Tramp in Armour (48 page)

'Tank coming ... don't forget... close lid.'

Looking sideways, he stared dazedly beyond the open doors of the hangar into the vast stockpile of shells and ammunition,
his last sight before a German soldier hidden behind a pile of
crates aimed his rifle and fired once, killing Colburn instantly. The machine-pistol fell and narrowly missed Barnes who was
beginning to emerge from the hatch, his revolver in his hand. He looked quickly towards the corner where the huddle of
Germans lay and then switched his gaze to the inside of,the hangar. His revolver jerked up and he fired twice. The German with the half-aimed rifle collapsed behind the crates.
Jumping to the ground, Barnes ran round the back of the tank,
climbed on to the hull, took a quick glance at Colburn
and went down inside the turret. The Canadian who had
just come over for die afternoon had been shot through
the temple.

Settling himself into the gunner's seat, he remembered that
the two-pounder wasn't loaded. Cursing, he stood up, flopping
in a fresh round with sufficient force to make the breech-block
close, settled himself again and traversed the turret. Using the
shoulder-grip, he elevated the barrel several degrees. The
German tank came-up behind the cross-wires, crawling for
ward like a huge dark beetle, a silhouette he had seen so many
times in the past battle-scarred fortnight.

He squeezed the trigger and Bert shuddered under the
spasm. The shot reached the target, the German tank stopped,
flames flaring over the superstructure. Bert had just killed his
first German tank. Barnes climbed back into the turret and looked at the plunger. It was extraordinarily quiet all of a
sudden. Without thinking about it he gripped the handle
firmly, paused, then pressed down.

Nothing happened. He had forgotten the switch. He lifted his head above the rim and looked round the airfield. The
burning tank was well ablaze now but he couldn't see any sign
of Germans. Again without thinking about it he picked up the plunger-box and the spool of wire. Climbing down on to the
hull, he closed the lid and dropped to the ground, paying out
the wire which led back inside the gun slit. Peering round the corner of the hanger along the side they had come he saw no sign of life. He began to walk rapidly back under the hangar wall, paying out wire from the spool, going past the Germans
Colburn had killed, past the tank transporter where an arc
welding torch lay on the deck, still spitting out a spray of
sparks. Feeding out the wire behind him close to the wall, he
kept on walking like a robot, wondering whether the wire
would last out.

To his exhausted, pain-racked mind the act of forgetting to turn the switch had seemed a sign, a sign that he might
just survive if he refused to give up. He reached the end of the
hanger and found that the area between the rear wall and
the high bank was deserted. Still paying out wire, he crossed
the concrete strip and began to climb the slope, the same slope from which he had looked down on the airfield with Jacques
before they had made a detour round the airfield to the point
where Barnes had seen inside the open hangar mouth with his field-glasses. He had almost reached the top of the slope when
he heard trucks arriving on the concrete strip below him. He
flopped on the slope, still holding the box, and lay perfectly
still, his head turned sideways. Soldiers were spilling out of
the trucks and forming up into two sections, then one section
made its way down one side of the hangar while the second
section followed the officer along the other side. Barnes
climbed over the top of the ridge and staggered down inside a
huge bomb crater close to the houses. Sitting down on the floor
he looked at his watch, Colburn's watch, stared up at the pale
sky he might never see again, turned the switch and pressed the plunger. At 3.58
am
the world blew apart.

The initial explosion came in two shock waves which blew away from Lemont straight across the laagar - the detonation
of the tank-bomb followed almost at once by the subsequent
blowing of the immense dump, which was then succeeded by
fire which created a chain reaction of exploding ammunition.
The first two shock waves swept over the laager like a tidal
wave of destruction, caving in the tank walls like paper.
Beyond the laager the shock waves smashed in the walls of the
farm which housed German headquarters, and when Meyer,
blood streaming from his forehead, staggered into his general's office he found Storch lying across the floor, his skull crushed
under a rafter which had fallen from the ceiling, one clawed hand stretched out towards the telephone which lay in a heap of plaster. Reaching down for the phone, Meyer sank to his
knees, picked up the receiver and found that the field telephone had survived. He asked for Keller. He knew exactly
what he must do - he must retrieve the situation from the
disaster he had always feared since that day so long ago when
they had crossed the Sedan pontoons. He had already heard
the report that British tanks were moving up through Lemont
to attack their rear and a column had been dispatched to inter
cept them without success. What Meyer had dreaded had now
happened - the enemy had counter-attacked. The tremendous
explosion which had just killed Storch was the final confirma
tion : there were no enemy planes reported so the British must
have heavy artillery which had blown up the dump. He heard
a voice speaking and broke in.

'Keller, this is Meyer. General Storch is dead. The British
are attacking from the south - yes, the south. Cancel the order for the advance on Dunkirk immediately. Do you understand?
You have the waterline at your backs so now you must...'

