by Alan David
‘Keep a good hold on him in case he comes round unexpectedly and gets the better of you.’
‘I’ll kill the brute is he tries that.’
‘God!’ Sergeant Rawlings sighed. ‘This will be the last time you come on a patrol with me. Come on, let’s get out of here.’
Smith set off again, and the sergeant followed alertly. Now they had their prisoner they must guard him with their lives. They reached the silent, hidden patrol and another man was detailed to help Smith with the prisoner. Sergeant Rawlings, leading the patrol, headed back for the lane. They found a nervous Ransome squatting on his heels beside a dead Lieutenant Gates.
The sergeant took one of the dead officer’s identity discs and removed all personal belongings from the pockets. Remembering Gates’ briefing, the sergeant set off along the return route, which would take them back to safety by a different way.
The night didn’t seem so hostile now. The men were relaxing a little, with most of the danger past and their faces turned to their own lines. Not so the sergeant. He had to get them back. There was worry in the recesses of his mind; a thousand flashing thoughts that rushed through his brain like a flurry of raindrops.
Where were those Jerries? Twenty-five of them. That seemed like a raiding party, out for all the trouble they could make. There would be plenty of trouble if the two patrols met; an event that was to be avoided at all costs.
As he moved stealthily through the night, the sergeant thought of many things, and did not relax his vigilance. He remembered India in the ‘thirties, with a start he realised that four years had passed since he had left its sunny clime. He smiled a little as he recollected the Viceroy’s palace, the ceremonial occasions, the bazaars, the natives. . .What a life that had been. These young soldiers knew nothing. He smiled again at that. In a year or two these young soldiers would be thinking the same thing about other young soldiers.
It was really amazing how fast time passed. The good times came and went, going forever, leaving only memories to remind one of the past, and in time even the bad times became glossed over, until they seemed good.
A flare went up, and its sudden brilliance swept the sergeant back to full alertness. He and the patrol went to ground, and the sergeant spotted a group of running, furtive figures hurrying for the cover of a ruined farm building one hundred yards to the right. A British machine-gun opened up with startling suddenness to send a stream of red tracer at the scuttling figures. Sergeant Rawlings cursed under his breath. As if they hadn’t had enough trouble for one night.
The flare died, and the ensuing darkness was black and impenetrable. Has Jerry spotted us? thought the sergeant. He decided to stay put for a while. He crawled along the line of his men, warning them to be quiet and alert. He paused beside Smith and the prisoner, who had by now returned to consciousness.
‘Keep him quiet, Smith, but for God’s sake don’t kill him.’
‘It’s up to him, Sarn’t. I’ve got the muzzle of the revolver in his earhole. He’s as quiet as a mouse.’
‘Keep him like that. Mind he doesn’t break away in the darkness.’
‘He can’t do that.’ Smith grinned to himself. ‘I’ve got one of my straps looped through his belt. He can’t break the webbing, and his belt’s made of thick leather.’
‘What about if he unbuckles his belt?’
‘The bastard! I’ll shoot him stone dead!’
The silence was intense while they crouched in concealment. They felt secure in their position, and listened to the many noises of the night. There was the drone of aircraft — invisible raiders in the blanket of darkness — and sudden sporadic bursts of small-arms fire; the softer sounds of Nature, of the breeze that rustled the grass like the stealthy step of a human foot.
Eddie was crouched over the bren, watching their rear. No-one could approach them without silhouetting himself against the velvet sky. A crawling enemy would not be able to make a silent approach. They were secure against surprise.
Another flare went up, and they pressed themselves flat in the grass, eyes searching carefully for signs of the enemy. Everything was in sharp black and white. Nothing moved in the desolation of No-Man’s-Land. The fields were silent and still, brooding, seemingly devoid of human life; yet thousands of men crouched in holes in the dead ground, in the comparative safety of their respective lines.
