Tramp in Armour (23 page)

While Reynolds was driving the tank inside Barnes walked all round the building which stood in the middle of nowhere. Green fields stretched away to the skyline and the only approach was by the track they had driven along. He was on the horns of a dilemma because his small unit was now reduced to two effectives - himself and Reynolds. Leaving Bert here meant either leaving the driver to guard it or not guarding the vehicle at all. Reluctantly, he took a decision which would have horrified his troop commander - he decided to leave Bert on his own for the night. They had to keep some sort of watch through the hours of darkness - for the sake of the Mandels as well as their own - and he knew that in their present state of exhaustion keeping awake and alert all night was impossible. He would have to split the guard duty between himself and Reynolds, so both of them would take turns in watching the road, because it was along the road where any danger would come from. As they walked back with Etienne through the gathering dusk he still wasn't happy about putting the Mandels at risk by staying with them, but the fact was they couldn't move another kilometre without rest. On one point he was quite determined: they wouldn't sleep in the house.

Well after dark they sat down to the hot cooked meal which
Marianne had prepared. Roast chicken, potatoes and some
green vegetables they didn't recognize. They ate together at a
scrubbed wood table in the huge kitchen at the back of the
house, the stone walls hung with burnished copper pans, and
the family ate with them. Barnes was famished and joined Reynolds in attacking the meal with vigour, but Penn held his knife and fork and then put them down. Marianne said some
thing and Mandel, sitting at the head of the table, smiled
sadly.

'Your friend can't eat - it will be his wound.'

'I'm terribly sorry...' began Penn.

Marianne spoke rapidly in French, taking up his glass of
wine and making insistent gestures that he should at least
drink. Then she took away his plate and when she came back
Penn was drinking. Nodding to herself with satisfaction, she
said something to Mandel, who nodded in his turn.

'I can manage a gallon of this,' said Penn.

Mandel spoke to his wife in French and laughed at her
reply.

'She says that as long as he drinks a gallon he will be all right. And, Sergeant Barnes, do stop listening so carefully while you are eating - Etienne is outside watching the road and will warn us if there is anything coming.'

'It's just that it's well after dark. Would he see them?'

'Of course! These Germans drive through the night with
their lamps blazing away as though they owned France. Les salles Boches!' He made a gesture of cutting a throat with his
knife and Marianne frowned, which cause Mandel to laugh
again as he reassured Barnes. 'Do not worry. She is a good
woman. Because I want to help you that is enough for her -
she wants to help you also. Certainly we are more happy to see
your tank than we were to see the others.'

'The others?'

'Yes, a tremendous column of Germans which went on and
on past our front door - huge tanks, big guns, armoured cars. I
think it was a whole division.'

'When was this?'

'Six days ago - last Saturday. There have been others since, but they are mainly supply columns. The first one was the big one. Of course, you know that the Germans are in Abbeville?'

'We had heard a rumour,' said Barnes slowly.

'It is true, I fear. We may have a visitor from Abbeville
later tonight - my other nephew, Jacques. He comes from Lemont near Dunkirk, where he lives with his father, but at
the moment he is living with his married sister in Abbeville.
He may have interesting news for you.'

'How will he get here - you're behind the German lines.'

'I know, but this is not like the last war. The Germans are in Abbeville but only with tanks and guns - so if you can get the petrol, and if you are crazy like Jacques, you can drive about as you wish as long as you avoid their road-blocks. He has already made the journey once and he said he might come to see us again tonight. It has become a game with
him but do not ask me how he gets the petrol - he will not even tell me. I am sure that he has stolen it from a German store.'

'He'll get shot.'

'Do not look so surprised - it may not be as difficult as you think. The Germans seem very .short of troops to guard even important places like petrol and ammunition stores. The footsloggers - is not that the right word - the foot-sloggers have not caught up with the tanks yet. I was a foot-slogger myself once.'

Mandell nodded towards the fireplace where a frame hung above the mantelpiece. Inside the frame hung Mandel's Croix de Guerre, the medal polished, the ribbon faded. Barnes was frowning as he spoke.

'I find that hard to believe, Mandel - that they don't guard their ammunition dumps.'

'I did not say exactly that -I said that they have not enough troops to guard them properly, as with the petrol. You can ask Jacques yourself when he arrives, he learnt to speak English when he lived with a British family. You see, his father has ideas that one day the boy will be a great international advocate.'

'What happens when the Germans pass here, Mandel?'

'They make us stand by the roadside so that we can see how
powerful they are.'

'Very good of them. Where are the nearest Allied troops now? Do you have any idea?'

'In Arras, I believe. You are going to Arras?'

'Possibly.'

'It would be suicide.' Mandel waved his knife. 'The German Army is between here and Arras and the closer you get to the front line the more of them there are, naturally. You would do far better to go west beyond Cambrai and then turn north towards the Channel ports. That way you might just meet the Allies before you met the Boche.'

