Tramp in Armour (6 page)

'I don't like the look of it,' said Barnes. 'The loaded rifles, I
mean. It looks as though they just ran for their lives. Tanks against men, probably.'

'They've retreated, then,' remarked Penn quietly.
'Looks like it. A helluva lot must have happened while we
were bottled up in that tunnel. According to the map there's a
village about five miles farther on - we should get news there.
I may halt Bert outside and go in on foot. I don't like the look
of this at all.'

'It could be Jerry who has retreated,' said Penn thoughtfully. 'Parker may be on the Rhine now.'

'Wars don't move at that speed, Penn, not in either direction. As to Jerry retreating, I still don't like the look of those loaded rifles in the ditch - they smell of French retreat. We'd better get on.'

As they moved along the road Barnes saw more and more evidence that the scythe of war had passed that way, more and more burnt-out Renault tanks, smashed guns, still figures lying sprawled in the fields, helmets. And always they were French helmets. He was still waiting to see even one sign of German casualties in either men or machines, and he had not found it when he saw in the distance the first indication of life in this eerily empty landscape - a horizontal line of smoke. The line crossed the sky just above the ground and it hung perfectly still as though drawn in with charcoal. But at one end, the end which was approaching the road half a mile farther on, the line was growing and he realized it was smoke from a train's engine, a train which was still invisible below the level of an embankment. He scanned the sky and stiffened, his hand tightening on the turret rim. High up in the blue vastness a formation of planes was flying on a course which seemed to parallel the direction of the train. He raised his glasses and focused them. It was impossible to be sure but they looked like a squadron of British Blenheim bombers and his heart lifted at the sight of them.

As the tank trundled forward he watched the planes coming
closer and then, focusing his glasses along the road, he saw the
level crossing which the train would pass over within the next
minute. He swivelled his glasses back to the aerial formation
and caught his breath. They were moving into line now -
coming in for a bombing run.
He gave the order to halt and warned his crew over the intercom.

'I think there'll be some bombs dropping in the vicinity
shortly. Don't laugh - but they'll be coming from our chaps.'

No one laughed as they waited in the stationary tank, the
engines still ticking over. Should they reverse, wondered Barnes, and then he rejected the idea. -They might just as
easily reverse into a bomb. He prepared to slam down the lid
but for the moment he waited, curious to see whether the
Blenheims hit their target.

'What are they after?' Penn called up.

'A train, I think. It's just about to cross the road farther along, so get ready for it.'

His glasses brought up the road ahead now and he saw the smoke line emerge from behind the embankment. The train began to move across the road into the fields beyond. Two engines, drawing a line of goods coaches. He sucked in his breath as he saw tiny figures clustered round a long barrel on a flat truck. A Bofors? He could hear the gun now as it began pumping shells into the sky. When he looked up the first bombs were falling, small black dots against the warm blue, too far away to menace Bert, thank God, but they were going to be close, mighty close, to that train. The stick of dots vanished behind the smoke and he waited for the detonations. As he stood there, his eyes glued to the smoke line, a colossal explosion
murdered the evening, far more enormous than it
should have been. The first shock wave swept along the road as a coach went hump-backed. The wave buffeted against the tank hull and Barnes started to scramble inside, the words screaming through his brain. Ammunition train! The second, more devastating shock wave hit the tank when he was halfway down, his hand inside the turret, the lid still open. The tremendous force of the wave unbalanced his footing and his head smashed back against the steel rim. At that very moment the undetected Messerschmitt swooped in a power dive, all guns blazing, but Barnes was already unconscious.

Saturday evening, 7
pm.
The 14th Panzer Division was racing deeper into France, now well beyond Laon, coming close to the Somme. General Heinrich Storch not only had the nose of a hawk, he also had the eye of that predatory bird, and this eye was now fixed on a hump some distance away across the fields. Whipping up his glasses, he focused on the object, letting out his breath in a hiss. He spoke briefly into the microphone hanging from his neck as a shell screamed across the field towards the tank, column. A 75-mm gun, Storch told himself, the best artillery piece in the whole French Army, probably the only gun capable of taking on a German heavy tank. He looked back as the shell exploded over the road and in the field beyond. A ranging shot. The column was already obeying his command.

Storch's tank increased speed, rumbling along the road like an angry dinosaur while the gunner followed Storch's orders, traversing the turret which carried the barrel of his heavy gun towards the French artillery position. Behind him four tanks were moving at different speeds, so that in less than a minute they were well spaced out, making the French gun-aimer's task infinitely more difficult. He could now aim at only one target, while at the same time four tanks were firing back without fear of retaliation. The Panzer column stopped, five long barrels aimed across the field towards the camouflaged hump. A second shell screamed towards them, fell just short of the centre tank, and exploded in the grass, scattering a rain of soil over the hull. The Panzers replied.

