Right and Glory

by Right

  ‘Stop him,’ Dawson said urgently.

  The German soldier ducked down behind the wooden trestle. Dawson could see him bracing his legs against the ground, his back to the wooden structure, as he tried to force the barrier across the track in front of them.

  Sykes had already traversed the Mauser machine-gun to the right on its mount and, as Dawson finally lined up the combination to aim at the diminishing gap, the major opened fire.

  It was almost point-blank range. The salvo of bullets smashed into the German soldier’s side and threw him bodily backwards into the undergrowth, away from the end of the trestle.

  But the damage was already done. He had managed to shift the wooden structure by at least a foot or so.

  Dawson’s left boot was already scraping along the line of shrubs and bushes at the edge of the track, the branches tugging and pulling at his foot and leg and clattering against the steel of the motorcycle. He dropped the speed even further, because he daren’t risk getting stuck. If he did, the pursuing Germans would be on them in seconds.

  Then the right-hand side of the sidecar crashed into the end of the trestle. The sidecar mudguard jammed into the wood and acted as a pivot, swinging the vehicle around to the right and bringing it to a noisy, juddering and violent halt.

  Dawson jammed the gear lever into neutral and leapt off the motorcycle. He passed the Schmeisser to Sykes as he ran around the back of the sidecar.

  ‘Cover me,’ he yelled.

  The moment Dawson moved clear of the major’s line of fire, Sykes aimed the machine-pistol back down the track towards the two approaching motorcycle combinations and squeezed the trigger. He fired three short bursts, with no particular hope of hitting anything. He just intended to keep the German soldiers at a distance while Dawson tried to extricate the combination from the wooden trestle.

  But even as Sykes opened fire, so did the gunner in the leading combination. Bullets ripped into the trestle, sending splinters of wood flying in all directions. A bullet ripped into the tyre on the sidecar, blowing it to pieces and buckling the wheel itself, and another smashed into one of the steel tubes at the rear of the motorcycle, catching it a glancing blow. The ricochet slammed into Dawson as he bent forward over the wheel of the sidecar.

  He grunted with the sudden impact and fell backwards, clutching his stomach.

  Sykes looked down, and saw an ominous dark stain spreading across the corporal’s groin and thigh as he rolled onto his back.

  At that moment, with the combination crippled by the blown tyre and Dawson obviously badly injured, the major assumed they were both seconds away from death.

  Chapter 28

  11 May 1940

  Eastern Belgium

  ‘Dawson!’ Sykes yelled, firing another desperate burst at their pursuers. ‘You’re hit!’

  For a moment, Dawson just lay there, flat on his back. But then the big corporal rolled over, and sat up.

  ‘No,’ he said, his voice strained. ‘I’m OK. Just winded me a bit.’

  ‘But you’re bleeding.’

  Dawson reached down and touched his discoloured uniform, then shook his head.

  ‘I’m not,’ he said. ‘That bullet just punctured my water bottle, that’s all. I’m wet, not bleeding.’

  ‘Then for Christ’s sake get us out of here. Those fucking Germans are almost on us.’

  Dawson nodded, rose to his feet and grabbed the twisted mudguard with both hands. He braced his foot against the buckled wheel of the sidecar and pulled as hard as he could. There was a metallic ripping sound and the mudguard came away in his hand, wrenched free from its remaining mounting point on the sidecar. He tossed it away and glanced behind him, back down the track, figuring the distances.

  As he did so, the gunner in the leading motorcycle combination fired again. But the bullets went wide because the sidecar was bouncing violently up and down, a hopelessly unstable platform for shooting any weapon.

  ‘Don’t stand there admiring the bloody view, Dawson,’ Sykes snapped, returning fire again. ‘Get us out of here.’

  Then the Schmeisser fell silent as the magazine emptied. Sykes pressed the button to release it and reached for another one.

  The closest German combination was then about seventy yards behind them, the second one perhaps a further hundred yards back.

