by Will Belford
Yvette smiled, ‘Perfect, but let’s keep some energy for later cherie.’
Joe gulped, then laughed at himself.
‘You forget, I’m a soldier, I’m as fit as a Mallee bull and I can go for days without sleep.’
‘Per’aps this is just so much “soldier talk”,’ she replied, ‘I shall ‘ave to find out for myself.’
Joe paid and they strolled down the pavement arm-in-arm. Passing a Photographique, Yvette peered into the window.
‘I’ve never had my picture taken. Have you?’
‘Once, at Duntroon, do you think they’re open?’
She rapped on the door and a small man in a waistcoat opened the door.
‘Oui?’ he said, blinking at them owlishly from behind thick glasses.
Yvette spoke to him rapidly in French and he bowed and waved them into his shop. Minutes later they emerged clutching an envelope with four copies of a sepia-tone picture of the two of them, smiling and happy.
Joe pulled out one of them and looked at it in the light.
‘You’re one hell of a girl Yvette,’ he said.
‘And you are a ‘andsome man Lieutenant Joe, give me one of those.’ She grabbed one of the pictures and tucked it into her handbag, then reached up and kissed him.
‘I will keep that for the long and lonely nights when you leave me to fight the Germans.’
‘Let’s not talk about that Yvette, it may never happen.’
‘Whatever you say Joe,’ she said, smiling up at him. She stood on tiptoes and gave him another lingering kiss, then turned and stared down the street as if nothing had happened.
‘Now then, where can we find some ’orses?’
Half an hour later they set off on horseback up the eastern road and into the forest.
After a few minutes of climbing, the conifers began to throw their shade over the road and the noise of humanity faded behind them. The only sounds were the clopping of their horses’ hooves and the sighs of the wind in the trees. Occasionally a turn in the road would reveal a clearing with a farm on it, or a bridge crossing one of the many narrow streams that cut their way through the hillside. The road was only wide enough for a single vehicle, and when a truck turned towards them at a crossroads up ahead, they had to step their mounts onto the verge to let it pass.
‘Guten morgen. Danke.’ called the driver with a wave.
‘Was that German?’ asked Joe.
‘Oui,’ said Yvette, ‘this part of Belgium has changed ‘ands so many times in wars, the locals around ’ere are ... ’ow do you say, ‘mixed up’?’
She pointed at the road sign at the intersection.
‘See? The town over that way is called ‘Bettendorf’ but this way we ’ave ‘Larochette’. German and French, but all Belgian.’
‘How far away is the border do you think?’
‘Only a few miles I expect. Why? Are you thinking of attacking Germany by yourself?’
‘Oh, just curious,’ said Joe, ‘I’ve never seen a real German before, outside South Australia that is.’
‘Well per’aps we should ‘ave a look at one before you ‘ave to start fighting them, eh?’ and with that she dug in her heels and took off down the road, showering him with clods of earth.
A short, hard ride later, she spotted a track on the left that climbed up through the woods and took it at a canter. From the crest there was a sweeping view to the east.
‘From what I remember of the map, the border is the River Sure just down there,’ she said, pointing to a bridge in the distance that was flanked by a pair of small huts painted with red and white diagonal stripes. Wooden poles painted in the same pattern and fitted in hinged emplacements lay across the road at waist height.
There was no fence, no visible guards and no sign that the country on the other side was at war with Britain and France.
Tying up their sweating horses in a shady spot, they stepped off into the woods and wandered south along the ridgeline. Despite the intimacy of the train, Joe felt like some nervous schoolboy, and looked for an opportunity to take her hand. Finally he was rewarded by a fallen tree across the vague path they were following. He leapt over the log and held out his hand to her.
She appraised him for a moment, then reached out and took his hand, saying, ‘Why thank you m’sieur, you are tres gallant.’
Her hand was dry, reassuring—like his mother’s hand had been—but the squeeze she gave his palm as she stepped from the log was anything but motherly. He glanced at her and she turned the full force of her smile upon him, then she dropped his hand and bolted up the slope like a wild filly.
