‘Jesus, Eddie,’ Watson muttered, as they walked around the bodies that lay scattered over the road.
Then Dawson saw a slight movement over to his right, as one of the German soldiers – clearly badly wounded, the front of his uniform soaked with blood – attempted to swing his Schmeisser towards them.
Dawson didn’t hesitate for even a second. He aimed his machine-pistol and squeezed the trigger, and the burst of half a dozen nine-millimetre bullets mercifully ended the life of the wounded man.
‘Check them all, Dave,’ Dawson ordered tersely, ‘just in case any of them aren’t quite as dead as they look. And it’ll be a mercy killing if you do have to finish one off.’
Watson nodded and walked over to the left-hand side of the bridge, while Dawson checked the other bodies on the right. Then he looked at the two men in the cab of the truck. They’d had nowhere to run, and nowhere to hide, and the blasts from both sides had done horrendous damage to their heads and upper bodies.
The engine of the truck was still running, and for a few seconds Dawson just looked at the vehicle. Then he leant forward, grabbed the arms of the dead soldier sitting in the passenger seat and started hauling him out of the cab.
‘What’re you doing?’ Watson demanded
‘I’m getting fucking fed up with walking,’ Dawson snapped, ‘and I reckon this truck will take us a good few miles closer to the border before we have to abandon it. Here, give me a hand getting these two out.’
‘You don’t think any Germans we meet might be suspicious if they saw a German army truck being driven around on this side of the border by a couple of British squaddies?’
‘They might,’ Dawson agreed, ‘but if we borrow a pair of these coal-scuttle helmets I reckon we’ll look the part.’
‘Isn’t that against the Geneva Convention or something?’ Watson asked.
‘Right now, I don’t give a flying fuck about the Geneva Convention or anything else. I just want to get the hell out of Germany as quickly as possible, and if wearing a couple of German helmets is going to help us do that, then I for one will bloody well risk it.’
‘OK,’ Watson said. ‘And we might be able to shoot our way out of trouble anyway. We seem to have been getting quite good at that,’ he added.
Chapter 29
14 September 1939
Together, they half dragged, half lifted the two bodies out of the truck and lowered them to the road. Then they picked out a selection of weapons from the dead soldiers – the Schmeisser MP 40 was particularly prone to jamming and stoppages, so having a couple of spare machine-pistols each, plus all the magazines they could find, seemed like a good idea and, as they now had a form of transport at their disposal, the extra weight wouldn’t be a problem. They also took all the grenades the soldiers had been equipped with, and two more Mauser K98k rifles.
Finally, they removed a couple of the German coal-scuttle helmets from the bodies and tucked their British versions away in the cab of the truck.
‘It’s what people think, not what they know,’ Dawson said as he adjusted the chin strap. ‘And if we drive past them in Germany, in a German truck, both of us wearing German helmets, people will automatically think we’re Germans, despite the different coloured uniforms. They’ll probably assume we’re just from a regiment they’ve not seen before. That’s what I hope, anyway.’
‘Yeah, likewise. You want to drive, or ride shotgun?’
‘You drive,’ Dawson said. ‘I’ll map-read and keep my eyes open.’
Watson climbed behind the wheel and spent a few minutes locating all the controls. Then he pushed the gear lever into first and eased the heavy truck forward as Dawson lifted the drop-down barrier, which had still been in the lowered position. He stopped just beyond the barrier, waited for Dawson to climb into the passenger seat and then released the clutch. The truck lurched clumsily and the engine stalled, but his second attempt was better, and the vehicle juddered off down the road.
‘Which way are we going?’ Watson asked.
Dawson was bent forward, looking at the captured map, which he’d spread open on his knee, and the compass, by the light of his torch.
‘We’re heading north-west, and we’re on the main road that runs past Saarbrücken and Saarlouis and then goes through Saarburg and all the way up to a place called Trier, which is a long way further north than we want to go. I think it would be a bloody good idea to try and get off this fairly soon. The Germans are bound to be using the main roads to move their troops and supplies around, so we need to try and find some country roads we can travel along instead. Just give me a minute and I’ll see what other options there are. How’s the fuel level, by the way?’
