Island Redoubt

by David Roy

  ‘Birmingham!’

  ‘I know, I know. I don’t expect you to have to walk to Birmingham. The next town is Dorchester and I have asked for the Pioneers to put up something north of there. The thing is that we need to get them as far away from the front as possible and Dorchester is looking likely to be cut off in a couple of days.’

  ‘Cut off? I thought we were kicking them back into the sea, sir.’

  ‘At Weymouth, only, I’m afraid. Some of the other landings are going rather well for Jerry. Our divisions are being pushed inland now everywhere except here. We are fighting in a bit of a salient.’

  The sergeant-major tried to absorb this information, forming a mental map in his head of the south coast of England. Tony, a few paces behind had listened in and tried to do the same.

  ‘Shit!’, he said a little too loudly. Both the Colonel and the sergeant-major turned to look at him.

  ‘Keep this to yourself, Corporal’, said the staff officer in kindly tones.

  ‘Sir’, responded the Dubliner.

  Henderson

  ‘I need a driver’, said the Brigadier. Sam looked up from cleaning his rifle. A piece of flannelette hung from his pull-through like a pathetic flag of surrender. No one else seemed to be after the proffered job.

  ‘I can drive, sir.’

  ‘Can you drive a scout car?’

  ‘Oh’, he said deflated. ‘I don’t know, sir. Does it drive like an ordinary car?’

  ‘Not really, but never mind. I’ll have someone show you and you can have a practice. I’d rather have a volunteer…. that’s if you still want the job?’

  ‘Yes, sir’, said Sam, eagerly. He was away from his own mob and didn’t fancy his chances with the infantry - would a lone ‘Paddy’ be expendable? Besides, the Brigadier was bound to eat well and would make sure that his staff ate well too.

  ‘What’s your name son?’

  ‘Fusilier Beattie, sir.’

  ‘An Ulsterman, eh. Good to have you on board, Beattie’, said the Brigadier. Despite himself Sam beamed with pride. He just hoped that he could actually be taught to drive this scout car thing.

  That afternoon Sam surrendered his Lee Enfield rifle and was given a Sten gun, factory-fresh from a crate. An armourer was busy removing grease from its working parts and an instructor from the Buffs had been drafted in to explain how to use this new weapon. It was crude and angular, with rough edges and generally poor finish in every respect. It looked as if it had been put together by a plumber - and not a very good one at that. Each of the trainees - twelve in all - finished the session by firing a few shots on automatic, having run through all the drills for the safe use of the Sten gun. That done, he was then taken away and introduced to his new charge - a Daimler Scout Car. At once he realised that it wasn’t really a car at all - more like a turretless, wheeled tank and it quickly became apparent that this pig-snouted beast with its over-sized wheels didn’t drive like a car either.

  The REME corporal who taught him how to drive the scout car had the hand book open in front of him - this vehicle was only now coming into widespread use. He ran through some technical details in a rather monotonous voice - it had a six-cylinder engine, pre-selector gearbox, had four-wheel drive and four-wheel steering and so on and so on.

  The instructor pointed out that the driver’s seat was angled so that he could see over his shoulder easily when reversing and he also mentioned that the vehicle could reverse at high speed. It crossed Sam’s mind that this was ideal for the situation in which the Army now found itself - in a near permanent state of withdrawal. For armament it had a Bren gun - with which Sam was familiar but this was to be the Brigadier’s vehicle and it would actually fall to him to use it if it ever was to be used at all.

  It was tricky to drive but his instructor was a man blessed with infinite patience and after a couple of hours Sam felt confident that not only had he mastered the scout car but he had learnt to turn its difficult handling into an advantage. The latter facet of driving the Daimler was due to its four-wheel steering but this also gave it a tight turning circle. It was designed for reconnaissance, not for actually fighting the enemy, and thus its manoeuvrability might prove useful when trying to escape from a tight corner. When they were finished Sam signed for the vehicle and it was now his responsibility for the foreseeable future.