‘Race you,’ she called over her shoulder, ‘last to the top ‘as to pay.’
He chased her up the hill towards a cleared area on the hilltop, presumably where loggers had taken the tallest trees some time before. Here the sun pushed away the cool of the forest with dazzling force. She burst into the light ahead of him, the sudden contrast leaving hourglass shapes on his eyelids when he blinked. She turned, breathless, to face him.
‘Ha, I won. Now you ‘ave to pay. My price is, ‘mmm, what should it be I wonder?’
She cupped her chin in her hand and looked him up and down for a moment. He blinked, and shielded his eyes.
‘I need to think about this,’ she pronounced, ‘let us sit.’ And with that, she folded herself up like a cat, cross-legged in the long grass. Joe squatted, then lay down beside her, propped on an elbow. He pulled at a grass stalk and chewed it. They gazed eastwards in silence, out over the deep carpet of trees. A crow flew across the vista, cawing loudly its descending cadence of the dying man: ‘Aaaach … uurrrch … ouuuuwrrgh.’
‘I love that bird,’ said Joe, ‘we have the same ones back home, but something’s different here, I’ve been trying to work it out. I reckon it’s the light, it’s more yellow or something. Then again,’ he said, picking another grass stalk, ‘maybe the sky is a different blue?’
‘You’re quite the philosopher aren’t you Joe?’ said Yvette, turning and touching his cheek, ‘do the girls look different here too?’
She leant over and kissed him softly on the mouth, then crushed her lips against his. Filling his hands with her hair, he pulled her back into the grass and rolled onto her, crushing her with a delicious weight.
‘You can have the prickles on your back,’ she said laughing, rolling him over and straddling him. She opened his shirt, and took in the breadth of his tanned shoulders, noticing a strangely-shaped gold ring on his dog tag chain as she did so.
‘What is this ring?’ she asked, as she ran her hands over his chest.
‘Long story, I’ll tell you later,’ said Joe, kissing her on the neck.
‘As you wish, mystery man.’
She kissed him again, and started undoing the buttons of her shirt, looking into his dark eyes all the while.
Then the world intervened.
~ ~ ~
It was a kind of muted shriek; the sound of metal on metal. Joe sat up abruptly and peered down into the shadows of the valley to their right.
‘What is it Joe?’
He was sitting with the aspect of a hunting dog: ears cocked, nose raised, sniffing the wind, staring into the shadows as if there were a rabbit hiding in the bushes.
‘Christ, I dunno, a sound I wouldn’t expect to hear.’
‘What sound?’
Then it came again, longer this time, a kind of tortured screech like steel fingers on a blackboard.
‘It sounds like a tank,’ said Joe, picking her up from his lap and placing her on the grass, ‘I’d better have a dekko.’
‘Oh Joe, why? Surely there are Belgian tanks here, we’re near the border after all,’ said Yvette with a little frustration, as he stood.
‘I’m curious. Perhaps you’d better stay here.’
‘Non. If you go, I go.’
‘Alright, but we may have to do the lizard.’
‘Lizard?’ asked Yvette, mystified.
‘Crawl,’ said Joe
, pointing at the grass.
‘I am not afraid of a bit of dirt,’ said Yvette, ‘am I not an archaeologist? Besides, what am I going to do ‘ere by myself?’
They crept into the cool shadow of the trees and started down the hill in the direction of the sound. They heard it again several times as they descended, louder each time. As they neared the bottom of the hill, they could make out the road below them, heading east-west. Suddenly Joe grabbed Yvette’s arm and pulled her down into the grass.
‘There! Do you see it?’ he whispered, pointing down and to their left.
She pulled some stalks of grass aside and peered out. Through the trees she could see a grey shape sitting on the road facing west. As she watched, it lurched forward abruptly and the source of the screeching sound became clear—it was the metal tracks along the side of the thing—squealing as they rolled over the runner wheels. An ugly, modern sound. On the steel side of the monster she could see the distinctive black cross of the Wehrmacht.
