Darkest Hour (20 page)

Tanner stepped out of line to check his men were all

still present and in good order. Company Headquarters
led, followed by three sections of ten men, the last led by Corporal Sykes. He
waited until the last two in Sykes's section - Hepworth and Rhodes - reached
him, then continued alongside them. 'All right?' he asked.

'I suppose so, Sarge,' said Hepworth. 'I'm sick of all
this marching, though. It's all we ever seem to do in the Army.'

'What are you talking about. Hep?' said Tanner.
'Wasn't that enough action for you this afternoon?'

'More than enough.'

'We'll be in that wood soon. Get some scoff. You'll
feel better after that.'

The column crossed a railway line, the men climbing up
the small embankment and over the rails.

'Sarge,' said Rhodes, as they cleared the line, 'is it
true you used to know the CSM out in India?'

'Yes, it is. Why?'

'A few of the others had said so. Just thought I'd
find out for myself.'

'Well, now you know.'

'Don't take this the wrong way, Sarge,' said Hepworth,
'but do you and the CSM not get on?'

'What makes you say that, Private?'

'You didn't have that smoke he offered you.'

'I'd had one a few minutes before. So had Corporal
Sykes.'

'So had I,' said Hepworth.

'Well, you shouldn't have taken it, then. Doesn't do
you any good, you know, smoking too much.'

'Well, I think he's all right, the CSM,' continued
Hepworth. 'Seems like a good bloke.'

'Aye,' agreed Rhodes. 'He's certainly a lot better
than the bastard we had at training. I hated him good and proper.'

'But am I right, Sarge?' persisted Hepworth. 'About
you and Blackie not getting on?'

'It's CSM Blackstone to you,' said Tanner, 'and whatever
I think of him is none of your bloody business.'

It was nearly eight o'clock by the time they reached
the wood, and the light was fading. Eyes had adjusted to it out on the open
road, but under the canopy of the trees, now almost in full leaf, it was
suddenly dark - and quiet.

The track led straight through the wood, but a few
hundred yards in, with no sign of the battalion, Tanner felt uneasy. He was not
alone.

'Where the hell are they?' said Peploe, in a low
voice. 'Surely we'd have seen something by now. This wood seems completely
deserted.'

'You're right, sir. Even if it's a pretty big one,
you'd expect sentries watching the road and looking out for any movement from
the east.'

As they reached a fork in the road, Captain Barclay
called a halt.

'Come on,' said Peploe. 'Let's find out what the
bloody hell is going on.'

They found Captain Barclay with Blackstone and
Lieutenant Bourne-Arton of 11 Platoon, studying tracks on the road. The
compacted earth, under the canopy of the trees, was still damp rather than dry
dust, and there were clear signs of carrier tracks, tyre marks and even
footprints.

There was also a three-way signpost, pointing to
Virginal-Samme in the direction they had come and, at the fork, to Oisquercq.
Ahead, it pointed to Rebecq, just a kilometre away.

'Troops have passed through here, all right,' said
Barclay.

The man was a genius, thought Tanner. He walked
forward, down the track ahead of them.

'Where are you going, Sergeant?' Barclay called after
him.

'I'm looking to see if these tracks move off the road,
sir.' He trotted fifty yards, saw nothing, then hurried back. 'If we keep going
through the wood towards Rebecq, we'll soon find out whether they've stopped or
moved on.'

'State the bleeding obvious, Jack,' said Blackstone.
Tanner could see he was seething.

'When did the message come through that this was the
rendezvous, sir?' asked Peploe.

'CSM? When was it?' said Barclay.

'About seventeen thirty.'

'And when was the field telephone packed up?' asked
Tanner.

Captain Barclay turned to Blackstone.

'Don't look at me, sir. I was at the bridge. But a
runner would have been sent if the orders were changed - it's probably some
cock-up at Battalion. It's eight o'clock, though, sir. Half an hour after we
were supposed to meet them here. I did try and hurry up earlier.'

