Dawson checked his compass and then both men strode away into the darkening forest.
Chapter 36
14 September 1939
‘Christ. So near yet so far.’
It was now after eight and darkness was falling. The two men were standing a few yards from the edge of the forest, hidden under a canopy of trees, and looking out across a fairly level stretch of land towards the border with Luxembourg. About 200 yards in front of them, a road ran from north to south, the occasional vehicle – all military, as far as they could tell – driving along it. But that didn’t mark the border. That would have been too simple and convenient.
Beyond the road, they could see the border itself perfectly clearly. In fact, it was quite difficult to miss, because the south-east border of Luxembourg was marked by the River Moselle. The river ran south-west from Trier to a point on the border between Mesenich and Metert, and then followed the border all the way down to Schengen, which lay at the very south-east tip of Luxembourg.
‘Looks like a fucking big river,’ Watson said, staring at the wide expanse of water that lay in front of them.
Dawson couldn’t argue with that. When he’d seen the map Lieutenant Charnforth had pinned up back at the British camp near Dalstein, he’d barely registered the fact that there were rivers in the area – he’d been far more interested in what he was being tasked with doing and where he was supposed to be going.
‘I knew there was a river on the border between Germany and Luxembourg, but I never thought it’d be anything like this,’ he said.
‘How the hell are we going to get across it?’
‘Right now,’ Dawson said, ‘I don’t know. What I do know is we won’t be using a bridge, because they’re going to be stuffed full of troops, at least on this side of the border. I don’t know if Luxembourg’s got an army, but I’ll bet that, at the very least, they’ll have armed police guarding their end of every bridge that links their country to Germany. So even if we slipped past the Germans, we’d probably get shot by the Luxembourgers, or whatever they’re called.’
‘Maybe we could find a boat?’ Watson suggested doubtfully.
‘Perhaps, but my guess is we’ll have to swim for it. Or, to be absolutely accurate, you’ll have to swim for it and I’ll try and float across on a bit of wood or something. In fact, we’ll need something like a couple of logs for buoyancy, because we’ll have our weapons as well.’ He paused and gestured at the thick forest that still surrounded them. ‘There must be one or two logs in here somewhere.’
‘So what now?’ Watson asked.
‘We’ll have to wait for a while, but there are a couple of things we can do.’ Dawson looked across the open ground that separated the edge of the forest from the road and the riverbank, and at the German troops they could see standing there. They were positioned at intervals along the road, about 100 yards apart, most of them facing towards the forest, into German territory, which at the very least hinted at why they were there, strung out along a neutral border.
‘They’re looking for us,’ Dawson said. ‘They missed finding us in the forest, so they’ve mounted a patrol line right here, where we’d have to show ourselves if we were intending to cross the border.’
‘It’s that fucking SS officer again, I’ll bet. Keeps coming back like a bad dose of the pox.’
‘It’s probably his work,’ Dawson agreed. ‘If he’s ordered these troops here, then there’s no point in moving up or down the riverbank. He’ll have positioned soldiers all the way along it. We might as well just cross here.’
‘You said there were two things we could do. What have you got in mind?’
‘I’m not kidding. I can’t swim. I’m frightened of water.’
‘Yeah, I noticed you don’t wash much,’ Watson interrupted, a slight smile on his face.
Dawson grinned at him. ‘Right. If I’m going to get across that bloody river, I need a raft or something that’ll float. Two or three logs lashed together, something like that, something to support me and our weapons. That’s the first thing.’
‘And the other?’
Dawson pointed at the German soldiers. ‘To get across unnoticed, we’re going to have to take out one or two of those soldiers before we launch ourselves into the water. Otherwise they’ll either see or hear us. So we need to check out what they do. Do they stay in one place all the time or patrol up and down. When are they relieved? That kind of thing.’
‘It’ll be dark in a few minutes,’ Watson pointed out.
