Tramp in Armour (33 page)

'What are you trying to say?'

'That there isn't any information worth a damn - these
boys, the generals, are just making it up as they go along.
Just like Wellington in the Peninsular War when he said
it was like knotting a rope - you tie one knot, then you tie
another and hope for the best. But don't try to kid me that any
of them are working to a tidy little plan in a war room any more.'

'Not even the Germans?' Barnes asked quietly.

'Not even those bastards.— not any more. Ask me how I know and I'll tell you it's the well-known Colburn intuition -
that and the fact that I'm a minor student of the history of warfare. But there's one thing, Barnes, I'd bet money on - I'd
bet that at this moment the German generals are so intoxicated
with their success that they don't know what to do with it.
Generals are always divided into pushers and pullers - one lot
will be saying press on, push 'em into the sea, and the other lot
will be yelling blue murder that they've over-reached themselves and had better dig in quick before they get their heads
chopped off.'

'It doesn't help me much,' remarked Barnes.,

'Well, maybe this will help you. When I flew in today I
came down south-east over Calais and I'm pretty sure there's
another gap between the coast road and the main battle area to
the east. That could just be the way for us to go.'

'It is the way we're going.'

'So I get a free ride to Calais, but on one condition - that
you don't ever ask me again for the general picture. There isn't one. This is such a bloody mixed-up mess they'll never be able
to describe it - not in a hundred years' time. Not unless they call on the aid of Shakespeare who did have a word for a
complete one hundred per cent shambles. The general picture,
Sergeant Barnes, is hugger-mugger.'

'Which simply means we could run into Jerry at any time
now.'

EIGHT

Saturday, May 25th

The Stuka bomber, one hundred feet up, smoke pouring from its tail, was heading straight for them as though aimed at the mouth of the quarry. Barnes stood perfectly still, his gaze fixed on the approaching projectile as he prayed that it would maintain its height for at least a few hundred yards more. It screamed in closer, its nose dipping like a suicide bomber guided to penetrate the quarry mouth and explode against the rear wall where Bert was parked. Beside him Colburn froze as he automatically assessed the Stuka's line of flight. Then it roared over them, still losing height, and ten seconds later they heard it hit France a mile away as its bomb load blew up.

'This place reminds me of high-explosives,' said Colburn.

The tank was parked inside a chalk quarry cut out of the
hillside and the giant alcove was filled with shadow. It was
half past six in the evening and they had been standing at the
narrow entrance while Reynolds mounted guard on the rim of
the quarry high above them. The driver shouted down to tell
them that the plane had crashed a long distance off and then
resumed his all-round observation.

'I'm none too fond of high-explosive myself at the moment,'
Barnes replied drily as he swirled tea in his mug.

'That's because you've been on the receiving end - I'm talking about quarry-blasting operations. There's something very
satisfying about laying the charges just right, going back to the
plunger, pressing it, and seeing exactly the right area of rock
slice away.'

'I thought you just supplied the stuff.'

'Oh, they were always asking me for advice and I ended up
by doing the job for them. I have a talent for destruction,
Barnes. What's more to the point, I enjoyed my work.'

They walked away from the tank and through the narrow
defile which formed the entrance to the quarry. Stopping in the entrance, they looked out across the fields of France. They had
done very well, Barnes was thinking, and he estimated they
were now less than thirty miles from Calais. All through the
late afternoon and early evening Bert had moved at top speed
along the road and only twice had they stopped and prayed.
Once when a flight of German planes had flown across the
eastern sky, and once when a cloud of dust had warned them of
the approach of a German supply column. For over half an
hour they had waited concealed inside a nearby wood,
only emerging when the last escorting tank had driven out
of sight in the opposite direction. And then Bert had ground
forward non-stop heading north, always north towards
Calais.

They had finished their meal and once again bully beef
hadn't been featured on the menu. When they re-opened the
parcel which Mandel had provided they had found several
sticks of French bread, an earthenware pot of butter, a whole
cold chicken, and four bottles of wine. They had dined well
but Barnes had not enjoyed it because at the beginning of the
meal he had remembered Penn who had never tasted any of
the food. As a crew they were probably in better condition
than at any time since they had left Fontaine, except that now
the fighting crew comprised only two men - unless Colburn
could absorb enough of a rudimentary training to make him
useful. Beyond the quarry, several miles across the sunlit
plain, Barnes saw a long thin trail of dust moving at an oblique
angle to where they stood. It looked as though the column
were heading for the coast. He focused hi? glasses.

'Panzers?' inquired Colburn.

'Probably. Too far away to see properly and that dust is
fogging the view. They're not coming this way, which is some
thing to be thankful for. Now, Colburn, let's see how much you can learn about a tank in no time at all.'

