The Black Jackals (15 page)

He turned to Fender. ‘Have you got through to Division yet? Tell them that one British truck just passed through our lines, heading west. Tell them that. Just the one truck.'

The sun rose low and golden-pink far away across the vast flat plain of northern France, bathing the fields in the hopeful light of a new day, and Lamb wondered what it might hold for them. He shivered in the early morning cold and, with Madeleine's sleeping head still resting on his shoulder, pushed down again on the accelerator pedal and tried to coax a little more speed from the truck, urging her on towards the south and safety. It was the morning of the second day since they had left Essars, and not for the first time he wondered what the reaction of Lieutenant Petrie might have been on finding his furious captain tied up and gagged in the office. Outrage, he presumed, although perhaps tinged with a little amusement, especially when he heard Campbell's tale of what had happened.

They would not have sent out a party after them. Of course not. Lamb knew that another German attack must be imminent and that it would be furious when it came, seeking revenge for the SS men lying dead in the canal. But, he argued to himself, what else could he have done? What else would anyone have done but follow the course he made for himself? He felt guilty too about immobilising the remaining two trucks by removing their starter motors. But there again, he argued, Petrie and his men were not going anywhere in a hurry.

The quiet French countryside slid past them as they travelled ever further towards the south west. He had no idea how much petrol was left. He had not had time, as he had hoped to do, to siphon off fuel from the other trucks. The gauge read that there was barely a quarter of a tank left even now, but he was sure that it had said that for the past ten miles at least and knew from experience in the garage at home that such gauges were notoriously unreliable. They must find a petrol station soon, and Lamb had a trick up his sleeve. The map he had been using since arriving in France was not army issue but a chart produced by Shell and Foldex that he had acquired privately in Stanfords in London when on leave. It showed the French roads much more clearly than any official map might; better still, it showed the locations of all Shell petrol stations. One thing he had been told time and again by the old sweats in the battalion, Bennett included, back at the depot in Kent, was that it was generally better to buy your own kit: boots, maps, anything really, even pencils.

He looked across now at Bennett, who was slumped in the other passenger seat, dozing fitfully but trying to pretend that he was awake. Lamb had let him sleep for the past three hours, but now he turned to him. ‘Sarnt Bennett.'

Bennett started and attempted to get as close to an expression of ‘attention' as he could, sitting squashed into the cab of a truck, but just ended up looking dazed. ‘Sir?'

Lamb smiled. ‘I think we'll stop in a few minutes. Then it might be time for you to take a turn behind the wheel, Sarnt.'

‘Very good, sir.' Bennett sat up and shook himself awake. ‘Any idea of where we are, Mister Lamb?'

‘Well, if my calculations are correct and we're on the right road we should be about ten miles north of Hesdin.'

‘Is that good, sir? I mean, how much further do you think we have to go?'

‘Well, once we reach Hesdin we have two options. Either we travel to the coast and then down along it until we reach the mouth of the river, then we head back inland and hope we find the 51st, or we just keep pushing further south, but that might be more tricky. Depends on where we reckon the Jerries are most in force.'

Bennett nodded. ‘I see, sir. So then we deliver the message to the General, and then what, sir?'

‘Then it's anyone's guess, Sarnt. I suppose we fall in with whoever we find ourselves with and hold the line until we receive further orders. I'm afraid we should give up all hope of finding the Battalion, or even the Division. We're on our own now.'

It was true, and he had never felt more alone and vulnerable. They were well behind enemy lines, caught between the two bisected halves of a decimated BEF, a very long way from their friends in the north and still with some way to go to the safety of those he had been told remained in the south. Lamb knew that at any moment they might go careering into a German unit: infantry, trucks or tanks. His main aim now, though, was to get them down to the coast as quickly as possible. Once there, he thought it might be an easier journey to push down to the mouth of the Somme estuary. They would wait there until nightfall and then go on foot across the mud flats to the opposite bank. He only hoped that the colonel had been right and that by the time they got there the 51st or what remained of them would be in position along the Somme.