  Dawson made his decision. He reached down to the sidecar, unclipped the Mauser MG 34 machine-gun and carried it around behind the trestle. He placed it on top of the wood, jammed it into place as firmly as he could, sighted down the barrel and squeezed the trigger.

  The first burst went wide, slightly over to the left of the approaching combination. Dawson corrected his aim and ‘walked’ the bullets directly across the track to his target. Sparks flew as the heavy machine-gun bullets smashed into the front of the vehicle, then the front tyre blew and the combination lurched sideways. An instant later, another of his bullets speared through the motorcycle’s petrol tank and the vehicle exploded in a ball of flame, two marionette figures jumping aside, trailing flames and smoke as they rolled desperately over and over on the ground beside the wreckage.

  ‘Right. That’ll slow them down a bit,’ Dawson muttered, ‘and maybe there’s something else I can do as well.’

  In the distance, he could see the second combination slowing down as it approached the burning wreckage of the first vehicle, but he didn’t have a clear shot at it through the flames and smoke. They had a bare few seconds in hand.

  Dawson replaced the Mauser in its mount on the sidecar, then jumped back on board the motorcycle and drove the combination beyond the gap between the edge of the track and the trestle. Then he stopped it again and got off.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Sykes demanded.

  Dawson didn’t reply, just ran back to the trestle. It was a heavy, crudely built piece of carpentry, but undeniably effective for all that. Just as the German soldier had done minutes earlier, he braced himself against the end of it, and forced the whole structure about two feet across the road, closing the gap even more.

  Then he got back on the motorcycle, put it into gear and drove away.

  ‘Those Jerries will have to stop and shift that trestle,’ he said. ‘It might buy us a few more seconds.’

  The moment the combination was back on the track itself, Dawson accelerated, but the blown tyre on the sidecar meant he could only go fairly slowly. The ruined wheel kept digging into the dirt of the track, pulling the whole vehicle over to the right, and he knew if he tried to go fast there was a real risk of losing control and crashing it.

  Now their safety depended on how fast the pursuing Germans could get through the same gap. The position of the wooden trestle, blocking the centre of the track, meant Dawson and Sykes were safe from machine-gun fire, at least for the moment, because it was hiding them from the view of the enemy soldiers.

  Sykes swung round in his seat, trying to make out what was happening, but the bulk of the trestle prevented him from seeing very much.

  ‘I can see wheels below the trestle,’ he said at last. ‘The second motorcycle combination must have just reached it. Yes. Two German soldiers have just appeared beside it. They’re trying to move it out of the way.’

  Then the combination swept around a bend in the track, and the previous section was lost to view.

  Sykes turned back to face the way they were going. ‘It’ll only take them a few seconds to move the trestle,’ he said, ‘so I reckon we’ve got maybe a two-minute start on them. And they’ve got all three wheels, so they’re going to catch up pretty quickly.’

  Dawson didn’t reply. He was too busy trying to keep the combination moving as quickly as possible in a straight line.

  ‘I wish I knew how far we were from the Belgian lines,’ Sykes said.

  ‘So do I,’ Dawson replied.

  The combination twitched wildly to the right as the sidecar wheel slammed into a pothole in the track, then bounced upwards, and Dawson had to fight to keep the vehicle heading in th
e right direction. Their speed was down to probably about ten miles per hour, and both men knew that the Germans pursuing them could travel at least three times faster than that.

  ‘They’ll catch us any time now, I reckon,’ Sykes said. He checked the Schmeisser and started to turn back in his seat again.

  At that moment, they both heard the hammering of a machine-gun from somewhere behind them, and bullets flew all around the combination.

  ‘Oh, shit,’ Sykes muttered, and opened up with the Schmeisser, an almost completely ineffective weapon at the distance he was aiming. He could tell that the pursuing motorcycle combination was at least a hundred yards behind them.

  ‘I know what they’ll do,’ Dawson said. ‘They’ll close up to about fifty yards, then stop to give the gunner a stable platform, and blast us to kingdom come.’ He thought for a couple of seconds. ‘Shout out when they’re about seventy yards away,’ he added.

