Dawson helped him secure two more belts around the lengths of timber, effectively turning the two round logs into a long and narrow raft, which they hoped would be enough to keep their gear clear of the water and fairly dry as they made the crossing, and keep Dawson afloat as well.
Silently, the two men stripped off their uniforms and bundled them up. They just kept on their underwear because it was going to be cold in the water and they would need some kind of protection. They placed the uniforms, with their boots and the Schmeissers and grenades and everything else, on the logs.
‘Now let’s see if this thing floats,’ Dawson said.
‘It had fucking better,’ Watson muttered. ‘OK, I’ll get this side.’
The riverbank where they’d positioned the logs had a reasonably gentle slope down to the surface of the water, and their makeshift raft was pointing almost straight down the bank.
‘Grab hold of both logs at the same time,’ Watson instructed, ‘but don’t put any strain on the belts.’
‘Understood.’
‘Right, we’ll pick this up between us and just walk forward into the river, OK?’
The two men bent down and lifted the raft cautiously, being careful to balance it and keep it level, and slowly moved forward.
‘Bugger, that’s cold,’ Watson muttered as he stepped into the river. ‘OK,’ he said, as Dawson splashed in behind him. ‘Now just lower it down, but keep a firm hold on it. We don’t know how strong the current is, and we daren’t let it get swept away.’
Moments later, the raft was floating on the surface of the Moselle. Dawson looked at it critically, partly to take his mind off the crossing, which he’d been dreading. ‘These logs are floating a bit low in the water, aren’t they?’ he asked.
‘I expected them to. This isn’t properly dried and seasoned timber, so the logs are heavy. But don’t worry about it – this’ll float, no problem.’
‘So how am I supposed to do this?’ Dawson asked, his teeth already chattering – the water was very cold.
‘Easy. I’ll go at the front end, you stay at the back. We’ll just walk forward until we’re in the water up to our necks, then you just hang on to the logs. I’ll swim along beside the raft, and if you can kick out a bit with your feet, that might help as well. Just don’t panic. If you hold on to the logs, you can’t possibly sink, OK?’
‘OK.’ Dawson forced out the response.
Watson moved forward. ‘Right, I’m swimming now, so just let yourself go as soon as you like.’
Dawson took another step forward, then another. Suddenly his probing foot touched nothing, and for an instant he floundered, feeling himself sinking beneath the surface. He bobbed up, spluttering and shaking his head.
‘No noise, Eddie. Just take it easy,’ Watson hissed. ‘Hold on to the logs, and keep your head above water.’
Dawson flung both his arms over the top of the log raft and clung on desperately. The fragile craft wobbled dangerously for a few moments, then stabilized again.
‘Careful,’ Watson warned, looking behind him.
‘Sorry, mate. Fucking terrifies me, this,’ Dawson gasped.
‘Just hang on.’
Watson looked behind them. The current had caught the improvised craft and had already pulled it a few yards away from the east bank of the river. But that would never be enough – they needed to get across to the other side, not just go with the flow of the current along that bank.
He kicked out strongly, almost willing the log raft forward, across the wide river. The opposite bank was dimly visible as a dark line above the even darker surface of the water. It looked a long way off. But the good news was that it didn’t actually matter where they landed – within reason – though the further downstream they went, the further they’d have to walk through Luxembourg to get to the French border.
The current didn’t seem too strong, and Watson’s efforts did seem to be driving the craft out into the middle of the river. He glanced back at Dawson, who was still clinging on to the logs, his hands visibly shaking with the strain.
‘Eddie, just relax, OK? And if you could wiggle your legs about a bit that’d help me.’
Dawson looked at him, then seemed to shake himself. ‘Sorry,’ he said again, and slid back off the logs, still keeping his hands on them for support. His head dipped down, but didn’t go under the surface, and he started kicking out.
‘Great stuff, Eddie,’ Watson said.
