They didn’t have many options, as usual. Dawson tossed the map back on the floor and looked ahead, searching the woods on either side of the road. ‘I don’t like it, but we’re going to have to take to the forest again, Dave. It’s our only possible way out. If we keep heading this way on the road, we’ll end up trapped between the main road and that lorry.’
‘Which track?’
‘Buggered if I know. The map’s no help – it’s not detailed enough for that. Just pick the first track that looks wide enough to take this truck, and preferably too narrow for that bloody lorry.’
Watson slowed down – if they were going to leave the road, he wanted to drive straight up whatever track they picked, not have to reverse and manoeuvre, because they hadn’t got time to do that.
‘That one looks OK,’ Watson said.
Dawson saw where he was pointing and nodded.
Watson steered the truck across the road to the left-hand side. The vehicle bounced over the verge and plunged between two large trees down a track that was a couple of feet narrower than the vehicle itself. Not that that mattered, because at the speed the truck was travelling, it simply smashed all the undergrowth and vegetation out of the way.
‘Good choice,’ Dawson said, looking back over the rear of the vehicle towards the road. ‘The lorry can’t get through that gap.’
‘That won’t stop the bloody Jerries following us on foot, though, will it?’ Watson muttered gloomily.
‘No, so keep going as long as you can. Then we’ll have to bail out and start hiking.’
The trail was narrow, and getting more so the deeper they went into the forest. Soon it petered out almost completely, but Watson kept the truck moving, smashing down saplings and bushes, making his own trail. Then they found themselves heading steadily downhill, with rising ground on either side of them.
‘I don’t like this, Eddie. Do you want me to turn round and try and find another route?’
Dawson shook his head. ‘No. Just keep going. We’ve covered well over a quarter of a mile since we left the road. If the Jerries are following on foot, we’ve got a lead over them.’
‘They’ll be able to follow this track easily enough,’ Watson pointed out, gesturing at the churned-up ground behind them and the torn branches.
‘I know, but I don’t think that matters. In fact, it might even help us. Maybe we can use this vehicle to slow them down a bit.’
‘How?’
‘Let’s find a good place first, then I’ll show you.’
The ground in front of them continued to slope downwards, and the land on either side still rose steadily as they headed down into a narrow and steepening valley. The truck ploughed on, bouncing and shuddering as it crashed into small trees and bushes.
‘There,’ Dawson said, pointing straight ahead.
In front of them, the ground levelled out slightly into a reasonably clear area, and the only way forward was through a gap between two huge rocks embedded in the rising sides of the valley, a space perhaps only four or five feet wide.
‘That’s ideal. Drive the truck into the gap between those rocks. We’ll leave it there and walk. That’ll block the track behind us, and hopefully it’ll look as if we tried to drive it through and got stuck.’
‘They’ll be able to drag the truck out, or just climb over it,’ Watson said.
‘I hope they do – or rather, I hope they try to.’
Watson shrugged and drove the truck into the gap until it jammed against the sides, then switched off the engine. ‘What now?’ he asked. ‘I suppose we might as well dump these fucking coal-scuttles.’
Dawson shook his head. ‘No, we’ve got to hang on to them, at least for the moment. They might come in handy again. Let’s grab our stuff and get the hell out of here, once I’ve left a little present for the Jerries.’
The two men picked up their own British-issue helmets. Then they each slung a Mauser over their shoulder and a Schmeisser around their neck, and took the grenades and all the ammunition they could carry, climbed over the front of the truck, through the gap and out the other side.
Dawson turned round, opened the bonnet of the truck and peered inside. Then he took one of the stick grenades and removed the cap from the end of the handle, which he lobbed away into the undergrowth. Then he carefully tied the cord and ceramic ball around the oil filler cap and rested the grenade itself beside it, perching it on top of the engine. Then he gently closed the bonnet and walked away.
