Tramp in Armour

by Colin Forbes

  'Now it really looks as though your crew has been in the wars.'

  'How are you feeling, Penn?'

  'Like a fortnight by the sea Would Abbeville be a good idea do you think?'

  'What about you, Reynolds?'

  Barnes turned to his driver with a special anxiety because without Reynolds the status of the unit was definitely noncombatant. Barnes could drive the tank but he couldn't from the driving compartment at the same time keep close all-round observation and operate the guns when necessary. Clinically he watched the process of Reynolds finding his way back inside the shirt Mandel was holding, noticing that Reynolds was able to bend his elbows and seemed to have full use of his hands. It was his face which worried Barnes most at the moment. Normally, Reynolds looked the picture of physical well-being, his complexion ruddy like that of a man who spent most of his life outdoors, but now the driver's face was chalk-white, drained of all colour.

  It's hitting him, thought Barnes. He's in a state of shock. It just depends on how he comes out of it. Reynolds still hadn't replied to the question and he remained silent while he fumbled with the shirt buttons. Then he reached for his battledress jacket but Mandel lifted it off the table, holding it open for his arms. Carefully, Reynolds slipped inside it, doing up the cuffs and then the buttons down the front. When he had finished he sat down heavily on the chair and picked up a glass of wine, draining the contents in one long swallow. Putting the glass down he looked up at Barnes, his voice a growl.

  'Give me half an hour and I'll drive you to the coast.'

  He's indestructible, Barnes told himself. He's been driving almost non-stop most of yesterday; he had two and a half hours' sleep last night, less the night before; both bis arms have been badly burned, and even now his voice sounds vigorous. He decided he still had a driver and went over to Penn, another face as white as death but here there was an awful weariness, and whereas Reynolds sat stiffly upright at the table Penn sank back limply as though he might never move again. He grinned up at Barnes.

  'I'm not as bad as I look. Fortunately.'

  'Of course you're not. I didn't see your arm - what's it like?'

  'A bit of a mess - but you should see Reynolds! I suppose you know the back of your own hand could do with a little attention?'

  He had just made the remark when Marianne took charge of Barnes, guiding him over to the sink where she held his hand under the cold water tap. The sudden icy douche made him jump and he saw that raw skin was peeled back and hanging loose. While she applied ointment and then a bandage he looked round the kitchen. At least the Mandels had avoided severe burning: Mandel himself had a few blisters on his right arm and he had lost half his eyebrows, but apart from a singed hair-line Etienne was untouched, probably because he had fought the fire from the seat of the power-grab. When he tried to thank them Mandel wouldn't listen, repeating that it was part of their war effort and that in any case the British were fighting for France as well as for themselves. Because there seemed to be no more to say Barnes went back outside to straggle with the engine.

  The hull was still very hot but he found that he could cope and he spent half an hour checking for the fault, feeling an enormous sense of relief that the tank had survived and enjoying himself once more with mechanical work, work which gradually drained away the tensions from his body. When he climbed down inside the driver's compartment the engine started first time. They were on their way.

  SEVEN

  Saturday, May 25th

  West and then north - that would be the route they would follow. The tank climbed up to the summit of the hill crest at top speed in the mid-morning sunshine. The rim of the turret was hot to the touch., but this heat came from the steady blaze of the sun rather than from the incandescence of fire. Looking back for the last time Barnes saw the tiny figures of the Mandel family standing outside their farm, then they vanished as Bert moved down the other side of the hill. The road ahead to Cambrai was deserted and the only sign of movement came from people working in the fields several kilometres from the roadside.

  In spite of his throbbing shoulder, his aching knee, his hand which burned as though a fire smouldered under Marianne's bandage, Barnes experienced a sense of quiet exhilaration: they were on the move again once more and now he knew exactly where he was heading for. His fateful decision to change direction - to head west and then north for Calais instead of north-west to Arras* - was based on a process of thought which had been going on inside Barnes' head for nearly two days, and he was compelled to rely on only two sources of information - the sketchy news bulletins and the evidence of his own eyes. It was what he had seen which more than anything else had convinced him that this was a revolutionary development in warfare based on the fantastic mobility of the tank.

  * The Allied forces had withdrawn from Arras at 10 pm on Thursday, May 23rd. During their brief counter-attack, I Army Tank Brigade halted the 7th Panzer Division commanded by Major-General Erwin Rommel and caused a panic in the German High Command.

  The Germans had disrupted all previous ideas of a static front line by driving their Panzer divisions non-stop across France, driving forward without any attempt to consolidate what they had conquered, relying almost entirely on the elements of surprise and terror to disorganize their enemy. The conclusion to be drawn seemed clear enough — providing one threw out of the window nearly all one's previous ideas of tank warfare. If the Panzers could move across such huge distances without waiting for the infantry to occupy them, then it should be possible for a lone British tank to come up behind them providing that it escaped detection. And then there was the question of the dumps. Barnes thought back over the conversation he had had with Jacques as he wrestled with the engine.

