Island Redoubt

by David Roy

  They crested a hill, silhouetting themselves dangerously, but for a moment Sam could see an open valley which was the battle ground. He was left with the image of white-painted houses in some tiny hamlet with three squat Churchills roaming robotically through the streets and little bunches of infantry men crouched and scared behind them. The Germans defended a hillside with heavy machine guns and grenades which they lofted easily into the path of the British infantry as they toiled up the hill into a storm of shrapnel and lead. Two troops of tanks seemed to slug it out, exchanging shell for shell like the punches of two tired heavyweights. He just saw one Churchill brew up and then the view was obscured by thicket and trees. In his headphones the order was given to pull into the road side under the cover of some trees. Sam complied just as two flights of Hurricanes swept over to strafe the German positions. He could just see their bombs dropping, falling majestically forwards with the momentum with which the planes endowed them and a second later he heard the roar of their destruction. Little pieces of mud and debris fell from the heavens like dark rain. It must have been close. Sam watched in amazement as a British soldier, unarmed, sprinted away from the battle. Everyone, he knew, had their limit for battle and some just found it sooner than others. When their threshold of blind courage was passed…. well, they could take no more.

  The Hurricanes leapt into view occasionally, scrabbling into the air to turn and dive for another attack. Far to his right he could see a formation of German planes (he could not make out what sort) being split up by a Spitfire attack.

  The battle raged; sometimes close and sometimes distant. Behind him the command post was a hive of confused activity as Henderson blindly tried to position his forces. He thought that his armoured forces were holding their own on the flanks and had punched through in the centre as he had hoped they would. But he also felt that the infantry had failed to keep pace with them and that the enemy was metaphorically healing its wounds with the British tanks trapped behind their lines. What had the Germans themselves done during their blitzkrieg attacks when this had happened, he wondered? The German infantry had been and still was much less mobile than the infantry at his command. He had to get a truer picture.

  The little engine burst into life and Sam selected first ready to move off. From somewhere the General had found a Daimler armoured car to accompany them, its small cannon giving them a little bit more firepower. It was no match for a tank of course. Henderson hurriedly finished off a few arrangements with his unit commanders with much frenzied finger pointing and map jabbing. He then sprinted over to the waiting scout car, climbed in and ordered them to move. Fifty metres down the road, what seemed to be a stray shell gouged a hole in the wildflower bank and sent the scout car skittering off course. Sam swore and then both men ducked as another shell fell close - it clearly wasn’t a coincidence.

  ‘Put your foot down, Beattie’, he said and Sam obliged. Another shell landed some way behind but both vehicles survived and then machine-gun bullets splattered the glacis plate, deforming and spinning off, spent and wasted.

  ‘Someone’s onto us but I haven’t got as clue who it is or where they are’, said the General. He cocked the Bren gun, ready for action but they continued to career down the road, throwing themselves at an enemy they could not see. Three shells landed ahead of them on almost precisely the same spot, obliterating the tarmac and spitting supersonic stone pellets in every direction. Sam applied the brakes forcefully and pulled up short. Only a narrow bank of crumbly soil remained intact to the left of the road.

  ‘Can we get around?’, asked the General. Both men involuntarily ducked as bullets spanged off the front of the scout car.

  ‘I’ll try, sir. Don’t know about that big Daimler behind.’ He edged forwards, mounting the bank until they leaned perilously into the newly formed abyss.

  ‘The armoured car will have to take its chances’, said the General before taking hold of the Bren and firing a burst of .303 at a group of German infantry who had run into their path. The look of astonishment made it clear that it was not they who had been firing moments earlier. These soldiers knew little about the assault but once they had regained their senses they opened fire with steadily increasing accuracy and discipline. One hurled a ‘potato-masher’ grenade. Both men watched as it flew end-over-end through the sky, but Henderson recovered first and sent a spray of bullets into the German soldiers. One fell dead and the others scattered just as the grenade hit a tree branch and bounced back whence it had come. It exploded sending one of the remaining Germans face first into the gravel. He did not get up.