At the most, Barnes had hoped he might show Colburn how
to use the Besa, but the Canadian was no sooner down on the
turntable when he wanted to know how to traverse the turret. Within five minutes he was showing that he possessed real
mechanical aptitude and an ability to grasp the traverse system
which surprised Barnes, a surprise which grew as he experi
enced the Canadian's endless persistence. Once he found he
was able to traverse he asked Barnes to go up to the turret and
give him instructions over the intercom. Settling down to
indoctrinate his quick-witted pupil Barnes showed
him
no mercy, correcting his faults with the ruthlessness of a drill-
sergeant.

'Right, Colburn! I said traverse right! You now have the
distinction of presenting our bloody rear to the enemy. That's
better. Left! Traverse left!'

It quickly dawned on Barnes that he had a tiger by the tail.
Colburn wouldn't give up until he could operate the traverse
on instruction without mistake. He simply went on and on-and
on, tirelessly as though his life might depend on getting this
right. And, Barnes thought, it could just work out that way. In all his experience he had never trained a pupil who learned so quickly, even though it was only the rudiments he was grasp
ing. When he went back into the fighting compartment Col
burn demanded to know something about the two-pounder, but here Barnes felt that any attempt to show him how the
weapon worked would be a waste of time. He suggested,
instead, that Colburn should tackle the Besa.

'Five minutes will do that,' said Colburn briskly.

Barnes stared. So the Canadian was a braggart, which
meant he would be totally unreliable in an emergency. Colburn
read something of the thought in his expression and grinned.

'You may have forgotten, Barnes, that we do carry a certain
armament in the Hurricane. Like the Besa it's called a
machine gun.'

'Sorry.' Barnes closed his mouth tightly. The throb-throb of
the shoulder wound had started up again and was pounding his mind to a jelly. 'I'd overlooked that. As you say, five minutes
should do the Besa.'

Two hours later Barnes called a halt to the training exercise.
It would be dark in half an hour and he wanted to move
farther north to a more open position which still provided some cover: being trapped inside the quarry for the night
didn't appeal to him when he remembered their experience under the bridge. By now Colburn had grasped some of the
basic lore of how to fight a tank, including the use of the
periscope for observation by the gunner. It was quite impos
sible to cram months of basic training into two hours even for Colburn, but Barnes was amazed at how much the Canadian
had picked up. Calling Reynolds down from the top of the
quarry he prepared to depart.

'That was fun,' said Colburn with enthusiasm. Tm not
quite the spare wheel I was two hours back.'

'You'll do - in an emergency.' Barnes smiled drily.

'At least I can cope with the traverse and the Besa, so
try and find me some running Germans within range, but if
you're counting on the two-pounder,' he grinned, 'you'll be
lucky.'

It struck Barnes that perhaps he shouldn't be too surprised
at the Canadian's achievements; after all, it needed plenty of mechanical ability to handle a plane and the one quality no
fighter pilot could do without was quick-wittedness. He was
more surprised still when Reynolds spoke, pausing as he
climbed down into the hatch.

'It just goes to show, Sergeant, that training course is far too
long like I've always said - strictly for village idiots. A right
old load of bullshit.' He disappeared inside his own compartment.

For the first time it flashed through Barnes' mind that may
be Reynolds had always been so silent because Penn had
always been so talkative-. The relationships inside the unit were
changing rapidly, and he was pleased to see that Reynolds
obviously liked Colburn.

Three minutes later the tank left the quarry, moved on to
the road and headed north. Up in the turret Barnes' expression
was grim: he was conscious that they were approaching a
crisis and that within the next twenty-four hours at the outside they might well all be dead or taken prisoner. There was, of
course, the third alternative - that they might get the chance
of striking a great blow against the Germans. If only they
could locate a really vital objective. Over seventy two-pounder shells under me, he thought. They could make a mess of some
thing.

He was still turning over an idea which he had not yet
mentioned to the others - the idea of keeping going through the night, headlights ablaze like the Panzers. The Germans
won't be expecting anything coming up behind them. He felt
sure that their eyes would be glued to the battlefield ahead,
and a vehicle moving through the night with its headlights full
on looked very innocent from a distance, until they had the enemy within two-pounder range, anyway.

They were moving into a more populated area and now he
saw people working in the fields some distance from the road.
To the north several orange-coloured tractors moved slowly
across the landscape which was so flat that it reminded him of
Holland, although there was a small ridge over to the right.
They were in the heart of the Pas de Calais now, roughly mid
way between Bethune and Etaples. It was incredible, thought Barnes, to have come all this way from Etreux in a vast semi
circle round the southern flank of the battle zone - but no
more incredible than the lightning dash of the Panzer spear
head from the German border to the gates of Boulogne. I'll go
on through the night, he decided, by God, I will. The people
in the fields had stopped work to watch the tank, standing as motionless as scarecrows on a windless day. Then 'he caught
sight of movement to his left, lifted his glasses, and his heart jumped. Another of those sinister dust clouds, only just visible
in the fading light, but under the cloud he could see small
square shapes moving towards him across country. Panzers!