by Thomas Wood
But, if he had picked up on it, he would have ordered us to take a different route back, or maybe he had been complacent about how heavily armoured the Germans had actually been.
Either way, if he had picked up on it or not, his decisions and his actions had ended up with him dead, crushed in a metal box with the rest of his crew, their place reserved for possibly very many years. I hoped that it had been quick for him and that he didn’t experience too much pain. He had been very unlucky to have taken a round straight to the front of the tank, especially at the speed that he had been going, it must have taken an extremely fluky artillery round to have landed exactly where it did.
I hoped that the initial blast had been all he felt, all his crew had felt, as they were wiped from this earth, now only a haunting memory in my mind and a distant memory in the mind of his family.
At the thought of his family, I suddenly felt worse for them than I did for the Major himself. Mrs Perkins was now a widow, never to see her husband again with nothing more than a hopeful goodbye the last time she had waved him off. The four Perkins children were now all fatherless and would spend the remainder of their lives cursing this damned war for snatching someone so precious and loved from their lives.
I could not imagine the pain that they would go through, I could not envisage having to grow up without a father in their lives, especially at such a young age too; all four of them were under the age of seven years old.
Although I felt sorrow and remorse towards the Perkins family at the loss of the head of their household, it was sorrow for myself that I felt the most at the loss of Major Perkins. He had guided me, nurtured me, from a new Second Lieutenant, to making me into the officer that I was now. He had given me the chance to make the most of my gifts of navigation and map reading and I had thrived, until now. He had taught me everything he knew about the army, and he knew a lot, having been in for well over half of his life. But now, very abruptly, it had all stopped. His long career, rising through the ranks, up to the point where he had a regal crown on his shoulder, had been put on permanent hold, as so many others had just been a few moments before.
The headache that I had intensified to the point where it felt like my brain was trying to burst from my skull, kicking out at all angles trying to break out like a new born chick. There was almost no need for my radio now, I had no one left to communicate with, but I kept my headset on all the same, just like I knew all the others would have done as we went our separate ways.
I rubbed my eyes for what felt like the hundredth time in two minutes, pushing so hard at them that I felt like I almost blinded myself, taking a few moments of incessant blinking to regain my eyesight fully. I could tell that Clarkey was beginning to notice that all was not right with my head and so, I made a valiant effort to regain some composure and put what had just happened to us behind us completely.
“You okay Red?”
“Yes Sir, fine Sir.”
“Alan?”
“All okay Sir.”
I knew that both of them would be struggling with their own thoughts but having me to hold them accountable would hopefully keep them in check for a little bit longer. They would be crippled with similar thoughts to my own, like how we had gone back to help them and found that we could do nothing for them.
It felt wrong to have to leave those boys sat in their tanks, some of them dead, a lot of them wounded, but a handful, probably still alive, completely at the mercy of the first enemy soldier who poked his head through the hatch.
I was aware that the longer the thoughts lingered in my mind, the less effective I would become as a commander, and so tried to keep myself busy by regularly asking the other two how they were and how the tank was doing.
Before long, it was apparent that we were slowly getting ourselves lost, which was not something I was overly worried about, as I had been doing it deliberately for years and finding my way back just fine. But when you’re in the middle of a battlefield and a huge enemy advance, at least knowing where your friendlies were would be a bonus.
“Red, get us back on one of the roads and we’ll try our best to spot some sort of landmark.”
He did as he was told, and I risked poking my head from the top of the tank, fairly confident that we had made it far enough away from the danger to be able to take a look around.
The German’s advance had been swift and savage and, if truth be told, I wasn’t entirely sure where it had all originated from as of yet. Some people were saying they had smashed through the Maginot line and had advanced north, while others were saying that an attack on the line had only been a diversion and the main attack had come through Belgium and they were now heading west.
It was this second rumour that seemed to be more authentic for me, especially as we charged our way westwards, hoping to escape the onslaught of the tanks we had left behind, but also in search of our comrades, who were nowhere to be found.
The sight that met my eyes as I peered out was one that I was not wanting to see, nor was it one that I was expecting to see. I hoped that I would see soldiers, British soldiers, all cheering and encouraging us as they saw us back into safe territory.
Instead what I saw was a column of people, all making their way into the ditch at the side of the road as we passed, each one of them with at least one suitcase as they moved away from the fighting that was to come. It unnerved me, seeing men, women and children, all leaving their homes to try and make it to some safer ground.
I felt tempted to get out and walk with them, that way at least, maybe if the Germans did catch up with us, they would treat us slightly better than those who were willing to throw bullets towards them, but the thought was quickly wiped from my mind. I didn’t want to be seen as a coward.
“Where they all goin’ Sir?” queried Red.
“No idea,” I replied, hesitantly, I didn’t want to alarm Red and Clarkey that I thought the Germans were much closer to us than I had originally thought. “I suppose they heard about the fighting and are trying to get to a safer area, behind British lines.”