Eddie glanced to his left, looking at the patrol, unable to recognise faces or figures, seeing only a shadowy blur here and there, all unmoving and alert, knowing their lives depended upon the strength of their eyes. Eddie thought of his brothers so close and yet so far away in the darkness. I’m lucky, he thought, having brothers with me. I get comfort from their presence, especially Wally. Fear was non-existent while Wally was around. His presence made the whole war seem like a dream that had none of the sharpness of reality in it. The days appeared to pass in a blur, and while old faces disappeared and new faces appeared, some staying long enough to become familiar and others vanishing quickly, there was no significance in battle for Eddie. His whole waking life was centred around his brother Wally, and there was no room in his heart for anything else.
At times, during a barrage, worry would fill him if he did not know his brother’s whereabouts, but it was always all right afterwards, with Wally, smart and efficient, striding about the platoon positions. His brother was indestructible. In comparison, Arthur did not exist in Eddie’s mind. Arthur was the moon in Eddie’s galaxy, outshone, and in the background of the sergeant’s seeming brilliance, but a part of the pattern, nevertheless. The ties of family were all-powerful in Eddie Rawlings.
Minutes passed slowly. Some inner voice began prompting the sergeant, urging him to get up and go on, and after a moment he tapped the corporal and made motions to indicate that they would continue. He stood up cautiously and went forward, and the patrol followed quietly.
The sergeant had a splitting headache, and became increasingly aware of it as they progressed. Too much excitement, he thought. Too much responsibility and too much fear. Too much of everything except peace and sleep and comfort. He brooded for a short time upon the loss of the platoon commander. Mister Gates had been a very good officer, and his efficiency and ability had reflected in the operation of his platoon. Now he was dead, a mere name and number on an identity disc in the sergeant’s pocket, and a new officer would appear and try to fill his place, and would succeed, if he lived long enough. Then the platoon would forget Gates, except at odd moments, and only a small white cross and the black grief in the hearts of his family would remain to mark the passing of a man.
Another flare illuminated the hedgerows. The sergeant checked his watch. There was another hour to the estimated time of their arrival at their own lines. They had time now to travel more cautiously. From now on they had to be doubly alert. German patrols had ambushed returning British patrols before, lying audaciously close to the British line and catching homing patrols at a time when their vigilance was at its ebb and all thought of danger had evaporated.
Smith and Newman held the prisoner between them, the revolver in Smith’s big hand an ever-present pressure against the German’s body, enforcing silence and obedience by its mute, unrelenting presence. Smith was a being of controlled brutality, a youngster with a capacity for violence which the war had developed. He was frequently astounded at the hatred he felt for German soldiers, at the bloody violence he lusted to deal out to them in an attack, at the quick rush of elation that enveloped him every time he killed.
It’s my killer instinct, he told himself, one big hand twisted in his prisoner’s belt. I’m a born fighter. Sid Heywood said so, and Sid was a champion. A boxer’s no good without the killer instinct, and I’ve got plenty of that.
Newman was morose, depressed by the death of Mister Gates. Always there was someone dying, and any minute could make death much more personal than just someone else in the platoon. Newman wondered what it felt like to be wounded. Would it be an agony of red hot pain? What horror and crin
ging there was in just the thought of a bayonet in the belly! Newman’s stomach muscles constricted painfully. God, how he wished the war would end! No more fear, no more sleep-broken nights, nor the discomforts of being wet, cold, of sleeping in rough serge and living on haversack rations…
Sergeant Rawlings checked his watch again. It was time to cover the last lap. He signalled his corporal brother, and waited until the signal had passed through the patrol. He quickened the pace and went forward. He wondered about that German patrol. What had been their objective this night? Had they suffered casualties?
Now there was British wire ahead, and a guarded challenge by an alert British sentry was answered quickly by the sergeant. Relief swamped all of them as they passed the first manned British trench. Relaxing their tenseness was like removing a too tightly wound bandage around a sprained ankle. Relief was a great rising joy in the breast, a sick feeling in the stomach. The patrol was over. They were back safely. Some of them had already forgotten Lieutenant Gates.
Chapter Ten
THE Germans resisted strongly as Allied pressure mounted. Attacks went in day after day, the men weary, but in good morale. German mortars and eighty-eights wreaked havoc, but the Allies advanced inexorably, probing here and there, pushing forward and consolidating, and leaving many white-crossed graves in the fields and meadows through which they passed.
