked here from the villages where they were billeted,’ Sykes interrupted, his voice slurring, but what he was saying perfectly clear and lucid. ‘Adolf Hitler doesn’t care about th
e Hague Convention or the laws of war or any other bits of paper. He’s proved that often enough already. And if his troops can ignore what passes for the rules of combat, I can’t think of any particularly good reason why we can’t do the same.’
‘And what we’ll be doing won’t affect the Germans or the outcome of this battle,’ Dawson added. ‘All we need are two volunteers and one of them has to be fairly strong.’
Verbois nodded, still unhappy but unable to marshal any arguments to counter Dawson.
‘Very well,’ he said. ‘I’ll leave you to make your preparations, and I’ll to find a couple of men prepared to assist you.’
As soon as Verbois had walked away down the corridor, followed by the two soldiers, Dawson turned his attention to the upper part of the demolition charge. He’d taken every precaution to ensure that the fuse assembly sticking out of the top hadn’t been damaged. This was partly because he wanted to be able to examine it properly, but mainly because he knew that, if it was triggered, he wouldn’t have been able to run far enough, or fast enough, to avoid being blown to bits when the charge exploded.
Now he looked at the charge closely. He had a great deal of respect for German engineering, and he was certain the fuse wasn’t a permanent part of the weapon – it was too fragile and dangerous to incorporate it – so it had to be possible to remove it.
‘Got it,’ he said, after a few moments. He took a knife from his pocket and opened the spike instead of the blade, slid the point into a small hole drilled through the fuse, and gently tried to turn it. After a moment, the whole assembly began to rotate, and a few seconds later Dawson was able to lift the fuse away from the charge.
‘Is that it?’ Sykes asked from the stretcher.
‘Yes. Simple enough. They transport the fuse separately and only insert it in the charge when they reach the battlefield.’