‘If they start the engine, or even try to climb over the truck, that grenade will topple,’ he said. ‘Not even that German officer will have expected that, I hope. Now let’s move.’
Dawson glanced at his watch, then checked his compass and pointed. ‘That’s west,’ he said, and the two men started jogging away as quickly as they could.
The woods were quiet, birdsong the only sound they could hear, apart from their own laboured breathing as they struggled to cover as much distance as they could, as fast as possible – not easy with the ground underfoot fairly soft and leaf-strewn and laden down as they were with weapons and ammunition.
The valley continued downwards for some distance, ending in a stream that was barely more than a trickle, and then the land started to rise on the other side. They crossed the stream and continued up the slope.
‘OK,’ Dawson said, his breath rasping in his throat as they crested the next rise, ‘let’s take a breather.’
He looked back down the slope towards the point where they’d abandoned the truck. There was no sign of the place through the trees, nothing visible at all, which meant they were themselves invisible to the pursuing Germans.
‘We must have come about two or three hundred yards now, so let’s move a bit more slowly and carefully. Those bastards are bound to be tracking us soon, if they aren’t already.’
The land in front of them was more level, though still uneven, and they started working their way forward.
‘How far have we still got to go?’ Watson asked.
Dawson stopped, slung his Schmeisser behind him and fished the map out of his pocket. He unfolded it and studied it for a few seconds.
‘That’s the road through this forest,’ he said, pointing at a minor road that was shown as passing through an area shaded light green on the map. ‘I reckon we left it somewhere near here.’ He pointed a grubby finger at a spot on the map, then moved it to point slightly further to the north. ‘So we’re probably about here.’
‘Where’s the border?’
Dawson unfolded the map to the next section and gestured at a wiggly black line running more or less north-south. ‘That’s the border,’ he said, ‘so we’re maybe two and a half miles away from it now, more or less.’
‘What’s that other line?’ Watson asked, indicating a dotted line in grey that ran east-west, almost through the town of Münzingen.
‘Hang on a second,’ Dawson looked at the map and opened it wider. ‘It’s nothing,’ he said. ‘Just the boundary between two different German districts. To the south of it is Saarland, and north of it is Rheinland-Pfalz. That’s all.’
Suddenly, the silence of the forest was shattered by a single loud crack, and both men span round to stare back the way they’d come.
Dawson looked at his watch. ‘That sounded like our stick grenade alarm clock, and it’s just over eight minutes since we planted the weapon, so that’s how far they are behind us. It’ll take them a while to either drag what’s left of the truck out of that gap or risk climbing over it, so I reckon we’ve got at least a quarter of an hour’s start on them, maybe twenty minutes.’
‘Fifteen or twenty minutes isn’t a hell of a lot,’ Watson said.
‘No, but the further we go into the forest, the bigger the search area gets, and the more chance we have of slipping away. That SS officer has probably guessed we’re trying to get into Luxembourg, but he can’t know where we’ll try to cross the border, because we don’t know ourselves yet— depends what we find when we get t
here.’
‘So he’s got to follow us if he’s going to stop us? Is that what you’re saying?’
Dawson nodded as he replaced the map in his pocket. ‘Yes. So we keep moving, keep heading west, and try to avoid leaving any traces. I haven’t heard any dogs, so as long as we don’t do anything stupid like drop a bit of equipment or break a branch off a tree, that kind of thing, we should be able to lose them.’
He checked his compass again and pointed through the trees in front of them. ‘That way,’ he said, and they set off once more, walking at a steady pace. ‘Move carefully, but keep up a reasonable speed and we should reach the border in about two hours.’
‘It’ll be dark soon,’ Watson pointed out. ‘So that should help us.’
‘Yeah, and hinder the bloody Jerries.’
Chapter 35
14 September 1939
They’d been walking for about fifteen minutes when Dawson spotted a distant movement in the trees over to their left and raised his arm to stop Watson.
‘Wait,’ he whispered urgently.
‘What is it?’