‘I don’t mean now. We’re here until at least tomorrow night, so we can do all that – check out the routine the Jerries are following and build a raft – in the daylight tomorrow. We’ll cross tomorrow night, in the early hours of the morning, probably.’
Dawson turned round to face back into the forest. ‘Let’s find somewhere to hole up until tomorrow.’ He shivered slightly and glanced up at the nearly cloudless sky. ‘It’s going to be a long, cold night,’ he said. ‘We’ve got two canteens of water and no food, unless you got any chocolate hidden away somewhere.’
‘No chance, mate.’
‘Fucking gannet. So that’s supper – water and water. At least we’re still alive.’
The two men retreated a couple of hundred yards into the forest, moving slowly and carefully, trying to make as little noise as possible and to leave no trail. They needed somewhere where one of them could sleep while the other kept watch, and where nobody could easily sneak up on them.
‘It’s not perfect,’ Dawson said, pointing to a tangle of undergrowth that had sprouted up around a fallen tree close to a small hillock, ‘but it’ll do.’
They checked all around the area, but spotted nothing suspicious. Then they crept between two bushes and sat down with their backs to the trunk of the fallen oak. There was a space on one side where a man could stretch out – that would do as a bed – and the V-shape formed by one of the branches of the tree offered a useful vantage point over the surrounding area.
‘You want to watch or sleep?’ Dawson asked, replacing the cap on his water canteen.
‘I don’t care. If I had a coin, I’d toss you for it.’
‘OK, then. You get your head down first. Let’s do four-hour watches, and don’t move out of here. If you need to have a slash or a crap, do it over there, in that corner.’ He pointed to a spot amongst the exposed roots of the oak, then checked his watch. ‘Right. I’ll give you a shake just after midnight.’
Chapter 37
15 September 1939
‘God, I ache in every single muscle and joint in my body,’ Dawson moaned.
It was a little after five in the morning, and Watson had just woken him from what could hardly be called a good night’s sleep. The ground hadn’t felt too bad when he lay down at one o’clock and Watson took over his uneventful watch, but after only a few minutes he’d felt as if he was being stabbed by stones and branches and brambles and God knows what else. He had finally drifted off, but every time he moved he woke up, albeit briefly.
Dawson felt hungover – a joke because he hadn’t so much as smelt a beer in days – and absolutely exhausted. He was filthy dirty, and what had started out merely as stubble on his chin was now well on its way to becoming a full beard. It was no consolation that Watson looked – and probably felt – exactly the same.
‘You know, Dave, if I wasn’t so sure those fucking Jerries would shoot us on sight, I’d almost consider surrendering, just to get a bath and a hot meal.’
Watson nodded. ‘You’ll be taking a bath pretty soon, if we’re going to get across that river. A hot meal’s going to take us a bit longer to find. Now, let’s get going, mate.’
‘I know. Let’s see if we can find some logs. You told that officer at Catterick you were a proper engineer because you built things. You should be able to knock a raft together, no problem.’
Watson stared at him. ‘I built bridges, mate, stuff like that. I used rivets and bolts and welding torches and sodding great len
gths of steel. I didn’t bugger about tying lumps of wood together to give a non-swimmer a fighting chance of getting across a river without drowning.’
‘Well, now’s your chance,’ Dawson grinned. ‘Come on, let’s get on with it.’
The two men eased out of their overnight accommodation, again checked all around them to ensure there was no sign of any German soldiers and started searching for some fallen branches that would be suitable.
But it wasn’t as easy as either of them had hoped. The forest floor was littered with leaves but very few lengths of fallen timber of any size, and most of the branches and tree trunks they did manage to find were obviously old and already fairly rotten, and rotten wood was no good to them. The majority of the branches that had fallen more recently were too small to support their weapons and ammunition, let alone a man.
‘I thought this would be the easy bit,’ Dawson muttered as they looked at yet another branch that appeared to be almost welded to the forest floor by an extensive growth of moulds and fungi. ‘Christ, all we need are two or three decent lengths of timber.’
