Right and Glory

by Right

  ‘So now we can lug it around the countryside without worrying about triggering it?’

  ‘Assuming Verbois finds a couple of volunteers to help us, yes.’

  While they waited for the Belgian officer to return, Dawson started on the rest of his preparations. Verbois had found him some stout cord, a length of rope and a wooden board about three feet long and eighteen inches wide. He’d also produced a small toolkit, which included a brace and several bits of various diameters.

  Dawson held the bits up against the rope and selected the one that was very slightly larger in diameter than the rope. Then he propped the wooden board against the wall and started drilling a hole in one corner of it. Once the drill bit had gone right through, he passed the end of the rope through the hole and nodded in satisfaction – it was a good, tight fit. He didn’t want there to be too much play.

  Then he drilled three further holes, one at each corner of the wooden board, cut the rope into two halves and threaded one part through the two holes on the long side of the board, running the rope along the underside of the wood. He repeated the operation with the second length of rope, so that he was left with a wooden tray that could be picked up by two people using the ends of the lengths of rope.

  ‘Will that be strong enough?’ Sykes asked.

  ‘It should be, yes.’

  Then Dawson placed the two sections of the demolition charge on the board and set about securing them to the wood using the cord Verbois had found for him. The result wasn’t pretty, but he had to be absolutely sure neither section could fall off, because that would ruin everything. He’d laced the cord through the leather carrying handles and run it around and over the two parts of the weapon. Finally, he found a piece of canvas and wrapped that around the board over the two sections of the charge, lashing it into place with cord as well. He made a final check of the knots, making sure that each was as tight as he could possibly get it, then stepped back to survey the result.

  ‘That should do it,’ he said, and turned to Sykes. ‘The next bit would be easier if you weren’t on the stretcher, sir. Any chance of you hopping off it for a couple of minutes?’

  ‘“Hopping” is the right word, Dawson. Just give me a hand, will you?’

  Dawson pulled the bloodstained sheet off the stretcher and put it to one side. He bent down and helped Sykes get to his feet, the officer ensuring he took all his weight on his right leg. There were no seats anywhere in that stretch of corridor, so Sykes just leant against the wall, his left hand clutching his thigh.

  ‘I’ll be as quick as I can, sir,’ Dawson said, as he bent to start work.

  He laid the now empty stretcher on top of the wooden board and secured the end of each rope to one of the handles of the stretcher, pulling it as tight as he could. The result was that the stretcher now had a kind of undercarriage, a shelf underneath it, on which the two halves of the demolition charge were secured. And that ‘extra’ would, Dawson was sure, be completely invisible once Sykes was back on the stretcher with the sheet draped over his body.

  It was the best, and in fact the only, idea he’d been able to come up with that he felt offered them any chance of getting themselves – and the demolition charge, of course – out of Fort Eben Emael.

  Verbois walked back down the corridor, two Belgian soldiers following behind him. One of them was big – almost as big as Dawson – and both were unarmed and wearing white slip-on jackets emblazoned with large red crosses at the back and front. Verbois was carrying another Red Cross jacket, which he handed to Dawson.

  ‘These men are prepared to assist you,’ he said. ‘In fact, they are happy to do so, because it will get them away from here. The commanding officer has agreed to let you leave the fort, if you can. You should not really have been in here anyway, and he thinks it will be less complicated if you are not here when we are forced to surrender to the Germans.’

  Verbois handed Sykes a piece of paper containing a short message and with an impressed seal at the bottom. ‘He has also given you this. It is a passe-partout, which authorizes you and your corporal to travel everywhere in Belgium, and pass through road-blocks and checkpoints. I know you will already have your own documentation, but this might help.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Sykes said, glancing at the paper. ‘When will you surrender?’ he asked.

  ‘Probably today. We have to obtain permission from the command at Liège before we can do so, but the reality is that we have almost no defences left. We can do nothing to defeat our attackers. It is a complete disaster,’ he finished.

  ‘I know,’ Sykes said, ‘and I’m sorry about that.’

