‘So where do we hide?’ Watson asked. ‘Upstairs?’
Dawson considered the suggestion for a few seconds, then nodded. ‘Yes. If this does turn into a fire-fight, the extra height might be a help to us.’
Quickly, the two men climbed up the wooden staircase and went into the bedroom that was situated over the kitchen.
‘Keep out of sight,’ Dawson hissed. ‘I’ll just take a quick look outside and see what’s going on.’
He crossed over to the window, where the curtains were closed, and gently eased one slightly away from the other, just enough to create a thin vertical crack that he could look through.
‘I can still see three Jerry soldiers,’ he said, his voice barely more than a whisper. ‘They’re moving across the fields, now passing in front of this house. Wait.’ He moved the curtain very gently, reducing the width of the gap. ‘I’ve just spotted another one, and he’s heading straight for the house. No noise, and let’s hope that bloody chair holds the door closed.’
Dawson stepped back from the window – even the slightest movement of the curtain would tell the approaching soldier that somebody was in the house – and stood still, his right hand seizing the pistol grip of his Schmeisser MP 40.
Both men stood in silence, listening intently. They couldn’t hear the sound of the soldier’s approach, but Dawson knew he now had to be very close to the farmhouse. Then there was a rattling sound from the floor below.
‘The front door,’ Dawson mouthed to Watson, who nodded agreement.
There were a few moments of silence, then they heard a similar sound from the side door, as the soldier obviously attempted to open it. Another brief silence, then the sound came again.
‘I wish we could see down there,’ Watson whispered.
‘We’ll know soon enough. He’ll either bugger off or kick down the door, and we’ll know which he’s decided to do in a couple of minutes.’
The two sappers waited in apprehensive silence but heard nothing else. After a few minutes, Dawson crept over to the window he’d peered out of before and, without moving the curtains at all, looked out through the narrow gap between them. About ten yards away, just beyond the hedge, a single German soldier was standing still, looking back at the house, a quizzical expression on his face. But as Dawson looked at him, barely breathing, the soldier visibly shrugged, then turned away and began walking across the fields towards his distant comrades.
‘I think he’s leaving,’ Dawson said, remaining by the window and continuing to watch the scene outside.
‘So we stay here, yes? For a while, anyway.’
‘Yes. We don’t know what route those Jerries are following. They could double-back, or they might have a second squad patrolling behind them. It looks as if they’re happy with their check of this house, so I think we should stay here. At least for an hour or so.’
‘Right, then,’ Watson said. ‘If I don’t get something to eat soon, those Jerries won’t need to see us to know where we are – they’ll be able to hear my bloody stomach rumbling. So at least we can grab some scran. Fancy a bite of sausage?’
‘Yeah, why not? But give it a few minutes before you go down, just in case. I’ll stay here and keep watch.’
Five minutes later, Watson stood up from his seat on the edge of the double bed, walked over to the door and looked down the stairs.
‘Just check the kitchen before you go in there,’ Dawson said, ‘and make sure there aren’t half a dozen Jerries peering in through the window.’
‘Right.’
Dawson heard Watson’s footsteps going down the stairs, and a couple of minutes later the sapper re-entered the bedroom, carrying the canvas bag.
The sausage was tough and dry, but surprisingly tasty, and each man wolfed down half a dozen thick slices.
‘That’s better,’ Watson murmured, then belched contentedly.
‘There’s no sign of the German soldiers now,’ Dawson said. He hadn’t left his post by the curtained window the entire time they’d been eating. ‘And I can’t see any other Jerries following them, so maybe they’ve gone. But I still think we should wait a bit longer, just in case.’
* * *
A little over an hour later, having checked the scene outside from every window in the farmhouse – and having seen nothing to alarm them – Watson carefully and silently removed the kitchen chair from under the handle of the side door. Dawson was standing right behind him, his Schmeisser machine-pistol aimed at the door, his finger resting lightly on the trigger, just in case they were wrong and the German troops had been cleverer than they’d thought and had left somebody there.