‘Trees usually only fall over when they’re dead and have been for a while, unless there’s a gale or something. This could be a wild goose chase.’
‘Any ideas? Apart from a boat, obviously.’
Watson shrugged. ‘If we can’t find anything on the ground, we could cut the timber we need. We’ll get what we want, but the problem is how much noise we make doing it.’
Dawson looked around them. They were deep in the forest, probably at least half a mile from the soldiers on the riverbank, so as long as they didn’t make too much of a racket, Watson’s idea might be feasible. The biggest risk was if the Germans had sent patrols into the forest itself. But right then, he hadn’t got any better ideas.
‘OK, Dave, let’s go for it. We’ll head east, away from the river, find a tree and cut what we need. One of us can stand guard while the other does the work. That way, we should be able to spot any Jerry soldiers heading our way.’
They spread out, to cover more ground, but kept each other in sight as they started looking. They needed a tree with branches big enough, but close enough to the ground – they weren’t equipped for climbing. And they only had a couple of Mauser bayonets to do the job, so they couldn’t tackle anything really substantial.
They’d been searching for about ten minutes when Watson gave a low whistle and held up his hand.
Dawson immediately stopped, checked all around him, his Schmeisser held ready to fire, but he saw nothing, then looked back at Watson.
His partner gestured, holding the fingers of his left hand open like a claw, while he moved his hand down onto the top of his steel helmet – the military ‘come to me’ or ‘formate on me’ hand signal.
Dawson glanced round again and moved quickly but silently across to where Watson was standing. ‘What is it?’ he asked, his voice low.
‘I might have solved our little problem,’ Watson said, and pointed.
Perhaps fifty yards away, Dawson saw a long, low black shape through the trees. It looked a bit like an upturned rowing boat, but it was massive. ‘What is it?’ he demanded.
‘We’ve seen a few tree stumps here and there in the forest,’ Watson said, ‘so we know there must have been woodcutters working here. That’s the fruit of their labours. It’s a pile of cut timber, ready to be loaded onto a cart and hauled away.’
Dawson looked more closely and realized Watson was right. Now he could see that it wasn’t a single object, but a collection of pieces of timber. He should have expected to find something like that in a forest.
‘Any sign of the woodcutters?’
‘Not that I can see. You go right, and I’ll go left, OK?’
‘OK.’
Cautiously, the two men separated to approach the woodpile from opposite sides, just in case there were any German civilians – or even German soldiers – anywhere near it. They checked everywhere, but saw nothing. Dawson guessed the forest had been cleared of civilians, just like the farms and villages.
Almost simultaneously, they stepped into the clearing and walked over to the massive heap of wood. They could see now that it wasn’t actually one pile – it was several. Dominating the clearing was a mound of massive logs. One look was enough to tell both men they wouldn’t be carrying any of them away – they were just too heavy.
‘Probably telegraph poles,’ Watson murmured, confirming Dawson’s unspoken thoughts.
Beside that pile were half a dozen heaps of other, smaller logs, varying in length from about fifteen feet down to three or four feet, with varying diameters.
‘Good news.’ Dawson pointed at a number of logs about six to eight feet long. ‘Two or three of those should do the trick.’
Watson nodded. ‘And better than cutting fresh wood. These will have dried out a bit. They’ll be lighter to carry and more buoyant.’
They walked over and looked carefully at the logs. They both doubted they’d been booby-trapped – a pile of timber in the middle of a German forest could hardly be described as a strategic target – but it was still worth checking.
‘Don’t see anything,’ Watson said, standing up after peering beneath and behind the logs that were lying on the top of the pile.
‘Neither do I. OK, let’s pick out a couple and start hauling them back towards the river.’
They stood at opposite ends of the woodpile, slung their weapons over their shoulders and each grabbed one end of the six-foot log lying on the very top of the pile.
