Right and Glory

by Right

  He moved to the left-hand side of the track and stepped forward another couple of paces, still concealed by the undergrowth. He snatched two quick glances – left and right – but the road, such as it was, appeared to be empty. Dawson strode out into the centre of the cobbles, where he would have a completely unobstructed view to confirm it. Nothing moved in either direction. He glanced over to the opposite side of the road, where the track they’d been following continued into the forest.

  Then he walked back to where Sykes was waiting.

  ‘All clear,’ he said, starting the motorcycle again. ‘It’s a cobbled road, not very wide. No sign of any vehicles or people on it.’

  ‘Good,’ Sykes said.

  Dawson accelerated the combination to the edge of the road, looked left and right again, just to make sure it was still all clear, then powered the motorcycle over the road and back into the forest. As the combination’s wheels ran over the cobbles, the whole machine shook and rattled.

  ‘Why do the Belgies put cobbles everywhere, sir?’ Dawson asked. ‘Haven’t they ever heard of tarmac?’

  ‘They call it pavé,’ Sykes said, ‘and they don’t put it everywhere, but you’re right – they certainly do use it quite a lot.’

  The track ran straight for about 200 yards, then bent sharply around to the left, to the west, and straightened out again, for no reason that seemed to make sense.

  ‘I’ve no idea,’ Sykes said, in answer to Dawson’s unspoken question. ‘But it’s going the right way, so just keep following it. Maybe there’s another village in front of us.’

  Sykes’s guess was right. Within about ten minutes they entered the eastern end of another small settlement, which appeared to be just as deserted as Verlaine had been.

  Dawson spotted a small shop on the right-hand side of the main street and pulled the BMW combination to a stop just outside it.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Sykes asked.

  ‘Trying to find out where we are, sir,’ Dawson replied. He climbed off the motorbike, walked across to the shop front and peered inside the window beside the door. A few moments later he returned.

  ‘Might be called Dreye,’ he said. ‘Seen a couple of signs inside that mention that name.’

  Sykes looked closely at his map, then nodded. ‘Could be,’ he said, ‘could be. There is a village marked on the map named Dreye. If that’s where we are, we’re definitely heading in the right direction.’ He checked the map again, measuring distances by eye. ‘If we are at Dreye – and I can’t see anywhere else with a name anything like that – then we’ve covered nearly half the distance between Liège and Namur.’

  ‘And that’s where the Belgian troops should be massing to stop the Jerries?’ Dawson asked.

  ‘That’s their fallback position, yes. So I think we’re probably close enough now to lose these blasted coal-scuttles we’ve got on our heads and ditch the coats as well. We definitely don’t want to reach the Belgian lines dressed like German soldiers.’

  Sykes reached up, seized the steel helmet he’d been wearing since they left Liège and tossed it away. Then he unbuttoned the coat and, with Dawson’s help, managed to take it off. The major sat back in the sidecar, his face again grey with pain.

  ‘In fact, sir,’ Dawson said, after a moment, ‘I think we might be better hanging on to these coats. They’re really warm. If I hack off all the insignia they shouldn’t even look that military.’

  Sykes nodded his agreement, and Dawson took out his pocket knife, sliced through the stitching holding the rank and regiment badges in place and tossed away the insignia. Then he wrapped the coat around Sykes’s legs to keep him warm. He repeated the operation on his own coat, but shrugged it back on – riding the bike was a little chilly if he was driving at over about ten miles an hour, and in the saddle he was totally exposed to the elements. But, like Sykes, he lobbed the coal-scuttle helmet well away from the motorcycle combination. He’d left his own British army issue steel helmet back in the staff car with the bodies of the two German soldiers he’d incinerated, so he’d have to ride bare-headed, but at least the goggles would keep the wind out of his eyes.

  He started the bike again, and they drove slowly through the silent village and out the other side, and neither saw nor heard anyone.