Watson lifted the chair out of the way, then grabbed the handle, pulled open the door and stepped back.
Dawson moved forward, looked out and then stepped outside, his head swivelling from side to side as he checked for danger, his Schmeisser ready to fire, but the gentle rural scene seemed quiet – the loudest noise he could hear was birdsong – and appeared completely peaceful.
‘I think we’re OK, Dave,’ he said quietly.
Watson stepped out of the house behind him, laden down with his machine-pistol plus the Mauser rifle and the canvas bag of rations.
‘Which way do we go?’ he asked.
‘The Germans went that way,’ Dawson said, pointing to the north-east, ‘so we’ll head over there, towards the west, until we’ve put a good distance between us and this place, then we’ll turn north-west again.’
After taking a further look around them, the two men jogged across to the barn, waited there for a minute making a further check, then made it back to the copse where they’d stashed the recovered mines, which Dawson was still reluctant to abandon.
‘You still want to lug these around with us, Eddie?’ Watson asked, looking down at the bag.
‘We may yet need them, Dave.’
‘If you say so.’
Watson bent down to pick up the bag, and as he did so there was a sudden crack from the trunk of the tree directly behind him, followed almost immediately by the sound of a distant shot.
Both men immediately dropped flat and crawled into cover.
‘Those Jerries must have left a fucking sniper behind them,’ Dawson hissed, staring towards the field through the undergrowth. ‘There’s nobody in sight out there.’
‘Where the fuck is he?’
Dawson rolled onto his back and looked up at the tree which the bullet had hit. The mark of the impact was quite clear, a raw scar marring the grey-brown bark on one side. That gave him a rough idea of the direction from which the bullet must have been fired and that, in turn, located the approximate – but only the very approximate – position of the sniper.
‘He must be somewhere over there,’ he said, pointing towards the row of trees lining the opposite side of the large field that bordered the farmhouse.
‘That’s only about two hundred yards away,’ Watson muttered. ‘How the hell did he miss me?’
‘I think you ducked at just the right moment, when you bent down to pick up the bag of mines. You should be grateful we decided to hang on to them.’
‘Yeah, right,’ Watson replied. ‘So what the fuck do we do now? He’s got us pinned down in this clump of trees, and his Mauser or whatever he’s using will be fitted with a telescopic sight. So he knows where we are, but we don’t know his location. He’s got a better rifle and he’s probably a better shot than either of us. To me, it doesn’t look good.’
‘Nor to me,’ Dawson said. ‘Somehow, we’ve got to get out of here, and quickly, before the rest of that Jerry patrol comes running back here to pick up our bodies.’
He looked round. The stand of trees where they were hiding was small and more or less circular, probably only about fifty yards in diameter, and Dawson knew that if they stepped out of it, even if they ran out of it, and then tried to cross the field, the hidden German sniper would cut them down before they’d covered even half the distance to the other side. That was simply suicidal.
Dawson glanced the other way, then nodded. ‘We can’t go north or west,’ he stated firmly, ‘because that would put us straight into the sniper’s sights. But we can use this copse as a shield. If we head south-east, that’ll keep these trees between us and that Jerry, and once we’ve gone about five or six hundred yards we’ll be pretty much out of range. What do you think?’
Watson looked over the field in front of them, then back the way Dawson was indicating. ‘Makes sense,’ he said, ‘as long as there’s only the one sniper. If they left one over there in front of us, and another one covering the fields on the south side, we’re screwed.’
Dawson grinned mirthlessly. ‘I doubt it,’ he said, with a confidence he really didn’t feel. ‘If they thought we were hiding in that farmhouse or somewhere else here, I think they’d have broken down the door or swamped the area with troops. My guess is that they just left a sniper hidden in the trees over there as a back-up, just in case they’d missed us and we suddenly appeared. But whatever,’ he added, ‘I guess there’s only one way to find out, because we sure as hell can’t stay here. If that bloody sniper’s got a radio, he might already have called the patrol leader and told him he’s seen us. And even if he hasn’t, there’s a good chance at least one of the German soldiers will have heard that shot. We need to move, right now.’