Watson scanned the dimly lit and very basic instrument panel in front of him and finally thought he’d found what he was looking for. ‘If that is the fuel gauge,’ he said, ‘it looks like there’s about three-quarters of a tank.’
‘No problem. And even if the thing does run out of fuel, we’ll still be a lot closer to the Luxembourg border than we were before, so it’s a no-lose situation.’
The German truck lumbered on for about five minutes while Dawson studied the map, trying to choose the best route to get them as close as possible to the Luxembourg border before they tried to cross it. They knew the crossing itself would have to be on foot – trying to drive a German truck into neutral Luxembourg was never going to work, for obvious reasons, but if they could get to within about a mile or so, they should be able to cross back into France within days, maybe even that very day.
‘OK,’ Dawson said. ‘If we keep on going, we’ll have to drive right through a town called Fitten, and there might well be other road-blocks there. Now, there’s a junction coming up any time now. There probably won’t be any signposts, of course, but what we’re looking for is the road to either Biringen or Hilbringen. That’ll take us off this road and a bit closer to the German border, but that’s still a better option than staying on it.’
Less than five minutes later a junction loomed up on the left, and in the distance over to the west they could see a peak rising in the moonlight.
‘That high-point should be the Alte Berg,’ Dawson said, ‘so that’s definitely the right direction. That road might not be the one we’re looking for, but it’ll do. Take it.’
Watson swung the truck across to the other side of the main road and then drove down a much narrower road, actually more like a farm track, albeit one that had been covered in tarmac at some point in the past.
Dawson temporarily abandoned the map and just concentrated on studying his compass. ‘We’re going the right way,’ he said. ‘We’re now heading north-west, and that’s more or less the right direction, and I think I know which of the roads marked on the map this one is. Well, which one of two roads, actually.’
‘You know we’re in a moving vehicle made of steel,’ Watson pointed out, ‘so the reading you’re getting on that compass might not be entirely accurate?’
‘I know, and the metal around us probably is having some effect on it, but I still think it’s about right. Anyway, keep on going for the moment.’
The minor road swung left and right, the surface quality ranging from bad to poor, but the overall direction stayed fairly constant, which pleased Dawson, who now thought he knew exactly which road they were following.
‘I reckon we’re around half a mile south of Hilbringen,’ he said, ‘so just carry on. We should come across a main road – a crossroads – in about two or three miles, and that’ll be the road running from Fitten due west to Scheuerwald. We need to cross over that and carry on heading north-west, but the moment I think we’re getting close to the crossroads we’ll stop and check out the lie of the land. I definitely don’t want us to drive straight into another road-block.’
‘Amen to that,’ Watson muttered.
Ten minutes later, they saw a few lights some distance ahead of them. Watson immediately slowed and stopped the truck, killing the vehicle’s headlights and turni
ng off the engine as he did so. For a moment, they sat in silence, the only sound the ticking of the truck’s engine as it started to cool.
Dawson took out the binoculars and studied the scene. ‘OK,’ he said. ‘From what I can see, it looks like that’s the main road. There are a couple of vehicles – they look pretty big, so they’re probably army lorries – driving along it, and heading west, towards the border.’
‘What about road-blocks or troops?’ Watson asked.
‘None that I can see right now,’ Dawson replied, still staring through the binoculars. ‘Hang on a second. Let me just take a look down the road we’re on, see if there’s any sign of anything there.’
Bracing his elbows on the dashboard in front of him, Dawson focused the binoculars on the road, and as far as he could he covered the whole length of it from where they were parked at that moment right up to the main road itself. The moonlight helped a lot, because the tarmac surface was clearly visible, and the only sections he couldn’t cover were those where the ground dipped down or the road moved behind clumps of trees or bushes. But what he didn’t see were any German soldiers, or any stationary vehicles that might indicate the presence of a road-block.