  ‘We should get moving,’ Dawson said, pulling on the jacket over his battledress, where it would also help to hide the different colour of his uniform, ‘before the rest of the German army arrives to bugger up our chances of getting away with this.’

  Dawson and the big Belgian soldier lifted the stretcher until the canvas just cleared the two parts of the demolition charge. Then Sykes clumsily climbed back onto it and lay down. Verbois draped the bloodstained sheet over him.

  ‘Bloody uncomfortable, this,’ he muttered, as his back pressed down on the canvas and met the top of the unyielding shape of the demolition charge underneath.

  ‘I’m sorry about that, sir,’ Dawson said, and turned to Verbois. ‘Can you tell the bloke at the other end that this is going to be bloody heavy?’

  The Belgian officer stepped forwards and said a couple of sentences to the big soldier in French. The man nodded his understanding and glanced back at Dawson.

  ‘OK,’ the corporal said, ‘let’s lift it now.’

  It was heavy, not only with Sykes’s weight, but also the hundred pounds or so of dead weight of the charge underneath the stretcher. But both men were strong, and lifted it smoothly off the ground. Hopefully they’d be able to walk fairly steadily as they carried it between them.

  The small procession moved down the corridor to Block One. They hadn’t heard any explosions from the entrance area for a while, which might mean the Stukas were busy elsewhere. Verbois strode on ahead to check the situation.

  By the time Sykes arrived on the stretcher, Verbois was standing waiting by the main door. ‘There is no sign of any German troops out there, so this is a good time to go. Good luck, Major,’ he said, stepping forward to shake Sykes’s hand, ‘and you too, Corporal Dawson.’

  He stepped back and stood at attention, clicking his heels together. He delivered a crisp salute, which Sykes returned as best he could from his recumbent position.

  ‘Good luck, Capitaine,’ the major said softly. ‘I hope you and your men survive this.’

  Verbois nodded. ‘Whatever happens, Major, I intend to do my duty to the best of my ability.’

  He saluted again, turned away and issued a series of orders in French.

  In moments, the main door had swung open. The Belgian soldier wearing a Red Cross jacket went first, waving a piece of white fabric above his head, then Dawson and the other soldier stepped through the doorway, balancing the stretcher between them. The moment they’d done so, the door slammed shut behind them, heavy bolts sliding back into place.

  They were outside the fort, unarmed apart from Sykes’s battered Webley revolver in his belt holster, and about to walk into the full view of the dozens of heavily armed German troops on the roof of Fort Eben Emael.

  The strain was already beginning to tell on Dawson’s arms as they stepped forward, following the Belgian soldier who was still waving the white flag.

  The moment they heard the steel door of Block One slam shut behind them, a new sound intruded – the unearthly scream of a Stuka beginning its dive, somewhere high above them.

  Immediately, they all moved back, to stand right next to the reinforced concrete wall of Block One, just inside the archway. If the bomb exploded somewhere up on the roof of the fort, they should be safe, but if the German pilot was aiming for the main entrance itself, they all probably had less than thirty seconds to liv
e. There was nothing they could do. There was no time to get back inside, and nowhere to run to, even if they dropped the stretcher.

  Leaning against the wall, Dawson looked up, searching the skies for the aircraft. Suddenly he spotted the distinctive ‘W’ shape created by the Stuka’s bent wings. Two seconds later he realized the aircraft’s position in the sky hadn’t changed, though it appeared much bigger, and that meant the dive-bomber was heading straight for them.

  ‘Oh, fuck,’ he said, ‘it’s aiming right at us.’

  ‘Lower the stretcher,’ Sykes ordered him, then repeated the instruction in French to the Belgian soldier.

  ‘Cover your ears,’ the major said, when the stretcher was on the ground, the two solid lumps of the demolition charge digging unbearably into his back and upper thighs.

  ‘Fat lot of fucking good that’ll do,’ Dawson muttered, his eyes still fixed on the oncoming aircraft. But he rammed his palms over his ears anyway, as the scream from the Stuka’s siren increased to a climax.