Captain Barclay seemed about to reply but instead he
sighed. Smoothing his moustache, he said, 'Right, let's get moving. We head for
Rebecq and hope we catch up with them soon.'

Tanner watched Blackstone go back to the men. He saw
the CSM mutter something to several troops from Company Headquarters, then
furtive glances at the OC. One of the men was the quartermaster sergeant, Ted

Slater, a man Tanner had barely spoken to since
Manston, but someone he had been keeping an eye on. Slater's limp had gone - in
fact, there had been no sign of it ever since they had reached France - but
Tanner had not forgotten Torwinski, or the other Poles, or that he and Sykes
had nearly been burned alive. He was still not certain who had been responsible
- the evidence was so maddeningly inconclusive. Damn it, if he was honest, now
that he could think a little more calmly, he couldn't swear it had been
Blackstone who had shot him on the bridge after all. Suspected it, yes, but the
lieutenant had been right - there
had
been a lot of bullets flying. Nonetheless, Blackstone and Slater were friends,
and as a consequence he neither liked nor trusted the quartermaster sergeant.
Both men would have to be watched like hawks.
As if there isn't
enough to think about
, he thought.

'What do you reckon has happened?' Peploe asked
Tanner, as they rejoined the platoon.

'Orders probably changed.'

'And we didn't get them?'

'No, sir.'

'I suppose we just have to hope they're in Rebecq.'

'We need to stop whether the battalion's there or not,
sir,' Tanner replied. 'The men need food.'

'Yes, of course,' said Peploe. 'I'd rather got used to
B Echelon following us around.'

'If B Echelon
isn't there, sir, we'll have to find something for ourselves.'

B Echelon was not in Rebecq, and neither were any
other men of 1st Battalion, the Yorkshire Rangers. A large village, it was eerily
quiet as D Company tramped down the main street. At the church they halted, and
on Captain Barclay's instructions, Blackstone ordered the men to fall out.
Immediately, the disciplined lines of three small columns crumpled as soldiers
collapsed on the side of the road, some pulling out cigarettes, others taking
thirsty swigs from their water-bottles.

'We'll hammer on the houses round about the church,'
said Barclay, as the officers and senior NCOs gathered beside him. 'Peploe, we
need your French again.'

While Peploe went across the street and started
knocking on doors, Tanner ambled back to the platoon. Most of the men were now
sitting beneath a wall by the side of the road. His side was hurting, an
irritating, stinging pain, and his head had begun to throb. Too much smoke and
cordite combined with fatigue.

He winced as he stood beside Sykes.

'How's the side, Sarge?' Sykes asked him.

'All right.'

'So where the hell is the rest of the battalion?'

'We're just trying to find out. Mr Peploe's putting
that French of his to good use again.'

'When are we going to get some grub, Sarge?' said
Bell. 'I'm starving.'

'Me an' all,' said Hepworth. 'I don't think I felt
this hungry even in Norway.'

'Course you bloody did,' said Sykes. 'That was loads
worse. Stop thinking about it, Hep. Think about lovely French and Belgian birds
instead.'

'There's none here,' said Kershaw, another survivor of
the 5th Battalion. 'They've all buggered off and I don't fancy that old dear
over there.' He nodded in the direction of the elderly couple Lieutenant Peploe
was now talking with on the other side of the square by the church.

'Use your imagination,' said Sykes. 'You have got one,
ain't you, Hep?'

'That's what you do, is it, Corp?' said McAllister.
'Think about girls?'

'Always - that and how I can screw a few more quid out
of you, Mac.'

They all laughed, Tanner too.

'We'll get some grub soon, I hope,' he told them. He
saw Peploe striding back towards the church. 'Hang on. I'll try and find out
now.' He turned towards Peploe as the lieutenant approached them. 'Sir?'