  At the far end of the village, Dawson found a track that seemed to be heading broadly west, again straight into a wood, and turned the motorcycle combination onto it. The surface was rutted and uneven, a mixture of stones and hard-packed earth. He had to keep the speed down as much as he could to avoid jolting Major Sykes more than necessary. That meant they were only travelling at about walking pace for most of the time.

  Sykes had abandoned the map, simply because none of the tracks they’d seen were marked on it. They were navigating primarily by the position of the sun, using their watches to work out directions because neither man had a compass. Dawson had never been issued with one, and Sykes’s marching compass was somewhere in the medical centre back at Eben Emael, removed from his belt when his wound had been dressed. But as the morning wore on, and the sun climbed higher, they were both satisfied they were going in more or less the right direction, broadly speaking west, and heading towards a point somewhere to the north of Namur.

  ‘A bit bloody spooky, this,’ Dawson said, as the woodland opened out to one side of them and they could see perhaps half a dozen small farm cottages over to their left, dotted around the fields. None showing any signs of life whatsoever. ‘This reminds me of when I got stuck behind German lines with old Watson, near the Warndt Forest. The Jerries had evacuated everyone from their homes, just in case the Frogs got a sudden injection of courage and tried to invade. And they’d taken everything – horses, cows, sheep, the lot – just like here.’

  ‘And for pretty much the same reason,’ Sykes commented, ‘except that here, the Belgian civilians know for certain that the German army will be overrunning the area. The only thing they don’t know is when – whether it’ll be today, tomorrow or the day after. But they do know the Jerries are on their way. That’s why they’ve all legged it. The main roads are probably jammed solid with refugees by now. That’s not going to help us get our troops into position.’

  ‘Might slow down the German advance, though,’ Dawson said.

  Sykes shook his head. ‘Based on their performance up to now, I don’t think the German troops have quite the same scruples as we have. We’d manoeuvre around groups of civilians. I think the Germans would simply aim straight for them, expecting them to jump out of the way. If they didn’t, too bad.’

  The track they were following was getting slightly wider, the surface generally smoother and less rutted, but Dawson still kept the speed down because they literally didn’t know what was around the next corner.

  If he had known what was around the corner, he might have wished he’d been going faster, because moments later the motorcycle combination drove into a small clearing, and virtually into the middle of a group of German soldiers relaxing around a half-track.

  A half-track that was parked squarely across the track Dawson and Sykes had been following.

  Chapter 22

  11 May 1940

  Eastern Belgium

  For an instant, time stood still as Dawson took in the unexpected – and massively unwelcome – sight. He’d hoped they’d left the enemy troops a long way behind, consolidating their hold over Liège. Or, if they’d already started to advance west, he and Sykes presumed they’d only use the main roads. What the hell was a squad of soldiers doing so deep in the woods?

  With their route ahead completely blocked, Dawson did the only thing he could. He twisted the throttle and steered the motorcycle combination over to the left side of the clearing, where he could see a break in the undergrowth.

  ‘Hang on!’ he yelled, though his instruction was probably superfluous.

  Sykes was already hunkering down in the sidecar, making himself a smaller target and at the same time jamming the knee of his good leg u
nder the metal of the covering to wedge himself in. And he hadn’t forgotten the machine-gun.

  As Dawson accelerated the vehicle across the clearing, Sykes swung the Mauser MG 34 towards the German troops and squeezed the trigger. The bucking and twisting of the sidecar made accurate shooting impossible, but the Mauser spat a hail of fire towards the enemy soldiers. They ducked and dived into cover, reaching for their weapons.

  ‘The half-track!’ Dawson shouted. ‘Go for the tyres. And the radio.’

  The half-track was a reconnaissance vehicle, fitted with a large aerial and a radio set.

  Sykes nodded, released the trigger and shifted his point of aim towards the parked vehicle. He concentrated on the radio first, then switched his aim to the front end of the half-track, the machine-gun bouncing up and down with the violent movement of the motorcycle combination.

  Bullets smashed into the radiator and headlamps. Sykes tried to lower the barrel slightly, but it was all he could do to just keep the weapon pointing in the general direction of his target. A couple of rounds bounced off the steel of one of the front wheels of the half-track. He kept firing, more in hope than expectation, pouring an almost continuous stream of bullets towards the vehicle.

