by Right
‘So we’re stuck in the middle, between the Jerries behind us and the Frogs somewhere in front.’
‘Exactly. Apart from the Germans themselves, the only people who know what they’re planning to do are the two of us. We have to get through the French lines as soon as possible and sound the alarm. Let’s hope we’re not too late.’
‘That’s easier said than done, Major,’ Dawson said. ‘There’s just us two and this “little mouse”. It wouldn’t surprise me if this car shook itself to pieces long before we got anywhere near the border. It’s just not built for this kind of driving. Unless we can find another road, and quickly, I reckon we’re screwed.’
Dawson took another look around them, then walked back to the driver’s side of the Topolino. He started the engine again, then a thought struck him and he looked across at Major Sykes.
‘I’ve just remembered something,’ he said. ‘When we started climbing up the slope out of that last village – I forget what it was called.’
‘Couvin,’ Sykes supplied.
‘Yeah, Couvin. Anyway, there was a road junction off to the right. Not a road, really, it looked more like a track, and I guess it wasn’t marked on that map you’ve got.’
Sykes looked down at the map on his lap and shook his head. ‘No. In fact, there’s bugger-all marked on it in this area, apart from that road we were following.’
‘Well, ever since we took to the woods, we’ve been heading more or less west, I guess, so maybe we’ve sort of driven along two sides of a triangle. And if we have, and if that track runs more or less straight, it might be down there, somewhere in front of us.’ Dawson pointed ahead of the Fiat.
Sykes nodded slowly. ‘I’ve no idea if you’re right or not, but I haven’t got any better ideas at the moment. Let’s just keep going.’
Dawson slipped the Topolino into gear and the car moved off slowly across the soft surface of the forest floor, the wheels slipping slightly as the tyres struggled for grip. He tried to keep to the high ground as much as possible, where the timber growth was thinner. But the low power of the Fiat’s engine meant that inevitably they were slowly losing more and more height the further they went through the forest, simply because Dawson kept having to steer the car downhill just to keep it moving forward. Trying to stay at the same level or even climb slightly invariably resulted in the Fiat’s wheels spinning fruitlessly on the soft ground.
His big fear was that they’d end up with the vehicle trapped on a downhill slope and unable to move forward because of the trees and undergrowth. Although Major Sykes was now able to stand and even manage to stagger a few steps on his injured leg, walking out of the forest and across the Franco-Belgian border simply wasn’t an option for them. Sykes definitely wouldn’t be able to make it, and they’d have to dump the German demolition charge. Neither Dawson nor Sykes was prepared to even consider doing that, unless there genuinely was no other option. Dawson had to keep the car moving forwards. The little Topolino – their tiny Italian mouse – was their only way out of the Ardennes Forest.
Then Dawson spotted something in front of them, some distance further down the slope.
‘There’s a gap in that line of trees,’ he said, pointing. ‘You reckon that could be a track?’
‘God knows,’ Sykes replied. ‘But don’t drive down there until you’re sure.’
Dawson stopped the Fiat, grabbed the Schmeisser and climbed out of the car. He checked all around him, but the only noise he could hear in the woods was the engine of the car. He strode down the slope until he could see the land better, then nodded and climbed back up to where Sykes sat waiting patiently in the car, one of the Mauser carbines held loosely across his lap.
‘It is a track,’ Dawson said shortly, ‘and from the position of the sun I reckon it’s heading south or maybe south-west. But wherever it goes, it’s a better bet than staying up here in the trees. There’s no sign of movement on it in either direction, so it looks as if we’re still ahead of the Jerries.’
He engaged first gear and let the Fiat Topolino roll gently down the slope towards a gap in the trees that lined the side of the track. There was a slight rise from the forest floor up to the track’s surface, and he accelerated as soon as he saw it – Dawson knew instantly that if he didn’t get the car moving faster there wouldn’t be enough momentum to get the vehicle up that slope.
‘Hang on,’ he said, concentrating on getting the Fiat cleanly through the gap.
In fact, he was probably going a bit too quickly when he hit the rise, because both the front wheels left the ground and the car bounced out of the cover of the trees and crashed down onto the track. Dawson braked to a stop, the Fiat sliding and skidding sideways across the loose and rutted surface. Once again he got out of the car, this time to check that the violent manoeuvre hadn’t caused any damage to the vehicle.
‘It all seems to be OK,’ he said, resuming his seat behind the wheel, ‘so let’s get moving.’
Dawson put the car back into gear and headed off down the track. It ran straight in front of them for perhaps 100 yards, then bent slightly to the left. There was no traffic on it, which wasn’t exactly a surprise. No sign of any German troops either.
Sykes was constantly checking back the way they’d come, just to ensure they weren’t being followed, and that the enemy soldiers hadn’t somehow managed to get behind them. They both knew that the thin metal of the little Fiat would offer virtually no protection against rifle bullets.
Dawson kept his attention focused ahead of them, and on the forest that extended on both sides of the track, preternaturally alert for any sign of danger.
