Tramp in Armour

TEN Saturday, May 25th

They were roaring through the night like a thunderbolt, twin headlights ablaze, the long beams stretching far into the darkness, the giant transporter swaying gently from side to side as Reynolds stepped up the speed. Fifty-five, sixty, sixty-five miles an hour. On the other side of the cab Barnes gazed along the beams which still showed only endless open road, while between them Colburn turned round to peer through the tiny window at the back of the cab.

‘Don’t worry,’ Barnes assured him. ‘Bert’s still there – his weight alone will keep him on board even moving at this pace.’

His mind travelled back to what had taken place at the edge of the quagmire before they started their headlong dash to the north, and he smiled grimly as he thought that whatever happened now they had been responsible for eliminating at least one German heavy tank, even if the method used had been, to put it mildly, unorthodox. When he had examined the vehicle he found that it was in perfect working order except for the machine gun and the wireless set. To Barnes’ mind it should have been possible to repair the firing mechanism in a few hours but instead the Germans had loaded the tank on to a transporter. This action alone pointed up the Germans’ prodigal use of equipment. He had just finished his examination when he heard a heart-warming sound – the sound of Bert’s engines tuning up faultlessly. By the time that Reynolds and Colburn arrived inside the tank he had decided exactly what he was going to do.

He was going to head all-out for Calais, the last port before Dunkirk, possibly the twin keys to the whole campaign. If they could come up behind the Germans, causing the maximum possible damage to their rear, then they might be able to strike a heavy blow at a decisive moment. Above all else, he prayed that they would find a really major objective. Bert, going all-out, had a maximum speed of fifteen miles an hour, whereas the German transporter if driven to its utmost limits, could multiply that rate by four. But as a preliminary they had to get rid of one Wehrmacht heavy tank. This operation took less than thirty minutes.

First, they made a cautious reconnaissance to find out where the quagmire began. The wire fence proved to be the boundary and a short way from the gap through which the German soldier had walked to his death they found a faded notice board which carried a warning. The next stage was an even more cautious reversal of the transporter to a position close to the edge of the swamp. Barnes drove the vehicle while Colburn guided him with a torch. The third stage was the lowering of the ramp at the rear of the vehicle, followed by the infinitely satisfying moment when Barnes climbed into the driving compartment of the tank, fiddled with the controls, drove it backwards and forwards a few feet along the deck, and then reversed it for its final journey. He climbed out of the hatch and jumped clear as the machine was clattering down the ramp.

Wobbling erratically in the moonlight it proceeded across the field. It travelled backwards a dozen yards on an even keel, like a robot moving through the night, then suddenly it lost its stability, the front tilting downwards as the tracks churned up a rain of wet mud. It continued at that angle for a short distance, advancing without pause, hurling back great goutfuls of ooze which made them jump sideways. A few seconds later the engine sound changed, coughing and spluttering as the huge tracks sank so deep that only the hull and turret were visible. The hull went under. The engine sound cut out altogether while the turret submerged and Barnes saw with amazement the turret disappear in a matter of seconds, leaving behind only a disturbed whirlpool of mud and water. They had been lucky – they had driven Bert into the harder end of the swamp. ‘What happened to that farmer?’ he asked Colburn.

‘As soon as he heard the rattle of your machine-pistol he cleared off across the fields. I don’t think he liked the idea of being mixed up with dead Germans.’

‘And yet he had the guts to fetch those beams.’

‘I guess he thought he’d done his, bit – you can’t blame him, he probably had a wife and family.’

‘I don’t blame him but I’d like to have thanked him with a bottle of Mandel’s wine.’

It took them another ten minutes to put Bert aboard the transporter and to cover his silhouette with the tarpaulin they always carried. Under Barnes’ instructions, Reynolds had reversed Bert back up the ramp and along the deck until his rear rested behind the cab wall so that in an emergency he could be driven off in the minimum possible time. Then they had carried the dead Germans well away from the roadside into the field opposite the quagmire, collected all the spare machine-pistol magazines they could lay their hands on, and climbed aboard.

