Darkest Hour (46 page)

'God knows.' He looked up as Captain Barclay and a
major approached.

'Peploe, this is Major McLaren,' said Barclay. 'He's
taken over as battalion commander of Eighth DLL'

Peploe and Tanner saluted.

'You can help the wounded,' said McLaren, 'but I don't
want you wasting too much time here.' He nodded towards the burning vehicles.
'Bastards hit an ammunition truck. Fifth Div artillery were passing through -
damned unlucky timing.' His eyes rested on the debris. 'In any case, there are
still enough of them to sort this place out.

I'd rather you were in position on D Company's flank.'
He looked at his watch. 'Half an hour, no more. Jerry's only a few miles away
so we might see some action later.'

It was a grim task collecting the dead and wounded.
Tanner found an old man weeping over his wife, who had lost a leg, shorn clean
off. He and Smailes had lifted her but she had died as they tried to hoist her
into their arms. Then Smailes had been called to the anti-tank battery on the
south-east of the village and Tanner followed with Corporal Cooper's section.
Several large craters now pockmarked the field where they were positioned. Two
of the guns had been put out of action, and one of the gun crews had been blown
to smithereens, body parts flung in a wide arc to hang in trees and hedgerows.
One young gunner was wandering about, his face and body covered with another
man's blood. Two of Cooper's men vomited and Tanner couldn't blame them: it was
one thing seeing an animal torn to pieces, quite another a human and a comrade.
They'll get used to it.
He certainly had, and while
Smailes administered what help he could, Tanner removed bits of flesh from the
hedges and branches near the guns, placed them in a pile a short distance away,
then covered them with soil and stones from the craters.

'Thanks,' said an ashen-faced lieutenant. 'Very good
of you.'

'It's easier for me, sir,' said Tanner. 'I didn't know
them.'

The lieutenant swallowed. His uniform and face were
filthy. 'It was all s-so sudden. One minute they were there, the next they'd
g-gone.'

'They wouldn't have known a thing about it, sir.'

The lieutenant nodded. 'No. I suppose not.'

Tanner offered him a cigarette from a packet he had
been given at Petit Vimy. He took it gratefully, but his hands were shaking so
much he could hardly put it into his mouth.

'We'll help get the wounded back, sir.'

They took six men to the church, which had become a
temporary field dressing station. Tanner had just helped set down a gunner with
a bad groin wound when he saw Sykes and Hepworth carrying the body of a young
woman. Her face, clothes and dark hair were covered with dust but even so he
recognized her immediately. 'That's the girl,' he said, as they laid her down
on the ground.

'Which girl?' asked Hepworth.

'Mademoiselle Lafoy,' said Tanner. Dark blood had
matted her hair and run down her face. 'The girl who accused me.'

'It's a shame, Sarge,' said Hepworth, 'but at least
she can't testify against you no more.'

'For God's sake, Hep,' snapped Tanner. 'I'd far rather
have seen her alive and found out who persuaded her to set me up.'

'And for how much,' added Sykes.

'Yes. I wonder what it would take to persuade a
hungry, homeless girl to do that.' The rain, which had stopped for a short
while, now began again. Fat drops landed on her face and arms, cleaning away
the powdery layer of dust. Tanner looked away, and heard Blackstone order
everyone to fall in.

'Come on, boys,' he said. 'Let's get going, iggery,
eh?'

Later that
evening there was another air raid, but by that time D Company was dug into the
north-west of Givenchy, and the bombs were directed further along the ridge. At
ten, orders arrived that they were to hold Vimy Ridge to the end. Twenty
minutes later, enemy tanks were reported to be no more than six hundred yards
away. They heard the squeak and rattle of tracks but it was too dark to see.
The men were restless and jittery but Tanner reckoned they were safe until the
morning. Then just after midnight new orders arrived. They were not going to
hold the ridge after all: instead they were to head back to a new line of
defence behind the La Bassee canal, some ten miles to the north-east.

