Darkest Hour (39 page)

He raised his rifle, saw one
two-man team through his scope, pulled back the bolt and fired. A head jerked
backwards. More bullets spat and this time their height was better. Where were
they coming from? Someone cried out, and Tanner flung himself to the ground,
conscious of McAllister dropping onto the grass too, the bipod on his Bren
already pulled out into place beforehand.
Good lad.
Bullets tore over his head -
long bursts that were supposed to rake the ground but were firing high.
Barrel's overheating.
Gingerly he lifted his head.

Another burst of fire and this
time he saw them, the dark shapes of the men manning them, a faint muzzle, from
the direction of some bushes dead ahead, by the track that ran in front of the
whole position. He brought his cheek to the butt of his rifle and peered
through the scope, drew back the bolt and fired. Another man jerked backwards,
and for a moment the splutter of bullets stopped.

Tanner leaped to his feet
again, and hurtled across the grass towards the bushes. Grabbing a grenade, he
pulled the pin and hurled it at the enemy machine-gun, then drew his rifle to
his shoulder once more. Movement - a man crouch-hurrying ahead - another trying
desperately to get behind the momentarily abandoned MG. Bolt back, fire - the
grenade exploded - a man screamed and Tanner fired again. He sprinted to the
MG, saw another man stretching for the weapon, kicked him out of the way, then
dived into the shallow pit, lifted the machine- gun and, unable to hold the
barrel because of the heat, let it plunge to the ground, drew back the bolt and
fired towards the big anti-tank guns.

Bullets pinged off the metal
but he was aware that none of the guns was firing now. Had they done it? He
could still hear Bren and rifle fire but he couldn't see any enemy troops.

Sykes was beside him now. 'I
think we've got 'em all, Sarge,' he said, between gasps for breath.

'Maybe,' muttered Tanner.
Pushing himself to his feet, he said, 'Cover me,' then dashed forward to the
first of the big anti-tank guns. Ten yards from it he hurled another grenade.
As it landed, a terrified gunner stood up and ran for cover in the trees.
Tanner raised his rifle and fired, the man falling forwards and tumbling down
the sides of the hollow with a scream. He ran to the next gun and there saw
Lieutenant Peploe, a stunned expression on his face. They had encircled the
position.

'Hold your fire!' Tanner
shouted, then turned to the lieutenant. 'Are you all right, sir?'

'I think so, Sergeant.' He
laughed. 'Christ, I don't believe it - we've bloody done it! We've bloody well
gone and done it!'

Tanner grinned, then wished he
hadn't as his lip cracked again. 'They'll be coming up from the vehicles, sir,
and maybe even the village. We need to be quick.'

'Why don't we use those
vehicles?' suggested Peploe.

'Good idea, sir. Perhaps you
should do that while Sykes and I make sure no one uses these guns again.'

'Yes. I'll come back straight
up this track here. Meet you by the farmhouse.' He loped off, shouting to
Cooper and Ross. When Tanner turned, he saw that, without prompting, the
corporal was taking out a cartridge of Nobel's, sticking in a small stretch of
fuse, then lighting it and placing it in the muzzle of the first big gun.
Thirty seconds later, it exploded amid a cloud of smoke and a hollow, tinny
clang.

More Bren and rifle fire a
short distance behind. The lieutenant's attempt to capture some transport. But
Tanner now had his rifle slung on his shoulder and his binoculars to his eyes.
Heart plummeting, he saw that the British tanks were no longer advancing. A
number had ground to a halt, some burning, others less obviously disabled. Two
stood smoking on the ridge a short way to his right. Heavy firing was still
coming from the village behind and to the right, but he could see now that
other tanks were pulling back, weaving slowly across the open farmland between
the two ridges.

'Damn it all,' muttered Tanner.
They had silenced the guns but too late. No wonder that general had buggered
off.
He must have known he'd halted the attack. Damn, damn, damn.
Then movement to his left
caught his eye. He swung round with his binoculars and saw, heading north to
the west of Berneville, a long column of enemy troops. He looked at the second
of the big guns. How hard could it be to fire one of those things? He hurried
over to it.

Three men lay sprawled around
it, one staring up at him with wide, lifeless eyes. Large wooden shell boxes
stood a short distance away. Could they really fire at that column?

'Boys!' he called. 'Here -
quick!' He peered through his binoculars again. Some panzers and several halftracks
were advancing over the rolling fields towards Berneville. He looked for their
own transport, but they had done a good job: they were hidden from view.
Christ, not only had they silenced the guns too late, they were in danger of
being cut off, stuck behind enemy lines.

'Sarge?' said McAllister.

Tanner looked at them.
McAllister, Verity, Bell, Chambers and Kershaw. 'Where's Hepworth?'

'Helping the corp,' said
Kershaw. A moment later there came another explosion as one of the howitzers
was blown.

'Denning and Rhodes?'

'Both dead, Sarge,' said
McAllister. 'Stupid idiots didn't get down quick enough when that second
Spandau opened up.'

Two young men gone. Tanner
sighed. And for what? He picked up a stone and hurled it angrily. 'We're going
to try and fire this bastard.'

'How do we do that, Sarge?'

'Dunno,' said Tanner. He went
over to the box, took out a long, heavy, twenty-pound shell and pushed it into
the open breech.

'Shouldn't there be a door or
something to hold it in place, Sarge?' said McAllister.

'Can you bloody well see one?'

McAllister shrugged.

'It must be a sliding breech.
We need to turn it somehow. Those wheels at the side must do something.' He
turned one to the right and discovered the barrel moved downwards. He reversed
the action and the barrel rose. Another wheel turned the entire gun on its
central column. 'See?' he said. 'Told you it couldn't be that hard.'