It was surprising, Barnes thought as he sat in the cab of the transporter which was now thundering north like an express train, it was surprising what you could do in thirty minutes. The question now was what they could do behind the German lines near Calais. He looked at his watch, Penn’s watch. Thirty minutes to midnight. At this rate they would reach the Calais area soon after midnight, that was assuming they drove all the way without interception, which of course wouldn’t happen. It was the surprise element which they had on their side, surprise plus audacity. He had a vivid picture of that Panzer column which had driven through the night with its lights full on. Well, they had their lights full on and this was a German vehicle they were driving. Finally, there would be an element of near-chaos close to the battle zone.

‘I still say these might come in very useful,’ remarked Col-burn. He produced three German helmets piled on top of each other from under the seat.

‘Under what circumstances?’ demanded Barnes. ‘Put one of those on and you can get shot as a spy.’

‘Just a thought.’ He put them away again and produced a machine-pistol. ‘This baby is very good. While you were killing Germans back at the quagmire I found out from Reynolds how to use it – just in case. Look.’

Extracting the magazine, he hunched the weapon under his shoulder and gave a demonstration. Then he replaced the magazine and slipped the pistol under the seat. The energy of the Canadians, thought Barnes. This laddie never stops going. A distinct asset.

‘I still can’t understand why you liked handling explosives as a peacetime occupation,’ he told Colburn.

‘The satisfaction of doing a good job.’ He paused. ‘Hell, let’s face it – I’m a bastard who likes a good blow-up.’

‘You’ve come to the right place.’ He pointed to the right.

Beyond Barnes’ side window the night was lit up with distant flashes, flashes which succeeded each other almost instantaneously like an electric storm. They were racing north through Colburn’s ‘gap’ with the southern flank of the main battle area on their right, although as yet they couldn’t hear the sound of the guns. For the third time in a minute Reynolds glanced in his rear-view mirror.

‘I thought so, Sergeant. We’ve got company. There’s a truck coming up behind us and I think it’s like die one Penn put a shell through.’

‘How far back?’

‘Coming up on our tail. I think he’ll be passing us in a minute. He’s coming at a helluva lick.’

‘Keep your present speed.’

Barnes tightened his grip on the machine-pistol which lay across his lap and Colburn produced the German helmets again with a flourish.

‘Sergeant Barnes, how many men do you think there could be aboard this truck?’

‘At least twenty,’ said Barnes shortly.

‘And we would like to get to Calais rather than fight Custer’s Last Stand here?’

‘That is the general idea.’

‘Then may I offer these – going very cheap? I’ve noticed that in wartime you don’t look at a soldier’s face – you look at his uniform, and the most distinctive part of a German soldier’s uniform is this elegant helmet.’

They said no more, they put the helmets on, and it struck Barnes that he had never seen anyone look more like a German soldier than Reynolds in his helmet which was perhaps just as well since he would be closest to the truck. They could hear the horn blaring behind them now, warning the transporter they were about to be overtaken, and now a chill silence descended on the cab as the tension rose rapidly. Barnes remembered the open-backed trucks which Perm had described and how the sea of faces had stared at him as they went past. If this lot suspects anything, Barnes thought grimly, all they have to do is to play innocent, pass us, and the next thing we’ll know is when a spray of bullets comes through this windscreen. One burst should do for all three of us. He crouched lower in his seat, peering from under the rim of the helmet which was too large for him, changing his grip on the pistol so he could raise and fire in one movement. The only comforting thing was that Reynolds would keep on driving without his nerve cracking as long as he was physically capable of the action. Ah, here they come.

He could see the headlights of the truck now. It seemed to drive part way along the side of the transporter and then hold its speed. Had the tarpaulin come undone? Could they see that it wasn’t a German tank under the sheet? He peered back through the little window and the bulk of the tank blocked his view, but he could see that the tarpaulin was still firmly in place over the rear. The trouble was it was the side which counted. The headlights were moving forward now and out of the corner of his eye he saw the cab of the other vehicle draw level and then move ahead. Any minute now. The cloth-covered side of the truck slid past and the truck was ahead of them. A huddle of helmeted German soldiers stared back into the fierce glare of the headlights, their faces white under the pudding-shaped helmets. Barnes stared back, knowing that they couldn’t see him because of the headlights. They looked dazed, bored, tired. As the truck sped away from them he wondered how many of the soldiers would be alive when the war was over. They took off their helmets and handed them to Colburn.