He had chosen a deliberately rural route, which took them through as few villages as possible. True, the quality of the roads had not been as good as some others, which seemed more direct, but if that meant they stood less chance of encountering Germans then so much the better. As for the exact location of the mass of the enemy, he was quite in the dark. He knew that one front line ran the length of the canal to the north and could only assume that the other might do the same in the south.

Four times in the last day they had heard vehicles. Twice they had spotted tanks moving across fields, once dangerously close to them. They had stopped and hidden the truck in cover until the threat had passed. At one point a German motorcycle dispatch rider had roared past them, but he had not stopped. Whether out of fear, or because he simply could not believe his eyes, they never knew.

The closest squeak, though, had been when a squadron of Stukas had passed high overhead. Bennett, his ear attuned to their hum, had heard them even above the noise of their engine, and Lamb had swerved off the road and into the cover of a tree-lined hedgerow. They had passed over, doubtless
en route
to bomb a specific target and presumably under the impression that no British units could have remained in this sector. So far their luck had held.

Now though, as they reached their objective, Lamb was ironically feeling more uneasy. It had all been too simple and straightforward. Something was bound to go wrong. Most of the tanks and motorized infantry they had seen had been moving north, so he presumed they were concentrating on going in that direction and pushing the mass of the BEF into the sea, as the colonel had said. He knew, though, that some German armoured divisions had pushed down to the south west. According to Campbell they had already reached the sea, but in what strength and exactly where they were, Lamb, like the high command, had absolutely no idea.

He felt Madeleine stir again on his shoulder and decided that the time had come to pull over and let Bennett do some driving. For the past few miles, since leaving the hamlet of Eclimeux, they had been travelling through wide open countryside with fields stretching out to either side, and Lamb knew that was one of the reasons for his unease. Now, though, as the sun began to climb he could see trees up ahead, and tall banks of hedges on both sides of the road. There was a farm to their left, but he could see no sign of any military presence, or indeed any sign of life at all. It was as good a place as any to stop.

Lamb slowed down, applied the brake, then gently coaxed the truck onto the side of the road. The question of fuel troubled him. He reckoned that they might manage the ten miles to Hesdin and knew from his map that there should be a station there. There was another marked in a village close by. They would make for that first and hope that the enemy was not in evidence. They would face that problem if they came to it.

He switched off the engine and turned to Bennett. ‘There we are, Sarnt. All change.' Gently, he shook Madeleine's arm and she mumbled something, then opened her eyes. Lamb smiled at her. ‘Sorry, we're just changing drivers. You'll have to move for a few minutes.' She looked at him, puzzled at first, and then, as she remembered his face, smiled. ‘Of course. Thank you. Where are we?'

‘Close to Hesdin, I think. You've been asleep for a few hours.'

She let him move away from her and pushed herself back into the seat.

Lamb climbed out and met Bennett at the front of the vehicle. Both men listened, but there was no sound on the empty road, merely the chirruping of birds. It was strangely quiet after all they had been through.

Lamb opened his cigarette case and tapped an oval against the metal before lighting it. ‘One of mine, Sarnt?'

‘Prefer my own, sir, if you don't mind.' Bennett took a pack of Woodbines from his pocket and lit up.

‘Better check on the others. You stay here.'

Lamb walked to the rear of the truck and lifted the tarpaulin. The smell inside was appalling, though familiar: stale sweat and fart and foul breath. He peered in. ‘Everyone all right?'

There was a general groan of assent.

‘That's fine, then. We're almost there, chaps. Not long now.'

A voice answered, ‘Where are we, sir?'

‘In France, Smart. Somewhere in France. Don't worry. We're heading for our own lines.'

He dropped the tarpaulin as the usual round of wheezing, coughing and swearing began and returned to the front of the truck. ‘They seem fine, Sarnt. We might need to scrounge some rations before Hesdin, though. Water too. And fuel for this baby.' He patted the bonnet of the truck. ‘There's a village not far from here.'

‘Think there'll be Jerries there, sir?'

‘I don't know, Bennett, but we should probably assume that there will be. Safer that way, anyway. We'll pull up outside the place and recce it on foot. Then we can decide what to do next.'