Halfway through the conversation the line went dead, but
Meyer was satisfied that Keller had grasped his order. From
the tank laager there was now a series of explosions of increas
ing violence and for the first time Meyer had the terrible
thought that he might be wrong. He
could
hear planes now,
planes flying low overhead, and the ack-ack guns had opened up. With a curse he left the wrecked office and ran out into the
garden. He heard the whistle of the bomb coming down and
turned to run, just in time to receive the relics of the farm
house full in his face as the bomb scored a direct hit.

At exactly 3.55
am
Squadron Leader Paddy Browne was approaching the coast of France, leading his Blenheims on a
dawn raid. His instructions gave him unusual latitude, but
then the situation was, to say the least of it, unusual. Evacua
tion of the BEF imminent, the German Panzers lording it over
the battlefield, the position changing almost from minute to minute. 'Fluid,' as the war communiques would say. His pri
mary objective was the key rail junction at Arras, but if he saw
enemy ground forces and could positively identify them, the
choice of target was left to his discretion. 'But for Pete's sake,
don't paste our own chaps,' the briefing officer had added.

Browne wasn't particularly concerned with the Gravelines-
Lemont area, but as he led his squadron over the coast his
attention was drawn to it by a huge mushroom of smoke rising
into the early morning sky, a mushroom which rose higher
every second as though the whole of that corner of France were
detonating. We'd better have a quick look, thought Browne, so
he signalled to the squadron and took his Blenheim down. Two
factors quickly convinced him that this lot was the other lot -
he met flak at once and his keen eye saw beetles scuttling
about on the ground as though they had gone mad. He could
hardly believe it for a moment but he believed it the next
moment. Hun tanks —a whole laager of them. Browne exercised
his discretion: he gave the order to bomb. An avalanche of
high-explosive rained down and when the squadron turned
away there was no sign of movement anywhere between the
breaks in the smoke pall. Browne's only comment on the way
back was typical.

'Good of them to send up a smoke signal.'

* * *

Lieutenant Jean Durand of the 14th French Chasseurs found
it difficult to believe his eyes as he focused his glasses across
the flooded zone. His unit was charged with the defence of this
forward sector of the Dunkirk perimeter and so far it had been
a quiet morning, but then this is what he had expected because how could Panzers advance across water? And, Durand asked
himself, how can this idiot advance across water? Speaking
into the field telephone, he asked the British liaison officer to come at once. This was a sight which must be shared.

The lone figure on the bicycle was crouched low over his
machine as though he could hardly stay on it, but still he
cycled steadily across the sheet of water, never once looking
up, as though he knew the way by heart. Barnes had to ride in
that fashion because it was the only way he could see the road
surface under six inches of water. His pedalling motion had long since become mechanical, a movement which had no
relation to thought. In fact, he had now reached the stage
where he hadn't looked up for some time and he had no idea
he was so close to the Allied lines.

The British liaison officer, Lieutenant Miller, had now
joined his colleague and his eyes narrowed behind the field-
glasses as he recognized the uniform. Apart from the fact that the cyclist could cross water, this sudden arrival of another
apparition was not a complete surprise to Miller because in the
present state of the battlefield men kept stumbling into the
perimeter with increasing frequency. A dog's breakfast, that's what it is, Miller told himself. All over the bloody shop.

The cyclist was within a hundred yards of where they stood
when there was almost a disaster. Unknown to either Durand
or Miller, because they had been unaware of the road's exis
tence, and unknown to Barnes because he hadn't been this way
before, the road suddenly dipped and before he knew what was
happening he was cycling up to his chest in water, and then he
fell off. They dragged him out spluttering and choking, hold
ing him up between them until they reached dry land where they laid him out on the grass. Barnes was desperately trying
to say something and in spite of Miller's attempt to restrain
him he burst out with it.

'Road goes all the way ... all the way to Lemont... Jerry
Panzers.'

'Got it,' said Miller. 'Not to worry. Hospital for you, my
lad.'

Barnes spent two days at the Dunkirk field station for the
seriously wounded although he kept trying to tell them that he
was only seriously exhausted. In spite of his efforts to leave
they refused to listen to him, so he waited his opportunity until the ward was empty of staff and then he crept out behind the
hospital still in his pyjamas, his bundle of clothes under his
arm. It took him half an hour to dress himself behind the
hanging wall of a bombed house, and when he reached the
beaches he made a tremendous effort to walk upright as though
there were nothing wrong with him. He was still only vaguely
aware that a total evacuation was taking place and he was frightened that they might not take him if he didn't look fit.

Afterwards he could only recall the journey as a blur, like a film run too quickly through the projector. The endless wait on the beaches, the sand coughing up as bombs fell, the crowded
boat which threatened to sink under the great weight of men
who sat shoulder to shoulder, the incredible calm of the
Channel as they crossed to England under bombardment and
in a blaze of sunshine. Then Dover. Dover was the same thing
all over again. A tremendous muddle, hundreds of men mov
ing off in trains with hardly any supervision so far as he could
see.