Tramp in Armour

by Colin Forbes

  He was still turning over an idea which he had not yet mentioned to the others - the idea of keeping going through the night, headlights ablaze like the Panzers. The Germans won't be expecting anything coming up behind them. He felt sure that their eyes would be glued to the battlefield ahead, and a vehicle moving through the night with its headlights full on looked very innocent from a distance, until they had the enemy within two-pounder range, anyway.

  They were moving into a more populated area and now he saw people working in the fields some distance from the road. To the north several orange-coloured tractors moved slowly across the landscape which was so flat that it reminded him of Holland, although there was a small ridge over to the right. They were in the heart of the Pas de Calais now, roughly midway between Bethune and Etaples. It was incredible, thought Barnes, to have come all this way from Etreux in a vast semicircle round the southern flank of the battle zone - but no more incredible than the lightning dash of the Panzer spearhead from the German border to the gates of Boulogne. I'll go on through the night, he decided, by God, I will. The people in the fields had stopped work to watch the tank, standing as motionless as scarecrows on a windless day. Then 'he caught sight of movement to his left, lifted his glasses, and his heart jumped. Another of those sinister dust clouds, only just visible in the fading light, but under the cloud he could see small square shapes moving towards him across country. Panzers!

  He issued orders instantly and the tank turned off the road to the right, moving over the field towards the low ridge, the only defence feature in sight. When they reached it he manoeuvred Bert until he faced the oncoming enemy in a hull-down position, the greater part of the tank concealed behind the ridge so that only the turret projected in the open. A quarter of a mile away a farmer on his orange tractor changed direction, heading across the field to take a closer look at the intruder. Flip off, Barnes told him mentally, or you'll cop a Jerry shell.

  'Two-pounder. Traverse right. Right! Steady!'

  The turret swung him round and steadied. Perfect. Davis could have done no better, and Davis had been good.

  'Range six hundred. Six hundred.'

  Barnes had the glasses pressed into his eyes as he watched the dust cloud's progress. It appeared to be moving across their line of fire now. Was it possible that in the uncertain light of dusk that they hadn't been spotted after all? In less than five minutes he knew that the Panzers had another objective altogether, somewhere far to the north. He didn't know whether to feel relieved or disappointed. It was almost dark as he gave them the news over the intercom, following it up with the order to advance.

  To save tune and to avoid the farmer on the tractor who was close behind him now, Barnes guided the tank towards the road along a different course from the one which had brought them to the ridge, moving at an oblique angle which would take them back on to the road some distance north of the point where they had left it. The tank completed its quarter-turn and rumbled forward over the grass, leaving a faint trail of chalk as the substance disengaged itself from the tracks. It may have been the treacherous light of dusk, or it may have been the throbbing of his wound which grew worse towards night: it may have been a combination of these two factors which momentarily robbed him of his normal lynx-eyed observation, but whatever the cause Barnes failed to see the change in the texture of the land they were crossing, failed to see that whereas a moment ago they were passing over green grass and baked earth, now the grass was sparser, growing in isolated tufts, and even where it grew its colour was a strange, almost sinister acid green colour.

  His first warning of the danger was the moment when the tank stopped moving forward, although its huge tracks continued to churn round, moving uselessly as the whole tank slowly began to tilt. The tilting motion was in a backward direction, so slight that at first Barnes wondered whether he was suffering from an attack of dizziness, but as the motion continued and he looked quickly over the side the awful truth dawned. They were sinking, sinking more rapidly as the quagmire sucked at the tracks, dragging over twenty-six tons of tank downward into its drowning grip.

  NINE

  Saturday, May 25th

  His instinct was to give the order to reverse, to take the tank backwards on to the firm ground they had left. Opening his mouth, he closed it again without speaking. Work this out, Barnes, and quickly. The front seems stable, so it may be on solid ground; only the back is going down. If you reverse you may never reach firm ground. Switching on his pocket torch, ' he swept the beam behind the tank. They appeared to have broken up a very thick crust of earth baked hard by weeks of sunshine, exposing a horrible sticky ooze lower down which gleamed in the torchlight. Go forward then? Climbing out of the turret he walked forward over the left-hand track, sat down and gingerly lowered one leg. Firm enough. But in the beams of the headlights he had told Reynolds to switch on he could see the same type of pallid baked earth, the surface cracked with tiny fissures. Was that firm ground or were they perched on an island of solidity with more quagmire ahead? At least the tank had stopped tilting backwards now, as though it had found a precarious equilibrium. Colburn came out of the turret and climbed down on to the hull.

  'What are you playing at, Sergeant?'

  'We've run into a bog. It's as soft as butter behind us now and I'm not too sure of this lot. Get ready to grab me - I'm going to test it for firmness.'

  He lowered his full weight on his right leg and the ground held, but it was rather like treading on a sponge. He slipped the other leg down and stood up, felt a crumbling sensation under his left leg and the ground caved in. He started to go down, suddenly up to his knees in filthy ooze. Hands grabbed him from behind, hauled him bodily backwards and lifted, sitting him back on the track, legs astraddle it. Carefully, he turned round and scrambled back on to the hull.

