by Right
‘Yes, of course.’ The officer pointed to a tent about fifty yards away from which a thin spiral of smoke was rising. ‘That is what you would call a mess hall, I think? They will serve you hot food and drink there.’
‘Thanks, sir,’ Dawson said, gave Sykes a thumbs-up and walked across to the tent the officer had indicated. Inside, he joined a short queue of soldiers waiting in line at the field kitchen, and grabbed a tray, plates, utensils and mugs. Five minutes later he was sitting on the saddle of the motorcycle tucking into a thick stew, a steaming mug of black coffee on the ground beside his feet.
Next to him, Sykes sat in the sidecar, his tray precariously balanced on his knees, eating with undisguised relish.
‘Tell you what, sir,’ Dawson muttered between mouthfuls, ‘this Belgie scoff is a hell of a lot better than we get at home. This stew is bloody delicious. Just a shame they didn’t have any tea.’
‘I can’t argue about the stew,’ Sykes replied, ‘because it really is excellent. But I think you already know my views on British army tea. I’d rather have a decent cup of coffee any day.’
A couple of minutes later Dawson belched loudly and put the fork down on his plate. ‘You fancy another helping?’ he asked, glancing at Sykes’s empty plate.
‘If they’ll give you one, Dawson, I’m definitely up for it. And then you could see if there’s any chance of finding a couple of beds somewhere here. I can’t sleep in this bloody tin can.’
Colonel Lefèvre returned a few minutes later. He walked across to the sidecar and leant down to speak to Major Sykes.
‘All I can offer you is a small civilian car that we commandeered as a utility vehicle,’ he said. ‘It’s not a staff car, but it does have two seats and a luggage area at the rear where you can store the German explosive device. And it will be a lot more comfortable than that sidecar for you. Will that do?’
Sykes nodded. ‘That would be excellent, sir. Thank you very much.’
‘I’ll get it fuelled and have one of my staff officers write out an authorization for you to use it, just in case you’re stopped by a patrol anywhere on the road. And another passe-partout as well.’
‘Thank you, sir. I was going to ask if there’s anywhere here we can sleep tonight,’ Sykes asked.
Colonel Lefèvre looked doubtful. ‘In view of what’s happened so far today, and what we now know about the strength of the enemy forces facing us, I don’t think that’s a very good idea. I think the Germans will attack without warning, and we don’t have the strength in depth to resist them for long. I would suggest, Major, that a far better option for you two would be to get moving as soon as possible, and find somewhere to sleep when you’ve put a good few kilometres between yourselves and the front line.’ The Belgian officer paused for a moment. ‘With all you’ve gone through to obtain that new German weapon, it would be a tragedy if the first wave of enemy soldiers broke through here and killed or captured you, and then managed to recover it.’
‘That does make sense, sir,’ Sykes said, pleasant thoughts of a decent night’s sleep vanishing instantly from his mind. ‘We’d better get moving, then, while we’ve still got some of the afternoon in front of us.’
‘I’ll have the vehicle brought over here.’
As the colonel turned away, the first of the Belgian artillery pieces fired, the boom a deafening assault on the ears. The first round was quickly followed by a salvo from the other heavy weapons. The Belgian bombardment of the German positions had started.
Chapter 30
11 May 1940
Eastern Belgium
A little over thirty minutes later, Dawson helped Sykes lower himself gratefully into the front passenger seat of a very small car, painted in Belgian army colours and with military registration plates.
‘This is a funny little job,’ Dawson muttered. ‘I’ve never seen a car like this before.’
‘You wouldn’t, in Britain,’ Sykes said. ‘It’s an Italian Fiat Five Hundred. I’ve seen a few of them on the roads on the Continent, and most people call it a Topolino, which is Italian for “little mouse”.’
‘I can see why,’ Dawson said drily, staring at the vehicle. Then he shut the passenger side door and walked around to the other open door.
The tiny car had two seats and two doors which were hinged at rear and fitted with sliding windows. Moving the seats forward revealed a limited amount of luggage space, and a spare wheel was bolted to the rear panel, at the back of the car.