  All the while Sam had been carefully guiding them along the bank but now the rear wheels began to lose traction and it felt as if a malevolent force was sucking them into the pit of the fractured road. In desperation he floored the accelerator, spinning the wheels, racing the engine but just - only just - scrabbling them forwards unto the undamaged section of tarmac. Henderson checked behind and could see that the armoured car was not attempting to follow. He had begun to think of it as a liability in any case. Just as he was turning back it exploded in a ball of flame.

  ‘Christ!’ was all he could say. They tumbled on, seemingly into the heart of the battle. To their front and to the right they could see enemy troops running frantically but with no clear pattern to their actions and no clear unified direction. To their left they could see a troop of Churchills grinding forwards over enemy positions, their secondary armament cutting swathes through the panicked Germans. Grenades flew, exploded, tore at flesh and bullets ricocheted off in every direction. They watched incredulously as two Germans appeared in their midst with their hands aloft in surrender followed by a young British soldier who had them at bayonet point. In the same short moment their captor fell to his knees felled by a bullet in the back and the two Germans ran off in the direction from which they had just come.

  Henderson relinquished control of the Bren for long enough to look at the map on his knee.

  ‘This is the Royal Tank Regiment. We need to go west’, he said to himself and then to his driver he said, ‘Turn right Beattie. Let’s get across this field.’ Sam could not imagine that they would survive the day. A troop of dark green panzers appeared on the edge of the field, immediately fanning out and opening fire. In the foreground a Churchill exploded, its turret lifting off as if propelled by jets. Another Churchill returned fire seeming to hit one of the panzers but with no effect, until this too succumbed. The two burning wrecks formed a chicane through which Sam guided the scout car. The battle seemed less intense to the west but as he tried to accelerate, hoping to move away from the cauldron of the tank duel, a German 50mm shell smashed into the scout car, tearing the rear section from the front, slicing it in two. Sam felt as if he was falling backwards but the seat held him in place. He glanced over at the general who seemed to be unconscious, but otherwise unhurt.

  Sam thought he heard the crackle of a fire just before he smelt the fuel leaking out into the soil and he twisted in his seat to plan his escape. Bullets seemed to have taken control of the air around the stricken vehicle, as he grabbed hold of Henderson's shoulders and pulled him from the seat. He was a dead weight but Sam found the strength to remove his inert body from the cramped cab. He slipped in the mud but continued to drag the general away from the danger - danger that, in fact, totally surrounded them. They were about twelve yards from the vehicle before the bullet hit his collar bone. He collapsed and lay there hoping for another bullet to take away the pain or - and it seemed a remote chance - some medical attention.

  Salvation came some hours later in the form of a French medical orderly. Unfortunately, he was in the employ of the Germans, who had re-taken control of the area and inflicted a catastrophic defeat on the British. Fresh German formations were now heading north at great speed, exploiting the gaps in the British lines and the chaos left behind in the aftermath of their failed offensive. They had air superiority, short lines of communication and limitless men, ammunition, food, fuel….
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  It was the beginning of the end.

  Retreat and surrender

  The Army fell back in disarray. The garrison defending Birmingham surrendered and in total the Germans took two hundred thousand prisoners, many of whom they quickly packed off to concentration camps in Europe from where they would never return. In his headquarters in Edinburgh, Churchill surveyed, with deep dismay, the new map of England being drawn for him by Hitler’s generals. De Gaulle had pestered him with demands that the Free French should be evacuated to North Africa to prevent them from becoming prisoners. Eventually, he had arranged air transport to that region for the general with a vague promise that his Army would follow him when it was possible to gather sufficient transport. Privately he might have wished that the plane carrying this awkward ally would be lost over the sea.

