by Colin Forbes
Too tired to talk, they ate in silence by the light of the nickering spirit stove -Pierre, Penn, and Reynolds sitting side by side along the pathway under the arch while the water gurgled past the tank's tracks. It was quite dark now and in the pale blue flame the tank looked enormous and strange, as though it stood in some war museum. Penn clapped a hand on the back of his neck and swore: it was after ten o'clock but the air was warm and muggy and the mosquitoes were active. He could hear one buzzing close to his ear and the blighter wouldn't go away. He hurried his meal, because until he had finished, Barnes, who was standing guard on the bridge, would have to go hungry. Now that he had got used to the idea, Penn rather liked the feeling of security of being tucked away under the bridge: it was like camping out in a cave, something he'd always enjoyed as a boy. He must remember to change Barnes' dressing and he'd insist on taking first guard duty on the bridge. It would make up for some of his grumbling during the day.
Half an hour later he had changed the dressing and had gone up to the bridge to mount guard. Barnes was sitting on the footpath as he put on his jacket again, thankful that the emergency dressing had been applied and feeling sufficiently better to appreciate his own state of incredible fatigue, but at least he felt more comfortable. As he dressed himself he looked sideways at Pierre. He had been conscious of the lad's fixed stare for several minutes.
'We may find somewhere to drop you off tomorrow,' he told him.
'That is for you to decide.'
'Yes, it is, isn't it? You'd better get some sleep now. We may have a long day ahead of us.'
'Can I take my share of guarding the bridge, Sergeant?'
'We'll see. Shut up chattering now and get down.'
Five minutes later Pierre was stretched out full length along the path, his feet to Barnes' head, his back against the wall of the bridge, an Army blanket loosely draped over his body. Reynolds had finished washing up in the stream and was settling down at the foot of the bank on the other side of Bert. Normally, he was a restless sleeper and he had wrapped himself in his blanket for fear of throwing it into the water during the night, but he had hardly put his head down before he was snoring loudly, deep in a sleep of sheer physical exhaustion.
Barnes, on the other hand, felt exhausted but not sleepy. It was eleven o'clock and jn two hours' time he would take over guard duty from Penn and later hand over to Reynolds for the last turn. His mind raced round like an engine out of control: the great thing now was to find some really worthwhile objective, to give the Germans a tremendous blow on the nose. Without realizing it, he eventually fell into uneasy sleep, in spite of a tiny portion of his mind which desperately begged him to stay awake.
THREE
Friday, May 24th
'Sergeant! Wake up! Wake up!'
Barnes opened his eyes instantly, blinking once, his hand automatically closing over the revolver he had hidden under the blanket.
'What is it, Penn?'
'Come up to the bridge - we've got company.'
Barnes had slept in his boots and now he sat up with the minimum of movement, glancing back at Pierre as he switched on the torch, shading it with his hand. Switching it off again immediately, he clambered to his feet and nearly fell into the river. Pierre lay in exactly the same position as when he had fallen asleep, one large hand resting limply outside the blanket. From the far side of the tank came a deep-throated snore. Reynolds was still putting his time to good use. Following Penn, Barnes climbed up the bank, digging in his toes and using his hand to follow the line of the wall. The illuminated hands of his watch, the watch he had borrowed from Penn, registered 1.30 am. Another two and a half hours to dawn. And Penn had let him oversleep by thirty minutes.
Coming up on the bridge he stopped as a chill ran through him. The moon was up and through the palely illuminated night to the south a column of lights was advancing towards them. In the heavy stillness of the early morning he could faintly hear the purr of many engines. He made a quick estimate of the number of vehicles, stopped counting when he had reached twenty, which was only a fraction of the total number of tiny lights.
'Penn, go down and wake Reynolds -• quietly. Tell him to get his damned boots on.'
'What about Pierre?'
'Don't wake him on any account.'
Barnes stood and waited, shivering a little from the cold. The nearest lights seemed closer now, the sound of the engines distinctly louder. This was no procession of refugees heading for the bridge: he could tell that from the orderly advance of the headlights, just sufficiently well spaced out to allow the whole endless column to move forward at a rate of about twenty miles an hour. Cocking his head to one side he listened carefully, but there was no sound of aircraft in the cloudless sky. Standing there on the bridge he could hear the gentle lapping of the river as it swirled round Bert in the cavern below, but the water sound was now being muffled by the steady revolutions of the motors of the approaching armada, which he was quite certain now was an Army column of enormous striking power. British, French, or German? Their very lives might hang on the answer to that question. A few minutes later he was listening even more intently as Penn stood by his side. No, he had not been mistaken. Above the engine rhythms he could detect a familiar sound - the steady rumble of tank tracks. They were standing in the path of an armoured column.
Scrambling down the side of the bank, finding his way by feel, he went in under the bridge and switched on his torch briefly. Reynolds was up and standing on the same side of the river as Pierre who had just laced up his shoes. The lad's hair was freshly combed and he was staring up at Reynolds who held a revolver in his hand.
