The Little Ship

by Margaret Mayhew

  His fellow officer, Stephan Stange, who had his ear permanently to the ground, boasted inside knowledge. ‘We are to attack Belgium first. We bomb Brussels and our airborne troops seize Belgian fortifications and overrun their lines of defence on the weakest stretch of the Maginot Line, to the north-west. Then we do the same to Holland. The Allies will be forced to reposition their troops while the main thrust of our armoured divisions will take place further south and where it will be least expected. Guess where?’

  Otto had speculated on this many times, without reaching a conclusion. ‘You may as well tell me.’

  ‘The Ardennes Forest.’

  ‘Impossible. The terrain would be too difficult and unsuitable for tanks. It’s practically impenetrable.’

  ‘I assure you that is what they are planning. The Führer, himself, has approved.’

  ‘But it would take many days, weeks even, to get through and the advantage of surprise would be lost.’

  Stephan shrugged. ‘Don’t believe me, then. I tell you, the Panzers are to spearhead the offensive. We are to plunge into the Ardennes and forge our way into France. The French have only a small force guarding that stretch of the frontier. We shall smash through them easily. Little or no resistance is expected from French civilians en route.’ Stephan grinned at him. ‘So there you have it, my friend. The long wait will soon be over and glory awaits us. French food and French wine and French women. With luck, we shall be in Paris in the spring. What could be more delightful? Why aren’t you smiling?’

  ‘It’s a long way from here to Paris.’

  ‘In our tanks it will be no distance at all. And then perhaps it will be England’s turn.’

  ‘England? Have you forgotten the sea that lies in between?’

  Stephan waved a hand dismissively. ‘We will bomb the British the same as we did the Poles, and just like the Belgians and the Dutch. Pound them into submission. Their Expeditionary Force will have been killed or captured in Belgium and France and we will destroy their Royal Air Force with our Luftwaffe. We have many more planes, our pilots are better and more experienced and it will be easy from French airfields.’

  ‘We will still have to contend with the Royal Navy.’

  ‘Pah! We will bomb their ships. Sink them all. Why are you being so pessimistic, Otto? What’s the matter with you? I thought you were so confident of our victory.’

  ‘I am confident that we shall invade France and defeat the French. I am not so certain about England and the English. I told you that before.’

  ‘One would almost think you didn’t wish it to happen.’

  ‘I believe even the Führer has his reservations.’

  ‘Well, I for one am not so keen either, to tell the truth. I have always heard that English girls are cold. We shall have no worries in France on that score. And since you are the rich one, Otto, you may stand me dinner in Paris with the best wine and the best food and we will find ourselves two of the most beautiful women in the city. What do you say? Is that a deal?’

  Otto smiled. ‘When we are driving down the Champs Elysées in our tanks, Stephan, then you may take it as a promise.’

  Guy spotted the Messerschmitt about five thousand feet below him. It had popped out suddenly from the broken cloud layer and he could see it streaking along, heading due east. It was only the second time that he’d sighted an enemy aircraft – the first had been months ago when the squadron had chased some Heinkels back over the frontier. His heart raced with excitement. It was a 109, no doubt about it. He could see its shape clearly. Christ, he’d even made a model of the damn thing! He knew all about it. Every detail. Faster than him but slightly less manoeuvrable. He could out-turn the Hun if he was clever but, on the other hand, the 109 had cannon power as well as machine-guns. He tracked it for a moment. The fighter was on its own, so far as he could tell, presumably either on photo-reconnaissance or some cheeky hit-and-run raid. OK, time to put paid to his little excursion. The Merlin engine snarled like an angry guard dog as Guy banked sharply and took the Hurricane down in a steep dive.

