Authors: James Holland
Three cream chevrons on either arm marked his rank, while above, in a
gentle curve at the top of the sleeve, was a black tab with 'Yorks Rangers'
written in green. It was a regimental marking idiosyncratic to all three
battalions of the King's Own Yorkshire Rangers, and a distinction the sergeant
still felt proud to wear after eight years. The Rangers had had a long history,
having fought from Africa to Asia to the Americas in numerous battles and campaigns
as far back as Blenheim, and Tanner was glad to be part of that. It gave him a
sense of purpose and belonging.
Even so, when he thought of the regiment, it was the 2nd Battalion -
the one with which he had served since joining up eight years before. He had
assumed that once his leave was over, he would be returning to Palestine, where
the 2nd Battalion was still based, but instead he had been told that the 5th
Battalion needed experienced men and had been packed off to Leeds to join them
instead.
At the time he had been distraught to leave behind so many good
friends, not to mention the way of life he had come to know so well, but it was
also a matter of pride, and Jack Tanner was a proud man. The 5th Battalion were
not regulars but Territorials and, as everyone knew, were barely more than
poorly trained part-timers.
In the six weeks he had been with them, he had not seen much to alter
that view. Most of the men in his platoon were decent enough lads, but the
majority were undernourished and from impoverished families living in the
industrial cities of Leeds and Bradford. They lacked the stamina and fitness he
was used to with the regulars. Few of them could fire thirty rounds a minute
with anything approaching a decent aim. Parade-ground drill, route marches and
a few exercises on the moors was the limit of their experience. Lieutenant
Dingwall, his platoon commander, had been a solicitor from Ripon before the
war, and although he was harmless enough he could barely read a map, let alone
fell a man from five hundred yards. Tanner knew the subaltern inspired little
confidence in his men, yet now they were heading off to war, and it was
Tanner's job to keep them alive and help to make them into an effective
fighting unit.
Tanner sighed and looked out at the ships of their small force steaming
with
Pericles.
No more than two hundred yards away the transport ship,
Sirius,
carried the battalion's
artillery, motor transport and much of their ammunition and other equipment. He
would have liked to know whose idea it had been to put so much of their
equipment onto one ship. 'Bloody idiots,' he muttered, then pushed his tin
helmet to the back of his head and leant forward to gaze down at the sea racing
past.
In fact, he had begun to doubt whether anyone in the entire army, let
alone 148th Brigade, had much idea about what they were doing. Since leaving
Leeds and arriving at Rosyth, they had boarded three different ships, loading
and unloading their equipment on each occasion. Confusion and chaos had ensued.
Kit had been lost and mixed up with that of the Sherwood Foresters and
Leicesters, who were also part of the brigade, while once, they had even set
sail before turning and heading back to port. Nobody seemed to know why. All
the men had been grumbling and it had been universally agreed that the top
brass needed their heads examining. This was no way to fight a war.
After disembarking the second time, they had marched eleven miles to a
makeshift camp outside Dumfermline where they had remained an entire week, carrying
out a few route marches but little firing practice or battle training: most of
their ammunition and equipment was still lying somewhere on Rosyth docks. Even
when they had finally set sail early the previous morning, the battalion had
been horribly mixed up: two companies and HQ Company on
Pericles
, and one each on the
other two cruisers, along with the Foresters and Leicesters. Worst of all, no
attempt seemed to have been made to split up their heavy equipment. Tanner
gazed at
Sirius
and wondered again whose idea it had been to put all
their transport and guns on one thin-skinned, poorly armed transport ship.
'Bloody hell,' he said again, shaking his head.
'You all right, Sarge?' Corporal Sykes was standing beside him, cupping
his hands with his back turned as he tried to light a cigarette.
'Yes, thanks, Stan. Not so much of a croaker now?'
'Think I'll pull through. Better for being out here at any rate.
Christ, the smell down there. Bloody terrible.'