  Then two things happened almost simultaneously. The Mauser’s bolt slammed open –the fifty-round magazine was empty – and there was a sudden loud bang as one of the front tyres of the half-track exploded.

  But by then one of the German soldiers had his weapon and returned fire. There was a crack and a rifle bullet screamed past Dawson, slamming into the trunk of a tree on one side of the clearing.

  The gap in the undergrowth Dawson was aiming for looked vanishingly small as he accelerated towards it. But they had nowhere else to go. No other options at all. With the Mauser machine-gun now out of ammunition, the only other effective close-quarter weapon they possessed was the Schmeisser machine-pistol he had slung around his neck. But Dawson knew that trying to take on half a dozen German front-line troops armed only with that would be nothing short of suicidal.

  The combination bounced across the ground, the tyres scrabbling for grip, the engine roaring. Two more shots rang out behind them, but then the motorcycle smashed through a couple of low bushes that marked the edge of the clearing and plunged into the undergrowth beyond.

  A six-foot-tall sapling rose up in front of them. There was no chance for Dawson to avoid it. The sapling stood no chance either. The front of the sidecar hit it at about twenty-five miles an hour and completely flattened it. Beyond it, trees loomed. Dawson knew if they hit one of them it would be all over. If they survived the impact, the German soldiers would be on them in seconds.

  But they were hidden from the view of the soldiers in the clearing – at least for a few seconds. Another couple of shots were fired in their general direction, the bullets whistling menacingly through the undergrowth, but, like the earlier ones, they both missed.

  Dawson slowed the motorcycle a fraction and looked round, trying to pick the best way out. He swung right, back towards the track through the wood, because that was their only hope. Trees blocked them in every direction. They had to pray the track beyond the clearing wasn’t full of German troops.

  He accelerated again, aiming the motorcycle combination towards a clump of bushes beyond which he could see the sun-dappled space where the track had to be.

  ‘Hang on!’ he shouted again. ‘This could get bumpy.’

  The bushes vanished under the wheel and body of the sidecar, and then the whole vehicle bounced violently up into the air as the front wheel of the motorcycle hit a mound of earth, before crashing back down again.

  Sykes yelped with pain as the impact jarred his wounded leg.

  They burst through the undergrowth and out onto the track. Dawson steered to the left, away from the clearing. The track in front of them was empty, so he twisted the accelerator as far as it would go. The BMW responded instantly, the distinctive exhaust note filling the wood. The combination accelerated rapidly, powering them away from danger.

  But even over the noise of the motorcycle’s engine, Dawson could hear the angry yells and shouts from the German soldiers behind them. He knew they had seconds at the most before the enemy soldiers appeared on the track behind them and started shooting.

  The same thought had obviously occurred to Sykes as well. ‘Give me the Schmeisser,’ he ordered.

  Dawson took his left hand off the handlebars, lifted the machine-pistol over his head and handed it to the major. Sykes cocked the weapon and swung around as far as he could in the sidecar.

  ‘Start weaving,’ he said. ‘I’ll make them keep their heads down.’

  Dawson swung left, then right, increasing speed as quickly as he could. He drove as unpredictably as he could across the whole width of the track.

  Beside him, Sykes aimed the Schmeisser towards the clearing, watching for the first sign of German troops. A soldier appeared, stepped forwards and lifted his rifle to his shoulder. The major immediately fired a short burst towards him. The range was far too great for the Schmeisser to be accurate – the combination was probably over a hundred yards from the clearing already – but Sykes was counting on the psychological effect of being fired at by a machine-gun to ruin the man’s aim.

  It seemed to work, because almost as soon as Sykes started firing, the soldier scrambled back into cover.

  But the Germans didn’t need to expose themselves to fire their rifles – they only needed to see their target – and that fact was immediately apparent when they heard three shots in quick succession from behind them. Despite Dawson’s evasive manoeuvring, two of the bullets hit somewhere at the back of the sidecar, but both missed Sykes.