‘I just saw something, over there.’
Both men peered in the direction Dawson had indicated.
‘Like what?’ Watson asked.
‘I don’t know, a movement.’
‘Maybe it was a deer or something. Do they have deer out here?’
‘No idea,’ Dawson said, still staring out to the left.
Then they both saw it. About a hundred yards away, a shape like a grey-green ghost flitted through the gathering gloom, moving slowly between the trees towards them.
‘That’s a fucking Jerry soldier,’ Watson spat, as they ducked down behind a clump of bushes. ‘How the hell did they get here so quickly?’
‘Buggered if I know.’
For a few seconds the two sappers just watched the distant figure.
‘I can only see one man,’ Watson said. ‘Where are the others? There must have been a dozen men in that lorry.’
‘I wonder,’ Dawson muttered, his mind working out the logistics and coming up with the only possible answer. ‘That Jerry didn’t follow us here from the truck. That bloody SS officer’s worked out what we’re trying to do.’
‘What? He knew where we’d be?’
‘Not exactly. When he saw we’d dumped the truck to the north of that road, I bet he guessed we’d be heading towards Luxembourg. He’s sent some of his troops through the forest, hoping one of them would spot us. It’s the only explanation that makes sense. Fuck me, he’s a cunning bastard.’
‘So that leaves two questions. First, is that soldier over there by himself? And, second, do you reckon he’s seen us?’
Dawson shook his head. ‘I don’t see anyone else. If I’m right, he’s got to be alone. And he can’t have seen us; he’d have fired at us by now, just to get his mates heading our way.’
‘So do we take him out, or what?’
‘We have to. If we move, he’s going to see us. But we can’t shoot him, obviously.’
Watson glanced over at Dawson, then looked back towards the approaching German soldier, then only about seventy yards away from them. ‘Use a knife, you mean?’
‘Yeah,’ Dawson replied, drawing the Mauser bayonet from his belt scabbard. ‘There’s no other choice.’
Both men fell silent then, watching the soldier walking towards them. They could now see him quite clearly.
The German was carrying a Mauser rifle in his hands, his right forefinger resting on the trigger and swivelling his head from side to side as he searched the forest for his quarry.
‘How are you going to do it?’ Watson whispered. ‘If he carries on in that direction, he’s going to miss us by about thirty or forty feet. If you rush him, he’ll hear you coming and shoot you down before you get half-way to him.’
‘I know. Either I have to try and sneak around and get behind him, or …’ Dawson’s voice died away.
‘Or what?’ Watson whispered, not taking his eyes off the enemy soldier.
‘Or we could try a diversion, I suppose.’
‘What sort of a diversion?’
‘You could surrender to him. Leave all your weapons on the ground and stand up with your hands in the air. While he’s looking at you, I’ll creep up behind him.’
‘No fucking chance,’ Watson snapped. ‘I’d lay money these bastards have had orders to shoot us on sight. I’ll machine-gun the fucker myself before I do that, and take the consequences.’
Dawson sighed. ‘Yeah, you’re right. It’s too dangerous. OK, we’ll use Plan B instead.’
‘Which is what?’
‘I don’t know. I’m still working on it. Give me a minute.’
‘We don’t have a minute, Eddie,’ Watson said urgently. ‘He’s only forty yards away. He’ll hear us talking soon. Or step on us.’
Dawson nodded, decision made. ‘OK,’ he said, his voice barely above a whisper. ‘Change of plan. I’ll stand up, my Mauser pointed straight at him. You cover him from here. If he surrenders, we’ll disarm him and knock him out. If he swings his rifle towards me, we shoot him down and then run like fuck.’
Watson nodded. ‘That should work,’ he said.
The two sappers held their breath as the German soldier paused suddenly about twenty yards away. He scanned all around him, then resumed his slow and cautious progress towards them.
Watson aimed his Mauser at the enemy soldier and nodded that he was ready.