Lamb stubbed out his cigarette on the ground and Bennett did the same, then both men climbed up into the cab of the truck and Bennett took the wheel. Lamb reached inside his valise and took out the map. By his reckoning they were nearing one of the few villages through which they had to pass, almost the last before Hesdin. Incourt, it was called.

‘Take a right turn here, and then left. We'll stop at the edge of the village.'

He nodded to Bennett, who started the engine, and they rolled off along the road. Sure enough, within 400 yards they reached a signpost for the village.

Lamb signed to Bennett and the sergeant switched off the engine. Winding down the window, Lamb listened, but heard nothing save the sounds of rural France. They would make a run for it. Changing his mind about the foot patrol, he nodded to Bennett and again the sergeant switched on. Then, revving up, he drove the truck into the village without stopping. The people of Incourt saw nothing. Half of them, probably, had already long since fled to the south, but in the houses of those who remained a few lace curtains twitched, and in a yard a dog barked, but the truck moved so fast that they presumed it must be yet another of the lorries full of German soldiers that had already passed through their quiet little village, and they turned back to their own sad lives in their newly invaded country.

Lamb looked at the map again. It would be foolish to head for the centre of Hesdin. They would make for the village to the south with the petrol station and go on from there. He turned to Bennett. ‘We'll head for the centre and then carry on through this village to the south of the town, Saint-Austerberthe.'

It did not take long. They drove quickly past quiet red-brick houses and whitewashed farm buildings, and within minutes they had come to a crossroads. To their right stood a pretty little village church, on the left an enclosed farm. Dead ahead, on the road leading away from them, Lamb saw what he had been praying for: a fuel station with a single pump.

He nodded at Bennett, ‘Thank God . . .' but had not finished the sentence when he froze. For in a yard, not fifty feet from the pump, stood a German truck. An Opel Blitz, German infantry transport.

Lamb yelled at Bennett: ‘Christ, man. Reverse. Back up the road.'

Bennett slammed the gears into reverse and the truck slewed backwards up the road as he tried to keep her steady with the steering wheel. There was no way, thought Lamb, that whoever was with the German truck could not have heard the gears crunch or the engine over-rev. He watched to see how many men would appear. But, miraculously, not one did.

As the truck continued on its backward roll cries and shouts of protest came from the men in the rear. Madeleine woke with a start and muttered something in French before sitting up. ‘What's happening? Peter?'

‘German truck. They must have seen us.'

Bennett kept his foot down and, eyes on the mirror, prayed that he wouldn't hit anything. He had never been a particularly good driver at the best of times, and reversing at speed was not something he had imagined he might be called on to do. But he was doing his best and, aside from a glancing blow at a low brick wall that drew louder cries of protest from the rear, he managed to control the three-tonner until eventually they veered around a corner and lost sight of the German lorry. Bennett pulled up behind the corner of a large house with blue shutters and a painted advertisement on its wall for Dubonnet.

Lamb made a sign and Bennett switched off. Lamb looked at him with wide eyes. ‘Well done, Sarnt.'

‘D'you think they saw us, sir?'

‘No idea. But we'll know soon enough.'

The men in the back were groaning now. Lamb stuck his head through the slit behind the driver's seat: ‘Keep it down in there. Jerry lorry.' The voices subsided, and then Lamb and Bennett listened and waited. Madeleine reached out and clasped Lamb's hand in hers, and although he realised that Bennett might see he did not push her away. The street was curiously silent. They must have heard us, thought Lamb, but still no sound came from the direction of the enemy truck.

After a few minutes, which seemed to last an eternity, he looked across at Bennett, and as he did so, as gently as he could, he let go of Madeleine's hand.

‘Right, that's long enough. We should take a look. If they have seen us we're just sitting ducks here. Get the men out and stay in cover.'

Slowly and silently the two men left the cab and moved to the rear. The flap of the tarpaulin was up and the men were recovering from their unexpected journey, rubbing bruised arms and legs. But no one seemed badly hurt.