In the luggage area behind the seats Dawson had placed the two sections of the German demolition charge, two canteens of water and a couple of packs of dry rations, a solid-fuel stove, pots, plates and utensils, plus two sleeping bags the Belgian officers had found somewhere. On top of the sleeping bags were two Mauser Karabiner 98K rifles and ample spare ammunition, and Sykes had the Schmeisser machine-pistol slung around his neck, all the magazines fully loaded and a spare box of nine-millimetre ammunition beside him. The Schmeisser was such a useful close-quarter weapon that they’d decided to hang on to it, not knowing what the next few hours or days might bring. Dawson had even remembered to reload the Browning pistol he’d acquired.
All in all, the two men were now better prepared and equipped than they’d been at any time since they’d left Eben Emael. What they now had to decide was where to go, and that was far from an easy choice, though they knew they had to move fairly quickly.
‘This won’t be a ball of fire to drive,’ Sykes said. ‘The engine’s under half a litre in size, and it’ll only do about fifty miles an hour. And the acceleration will be very slow.’
‘Still better than that blasted motorcycle combination,’ Dawson insisted.
‘You’re right there.’
The major’s leg wound had been examined in the dressing station by one of the doctors, the man’s heavily bloodstained white coat a mute testimony to the injuries suffered by the Belgian soldiers during the German bombardment. The good news was that Sykes’s wound was clean and had even started healing, despite the punishment that had been inflicted on his leg during the last few hours. The bad news was that it still ached appallingly, and he had no more morphine phials left to take the edge off it.
The Belgian bombardment was still continuing, the salvoes of shells from howitzers blasting apart the evening sky, followed by the distant crump of the projectiles exploding over to the east.
And then the German troops started firing back, answering fire with fire, the first shells landing well short of the main Belgian line.
‘That’s our cue to get out of here right now, Dawson,’ Sykes said, ‘before those Jerry bastards sort out the range and start turning this place into hell on earth.’
The corporal started the engine, slid the gear lever into first and accelerated away down another forest track, heading for the road that they’d been told led west, the main road that would take them to Namur itself and then on, following the south bank of the river Meuse, to the town of Charleroi. Colonel Lefèvre hoped the German advance wouldn’t reach there for at least a day or two, but they both knew he was only guessing. Nobody, not the Belgians and probably not even the Germans, knew exactly what was actually going to happen next.
Sykes had the map open in front of him, but it was fairly useless until they actually reached a road – none of the tracks that wound through the woods were marked on it. They hadn’t been able to take one of the Belgian army maps because they were classified documents which showed the positions of important assets such as fortified facilities and ammunition dumps, but Colonel Lefèvre had allowed Dawson to make a rough drawing of the network of tracks that led from the camp to the main road. Sykes had that in his hand as well.
‘Not a terribly good map, this,’ Sykes said, turning the piece of paper in his hand to try to work out some of Dawson’s annotations.
‘I’m a sapper, sir, not a cartigropher or whatever they’re called.’
‘Cartographer,’ Sykes supplied.
‘Exactly. My speciality i
s blowing things up. I’ve never been much good at stuff like drawing. But that Herbellin bloke reckoned it was only about a mile or two to the road, so as long as we keep heading more or less west, we should be fine.’
Behind them, the two sets of field guns, the heavy artillery of the Belgian and German armies, traded shot after shot as the colours of the late afternoon sky in front of them started to show the first signs of the reds and violets of evening.
Herbellin had been right. In spite of, rather than because of, Dawson’s map, about fifteen minutes after they’d driven out of the Belgian camp the corporal swung the car right onto a proper road. It was cobbled, but wide enough for two vehicles to pass side-by-side, and lined with trees.
There was also a road-block on it, but obviously Sykes and Dawson wouldn’t have to shoot their way past this one. They pulled up behind a couple of Belgian army trucks, and when they reached the barrier the major simply showed the guards their British army identification documents and the passe-partout Colonel Lefèvre had prepared for them. Almost immediately the barrier was lifted and they drove on.