They went on talking and eating but still half Barnes' mind strained to hear any unusual sound outside the farmhouse. After spending days in the open with the tank he felt nervous indoors and he coudn't get out of his mind the thought of Bert lying unprotected in that outhouse. He was picking up his last piece of chicken when he saw Penn staring at his fork. Without a word, Marianne went to the oven at the far end of the kitchen and came back with a plate which she put in front of Penn. Mandel grinned.

'She kept his meal warm because she thought that would
happen. When he sees other people eating his appetite returns.'
He raised his glass to Penn.
'Bon Appetit!'

While Penn wolfed down his chicken the others tackled
their second course, an almost unlimited supply of cheese.
Again Mandel returned to the question of which way Barnes
should take in the morning and while he spoke Barnes listened
without committing himself. Half an hour later they were all drinking strong bitter coffee when Etienne came into the room
and spoke quickly, a hint of urgency in his voice. Mandel stood
up.

'A car is coming along the road from the west at high speed.
It may be Jacques, but I think you should hide.'

Mandel led the way out of the farmhouse and across a field
with his torch, stopping as they reached a large haystack close
to the road.

'Wait behind here until I call you. It is rather too early for
Jacques but one never can tell - he drives like the devil. If it is
him, I will come out and shout.'

'Should he know we are here?' queried Barnes.

'The last time he was here he spent the night with my brother who lives at Fontenoy, a village close to Beaucaire. But he did not sleep much - he was up half the night with some friends. They tied a piece of telephone wire across the road just high enough to catch a motor-cycle rider. The Germans always send such patrols ahead and they caught a fish. At seventeen and a half he has killed his first German, the young devil.'

'Pretty risky, isn't it? You might get reprisals.'

'Like the last one, this war will last four years and we shall
get many reprisals, and Jacques will join the Army soon and
will kill many more Germans. But it is spirit like his which
will save France. Now, I must go. And don't mention any of
this in front of Marianne - she doesn't know and sometimes
she understands a little English!'

They could hear the car's engine as Mandel hurried away,
the engine of a car being driven at recklessly high speed, and now the headlights were coming closer. Penn's voice whispered in the dark.

'These people seem all right.'

'Yes, you want to forget about Lebrun and his gang. It's people like the Mandels we're fighting for. Keep well in - I
hope to God this is Jacques.'

Jacques was more mature than Etienne, more heavily-built.,
and he had the face of a monkey, a monkey with jet-black hair.
His eyes were intelligent and quick-moving and Barnes took to
him at once as he shook hands all round with a firm grasp.

'Uncle has told me about you, Sergeant Barnes. The Germans are in Abbeville with their Panzers. I have just come from that town.'

'How did you manage to get here past the Germans?'
Barnes asked quietly.

'By knowing the side roads very well, by keeping my eyes
well open, by asking friends on the way what the situation
was.'

By keeping his eyes well open. They were large eyes and
they had the same look of the devil in them
which Barnes had
detected in Etienne, but they were bolder, more challenging,
and now they seemed humorously to challenge Barnes to call
him a liar.

'So you came most of the way by side roads?'

'No, Sergeant.' Was there a hint of mockery in this young man's expression? Barnes thought so as the lad went on. 'I came most of the distance along the same main roads the Panzers have used, but I turned on to side roads to avoid roadblocks.'

'There are a lot of road-blocks?'

'There are three - all outside Abbeville. But you should not go through Cambrai, They have set up some kind of headquarters in the town hall and there is a curfew at sunset. But no one takes any notice of it because they have so few troops to see that their orders are carried out.' He grinned. 'Even so, your tank will not be welcome in Cambrai.'

Damn! thought Barnes. I wish Mandel hadn't mentioned
Bert to him. I'm sure he trusts too many people. He hesitated.
It didn't seem quite the thing to cross-examine Mandel's
nephew in front of them all. Marianne was washing up and
Reynolds was helping her while Penn sagged in the armchair.
Mandel finished lighting his pipe and laughed.

'Go on, Sergeant Barnes, ask him questions. He expects
it!'

'So apart from Cambrai and the three road-blocks the road
to Abbeville is open?'

'It was for me this evening. I took side roads to miss the
road-blocks and Cambrai but otherwise I came straight here.
It was easy.'

'Are there many Germans in Abbeville?'

'The town is full of their tanks and guns.' He frowned, his
black eyebrows close together, moving swiftly like a
comedian's. 'That is not quite correct. Most of the tanks and
guns were on the north side two days ago and I haven't been to
that district since. There is a curfew, too.'

'When does the curfew start?'

'Half an hour before sunset and it goes on until half an hour after dawn. They have said they will shoot anyone they find
outside during the curfew but that has not happened yet. I
could take you towards Abbeville,' he added hopefully, 'and
then you could turn north to Boulogne. The Allies are in
Boulogne.'