  Either the chap was half asleep or so bloody confident that he wasn’t keeping a sharp lookout because he was close enough to distinguish the black crosses on the wings, the yellow spinner and the grey and green camouflage before the Hun was aware of him. The 109 rolled suddenly into a dive and headed like the clappers for the nearest bit of cloud. Guy tore after him and opened fire at a thousand yards. The Brownings blasted his ears and the Hurry seemed to falter under their recoil. Too soon. Much too soon. He could see the tracer zipping harmlessly past the Hun’s tail while the 109, gaining speed, increased the gap between them. Futilely, he fired again, and missed again. Guy swore violently as the Messerschmitt vanished into the cloud. He streaked after it but without much hope and searched, flying in and out of patches of cloud. It was like hunting among bushes: a game of hide-and-seek. He switched tanks and went on for a while longer, straining his eyes and cricking his neck before he gave up and turned for home, frustrated and furious with himself. If he’d held his fire until six hundred yards, or even closer, he might have got the blighter.

  He circled the ’drome, passing over the beautiful old château where the squadron was billeted. There was still the odd white streak of snow here and there but most of it had gone. He could see yellow drifts of daffodils on the lawns, new green speckling the tall trees, the pale beginnings of blossom in an orchard and a farmer hard at work with his horse-drawn plough in a nearby field. Instead of ground hard as iron, it would be a soft landing. He came in, side-slipping over a clump of trees, to touch down smoothly on the grass.

  Lunch in the Mess – once a gilded ballroom – was well up to scratch: a superb venison pie with meltingly flaky pastry, French cheeses, cold beer. Some of the other pilots were planning a trip into town that evening and invited him along. He knew the form well. They’d pile into one of the trucks, kick off at an estaminet for a few drinks and then progress to one of the excellent restaurants. With the warmer weather, the tables were already out on the pavements, the parasols in place, the flower stalls opening up, the French girls in pretty cotton frocks. Spring was here and summer would soon be a-coming in. The very last thing anybody appeared to be thinking about – civilians or servicemen – was the war. Anna would find it incredible. Guy wondered how much longer the play-acting could possibly last.

  Aunt Sheila had closed up Tideways towards the end of January and moved into the house in Wimpole Street. She and Lizzie’s mother were kept busy with work for the WVS, helping with the children being evacuated to the country from London. Uncle William came home on leave, looking tired and grim. He and her father spent a lot of time together in the study and there was talk of Lizzie, her mother and Aunt Sheila going to somewhere like Wales. To Lizzie’s relief, her mother and Aunt Sheila both flatly refused. There had been no air raids at all in spite of all the flapping, and the shelter in the coal cellar which had looked almost cosy last September was now a hell-hole. Over the winter, the bunk mattresses had grown mould and the walls and roof dripped with moisture. They had started using part of it to store coal again.

  Sometimes, but not often, Matt came round for supper. One evening, near the end of April, they went up to the attic studio afterwards. There was still enough daylight left not to bother with switching on the electric light and having to do the blackout.

  Matt propped himself against a high stool while she sorted out some paints. He’d been bogged down in anatomy, he told her, dissecting a leg.

  ‘A leg? You mean from a guinea-pig or something?’

  ‘No, actually, it’s a real one. People leave their bodies in their wills. Very decent of them, considering the hash we students make of it.’

  Lizzie shuddered. ‘How horrible!’

  ‘It isn’t really,’ he said enthusiastically. ‘Everything fits together so well and works so cleverly, you see. It’s an amazing thing, the human body, you know. Miraculous.’

  ‘I’ll stick to drawing it on the outsid
e, I think.’

  ‘Of course, you’d need to know anatomy, too. Where the muscles are, and so on. You can come and help me with my leg, if you want.’

  ‘No thanks.’

  ‘Just a suggestion. Any news from Anna, by the way?’

  ‘I had a letter last week.’

  ‘Is she going to come back?’

  ‘She didn’t say so.’

  ‘Well, I wish she would.’

  ‘We keep worrying about what on earth’s going to happen to her. She still believes she can get her parents out of Austria, but I don’t think there’s much hope. She said she saw Guy a while ago. He turned up at the house in Lille and tried to persuade her to give up and come back. She said he gave her a real talking-to.’

  ‘I don’t suppose she took much notice of him. She never did before.’

  ‘No, she didn’t, did she? They were always fighting.’

  There was a pause. Matt picked up a paintbrush and twirled it in his good hand. ‘The army turned me down, by the way – because of the arm. They told me I’d be more use as a doctor, in any case.’ He spoke lightly but she knew how fed up and bitterly disappointed he was about it. ‘I’m very sorry, Matt. They’re probably right, though. I mean, anybody can be a soldier but not everyone can become a doctor.’

