Chapter 7
9 September 1939
Eddie Dawson cautiously opened one eye and groaned. Then he opened the other one, which didn’t materially improve the view, though he could make it out more clearly. Through the opening above the tailboard of the Morris he could see trees. Lots and lots of trees. He thought they were firs or maybe pines, something like that, though his knowledge of botany was virtually nil. But their straight trunks were familiar to him from the woods and forests in some of the remoter parts of Yorkshire and Northumberland, where he’d worked before he joined the Corps.
He and Sykes had found the convoy the previous afternoon, and Dawson had scrounged an evening meal from the soldiers. It was another dollop of stew, the meat just as unidentifiable as it had been in the previous version he’d tried, accompanied by half a dozen slices of bread and the inevitable mugs of hot strong tea. Afterwards, he’d sat with the soldiers round the dying embers of the fire they’d built, talking and smoking.
He’d refused the half-hearted offer of a space in one of the soldiers’ tents and returned to the Morris for the night, because he didn’t relish the prospect of dossing down in a tent surrounded by a group of hairy-arsed men, probably with sweaty feet and almost certainly snoring throughout the night. The downside was that his back was really beginning to suffer because the steel floor of the lorry was hardly comfortable, but the ground under the tents wouldn’t have been a hell of a lot better.
And at least he’d been warm enough – unlike the previous night – because the weather seemed to have changed for the better. The overnight temperature had been pleasantly warm, and there was no sign of the bone-chilling mist that had so delayed the convoy’s departure the previous morning.
Dawson squatted down on the floor and pulled on his boots, then grabbed his jacket and helmet. But before he could climb out of the Morris to go and find something to eat, there was a sharp rap on the steel tailgate.
‘You’re up, then,’ Sykes stated, his voice unnaturally cheerful for the early hour, Dawson thought. The major had found a billet with the convoy officers the previous night.
‘Yes, sir. Can I help you?’
‘Not really. Now, I’ve been ordered to go back down to Abbeville to brief some of the British General Staff. There will be a big Anglo-French meeting there in a few days, and several of our top brass are already on the spot.’
‘And me, sir?’
‘You’re a Royal Engineer, so they’d like you to get engineering. There’ll be another group of men from the Corps arriving here later today, and the idea is for you to start doing something useful to fortify this area – something that might actually slow down or stop a German advance, that is. A few concrete pillboxes, some decent tank-traps, that kind of thing.’
‘So you don’t want me to drive you to Abbeville then, sir?’
‘No thanks. Much as I’ve enjoyed your company for the past couple of days, the prospect of spending another ten hours rattling around in the cab of that blasted truck isn’t particularly enticing. There’s a staff car on its way here now to pick me up.’
Dawson nodded. ‘Understood, sir. What should I do about this lorry?’
Sykes considered the question for a few moments. ‘Keep it,’ he replied. ‘I don’t mean as your personal property, obviously, just as a spare vehicle for this convoy. I’ll go and tell the OIC that he’s acquired an extra truck.’ The major glanced round. ‘Right, the troops seem to have got breakfast on the go, so I’ll leave you to it. Good luck, Dawson.’
Sykes lifted his arm in a somewhat half-hearted manner as Dawson saluted him awkwardly from the back of the Morris truck, then strode away.
Five minutes later Dawson walked across to the nearest cooking fire, clutching his mess tin hopefully.
‘The galloping major buggered off, has he?’ one of the soldiers greeted him, as Dawson dug his fork into the pile of brownish beans, studded with pale sausages and strips of fatty bacon, sitting in his mess tin.
‘Yes. He’s off to talk to a bunch of big-wigs somewhere. I doubt if I’ll see him again.’ But only a few minutes later, as he was mopping up the remains of his breakfast with a slice of pappy white bread, Dawson looked up to see Sykes walking quickly towards him, and stood up as the major approached.
‘Change of plan, Dawson,’ he announced briskly, as whistles started shrilling somewhere behind him and other officers began striding about with a sense of purpose, barking orders.
‘You’re not going to Abbeville, then, sir?’ Dawson asked.
‘No, I meant a change of plan for you. God knows why, but we’ve just been told that the French started an offensive thrust towards Germany on the fifth, and entered enemy territory yesterday. It wasn’t a full-scale attack – it really couldn’t be because they only started their general mobilization a week ago, and we were told no attacks would be made on Germany until the sixteenth at the earliest – but I gather they have managed to punch through the German lines towards a place called Saarbrücken.’
‘Where’s that, sir?’
‘It’s only just inside the German border, fairly close to Luxembourg, down to the south-east of here.’
Sykes gestured behind him at the soldiers, who were now rapidly breaking camp, packing up their gear and stowing it in the backs of the lorries.
‘These men have been ordered to head down there, to the Rhine area, in support of that offensive, and you’ve been ordered to go there as well. If the French military leaders decide to tackle the German Westwall, you might find your demolition skills are much in demand. Anyway, just tag along with these troops and see what happens.’
Sykes glanced over towards the road outside the encampment, where a staff car had just appeared, the driver peering around him, obviously looking for someone or something.
‘That’s probably my ride now,’ the major said, ‘so I’d better be off.’
