by Colin Forbes
'In that general direction, yes.'
'Don't forget the Jerry tank Lebrun warned us about - the swine could have been telling the truth about that. Sorry I can't handle the gun,' he repeated.
'Don't worry about it. I'll act as my own gunner till we get you fixed up.'
'Bet you could do with a bit of a sit-down yourself.'
'More fresh air up there, my lad. We'll get under way now.'
Yes, I could do with a bit of a sit-down, Barnes thought as he gave the order to advance from the turret. It was five o'clock in the afternoon and the sun scorched down as the tank headed westward, the tracks grinding up fresh clouds of dust from the powdered rubble, dust which obscured his vision so that he was constantly waving his hand in an attempt to see clear ahead.' To ease the strain on Penn he had told Reynolds to move at low speed, but it was not entirely a feeling for his corporal's comfort which prompted his instruction. He wanted Penn to be as strong as possible when the time came -. the time to take out the bullet.
Heaven knew when they would find a doctor and Barnes was not prepared to leave the leaden obstruction festering in Penn's shoulder. He wished that he knew whether a missile fired from an old hunting rifle was more or less dangerous than a .303 bullet lodged in the same place. He simply had no idea, but there was one small mercy - the bullet appeared to be close to the surface, wedged in down the side of the bone. Extracting the bullet successfully was not likely to be an easy matter, but at least he had had to perform a similar operation once before in India when they had come under fire from hostile tribesmen in a remote spot. He hoped that he could remember how he had managed it then. One basic thing it did involve and that was laying Penn face down on his stomach, and there were less cruel surfaces than dust and rubble for such an operation. He shaded his eyes and gazed ahead, eager for his first sight of open country and fresh green.
They reached the end of the town without warning. One minute they were driving through a street of badly bombed houses and then they turned a corner and France spread away in front of them, a vast landscape of green fields as far as the eye could see, a haze of shimmering heat close to the horizon. Barnes heaved an audible sigh of relief.
Half an hour later there was still no sign of the German tank which Lebrun had mentioned but they were approaching a spot which seemed ideal for Barnes' purpose. They had just come over a small rise and close to the road stood a large empty ,farm building: he could see that it was empty because the large double doors had been left wide open. There was no sign of a farmhouse nearby and he could scan the road in both directions for over a mile. Nothing in sight anywhere. The building provided perfect cover for Bert in case enemy aircraft flew over while he was at work, and bombing was the last activity he wished to attract while he was treating Penn. He gave Reynolds the order to turn off the road and 'they moved along a short track which led inside the building. As the engines were switched off he went down inside the tank and saw that Penn was looking better in spite of the ride.
'Penn,' he said, 'you'd better treat yourself to another tot of cognac. I'm taking out that bullet.'
The floor of the farm building showed traces of animals, which would increase the danger of infection enormously, so reluctantly Barnes decided that they would have to do it outside. At least the light was better there. They spread blankets over clean grass and laid a groundsheet over the blankets. Then Penn lay stomach down on the groundsheet while Reynolds boiled water. He was stripped to the waist now. Barnes had removed his jacket and rolled up his shirt-sleeves. When the water was ready he took one last look along the road in both directions, scanned the sky, and started.
'Reynolds is going to sit on your shoulders,' he explained. 'We've got to be sure you're kept perfectly still.'
'I can dig my fingers into the ground.'
'You'll be doing that, anyway, my lad. And Reynolds will be holding down your elbows.'
'Good old Reynolds. With his weight he'll probably flatten me to a pancake.'
'And don't be in such a hurry to kiss mother earth, Penn. Here, drink this.'
He poured a generous quantity of cognac into a mug and made Penn drink it quickly. If only he could get him drunk that would help, but he knew from previous experience that Penn's ability to absorb alcohol was phenomenal.
'There'll be the same for you afterwards,' he told him.
'Almost worth it - to get rations like this.'
'Ready?'
'Get it over with.'
Reynolds sat his whole weight on Penn's shoulders, twisting himself sideways so that he could press his huge hands over Penn's elbows. The field dressing came off with a quick rip and Barnes used antiseptic cotton wool to sponge off a mess of ooze. Then he reached for the knife in the boiling water: he was using Reynolds' sheath knife, a knife the driver kept honed sharp as a razor, the point like a needle. Barnes took a deep breath, he wanted to get this over with quickly.
It took him five long minutes, and whether this time was longer for Barnes or Penn no one would ever know. Only Penn experienced the searing, agonizing, hellish pain which went on and on, stabbing and gouging into the ultra-sensitive wound like a red-hot poker, then turning and grinding and driving deeper and deeper until he thought that he must have reached the ultimate of all pain, only to feel through the burning hot scalpel another wave of torture twisting and disembowelling flesh which had become a million times more sensitive to even the lightest of touches, let alone to this fiendish probe which was thrusting and tearing right through his body until his brain pleaded and screamed for relief, for death, for anything but a continuation of this incredible agony ...