As he approached a bend, he slowed right down, reducing his speed to little more than walking pace, just in case a problem was lurking just around the corner. But beyond the bend, the track ran straight down to the south, and was completely deserted. And at the far end, it actually appeared to leave the forest, because in the distance Dawson could see that the trees thinned out considerably, to be replaced by largely open fields.
‘Could that be the French border?’ he asked.
Sykes glanced at his map and shook his head. ‘I don’t think so. Unless we came a lot further through the forest than I thought, we’re still not that far from Couvin, which means we’re still well inside Belgium. So keep your eyes open for those bloody Germans, because they’re still out there somewhere.’
Dawson nodded, and accelerated down the track, the Fiat bouncing and lurching over the uneven ground. As he neared the edge of the tree-line, he slowed down again, because the more open ground meant they could be seen from a distance, and if the Germans had already established a presence on the farmland the Fiat would be an easy target as it emerged from the edge of the forest.
But as Dawson slowed the car and the two men scanned the terrain over to their right, they saw no signs of enemy activity.
‘Maybe we’re still ahead of them,’ Sykes said. ‘They’ll be coming this way. This open ground will be far easier for them to negotiate than the forest, especially with their trucks and tanks. But for the moment it looks like we’ve got clear of them. Now let’s just crack on for the border. Keep heading on down this track.’
Dawson could see the straight section ended about seventy or eighty yards in front of them, but the rough track clearly continued, swinging quite sharply over to the right, to the south-west, which was still taking them in the correct direction. He slowed for the corner, then accelerated again,
On the left hand side, one last triangular stand of trees marked the edge of the forest in that area, and beyond it, over to the south and east, more cultivated fields appeared. And as Dawson straightened up the Fiat just past the point of the triangle of trees, the car drove out of the forest completely.
They’d made about 200 yards down the new section of the track when the first shell landed a few yards over to their left and slightly behind the Fiat. The noise of the explosion was instant and shockingly loud. A plume of earth and smoke rose into th
e air, scattering stones and clods over the rear of the car, which thudded ominously into the thin steel of the bodywork.
Dawson looked in his mirror. The last time he’d checked, the view behind had been empty of any activity, just fields, trees and the hills behind. Now, in a hideous reprise of what they’d seen just minutes earlier on the road up to the border, another tank had emerged from the shelter of the trees behind them and was now clearly visible, trundling slowly towards the narrow track.
Chapter 34
12 May 1940
Franco-Belgian border region
Sykes span round in his seat as Dawson flattened the accelerator pedal to the floor and started sawing away at the steering wheel, weaving the car from side to side to try to throw the tank’s gunner off his aim.
‘It’s got a long-barrelled main gun,’ the major said, his voice high with tension. ‘It’s a Panzer Three. They’re only fitted with machine-guns and a thirty-seven-millimetre cannon – that’s about one and a half inches. That’s smaller than the seventy-five millimetre weapon on the Panzer Four.’
‘Like that’s going to make any fucking difference,’ Dawson muttered.
‘Small mercies, Dawson, small mercies. Won’t this thing go any faster?’
‘Nope. If I press any harder, my foot’ll go straight through the floor of this tin can.’
There was another crack from behind them, and a second shell screamed past the little Fiat. It detonated a short distance ahead of them and to their right, and Dawson instinctively steered over to the left-hand side of the track.
‘Keep weaving,’ Sykes ordered, ‘and look out for cover – somewhere we can hide.’
‘Hiding isn’t going to work,’ Dawson said, ‘because there’ll be Jerry troops following it. We can’t outrun it either. If you’re right and that bugger is a Panzer Three, it’ll do about twelve miles an hour cross-country and over twenty on a decent surface.’
‘Thanks for the reminder, Dawson,’ Sykes said, still watching the tank, which was trundling over the ground in pursuit of the small car.
There was a slight kink in the track ahead – it wasn’t a big enough change of direction to be called a bend – and on the right was a reasonably thick hedge. Dawson swung the Fiat over to that side to take advantage of the tiny scrap of cover. The hedge obviously wouldn’t stop a shell from the Panzer’s main gun, but if the gunner couldn’t see his target, he’d be firing blind. The bad news was that the tank was also fitted with twin coaxially-mounted 7.92-millimetre MG 34 machine-guns. If Dawson had been the tank commander, he’d have told his gunner to use it to spray the hedge the moment the car vanished from view.
Unfortunately, the tank commander obviously thought the same way, and seconds afterwards a volley of machine-gun fire shredded the vegetation on their right. The only good thing was that the gunner had clearly over-estimated their speed, because all the bullets ploughed through the hedge several feet in front of them.
Dawson braked to give them a small margin of safety, but both men knew that if the gunner reversed his direction of fire, they’d probably be dead in seconds.
Then the machine-gun abruptly fell silent. Maybe the gunner was waiting to see the results of his first salvo, because the Panzer was still just out of sight. In seconds, though, it would move forward far enough to allow him to see down the length of the track. Or maybe the weapon had jammed. Or perhaps he was just changing magazines.
Whatever the reason, Dawson took a chance and floored the accelerator again. The little Fiat staggered forwards, slowly picking up speed once more as the corporal drove it along the side of the track, hugging the hedge.