Dawson watched the officer striding quickly across the field towards the staff car, which had stopped beside the gate, the driver obviously having seen the major.
‘Bugger,’ Dawson muttered. ‘Another bloody day on the road, in another bloody truck.’
Chapter 8
9 September 1939
Dawson’s prediction had been absolutely right – he had spent all day on the road in a truck. But this time he wasn’t driving, which was something of a relief. He’d slung his kitbag and Lee-Enfield into the back of one of the other lorries and then hopped in himself, to join a handful of other soldiers.
The distance from the army encampment just outside Lille to a village named Dalstein was about 250 miles, and it took them most of the day to cover the distance. It was a far from comfortable trip as the truck bounced and rattled over the uneven and rutted roads.
‘Hell of a way to go to war,’ one of the soldiers complained, as the truck lurched over a particularly savage bump in the road. ‘By the time we see any Jerries, we’ll be so battered and bruised from all this lot we’ll be too buggered to shoot straight.’
‘Maybe we won’t have to shoot at all,’ another man suggested, clinging on to the wooden seat with both hands. ‘I heard the French army’s pushed miles into Germany, about a dozen divisions, rolling right over the Jerries. They could be in Berlin inside the month, and this lot might be over by Christmas.’
‘No fucking chance,’ another voice replied. ‘If the bloody French have managed to stagger into Germany, they’ll surrender the moment they meet any serious opposition. No stomach for a fight, your average Frog.’
‘What about you, sapper?’ the first soldier asked Dawson. ‘You’ve been with that cavalry major for the last few days. Did he know what’s going on? And what are you doing with him, anyway?’
Dawson shook his head. ‘Right now, mate, I don’t think anyone knows what’s happening. Back at Catterick an officer I spoke to reckoned it was going to be a long haul, this war, said Adolf was a pretty good tactician. After all, they’ve already occupied Austria and Czechoslovakia with hardly a sh
ot being fired,while that bloody idiot Chamberlain was waving his bit of paper around – “peace in our time” and all that crap. That didn’t stop Hitler invading Poland, did it?’
‘What about the galloping major? What did he think?’
‘He thinks Hitler wants to invade the whole of Europe, including Britain. He reckons what’s happening now is only the first step, and it’s going to be a bloody long, bloody hard fight.’
That remark silenced the other soldiers for a few moments.
‘Bit of a fucking depressing thought, that. I hoped we might be back home pretty soon.’
‘Don’t count on it.’
‘You never said what you’re doing over here, sapper.’
‘That’s right,’ Dawson said, ‘I didn’t. In fact, I can’t tell you what I was sent here to do. The major told me it was confidential.’
The other soldiers looked at Dawson with varying degrees of interest.
‘Not a bloody spy, are you?’
Dawson smiled and shook his head. ‘No. Just a soldier, same as the rest of you. But I used to be a mining engineer. That’s why I got volunteered. But that’s all I can tell you.’
The convoy finally pulled off the road into an open field outside Dalstein late in the afternoon. The lorries stopped in a curving line, spaced widely enough apart that any of the vehicles could drive away without another truck having to be moved.
Dawson climbed down and looked around him. They were obviously some distance from the village, because he could see no signs of habitation at all. Rolling hills extended in all directions, separated by wide, shallow valleys and open fields, most of the landscape heavily forested. If he hadn’t known that the German border was about ten miles away, it would have seemed a pretty pleasant place to have a picnic.
Within an hour the soldiers had erected their tents and were sorting out the rations for their evening meal. As Dawson was now more or less attached to them, he was given a bed-space in one of the tents, so he stowed his kit and helped out with the cooking.
Shortly after they’d eaten, a small group of French officers appeared in the field and spent half an hour talking to the officers in charge of the convoy. When they left, the British officers had a brief discussion, then one of them blew a whistle and ordered the soldiers to gather round.
‘Right, men,’ Lieutenant Charnforth began, when they were all assembled in a rough semi-circle around him. ‘We now know a bit more about what’s been happening in this area. Three days ago, on the fifth of September, just forty-eight hours after we and the French declared war on Germany, units of the French army started a limited offensive towards Saarbrücken.’
The lieutenant paused. A ragged cheer went up, and someone muttered, ‘Bloody good!’
‘Yesterday, about nine French divisions crossed the German border and began advancing into the Saarland region – that’s the area between the border itself and Saarbrücken. This advance has been on a broad front, nearly twenty miles wide, and the French have met with very little German resistance so far. The intention is for the French forces to occupy the area between the French border and the enemy lines, and then try to probe the strength of the German First Army defence sector there.’
‘Why don’t they just launch a full-scale attack, sir?’ someone asked.
Charnforth shook his head. ‘That’s not their objective. The purpose of this attack is to assist Poland. As you all know, Hitler invaded Poland at the beginning of September, and the French offensive is intended to divert German troops from that country and force the Germans to strengthen the Westwall – the Siegfried Line – in this area. So it’s not a serious and committed advance, or not yet, anyway. I gather that there are plans in hand for a full-scale assault, but that won’t happen for probably a couple of weeks, if then. And the reason the French have met very little resistance so far is because the German troops seem to be spread pretty thin around here.’