'They'll be coming over the bridge in a few minutes,' Barnes snapped. 'It may be a Panzer column. Whatever happens you both stay here until I come back. Get it, Reynolds?'
He looked meaningfully at the driver and then scrambled back up the bank to where Penn still waited at the northern end of the bridge, just in time to see the corporal leave the road in a hurry as he plunged down the far side of the bridge. Instantly, Barnes moved sideways along the bank and hid himself behind a thick clump of wild shrubs. The next moment he heard the buoyant burst of a motor-cycle. Lights flashed, crossed the bridge, swerved round the corner, and headed north, immediately followed by a second cycle. The lights of the second patrol briefly lit up the first and in the side-car he caught a glimpse of a seated soldier who wore a pudding-shaped helmet, a machine-pistol cradled across his chest. It was Jerry all right. Christ!
Instead of following the first patrol towards Fontaine, the second motor-cycle reduced speed, swerved on to the grass, its headlights sweeping over the shrub where Barnes lay, then stopped, its engine still running. The soldier in the side-car stepped out and the cycle drove off, leaving the sentry who walked back to the bridge. Barnes lay very still as the German peered over the parapet on his side. A powerful torch beam flashed on and swept over the bank where they might have taken Bert down by the direct route to the river bed. Then it went out and he heard the sentry's feet march back to the end of the parapet. The torch flashed on again, pointing down the bank. It began to move forward and behind it feet slithered, recovered, and then started to feel their way down over the brambles. Barnes gritted his teeth. This was a thorough bastard. He was going to check under the bridge.
Without a sound, Barnes brought his right hand up to his hip, grasped the hilt of his knife and withdrew it from the sheath. The sound of the oncoming engines was much louder. He would have no time at all to work this trick. He lay still, listening to the sentry moving down the bank, praying that Perm wouldn't open fire. The German was only a few feet from Barnes as he passed him and his feet were making a row as they trod through the undergrowth. Lifting himself carefully to his feet, Barnes moved across to the wall under cover of the sentry's shuffling feet, leaning out his hand to contact the stonework. Then he began to follow the German down, left hand on the wall, right hand gripping the knife. He had to finish him with the first thrust. He could see the si
lhouette of the sentry clearly against the torch glow: any second now the torch would swivel left and shine on the stationary tank. What the German's reaction would be when he found that under the bridge was really something for the book. Stealthily, he went down the bank. There was one horrible moment when he nearly slipped, digging in his right heel desperately, his knife hand waving all over the place, but he regained his balance without the sentry hearing him. The German was about four feet ahead of him now, and beyond the bridge the purr of the motors grew steadily louder. He had to get a little closer. He stepped down farther and at that moment the German swung his torch sideways and the beam glared full on the menacing hull of the hidden tank, its two-pounder pointing downstream. Barnes sprang forward, knife held high, his body lunging forward and downward in one leap. The knife reached the sentry's back and stabbed clean through the greatcoat, penetrating the body deeply under the impetus of Barnes' violent thrust. They fell forward together on to the bank, the sentry groaning once as Barnes landed on top of him. The torch splashed in the river.
As he fell, Barnes smashed his forehead on the German's steel helmet, which stunned him for a second, but his brain forced him to his feet, still holding the knife hilt which he was pulling at savagely. It wouldn't come out. Penn appeared from under the arch.
'I was just going to shoot him.'
'That's what I was afraid of. Here, hold this.' He handed him his own torch which he had switched on. Then he was tugging the German over on his back, unhitching his steel helmet, which was a struggle because the head flopped back inside it. He got it loose and thrust the helmet at Penn. 'Get this on ... someone's got to act as sentry - they'll expect to see him. I'm too short so you've just volunteered. Grab his machine-pistol, man.' He was unbuttoning the greatcoat, trying to push the body over on its stomach and only succeeding when Penn helped him. The throb of the advancing engines resounded in his ears. 'Reynolds, you stay there with Pierre.' They had the sentry over on his stomach now, both of them hauling a sleeve over limp arms. 'The knife,' said Penn, 'we can't...' 'Yes, we can. You stand with your back to the bridge wall so they can't see it.' The sleeves were free now. Taking a firm hold of the coat, Barnes ripped it clean up over the haft of the protruding knife and helped Penn inside the coat. 'Now, follow me, but keep out of sight till I tell you - we may be too late...'
Scrambling back up the bank like a terrier, ripping his hands and face on the brambles, he reached the top and peered over the parapet. The leading vehicle was alarmingly close but its headlight beams hadn't yet reached the bridge. He could hear that deep-throated mechanical rumble clearly. They had tanks, all right.
'Just in time, Penn. Here, your top button's undone. Get over that side, your back to the wall. Hold the machine-pistol across your chest. All you have to do is to stand there so they see you. Away you go!'