  Sykes nodded. ‘They’re catching us very quickly,’ he said. ‘They’re only about seventy yards away now.’

  ‘Right. Hang on.’

  Dawson steered the combination over to the left, then hit the brakes and swung it into a tight right-hand turn that brought them to a stop facing the way they’d come.

  ‘Now hit them,’ Dawson ordered.

  Sykes needed no encouragement. He aimed the Mauser straight at the German vehicle and fired a long burst.

  But the Germans did something neither he nor Dawson had expected. As the first bullets from the Mauser machine-gun blasted into the surface of the track a few yards in front of the German combination, the rider steered it off the hard surface and over to one side. In a couple of seconds it was completely hidden from view.

  ‘Cunning,’ Sykes muttered.

  There was no point in staying where they were. The enemy soldiers could stay hidden in the undergrowth for as long as they wanted. And if the German gunner unhitched his Mauser and carried it to the edge of the track, Dawson and Sykes would be sitting ducks.

  ‘Let’s go,’ Dawson said, and swung the combination round on the track to head west again.

  Sykes kept on looking behind, and a few seconds after Dawson had started to accelerate away, the German motorcycle combination again appeared in his rear-view mirror.

  ‘They’re behind us again.’

  Dawson increased speed as much as he dared. The only advantage he had, as far as he could see, was that the section of the track they were driving along had a number of bends in it, which meant they would be hidden from the view of their pursuers for quite a lot of the time.

  They couldn’t see the German vehicle, but both men knew it was getting closer all the time.

  Then the twisty part of the track ended, just as suddenly as it had begun, and a long straight section opened up in front of them.

  Dawson looked at it and cursed. ‘We’ve two choices, as I see it,’ he said. ‘Either we keep running and just hope we can keep ahead of those bloody Jerries until we get to the next section, or we stop somewhere along here and try to ambush them, and I don’t see anywhere we could do that.’

  ‘I still don’t see them,’ Sykes said, looking back down the track. ‘They must still be at least a hundred yards behind us. Let’s keep going.’

  ‘OK.’

  Dawson accelerated gently, trying to pick the smoothest possible course for the damaged wheel of the sidecar to follow, avoiding all the rocks and potholes in the track. Even so, their speed was still agonizingly slow.

  They’d covered about eighty yards down the track before Sykes spoke again.

  ‘Here they come,’ he said tightly.

  Dawson dragged his eyes away from the track for the brief second it took to check the rear-view mirror. The motorcycle combination was just emerging from the twisty section of the track.

  Dawson looked back at the track, and concentrated on dragging every bit of speed he could from the combination. Then he glanced further ahead, towards the trees into which the track vanished. For an instant, he thought he saw something there, some object or movement. He couldn’t be sure.

  Then he saw a man walk across the track, from one side to the other. He glanced at Sykes.

  ‘We need something white,’ he said, ‘something to wave, I mean. I just saw a Belgian soldier in the wood about two hundred yards in front of us. After all this, I’d hate to die with a Belgie bullet in my guts.’

  ‘Got it,’ Sykes muttered. He pulled a large and slightly grubby white handkerchief from his pocket and swiftly and securely tied it around the muzzle of the Mauser MG 34. He lifted the muzzle of the machine-gun so that it pointed into the air, turning his handkerchief into a makeshift flag. Then he turned back towards the pursuing Germans and fired another burst from the Schmeisser.

  But still the enemy soldiers came on, gaining on their crippled vehicle all the time, the gunner in the sidecar firing occasional bursts towards them.

  And suddenly they couldn’t out-run them, couldn’t even try to escape. A long burst from the German machine-gun pounded the surface of the track all around them, several rounds hitting the back of the combination. Then there was a sudden bang and the rear of the motorcycle lurched upwards, then crashed down.

  One glance told Dawson everything he needed to know. One or more bullets had hit the back tyre, blowing it to pieces, tattered bits of rubber barely clinging to the rim. Within a few yards, despite all Dawson’s efforts, the combination shuddered to a halt.

  They were caught like rats in a trap. Their only option was to stand and fight.