“Want me to follow ‘em then Sir?”
“Let’s try it at least Red.”
We had been simply outclassed by the Germans that we had encountered, they had outmanoeuvred us, and their experience clearly shone through. It made me feel inadequate as a soldier, I was sure that I had skills and capabilities, but they had been so easily swept aside in the space of around an hour. I wondered if the German in command was feeling as pleased with himself as I was feeling desperate.
I tried to guess what their next move might be, as if that would justify my belief in myself for a few moments. If it was me, I would continue pushing westwards, before pushing up north and squeezing us all into a tight corner and eradicating us all.
If I was a British commander, from what I was deducing, I would try and muster all the forces I could and break through part of their advance, and come around their forces from the south, encircling large chunks of the enemy and hopefully forcing them into a retreat. But the thought suddenly dawned on me that I might not live long enough to find out what my superiors’ plans were going to be. We were getting more and more lost by the second, and I was certain the Germans would have a very good idea where they were and what their next move would be.
From my experiences so far, the Germans were better than us in every way, with their weapons and tactically. I could only hope and pray that the rest of the BEF was holding up a damned sight better than we had done and that they hadn’t crumbled at the first real test of their strength like we had done.
I felt confident in all the other boys on the ground, they had built up strong defensive positions that would surely stand up to the test of German troops. Almost as if I had been speaking aloud, Clarkey piped up, “We’re still under the command of the French, technically aren’t we? So, if they don’t want us to hold our positions, we’re gonna struggle to find out where the rest of the regiment is, right?”
He was completely rig
ht, and it wasn’t a thought that had come to me until now, and not one that I really wanted to be entertaining. If the French had got us to withdraw, we would no doubt be in complete disarray, which meant that our chances of finding British troops, never mind our specific regiment, would be small to say the least.
I kept quiet and let the thought stew in all of our heads for a little longer.
I hoped that the commanders had all got round the table and really thrashed this one out, so that as few men as possible were needlessly sacrificed. If the rest of the BEF were holding out against the Germans, I hoped that they were doing a sterling job because, if they weren’t, we, as an army, wouldn’t last much longer.
And I really didn’t fancy the idea of being a chilled corpse all that much, and I detested the thought even more of becoming a German prisoner of war. I was certain that was true of all three of us.
8
I looked at my beloved maps for what felt like the thousandth time that minute, I was constantly looking at its contour lines and weaving roads and trying to piece together where we were. But I knew we were totally lost, this time with little chance of being able to find my way home again. I could almost feel the disappointment in the Major’s voice as he reiterated to me the job of a reconnaissance officer.
“You must always know where you, and the rest of the regiment, are. No matter what happens.”
I decided it was almost time to ditch the maps, as I was fairly confident that the maps that I had, didn’t stretch this far westwards, as we were never expecting to be pushed back this far so quickly. I was almost certain that this was the case but still, I couldn’t actually bring myself to screw them up and throw them out of the tank, there was something restricting me from doing so.
The others knew we were lost by now, having seen me poke out of the tank, duck back in, look at the map and sigh, only to repeat the whole process again some thirty seconds later.
We must have been driving through the most barren and desolate area of France, with nothing more than a few trees as the only real landmarks that I could depend upon. All I could see for miles around were empty fields and trees, as well as the growing number of people as they trudged away from their homes.
I wondered whether or not they were pleased to see us. Maybe they thought that we were here to help them, and that the simple presence of a military vehicle was enough to lift their weary spirits. Or maybe they just thought that we were a nuisance for making them move off the road, nothing more than a glaring target for the enemy planes that would no doubt be overhead soon.
None of them gave me even an inkling of how they were feeling however, all of them remained completely deadpan, no flicker of a smile or a wave, not even a menacing fist towards us as they hopped down into a ditch. They all trudged, the look in their eyes as if they were already resigned to the fact that death would soon catch up with them.
As night began to fall, the people who had been clogging up the road for the whole of the afternoon, began to venture into the woods or even the ditches to find a place to rest for the evening. It seemed that they didn’t want to lose their place in the most humiliating queue as they fled from their homes and livelihoods.
We simply did not have that option, we had to keep going, for as long as we possibly could, stopping only momentarily to relieve ourselves or beg for some more water. Before long though, we stopped that as well, Red pointing out that it would take only one of the retreating civilians to be a German in disguise and we would all be dead. From then on, we stopped only when there were much fewer people around, taking our weapons with us.
As the sun just dipped behind the trees for the final time that day, relieving us all of the blinding streaks of sunlight that had been tormenting us for hours, Red needed to stop, he was exhausted. Fair enough, I thought to myself, he had been driving almost non-stop for about eight hours and he wasn’t exactly sitting in first class where he was. Clarke, who had some experience in driving the machines, swapped with him and Red joined me up on the platform in the turret, squishing himself like a contortionist up against the wall of the tank, trying to get in a position where he could get some half-sleep.