Dawson waited until the German looked away from their hiding place, stood up unhurriedly, braced his legs apart and brought the rifle straight up to his shoulder. He pointed the Mauser at his target. At such point-blank range, there was scarcely any need to use the sights.
The German turned his head towards Dawson and did an almost comical double-take when he suddenly saw the British soldier in front of him. He froze, one leg bent in mid-step, and just stared. Dawson could almost see the man’s thought processes reflected in the expressions on his face: first disbelief at the sudden appearance of an enemy soldier only twenty yards away; then recognition that the same soldier was armed with a rifle pointed straight at him; then the realization that his own weapon – his Mauser – was pointing in an entirely different direction; then his life-or-death calculation – could he bring his rifle round to the aim before the British soldier could fire his rifle?
At that point, Dawson very deliberately shook his head and motioned upwards with the barrel of his Mauser.
The German nodded and removed his right hand from the trigger of his rifle. Then, moving very slowly and carefully, he raised his right hand above his head and lowered the Mauser to the ground with his left.
‘OK, Dave,’ Dawson said, his aim never wavering and his eyes staying locked on the German’s face. ‘Go and grab his weapon. Check he’s not carrying grenades or a pistol. Stay clear of my line of fire, just in case he tries anything.’
Watson stood up and walked towards the soldier, holding his machine-pistol in front of him, aiming it straight at the man’s stomach. When he was about six feet away, he motioned with the Schmeisser, gesturing for the German to step back a couple of paces, and only then did he bend down to pick up the discarded Mauser.
‘No pistol or grenades, Eddie,’ Watson called out.
‘Right.’ Dawson stepped forward and crossed over to where Watson and the soldier were standing in a kind of frozen tableau, staring at each other with undisguised hostility.
‘You are both walking dead men,’ the German said suddenly, his English stilted and heavily accented.
‘Probably,’ Dawson replied, ‘but we’re still alive at the moment. If you hadn’t dropped your Mauser, you’d be dead right now and you know it.’
‘You cannot hope to escape,’ the German said. ‘There are twenty soldiers looking for you in these woods, and others waiting outside.’
‘Are they all as stupid as you?’ Dawson asked. ‘Because if they are, we shouldn’t have any trouble walking out of here. Than
ks for the intelligence. It always helps to know the exact strength of the enemy.’
The German’s eyes widened in anger and his lips compressed. ‘You will not escape,’ he repeated.
‘Yeah, well that’s up to us, isn’t it? And we seem to have done pretty well so far,’ Dawson said. ‘But you’re wrong about one thing, Fritz.’
‘What?’
‘We’re not trying to escape. We’re on a search-and-destroy mission. We’re trained in sabotage and demolition and we haven’t hit our main target yet, so we’ll be around here for a while. We’re just waiting for the explosives to be dropped for us.’
‘I do not believe you.’
‘Do I look like I give a fuck what you believe or don’t believe?’ Dawson said, then nodded to Watson. ‘OK, Dave.’
Watson stepped behind the German, flipped his helmet forward off his head and cracked the steel butt-plate of his Mauser into the back of the man’s skull. The soldier collapsed like he’d been pole-axed.
‘Hope you didn’t kill him,’ Dawson said. ‘I want him to pass on the intelligence I just gave him to that SS bastard when he comes round.’
‘So we’re on a sabotage mission, are we?’
‘Best I could come up with,’ Dawson grinned. ‘If he survives that crack on the head, it might set the Jerries running round like headless fucking chickens looking for a strategic target in this area, and for somewhere a plane could drop a parachute-load of explosives.’
‘We take his weapon?’
‘No, just the ammunition, and take out the bolt. Don’t want him waking up unexpectedly and firing the bloody thing. Right, let’s get out of here.’
Watson picked up the German’s Mauser, pulled out the bolt and threw it as far as he could into the forest, then pocketed all the rifle ammunition the man had been carrying.
To Do or Die Page 22