Beyond the blizzard of light the work of the ops room continued. Gary looked down on the great map table in the pit below him. The map showed southern England, a fat green peninsula pinned by the grey mass of London on the northern edge, and bounded by the pale blue of ocean to the south. This very old country was crowded with towns and villages, and by the traceries of roads that snaked around the lumpy brown of ranges of hills. But now it was disfigured by the bold red slashes of defensive lines, and harsh black scribbles that must be the perimeters of the occupied territories. Coloured blocks littered the map, representing units of men and armour, shoved across the map by Wrens with long-handled wooden shovels, like croupiers in some immense game of roulette. Along the coast from Brighton to Dover there was a cloud of toy aircraft, while little ships pushed through the Channel.
The Wrens wore headsets, and talked constantly. Telephones and radio receiving stations were set up around the walls. Officers in the uniforms of all the services watched from railed balconies, with a few civilians, ministers perhaps, puffing cigars. Still the flashbulbs popped.
None of this seemed real to Gary. The pit of light, the controlled murmur of voices, the flashing bulbs, the smell of cigar smoke, made it all dreamlike. He wasn’t sure how he had kept functioning, in fact, since his mother had got through to him two days ago with the news about Hilda. He was going through the motions of his duties. But he felt as if he were neither asleep nor awake.
An officer, Royal Navy from his uniform, marched towards Gary. Maybe forty, he looked sharp, intelligent, his face lean and ruddy, an outdoors look, and he wore a precisely clipped black moustache. ‘Corporal Wooler? I’m Captain Mackie, RN - Tom Mackie, MI-14. Look, I’m sorry for this charade. I know you’d rather be with your unit.’
‘Yes, sir—’
‘But in this bloody war, image and news presentation are assets just as significant as boots and guns on the ground. Let’s get it over with and kick this shower of hacks and bulb-wasters out of our ops room, shall we?’ He grasped Gary’s hand and turned to the cameras, which flashed even more furiously. Through a fixed grin, Mackie said, ‘Of course we’re proud you’ve chosen to wear the uniform of the British Army. But it’s a shame you don’t look a bit more American, if you know what I mean.’
‘I should have worn spurs and a cowboy hat.’
‘That’s the spirit! Look, General Brooke hoped to be here himself to meet you.’
‘General Brooke?’
‘CIC Southern Command, since July. He’s been shaking up our home defence and doing a bloody good job, I should say. Right, that’s enough for this lot. Show these gentlemen the door, would you, Sergeant Blackwell ?’
‘Right you are, sir.’
Mackie touched Gary’s shoulder and led him to the railing that overlooked the big ops table. ‘I know you’re eager to get back to your unit. But I want you to take a moment to understand the big picture, and to see why your contribution today is so important, you and your mother’s. I’m with MI-14, by the way, I think I mentioned that. We’re that corner of Military Intelligence dedicated to analysing the Germans’ intentions. I take it you can read the map?’
‘More or less, sir.’
‘We know that since establishing their first beachheads the Germans have moved forward to a preliminary covering line that runs from Uckfield to Canterbury, roughly. He pointed at the map. ‘And although we’ve been disrupting the shipping, over the last few days they’ve managed to get some supplies and more men over, through the captured ports and airfields. Now we think their intention is to push forward to a deeper objective line, running from Portsmouth through Guildford and Reigate, all the way to the Thames estuary at Gravesend. Do you see? If they achieve that, they’ll have sliced off the whole of south-east England, including all the airfields. And we believe that after that they will make a thrust west of London, up from Guildford to Reading. London would then be pretty much at their mercy.’
‘So the plan is to stop them.’
‘Quite right. Now.’ He pointed to the Uckfield-Canterbury line. ‘We can’t hold the whole of that perimeter; we can’t stop them crossing the line somewhere. Even if we hadn’t left half our bloody army on the beaches at Dunkirk, we couldn’t manage that. What we’re trying to do is to contain their advance. Now look, can you see our assets? What we want to do is to confine their thrust roughly to the Uckfield-Guildford corridor.’
‘Why there?’
‘For one thing it’s at the boundary between the two armies, the Ninth and Sixteenth, that make up the Germans’ Army Group A. Always a weak point, that, the hinge between two forces ...’
To achieve this containment British and allied units had been positioned to deter the Germans from advances elsewhere. The First London would block a push north of the high ground of the Weald. In the east a division of New Zealanders was trying to block an advance on Rams-gate ; they were outnumbered, but had heavy guns capable of knocking out a Panzer advance. The Forty-fifth Division was positioned on the Weald itself, forcing the Germans to go west. North of the Weald were bodies of reserves, including Canadians, an armoured division and a tank brigade.
And in the west more reserves, including the Third Division under Montgomery - the division Gary had been transferred to - were ready to fall on the expected advance towards Guildford, when the opportunity rose, and carve it up.