‘I’m still fucking terrified, mate, but I’m trying to think positive. If I hold on, I can’t sink, right?’
‘Right.’
‘So I’ll try and help. Where are you aiming for?’
‘West, basically,’ Watson replied. ‘Anywhere on that far bank will do.’
‘OK.’ Dawson continued kicking, though he wasn’t entirely sure his efforts were actually helping propel the raft forward.
In five minutes, they’d drifted quite a way downstream, but were well over half-way across the river. Dawson was just starting to think they were going to make it, when it all went badly wrong.
Chapter 40
16 September 1939
Dawson and Watson heard a shout, and it was from behind them, from the German side of the river. Then other voices joined in, and they could see running figures, torch-beams bouncing as the men moved around.
‘What the hell’s all that about?’ Dawson muttered. ‘Can you make out what they’re saying, Dave?’
Watson listened intently for a few moments. ‘I heard one of them shout something about der Fluss,’ he said. ‘That means “the river”,’ he added.
‘Oh, shit. Don’t like the sound of that.’
The two men redoubled their efforts, kicking out as hard as they could with their feet, trying to propel the raft ever faster towards the bank on the Luxembourg side of the river.
Behind them, they heard the sudden rumble as a big diesel engine sprang into life, then the sound of grating gears. Then two dim beams of light swept across the river towards them as the lorry was manoeuvred into position. Moments later, the brightness of the beams increased dramatically as the blackout covers were removed from the headlights.
‘They haven’t got a searchlight, so a truck’s headlamps are the next best thing,’ Dawson muttered. ‘One of those bastards must have seen us.’
At that moment, the beam from the headlamps swept over them, and stopped a short distance behind them. Then it started moving back towards them, to the accompaniment of a revving engine and the crunching of gears as the German driver of the truck tried to manoeuvre the vehicle into the correct position to shine on that part of the river.
And then they were illuminated, caught like moths in a flame, the headlamp beams dazzling them.
‘Get behind the logs,’ Watson ordered. ‘Keep as low as possible. Water’s the best defence there is against bullets.’
A rifle shot rang out from the east bank of the river. Splinters of wood flew off one of the logs as the bullet ploughed into the timber a mere six inches from Dawson’s head.
‘Oh, fuck,’ he muttered, took a deep breath and ducked beneath the surface, his fear of being shot instantly overcoming his terror at being in the water. He felt the two logs above his head and slowly moved under them before bobbing up on the other side, where the timber would provide a measure of protection.
Watson had already done the same. The two men stayed as low as they could behind their floating barricade as a fusillade of shots rang out, a discordant assault on the silence of the night. Bullets ploughed into the wood beside them and splashed into the water. A couple of them even hit Dawson, but Watson was right – their passage through even three or four feet of water slowed them right down, and they were a mere irritation.
‘Keep moving,’ Watson called. ‘We’ve got a long way to go to reach that bank.’
‘Yeah,’ Dawson agreed, ‘and when we climb up it, we’ll be fucking sitting ducks.’
‘We’ll be a lot further away then, so we won�
��t be anything like as visible. Let’s sort it out when we get there, OK?’
Another volley of shots was fired from the opposite bank. A bullet smashed into one of the Schmeissers and knocked it off the makeshift raft and into the water, where it immediately sank before either man could reach it.
‘Bugger this,’ Dawson muttered and he reached up and grabbed the other machine-pistol. He pulled himself up slightly on the logs, braced the weapon as best he could, sighted roughly towards the German side of the river, towards the twin headlamps of the truck, and pulled the trigger. He fired a short burst, released the trigger, and then fired again.