Barnes drew the knife firmly between bullet and bone, and the scrape of knife on bone brought on the ultimate agony for Penn. He really felt that his entire shoulder was being amputated with a blunt butcher's knife. Moaning horribly, as he had been doing for several minutes, he buried his fingers deep in the ground, biting his teeth together like a steel vice. In some superhuman way he was still managing to keep his tongue at the back of bis mouth, knowing in a strangely disembodied corner of his brain that he was in grave danger of biting clean through his tongue. And at that moment Barnes remembered and his hand almost slipped. He'd forgotten. He should have rammed a handkerchief into Penn's mouth. He'd bite his tongue in half. He couldn't stop now. He pressed the knife in deeper between bone and bullet, not realizing that it may have been this omission which kept Penn sane and conscious - the knowledge that he must protect his tongue, keeping it well back, well back. And in his stupefied state Penn had no idea that Barnes was in trouble: 'the bullet wouldn't shift. He had cut all round, he had loosened it from the bone, he had prised underneath, but the bullet simply wouldn't shift. Then he heard the planes coming.
Glancing up he saw the flight of Messerschmitts. They were flying in formation about a thousand feet above the ground, their course roughly parallel with the road. Without hesitation Barnes put his head down and went on with his task, refusing to allow the oncoming roar of the engines to divert him. Penn had his fingers dug deep in the groundsheet now, turning his head from side to side as he moaned quietly like an animal in its death throes. Reynolds was leaning his whole weight on the elbows, and he hadn't looked up once when he heard the planes coming. If it was all right with Barnes it was all right with him. They were almost overhead now, and then they sped past, unaware of the drama below. Barnes took a deep breath, said Sorry, laddie under his breath, and scooped much deeper, turning the knife with great deliberation, then he hoisted. The bullet flicked up-from his knife and landed on the groundsheet. Done it!
As he disinfected, sponged, and dressed the wound he tried to tell Penn that it was all over, that it was all right now, but Penn was too far gone to understand. Barnes applied the dressing quickly but carefully, feeling an enormous wave of relief, and then a wave of fatigue swept over him and he nodded to Reynolds to get up as he gripped Penn's left arm.
'It's done, Penn. The bullet's out and I've put a fresh dressing on.
It's all right, Penn.'
Penn turned his head, his eyes dazed, his face wet and drawn, looking at Barnes without seeing him.
'It's all right now, Penn. You can have your cognac.'
Penn opened his mouth to say something and fainted.
'Damn him,' said Barnes. 'Why couldn't he have done that five minutes ago?'
It was close to dusk and the tank was rumbling steadily forward when they first saw the farm, an isolated spot in the middle of nowhere. Would the inhabitants be friendly, Barnes wondered, and he prayed that they would be because the tank crew was near the end of its tether.
It had been eight o'clock in the evening before he had felt that Penn was fit enough to travel, as far as any man could be said to be fit to travel inside a tank two hours after a bullet had been removed from his shoulder. While Penn rested, Barnes and Reynolds had worked non-stop under the heat of the sun attending to the tank's" maintenance. Their work completed, they had turned to the nightmare task of lowering and settling Penn inside the tank and as they wedged him in with several blankets he had protested.
'You don't have to make all this fuss. For your information I'm already feeling a lot better with that bullet outside me.'
'Shut up^and try to get some rest,' Barnes had told him. 'You ought to be blind drunk now with the cognac you've consumed.'
'When I was in London, Sergeant, the deb girls used to have some trouble getting me drunk.'
'I thought it was supposed to be the other way round."
'Then clearly you weren't in demand like I was.'
Even this short exchange of banter seemed to exhaust Penn and he relapsed into silence as Barnes checked the firing mechanism and then climbed back into the turret. Giving the order to advance, he forced himself to stand erect as the tank left the building, proceeded down the track and turned on to the road to the west - the road to Cambrai, with Arras beyond.
An hour later Barnes was still in the turret and the tank was still rolling forward. To make sure Reynolds kept alert he spoke to him frequently over the intercom because by now even the driver was showing signs of strain and Barnes was hoping to God that they wouldn't meet the enemy before nightfall. The unit was in no shape to fight a cat at the moment. They were approaching the top of a hill and he couldn't yet see over the other side. Standing up on his toes, he waited for the moment when he could see what lay ahead. When they moved over the top he saw the farm.
It was standing by the roadside half a mile ahead. Focusing his glasses he saw a farmhouse, several outbuildings, a haystack close to the verge, and a man working in the fields. As they came closer he saw a woman leave the man to walk back to the farmhouse while nearby another man was driving across the fields on an orange tractor. From the farmhouse chimney a coil of smoke rose, climbing vertically into the evening sky as the sun neared the horizon, a blood-red disc which promised yet another glorious tomorrow. Would they be friendly? Was it possible that they could tell him of a place where the tank and its crew could spent the night out of sight? And, above all else, would they sell them some food? He doubted it. They were under partial German occupation and probably already they were learning to watch their step. 'German occupation.' The phrase ran through his mind and he thought of what Lebrun had said. 'The Germans are in Abbeville...' Lebrun must have lied about that: if it were true it could mean that the war was lost. Perhaps at least this farmer would be able to tell him about Abbeville. As they drew close to the farm the man left the field and stood waiting by the roadside, and as he watched him Barnes heard a familiar sound a long way off, no more than a distant mutter but he immediately identified the sound of heavy artillery firing. The guns of Arras? They were approaching the battle area. It was the evening of Friday May 24th.