Dawson waited until the two vehicles he could see had moved well out of sight, then nodded to Watson.
‘OK, Dave. I think we’re clear. Let’s get moving, but keep the lights switched off, just in case.’
Watson started the engine, engaged first gear and got the vehicle moving again. He was now more used to the fierce clutch, and the truck hardly lurched at all as he accelerated away. The moon was still out, and the winding road clearly visible, but Watson kept the speed down to little more than walking pace, to ensure he’d be able to stop well before any potential danger they might encounter.
The last section of the minor road, before it climbed up a gentle slope to intersect the main road that crossed it at right angles, was almost straight, and again Dawson told Watson to stop the truck while he checked the land ahead through the binoculars.
After a couple of minutes he lowered them and shook his head. ‘If there is a checkpoint up there, I’m buggered if I can see it. The junction looks clear, and there’s no sign of any traffic moving along the road in either direction.’
‘So we go?’
Dawson nodded. ‘Yes, let’s go. But get ready just in case I’ve missed something.’
Watson nodded, reached down into the cab beside him and picked up a Schmeisser. He checked the magazine was fully loaded, a round ready in the chamber, then slung the weapon around his neck. It might interfere with his driving, but it would be ready for immediate use, which was far more important.
Dawson placed one machine-pistol on the seat right beside him, between him and Watson, then took another one, checked that as well and held it ready to fire. Then he again nodded to his companion. ‘Let’s go.’
Watson accelerated away, up the slope towards the main road, looking all around him for any signs of danger, while beside him Dawson did exactly the same, his machine-pistol aimed over the front of the truck.
They reached the edge of the main road. Watson drove up onto the much better surface. ‘Which way?’ he asked, looking ahead and expecting to see another road heading north. ‘I thought you said this was a crossroads.’
Dawson glanced in both directions. ‘It is on the map,’ he said. ‘Hell, just go left, and put the bloody lights on. If anyone sees us driving without lights in the middle of the night on this road they’re bound to try to stop us.’
Watson hit the light switch, then swung the wheel and accelerated, moving the truck over to the right-hand side of the road, looking ahead for any sign of a junction.
Dawson used his torch to check the map again, but the scale was too small to show the exact shape of the road junction. It looked like the road they’d driven up connected with an almost identical minor road going north, but there was no sign of it that either of them could see.
‘I think we’re getting too close to the border,’ Dawson said, after a couple of minutes. ‘Do a U-turn and we’ll try the other way.’
Watson obediently swung the truck round – the road was just wide enough to allow him to turn the vehicle in a single manoeuvre – and headed back the way they’d come.
‘That’s where we drove up,’ Dawson said, pointing to a junction on the right, ‘so the other road should be somewhere on the left.’
Watson steered the truck over to the left-hand side of the main road and slowed down slightly as both men stared ahead.
‘There it is,’ Dawson said, pointing with the barrel of his Schmeisser.
Just coming into view was a narrow road that led away somewhere to the north.
‘Got it.’ Watson swung the truck out towards the centre of the main road, to give him enough room to make the turn, then steered to the left. The truck lurched and bounced as it left the comparatively smooth surface of the main road and onto the rutted and uneven minor road, but that didn’t bother either man.
‘Thank God for that,’ Dawson said. ‘I felt really exposed up there on that road. I was expecting a road-block or a truck full of German soldiers any second.’
Watson grinned at him, then turned his attention back to the twisting and poorly surfaced road in front of them. ‘Here,’ he said, ‘take this, will you?’ He lifted the Schmeisser from around his neck and passed it over to Dawson, who checked that the safety catch was on, and then stowed it between them in the cab.
Dawson checked the map again. ‘If this map is accurate,’ he said, ‘that road was the biggest problem. We shouldn’t have to cross or go along any other main routes, so with any luck we won’t run into any road-blocks. But we’re almost bound to see German troops somewhere around here, because we’re still pretty close to the French border.’