‘Bugger me, that’s heavy,’ Dawson muttered as the two men strained to lift the piece of wood. ‘Are you sure this will float?’
‘Wood floats, trust me,’ Watson said, staggering slightly under the weight. ‘I think we’ll only need two of these.’
‘Bloody good job too.’
‘Let’s get it onto our shoulders,’ Watson suggested. ‘It’ll be a lot easier that way.’
Working together, the two men lifted the length of wood up. Watson was right – it did make carrying it easier. It left them each with one hand free, though using a weapon would still be impossible unless they dropped the log first.
They walked slowly, trying to make as little noise as possible, about 100 yards from the clearing where they’d found the woodpile, then lowered the log to the ground. Then the walked back, picked up a second one, and repeated the process.
Then they stopped for a breather. Dawson took out the map and checked it, then placed his compass on the ground beside it.
‘If you remember,’ he said, ‘when we stood at the edge of the forest yesterday and looked over at the river, there was a big bend in it, and then we could see a longish straight section in both directions. According to this map, there are only two places in this area where the Moselle has a bend like that, and they’re fairly close together.
He pointed at the map. ‘The first is here, near this town called Wehr. In fact, Wehr is almost on the bend, so I don’t think that’s where we are. The road by that bend is quite a long way from the river. The other bend is about a mile to the south of that, and that’s where I reckon we are. See, the road runs right beside the river, and it’s a much bigger bend. I think that fits better with what we saw.’
Watson studied the map where Dawson was pointing. ‘I’d agree with that,’ he said. ‘So what?’
‘So nothing. Just establishing where we are. According to this map, there aren’t any towns or villages close to this point over in Luxembourg, so hopefully nobody will see us land.’
‘We can’t ask people over there for help, then?’
Dawson shook his head. ‘I don’t know, but if we can, we should just slip through into France without anyone even knowing we were in Luxembourg. I don’t know what our status would be there, but we’d certainly be classed as armed combatants illegally entering a neutral country. I’d guess we’d be arrested at the very least, maybe even handed back to the fucking Jerries. I doubt the people of Luxembourg want to irritate
Uncle Adolf. If the Germans found out that they’d harboured Allied troops, that might give them an excuse to invade, neutral territory or not.’
‘No chance of a hot meal and a cold beer, then?’
‘Pretty bloody unlikely. Anyway, we’d better get moving.’ Dawson folded the map and put it back in his battledress pocket. ‘We ought to just shift these logs a hundred yards at a time, and leave them somewhere close to the edge of the forest. How long will it take to tie them together to make a raft? And what can we use to do that?’
Watson shrugged. ‘A couple of minutes, that’s all. We can lash them together using our belts. We’ll have to do that right by the water’s edge, though. We can’t carry two logs at the same time. And we’ll have to get past those guards somehow.’
‘Got it in one. We have to get ourselves and these lengths of timber from the forest and then into the river without being spotted. How the hell we’re going to do that, I’ve no idea right now.’
Chapter 38
15 September 1939
A couple of hours later, they’d shifted both the logs to a position just within the forest boundary, which only left them with the final 200 yards or so to cover, over almost completely open ground, and with German soldiers still patrolling the road that lay between them and their objective. Dawson still hadn’t worked out how they were going to get past them, though he had the glimmerings of an idea.
‘Now we watch, yes?’ Watson asked.
The two men had returned to the same spot they’d occupied the previous evening, on the very edge of the forest. It provided good cover and had a reasonably unobstructed view of the road and the river beyond.
‘Yeah,’ Dawson agreed. ‘We need to work out their routine, find out what they do and when they do it. It’ll be bloody boring, but we have to know what’s going on out there before we can try and get across the river. Have you got something to write with?’
Watson tapped his pockets and eventually came up with the stub of a pencil and a grubby sheet of paper. ‘Will this do?’
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