Quickly, the two men grabbed all the weapons, their food and the mines, and slid backwards. Keeping as low as they could, and making sure there were trees in front of them to act as a barrier between their position and where they thought the sniper lay concealed, they worked their way through the stand of trees to the opposite side. Only then did they feel secure enough to stand up, knowing that, at least for the moment, the sniper couldn’t possibly see them.
They stood side by side between two substantial trees and looked out across the fields on the other side of the copse. Over to the west, the tree-line continued along the edge of the field and that, they both knew, would be where a sniper would be positioned, if there was second man out there.
‘Let’s assume there is a sniper there,’ Dawson said, considering. ‘If so, he’ll have heard that shot and he’ll be looking for a target. He’ll probably guess that we’re somewhere near the farmhouse or this clump of trees, so that’s where his rifle will already be pointing. So if one of us steps out there into the field, I reckon it’ll probably take him no more than a second to see his target, another two seconds to aim his rifle and settle down for the shot, and then another second to pull the trigger.’
‘So you think one of us will be dead four seconds after we leave these trees?’
‘Yes. Or, rather, I think we should just test this idea. I’m going to take a step out there and stand still. I want you to start counting the moment I do that. When you get to ‘four’, I’m going to drop flat and dive back under cover. If there’s no shot, I’ll do it again, if necessary for five or six seconds, and that’ll pretty much prove that there isn’t a sniper.’
‘And if there is a shot?’ Watson demanded.
‘Well, I might be dead, I suppose, but I’m hoping I won’t be. Just count quickly,’ he said. ‘If there is a sniper, we’ll have to think again. If there isn’t, we’ll head south-east as quickly as we can.’
Dawson slid the Schmeisser off his shoulder and lowered it to the ground. He wanted to be as unencumbered as possible when he stepped out into the open, beyond the temporary safety of the trees.
‘Ready?’ he asked Watson.
‘This is fucking risky, if you ask me, Eddie.’
‘I know,’ Dawson said, ‘but it’s a hell of a lot less risky than both of us walking out there. And keep your eye on the tree-line over to the west. If there is a shot, try and see where it comes from.’
‘I can do better than that,’ Watson said, and picked up the Mauser. ‘I’ll give the bastard a taste of his own medicine.’
He moved around to a position where he had a good view of the line of trees on the far side of the field, rested the Mauser over a branch that would provide a stable rest for him to shoot from, checked that the rifle was loaded with a round in the breech, then nodded his head.
‘OK, Eddie,’ he said. ‘Good luck.’
Dawson took a deep breath and stepped a couple of paces clear of the trees.
Behind him, Watson started counting loudly and clearly. ‘One – two – three – four.’ As he said the last number, Dawson dodged back behind the trees.
‘So what do you think?’ Watson asked, looking at his friend.
‘Maybe he’s a bit slower than we expected,’ Dawson said. ‘But he must have seen me by now, so I’ll do it again. This time, count five seconds, OK?’
Watson shook his head, but again aimed the Mauser rifle at the tree-line as Dawson prepared to step out into the field once more.
This time, as Watson said the word ‘four’, Dawson ducked down, took a step sideways, ducked again, and then stood still for another couple of seconds.
‘Eddie!’ Watson shouted. ‘Get back in here, for Christ’s sake.’
Dawson ignored him, and continued to stand in the open, quite literally inviting a bullet. But nothing happened. No shots, nothing.
Finally, after at least fifteen seconds, Dawson stepped back into the copse.
‘You mad bastard,’ Watson said, lowering the Mauser.
‘Maybe, but now I think we can be pretty sure there’s no sniper in the trees over there. So it’s time we got the hell out of here.’