'Why do you think I'm standing out here?' Tanner grinned. 'You've got
to eat something before you set sail. Do that and you'll be fine.'
The ship pitched again, causing a larger plume of spray to splash over
the prow. Both men instinctively turned their backs but then, out of the corner
of his eye, Tanner spotted a trail of white rushing across the surface towards
Sirius.
'Sweet Jesus!' he said, shaking Sykes's shoulder. 'That's a bloody
torpedo. Look!'
At the same moment, the ship's klaxon rang out, there was shouting
across the decks and the crew rushed to their battle stations. Across the
two-hundred-yard stretch of water, the men on board
Sirius
had also seen the missile, their frantic shouts of alarm carrying over the grey
sea. Both Tanner and Sykes watched in silence as the torpedo reached the vessel.
A split-second pause, then a deafening explosion. A huge tower of water erupted
into the sky, followed moments later by a second detonation. Suddenly the ship
was engulfed in flames and thick, oily black smoke. The
Pericles
began to turn away rapidly, tilting hard to
avoid the U-boat that must still be lurking below. The two destroyers escorting
the convoy went back towards the stricken
Sirius,
depth charges popping from their sides only to
explode moments later in great eruptions of water.
Tanner and Sykes ran to the stern as
Pericles
began to turn again. They lost their footing as
the ship lilted, but grabbed the railings and watched as
Sirius
groaned in agony. She
was now dead in the water. Men screamed, shouted and hurled themselves into the
ice-cold sea. Then, with a haunting wail of tearing metal,
Sirius
split in two. The stern
went under first, sliding beneath the waves, but the prow took longer, the bow
pointing almost vertically into the sky before gently sinking out of view. It
had taken a little under four minutes.
'Jesus, Sarge,' said Sykes, at length. One of the antiaircraft
cruisers had come alongside where
Sirius
had been moments before and was picking up
survivors. 'Would you bloody believe it? How are we expected to fight the bloody
Jerries now?'
Tanner rubbed his brow. 'I don't know, Stan. I really don't know.'
A Dornier roared
overhead, the second within a few minutes, and so startlingly low that Tanner
ducked involuntarily. It was huge and, Tanner thought, menacing with its wide
wings, black crosses and swastikas. It was unnerving to think that German
aircrew were just a hundred feet above him, and hurtling ever further behind
Allied lines.
'Cocky bastards,' he said, turning to Private Hepworth.
'When are we going to get some aircraft, Sarge?' Hepworth asked. 'I
don't think I've seen a single one of ours since we got here.'
'God knows,' replied Tanner. 'But these bloody jokers seem to be able
to do what they bloody like. I mean, for Christ's sake, how low was that one?
I'm surprised he hasn't taken a chimney with him.' He shook his head. 'They
must be able to see our every damn move.' He opened the door of the truck and
jumped into the cab, Hepworth following. 'Now,' he said, to himself as much as
to Hepworth, 'let's try to get this thing started.' It was
French, a dark
blue Renault, standing in a yard behind a butcher's shop in Lillehammer. He
found the choke and the ignition switch, turned it clockwise, then located a
starter button in the footwell. Pressing it down with his boot, he was relieved
to hear the engine turn over and wheeze into life. As it did so, the dials on
the dashboard flickered. A quarter of a tank of fuel. It was better than
nothing.
Tanner ground the gear-stick into reverse, and was inching back when he
became aware of a middle-aged man running towards him, waving his hands
angrily.
'We'd better get out of here, Sarge,' said Hepworth. 'I don't think
Granddad's too happy about us nicking his truck.'
Tanner thrust the gear-stick into first, and began to move out of the
yard.
'Hey! That is my truck,' the man shouted in English. 'What do you think
you are doing?'
'Sorry,' Tanner yelled back, 'but I'm requisitioning it. We need it to
help defend your country.' He sped past the incredulous man, through the
archway and out into the street. 'Poor bastard.'
'If we hadn't taken it the Jerries would have done, Sarge,' said
Hepworth.