‘You see the pattern,’ Mackie said. ‘Now while all this is going on we’ve still got the RAF and Navy striking at the Germans supply lines, in their rear. They seem to have seriously miscalculated their logistics. They are still reliant on fuel and other supplies shipped over from France; the fuel especially is critical. That’s the plan. It’s all about logistics, essentially. We bottle them up, strike at them when they try to advance, and starve them of supplies. A kind of mobile siege.’ He glanced at Gary. ‘So what do you think?’
Gary considered. ‘Sir, I’m just a regular corporal, and I’ve only been that a few days—’
‘Oh, you’re a bit more than that, Wooler.’
‘This is above my head. It seems like it might have a fighting chance.’
‘Yes, yes.’ Mackie nodded. ‘Well, that’s how it seems to me. A fighting chance. But no more than that. You see, Wooler, the loss of the BEF was a dreadful blow, both materially and in terms of morale. We’re putting up a fight. I think it’s possible we can hold these bloody Germans on our soil, today and tomorrow. But it’s certainly going to take more than we’ve got to drive them back into the sea. Which is where you come in.’
‘And which is why,’ Gary said coldly, ‘what happened to Hilda was so useful.’
Mackie’s face was hard. ‘Yes, it was. I know how bloody this is for you, Wooler. Blame your mother, if you like. Peter’s Well was sadly not the only atrocity the Nazis have committed on our soil. Himmler’s einsatzgruppen, the SS killing squads, have been spilling English blood just as busily as they did on the continent. But Peter’s Well was the one that was witnessed by an American. Your mother’s telephone call from Tunbridge Wells was broadcast across the US by hundreds of syndicated stations. And here you are, her son and a grieving husband, an American already fighting this dreadful evil.’
‘Good propaganda, right?’
‘No. It’s the truth, Wooler, cold and unvarnished. And it’s precisely what is needed to make your countrymen realise that our fight is their fight, that the Nazis’ threat to us is a threat to them. It’s said that in the last twenty-four hours, despite the desperate situation, Churchill has spent more time working with the Americans than against the Germans.’ He studied Gary. ‘Interventionists versus isolationists - that’s the language of the debates going on over there, isn’t it? But didn’t Jefferson himself warn that America should always fear a Europe united under a single hand? And even he didn’t anticipate Hitler. Anyhow here we are. You lost Hilda, I know. But by making this contribution, you’re helping to ensure there will be no more Hildas in the future.’
‘I guess we al
l have our duty.’
‘That’s the spirit ...’
There was movement at the ops table, and a stir among the listeners at the phones and wireless sets.
‘They’re moving,’ Mackie said, his voice tight. ‘They’ll call this the Battle of England one day - win or lose. Watch and remember.’
XXXII
The fire roared down on the convoy from right and left, shells erupting from the fields and valleys of this folded, claustrophobic country. Once again the vehicles scattered. The Panzergrenadiers went roaring into the countryside, followed by a couple of the tanks, in search of pillboxes and other English defensive positions.
Ernst and the other men in the troop carriers leapt out to take up what positions they could find beside the road. Ernst found himself in a sort of drainage ditch, blocked by crisp autumn leaves; their smoky smell was rich.
‘Where do you think we are?’ Ernst shouted at Unteroffizier Fischer.
‘God knows.’ Fischer checked his watch. ‘I know where we should be. On the other side of Haywards Heath by now.’ He stumbled over the odd English name.
Ernst knew the route, roughly. From Uckfield they had headed west and north. The plan was to follow the A-class roads though Haywards Heath and Horsham and then make the long run up to Guildford. On the map it looked straightforward. But they had run into this sort of resistance as soon as they had left Uckfield.
More fire rained on the vehicles. It didn’t come at random. The tank-busting shells were always targeted first at the lead vehicles in the column and the last, leaving the column trapped and ripe for further attack.
‘India,’ Ernst said.
The Unteroffizier snorted. ‘We’re going a bit slow, Gefreiter, but we’re not that lost.’
‘No. I mean, India is where the English learned this tactic, knocking out the lead and rear vehicles. How infantry can strike at a mechanised column. It’s just what the Indians used to do to them in the Raj. I picked that up during our training in France.’
Kieser said, ‘After the way they fell over at Dunkirk I never thought the English would fight this hard. Inch by bloody inch, eh, boys?’
The Unteroffizier said, ‘But we’re still rolling, lads, that’s the thing to remember. The English are bastards, but we’re worse. Right? The column’s forming up again. Let’s get back in the truck.’
Cautiously Ernst and the others clambered out onto the road surface. The units that had gone scouring into the hillside returned to the road, the burned-out tanks were being shoved aside by the heavy-lift vehicles, and the lorries’ engines were coughing to life. A couple more vehicles lost, Ernst thought, and a bit more of their precious fuel used up.