  The major fired another couple of bursts towards the clearing as Dawson tried to make the movements of the motorcycle combination even more erratic than before. Despite Sykes’s attempts to frighten off the Germans, more shots sounded. But now the vehicle was kicking up a cloud of dust as well, and that was obviously unsighting the German soldiers, because every shot missed them.

  They drove around a bend, the shooting behind them stopped and they could breathe more easily again.

  ‘What the hell were those Jerries doing there?’ Dawson demanded. ‘I thought we were miles from the nearest road.’

  ‘Reconnaissance,’ Sykes replied shortly. ‘You saw it was fitted with a radio set. They’re probably checking all the tracks in the area.’

  ‘What do you want to do, sir? Stay on this track or another route? If we can find one, that is,’ he added, under his breath.

  ‘Keep going. At least until we get out of this wood. Right now I’ve no idea where we are. We’re still heading roughly west, but without a detailed map we’re virtually lost. But we have to keep moving. It won’t take those soldiers long to change the wheel on the half-track and come after us. And if their radio is still working they’ll be calling for reinforcements.’

  ‘Did you hit the radio?’ Dawson asked.

  ‘I think so, but I can’t be sure,’ Sykes said.

  Almost as soon as Sykes spoke, the trees started thinning out. Within seconds the track moved clear of the edge of the wood. Fields opened up on both sides of them, allowing an unrestricted view of their surroundings.

  Conscious that if they carried on along the track they would become visible to any enemy soldiers there might be in the vicinity, Dawson drew the combination to a stop in the middle of the track, but left the engine running.

  ‘Time for a look-see,’ he said, and climbed up onto the saddle of the motorcycle, bracing himself by placing one foot on the top of the sidecar. Shading his eyes with his hand, he looked over to the north. There, the fields were empty of both human and animal life, but as he moved his field of view towards the west, he froze suddenly, then quickly climbed down again.

  ‘What is it?’ Sykes asked.

  ‘I know why that Jerry patrol was lurking down that track in the woods,’ Dawson said grimly. ‘That field over there’ – he pointed �
� ‘is full of fucking German soldiers. We’ve got a pissed-off Jerry patrol right behind us and half the German army in front of us. We’re buggered.’

  Chapter 23

  11 May 1940

  Eastern Belgium

  ‘We’re not dead yet, Dawson,’ Sykes muttered. ‘We just have to find a way to get out of this.’

  ‘There’s something else,’ Dawson said. ‘Just beyond that field where I saw all those Jerry soldiers, there’s a major road and a railway line. I think we’ve come a lot further south than we expected. That could be the main road between Liège and Namur, the one we drove off last night.’

  At that moment the sound of aeroplane engines – multiple aeroplane engines – suddenly intruded on their senses, and they stared up into the sky.

  About a dozen multi-engined aircraft – they couldn’t tell if they had two engines or three, with the third one mounted in the nose of the fuselage – were flying above them, heading south-west, and quite high. And at almost the same moment as they heard the aircraft, they also heard a distant volley of shots, and then another.

  ‘Sounds like ack-ack – anti-aircraft – guns,’ Sykes said.

  As he spoke, a number of small and harmless-looking puffs of grey and black smoke suddenly appeared close to the leading aircraft in the formation.

  ‘They’re targeting the German bombers. We must be close to the Belgian positions. They must have set up ack-ack batteries there.’

  A few moments later, tiny black objects began falling from the enemy aircraft as the German bombardiers selected their targets and released their weapons.

  ‘They’re dropping their bombs,’ Dawson pointed out, just in case Sykes hadn’t noticed.

  ‘I know, but from the position of the aircraft I reckon we must be at least a mile away from the target, so we’re in no danger.

  Dawson knew Sykes was probably right, but even so the detonation of the first bomb was shockingly loud. It felt as if the very ground shook with the impact. That was followed less than a second afterwards by a whole series of explosions, a discordant volley of high-explosive blasts that seemed to rip the very air apart. And the ground was shaking, Dawson was certain of it.