Four days earlier, at 7 pm on Monday May 20th, the Panzers entered Abbeville. Before dusk General Storch had set up his new headquarters inside a school building on the northern outskirts of the town.
He always made a point of establishing new field headquarters as close as possible to the point where his next advance would begin, and the new direction for the Panzer onrush would be north, north towards the Channel ports. But as he completed inspecting his temporary new home Storch was in a state of almost uncontrollable fury, a fury which as usual he vented on Meyer.
'They must be mad,' he thundered, 'completely insane. Out of their minds, Meyer!'
The High Command, General?'
Meyer straightened some papers on the desk, making a neat pile by squaring them up with the palms of his hands. He was standing up because Storch had just risen from his chair, sending it over backwards with the abruptness of his movement, but in spite of the fact that he was the victim of Storch's tirade Meyer was in an excellent humour.
'The people who drafted this order, Meyer.' Storch waved the wireless message savagely. 'All Panzer divisions are to halt temporarily on their present positions pending further instructions. Why stop when you are winning? Always go on to the end, Meyer, always go on as long as your tanks have a litre of petrol left. That is the way to win wars.'
'I suppose General Guderian has his reasons.'
Their normal roles were almost reversed, because now it was Meyer who spoke silkily, careful to keep his voice sympathetic, but underneath he was experiencing a sense of triumph. At last the High Command was seeing the folly of this reckless onrush into the unknown. But here Meyer had overplayed his hand because Storch had a sensitive ear for voice tones and now regarded his GSO thoughtfully, his manner suddenly calm.
'You mean General Guderian is worried about the Panzers?'
It was a subtle manoeuvre and Meyer instantly felt that he was losing ground. Everyone was aware that Guderian, the Corps Commander, was almost as great a firebrand as Storch himself, and Meyer had little doubt that Guderian was at this moment raging and fuming about the order he had been compelled to pass on to the divisional commanders. So if Storch took it into his head to dismiss Meyer from his post Guderian would completely agree with the decision - once it came out that Meyer had said Guderian wished to halt the Panzers.
'I was referring to Army Headquarters,* of course,' he said hastily.
* Meyer was actually referring to the Army Group commander, General von Rundstedt, who personally sent this halt order. The conflict between the two schools of thought - those for advancing nonstop and those who preached caution - raged ferociously through the entire campaign.
But now Storch was re-reading the message and the cynical expression under the peaked cap bothered Meyer. Surely he couldn't twist this order to his advantage? Storch threw the message down on his desk and asked Meyer to read it again, then went on speaking.
'They probably don't realize that we are still as fresh as when we came over the bridges at Sedan. It's understandable, is it not, Meyer, when you think of the remoteness of Army Headquarters? I think a little reassurance would help. Send this message. Road to Boulogne open. Division ready to advance.'
'Ready to advance?' Meyer stared in amazement at Storch. 'Fifty per cent of our vehicles are in desperate need of maintenance and the men have had very little sleep for over ten days.'
'You mean half our tanks have broken down?'
Meyer swallowed. Storch knew perfectly well that he hadn't meant that. 'No, sir, but there may soon be breakdowns...'
'The tanks require urgent maintenance?' Storch's own voice was silky now, almost a purr. 'That's what you mean, isn't it, Meyer?'
'Yes, sir.'
'I agree. You are right, of course. It therefore becomes a matter of top priority to work on the tanks through the night.'
'We have arranged for a night shift...'
'All the fitters, Meyer. They must all work non-stop through the night if they are capable of standing on their feet. Any fitter on the sick list who is capable of walking must immediately be put to work.'
'But the men themselves..."
'I expect you to supervise the operation personally. Through the night,' he added maliciously.
/> Meyer screwed in his monocle, his face blank. Storch was well aware that he had been up most of last night and Meyer was a man who needed eight hours' sleep. He's punishing me, Meyer thought, punishing me because I dared to look pleased at the order to halt the Panzers. He waited, seeing that Storch hadn't finished with him yet. The general picked up the order again.
'I think we have misunderstood what lies behind this message, Meyer. It ends with the words "pending further instructions". I think I can predict that those will be for us to resume our advance, so it becomes vitally important to be ready, Meyer. Do you not agree?'
'Yes, sir.'
'We are now close to the jugular vein of the British Expeditionary Force - the Channel ports. Once we start moving north we shall capture Boulogne, Calais, and Dunkirk within two days, maybe even only one day. Then the British are finished.'
'Two days?' Meyer was stunned.
'At the most. Now, you must hurry.' Storch walked to the door and then turned before leaving the room. 'And don't forget that message, Meyer. Road to Boulogne open. Division ready to advance.'