  ‘So, Field Marshall Brooke. What does the future hold for us?’ asked the Prime Minister. Brooke shook his head in reply. Montgomery and Alexander mirrored his gloomy countenance. Eden looked on, saying nothing. He was deeply depressed. The silence was broken by the creak of the door as a young staff officer strode in with yet more bad news. He relayed this to Brooke who then spoke to the rest of the assembled group.

  ‘Panzers on the outskirts of Manchester. Bombing raids on Hull, York and Leeds. Paratroops landed near Middlesbrough and Newcastle. Another three divisions out of action….’

  ‘Out of action?’, queried the PM.

  ‘Destroyed. Prisoners. Equipment lost et cetera. Not able to fight on…. out of action.’ Churchill’s despond deepened.

  ‘Do we….’, Alexander paused as if afraid to speak, ‘do we surrender?’

  ‘Surrender?’, said Churchill, as if the possibility had never occurred to him.

  ‘I feel that we are going to lose, sir’, said the General. Alexander looked at Montgomery hoping for some support but there was only an intense and painful silence for some moments. Finally, his deputy spoke. He looked pale and thin - more so than usual. Indeed, all of them had aged. The spark that had made Monty such an inspiration to his subordinates was dimmer now than it had been.

  ‘I can’t imagine a situation in which we would prevail, Prime Minister. It is not as if there is anything to be gained by holding out against the Germans…. help is not on its way. There is nowhere for us to run to. The Germans have over one million superbly trained and disciplined troops on our island - troops who know they are winning. And we have the remnants of a hastily trained, badly equipped army, probably less than a quarter of a million men in any sort of cohesive units. These are men who know they are losing. To continue to fight will simply mean that more of these men will die.’

  ‘You know, of course that we have commissioned two submarines to take you and the Royal Family out of Britain’, said Eden, gloomily.

  ‘Run away?’, said Churchill.

  ‘It doesn’t matter what you call it, Prime Minister. I would also propose that the Royal Navy be sent to Canada or Australia and the rest of the Army to Northern Ireland.’ Alan Brooke removed his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose with thumb and forefinger. It gave him no pleasure to say these things. ‘I would handle the surrender if you wanted me to, Prime Minister.’ He had earmarked the most unpalatable job for himself, aware of what his place in history would now become.

  ‘Why send the Army to Northern Ireland. It will also fall one way or another.’

  ‘I doubt if we could get them all away in any case but maybe we could get the Americans to evacuate some of them’, said Alexander.

  ‘And in that way we could somehow continue the fight against the Germans’, said Churchill.

  ‘Perhaps. They might be used to fight the Japanese and then maybe the American's gratitude would extend to helping us to win back our country. The Fleet can continue to fight in the Pacific and strike against German shipping perhaps. It would mean that we weren’t totally defeated.’ Brooke could see that the idea appealed to the PM. Still, he waited for his response with some trepidation. Winston was not a man keen on surrender. Against this was the fact that he was not keen on wasting human life either.

  ‘Yes. We must do that. Maybe someday we can reclaim our country and destroy Hitler’, he said, reaching for his tumbler of whiskey. ‘Of course, it might well be the case that none of us are around to see that day.’ He sipped his drink and then added, ‘I suppose that it is inevitable that some of our less….’, he struggled to find a word for a second, ‘redoubtable citizens will collaborate with the enemy but I hope that such behaviour is not too widespread. I would like us to come back before too much harm is done to the essential character of our people.’ The other men nodded their agreement. ‘And I suppose that there will be some sort of puppet government such as they have in Vichy. Who would be the head of state? Halifax?’ The officers said nothing - this was not their field of expertise. Only Eden gave a gloomy nod.