  Chapter 29

  11 May 1940

  Eastern Belgium

  Sykes aimed the Schmeisser and fired a couple of bursts. Dawson seized the Mauser machine-gun and hunkered down beside the motorcycle, trying to find a stable position from which he could fire. But before he was able to pull the trigger, a volley of shots rang out from the wood to the west of them.

  And, as Dawson watched, both the pursuing Germans – the motorcycle rider and the gunner – tumbled backwards, the rider falling off the machine, the gunner slumping back in the sidecar. The combination continued forward for a few yards, out of control, then veered off to one side and ploughed into the undergrowth, coming to a sudden stop.

  ‘The Belgian lines,’ Sykes muttered. ‘We’re at the Belgian lines. Thank God for that. When you get up, Dawson, just make bloody sure you’re waving that white flag.’

  Dawson rolled over on the ground and glanced to the west. About half a dozen Belgian soldiers were advancing cautiously towards them, their rifles held ready, clearly expecting trouble.

  ‘Slowly, Dawson,’ Sykes cautioned. ‘Make sure you move really slowly.’

  The corporal nodded and eased himself carefully to his feet. He lifted up the Mauser machine-gun in his right hand and pointed it up in the air. The weapon was heavy, but Dawson was a very strong man. He moved the Mauser from side to side, making the handkerchief flap slightly, a rudimentary signal of surrender. Then he tossed the machine-gun to one side and just stood there motionless, both arms raised high above his head.

  Beside him, in the sidecar, Sykes had lowered the Schmeisser onto his lap and had also lifted both his arms in the air.

  The two Britons watched the Belgians approach. Two of the soldiers were walking straight towards them down the centre of the track, but the others had spread out, covering both sides, obviously alert for any tricks.

  Once they got to within about thirty yards, Sykes shouted out something in French.

  ‘Just told them we’re British soldiers,’ he murmured to Dawson.

  There was no response from the approaching Belgians, who still had their rifles raised. But when they got to about fifteen yards away, Dawson could see the tension starting to ease. The uniforms he and Sykes were wearing under the heavy motorcycle coats were unmistakably British, not German, and quite clearly the Belgian soldiers recognized that.

  Four of the Belgian troops continued down the track, towards the two German soldiers. The other two s
topped in front of Sykes and Dawson.

  The major said something else in French, and the leading soldier – his insignia suggested to Dawson that he was probably the equivalent of a sergeant – replied in the same language, then held out his hand.

  Sykes dug around in his pockets, then turned to Dawson. ‘He wants to see your pay book. And the passe-partout.’

  ‘Right,’ Dawson replied, and after a moment produced the document and handed it over.

  The Belgian soldier inspected both sets of documentation and the pass while his companion stood watchfully beside him, his rifle raised and ready. Then the soldier nodded, passed back the documents and gave Sykes a casual salute.

  ‘Welcome to Belgium,’ he said, in thickly-accented English. ‘Why do you ride in a German motorcycle?’

  ‘It’s a long story,’ Sykes replied, ‘and this isn’t the time to explain. Thanks for stopping those Germans – if you hadn’t opened fire when you did, we’d probably already be dead. Now, we need to see the most senior officer here, and we need a car or some other vehicle to get to your lines.’

  The soldier shook his head. ‘You can walk there. It is two hundred metres only.’

  ‘No, he can’t,’ Dawson said. ‘The major’s been shot through the leg. He can barely stand.’

  The Belgian soldier shook his head. ‘I’m sorry, I did not see,’ he said, peering down into the sidecar and glancing at Skyes’s bloodied thigh. ‘But we have nothing here we can use. We have heavy truck, but is far too big for this track.’

  ‘Not a problem,’ Dawson said briskly. ‘The motorcycle combination that was chasing us will do. If you hang on here, I’ll go and get it.’

  The Belgian soldier nodded. ‘Good idea, but you wait here,’ he said. ‘My men bring it.’ He switched to French and shouted an order to the four men who’d gone down the track to inspect the German vehicle.