Then a file of soldiers in grey-green uniforms emerged from the trees beside the road and marched past the tank, arms swinging, the corporal at the rear calling time, ‘Eins, Zwei, Drei, Vier, Eins, Zwei, Drei, Vier’. Behind the soldiers a truck appeared, then another tank.
‘What are the Germans doing ‘ere?’ whispered Yvette, ‘This is Belgium. Belgium is neutral.’
‘Not any more by the looks of things,’ replied Joe, ‘let’s get a better view.’ They crawled through the grass towards a large boulder a few yards to their right and climbed up onto it.
From this vantage point they could see something that the long grass had hidden: the road was crowded with vehicles and guns of every shape and size and more were arriving as they watched. Off to the east, an unending line of tanks, half-tracks and trucks towing guns was making its way steadily down the road.
‘The bastards have finally moved,’ said Joe, ‘this must be the vanguard, they would have gone through that poxy guard post like a dose of salts. What’s the bet no one in Belgium has woken up to this yet?’
‘Joe, I think we should get out of here, now. If they notice us we will be …’
‘Up the creek without a paddle, you’re right. Let’s get out of here.’
They were climbing back up the way they had come when a cry came from behind them.
‘Achtung! Halt. Halten sie!’
They turned to see a German soldier pointing up the hill towards them.
‘Let’s get a wriggle on,’ muttered Joe and sprang forward, pulling Yvette with him. They clambered up the hill, grasping rocks and branches for support, slipping on pine needles and barking their shins on rocks.
A shot came from below. The bullet hit a nearby boulder with a crack, spraying chips of rock over them.
‘Bugger this,’ cried Joe, as they re-doubled their efforts. They finally reached the clearing and sprinted across it, gaining the woods on the other side as another shot ripped a strip of bark off a tree trunk behind them.
Joe risked a look behind. A squad of German soldiers was racing across the clearing behind them.
‘Bloody hell, run girl, run!’ he cried to Yvette, and they pelted through the grass, lungs bursting. As they crested the ridge more bullets cracked around them, then they were on the downhill slope and they could see the horses, standing hobbled by the path.
As Yvette mounted, Joe turned to see a German corporal waving his men to a stop at the top of the slope. They knelt and took aim.
He gave Yvette’s horse a smack on the rump that sent it careering down the road, with Yvette hanging onto the mane, her feet struggling to find purchase in the stirrups. Leaping onto his own horse, Joe dug in his heels and cracked the reins.
‘Ha. Ya. Get moving girl. Ha!’
As the surprised horse leapt forward, a fusillade of shots crashed over his head, tearing a shower of leaves out of the trees on the far side of the road. They had fired too fast and too high. He heard the ratchet clack of the rifle bolts as the soldiers reloaded, then another volley threw up fountains of dust around him as he galloped up the road, over the hill and out of sight.
Yvette was waiting for him on the far side, sweat dripping down her face.
‘Go, go, go’ he yelled as he thundered past her. She pulled her horse around and bolted after him and they galloped breathlessly away, leaving a cloud of what had been neutral Belgian dust, hanging in the air.
~ ~ ~
‘I have to report this to someone,’ said Joe as they rode back into Diekirch, ‘Where the hell’s the nearest Belgian army HQ around here?’
‘Per’aps the local police will know? Oh, look Joe.’
Yvette pointed across the street to where an olive-green staff car had just pulled up. An elegant young woman stepped out, followed by a portly grey-haired man in the uniform of a high-ranking Belgian army officer.
‘The mistress, we must assume,’ said Yvette, ‘this officer may not want to talk to you right now.’
‘Screw that, those Germans are only a few miles away, he’ll never live it down if he gets caught having a matinee with the mistress at a time like this. I might need some help here, can you translate for me?’
He urged his horse across the street to where the officer and his consort were about to enter a brasserie.
‘Excuse moi, mon General,’ cried Joe, reigning in his mount with a whinny. The officer looked up at him in disbelief and responded with a torrent of vehement French.
‘I didn’t catch all that, what did he say?’ asked Joe to Yvette.
‘e says “Oo the ‘ell are you and what do you mean by getting in his way?” ’
‘Tell him … hang on, let’s get off these bloody horses.’