Penn dashed across the bridge and took up his position. With a last look at the headlights, Barnes felt his way rapidly back down the bank, hand scraping over the wall. At the bottom he trod straight into the river and retrieved the sentry's lighted torch. Switching it off, he flung it under the bridge and got back on to the bank. Now for the really difficult part. Feeling around in the dark, his hands touched the sentry's legs, grabbed his ankles. He took a deep breath and began to move backwards under the arch, hauling the German with him. He wondered if he was going to make it: the body weighed several stones more than Barnes and it was like trying to shift a buffalo, but inch by inch he pulled it back until it was well under the arch. Then he bent down and toppled it over the edge so that it fell into the water between the river bank and Bert's right-hand track. As he stood up he found that his legs were trembling with the effort and sweat was streaming down his back and over his forehead. In standing up he bumped into someone. Pierre. His voice sounded strangled.
'I think I'm going to be ill - Reynolds attacked me.'
'Reynolds,' growled Reynolds, 'shoved a revolver Into his belly - he was trying to play hero. Wanted to come up and help.'
'Don't be ill over us,' snapped Barnes. 'You asked for it.'
'I think I will be all right.'
'Sit down, Pierre, and stay down.' Barnes reached out a hand in the dark and pushed it against Pierre's chest until he felt him sitting down on the footpath. 'And if we have one cheep out of you Reynolds will empty his gun into you ...' .
He stopped speaking, holding the wall for support. A vehicle rolled over his head. Twin beams swept over the river bank and briefly passed over the small copse in the field. Then they were gone as the vehicle proceeded north. In no time at all more wheels moved over them, more beams swivelled, then vanished. To make sure that Pierre understood the situation Barnes touched his head lightly with the muzzle of his revolver, bending down to whisper:
'Just keep it quiet, laddie, and you've nothing to worry about.'
Nothing to worry about, that's a good one, thought Barnes. Four more vehicles rolled over and then he heard a different sound coming, the smooth grinding clatter of heavy caterpillar tracks. The arch seemed to shiver as it rumbled over, little more than twelve feet above them, a German tank moving at medium speed. Before the rumble had disappeared they could hear the next monster approaching the bridge, reducing speed slightly, the tracks clanking like the tread of a small leviathan. As he leant against the stone wall Barnes felt scared stiff and wondered how poor Perm was feeling.
Penn was petrified, gripped by such a paroxysm of fear that he had almost lost all sense of feeling any emotion. He had just taken up his position when the first vehicle arrived, headlights briefly glaring in his face, then sweeping over the bridge, round the corner, and up the road towards Fontaine. An armoured car. Penn had stationed himself at a point where the bridge wall curved away from the road, so that he presented a profile to the oncoming vehicles - a profile of a pudding-shaped helmet, a greatcoat, and a machine-pistol. He held the weapon at an angle, its muzzle pointed across the road to be sure that they would see it. Another armoured car swept past and Penn began counting: Barnes would want to record the make-up of the column afterwards, always assuming that there was going to be an afterwards. As he stood there Penn was horribly aware that it only needed one vehicle with an officer to stop and he would be done for. Four more armoured cars drove past and then Penn experienced an even sharper terror as he heard the approach of a familiar rumble. The tanks were coming - they would have commanders erect in their turrets, men who would have time to look him over as the huge vehicles turned the corner. He froze rigidly, his hands locked so tightly over the machine-pistol that the muzzle began to quiver. Hastily, he loosened his grip and prayed as the first tank mounted the bridge, his eyes staring ahead at the opposite wall. When the vehicle drew level with his position his eyes were fixed at a point on the lower turret and he was conscious of the figure above. The tank moved past, went round the corner, picked up speed. He let out the breath he had been unaware he was holding and wondered how much more of this he could stand. The second one was coming over now...
In times of danger Penn had learnt to practise a little mental exercise which he called to himself 'putting the mind into cold storage'. It involved suppressing all feeling, all normal reactions, and was in fact a temporary suspension of the brain's activity by concentrating on one thing only: now he concentrated on his counting. He had counted the passage of twenty heavy tanks when he realized something - not one of the commanders had spared him a glance. As they came over the bridge they were far too concerned with getting their tank round the corner to bother about a sentry whose presence they accepted as part of the night landscape. Penn even reached the stage where he welcomed the arrival of a tank because he had discovered that the trucks of motorized infantry were far more dangerous. The first one to arrive gave him a frightful shock. As the headlights passed beyond him he was able to see it clearly - a replica of the one he had blown up with the two-pounder. The truck drove forward slowly and from under the rim of his helmet Penn saw the officer sitting beside the driver in his
cab. The officer looked sideways at Penn, then the cab was past. Without warning the open back presented itself to Penn, a back crammed with helmeted German infantry nursing their weapons. A sea of blank faces stared out at him as the truck back-fired at the corner and almost stopped. For God's sake keep moving, keep moving! The truck went round the corner and vanished. His hands were so wet now that he had difficulty in holding the weapon straight. Count, keep on counting. Nothing else matters but counting. He wiped his hands quickly on his greatcoat. Another truck now. The same frowning glance from a peak-capped officer, then the sea of staring faces at the back of the truck. He could do without any more of those. Send me some more tanks, please. He almost giggled at the thought and his own reaction bothered him. Was the fearful strain driving him round the bend? Watch it, another damned truce As the vehicle disappeared he heard Barnes' voice from behind the parapet at his back.