  Then he saw a black object detach from the belly of the aircraft and plummet down towards them.

  ‘Bomb’s away,’ he yelled, and they all – even Sykes, despite the constraints of the stretcher – shrank even closer to the wall, trying to make themselves as small as possible.

  Dawson couldn’t take his eyes off the approaching weapon, which now seemed to be moving more slowly – but maybe that was just wishful thinking, or perhaps his brain trying to stretch out the last few seconds of his life.

  But then it seemed to accelerate, still heading directly towards them. At the last second the bomb seemed to dip slightly, but it was too late, far too late, to miss them.

  Dawson closed his eyes and waited for death.

  Chapter 14

  10 May 1940

  Eben Emael, Belgium

  There was a massive blast right beside them, earth-shaking and totally deafening, but against all the odds Dawson realized he was still alive.

  He opened his eyes cautiously and glanced around. The others were alive as well. That didn’t make sense. And there was no crater.

  ‘It hit the other side, Dawson,’ Sykes said, his voice unnaturally loud. ‘It hit the other side of Block One. That’s what saved us.’

  He was right, Dawson realized immediately. The bomb had been heading directly towards them, but in the last few seconds gravity had pulled it slightly off course – he thought he’d seen it dip – and that was enough for it to smash into the northern side of Block One, instead of the top of the structure. The reinforced concrete of Block One had been between them and the explosion, and had shielded them completely from the blast. Their ears would take some time to fully recover, but they were otherwise completely unhurt.

  ‘Right,’ Sykes said. ‘Let’s get moving before another Jerry pilot decides to try his luck.’

  It was now full daylight, a bright and sunny day, and visibility was no longer a problem. Dawson would have preferred a mist, or ideally a heavy fog, to obscure them from the view of the enemy soldiers. As it was, the moment they stepped away from Block One, he was immediately aware of a prickling sensation at the back of his neck, as his imagination conjured up images of German soldiers levelling their weapons at his unprotected back.

  And then, despite the ringing in his ears, he heard shouts in German, the distinctive snicking sound as a rifle bolt was slid forward to chamber a round, from somewhere above and behind him. There was nothing he could do. He had to keep walking, and just hope that the sight of the red crosses they were all wearing, the soldier waving the white flag and the injured man on the stretcher would be enough to stop the Germans from shooting them down.

  No shots came, and they continued to walk steadily and without haste – they couldn’t have run with the weight they were carrying, obviously – away from the fort and towards the road that led to the village of Wonck.

  Dawson had no doubt they’d been spotted by the enemy soldiers, but it looked as if their deception was working – or perhaps the Germans were so busy trying to eliminate the last of the fort’s weapons that they weren’t bothered about three men apparently trying to get an injured comrade to safety.

  The scene outside Eben Emael was of almost total devastation. The bombs dropped by the Stukas had blown massive craters in the ground. The reinforced concrete of Block One was blackened and scarred by the searing heat of the explosions, and chipped and pockmarked by flying fragments from the bombs. The barbed wire entanglements and supporting frames that had protected the entrance had been blown aside into shapeless clumps. Discarded equipment and abandoned military materials were scattered everywhere. A couple of Belgian military vehicles had been the subject of individual attacks and had been tossed aside like toys, tyres ruptured and bodywork pulverized. And at least a dozen bodies lay unmoving on the ground.

  ‘God help us,’ Dawson muttered, more an expletive than a prayer, as they started finding a route across the shattered ground and away from the doomed fort.

  They covered fifty yards, seventy, eighty, a hundred. Dawson started to breathe more easily. Their route took them behind a low hill that offered at least some measure of protection from the guns of the German soldiers on the fort. From behind them came the almost continuous sound of the bombardment of Eben Emael, the crump of high-explosive detonations of bombs and demolition charges drowning out the sound of rifle and machine-gun fire.