  Sam slept next to the little Daimler that night as if it was a protective big brother. He wondered how the remnants of his regiment were getting on and what the new day would bring. In particular he wondered how the war in general was going - were they winning or losing? He decided that he was going to ask his new boss that very question, come daylight. Actually being there - in the war - was a disadvantage when it came to really knowing what was going on it. It was ever thus….

  Somewhere an artillery barrage took place, high explosives being lobbed through the air at unseen targets, plunging to earth and tearing man, machine and everything else for that matter, into atoms. But there was no small arms fire which normally meant that the battle wasn’t too close to their present position. What exactly was holding the German Army at bay, though? Why weren’t they attacking right now? He found it difficult to picture how the battle was taking place, just as he had done in France. What, apart from British opposition prompted the German advance to stop? How far had the enemy advanced and how did they choose where to go and where to bypass?

  Everyone was stood-to at daybreak and waited for the dawn attack which, as was mostly the case even in war, didn’t come. Sam spent his stand-to behind the Bren gun in the passenger seat of his scout car. Why be uncomfortable, he thought? At just after six am the Brigadier turned up with a stove and some rations, demanding breakfast and Sam set about producing something hot which he hoped they could both eat. Ted's attempts at cooking often resulted in meals which were less palatable than was strictly necessary. Today was no exception. The Brigadier scooped his breakfast out of his mess tin with an odd-looking silver spoon, giving Sam an old-fashioned look as he did so. He didn’t say anything apart from an indistinct utterance as he set the mess tin on the ground having finished. It was quite clear that cleaning dixies was Sam’s job.

  ‘Right, Beattie’, he said. He unfolded a map, wiped the dew off the engine cover of the scout car, spread the map and began surveying the situation. Without asking, Sam was about to be let into the secret dispositions of both armies. The colourful chart showed a large section of the south coast, taking in part of Hampshire, all of Dorset, part of Somerset and part of Devon.

  ‘We are here’, he said jabbing a finger at the map. ‘To our immediate east Jerry is closing in on Salisbury.’ Another jab on the map and a pause. ‘Further to our east Sussex and much of Kent is in German hands. He is clearly and understandably trying to get to London and may do so in a few days. Rather shocking eh?’ Sam nodded. ‘I wouldn’t bet on the Government staying around for much longer. Churchill is brave but not stupid. I expect that the Royal Family has plans to move as well. Scotland would be my bet. Anyway. To the west the situation isn’t much better but at the minute they are trying to head north from there rather than going into Devon and Cornwall. There’s not much there for them except Plymouth which they might just take from the sea at a later date or just leave isolated. But you can see that this piece of land is sticking out into what is, otherwise, the German lines. It’s a salient and this is where we are. The danger is that we become surrounded if these two bodies of troops meet up and the only way to stop that is to withdraw.’

  ‘So, we withdraw, sir?’

  ‘No. We knock them back into the sea, hope that this new British division from Bristol meets up with us and then we isolate the German forces in Devon and make them surrender. Easy!’ He looked Sam straight in the eye now. ‘Except it’s not, of course; it’s impossible. But we are tying up lots of Jerries and that takes the pressure of the rest of the Army. So, we keep fighting…. And the next thing we have to do is find them!’

  The two men didn’t speak as
they headed back down the main road to Weymouth. No other traffic was to be seen, although they did pass a small group of refugees which prompted the officer to say, ‘I wonder where the hell they have been all this time.’ It came as a shock to Sam to see ordinary, respectable, home-loving British people reduced to this. Somehow the refugees in France and Belgium had already lost their identity, their hopes and, to some extent, their human-ness. It wasn’t their fault of course but having lost everything they had just become a nuisance and a burden. Their former lives and respectability were now just abstract ideas. These British refugees had barely looked at them, almost as if they blamed the Army for their plight or for the fact that they hadn’t helped them.