Watson nodded, handed Dawson the Mauser and grabbed the two bags. ‘I’ll carry this stuff,’ he said. ‘You keep your eyes open and keep that ready to fire.’
‘OK,’ Dawson replied, slung the Schmeisser MP 40 over his shoulder, where it wouldn’t affect his handling of the Mauser, and again stepped to the edge of the copse. ‘I reckon that first sniper is directly behind us,’ he said, ‘so we head over that way, towards that hedge, near those three tall trees.’
‘Got it. Let’s go.’ Watson ran forward awkwardly: the bag containing the mines was heavy, and he was also carrying the canvas bag of food and drink, plus the machine-pistol slung across his back. And he wasn’t following a straight course. Just in case there was a sniper hidden somewhere who was biding his time before he started shooting, Watson was jigging from side to side as he ran.
Dawson jogged out a few seconds behind him, checked that his friend was heading in the right direction, then span round to check the territory behind him. There was nobody and nothing in sight, and he could tell that they were still shielded from the view of the sniper by the copse of trees. He turned again and started running to catch up with Watson, following an erratic path across the ploughed and rutted field.
The distance they had to cover before they reached the hedge and the trees was about 150 yards – a matter of no more than about thirty seconds for even an average sprinter, but laden down as they were, and with the way they were changing direction every few seconds, it took them almost two minutes to cover the distance.
Watson dodged around the end of the hedge, carefully lowered both bags to the ground, then slumped forward, his hands on his knees, panting with the exertion. Moments later, Dawson jogged up and stopped beside him, then turned back to survey the field they’d just run across.
‘I don’t see any Jerries,’ he said, ‘so I think we’re in the clear, at least for the moment.’
‘Fucking good job,’ Watson muttered. ‘I don’t feel much like taking on a German patrol right now.’
‘Got your breath back?’ Dawson asked. ‘Because we need to keep moving.’
‘Yeah, I’m ready.’
Watson picked up the bag of mines, but as he reached for the other, lighter bag that contained their food, Dawson beat him to it and grabbed it.
‘I’ll carry this one, Dave,’ he said, slinging the bag over his shoulder alongside the Schmeisser. ‘I can still use the rifle, if I have to.’
The two men started walking briskly along the edge of the field, keeping the substa
ntial hedge – which was probably at least ten feet high – on their left-hand side. Once again, they were heading more or less north, and, as far as Dawson could see, there was no way that anyone over to the west would be able to see them. That was where the sniper had to be, and that was where they’d seen the German patrol. What they had to do was keep going and hope that they could either out-run – or simply avoid – any other patrols.
They reached the end of the hedge and stopped while Dawson checked the next few hundred yards. It all seemed clear, and they covered the distance as quickly as possible. They carried on like that, jogging for short distances, then stopping and checking the next section, for over an hour.
Then, at the end of one long field, where they’d again taken advantage of a lengthy and fairly straight hedge, they stopped in a small copse to have a drink of water and another couple of slices of the dried sausage they’d taken from the deserted farmhouse. When they’d eaten, Dawson took out his hand-drawn map, checked his watch and looked at the position of the sun.
‘I think we must be somewhere down here, to the south-west of Saarlouis,’ he said, pointing at a spot on his sheet of paper, ‘so we shouldn’t keep going too far north, or we’re going to start getting close to the built-up areas. We really need to start heading further over to the west, to get closer to the border.’
‘That shouldn’t be a problem, as long as we don’t run into another patrol,’ Watson said.
‘OK, let’s move.’ Dawson stood up, picked up his weapons and the bag of food, now slightly lighter after their snack meal, and stepped forward. As he cleared the trees and stepped out into the field he suddenly stopped, freezing into immobility.
Then he leapt back into the shelter of the copse, dropped the food bag on the ground and swung up the Mauser.
Less than 100 yards in front of them, a six-man German patrol was walking straight towards them, and, as Dawson ducked behind a tree, a volley of shots crashed into the copse around them.
To Do or Die Page 14