  'Thanks, Colburn. You just about saved my bacon there. No way ahead and no way back. Get me a rope from that box near the compass. I've got to find out how far away we are from the shore.'

  He waited until Colburn had emerged from the turret again and then tied a loop under his shoulders, handing the free end to the Canadian. The tractor had arrived now and it stood on the bank of the quagmire with its headlights beamed direct on to the tank, blinding Barnes as he made his way along the rear track while Colburn stayed on the hull. The farmer was shouting non-stop across the quagmire in French and with his limited knowledge of the language Barnes, couldn't understand a word. If only they'd speak slower. He shouted back slowly in English that he was crossing to the bank and received an outburst in reply. Looking back to make sure that Colburn was in position, he pulled a face.

  'Pity you don't speak French as well as handling machine guns.'

  'I know German. Do you think he might savvy that?' 'Don't try it, for God's sake. He's probably only friendly because we're British.' 'How can he know that?'

  'Because of the uniform - he must have seen enough of them before we decided to trot off into Belgium. Here goes. Don't haul me back unless I'm in real trouble. I've got to find out how far it is to the bank.'

  'You can see that by the tractor.'

  'He'll be yards farther back than he need be. It must be his quagmire.'

  Reaching out sideways well beyond the track his right foot touched firmness. But for how long? He put his full weight on it and the ground held. He put his other leg down and there was no feeling of sponginess. He was away from the tank now. Get on with it. A bold step forward with the right leg: it landed on more firmness, a tuft of grass. Were they really as close as this to safety? He lifted the other foot and when it reached the earth it went on going down at an alarming rate, straight through the crust into liquid mud which sent up a dank nauseating smell. Jerking his other foot off the tuft he thrust it forward as far as he could and it hit solid earth, his legs splayed wide apart in front and behind him. He tried to heave the rear foot loose but found he was in serious trouble: it had sunk in up to the knee and the quagmire was wrapped round his leg like some monst
rous sea creature determined to suck him down into its lair. Fighting down a rising sense of panic, he heaved again with all his strength, feeling the leg coming up reluctantly, mud oozing and sucking as he pulled. Then it came free with a jerk and he fell flat on his face, aware that the ground under his body was hard and still. Strong hands locked under his shoulders and helped him to his feet. By the light of the tractor's beams he looked into the farmer's face, the long lean face of a man in his forties, still babbling away in French.

  'Thanks,' said Barnes. 'Can you speak more slowly?' ,

  Unlooping the rope from his shoulders, he looked behind the Frenchman to where the tractor stood and then walked up to it. Tied to the side were half a dozen iron stakes with ring heads: the stakes were at least sis feet long and the farmer had obviously been erecting a fence.. With sign language he indicated that he needed the stakes and the farmer nodded his head vigorously in agreement. Cutting the rope with his knife he carried three of the stakes to the bank and called out:

  'Get Reynolds up on to the hull. He's to get the two steel tow-lines and attach them to the rear of Bert. I need a hammer over here, too. This chap's got some iron stakes - if we can fix the tow-lines to them it may stop Berk sinking any deeper while we think up something.'

  'OK.'

  While he was waiting the farmer began to make a great effort to tell him something in a few words of English, spacing out the words one by one in his anxiety to convey the message.

  'Stop ... stop ... there!' He pointed at the tank. 'I bring big big wood.' He was gesturing madly, scooping his hand as he pointed at the tank again. 'Big wood. Back soon. You wait.'

  What the hell else can we do, Barnes wondered. Colburn had reacted quickly and he threw the hammer into the pool of light from the tractor just before the machine was driven off. To start with, Barnes had to hammer the stakes down in the dark, but once he had them firmly embedded he held the torch in his left hand and hammered with his right. Reynolds had attached the two lines to the rear of the hull long before Barnes had driven in the stakes so deep that he thought they should hold up Bert for at least a while, at least until the farmer came back, if he came back.

  The quagmire was an eerie place at night and even though it was now completely dark he could see the tank's silhouette outlined against its own lights. The shadows of Reynolds and Colburn waited on the hull and somewhere far above them a squadron of planes flew through the night at a great height. It was still very warm and muggy and the mosquitoes were active now, biting the back of his neck. He was only satisfied when the stakes were several feet into the ground and then he flashed his torch to show the edge of the quagmire.

  'Before you throw me the tow-lines, is Bert still sinking?'

  'I don't think so.' Colburn's voice. 'I think the tank's balanced on the island for the moment but it's still badly tilted at the back.'

  'As far as I could make out that farmer is coming back with a load of heavy wood. That's all I could get but I imagine he's got some idea of bridging this gap. Now, I'll stand well back, Reynolds, so throw me the first line.'