  The real reason for their apparent indifference was that they knew the Germans weren’t far away and didn’t want to be identified with the losing army - the one which ostensibly fought for them but which didn’t yet recognise that it was beaten. Their homes and their hope were gone and their loyalty too. Loyalty was a waste of time now. Or so it seemed. The change was coming and it was the Germans who would bring it.

  ‘Slow down a minute, Beattie’, said the Brigadier. Sam hefted the gear lever and dipped the clutch. The Daimler lurched slightly as it changed down a gear with a whine of protest from the engine. Sam made a mental note to use the brakes more in future. They rolled along slowly, the speedo needle flickering around twenty.

  ‘Okay, stop. And kill the engine.’ Sam did so, the silence coming like a continuous wave. He looked out the little back port of the cab to see the gaggle of refugees standing in the road watching them. He could just make out one of them speaking. What sounded like a harsh West Country accent carried on the breeze but he could make no sense of the words. Beside him the Brigadier stood and raised his binoculars to his face.

  ‘They know something, Beattie. Those refugees know something….’ Sam looked down at the Sten gun next to his seat. Remember to take it if we abandon ship, he thought. To their front there was a bend and a dip, a major dip in the road so that their path ahead was totally obscured. Trees packed the sides of the road closely, preventing any light from falling on the scene. To drive on would be rather like entering a dimly lit mine shaft tunnel. The Brigadier raised a hand to his mouth and breathed out deeply. ‘There’s something there. An ambush? Something.’ But Sam could see nothing, hear nothing. He strained his eyes uselessly into the open 'tunnel' looking for tell-tale movement. He listened for a sound. Any sound.

  ‘It’s very quiet, sir.’

  ‘It is. It is. But would it normally be quiet? If they are there, they can’t make the birds stop singing…. But there aren’t any birds singing. There’s nothing.’

  ‘If they were there wouldn’t they have opened fire, sir?’

  ‘Probably not. Not if they are expecting a bigger target to come along - don’t want to give the game away.’ Sam glanced round at the refugees but they had gone, a fact which he brought to the attention of the officer.

  ‘Okay Beattie. They say that discretion is the better part of valour. This thing goes well in reverse?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Right. In that case in a moment or two you are going to start her up, bang her into reverse and get us out of here very, very quickly. Can you do that?’

  ‘Sir.’

  ‘And you’re not going to stop until I say so…. When I say go…. Go!’

  The engine clattered into life, catching quickly and Sam released the clutch having already selected reverse. They sped off back up the road waiting for the crack of bullets or worse, the dull, final smack of an anti-tank shell. Sam braced himself for some sort of impact and steered the little Daimler with a skill born of necessity. They wobbled a few times due to the overly sensitive steering but remained firmly on the road and back round the bend. Then he allowed the vehicle to stop and put it in neutral with the brakes applied. There was a faint smell of oil. The refugees had stopped and were looking at them curiously. Sam noticed that one was an attractive woman of, say, thirty. Her skin was pale and grimy.

  ‘I’m having a word with this lot. Wait here Beattie. Keep her running.’ The Brigadier scrambled out of the Daimler and strode to the forlorn group. As he approached they began to turn away and resume their journey, as if unwilling to get involved in any sort of confrontation.

  ‘Excuse me!’, called the officer but there was no response from them other than a slight, almost undetectable hesitation in the step of one young man.

  ‘Excuse me’, he said again, closing the gap. ‘I need to speak to you. Stop!’ He shouted the last word. The group, almost acting in unison, stopped. Only the young man at the rear of the party turned, regarding Henderson with dead-eyed disinterest. The remainder faced forwards like zombies. Collectively, they appeared bereft of hope, utterly doomed; people for whom the continuation of life was worse than death. The officer had caught up with them.

  ‘I just want to ask you about where you have come from and where the Germans are….’ Silence. ‘I thought that you might have seen them….’ Again, silence. The young man looked at him gravely but didn’t even begin to form an answer or show a trace of inclination to do so. Henderson turned uncertainly back to Sam and gave a slight shrug before resuming his inquisition. ‘I’m just asking for your help…. Why won’t one of you speak? We are all on the same side, aren’t we?’ Even as he said these words he began to wonder if that was how these strange people saw it.