‘Well, that worked,’ he said, ‘but I can’t say I fancied the experience all that much. Have you had a lot of this sort of thing since you left Etreux?’

‘Not more than six times a day,’ Barnes replied humorously.

‘Oh, well, that’s fine. I thought maybe it happened frequently.’

You could sense the drop in temperature inside the cab, the relief at still being alive, the sheer enjoyment of still being in one piece. Colburn found he had an almost uncontrollable impulse to chatter and it was with difficulty that he restrained himself from overdoing it. These boys really had something to put up with; this long-drawn-out business wasn’t his forte. Give him the air every time. It was short but sharp up there, over with quickly. Ten minutes later the tension crept back into the cab when Reynolds informed them that there were headlights behind again.

‘Another truck?’ queried Barnes.

‘No, I think this is a car. He’s in a hurry, too. I thought I was driving this bus over the speed limits but some of these drivers need certifying. The car behind came up from nowhere like a dirt-track rider.’

‘Let him pass.’

‘Helmets on?’ queried Colburn.

‘Not this time. Whoever it is won’t be able to see clearly into the cab from a car.’

‘He’ll see Reynolds if he looks,’ Colburn objected.

‘I don’t like wearing Jerry helmets,’ said Reynolds flatly.

Headlights had appeared beyond Reynolds’ window and the car began to move up fast. Reynolds glanced down, looked ahead quickly, and then glanced down again. The car moved forward and then stayed alongside the transporter’s bonnet, the driver’s arm projecting and waving madly as he flagged them down. Barnes’ eyes narrowed and he lifted the pistol, a movement which caught Reynolds’ eye.

‘Don’t, Sergeant.’

‘What’s the matter?’

‘It looked like Jacques. I think he wants us to stop.’

‘Jacques! It can’t be. He passed us this morning on his way to Abbeville.’

‘It’s a green Renault and I’m sure it’s Jacques. In fact,’ Reynolds concluded heavily as though not enjoying contradicting Barnes, ‘I saw him twice. It’s definitely Jacques.’

‘All right. Slow down and then pull in, but keep your engine running. Was he alone?’

‘As far as I could see, yes.’

The darkest suspicion flooded into Barnes’ mind and he put one hand on the door handle ready to jump out as soon as the vehicle stopped. If this really was Jacques no possible stretch of the imagination could explain his presence up here in the Pas de Calais, yet what was he doing so far from the Mandel farm and Abbeville? Still not at all sure that Reynolds hadn’t made some ghastly mistake, he jumped down as soon as the transporter pulled up. When he reached the ground the Renault was stopping a dozen yards ahead. The engine was switched off and a man got out. He ran towards them, shielding his eyes against the powerful beams. It was Jacques.

‘I’ve been driving up and down this road for three hours hoping to see you, Sergeant Barnes. But I didn’t really expect I ever would – I thought you’d follow that route I marked on your map, though.’

‘I didn’t expect to see you either,’ Barnes replied grimly.

‘You amazed me when I saw Reynolds in that cab – it is a German transporter, isn’t it?’

His face looked chalk-white, although it might have been the light of the beams, and his voice was harsh and strained.

‘Yes, it’s a transporter. What are you doing here, Jacques? You said you were on your way to Abbeville.’

‘A terrible thing has happened. The Germans have shot my sister.’

Had his voice trembled? Barnes thought so, but the fleeting expression of pain was succeeded by an expression of bitterness and hate.

‘How did it happen?’ Barnes asked quietly.

‘The Germans are trying to say it was an accident – their interpreter told me that – but they killed her. She was standing in a square in Abbeville and some German tanks arrived. Someone leaned out from a window and shot one of their men in the tower of a tank. They fired their machine guns all round the square and my sister was killed. Boches!’ He spat out the word.

‘I’m very sorry to hear that, Jacques.’ Barnes spoke gently. ‘But what are you doing in this part of the world?’

‘After what happened I decided I must come home to tell my father. I live in Lemont – that is near Gravelines. I told you that,’ he ended accusingly. ‘Then I shall kill some Germans.’

