Tramp in Armour (15 page)

The greatest danger was the motor-cycle patrols which he had seen through his glasses moving ahead of the column. They would follow the same procedure as the previous column, he felt sure of that. A patrol would arrive, halt to drop a sentry, and then drive on. The sentry would move on to the centre of the bridge and look straight down the river. Barnes looked down the river: yes, it was a good hundred yards to that bend. And there were other things to worry about. Driving a tank along the bed of a river, even a comparatively straight river, is not the easiest of manoeuvres, and he was constantly talking into the mike to guide Reynolds' progress between the banks. They might just make it, so
long as the river bed remained firm.
From his elevated position he strained his eyes desperately to see the ground ahead under the water, searching for any sign of a large area of mud or softness or, worse still, a threat of rapids. And then there was "always the chance that the engine might stall, leaving them in full view of the approaching Germans. He put that thought out of his head quickly as Penn climbed up to join him.

'Think we'll make it?' Penn asked him quietly.

'If we can get round that bend in time.'

'Can't we get up a bit more speed - we're crawling.'

'Deliberately. This isn't the Great North Road, you know, and I'm bothered about the river bed - it's getting deeper.'

The water level was rising up the tracks quickly and he guessed the depth at over two feet. Three foot six was the maximum Bert could take. At the same time the river banks were closing in so that Reynolds barely had half a foot clearance on either side. The tracks ground forward, sloshing through the water, rattling over unseen rocks, grinding up mud discolouration, sinking deeper and deeper below the surface. Penn pulled a face as Barnes glanced back at the bridge.

'Must be three feet at least now.'

'All of that,' Barnes said tightly.

They were halfway between the bridge and the tunnel of
trees when a new anxiety assailed them - the sound of a plane. From the light-toned beat of the engine Barnes guessed that it was a small plane and it was flying very low. The Panzer column was using a spotter plane to check the ground ahead, which meant that the pilot would be searching every inch of countryside below him. If that plane flew over the river they were bound to be seen. Barnes could visualize it all clearly -the plane circling overhead while it wirelessed back to command HQ, the arrival of heavy tanks on both banks - in front, behind, above them. Then the remorseless shelling at point-blank range until Bert was reduced to a shattered hulk. It looked as though he'd taken them straight into a death-trap. He spoke into the mike.

'Driver, increase speed by five miles an hour. Follow my
instructions exactly. You're too close to the left bank...'

The tunnel of trees still seemed a terribly long way off, and
that tunnel could hide them from the plane if only they
reached it in time. The sound of the plane's engine was very
close and it was flying lower. It had probably spotted the
bridge and was coming in to reconnoitre the whole river area intensively. At that moment the tank almost collided with the
right bank and Barnes corrected Reynolds sharply, which
wasn't fair because although the driver's head was poked up
through the hatch and he had a clear view ahead, his vision
was limited at the sides and he couldn't see the edges of the banks. The plane was losing even more height, Barnes could
tell from the engine sound.

'This is going to be dicey,' Penn remarked.

'Keep an eye on the bridge, will you? I want to concentrate
on the sky from now on.'

He wanted to concentrate on several things - checking the sky, observing the bridge, watching the clearance on either side of the tank, and keeping a sharp eye on the river course ahead, but it was impossible. As usual, Reynolds was doing a marvellous job - any other driver would have stalled the engines, driven hard into the bank, committed any number of understandable errors, but Reynolds ploughed stolidly on ... Barnes lurched sharply as the whole tank
dropped,
a really
noticeable drop. Perm's face went white and he quickly glanced down and then resumed observation of the still-deserted bridge. They must have dropped at least another foot and now they were semi-submerged under the river. The hull would soon be awash. Barnes grunted, checked the clearance on both sides, and scanned the sky. They'd have to gamble now, gamble on the desperate hope that the river stayed the same depth. That plane was almost on top of them - his hand tightened on the rim as he waited for it to flash into view. The tank rocked over an obstacle and his moist hand slipped. He , was recovering his balance, still looking up, when a roof of foliage blotted out the sky, a tangle of branches thickly covered with many layers of leaves. Above the green network the spotter plane sped across the river and continued on its course to the north.

'So far, so good, as the man said to the girl,' joked Penn.

'There's still the bridge.'

'Not a sausage yet, not even a German one.'

Barnes looked back. The stone arch was much smaller now and it looked amazingly peaceful from inside the tunnel of trees, the sunlight showing up its white stone with great clarity. It seemed incredible that at any second the engines of war would be streaming across it on their way to a battle zone. Barnes turned round to face the front, feeling the coolness of the foliage-wrapped tunnel on his face, and his heart leapt into his mouth. Their road was blocked.

The light was dimmer inside the tunnel, which was why he hadn't spotted the obstacle - in the very centre of the river, barely ten yards ahead, a giant boulder projected-from the water. The rock was black and pointed at the summit, its nearside sheer and massive, forming an island round which the river divided into
two separate channels. Bert was capable of mounting a vertical obstacle two feet high, but the height of the boulder was at least four feet. In the time it took the tank to move forward a couple of yards Barnes considered the alternatives: climbing it was out of the question; ramming it could be suicide - they'd stall the engine or damage the hull; by-passing the obstacle by driving Bert out of the river and along the bank slope would be near-suicide. But the third alternative was the only possible one so he immediately began issuing warnings and instructions to poor Reynolds who was now being asked to overcome the insuperable. The operation called for no less than taking the tank from the river bed up on to the steep slope and then endeavouring to pass above the boulder with the vehicle tilted at a precipitous angle high above the river. Penn listened with a drawn face until Barnes had completed his preliminary instructions and when he spoke his voice was strained.