‘Makes a nice change,’ Dawson remarked, as he accelerated slowly – he had no choice in that regard – away from the road-block. ‘So how far do you want to go, sir? Before we try and find somewhere to stop, I mean?’
‘Let’s try and get to the other side of Namur, at least,’ Sykes said. ‘That’ll put us to the west of the main Belgian defensive line in this area. If anything’s going to slow the Jerries down, that will.’
After a few minutes they reached the main road that ran east-west between Liège and Namur, passed through another checkpoint and started heading west. The situation on the road was remarkably similar to what they had found when they’d driven out of Liège, except that the German troops hadn’t yet got anywhere near the town. But the road was still clogged with refugees pushing carts or staggering along, bowed down under the weight of huge and unwieldy bundles of personal possessions. Predictably enough, all the refugees were heading west. There were occasional road-blocks too, all of which Dawson and Sykes passed through without difficulty, thanks to the authorization they held, although the inevitable queuing to get past the checkpoints slowed them down considerably. The road-blocks got more frequent as they approached the eastern edge of Namur.
Evening was drawing in as they neared the outskirts of the city. Sykes checked the map and made a decision.
‘We won’t go into Namur,’ he said. ‘The main road from Liège to Charleroi loops around to the north of the city. I think we’ll stay on that. It’ll probably have more road-blocks, but hopefully we might be able to go a bit faster than we would through Namur itself.’ Sykes glanced at the groups of plodding refugees who were still all around them, and still heading west into an uncertain future. ‘And maybe some of these poor sods might decide to spend the night in Namur, so perhaps the main road might be a bit clearer.’
The road was wider, but there were also more refugees on it, so their speed of advance was still quite slow. But at least they were going in the right direction. The distance from Namur to Charleroi was only about fifteen miles, and they were approaching the outskirts when the numbers of refugees started to increase dramatically, almost as if there was some kind of hold-up, another road-block or something, ahead of them.
And then, as the little Fiat rounded a bend in the road, they saw the reason for the problem. There was a hold-up in front, but it was one that brought a smile to Sykes’s face. The Belgian troops had closed the road they were on to allow a column of soldiers – a long column of soldiers – to cross it from left to right, heading north. And despite the steadily fading light, both Dawson and Sykes could see from the shape of the steel helmets and the colour of the uniforms that they were British.
‘Bloody good, eh?’ Dawson said, stopping the car and getting out to take a better look.
‘Colonel Lefèvre said the Third Infantry Division was heading up towards Leuven, so that’s who we’re looking at.’
‘Is it worth trying to join up with them?’
Sykes shook his head. ‘No. They’re going the wrong way. If we tagged along behind them, we’d end up back at the front line again, just at a different part of it. Our first priority has to be to deliver this weapon, and that means heading in the opposite direction.’
Sykes glanced at his watch and then back at the column of marching men and their accompanying vehicles.
‘We’re not going to be able to get into Charleroi for ages, not with this number of refugees in front of us, and especially not with those troops moving north. Let’s get off this road and find somewhere nearby to rest up overnight.’
Dawson nodded agreement, got back into the driver’s seat and slammed the door closed.
‘We passed a junction about a quarter of a mile back. I’ll pull off the road there.’
He turned the car around and headed slowly back the way they’d come, moving against the tide of humanity that rolled inexorably towards them. The turn-off at the junction, when they reached it, proved to be a very minor road, quite narrow, but still with a reasonable paved surface.
Dawson drove slowly down it, looking out for somewhere suitable for them to rest. Ideally, they needed another farm – Sykes wasn’t prepared to order Dawson to break into a Belgian house – with an outbuilding big enough for them to both sleep in and conceal their vehicle.
Deserted houses, it soon became apparent, were the norm. After a few minutes they rolled through a tiny hamlet, and every building appeared to be shuttered and barred, the inhabitants long since fled. Just beyond the hamlet – they couldn’t even see a name anywhere, and it didn’t seem to be marked on Sykes’s map – they spotted a collection of farm buildings, although there was no sign of the farmhouse itself.