Wearily they got to their feet, gathered their kit and
tramped back through the woods, Bren carriers clattering through the trees on
their flank covering their withdrawal. At Petit Vimy, trucks and transport
were waiting for them. Desultory gunfire boomed across the night, but otherwise
the violence of the previous day had been left behind. Tanner sat at the back
of a large fifteen-hundredweight Bedford, Sykes beside him. The rain had
stopped and a dense canopy of stars twinkled above them. Tanner's clothes were
still damp and he shivered. Behind them, he could hear carriers wheeling about,
but of the enemy panzers there was no sign. By one a.m. on Friday, 24 May, the
column was trundling down through Vimy, vehicles nose to tail. A snail's pace,
but better than walking through the night on exhausted legs.

Withdrawing again
, thought Tanner. Even so, he was glad to be getting
away from that place, a part of France that seemed haunted by death. He lit a
cigarette and smoked it in silence, watching the pale smoke disperse into the
cool night air. When it was finished, he flicked away the stub, closed his eyes
and fell into a deep sleep.

By mid-morning on the twenty-fourth, the men of D
Company were digging in yet again, this time in a large, thick wood a mile or
so behind the La Bassee canal near the main road between Carvin and Libercourt,
some fifteen miles north-east of Arras. Still attached to 151st Brigade and the
8th Durham Light Infantry, they were told to rest there for as long as
possible. However, no sooner had they begun to dig their new slit trenches than
they were joined on the opposite side of the road by large numbers of French
troops, who had moved in with the
Luftwaffe
seemingly on their tail like a swarm of angry bees. The planes began
dive-bombing and strafing almost immediately.

'Some bloody rest this,' muttered Sykes, as 'Fanner
squatted with him in their slit trench.

'Could be worse, Stan,' said Tanner. 'Could still be
raining. And at least we're getting our rations.'

The delivery of food had done wonders for the men's
mood. Earlier, near Carvin, they had been given breakfast in a disused
factory. This had been followed by the establishment of B Echelon's kitchens
and the smell of tinned stew floating to them through the wood. Much to
Tanner's relief, supplies of cigarettes had also arrived.

By evening that day, enemy air activity had melted
away and the sound of the guns to the south lessened until a strange quiet
descended over the wood - so much so that as dusk was falling, Tanner heard
faint birdsong a short distance away. 'Hear that, sir?' he said to Peploe, as
they walked along the platoon lines. 'It's a nightingale. I haven't heard one
since I was a boy.'

Peploe smiled. 'They didn't have them in India, then?'

'No, but they always used to sing back home. At least,
there was one part of a wood where you could always hear them. Especially at
this time of year - May and early June.'

'It's always been my favourite season on the farm -
the leaves on the trees out at last, everything so damned green and lush, the
whole summer stretching ahead. And cricket. Lots and lots of cricket. You play,
Sergeant?'

'I do, sir. Love the game. That was one thing that
linked India with home - and, of course, in India, you could play pretty much
all year round.'

'And here we are getting bombed and strafed and shot
up. I must have been mad to join up.' He grinned. Tanner was glad that his mood
had improved. 'Still,' Peploe added, 'at least it's quiet tonight.'

'And we should make the most of it, sir. God knows
what'll happen tomorrow.'

The following day began with orders that rations were
to be cut by fifty per cent. Then, early in the afternoon, came the news that
another counter-attack was to take place: 5th and 50th Divisions, with four
French divisions, would thrust southwards towards Cambrai, which meant 151st
Brigade would be very much involved. The first obstacle - a preliminary to the
main attack that would go in the following day - was to get back across the La
Bassee canal in the face of what was expected to be heavy enemy opposition. By
four in the afternoon, a troop-carrying company had arrived, dispersing its
trucks and vehicles through the wood ready to move the men forward to the start
line of their night-time assault.