  ‘Thanks for the comforting words, Lizzie. The only trouble is that I’ve got another four years at least before I qualify and become useful.’

  ‘The war might last that long.’

  ‘Actually, I’m afraid it might. Once it gets going properly. I think the Germans have just been playing a waiting game all last winter, getting themselves ready. How about you and the WAAF? Any news – now you’re eighteen?’

  ‘Well, I passed my medical OK. They said they’d be writing to tell me when and where to report for duty. It might be several weeks before I hear, apparently.’

  ‘Do your parents know?’

  ‘Yes, I told them. Had to, really, as I’m still under twenty-one. They were OK about it in the end.’

  ‘You’re lucky, Lizzie. I’d give my right arm to go into the services.’ He smiled ruefully. ‘Well, actually, perhaps that wouldn’t be such a big sacrifice.’ He twirled the brush again. ‘I wonder what Otto’s up to? Odd to think of him on the other side.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘You liked him, didn’t you, Lizzie? I thought he was pretty OK too.’

  ‘Yes, I did rather. Anna hated him, of course. Because he was German.’

  ‘You can’t blame her really.’

  ‘I think he was probably very much in love with her, though she never knew it.’

  ‘Can’t blame him for that either.’

  Matt loves her too, Lizzie thought. I can hear it in his voice – the way he spoke just then. The look on his face. He’s always loved her. I’ve known that for a long time. She suspected that even Guy, for all his antipathy, was far from immune. The old envy that she had felt when she had first seen Anna standing on the station platform suddenly flooded back. Secretly, in her heart, she almost wished that Anna would never return. She shut the box of oil paints, disgusted with herself. ‘We’d better do the blackout, Matt. It’s getting dark.’

  ‘So, where is your English lover, eh?’ Madame Gilbert was watching her from her corner chair.

  ‘He is not my lover.’

  ‘So you say. When is he coming here again, that young man in his fine uniform?’

  ‘How should I know? Probably never. He is busy.’

  ‘He will come, though, as soon as he can. He will want to see you again, mark my words. I can tell.’ She was like a witch, Anna thought. A hundred years ago they would have burned her. ‘He wants you to go back to England, isn’t that so?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Yes, he does. He told me.’ The old woman wagged a finger at her. ‘You should do what he says. You are doing no good here. It is a waste of time. And when the Germans come you will cause us trouble. You will put us in danger for harbouring a Jewess. I have told Janine that you must leave very soon. If you cannot go to Switzerland then you must go back to England, before the Bosches come.’

  ‘What are you talking about, madame? The French have a big army to fight the Germans.’

  ‘With an old fool to lead them. It will be a disaster.’

  ‘And the British are here.’

  ‘Pah! Les Anglais! We shall see what they are made of when the time comes.’

  What did she know of anything? She was just a crazy old woman. There was no such talk in Lille. Life was going on as normal. Everybody had faith in the armies, and she had seen for herself that neither the French nor British were in the least worried. The Germans would never break through.

  ‘They took us all by surprise, and that’s a fact. The tenth of May, it was, if I remember rightly. The Jerry gliders landed at dawn in Belgium and their Stukas backed up the paratroopers. Same time as they attacked Holland. They’d got a foothold in both countries within hours. The Belgians had been so busy trying to stay neutral they wouldn’t let our troops across their border before but as soon as that happened, of course, they were screaming for us. Then Jerry bombed Rotterdam flat and the Dutch surrendered.’ His pipe has gone out again, but he doesn’t seem to notice. ‘Even then, we didn’t know how bad it was – not for a bit. The French and our lot rushed up to help the Belgians and there was all that rubbish in the newspapers about beating back the Jerries, tanks meeting tanks, nothing to worry about … Wasn’t true, of course. And what’s more, we’d walked right into Hitler’s trap. He wanted us there in Belgium because that got us out of the way of the biggest part of his invasion army – the lot that went through the Ardennes.’