‘So where are we heading for now?’ Watson asked.
‘This road swings round further to the north pretty soon,’ Dawson said, again looking at the map, ‘and it goes through a village or town named Nohn. With any luck, that’ll be deserted, just like that other village we saw a while back, Rammelfangen. It was full of Jerry soldiers, but all the local inhabitants had buggered off.
‘Anyway, from Nohn, the road turns back towards the north-west and goes through Orscholz, Kesslingen and Münzingen.’ He stumbled slightly over the unfamiliar German names. ‘Or there’s another road – it’s a shorter route – that we could use, but it’s probably going to have more enemy soldiers on it because it’s closer to the French border. That runs almost due west from Orscholz through Borg to Wochern.’
‘I’d rather take the pretty route if we’re less likely to meet any Jerries,’ Watson said, steering the truck around a bend.
‘Good thinking. Me too. So just keep going along here for the moment.’
‘How far is it to this Nohn place?’
‘A couple of miles. We should be there in a few minutes.’
In fact, the road surface started deteriorating considerably almost as soon as Dawson spoke, and Watson was forced to slow down the truck to little more than walking pace as he drove over the worst of it. The truck was built for hard work, but they really didn’t want to have to cope with a puncture or a breakdown, so taking it slowly seemed like their best option.
Minutes later, and almost without realizing it, they were driving through the silent and deserted streets of Nohn. One moment they were in open country, and then what Dawson thought was a barn appeared on the right-hand side of the road. They drove past it, followed the road around to the right and found they’d entered the village itself.
‘Bloody good job there wasn’t a Jerry road-block,’ Watson muttered. ‘We’d have driven straight into it.’
‘Or gone straight through it,’ Dawson suggested, ‘but you’re right. I thought we were still way out in the countryside. It just shows we need to keep a sharper lookout. If there had been enemy soldiers waiting there, we’d have been sitting ducks in this tin can.’
They drov
e out the other side of Nohn without incident, without seeing a soul, not even an animal. The truck lumbered on through the night along the road that still, as far as Dawson could tell from his compass, was heading roughly north-west. Orschloz was, like Nohn, totally deserted, though this time they stopped a couple of hundred yards from the edge of the developed area and checked it with the binoculars before they drove in.
At the far end of the village Watson pulled the truck to a stop at a fork in the road and looked across at his companion.
‘Right,’ Dawson said, holding the map so that Watson could see it. ‘It’s time to make up our minds. That road’ – he pointed at the left-hand branch of the forked junction – ‘is the most direct route. That’s the one that goes due west, through Borg to Wochern. The other one is the long way round: that’ll get us to Luxembourg about five miles north of the French border.’
Watson glanced at the map, then at the two choices in front of them. ‘What do you think? I mean, we’ve seen nobody since we crossed that main road. This whole area seems to have been completely abandoned.’
Dawson nodded. ‘I know, but we’re about five miles from the border here. I’m pretty bloody sure that if we get very much closer to it we’ll start running into Jerry patrols. I vote we take the right-hand fork and head north-west through Kesslingen and Münzingen, and stay a good few miles clear of the border. It’ll add a bit to the journey, but I still think it’ll be safer.’
Watson didn’t reply for a few seconds, then nodded. ‘Yeah. Let’s keep on the pretty route. We’ve got all night, and all day, come to that.’
‘Actually,’ Dawson said, looking over to the east, ‘there’s not much of the night left. It looks to me like dawn’s about to break. We need to get a move on. We can’t risk moving in daylight once we’re near the border, because there’ll certainly be more patrols. We need to find somewhere to hole up for the day.’
He looked back at the map. ‘We’re at Orscholz now. Kesslingen’s only about another couple of miles away, so let’s get there quickly as we can. We can either find somewhere to hide there, or forge on to Münzingen. OK?’
To Do or Die Page 18