The fuel was surely the crucial factor. The column had had no resupply since a convoy of fuel trucks had come up from the coast before it left Uckfield. There had been none of the supply dumps they had been promised, and not a single filling station had been found to contain a drop of unadulterated petrol. Already the fuel shortage was affecting the operation. Trucks had been abandoned, their tanks siphoned empty and their loads distributed among the surviving vehicles, and the flame tanks, so useful in country like this, had been neutered.
And even as he climbed back up onto the bed of his truck Ernst heard the drone of aircraft engines. The air war over the south coast had been going on all day; occasionally he glimpsed the metallic glint of a plane, or saw the bright colours of tracer fire. But this new engine noise, growing louder, was coming from behind him, from the north. He turned. A flight of Blenheims was sweeping down on the column, like predatory birds. Already the first sticks of bombs were falling from their bellies.
‘Oh, shit,’ said Kieser wearily.
Commands were barked out. ‘Get out! Get to cover!’ ‘Get those anti-aircraft guns deployed!’
Once again the column had to scatter; once again Ernst found himself in a ditch. The planes were slow, but the convoy had no cover; the Luftwaffe was evidently otherwise engaged.
‘Christ!’ Kieser shouted. ‘How do they know where we are?’
‘They’ve got radio direction finders,’ Ernst yelled back. ‘That’s how they know. And all these bloody partisans in the hills are reporting in every time we take a piss.’
The planes dipped lower, their machine-guns spitting fire, the bombs splashing craters into the road, and men began to scream. Ernst cowered in the dirt, burrowing into English autumn leaves, pulling his helmet low over his head.
XXXIII
The wooden blocks glided silently across the ops table, mirroring the blood and horror that must be unfolding out in the English countryside right at this moment. Gary wondered if these calm Wrens had night-mares.
He glanced at the big clock on the wall. Already it was almost two p.m.
‘It’s working,’ Mackie said. ‘It’s only bloody working. Look, can you see - there’s a lot of detail, but just concentrate on the Panzer divisions. You have the Tenth heading off east towards Ashford, and the Fourth pushing for Lewes. Well, they’re so far from any support they might as well go back home. But the main thrust, the main line of breakout, is coming from the Seventh and Eighth, pushing up from the Sussex coast towards Guildford. Just where we want them.’
There was a fuss around the ops table, and the Wrens started sliding their blocks across the map with increasingly frantic haste.
‘And it’s starting,’ Mackie said. ‘Our counterattack. About bloody time.’
‘Request leave to return to my unit, sir.’
‘Of course, Corporal. I’ve ordered a car for you. Tell Monty to give old Hitler one from me! Sergeant Blackwell?’
‘Sir. This way, Corporal...’
So Gary was led out of the bunker, bundled into a staff car, whisked out of the base, and rushed along roads crowded by troops and supply vehicles. There were a few civilians, fleeing north and west from the threatened towns of Sussex and Hampshire, the usual dreary parade of women and children and old folk. But such was the urgency now, and the volume of military assets on the move, that police, MPs and ARP wardens were peremptorily shoving the civilians off the road. It was all vividly real, after the monasticism of the ops room.
‘Quite a show, isn’t it, mate?’ shouted Sergeant Blackwell, over the roar of the engines. He was a bulky man with a fat, shaven neck, and what sounded to Gary like a strong London accent. ‘You pick up a lot down in that ops room. We’re putting up a fight. But it’s all we’ve got, isn’t it?’ Blackwell looked over his shoulder. ‘What we have in the field right now. I mean, this is all there is, between the Nazis and London. Has to work, doesn’t it, Corporal?’
‘I guess so.’
The car rushed on, taking Gary back to his unit.
XXXIV
It was around five in the afternoon when the full-scale English assault at last fell on them. It came from the west.
The column broke again. The infantry dug in, scrambling for ditches and abandoned English foxholes. The engineers laboured to set up the field guns, and the Panzer tanks charged west, off the road, their big guns roaring.
Ernst and Heinz Kieser found themselves in an abandoned Home Guard pillbox, splashed with blood and stinking of cordite and smoke. Through a ragged slit in the scorched concrete, Ernst could see the open country the English were coming from. He saw vehicles, tanks, and scurrying troops, advancing amid the detonations of shells and the rattle of small-arms fire. This was not local defence; this was not the Home Guard. This was the English army, kept in reserve since the invasion; this was the counterattack they had been expecting all day.
And while the battle was joined on the land, over Ernst’s head the aerial war was raging. It was clear that the English air force must be attacking the German advance, all along the roads back to the south, hoping to slice up the columns and then destroy the isolated elements. But now the English bombers and fighters were at last challenged by flights of Messerschmitts roaring up from the south, and Stuka dive bombers screamed down on English emplacements. The air was
full of streaking planes and the howl of engines and a lacing of fire - and, from time to time, a plume of smoke, an explosion in the air, the distant drifting of parachutes. A three-dimensional war, then, in the air and on the land.
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