‘I’d think about that, if I were you. Killing Germans takes training and skill.’

‘Not with a knife in the back in a dark street.’

He spoke without hysteria, his mouth tight. He means just what he says, Barnes thought, and he’ll do it coldly and clinically. This was the lad who led a gang to put wire across a road, wire which killed a German cyclist.

‘On the other hand,’ Jacques said suddenly, ‘I could come with you.’

‘Thanks, but nothing doing.’

Jacques was peering up at Colburn who leant out of the cab window to listen to the conversation. He frowned and turned to Barnes.

‘Who is that?’

‘A soldier – someone we picked up on the way.’

‘And where is Mr Penn?’

‘He died.’

‘I am so sorry. I liked Mr Penn. He was so jolly, is that the word?’

‘Jolly would do.’

‘And you will not let me come with you?’

‘Sorry. No. You get home to your people at Lemont.’

‘This is the road to Calais as well as to Gravelines. You are going to one of those places – to Calais, perhaps?’

‘Perhaps.’

‘I could drive ahead at least some of the way and warn you of danger.’

‘It’s no good, Jacques. That would put you in a crossfire between us and the Germans.’

‘I don’t mind. No, that won’t make you change your mind.’ He paused. ‘You are travelling on the main road at the moment, the most dangerous road. If you are going to Calais I know another road which turns off this one and it would be much safer, I’m sure. The Germans are less likely to expect someone coming that way. If I take you along it I can leave you before you reach Calais and drive back to Lemont. In fact,’ he added slyly, ‘if I insist on driving ahead of you, you can’t really stop me, can you?’

In the end, reluctantly, Barnes agreed. Before the night was out the lad was going to do something silly, anyway, and he was within a few months of being called up when he would have no choice. If they were very lucky they might get him behind the Allied lines where he would be safer while he got over his sister’s death. The only alternative, in view of his obstinacy, was to throw away the ignition key and leave him stranded, and he wasn’t prepared to do that. He gave Jacques careful instructions – he was always to drive at least one hundred yards ahead of them and if they ran into trouble he was to leave his car at once and run. Climbing back up into the cab, Barnes watched him walk back to the Renault.

‘I still don’t like it,’ he told Colburn, ‘but if he keeps that distance ahead of us it won’t look as though he’s leading the way.’

‘There’s a war on and he looked pretty mature to me. If you’d made him leave us he’d have been up to his back-stabbing tricks and sooner or later they’d get him.’

‘Let’s go, Reynolds,’ said Barnes.

As the transporter moved on through-the night the air of tension returned to the cab and it never went away again. There was no longer much conversation and Barnes found himself holding the machine-pistol in a vice-like grip as his eyes followed Jacques’ tail-light. He had already made up his mind that as soon as Jacques put them on the side road the lad would have to leave them and go home to Lemont. Telling Colburn to keep a close eye on the tail-light, he took out his map folded to the Pas de Calais area and found Lemont, a dot little more than a large village close to Gravelines, the town east-north-east of Calais. Both places were on the waterline, a system of canals with sluice gates to control the flow. Closing the map, he lowered his window and looked to the east where the flashes now rivalled the moonlight as they illuminated the sky, but it was no longer the flashes alone which told him they were moving very close to the battle area, for now he could hear in the distance the thump of big guns. He wiped more sweat off his forehead and dried his hands on his trousers. The rising sense of tension had almost become a physical presence inside the cab, something they could all feel. Was it simply the growing sound of the guns or was it also the realization that with every second which passed, with every yard they moved forward, they drew closer to the inevitable encounter with the Germans? Five more minutes passed, five minutes of loaded silence, and then the crisis broke with alarming suddenness.

They had followed Jacques round a sharp corner and immediately Reynolds was jamming on the brakes, the huge vehicle still trying to move forward against the restraining pressure. The Renault was stationary perhaps seventy yards ahead, and no farther than fifty yards beyond the stopped car lights were strung across the road. One of the lights, a red lamp, moved from side to side.

‘Road-block,’ said Barnes tersely.

Colburn stirred beside him. ‘Hadn’t we better move up closer to Jacques?’