'They said they saw hundreds of men go through a short
while ago,' said Peploe as he reached them, 'some in carriers and lorries,
others on foot. The last went through a little over half an hour ago.
Apparently they were heading towards Steenkerque.' He unfolded Captain
Barclay's map and pointed to a small village a few miles to the south-west of
Rebecq.

'South-west? Were they sure?' said Barclay.

'Positive,' said Peploe. 'I questioned that as well.'

'Well, that's just marvellous,' said Squadron Leader
Lyell, sitting on the lychgate bench. 'Bravo, Hector. First class.'

'Put a bloody sock in it, Charlie,' said Barclay.

'For God's sake,' continued Lyell. 'All that time you
were fannying about, listening to Tanner's tales of derring-do, when if you'd
just got everyone going we would have reached the rendezvous on time and we
wouldn't be in this mess.'

'Will you damn well be quiet?' said Barclay, turning
on his brother-in-law. 'I will not have you undermine my authority. You're not
with your squadron now, you're with us, and you'll bloody well keep quiet or
else I'll leave you here by the side of the road and the Germans can have you
instead.' His cheeks had flushed, Tanner noticed, and he was blinking rapidly,
as he tried to regain his composure. 'In any case,' he said, now peering
intently at the map, 'it's perfectly clear that the orders must have changed. I
don't know why, but we didn't receive them.'

Lyell muttered in exasperation, then said, 'So what do
you suggest we do?'

'They're only three-quarters of an hour ahead. It's
getting dark, but there's light enough to march by. We'll keep going as quickly
as we can. Hopefully, they've stopped for the night already and we'll catch
them up. The men will just have to wait for their supper.'

But at Steenkerque there was no sign of the battalion;
neither had the villagers seen any British troops passing through in the past
few hours. There had been some French colonial troops, but that was all.

On the far side of the village, they halted at a farm.
Several dogs stood a short distance away from them, barking protectively at the
strange figures of the soldiers. It was now coming up to ten o'clock and
completely dark, the only light coming from a half-moon and the stars that
twinkled amid patchy cloud. And it was cool, now, too, the air damp and
fragrant with the smell of uncut hay and dusty soil. Standing by the farm's
entrance, Tanner breathed in deeply, remembering the sweet early-summer smell
from his boyhood.

A voice yelled at the dogs, then a door opened
releasing a thin shaft of light. A man called. Once again, it was left to
Lieutenant Peploe to do the talking. He and Captain Barclay approached the
farmer; a brief conversation ensued, then both men were ushered into the house.

Of course, the farmer had no choice in the matter -
what could he do to stop two platoons of British soldiers who demanded to be
fed? - but, as Peploe confided to Tanner a little later, Monsieur Selage was a
fierce patriot, hated Germans and seemed only too happy to help his allies, the
British, providing cheese, eggs and a number of chickens.

'You've done well, sir,' said Tanner, as they stood in
the yard as men from each section collected their makeshift rations. 'That lot
should fill a hole.'

'It's only one chicken per ten men, but better than
nothing. Mind you, I hope they cook them properly in the dark. Last thing we
need now is everyone getting sick from eating raw chicken.'

Someone coughed behind them, and they turned to see
Corporal Wallis from Company Headquarters.

'Excuse me, sir,' he said, 'but the OC wants you and
Sergeant Tanner in the house.'

'All right,' said Peploe.

They followed him into the kitchen where Captain
Barclay, Blackstone, Lieutenant Bourne-Arton and Sergeant Seaton of 11 Platoon
were already standing around an old pine table. Squadron Leader Lyell was
resting on a cushioned window-seat, while the farmer and, Tanner assumed, his
wife stood at the range, attending to some food.

'Ah, there you are,' said Barclay, as they entered.
'I've been thinking about what we should do.'

Tanner caught Peploe's attention, then nodded towards
the farmer and his wife.

'Sir?' said Peploe. 'Don't you think we should have
this conversation in private?'

'Eh?' said Barclay. 'It's all right - they don't understand
English.'