Dawson climbed out to inspect them, then walked back over to the little Fiat.
‘These should do us nicely, I think,’ he said. ‘They look like sheds or barns for the farm. None of them are locked, and that one’ – he pointed at the building furthest from the road – ‘has a big open space in the middle, easily able to take this car.’
Minutes later, he’d backed the car into the barn and switched off the engine. They took the two Mausers and the Schmeisser to keep them to hand, just in case. Sykes lay beside the stove, watching a can of water come to the boil on the Belgian solid-fuel stove, while Dawson arranged the sleeping bags on a collection of old sacks that would provide some insulation underneath them during the night. Then the corporal picked up the Schmeisser and took a walk around the exterior of the buildings and the surrounding area, just as a precaution.
‘Anything?’ Sykes asked, when Dawson walked back inside and sat down.
Dawson shook his head. ‘Nothing moving. No lights anywhere and no sounds, apart from the noise of artillery and bombing, but they’re a long way off, way over to the east. In fact, it all seems remarkably quiet out there, bearing in mind what we’ve seen.’
‘Probably just the lull before the storm. No doubt the Boche are regrouping ready for a major push towards the Channel ports.’
They ate a scratch meal from their rations. Dawson warmed up a kind of beef stew that was, like their previous experience of Belgian army food, surprisingly tasty, and they followed that with a couple of dried biscuits each. They drank mugs of hot black coffee – the Belgian packs hadn’t included tea – and then both men turned in. Dawson had seen nothing on his patrol, and they had driven well to the west of the Belgian lines, so for one of them to remain awake and on watch seemed pointless. They were hidden inside a deserted barn in a field on a deserted farm at the edge of a deserted hamlet that would be of no possible interest to the advancing German troops even if – or, more realistically, when – they broke through the lines. For the moment, they were probably as safe there as they would be anywhere else in Belgium.
And both of them desperately needed to get some sleep, so they took the risk.
Chapter 31
12 May 1940
Eastern Belgium
When Dawson opened his eyes the following morning, Major Sykes was already wide awake and studying his map.
‘Good morning, sir,’ Dawson said, automatically checking that his Schmeisser was beside him and within easy reach. He sat up and stretched. ‘Have you heard anything?’ he asked. ‘Any noises outside, I mean?’
Sykes shook his head. ‘Distant artillery, and I’ve heard a few aeroplane engines, but nothing close to us.’
‘Good. I’ll take a look round anyway.’
Dawson picked up the machine-pistol, checked it and walked to the open door of the barn. He peered cautiously in both directions, nodded reassuringly to Sykes and then stepped outside, vanishing from sight.
Dawson was back in under five minutes. ‘Quiet as the grave, sir. Not even a cow or a sheep out there.’
He walked across to the back of the Fiat Topolino, took out the solid fuel stove and lit it for a breakfast brew, then glanced at the map Sykes was still studying.
‘Are we lost, sir?’
The major smiled at him. ‘Not any more than we were yesterday. No, I’ve been looking at where we need to get to and, more importantly, how we’re going to get there. And to work that out depends on where exactly the Germans might decide to punch their way through the Belgian lines.’
‘And where’s that, sir?’ Dawson asked.
‘Immediately to the north of where we were yesterday, if I’m any judge. Between Wavre, up here to the north, and Namur, which is more or less where we crossed the Belgian lines, there’s a flat plain known as the Gembloux Gap. According to that Belgian army colonel, all there is to stop the Jerry tanks rolling right over it is a single line of anti-tank defences. I didn’t ask Lefèvre what sort they were – ditches, ramparts or barriers, or maybe a combination of those – but we both know that any anti-tank obstacle can be defeated. You fill in the ditch with rubble, flatten the ramparts or blow up the barriers, and that can be done very quickly if there’s no opposition. And once the tanks are over them, there’s nothing much else to stop a German advance between here and the coast.’