‘No, we stay here. Reynolds, switch off the headlights but leave the side ones on – we may have a visitor in a minute. And turn off the motor -I want to hear what’s going on – but get ready to start it again as soon as I tell you.’

Leaning out of the window, he turned his head and listened. The big guns had obligingly paused with their cannonade and he heard a voice, a staccato voice probably speaking in German. Then Jacques began to turn the car round in the road. He had only commenced the operation when a burst of machine-pistol fire shattered the night. The car stopped in mid-turn and ran back into the ditch, its front wheels still on the road. Barnes had his head poked out of the window when he heard another burst. As it broke off he detected a faint noise and looked up the road but it was difficult to see anything between the transporter and the Renault, whose lights were now beamed across the road. Colburn grasped Barnes by the arm.

‘For God’s sake…’

‘Quiet! I think he’s almost here.’

The running footsteps were very close and as Barnes jumped down into the road Jacques appeared, his breathing laboured, his expression bleak. He spoke rapidly.

Tm all right. They opened fire when I wouldn’t drive up to them. As far as I could see there’s only three or four of them but they’ve got a pole across the road ’

‘Any sign of a field gun? A gun with a shield and a big barrel?’

‘No, but there was one man crouched by the roadside behind a sort of rifle on legs.’

‘Anti-tank rifle. Which side is he on?’

‘The left as you approach them. I saw a motor-cycle and side-car behind the rifle…’

‘Anyone in it?’

‘No, but there are three more men behind the barrier – it was one of them that fired at me. I managed to get out of the car on this side.’

‘Get up here quick.’ Barnes was unfastening one corner of the tarpaulin and he held it while Jacques scrambled up on to the transporter deck. ‘Get on to the tank behind the cab and lie flat on the engine covers – the turret should shield you from any bullets that may be flying about.’

‘We’re going through it?’ asked Jacques.

‘Yes, so keep your head down.’

Re-fastening the tarpaulin, he climbed back into the cab and gave the order to move. He held the muzzle of his machine-pistol well below windscreen level and Colburn extracted his own pistol from under the seat. The transporter began to move forward, headlights blazing again, while inside the cab three men gazed fixedly ahead.

‘No shooting unless we can’t avoid it,’ Barnes warned. ‘We stopped and they’ll think there’s something funny about that but they’ll recognize their own vehicle. We’re not stopping whatever happens and they may lift the pole. Reynolds, get up some speed and keep going – I’d like at least forty miles an hour when we reach that barrier, more if you can manage it.’

The transporter began picking up speed fast as Reynolds put his foot down. He had reached a speed well in excess of forty as they flew past the abandoned Renault and ahead the lights of the road-block rushed towards them. Barnes was leaning well forward now, straining his eyes to see as much as possible before they reached the obstacle, which was clearly visible in their headlights – a narrow pole mounted several feet above the road. And something else, too. On the left a soldier lay behind the anti-tank rifle, while beyond rose the silhouette of the motor-cycle and side-car, a soldier already astride the cycle. The pole remained obstinately down. Barnes shouted.

‘Reynolds, if you can, drive over that rifle and the cycle – as long as you can get us back off the verge to the road. Leave it to you…’

Reynolds made no reply, his broad shoulders hunched forward over the wheel, his head quite still as he stared through the windscreen. They hadn’t opened fire yet. The fact that it was a German vehicle was confusing them. Barnes braced himself for the impact, grabbing the edge of the window and spreading his left arm across Colburn’s chest to hold him back. Cleverly, Reynolds left his manoeuvre until the last possible moment, driving straight down the centre of the road, heading for the middle of the barrier, increasing speed. Twenty yards. Fifteen. Ten. He turned the wheel. The anti-tank rifle, the soldier, the man on the cycle, rushed towards them and then the huge transporter loaded with twenty-six tons of tank smashed past the impediments. The wheels ground over something, the cycle and side-car were hurled sideways, the soldiers catapulted through the air, and then they were through the barrier as Reynolds swung the transporter back on to the centre of the road. Not a shot had been fired. In his concentration on the anti-tank rifle Barnes had never even seen the pole go: when he leaned out to look back all the lights had disappeared and the beams from the Renault were fading into the distance. He gave one simple order. ‘Accelerate.’