'Can we manage that? You could topple us over sideways.'
'It's the only way - we'll have to manage it. Keep a sharp
lookout on that bridge.'

'Well,' said Penn lightly, 'it's a good job we've got plenty of
time.'

'Do watch that damned bridge, Penn.' Penn hadn't taken his eyes off the bridge except for the brief downward glance when the tank had dropped precipitately, but at the moment Barnes was in no mood for his corporal's pleasantries. They were very close to the boulder and the closer they came the-more immovable it appeared. Yes, the only way was up the bank and along its side. Reynolds commenced the manoeuvre under Barnes' watchful eye, braking the left track so that the right one turned the tank towards the bank. As they left the water and mounted the left-hand slope a spasm of alarm ran through Barnes: the bank was much steeper than it had appeared. Instead of the undergrowth sinking several feet under the tank's weight it flattened down no more than a foot, enormously increasing the hazard because when Bert tried to move along the slope parallel to the river it would be like a cyclist riding up the wall of death. We could topple sideways, Penn had suggested. Well, Barnes knew what the likely result of that would be for the men in the turret: they would end up on the river bed and twenty-six tons of dead-weight tank on top of them. The tracks moved forward, the tank inched up the slope, and then began to turn which could prove quite fatal. Reynolds had braked the right-hand track and now the revolutions of the other track slowly swung the massive weight round on its axis, then he stopped briefly. The tank was parallel to the river below, the turret tilted out over the water, tilted so steeply that Barnes and Penn had difficulty in keeping their balance and their bodies were perched at an acute angle. Now for it.

They were all only too aware that even the slightest error of judgement would take the tank over sideways, and that even if they survived, which was unlikely, Bert would land on the bed of the river flat on his back like a helpless beetle, his tracks churning the air. And to Barnes it was quite clear that it all hinged on a few degrees of tilt; even a few extra pounds of weight on the right-hand side could be sufficient to start the fatal sideways topple. He gave the order. The tank began its forward movement. Foot by foot the tracks advanced, clutching at the earth below the undergrowth, and no one spoke, no one moved, every nerve end geared to the painfully slow revolutions of the steel tracks. They were beginning to creep past the huge boulder below when the crisis came. Barnes saw the left-hand track start to lift gently, increasing the tilt by several degrees. His hand gripped the turret rim as he took his decision. The bodies of Seft and the sentry were sliding over the engine covers to the right - he saw that when he glanced over his shoulder - and those bodies were adding well over twenty stone to their dead weight. Literally, dead weight, he thought grimly.

'Penn, cut those ropes - quickly!'

Reacting instantly, Penn pulled out his sheath knife and nervously leaned down over the back of the turret, being particularly careful not to lean sideways. The ropes were taut with the weight of the slithering bodies and he sawed rapidly, his nerves so keyed up that he observed each strand giving way until the rope, thinned to a few strands, suddenly snapped of its own accord. Seft's body rolled off the sloping hull and fell with a great splash into the channel of water alongside the boulder. Penn was so preoccupied in trying to watch the bridge while he cut through the second rope that he never even saw the first body land, but Barnes had a quick glimpse of the corpse sinking below the surface before he switched his gaze back to the front tracks. They were pressing down the undergrowth slowly, like an animal feeling its way across treacherous ground, and he knew that even the merest extra lift could unhinge Bert's precarious balance.

On his jacked-up seat in the nose of the tank, Trooper Reynolds was drawing on all his experience of the engines as he desperately tried to judge just how slowly he could keep moving without a fatal stalling of the motors, because if that happened he was sure that even the vibrations of re-starting the engines might well tip them into the river, and this was an experience that no training had prepared him for. Only his intimate
knowledge of the tank's structure and idiosyncrasies could pull the trick if anything could. For several minutes Barnes had not spoken a word, knowing that words were useless and that he must leave it entirely to Reynolds to perform this diabolical operation. They were three-quarters of the way past the boulder when Barnes saw the upper track move against a clump of brambles, but instead of pressing them down the track began to climb as it mounted some unseen obstacle beneath the undergrowth. Here we go, Barnes told himself. He prepared to shout to Penn to jump, knowing that he had to stay on board himself because Reynolds wouldn't have a dog's chance of scrambling up out of the hatchway in time. The track was still climbing, but Bert still clung limpet-like to the side of the bank, poised at an impossible angle. Then Barnes felt the
wobble
as the tank began to heel over. At that moment Penn sawed through the final strands of rope and the sentry's body broke free, toppling off the hull into the river. The wobble stopped, the upper track savagely trampled down undergrowth and dropped at least six inches to lower ground. They had recovered their balance. Penn's voice was breathless.

'Thought we were going, then. Two passengers couldn't stand the strain - they got off.'

'I think you were just in time, but we're not out of the wood
yet. Any sign of the Panzers?'

'Bridge still like a picture postcard. Can't last like this much longer.'

'No, it can't. Keep watching.'

They weren't out of the wood yet because now Reynolds was faced with a fresh manoeuvre which promised to be at least as tricky as the one.' he had just completed. The upper track was still moving forward over the smooth slope so Barnes decided that they'd better get on with it before that track started to climb again. And they had passed the boulder now. He gave instructions and then waited, watching intently without saying another word to Reynolds. Again, it was strictly the driver's baby.