'That must be the firing
mechanism, Sarge,' said McAllister, pointing to a lever to the right of the
breech.

Tanner swivelled the gun so
that it was pointing towards the enemy column, raised the barrel a few inches,
said, 'There's only one way to find out,' and pressed down on the lever. In a
deafening blast and a puff of choking smoke, the breech hurtled backwards in
recoil, spitting out the smoking brass casing as it did so. Tanner stumbled
backwards and fell over as the shell hurtled through the air and detonated a
moment later in a field some distance short of the target.

'You need to elevate it a bit,
Sarge,' said McAllister, lugging another shell to the breech. Tanner's ears
rang shrilly as he got to his feet, raised the barrel and fired again. Another
ear-splitting blast. The men spluttered and coughed, but this time the shell
landed close to the target.

'Blimey, Sarge,' said Sykes,
now emerging from the hollow with Hepworth, his hands over his ears.

'Grab some shells, lads,
iggery,' said Tanner. 'Watch this, Stan.'

McAllister flung the next shell
into the breech as Tanner raised the barrel an inch more. 'Keep out the way,
Stan.' Tanner grinned. 'This thing's got a hell of a kick.' He pressed down on
the lever, the great gun thundered, and this time they saw the shell explode
almost on top of the enemy column some two miles to the north-west. A cheer
went up, but Tanner barked at them to put another shell into the breech. He
fired again, and once more found their target, then again. 'Right, Stan, time
to silence her. We need to go.'

As Sykes prepared his
demolition, Tanner peered through his binoculars again. He could see vehicles
on fire, and others wheeling crazily around the mayhem he and his men had
unleashed. Two of the panzers heading for Berneville had stopped, he now saw,
uncertain, he guessed, as to what was happening and what they should be doing.
He smiled grimly.

The sound of vehicles. Tanner
turned towards the farmhouse and saw Peploe wave from one of the Krupps he had
seen earlier outside the cemetery.

'Come on, lads,' he said. 'Time
to get going.'

He ran along the track, leaving
behind a mist of pungent, acrid smoke, more than twenty dead and, as the
gelignite in the big gun exploded, the useless wrecks of five enemy guns. But
as he clambered into the Krupp beside the lieutenant he brought his binoculars
to his eyes and saw Stukas diving on Berneville and the ridge beyond. One after
another, relentlessly, they screamed down, their bombs exploding amid clouds of
dust, smoke and grit so that soon the entire view was shrouded in a thick pall.

Then he saw more enemy troops
hurrying down the main Doullens-Arras road. Two armoured cars, motorcycles
and, following behind, a half-track.

This is going to be a
close-run thing. A very close thing indeed.

The last of the men was now
aboard. 'Let's get out of here,' said Peploe.

'Hold on, sir,' said Tanner. He
was looking again at the enemy vehicles speeding along the Doullens-Arras road.
'I've just had a bit of an idea.'

Sturmbannfuhrer Timpke had
managed to assemble most of his battalion to the east of Beaumetz as planned,
if somewhat later than he had hoped. Once again, the narrowness and lack of
roads had been the problem: his motorcycles and armoured cars - even his
half-tracks - couldn't cross the soft, rich clay of the open fields. Metalled
roads and firm tracks were the limit of their capabilities - and this was the
case for most of the division. He had been thankful that neither the French nor
the Tommy bombers had spotted their long columns on the march.

He had, however, identified
three passable approaches to Berneville from the south. One track ran
diagonally from Beaumetz, while a few kilometres along the Doullens-Arras road,
a further track and a metalled road led off at ninety degrees directly into the
south of the village. He sent Company 1 from Beaumetz and his P38 tanks off
across the fields beside them, then led his remaining two companies along the
main road to Arras.

And thank goodness he had,
because no sooner had they got going than shells were hurtling over from the
ridge to the south-east. From his position in the turret of his scout car,
Timpke had been startled by the unexpected explosion a few hundred yards to the
north. If that had been a ranging shot, the shells that followed had soon found
their mark, hitting part of Regiment 3's column pushing north from Beaumetz.

Timpke had soon spotted the
source of the shellfire: a big 88mm flak gun stuck in a copse a couple of miles
away. Typical wooden-headed
Wehrmacht
gunners getting carried away. The shelling didn't
last long: someone had obviously pointed out the error of their ways, but to
the north of Beaumetz a number of vehicles were burning, thick black smoke
pitching into the air.

Wearing a wireless headset, he
heard Schultz's voice crackle in his headphones from below. 'Boss, Company One
are nearing the western end of Berneville. They're not drawing enemy fire.'

'Good. Order them to keep
going. Where are Totenkopf Regiment Two?'

There was a pause. 'They're
advancing from Simencourt, boss, along the ridge to the north of Berneville. At
least six vehicles were hit by that gun.'

'Those gunners should be shot.'

As they had reached the first
track into the village from the main road, he had ordered Company 2 to break
from their column and advance along it. No sooner had he done so than he had
heard the sound of aero-engines and, scanning the sky, spotted two dozen Stukas
approaching from the east. They were flying low, one swarm of twelve aircraft
stacked above another, only a few thousand feet high. For a brief moment Timpke
had felt a stab of panic that they might attack their columns, but then, one by
one, sirens screaming, the planes peeled off, dropping their bombs on
Berneville and the ridge behind it.

'Schultz,' said Timpke, 'we'll
halt until the dive- bombers have done their work. Relay the order.'

'Yes, boss,' Schultz replied.
'Company One and the panzers want to wait where they are too.'