‘Don’t you think it’s strange how humans turn into savages in battle, Smudger?’ asked Eddie. They were crouched together in a ditch while enemy mortars scourged the company positions. They were practically oblivious to the blasting noise about them, for this attack had been in progress for three days.
‘We’re all savages,’ said Smith. He grinned. ‘Especially me.’
‘You are. I’ve seen you. You go raving mad.’
‘That’s my killer instinct.’
‘Do you hate the Germans?’
‘Course I hate the brutes. I hate their guts. Don’t you?’
‘I’ve got more fear than hatred of them,’ said Eddie. They both flinched as the dust and smoke of a near miss enveloped them. The acrid fumes of the explosion stung their eyes and throats.
‘Englishmen and Jerries have always hated each other. They’re natural enemies, like cat and dog. When do you think the war will end?’
‘I never think about that now. Just after D-Day I thought it would all end quickly, but if we keep on advancing at this rate the war will last another year at least.’
‘Then we’ll all die,’ said Smith. ‘No-one’s luck can last that long.’
‘Someone’s got to come through. Why not us?’
The order to advance filtered along the ditch. Tanks were moving forward. The hold-up ahead had been cleared. Dark smoke swirled across the meadows. British mortars were incessantly voicing their dry coughing explosions. Shells whined and raved overhead. The sections went forward slowly.
A Sherman tank vanished under a pall of flame-shot smoke. It blocked the lane. The second tank nosed forward, and was hit, bursting into a funeral pyre for its crew. A third tank, and a fourth brewed up. A section of infantry sneaked along the hedges to locate the enemy anti-tank gun. Small-arms fire crackled harshly. Grenades exploded indiscriminately. The surviving tanks crashed through the hedges and detoured past their four blazing units, regaining the lane further along, continuing along the main axis of the advance. A hundred yards further on the leading tank burst into flames. Infantry crawled forward to deal with the hidden enemy strong point. Grenades exploded shatteringly. . .
A platoon of British troops filed along a lane. A village showed them its roofs in the distance. Fighter aircraft roared low overhead, machine-gunning. Gunnery officers were plotting ranges, and soon the guns were pounding the red-roofed village into smoking rubble. Men fought and fell, and replacements came up to continue the battles that went on and on, creeping like malignant diseases towards the Fatherland, where the last bloody battles were yet to be fought.
A bren carrier of the First Blankfolks, with FALAISE GAP painted in white on its side, ran on a mine in a street of the village. The carrier finished upside down on the broken pavement. A khaki-clad figure lay on its back beside it, sightless eyes staring up at the blue sky. The driver of the carrier picked himself up from the road thirty yards from his wrecked vehicle. His left arm was tattered and unrecognisable. He staggered several yards, then collapsed. A mortar bomb burst very close to him and fine dust settled upon his body. The sections of infantry came filing by, moving cautiously through the ruins. The advance continued.
At night there was little peace. Another brigade was pushing home the attack in the darkness, having passed through the line of the First Blankfolks at dusk. Barrages continued through the long hours of night. Casualties streamed back from the fighting zone.
The Blankfolks huddled in their trenches and holes. They were dirty, worn and haggard. Sleep was a luxurious dream. They rested silently, hardly aware of the noises of battle.
‘We’re going out on a four days’ rest,’ Smith informed Eddie at dawn.
‘How do you know? You’ve seen no-one during the night.’ Eddie felt depressed. There seemed no point in the war now. It was one dreadful day after another, in an endless chain of unreal time. There was no end and no hope. Half the battalion that had landed on D-Day was gone, replaced by strangers, and there seemed no hope of ending the horror and fear that had become part of their daily life.
The Wehrmacht resisted as strongly as ever. All those rumours about a speedy end to hostilities were now irritants to battle-weary minds. There was no end. The war could drag on for years. There was only one way out, and that was catching up with men every day.