  'If you can drive all the way here from Abbeville, Jacques, you must have plenty of petrol.'

  'The Germans have plenty of petrol.'

  'What does that mean?'

  'You won't tell my uncle - he worries about these things?'

  'I asked you because we're out here on our own.' Barnes stopped working for a moment. 'Look Jacques, I've got to get an idea of the position as accurately as I can. You've been haring all over the countryside and you're the only one who can tell me.'

  'I took it from a German petrol dump near Abbeville. All I had to do was to creep under a wire fence well away from the guards and take what I wanted. They've threatened to shoot anyone found on what they call German property - but that's to scare people off because they can't guard the petrol.'

  'Something was said about ammunition dumps, too.'

  'The same with them. I got inside one place with a friend and there were shells and boxes of ammunition all over the place.'

  'I find that hard to believe, Jacques.'

  He flushed and then grinned. 'That is because you do not know what is happening. The German tanks and guns have broken through with their supply columns but the infantry have not yet reached them - so they can't guard their dumps properly.'

  'I'm beginning to get the idea,' Barnes encouraged him.

  'It is like the curfew in Cambrai, They say they will shoot anyone found on the streets at night but that is to scare people. I have heard that you can walk all through the town after dark without seeing one German soldier except near the town hall. I think,' he said shrewdly, 'the main reason for the curfew is so . that people will not know how few Germans there are in Cambrai at the moment.'

  'And you say the road to Abbeville is clear all the way?'

  'Except for Cambrai and the three road-blocks outside Abbeville. I could mark their position on this,' he offered, pointing to the map spread out over the hull.

  'Do that, would you?'

  He went oh checking the engine while Jacques marked the road-blocks and then asked a fresh question.

  'What about the roads south towards the Somme?'

  'I don't know the position there -I have not been that way, you see.'

  'And which route do you take when you by-pass Cambrai?'

  'Thi
s way, to the south. I will mark it for you.' When he had finished he looked up, his expression blank. 'If you turned north beyond Cambrai you might get through to Boulogne. I know a way which goes close to St Pol and Fruges, but it is not the main road - it ends up at Lemont where I live, near Gravelines. I have often used the route when driving from Lemont to Abbeville. I will mark that, too, just in case.'

  'Might as well.' Barnes was peering at the engine.

  'I feel perhaps I should have driven there instead of here,' went on Jacques as he marked in the route.

  'You'd have run into the Panzers.'

  'Possibly. I wonder? I think they went up the coast road here and my route is much farther inland. From what I have heard I believe there is a gap between the Panzers along the coast and the Allied lines near the frontier.'

  'Really?' Barnes kept his face blank, wondering whether he was fooling the sharp-witted youth. It hadn't escaped him that Jacques had carefully refrained from asking him which route they would be taking.

  'I'm going back to Abbeville later this morning. I want to tell my sister that Uncle is all right. Then I may drive on to Lemont. Plenty of petrol!'

  The trouble with this lad, Barnes was thinking, is that he's so excited by the war that he can't keep still, so he pinches Jerry petrol and then goes flying about all over the countryside to see what's going on. If he's not careful he's going to run into something.

  But it was from this conversation that Barnes had gleaned the final scraps of information which led to his ultimate decision, and as the tank rumbled down the hill away from the Mandels he was pretty confident that the French lad had no idea which route he was taking - something he had been particularly careful about in case the lad were picked up by the Germans and made to talk. He scanned the sky and it was empty, further proof that they were still moving through a vast gap in the Allied lines, since had there been any Allied forces in the area the Luftwaffe would have been bombing them. An hour later they had turned off the main road to Cambrai and had almost by-passed the southern approaches to the town. He called a temporary halt to go down and see Penn.

  'How's it going?' he asked him.

  'Not too bad, although I do feel a bit woozy. I'm getting double vision every now and again.'

  Penn was propped up with a wedge of blankets and he was trying to hold himself upright, but earlier when he had looked down into the fighting compartment Barnes had seen him sagging limply, his head flopped forward as though he couldn't hold it up any more. What the devil are we going to do with him, Barnes thought, but he spoke cheerfully.

  'Can you stand a bit more of this? I know the movement of the tank must be giving you hell.'

  'It's not so much that as the lack of fresh air down here. It's like sitting inside a furnace.'

  The description was apt enough. Even standing on the turntable for only a few minutes was enough to bring Barnes out in a prickly sweat and he was surprised that Perm was still conscious.

  'I'll be all right,' said Penn.

  'Do you want to try and stick your head out of the turret for a while?'

