Tramp in Armour (2 page)

'Are you quite sure, Barnes? I've got to report to Brigade at
once. I must be quite sure. Over.'

'Quite sure, sir. I'm twenty-five feet up here and the place has been flattened, so vision is good. I'm a quarter of a mile
out at least and there's no sign of them ahead. Do I proceed
farther or return? Over.'

'Proceed a farther quarter of a mile if you can, then report again. Over.'

'Barnes OK. Off.'

At least it was a convenient distance. The tank was still moving ahead along the railway line, the embankment straight
as a ruler, and about a quarter of a mile farther along the line disappeared into a steep hillside. Barnes could see the arched opening of a tunnel clearly now. So the distance was all right, but the timing probably wasn't. He glanced at his watch and calculated that within the next two or three minutes the Germans would have wirelessed back for artillery support to lay down a barrage along the top of the embankment. Soon the first ranging shots would be falling, a spotter would be reporting their fall, and unless Barnes was very much mistaken they would hardly have completed their quarter-mile run before the shells began to bracket the tank. The fact that the embankment was so damned straight would make the German gunners' work that much easier. He wondered how the others liked being stuck up silhouetted against the skyline and glanced down inside the turret. Davis had the shoulder-grip tucked into position and he couldn't see the gunner's expression, but Penn happened to look up and on his thin, intelligent face Barnes thought he detected signs of worry, but then it would always be Penn who worried first because Penn had the imagination to think of all the things which might happen. Too much intelligence could be a distinct disadvantage when you were locked up inside a tank. He spoke briefly into the mike, urging Reynolds to keep up the speed.

Below him the ruins of Etreux glided past while he continually watched for the first sight of a gun position, for French troops. There had been a muck-up, the certainty of this was growing on him. First, there had been the hectic rush forward on May 10th when news of the German invasion of Holland and Belgium had come in, a rush from behind prepared defences on the Franco-Belgian frontier out into the open to meet the German onslaught in head-on collision. And now it was Thursday May 16th, only six days later. To Barnes
it felt more like six weeks later, but at least they were stuck into them. For a brief moment he glanced back to where the line of German dead lay, victims of the Besa's murderous sweeping arcs. He felt not a trace of pity, but he also felt no exultation, only perhaps a certain satisfaction that one of the few British tanks with the BEF was already proving its worth.

The railway tunnel was very close now, barely two hundred yards away, the black arch coming closer every second as the tank ground forward. And still no sign of the French, no sign at all. He'd have to report back soon now. Even in this sector there was a lot of noise - the heavy boom of the big artillery, the whine of shells - and this was why Barnes failed to detect the arrival of the enemy. Also, in his concentration on Etreux, he had neglected to search the sky for the past minute. It happened with terrifying suddenness - the appearance of a plane above his head screaming down in a power dive. He looked up as he dived inside the tank, saw the Messerschmitt hurtling earthwards, its guns blazing straight at Bert, and rammed down the lid, almost crushing his fingers in his haste. But he was just too late - one bullet whistled in under the closing lid, missing Barnes by millimetres, and terror entered the tank.

With the driver's hood closed and with the turret lid down, the occupants of a Mk II Matilda tank in 1940 could feel themselves reasonably secure against everything except a direct hit. On the other hand, if by some mischance a bullet from a rifle or a machine gun were able to enter the armoured confines of the tank, then what had once been a haven of comparative safety immediately became a death-trap. Entering the mobile fortress under the impetus of its own tremendous velocity the bullet has to spend its velocity somewhere, and it does this by ricocheting back and forth off the armour-plate hull of the
interior
of the tank, flying about unpredictably in all directions until its force is spent - normally by its entry into human flesh. As soon as the bullet entered, the three men knew what they were in for, and knew that there wasn't a thing they could do about it - except to wait and pray. The biting sound of bullet tearing from one metal surface to another only lasted for a brief period in time, but nerves stretched to breaking-point by the wear and tear of battle reacted to screaming pitch as the danger flashed into three battered minds, drawing from them in seconds reserves of physical and mental strength they would normally have expended over hours. Then there was a momentary silence while Reynolds drove at top speed
towards the tunnel. Penn was the first to speak.

'I think it went into the wireless set.'

Barnes checked his communications and banged the microphone while he looked at Penn, who was examining the set. Then suspicion flooded into his mind and he scrambled up the turret, pushing the lid back and staring up into the clear morning sky. The clever bastards! They'd sent the Messerschmitt down not hoping to hit anybody but to get him
to close the turret.
In this way his vision would be restricted and he wouldn't see what was coming next, but he could see it now coming from the east - an arrow-shaped formation of ugly, thick-legged birds - Stuka dive-bombers coming for Bert. He spoke into the mike, his voice dry and harsh, using his driver's name.

'Reynolds, we're going to be dive-bombed unless you get us
into that tunnel first.'

He stayed in the turret to check the course the Stukas were taking, remembering that these were the planes which had battered Poland. He might well die in this war, he knew that,
but not yet, not yet! He wanted to see Germany smashed first.
With narrowed eyes he watched the tunnel draw closer as the Stukas came over at a bare thousand feet. Yes, he'd been right
- they were coming for Bert. They'd change direction now
and he waited for the first one to peel off, waited for the hair-
raising shriek of those screaming bombs which would put fear
into the dead.

'Lights on,' he ordered, automatically as Bert thundered towards the tunnel.

The first Stuka was peeling off now, falling sideways, ejecting black eggs from its belly. Barnes slammed down the lid, dropped to the turntable floor and rotated the periscope so that he saw the tunnel moving towards them.