‘What are we here for, sir?’
‘Support only at the moment,’ the lieutenant said. ‘The French officers will request our help if they need any assistance, but there are so few of us that it’s unlikely we could do that much. For the moment, we’ll just stay here. But we’re only a few miles from the border, so keep your rifles loaded, and with immediate effect we will be posting sentries: two permanent two-man patrols, starting at twenty hundred hours today. The sergeant will draw up a roster.’
He paused and looked around. ‘Dawson, show yourself,’ he ordered.
Dawson moved forward and raised his hand.
‘You’re a sapper, and you might be needed sooner than the rest of us. One of the strategic objectives of the French advance is an area called the Warndt Forest. That’s quite a large area of woodland that actually straddles the border region, and we understand that one section of it, about three miles square, has been heavily mined by the Germans. It’s possible you might be ordered to assist with mine-clearance operations if the French decide to consolidate their advance in that area.’
Lieutenant Charnforth glanced around at the soldiers standing in front of him. ‘Right, men. That’s all for now. Dismiss.’
Chapter 9
10 September 1939
The following morning Dawson was rudely awakened by someone shaking him roughly by the shoulder.
‘Wake up, Eddie. Officer wants to talk to you.’
‘Bugger,’ Dawson muttered. ‘What time is it?’
‘Dunno, mate. About seven, I think.’
Dawson rubbed his eyes and staggered to his feet. He quickly pulled on his clothes and stepped out of the tent. A few yards away, Lieutenant Charnforth stood waiting, the sergeant alongside him.
‘Morning, sir,’ Dawson mumbled, whipping off a salute that wasn’t anything like as crisp as it should have been.
‘Morning. When I met Major Sykes, he told me you were a demolition specialist. Is that true?’
Dawson nodded. ‘Yes, sir, sort of. My job in civvy street included demolition.’
‘And you are qualified in mine-clearance?’
Again Dawson nodded.
‘Good. I’ve just had a request from the French commander in this area. As I suggested when I briefed everyone yesterday evening, they do need a sapper to assist with clearing the mines the Germans have laid in the Warndt Forest.’
‘Don’t they have their own people, sir?’
Lieutenant Charnforth nodded. ‘Of course, but this operation, this invasion of German territory, was mounted at very short notice. They have their own specialists on the way, but they won’t get here for at least two or three days. As far as I can gather, you’re the only qualified sapper anywhere near this area at the moment.’
‘To shift the mines,’ Dawson pointed out, ‘I’ll need specialist equipment that I haven’t got here. I’d like a detector to help find them, and then explosives – something like RDX – to blow the buggers up, if there’s no way of making them safe. And there should be two of us involved – one to locate and remove the mine, the other taking notes and watching.’
The lieutenant nodded. ‘I realize that. There’s a truck arriving here some time today or tomorrow latest from Cherbourg. It should be carrying everything you want, and there’s another sapper driving it, so there will be two of you to do the work.’
That sounded better, Dawson thought. ‘So when do I start, sir?’
‘As soon as the truck gets here. I just needed your confirmation that you’re able to do the work, so that I can tell the French. Once the lorry’s here, I’ll brief the two of you, then you can head east.’
Twenty minutes later Dawson had washed and shaved and was sitting on a fallen log, his mess tin half-full of a brown mass predominantly consisting of beans. He spooned the food into his mouth without any particular enthusiasm as he contemplated the unpleasant prospect of mine clearance for real.
He’d done the job often enough back in England, on Salisbury Plain and other training grounds, but that was in an exercise scenario, where the ‘minefiel
d’ was clearly laid out in front of you, marked by pegs or stakes and tape, where you knew how many deactivated mines there were to be located and what type. And, of course, where there were specialist observers watching every move, able to stop proceedings with a single order or a blast from a whistle if things started going wrong. But here in the Warndt Forest, actually inside German territory, there would be no observers, no markings to show the extent of the minefield, no safety precautions at all. If he got it wrong, Dawson knew, he’d probably lose his legs, or even his life.
It wasn’t a prospect that did anything to improve his appetite, and he threw away the last few mouthfuls of his breakfast, then washed away the taste of what he’d been eating with a mug of strong tea.
* * *
The promised lorry arrived just after four thirty that afternoon, and the first person Dawson saw when he walked across to meet it was Dave Watson, climbing out of the cab of the vehicle.
‘Dave!’
Watson spun round, then his face broke into a smile. ‘Bloody hell, Eddie, you get around, mate, don’t you? I thought you’d buggered off with that major you told me about. What are you doing here?’
‘Long story. I’ve spent the last few days driving all over the bloody place, but now I’m stuck here. When did you get to France?’
‘We got in to Cherbourg yesterday, and I was ordered over here straight away, because of this French advance. I suppose they’ve found a minefield?’
’You got that right.’
Dawson explained what he knew about the German advance towards Saarbrücken, and the problem of the Warndt Forest.
‘So the bloody Frogs want us to shift mines for them? Fucking typical.’
Dawson grinned, though frankly there wasn’t much about the situation that was humorous.
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