Tanner never enjoyed the hours before an attack.
Apprehension gnawed at him, replacing hunger with an uncomfortable sensation in
his stomach. He cleaned his weapons - his rifle and the MP35 - then cleaned
them again, and took on more ammunition, although less was available than he
would have liked. He checked his kit, smoked and brewed mugs of sweet tea. He
knew the others were in the same boat - if anything, they were probably more
nervous than he was; scared, even. Certainly their drawn, pale faces suggested
so.

A little under twenty miles away, as the crow flew,
General Lord Gort was reaching a decision that would reprieve the Yorkshire
Rangers and all those troops involved in the proposed attack. Three days
earlier he had moved his command post to the small village of Premesques,
north-west of Lille. The British commander-in-chief and his advance staff had
occupied a rambling old house in the heart of the village. Now, in a
wood-panelled ground-floor room, with thick beams and a low ceiling, Gort was
staring at the maps of northern France and Belgium that had been hung on the
walls when he had moved in.

The day had brought little cheer. Following on from
the news that the Channel port of Boulogne had fallen the day before, it now
seemed that Calais was all but in German hands too. His promised 1st Armoured
Division, attempting to move north from Cherbourg, had made no headway.
Supplies of everything, but especially food and ammunition, were running low.
General Dill, deputy CIGS, had arrived, and let him know that the BEF was being
criticized at home for its performance. Throughout the day, disquieting news
had reached them from the northern front, where it seemed the Belgian line was
deteriorating; apparently, Belgian forces were drifting northwards towards the
river Scheldt - reports suggested that a gap was developing between them and
the British. Then, half an hour ago, details of some German documents captured
by a British patrol on the river Lys, on the northern flank, revealed that the
enemy intended to bolster its front there and attack between Ypres and Commines
- precisely at the link between BEF and Belgian forces. If reports of the gap
were true, the Hun would be able to outflank the BEF in the north with
potentially catastrophic consequences.

Gort studied the mass of roads, towns, villages,
rivers and canals - images and names that were now so familiar to him. His
forces were dangerously overstretched, of that there could be no doubt, and
even though they had intercepted the extraordinary message that German troops
had halted their attack towards Merville and Dunkirk, it was clear this respite
could not last.

Lord Gort fingered his trim moustache and cast his
eyes towards his southern flank. General Weygand had demanded there be a
properly co-ordinated counterattack southwards - with which the War Office had
concurred - but only a few days earlier he had attempted precisely the same
thing at Arras, and, as he had feared, their allies had barely contributed.
Admittedly Weygand seemed to have a bit more verve than poor old Gamelin, but
Gort was loath to push two divisions into the attack unless he knew for certain
that the French would honour their commitments to the battle, especially now
that his northern front was so shaky. And therein lay the quandary that had
troubled him this past half-hour: should he let down his French allies and move
5th and 50th Divisions north to bolster his front there, or should he go ahead
with the Weygand plan in the hope that, this time, the French would pull their
weight?
Damn it.
He sat down at his desk, put
his hands together and stared ahead.

A knock on his door startled him. 'Come,' he said.

'Excuse me, my lord,' said Major Archdale.

Gort motioned him to a seat. 'What news from Army
Group One? How are their battle plans?'

'Down to three divisions, not four, my lord.'

'So already they're reneging. Give me strength.' Gort
sighed. 'You know, Archdale, I've had a damned rum deal from our allies. The
Dutch copped it from the start, but the French and the Belgians - you can't get
a straight answer from 'em. The French are always complaining that they're too
tired to fight, their staff work's a bloody disgrace, and there's been no firm
direction or proper coordination whatsoever from the high command. Now I hear
that the Belgians are drifting away and that a dangerous gap is emerging
between our chaps and them. Tell me this, why are the Belgians retreating
north? If they fell back southwards, they'd be able to preserve a decent front
and lines of communication.' He felt himself flush, but was too angry to care
- too frustrated by the impossible position in which he was placed, everyone
pulling him in different directions, the Belgians tugging him north, Weygand
urging him south, Churchill and the war cabinet sticking their oar in. 'Well,
Archdale?' he said.