'Wait for it,' he warned the others, but mainly to warn Reynolds who was driving.

They heard it coming., a high-pitched whistle growing to a piercing shriek which easily dominated the engine sound, penetrating the armoured walls as though they were papier-mache. It's a direct hit this time, thought Penn. He looked at
Davis, but the gunner's eyes stared fixedly at the turntable floor, his jaw muscles clenched, his forehead moist with sudden sweat. Penn looked at Barnes, but the sergeant had his eyes glued to the periscope as he watched the tunnel coming closer. God, thought Penn, he's got no nerves at all. The thing was screaming like a banshee now. Would it never land? Up in the nose of the tank Reynolds could hear it coming, too, but he was wrestling with two separate fears. Reynolds had no imagination but as he saw the mouth of the tunnel looming towards him through the slit window he remembered a story he had once read in a newspaper. It had happened in Spain during the Civil War - a scout car racing towards a tunnel to escape bombing had met an express train coming out of the tunnel at high speed... But nobody would be running trains in the battle area. The tunnel mouth yawned towards him and the bomb exploded.

The shock wave dealt the armour-plating such a blow that it rattled the plates, seeming for a moment about to blow the tank off the embankment. Fitments clattered down on to the turntable floor and the detonation reverberating inside the metal room was so loud that they were all deafened. Then they heard the next one coming. First the whistle, then the scream. This time Barnes felt fairly sure they were going to get it: the scream was much louder, its aiming point seemed to be dead centre down the turret. It had to happen to someone during the war - a bomb dead centre through the lid, exploding inside that confined space... The bomb hit, detonated. It rocked the tank like a toy, smashing at the plates with a hammerblow, the acrid smell of high explosive seeping inside the fighting compartment. That one had been close! He glanced at Davis, who still stared at the floor as though his life depended on it. Penn had gone as white as a sheet, his small neat moustache quivering before he clenched his lips together and then unclenched them to speak.

'Knock, knock. Who's there?'

Nobody laughed, nobody smiled. They just looked at each other strangely, as they heard the next one coming. In the driver's seat Reynolds kept the tank going full out, conjuring
up reserves of speed from Bert that even he hadn't known existed. The tunnel mouth now filled the breadth of his slit window. He had forgotten all about trains coming out of hillsides. His hands holding the steering levers were as wet as though he had ^dipped them in water. Sweat streamed off his broad forehead and dripped into his eyes, but he kept them open, seeing the beams of his headlights inside the tunnel now. Then the third one started to come down. The tunnel rushed closer and closer as the bomb fell lower and lower, louder than its predecessors. Please, Bert,
please!
Reynolds whispered to himself. The walls of the tunnel rushed forward and they went inside as the bomb detonated. The force of the explosion seemed to take hold of Bert's rear and shove him inside the hill, followed by an appalling clattering sound, a low rumble behind them, then the ground under the tracks shook and they felt the vibration inside the tank. Barnes swore, swivelled the periscope through one hundred and eighty degrees, and stared back to where should have been an arched frame of daylight, seeing nothing but pitch blackness. The last bomb had caught the top of the entrance, blowing the hillside down over the track and sealing off the outside world.

'Halt,' Barnes rapped out into the mike, 'but keep the
engines revved up.'

The last thing he wanted inside this tunnel was an engine failure. He looked at the others and they stared back, stunned now by the nerve-racking silence. Except for the engine sound it was uncannily quiet. No shells whining past, no projectiles screaming down from above.

Cautiously, he climbed into the turret and pushed back the lid on its telescopic arms. It was like emerging into an underground cavern, a subterranean cave weirdly lit by Bert's headlights. Barnes felt a tightening of his stomach muscles as he swivelled his torch beam into the dark corners, moving it slowly over the enormous rock pile. Through the intercom he told Reynolds to switch off the headlights and at the same moment he doused his own torch. Not a glimmer of light anywhere: the entrance was well and truly blocked. He climbed down off the tank and used his torch to guide him to
the rock wall. Still no sign of daylight. The only way out was forward to the far end of the tunnel. When he climbed back into the tank he found Penn was still examining the wireless set. He put on his headset and ordered Reynolds to switch on the headlights. The corporal looked up and pulled a wry face.

'It's hopeless. Two valves went when the bullet charged in.
Mind you, I'd sooner have it nestling in there instead of in my pelvis, but I haven't any spares so we'll have to wait till we get
back to squadron HQ.'

Barnes tested the intercom again. At least that was still working, but being cut off from Parker was serious. Thank
God, he had sent out one warning about the gap in the French
lines. Taking the map case out of the rack he climbed down on
to the hull and Penn followed, watching over his shoulder as
he spread out a large-scale map of Belgium and Northern
France over the engine covers at the rear of the tank. His torch
focused on the area round Etreux.

'This tunnel's a damned long one, Penn. We'll just have to
jog through it and then make our way back as best we can,
Jerry permitting. At least we'll have a pretty good report on
the area when we do eventually land back.'

'It's going to be a long way round, isn't it?' queried Penn.
'As soon as we get out of the tunnel that canal bars the route
back for miles. We'll have to go over that bridge, then follow
this road...'

His finger traced a wide semi-circular course which would take them back into the rear outskirts of Etreux. Barnes agreed that this was the only way and he cursed inwardly at the breakdown in wireless communication. Parker would be wondering what on earth had happened to them and meanwhile he'd have to fight the German onrush with two tanks instead of three. It couldn't be helped, but they'd better get cracking. Climbing back inside the tank he explained the position to Reynolds and Davis, giving Reynolds a word of caution over the intercom.