  'I doubt if I could get up there.'

  Barnes kept his face blank but a chill of fear gripped him. He had to keep moving, had to keep the tank heading west and then north, but he had to find a doctor for Penn, too. It seemed as though fate had deliberately kept Penn in a state where he was wounded but not desperately ill until they had left the Mandel farm, and now Penn was becoming desperately ill, Barnes had little doubt of that. His skin was a strangely pallid colour and his eyes appeared to have sunk.

  'The next place we come to we'll see if we can find a doctor,' he said.

  'Not necessary. I'm not doing anything except sitting and I'll probably feel better by evening. It's just this heat.' He tried to speak lightly. 'Calais next stop?'

  'We've a long way to go before we get there, Penn.' 'How far is it?' 'About a hundred miles.' 'Seven hours' drive if Bert goes flat out.' 'You're assuming there'll be nothing in the way, Penn. We can count on there being plenty in the way.'

  It seemed an odd way for Barnes to be talking to a seriously wounded man but already he was foreseeing the moment when they would have to leave Penn behind if they could find a sanctuary for him. The realization of what they were driving into might make that moment when they left him a little less hard to bear. He hoped so. He also hoped that they found that sanctuary soon. Considering his physical state, Penn's mind was remarkably alert.

  'A hundred miles, you said. Have we got the diesel for that?'

  'Yes, with what we took off Lebrun, that is, providing we keep to the road all the way, which we probably won't. You know what happens when we move across country - fuel consumption is doubled.' 'You know what,' Penn began brightly, 'I think we're going to make it. I've had a bit of time to think down here and it strikes me there may not be all that much in our way if we keep a sharp lookout.' He paused and Barnes realized that Penn was wondering whether anyone was observing.

  'It's all right, Penn. I told Reynolds to get out and stand on the hull while I was down here. Now, what were you thinking?'

  'Well, Jerry is pushing on fast with his tanks and his popguns but the old foot-sloggers haven't put in much of an appearance down here yet. I reckon that with a lot of luck we could sneak up behind those Panzers before we run into much. Then it's up to us.'

  'We might do just that, Penn.'

  'And by that time I'll have pulled myself together. You'll see me hugging the old two-pounder again before we reach Calais. You can bet on it.'

  'I never bet on certainties, Penn.'

  With a heavy heart Barnes climbed back into the turret, told Reynolds in a loud voice that Penn was coming along nicely, and then gave the order to advance. Half an hour later he looked back along the road, frowned, and grabbed his binoculars. The twin circles of glass brought forward a four-seater Renault with a single occupant, the driver. Jacques was racing towards them on his way to Abbeville.

  The twin circles of glass focused and brought forward a toy line of white cliffs glistening in the sunlight. The white cliffs of Dover. General Storch lowered his binoculars and frowned.

  'There we are, Meyer, the citadel of the enemy - the main enemy. Let us hope the 14th Panzer Division will be the first to be put ashore on the British beaches.'

  'We have to beat them over here first,' Meyer pointed out.

  'That will be dealt with in the next forty-eight hours. Here we stand on the coast west of Calais with our forward troops on the Gravelines waterline and Calais is under siege. Now we only have to take Dunkirk and the whole British Army is surrounded.'

  Meyer screwed his monocle into his eye and found that he was looking through a film of perspiration. In the hour of victory he felt exhausted, overwhelmed by the dazzling series of triumphs Storch had produced since that day so long ago when they crossed the Meuse at Sedan. So long ago? It was the afternoon of Saturday, May 25th, and they had made their way over the pontoons at Sedan on May 14th. Meyer felt stunned. Perhaps, after all, this was a war for the younger men, for the Storches. The general stood gazing out to sea, talking rapidly.

  'I want an immediate investigation made of this French Fascist's story - that informant from Lemont. He says there is a second road direct to Dunkirk - a road the enemy may' not know about now that the sluice gates have been opened.'

  'The French were very quick about that - the floods will make it very difficult for the Panzers to move on Dunkirk...'

  Storch broke in impatiently. 'This is why this second road may be decisive. I want you to interrogate this man personally.'

  'I can't find such a road on any map...'

  'But that is the whole point, Meyer. Our Fascist friend has explained that for some reason it is not included on most French maps. So if the British are holding the sector at the other end they may not know it exists now it is under water. Even if there are French units in that sector they will probably come from another part of France. That road could be the key to final victo
ry - the road along which the Panzers will advance to Dunkirk.'

  'I don't think we should count on it.'

  They paused as they heard the humming sound of a host of engines above them. Craning their necks they stared into the sky where an armada of small grey dots was approaching from the east, the humming growing steadily louder as the planes came forward like a swarm of angry bees. Storch nodded his head in satisfaction.