He heard shouts of alarm and a cry of pain – a lucky shot must have hit one of the German soldiers – but then the MP 40 jammed. He ducked back behind the logs and worked the action of the weapon, trying to shift the jammed round from the breech. He freed it, pulled out the magazine, grabbed another one from the webbing belt on top of their clothes and snapped it into place. Then he took aim at the headlamps of the lorry and fired again, and again, heedless of the bullets whining around him and crashing into the raft. All he could hope to achieve was to make the Germans keep their heads down – the dazzling beams of the truck’s headlamps meant he couldn’t see even a single target. He’d have liked to take out the vehicle’s lights, but it was a challenging shot even with a rifle, firing it from a lump of wood bobbing about in the middle of the Moselle river. With a machine-pistol, it was all down to luck. And luck wasn’t something they seemed to have a lot of that night.
The Schmeisser jammed again, after Dawson had fired perhaps half the magazine and, as the machine-pistol fell silent, the rate of rifle fire from the other bank increased markedly. Dawson ducked back behind the wood again and wrestled with the Schmeisser, freeing the jammed cartridge from the breach and swiftly reloading the weapon.
Watson was still kicking out furiously, driving the raft closer and closer to the Luxembourg side of the river, ignoring the bullets flying around him. He knew the timber would stop anything the Germans could fire at them, and the bullets hitting the water were essentially harmless, their energy spent in a few feet. His only worry was if his head became exposed over the logs for long enough for one of the Germans to target it, so he kept as low as possible, lying on his back and dragging the lengths of wood – and Dawson – through the water as fast as he could.
Dawson levered himself up again, ready to fire the machine-pistol, but as he did so the raft was caught by a sudden eddy current and slipped out of the cone of the headlamp beams from the bank, into the welcoming darkness.
‘Ignore the weapon,’ Watson called again. ‘Just keep kicking. We have to reach the bank.’
Dawson put the Schmeisser back on top of the raft, grabbed the timber with both hands and did as he was told.
On the German side of the river, they could hear angry shouts and the sound of the truck’s engine revving as the driver shifted the vehicle to try to illuminate them again. But although the beam of the lights passed close by them a couple of times, the raft was now moving more quickly in the current, and it didn’t pick them out. The rate of firing suddenly diminished.
Dawson and Watson were still kicking out as hard as they could, easing their raft over to the Luxembourg side of the river.
‘Only about ten yards to go,’ Watson gasped, his voice harsh with exertion. ‘We’re nearly there.’
‘We’ve still got to get out.’
But they were getting closer to the river bank, and a few seconds later, while the Germans were still manoeuvring the truck to try to pick them out again with its lights, Watson’s feet touched the bottom of the river. He dug in his toes and forced the raft closer to the shore.
‘I’m touching the bottom,’ he said.
Moments later, Dawson felt both the muddy bottom of the river under his own feet and an immediate sense of relief.
The two men moved quickly towards the shore, dragging the raft behind them. Dawson grabbed his pile of clothes and tossed it onto dry land as soon as he was close enough to do so, then stepped back towards the raft and grabbed for the Schmeisser.
But as his fingers stretched out for the weapon, the headlamps swung towards them again, and another couple of shots rang out. Dawson fumbled for the machine-pistol, but it slipped from his grasp and fell into the water.
‘Forget it,’ Watson snapped, already heading for cover away from the water’s edge. ‘Let’s just get the hell out of here.’
Dawson scrambled up the bank, ducked into the undergrowth and lay flat, just as the beams of the headlamps swept over the raft and then steadied on it. Yet again, a barrage of concentrated fire rang out, bullets ploughing into the wood of the raft and the water all around it.
Then there was a colossal explosion from right in front of them. The last thing Dawson heard before unconsciousness overcame him was Watson’s sudden yell of pain.
Chapter 41
16 September 1939
It could have been minutes, or it might have been hours. Dawson had no idea, except that it was still dark, though the moon was now visible and casting a dim light over the landscape.
He came round slowly, painfully, with no clear idea where he was or what had happened. But gradually his mind reassembled the fractured memories, and realization dawned. One of the shots fired by the Germans on the opposite bank must have hit the stick grenades, and the whole lot – the five or six they had left – must have exploded simultaneously, in a sympathetic detonation.