  The armistice was signed on August the fourth 1942. Hitler was there, his eyes gleaming excitedly. The Nazi hierarchy were in attendance, Goering especially revelling in his new-found stature as the victor of the Battle of Britain. Field Marshall Brooke, neither a fool nor a coward, maintained his dignity as he signed away his country’s freedom. It was intended that he would feel intimidated by the masses of SS Guards, the gothic pomp of the ceremony and indeed the presence of Hitler…. and indeed, he did feel intimidated, although he tried not to show it. The venue was Buckingham Palace and the German newsreels and press photographers captured every last glorious detail for posterity. It had already been decided that this would form the basis of one of the first programmes shown when the new television service was running. That was only months away.

  The Fuhrer’s speech extolled the virtues of the German armed forces, the German people and highlighted the cowardice of the Royal Family and Churchill. Otherwise it was intended to draw the British people into the new German Empire by means, subtle or otherwise. In a sense the German leader had always liked the British, respected their achievements and desired to control their empire. Obviously, some of their new subjects were not racially pure but measures were in hand to deal with that problem and the benefits of controlling this once powerful far outweighed such minor problems.

  The existence of Jews and Celts was not an insoluble problem and it never had been - it just required patience and ingenuity. They would be found and disposed of.

  The amount of accumulated expertise in so many fields and the industrial base that he had inherited, made conquering Britain Hitler's greatest achievement. He had been handed the keys to an empire. The so-called ‘Workshop of the World’ was now his and he expected that the superb technical work force would soon bow to the inevitable and produce goods for the Reich. What option did they have? General Galland, head of the Luftwaffe in southern England, now had what one of his subordinates had once ruefully asked for - Spitfires wearing Luftwaffe colours and there was the promise of a new jet-powered fighter appearing in less than a year.

  With Italian control of the Mediterranean now absolute and British forces in North Africa destroyed, oil flow freely into the Reich. He wondered if there might be some way to overthrow his old ally Mussolini someday.

  He often ran through the benefits of Britain’s defeat in his mind - new ones occurring to him frequently. For instance, the fledgling resistance movement in France had collapsed. It was obvious that this would occur - they had no supplies of weapons coming in from the UK but more importantly there was simply nothing to fight for. With the British out of the war there was no hope for ultimate victory. There was no base for an invasion to be launched from and no-one to launch that invasion. There was of course the ‘Maquis’ - nothing better than Communist bandits - but Hitler expected that they too would eventually throw in the towel. Their cause was as hopeless as anyone’s.

  He was piqued that twenty thousand British Soldiers had been evacuated from Londonderry and spirited off to Canada. Nor did he like the fact that the Royal Navy still had eight capital ships, four carriers as w
ell as cruisers and a great number of smaller vessels. He had demanded that Field Marshall Brooke include these forces in the surrender terms but Brooke had replied calmly that he was unable to do so. No one in the Fuhrer’s inner circle had known how to counter this situation - the ships could simply have nominally changed their flags to those of Canada, Australia or New Zealand - and so it remained the case that the Royal Navy was free to operate from bases in the Commonwealth. But these were minor considerations.

  Of slightly greater concern to the Fuhrer was the fact that his assault on Russia had temporarily stalled. His forces controlled a large part of that huge country, behind a line which stretched from Stalingrad in the south to Leningrad in the north. They were close to Moscow. One more summer and one more push and that should be enough to gain control of the key centres of population and industry - after which there would be no point in the Russians resisting. He had no desire to fight for every square foot of wilderness in that huge, barren landscape and hoped that it would not be necessary. He had also suspected and had so far been proved right, that for all their courage and patriotism, many Russians (not all of whom even considered themselves to actually be Russian) had no love for ‘Uncle Joe’ and would happily see him overthrown. They might even change sides and risk their lives to fight for that.

  When he had doubts, however, he could still take solace in the fact that he controlled almost all of Europe and was the most powerful man in the world. He could convince himself also that his worries over Russia were down to impatience. It was simply a bigger country than any of the others he had conquered. It would take a little bit longer. It was only natural that this was so. But then the doubts would return.

  1943

  He had been in captivity for months now.

  He had escaped deportation to a concentration camp in France.