“Why’d you join the army sir?” He asked, not opening his eyes as he did so. It took me by surprise, I had never expected to be asked such a question, especially in the situation that we found ourselves in right now.
“At the moment, I’m not really sure Red. But before…I guess I thought it would do me some good. Get away from my parents and where I grew up. Experience a bit of life before I return.”
He scoffed, “You think you’ll get back then do you?”
“What about you, Red? Why are you here?”
He sat in silence for a few moments, long enough for me to think that he had fallen asleep in the uncomfortable foetal position he now adopted.
“Dunno really…same reasons as you I s’pose. Get away from it all. Start again like.” I’d never met a Geordie before I met Red, but I was glad that I had done, and met a good example of one at that. He always worked hard, more often than not the first one to wake up and since we’d been in France, making sure that the tank was mechanically sound, as well as being clean inside of any spent shell casings or the occasional mug of coffee.
We chatted for a few moments more, about what our lives were like back at home, and I began to form a real bond with Red in those minutes, more so than the few months that we had spent before this had all kicked off.
I began to feel sorry for him and realise how privileged my life had been to date. He had grown up in near poverty after his father had died of pneumonia that had stemmed from an injury that he had sustained in Mesopotamia during the last war. His mother, after the death of his father had fallen into a period of ill health and so Red, and his brothers, were forced into work to keep the family afloat.
On reaching his sixteenth birthday, Red’s situation had not changed but he decided that the direction in his life was in urgent need of a change. By stealing food to make sure he was strong and heavy enough to pass the medical, he joined the army.
Now, here he was, approaching his twenty-third birthday having already completed nearly five years in uniform. As he was, he should have been at the very least a lance-corporal now, maybe even the dizzying heights of corporal, but from what I had heard, he was very low down that particular pecking order. I couldn’t for the life of me understand why, he was brilliant at what he did, kept his nose out of trouble and was also hugely respected by the rest of the lads; he was ideal NCO material.
“Boss…boss…” the urgent and frightened tones of Alan Clarke’s voice began to register in my mind. “What do we do? What do we do?!”
“Clarke, what’s the matter?”
“I don’t really know how to tell you this Sir…” Instead of waiting for a few hours for Clarke to get his words out, I pushed my head out from the turret once again. It was now pitch dark and the civilians who had sporadically spread themselves out at the side of the road, had now been replaced by soldiers. And not the kind of soldiers that I particularly wanted to be this close to.
German soldiers flooded my vision everywhere I looked. There were literally hundreds of trucks, backed up one after the other on the right-hand side of the road, with men off to the side lighting fires and enjoying a nice hot meal before bed. On the left-hand side of the road, tanks and other moving vehicles, slowly trundled their way past the hundreds of men who were preparing to bed down for the night. Motorcycles zipped up and down the column, shouting orders to the drivers as they began parking up or trying to pull out into the column. I had absolutely no idea how we had ended up here, surely we should have noticed that we were slowly heading in the wrong direction and into the path of the Germans?
There must have been well over a thousand men here, judging by the sheer number of trucks and other vehicles that were parked up all around, with incredibly precise efficiency that we had all been warned about. There were probably more vehicles here than the ones that
we had shot up earlier in the day, and I wondered if news had filtered through to these men yet of what had happened there, and if they were baying for blood.
They didn’t seem like they were out for revenge too badly, most of them were just smoking and eating at the side of the road, and more than a few roars of laughter and singing were clearly audible. I decided there and then that if Red tried to poke his head out too, that I would forcibly shove it back down the hole, as I was worried about the true extent to which he would try and mow as many of these men down as possible.
I let my head linger out of the turret for a few moments too long, before I came to my senses and I made my way back inside our little piece of Britain.
“What’s going on?” enquired Red, as he woke from his snoozing state and I prepared myself to drag him away from the hatch in case he made for it.
“Clarkey, keep driving, keep this pace and this distance from the vehicle in front. Whatever you do, don’t stop.”
“What’s going on?!” Red almost shouted.
“Quiet!” I half-whispered, half-shouted, “Germans…,” I said, pointing towards the outside of the tank, “…everywhere.”
His eyes widened, but he knew that now was not the time to be arguing about anything, instead he lay on his belly, trying to get as close to Clarke’s ear as possible.
“Change down a gear, the engine will sound more German. Just in case.” This lad was brilliant, he knew everything there was to know about tanks, and not just British ones. He looked across at me, “Just in case there’s a German just like me who loves engines.” He winked.
Clarke did as he said and we all sat in a perfect silence, with nothing to serenade us but the whine of the engine and the laughter of the Germans that were just half an inch of armour away from seeing who we really were.
It must have been incredibly dark, as we managed to make it another five minutes or so without being ousted as an enemy tank. I was utterly bewildered and hoped that, if a German tank was to do the same thing through a British column, that they would spot it immediately and take the necessary actions to stop it. But either these Germans were next to blinded by the darkness, or they were incredibly lazy, as we carried on without a hitch.