  He noticed now that they were very thin and dirty. They smelled quite badly too and their clothes were not only ragged but odd in some indefinable way. It was the style, the cut. It looked foreign, that was it. Of course! German or European certainly. Not only that, but as he surveyed them more thoroughly he realised that these were good clothes. Good clothes that had simply become dirty and worn out. Who wore these clothes? Why wouldn’t they speak? The man continued to look at Henderson but his eyes only contained the last vestiges of life. Another refugee turned to look now, the young woman. Then a girl, maybe thirteen years old looked and another woman in her late forties or fifties also turned. Henderson thought that there was some family resemblance but they were certainly united by unspoken and perhaps unspeakable despair.

  ‘Who are you?’, he said at last, to which the man uttered something unintelligible. Henderson frowned and held his palms up with a gentle shrug. ‘Who?’

  ‘Polski’, said the man. Henderson nodded.

  ‘Wait there’, he said, his gestures saying more to these people than his words. And then he shouted up the road, ‘Beattie get me some rations. Bully beef. Anything. Sam grabbed four cans of processed meat from the cab of the scout car and clambered out. He slung his Sten over his shoulder and trotted down to the Brigadier with the food.

  ‘Give them a tin each.’

  The Poles took the rations with the merest hint of gratitude and then turned away eager, if such a word could really be applied to them, to be off. Only the man spoke, presumably to say thanks. He gave a little smile and continued on his journey.

  ‘Poles.’

  ‘They must have thought they were safe coming here, sir.’

  ‘Poor blighters.’ He sighed. 'But none of this tells us where the Germans are.’

  ‘Do you still think they are around that corner, sir?’

  ‘I don’t know. They’re around some corner. But which one? Eventually we are going to run into them and it is whether or not we make it back out that’s important.’ It was then that Sam realised that this was no place for a senior officer. So why was he here? As if he had read Sam’s mind the Brigadier spoke again. ‘Unfortunately, when you send a recce patrol out they don’t always come back with good, useable information. Sometimes they err on the side of caution a little too much, Beattie’, he said, gravely. In other words, sometimes they purposely didn’t go close enough to the enemy to really find anything out. British soldiers, although courageous, could be somewhat reticent without leadership - and who could blame them - it was a sentiment with which Sam was persona
lly familiar. He knew that he perhaps should have rushed back to his unit following his pursuit of the German soldier…. but he didn’t. Nor did he like to think about that soldier’s death.

  ‘The only thing I can suggest is that we go and have a look-see on foot’, said the officer. He looked directly at Sam as if deciding his suitability for such a mission but was strangely pleased by the mixture of scepticism and blind acceptance of fate which expressed itself in his features. He knew that his soldiers weren’t natural heroes but he also knew that they were pragmatic and in their own way, reliable. Sometimes they needed to be worked up or their pragmatism to be turned against a common goal which they did not view as such. But this did have the advantage of helping them to avoid the follies that came with recklessness. He recognised this as a British trait and furthermore he recognised it in Sam. Sam cleared his throat.

  ‘Do you want me to park the scout car up, sir?’

  ‘Just turn it round and have the keys handy for a quick getaway.’ Sam doubled off to prepare their escape and then returned. He had ditched his webbing and stuffed an extra magazine in his pocket - recce patrols travelled light. He also checked that he didn’t rattle by jumping up and down and hoped that the Brig had done the same.

  ‘Ready?’

  ‘Ready, sir.’ Brigadier Henderson smiled at the strong Ulster accent. He had a good man here. He’d look after him.

  ‘Let’s go. Up, round the hill. Through the strip forest and see what we can see. Keep about ten feet behind me. If I stop, you stop unless I call you forward. I might leave you while I go forward by myself in which case I will indicate how many minutes to wait.’ He held up his fingers as he did so - five minutes. ‘If I don’t come back in that time, you scarper. Questions?’