Unlike the earlier sections of the track, this part was both narrower and more twisty, with frequent changes of direction, and was bounded by thick hedges on both sides. There was a possibility Dawson could keep the Topolino out of sight of the pursuing German troops for at least some of the time, but they were stuck on the track – there were no exits either man could see, at least not on the section they were traversing. But getting off the track and trying to drive across the adjacent fields wasn’t an option anyway, because the Fiat would probably have got bogged down in a matter of seconds on the ploughed fields, most of which were devoid of crops. So their only option was to keep going along the track. And to keep hoping for the best.
‘Where’s that fucking tank?’ Dawson demanded, switching his attention between the narrow and twisting track ahead and the very restricted view available in the Fiat’s rear view mirror.
‘Can’t see it,’ Sykes replied, sliding open his side window and sticking his head out of the car to check the view behind.
‘We must be about five or six hundred yards clear of it now.’
‘We’re still within range of that bloody cannon, though,’ Sykes pointed out. ‘Once he gets a clear shot at us, he’ll fire again.’
Then the track straightened out again, and almost immediately Sykes called out a warning. ‘I see the Panzer,’ he said. ‘Maybe six hundred yards back, with a clear line of sight. You’d better start weaving, otherwise we’ll be blown to buggery as soon as the gunner sorts out the range.’
‘We can’t move much. The bloody track’s only about ten feet wide.’
But Dawson did what he could, slaloming the Topolino left and right, from one side of the track to the other, trying to be as erratic as possible.
And it worked. The Panzer gunner fired just as Dawson swung the wheel to the right, and the shell passed a couple of feet to the left of the car, to explode some hundred yards ahead of them.
‘There’s a bend in front of us,’ Dawson said. ‘If we can just get round that we’ll be safe.’
‘For how long?’ Sykes asked rhetorically.
Dawson swung the wheel left, then right, and then accelerated as hard as he could towards the slight left-hand bend in the track. In the instant before the Fiat reached it, the main gun on the Panzer fired again.
And this time the German gunner got everything right.
The shell slammed into the left side of the car, right at the back. Both the side windows of the Fiat blew out and the Topolino lurched across the track, over to the right, the side of the car crashing into the hedge. The blast was enormous, a colossal bang that deafened Dawson, followed instantly by an even bigger explosion from somewhere outside the vehicle.
For a moment, the corporal thought that was it, that he was dead.
Then he realized he wasn’t, he was still in one piece, still sitting in the driver’s seat of the Fiat. The little car was still running, limping slowly along the track. Working by instinct, without conscious thought, he steered the car away from the hedge and carried on around the bend, out of sight of the tank.
‘What the fuck?’ he muttered, and glanced at Sykes.
The major looked as shocked as Dawson felt, and was staring behind him at the back of the car.
‘Fucking hell,’ Dawson mouthed. ‘What the fuck?’ he repeated.
But Sykes didn’t seem to hear him, and Dawson realized that both of them had been deafened – temporarily, he hoped – by the explosion.
‘It didn’t go off,’ Sykes shouted, looking straight at Dawson, who heard his words faintly.
‘What?’
‘Thank Christ we were driving something like this,’ Sykes said, still shouting. ‘The steel on this car is so thin it didn’t trigger the explosive charge. The shell went right through the car, just behind the seats. In one side and out the other. Thank God it was above the demolition charge. If it had been a foot lower it would have hit it and then we’d have been blown to kingdom come. A foot further to the left, and we’d both have lost our heads.’
Dawson took his eyes off the view through the Topolino’s windscreen, at the track he was still following, and glanced quickly behind him. Directly behind Sykes’s head was a fist-sized hole in the side of the car. Dawson swivelled his head around and looked behind his own seat, where he saw a similar hole, this one showing where the shell had hit the v
ehicle. Torn and ripped and blackened metal was bent inwards.
But the 1.5 inch high-explosive round hadn’t exploded. Or, at least, not in the car. Instead, the round had obviously carried on, through the right-hand side of the Fiat, then burst through the hedge and finally detonated some dozen yards beyond when it hit the ground. That had been the second explosion the two men had heard a moment after the car had been hit.
‘We’ve been bloody lucky,’ Dawson agreed, shaking his head to try to clear the ringing in his ears.
About a quarter of a mile further on the track came to an end, simply petering out, and the Fiat moved clear of the hedgerows into a wide open area of grass and occasional shrubs. Dawson kept the accelerator flat on the floor, the engine of the little Fiat screaming as he did his best to cover the ground as quickly as possible. The open terrain meant that the tank crew would be able to spot them as soon as the Panzer came into view, and their only hope was to put as much distance as they could between themselves and the Germans.
The land rose gently, a slope that slowed the Fiat, but not too drastically, and in a couple of minutes they reached the crest of the hill and started to descend the land on the far side.
Dawson looked ahead, eased off the accelerator and muttered a curse. ‘I think our luck’s about to run out,’ he said.
‘What?’ Sykes asked, staring through the windscreen and following Dawson’s glance.
‘There,’ Dawson said, pointing. ‘That’s a fucking great ditch in front of us. It runs all the way over the field.’
‘You’re right. And I know what it is.’