Dawson was, he knew, lucky to be alive. The riverbank must have acted as a shield, preventing the blast from hitting him directly. He assumed that he’d simply been knocked out, perhaps even concussed, by the explosion.
Then he remembered something else. Dave Watson. He’d been closer to the bank, he thought – though his memory was still confused – but Dawson did very clearly recall that his companion had cried out in pain. That, in fact, had been the last thing he did remember. So where was his friend? And how badly was he hurt?
Dawson cautiously eased up into a crouch and peered across the river, but in the darkness he could see nothing. The truck’s engine was silent and its headlights extinguished – in fact, he couldn’t even see the vehicle – and there was no sign of the troops who’d been shooting at them. But just because he couldn’t see them, it didn’t mean that they weren’t still there.
He looked round. A few feet away he could see a shape, silent and unmoving. He scrambled across and knelt beside his companion.
Watson was still unconscious – that much was immediately obvious – and his chest and left arm were soaked with blood. For a single heart-stopping instant, Dawson thought he was dead, but then he noticed the man’s chest rising and falling as he breathed. How badly was he wounded?
The bundle of uniform that Dawson had flung ashore was a couple of yards away. He bent over it and rooted around until he found the trench knife, which had a sharper blade than the Mauser bayonet, the only other weapon he had left. Then he lifted the bottom of Watson’s blood-soaked vest, slit it all the way up and peeled away the material to look at his friend’s chest.
Even in the dark, the wound that had caused the bleeding was obvious. A chunk of shrapnel, presumably from the explosion of one of the stick grenades, had embedded itself in Watson’s left shoulder, a couple of inches below the collar bone. The wound didn’t look that deep, but it had bled a hell of a lot.
Dawson stretched out his hand to remove the lump of twisted metal, then stopped. If he pulled it out, that might make the situation worse. Maybe the shrapnel was actually helping plug the wound, reducing the flow of blood. But a rip in Watson’s vest showed that the shrapnel had dragged some of the material into the wound, and Dawson knew he had to get that out if he was going to avoid infection.
Before he removed the metal, he needed to make up a pad or something he could apply to the injury. They had no medical kit – most of their standard equipment had been left in the lorry back in the Warndt Forest – so he grabbed t
he cleanest item of clothing he could see, which was his shirt. He used the trench knife to cut it into strips, tying them together to make rudimentary bandages, and wadded up what was left into a pad that he could apply to the wound.
Before he did anything else, Dawson stepped over to the water’s edge and quickly washed his hands – not the most effective way of disinfecting them, but better than nothing, he hoped – then bent over Watson’s still body. He held the pad ready in his left hand, and reached out and grabbed the piece of shrapnel with his right.
The twisted lump of metal was perhaps two inches by one, and slippery with blood. He seized it between his thumb and forefinger, took as firm a grasp as he could, and pulled.
Watson moaned as the pain penetrated his unconscious mind.
Dawson ignored his friend’s complaint, because he knew he had to get the metal out, and if he could do it while Watson remained unconscious, so much the better.
His fingers slipped off the steel. He wiped his hand on his vest – that, his underpants and a pair of socks, now more holes than material, were all he was wearing – and grabbed the shrapnel again. The steel fragment was twisted and bent, and had penetrated deep into the flesh. He had to put down his makeshift pad and hold Watson’s shoulder as he gently eased the metal out of the wound.
When the shrapnel finally came free, there was a sudden rush of blood from the wound. Watson screamed in agony and then woke up.
Dawson seized the wad of material and pressed it firmly against his companion’s injured shoulder.
‘You’re OK, mate,’ he said. ‘You just took a lump of steel in your shoulder, but it’s gone now.’
Watson groaned and tried to sit up, but Dawson put a hand on his chest to keep him lying still.
‘Don’t try and move,’ he said. ‘I’ve got to bandage the wound in a minute, but for now just stay still while I keep the pressure on to stop the bleeding.’
To Do or Die Page 25