'We should have our own damned trucks, rather than having to cart
around taking transport off Norwegians. It's bloody chaos here, Hep. Absolute
bloody chaos.'
Not that it showed on the streets of Lillehammer that Monday morning,
22 April. Barely a soul stirred as Tanner drove through the deserted town to a
warehouse next to the railway station. There, two platoons from B Company and a
working party of Sherwood Foresters had been unloading stores since shortly
after midnight. Most of these had now been taken out of the warehouse, but
large piles were still strewn along the platform and in the yard, waiting to be
taken away.
As Tanner came to a halt the quartermaster, Captain Webb, strode over
to him. A squat man in his late thirties with a ruddy complexion and a large
brown moustache, he called, 'Ah, there you are, Sergeant. At last! Where the
bloody hell have you been?'
'We were as quick as we could be, sir. There're not many trucks about,
though.'
'Any fuel?'
'Just over a quarter of a tank. We could start taking cars, perhaps.'
The quartermaster sighed.
'Better than nothing, sir,' Tanner added. 'And it's more transport.'
'Let's get this loaded first. The sooner we can get it going, the
sooner it can come back for another trip.'
Another German aircraft thundered over. 'Bastards!' shouted Captain
Webb, shaking his fist.
Tanner called over some men and they began loading the truck with boxes
of ammunition, grenades and a number of two-inch mortars. When it was full,
Webb despatched it, and Tanner took the opportunity to sit down for a moment on
a wooden crate of number 36 grenades until another lorry returned. He blew on
his hands and rubbed them together. It was cold but not freezing, not in
Lillehammer. He was exhausted. Neither he nor any of the men had slept more
than a
few hours since they'd landed nearly four days before.
Orders, counter-orders and confusion had dogged them every step of the
way. He supposed that someone somewhere knew what the hell was going on, but if
they did, it certainly hadn't percolated down the ranks. Trondheim, they had
been told on the voyage over: they were going to head north to Trondheim.
Instead they had halted, been sent south, then further south. And every time
they had moved, battalions had become more and more mixed up, equipment had had
to be loaded and unloaded. No one seemed to have the faintest idea what they
had or where it was.
He lit a cigarette, and rubbed his eyes. He was gripped by a sense of
impending doom, that they had come to this cold, mountainous country, still
white with snow, completely unprepared. Christ, what a disaster the sinking of
Sirius
had been. Trucks, armoured cars, ammunition,
guns, mortars, rations - not to mention their kit bags - all now lay at the
bottom of the North Sea. Three infantry battalions were fighting the enemy with
nearly half their equipment gone. It wasn't a problem the enemy appeared to
share.
Sykes was walking towards him. 'All right, Corporal?' he asked.
Sykes yawned and stretched. 'If I had a bit of grub and a kip I might
be.'
'Here,' said Tanner, offering him a smoke, 'take a pew for a minute.'
'Cheers, Sarge,' said Sykes, sitting down beside him on a box of Bren
magazines. 'Fiasco this, isn't it?'
'Too right.' It was now nearly thirty-six hours since they had reached
Lillehammer station. Tanner winced as he thought of their arrival. As a
sergeant, he had travelled on one of only two coaches, but the rest had been
forced to endure the slow, winding journey in closed goods wagons. Exhausted
men had stumbled off the train, and loaded with the kit of their full marching
order they had begun banging into one another. For a while they had stood on the
platform wearing dazed expressions, stamping their feet against the cold and
blowing on their hands. What pained him most, though, was seeing Brigadier
Morgan, commander of 148th Brigade, and the Norwegian commander, General Ruge,
watching. With a stiff, high-collared blue-green tunic, pantaloons and black
cavalry boots, Ruge had looked like a relic from the Great War, but while there
had been no doubt of his military bearing, his disappointment at seeing such a
tired, poorly equipped bunch of troops stagger with bewilderment from the train
had been obvious. 'Christ,' Tanner muttered now. It had been humiliating.