They dismounted and Joe passed the reins to Yvette.
‘Tell him there’s a couple of regiments of German stormtroopers with tanks and artillery advancing through the woods about ten miles from here.’
Yvette turned to the officer and emitted a long stream of French. He caught the phrases ‘les Boches’, ‘dix kilometres’, but the rest was too fast for him to keep up.
The officer looked at Joe again, and laughed dismissively.
‘Tell him I’m a Lieutenant in the British Army on leave.’
‘I’ve told him that,’ said Yvette, ‘he doesn’t believe it.’
Joe dug in his pocket and, pulling out his army ID card, thrust it in the officer’s face.
‘Look, I’m fair dinkum mate,’ he said, ‘there are Nazis coming and they’ll be here inside an hour. What are you going to do about it? Don’t you think you should alert someone or at least check yourself?’
Yvette tried to translate, but the officer raised his arm curtly and taking his mistress’s arm, pushed past them into the restaurant.
‘So much for that,’ said Joe despondently, ‘we have to do something. Where’s a telephone? Do you think you could raise my HQ?’
‘If you know their number I can try,’ said Yvette, ‘let’s go to the station, they‘ll have a telephone. Maybe there’ll be a train. Joe, we need to get out of here.’
Minutes later Joe was speaking to Major Merrivale.
‘Yes, that’s right Major, at least a battalion of infantry, with artillery and tanks. How many? I saw six tanks sir and as many guns, yes that’s right, inside Belgian territory, they’ll be here any minute, I’ve got to clear out. But sir, they’re invading … yes sir, you make a good point sir.’
Joe turned to Yvette with a despairing look.
‘Well that was stupid, I could’ve guessed it. He wants me to return immediately, he says there’s an airfield not far from here, I’m supposed to get a lift with the bloody Belgian air force to Brussels.’
‘Ah merde,’ she said, taking his hand, ‘can we not escape somewhere for just one day? Everyone will know soon enough. Is your duty so precious?’
His immediate response was refusal, but as he looked into her upturned face an urge roiled deep inside him. She watched his face anxiously as he stared into the middle dista
nce. A gulf of vertigo, nausea and suffocation suddenly yawned between them.
‘I’ve been given an order Yvette, we’re at war remember?’
‘And this order, that you brought upon yourself by calling Major Mishelle or whatever ‘is name is, it is more important than me?’
Joe’s mind leapt back to the clearing: the comforting sun; her weight on his loins; the cushion of her breasts.
He shook his head, ‘Yvette, nothing is more important to me than you. I’m in love with you … I’m not a bloody poet, how can I tell you? But I can’t just ignore the Germans.’
She took a deep breath to steady herself, then looked at him.
‘Stop, Joe. I ‘ear you. This is bigger than you and me. There is a train leaving for Brussels in fifteen minutes, I bought us tickets while you were on the phone. I will catch it alone. Per’aps when you get back you will ‘ave time to show me again ‘ow you feel. Then we will go to whatever fate the Germans decide for us.’
He took her in his arms and kissed her.
‘I love you Yvette,’ he gasped, pulling her hips against him.
‘And I love you Joe. Now, go and catch your plane.’
Chapter Fourteen
France, 11 May 1940
With reports indicating that the Germans were advancing on a broad front across Holland and Belgium, the British High Command summoned its divisional commanders to a briefing at headquarters in Lille. There General Gort, Commander of the British Expeditionary Force, addressed his officers.
‘Gentlemen, as you know, the plan to defend France calls for us to advance into Belgium and take up positions on the so-called “Dyle line”,’ said Gort, pointing to a spot on the map, ‘behind the Dyle River to the east of Brussels.’
‘The bulk of the French army will also move into Belgium, going as far north as Breda in Holland. The intention is to link up with the Dutch and Belgian armies and present a solid front to defeat the Germans before they even reach French soil. Personally I think this idea is a load of rubbish. By advancing we are abandoning all our carefully constructed defensive lines and will be forced to fight in the open. There is no possibility the Frogs will make it to Breda and even if they do, I’d put money on it that the Germans will find a way in down south.’