The four days’ rest that Smith mentioned proved to be a rumour. The First Blankfolks regrouped and moved forward to support the offensive that was growing daily in strength and fury. The enemy fought bitterly, contesting every field and street and house. Their spandaus and Moaning Minnies and eighty-eights barred the way to the borders of the Third Reich. But the Allies pushed on relentlessly, battering the enemy line, cutting up his reserves, giving him no rest and no time to recover.
Sergeant Rawlings led the platoon into a wood. They swept through it like beaters in the pheasant shooting season. There were occasional glimpses of the enemy; a grey-clad figure here and there, falling back into the shadowed uncertainty of the trees. Grenades crashed sickeningly, and machine-guns and rifles crackled. The sections were strung out in extended lines, pursuing and shooting arid advancing.
A wounded German lay in a clearing, his uniform soaked in blood at the waist. Slender shafts of sunlight lanced down through the overhead boughs and shone upon his short-cropped blonde hair. He was whimpering and calling in German, his eyes tightly closed, his blood-flecked lips quivering spasmodically. Ransome stepped over him, idly thinking that the stretcher bearers would attend to him. Then a terrific force pushed Ransome in the back. A streak of burning pain shot through him. He was hardly aware of pain in the split second of dying, and he did not hear the sound of the shot.
Newman, a yard or two behind, quickened his pace, changed his feet and pushed his bayonet into the wounded German’s throat before the faltering Luger could cover him. This time he did not shudder. He planted his left foot upon the German’s belly and tugged out his bayonet. He grinned inwardly, paying no heed to the dead Ransome. There were no conscious thoughts in Newman’s mind as he went on.
The brens covering the woods outside from cut-off positions began hammering rapidly as the Germans fell back. The shooting swelled. The woods resounded to the din. Smoke drifted lazily in the sunshine. Mortars put down a barrage in the open meadows beyond the woods, catching little groups of the retreating enemy as they pulled back from the woods. Small slivers of steel cut through German flesh, and the bomb bursts littered the bright ground with smoking patches, and tumbled the bodies untidily in death. This was a leisurely afternoon. Wood clearing could not be hurried. But out in the open fields it was different.
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nbsp; A section doubled along a hedgerow to outflank an enemy spandau that was holding up the rest of their platoon. They crashed through the hedge, raising a thin cheer as they rushed into close quarters. From a wooded slope further back two covering spandaus opened up a withering cross-fire, and the cheer and all but one of the section died there in the warm, clean sunlight.
The only survivor got to his feet as a heavy concentration of shells deluged the wooded slope, and he ran on to accomplish what his section had set out to do. He silenced the first spandau with a grenade and pushed through the hedge concealing its position. He stood upright in the open, waving the come-on signal to his platoon. He waited until they reached him, then turned and went forward. He did not look aside at his own dead section sprawled in the flower-dotted grass, with their bloodstained flesh and couldn’t-care-less-now attitudes of death. He led the way resolutely, almost eagerly, to the wooded slope. An hour later the clatter of small arms on the slope rose to a crescendo, sustained its urgent note for timeless seconds, then cut off. The depleted khaki-clad sections moved on again to the next obstacle, the next strong point, and passed through the next field and meadow and street and village, leaving, as if in evidence of their victory, silent caretakers of the newly-won ground ; their uncaring dead. . .
‘You know something,’ said Lloyd. ‘It’s dangerous out there in the fields.’ He showed a dent in his steel helmet to Smith.
‘Tell that to Ransome,’ said Newman. ‘He’ll understand.’
‘Why don’t you dry up?’ said Smith. ‘Here we are out of the line on a four days’ rest, and all you can talk about is war.’
‘That’s all we know,’ said Lloyd. ‘Is there anything else in the world?’
‘We’re getting some replacements today or tomorrow,’ remarked Corporal Rawlings. ‘I’ll bet it’s the only reason they sent us out on a rest.’
‘We need some more men.’ Smith put aside the bren he had just cleaned. He got up from the bale of musty straw upon which he had been sitting for most of the morning and walked to the door of the big undamaged barn. He looked across the wide patchwork of fields. ‘They were expendable,’ he muttered.