  Chapter Fifteen

  The long line of Panzer tanks rumbled slowly, nose to tail, down the forest road. Together with armoured vehicles and mobile artillery they had drawn up at the Luxembourg border in three columns that stretched a hundred miles back into Germany. At nightfall they had begun moving off through the darkness, each one following the hooded rear light of the tank ahead – something they had practised many times before. By dawn they had crossed Luxembourg and plunged into the Ardennes and daylight found them well advanced into the heart of the forest, snaking their way along the steep, winding roads.

  Otto stood in the turret of his tank, one hand gripping the rim, field-glasses slung round his neck. He could remember a summer holiday spent in the forest as a child. He and his father had stayed in a hotel at Bouillon. He remembered the thickly wooded landscape well, the narrow roads linking small villages, the occasional spaces of lush pasture. The trees were not yet so green but otherwise it was all the same as in his memory, except that the birdsong was obliterated by the roar and rumble of the tanks. He searched the skies constantly through the branches above his head. It seemed extraordinary that the enemy was not attacking from the air. It would be difficult for bombers where the trees were densest, but whenever it passed through a clearing the long column was easily visible and wrecked tanks could have brought them all to a halt. Stephan had been right, though he had not believed him at the time; still could not believe that a successful breakthrough could be made. If the enemy were not going to bomb them, then they would surely attack with all the forces and fury that they could muster as soon as the tanks emerged from the forest and attempted to cross the river Meuse. The sound of aircraft made him glance up quickly in time to see three Messerschmitt 109s pass overhead. The Panzers had been given fighter cover but not even the Luftwaffe could guard the whole long length of the columns.

  They had passed through several small villages without pausing and in each case the few French inhabitants visible had either fled indoors or cowered in terror. There had not been a single shot fired at them, not a single challenge, not even so much as a shaken fist. Several miles further on, along a stretch of twisting road where there were few trees, another aircraft passed overhead – this time a British bomber: a Blenheim. It made no attempt to attack and flew off. Incredible as it seemed to Otto
, the Blenheim appeared to be merely on a reconnaissance mission. What fools the enemy must be to miss such a chance to crush the exposed tanks, crawling along in slow procession like slugs, and just as vulnerable.

  The day was warming up, the sun shining brightly through the branches, the sky a clear blue. Again, Otto was reminded of his summer holiday long ago. It had been weather like this and he and his father had gone hiking through the forest. He had been eight years old and life had been uncomplicated. It seemed to him that after that holiday, nothing had ever been quite so enjoyable. Except, perhaps, the days he had spent at Tideways that summer in England.

  The tank three ahead, belonging to Stephan’s group, broke down suddenly and the column behind was halted while attempts were made to repair it. Stephan came over, grinning widely. ‘What did I tell you, my friend, nothing stands in our way.’

  ‘At the moment this tank of yours does.’

  ‘It will be mended in a moment, or shoved aside. We shall steamroller our way right across France.’

  ‘Unfortunately, there is the small problem of crossing the river Meuse before we can do that.’

  ‘There are bridges.’

  ‘Even the French may get around to thinking of blowing them up.’

  ‘Then we shall build our own. We have the finest engineers in the world. Nothing shall stop us, Otto. Have you seen how the French are in the villages? They look at us with fear in their eyes and let us pass without a murmur. Soon they will be welcoming us as liberators. Wait and see.’

  The stricken tank was taking too long to repair and was pushed off the road. The column rolled forward once more. When they were out in the open, RAF Fairey Battle bombers at last appeared to attack them. Otto counted at least fifteen of them lumbering in on their bombing runs and he watched them being shot down, one after the other – picked off easily by the anti-aircraft artillery, like so many ducks. Those that weren’t brought down were winged and made off before they could do any real harm. So much for the RAF with their obsolete old machines! Beside the Luftwaffe, they were nothing. The Panzers rolled on and passed through a small French town, rumbling like thunder over the cobblestones of the square. As before, the inhabitants crouched in doorways and hid behind walls – except for a small group of girls who stood on a corner and waved as they went by. They were all pretty and all smiling and one of them threw a flower which landed on the front of Otto’s tank, blooming brightly against the dusty grey paint like a good omen. He smiled back at her. Once again, Stephan had been right.