  The loop landed within inches of the stakes where Barnes had left his lighted torch on the ground. He wrapped the line tightly round the stakes close to the ground and then passed the end through an iron ring. When the second tow-line arrived he repeated the process. Now all they could do was to wait, hoping that the farmer would come back and that he would bring something they, could use. Occasionally he called out to the men on the tank, but carrying on a conversation across the quagmire seemed pretty unsatisfactory so soon they said nothing and the minutes dragged by with agonizing slowness. Leaving the headlights on bothered Barnes because this drew attention to them from the road, but he decided that they must risk keeping them on to make sure that the farmer could find them. They waited a whole hour before lights appeared across the field behind them, and then the tractor chugged across the grass and pulled up close to the bank. Barnes ran forward to see what the farmer had brought, and for a moment he couldn't see anything until the man pointed to behind the vehicle. He had dragged across the field two immense beams of wood which were attached to the back of the tractor by chains. While the farmer undid the chains Barnes measured their length by pacing. About ten feet long. He would have put the distance between the shore and the front of the tank at twelve feet, but that was only a rough guess. They'd just have to try it, anyway - as a fighting vehicle Bert might just as well be at the bottom of the swamp as immobilized on that island when daylight came. He stood on the bank and explained the plan carefully to Colburn and Reynolds, but that was the easy part. He now had to explain it to the farmer, and this was only achieved by careful gesturing. It became clearer when Reynolds had thrown two coils of rope on to the bank, and then they started.

  The first stage involved careful cooperation between Barnes and the farmer because the wooden beams were enormously heavy and extremely unwieldy. They tied one rope tightly round the end of the longest beam and then began to invert it so that the roped end was lifted over their heads. As the huge beam rose higher and higher Barnes kept a firm grip on the loose end of the rope. The beam was slowly moving up to the vertical but the really tricky part was coming when they tried to Control its falling movement as it passed beyond the vertical, lowering it under control so that the far end could be dropped just below the right-hand track and form a bridge to dry land - if the beam would reach that far. The beam reached its apex and began to topple. They just managed to prevent it crashing down as they both held-on to the rope, and the farmer was sensible enough to let Barnes guide its controlled fall. It dropped lower and lower, scraped the front end of the right-hand track and settled. Would it begin sinking or had they managed to prop it on the tip of the island? The lights of the tractor were again beamed directly on the tank and as far as he could tell the beam was stable.

  'Nice work,' shouted Colburn. 'Looks OK to me.'

  'Right. Now for the next one.'

  The second beam was successfully manoeuvred in direct line with the left-hand track, but it fell short. Not more than a foot, Colburn informed him, but it had fallen short of the island and was sinking slowly. Slowly? Barnes wondered - did that mean it had settled on a patch of fairly firm ground? The quagmire must be unusually solid at this particular point if a beam of such enormous weight was sinking slowly - whereas Barnes had felt his leg knifing through the -mud. They'd just have to risk it, and at least they had the two beams placed so that they formed a bridge from the present position of the tank to the shore. He reached up and felt his shoulder gingerly. He'd ripped that wound open again. When he was lowering the second beam he had been aware of a slow tearing sensation and now he could feel stickiness round the edge of the dressing. He set about enlisting the farmer's aid for the final, possibly fatal, stage, and this time he was able to explain quickly what he wanted by sign language. They undid the tow-lines from the iron stakes after the farmer had reversed his tractor, then re-attached them to the rear of the tractor, Barnes tried to explain that he must synchronize his movements with those of the tank - that they must both move at the same moment, and he hoped to God that the farmer understood that the signal would be when Barnes shouted 'Maintenant'. Now. Since the farmer went on repeating the word about two dozen times Barnes felt that he had probably grasped it. Now to get back to the tank.

  He was careful to choose the right-hand timber and when he walked along it he lit his way with his torch beam which splayed over the edge, showing a gleam of insidious ooze waiting for him where the crust had broken. Reaching the tank, he checked the position of the timbers. The right-hand one was fine, perfect, in fact, but the left-hand one wasn't at all good. The breadth of the gap between timber and island looked more like eighteen inches. He explained it carefully to Reynolds.

  'You'll have to reverse back along exactly the course we came over - then the tracks will move along the beams. This isn't going to be a picnic and you might as well know what could go wrong. The beams could crack under Ber
t's weight, and they probably will at some stage. One of them could slip off this island after we've started. Or your tracks could slip off the beams - take your choice.'

  'Not much of a choice, is it, Sergeant? But we can't stay here.'

  'That's the whole point - we've got to risk it. You'll have to follow my orders very precisely. I've fixed up with that farmer chap to shout "Maintenant" when we're coming, and I'll do that as soon as you start moving. He'll drive his tractor like hell to help pull us out - every extra bit of power might just turn the trick. That's why he's revving up now.'

  'You'll give me the usual order when you want me to go?'

  'No, in this case I'll say "Now". I want you to rev up first so that when we do go we'll go back at a hell of a lick. If we can shoot back fast enough before those beams give way there's a chance the rear tracks will reach the bank. If they do we might just make it - with the added pull the tractor will give us. "And I can't guarantee it will work.'

  'You're telling me you can't,' said Colburn. 'Once this weight moves on to the beams my bet is they'll sink like a stone.'