  They started to see isolated groups of Belgian soldiers along the track, almost all of them unarmed and many of them looking shell-shocked – not entirely surprising if they’d been on the receiving end of a Stuka dive-bomb attack. Dawson and Sykes now knew exactly what that felt like. They had to pick their way carefully around the craters and debris and bodies – and even body parts – which littered the area. They passed close to several of the corpses, the bodies mangled and torn, their uniforms ripped and sodden with blood and flesh, some of them with limbs blown off, flies already gathering for the feast.

  They walked on, the weight of the stretcher seeming to increase with every step, but every step was also taking them closer to safety. Safety of a temporary kind, no doubt, but at least they were getting closer to the limit of the range of the Germans’ Mauser rifles.

  When Dawson thought they were almost out of sight of the fort, he knew they had to take a break, and he knew exactly where. If they carried on walking, there was a real danger they’d drop the stretcher, and he couldn’t allow that to happen.

  ‘We’ve got to take a rest, sir,’ he said. ‘Can you tell this Belgie to stop? I’ll have to put you on the ground for a few minutes or my fucking arms are going to drop off.’

  Sykes nodded and spoke for a few moments in French. Immediately, the big Belgian soldier slowed his pace and then came to a stop.

  Dawson gratefully lowered the stretcher far enough for Major Sykes to climb off it, with the assistance of the other soldier, then lowered it the rest of the way. As Sykes hobbled to one side and leant against a tree, Dawson stood up straight and stretched his aching back.

  ‘Just a minute or two,’ he said. ‘That’s all I need.’

  Then he looked down at the major. ‘Could you ask this Belgie to go and collect my rifle, sir? It’s hidden near those two trees over there.’

  Sykes glanced in the direction the corporal was pointing, nodded and then spoke to the Belgian soldier who’d preceded the stretcher party. The man nodded, tossed away the white cloth and then ran off towards a patch of undergrowth close to two spindly trees, and started rooting around there.

  A minute or so later the Belgian soldier returned, holding a rifle in his hands.

  Dawson nodded his thanks, took the weapon from him and checked it over. ‘I feel happier having it back,’ he said, ‘with all these Jerries about.’ Then he handed it to Sykes to stash under the sheet on the stretcher.

  ‘You signed for it, just like you signed for everything else you’ve ever been issued in the army. You have no idea how many forms you’ll have to fill in if yo
u don’t take it back with you. Now say “thank you” to the nice Belgian. That’s merci in French.’

  Coming out of Dawson’s mouth, it sounded more like “mercy”, but the Belgian nodded and smiled at him.

  Sykes said something else to the man in French, and he walked away to join a group of his comrades, who had watched the arrival of the short procession from the opposite side of the road.

  ‘There’s no point in him being with us now,’ Sykes said. ‘I think we’re out of immediate danger. How far do you think we’ve covered?’

  Dawson looked back along the track they’d been following. He could still see the northern, the most distant, section of the fort, but the southern part was now hidden from view.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘Maybe six or seven hundred yards, something like that. But the Jerries can’t see us now, I reckon, so that’s good news.’

  ‘We were lucky,’ Sykes said. ‘I looked back towards the fort, and a couple of the German soldiers spotted us almost as soon as we walked away from Block One. One of them even aimed his rifle at us, but another man – I think he was a corporal – ordered him to lower his weapon. If that NCO hadn’t been there at that moment, we might all be dead right now.’

  ‘You didn’t say anything at the time,’ Dawson said.

  ‘Of course not. There was absolutely nothing you – or any of us – could have done. At that range we were sitting ducks. Anyway, just be thankful we got out without any problems. We’ve still got a hell of a long way to go. And if your arms have recovered, we should start now.’

  Dawson nodded and bent down to seize the handles of the stretcher.

  The big Belgian soldier, who hadn’t spoken a word to them – in any language – since they’d left the fort, turned to Dawson and gave him a thumbs-up and a big grin, then grasped the other end of the stretcher and waited for Sykes to settle back onto it.

  They walked on for about another three or four hundred yards, then again moved over to the side of the road. Again, they lowered the stretcher and waited while Sykes clumsily climbed off it, then placed it on the ground.