One hand gripping the turret rim, the other holding his field glasses, Storch felt the recoil of his own heavy cannon. This shell also fell short of its target, sending up a cloud of smoke in front of the 75-mm position. Storch spoke briefly, confident that the next shot would be on target, but his gunner never had the opportunity to fire because a shell from the tank behind landed squarely on top of the French position. It exploded, smoke blotting out the target, then there was a second explosion as the 75-mm ammunition went up, hurling the mangled bodies of the gun crew across the field. Two more tanks fired, as though encouraged by the marksmanship of their neighbour, both shells landed inside the billowing smoke, scattering the relics of the smashed gun. Storch issued the order to cease fire, his field-glasses on the target, his voice quiet.

'Congratulations, Meyer. Your duck-shooting experience is
bearing fruit.'

Inside his own tank turret Meyer tightened his lips. It was typical that Storch could not pat him on the back without in the same breath digging him in the ribs. The duck-shooting remark was a slighting reference to his aristocratic background, he had no doubt about that. While they waited, Meyer polished his monocle and screwed it back into position. He wore it on every possible occasion simply because he knew that it annoyed Storch, who regarded the eye-glass as a badge of caste. Then he heard the general's high-pitched voice through the crackle of his earphones. They were on the move again.

Storch's sense of exultation was growing. In his mind's eye he was already racing ahead to the distant objective of Amiens, only twenty-five miles from the sea. His Panzer division was in the lead of the extraordinary advance and he was determined that it should maintain that position. Speaking into the microphone, he ordered the driver to increase speed, even though there was a danger that they might overtake the motor-cycle patrols, but the spotter plane had just radioed back to say the road ahead was clear.

Following up in the second tank, Meyer wiped his face clean of the dusk kicked up by Storch's vehicle, his mood very different from that of his commanding officer. Soon they were passing through yet another French village without stopping, witnessing once again the same astonishing scene: another church, another village square, the inhabitants standing petrified against the walls, too scared or too astounded to rush indoors as the Panzer column thundered past. This can't go on much longer, Meyer told himself grimly. They had already far out-distanced the infantry and he was going to have a word with Storch about that at the next stopping point. All Meyer's professional instincts revolted against this wild headlong rush into the blue.

They left the village and emerged once again into the open French landscape, a sea of fields stretching away for ever, the sunlight shining down on dry pasturelands. And whereas Storch saw every evidence of a French collapse in the deserted view ahead, Meyer saw a panorama full of hidden dangers. He was well
aware that the Manstein Plan envisaged a. tremendous encircling sweep which would cut off the northern group of Allied armies from the French forces in the south, a sweep which would be completed when they reached the sea, but it seemed to Meyer that this plan was based on the extraordinary assumption that the Allies would sit back and let this happen. From his Great War experience Meyer knew this to be the assumption of a madman. At any moment the enemy counter-attack would erupt, rolling like a tidal wave against the armoured column's stretched out far ahead of the main German army. He only hoped to God that the counter attack would not materialize
behind
them. Another instruction came as they approached a crossroads. Storch was waiting in his stationary tank as Meyer arrived. Climbing down out of bis own vehicle he walked over and stood looking up at his general, who spoke first.

'The spotter plane reports something on the road ahead -
it's investigating.'

'I know.' Meyer took a deep breath, wishing that Storch would come down out of his turret. 'I've been expecting this -there'll be a heavy counter-attack at any moment. May I suggest that we wait here until the infantry catches us up? It
might even be wiser to withdraw a few miles - to consolidate.'

'Why?'

Storch's voice was silky. He leaned over the turret to
examine Meyer, who was at a further disadvantage because the
general's peaked cap shaded his face and he couldn't see his
expression.

'Because we have no supporting troops to hold the ground
we have taken.' He took another deep breath. 'In fact, what we have taken may mean very little without troops occupying the
ground we are rushing over like the Berlin Express.'

As soon as he had spoken he felt that he had gone too far, but having spoken he was determined not to back down and he prepared to defend himself. In any case, if things did go wrong this might well be a useful conversation to repeat at a military court of inquiry. The general did not reply immediately. Instead, he turned his head sideways, cocking his ear as though listening to something almost beyond the range of human hearing. Storch did have exceptional hearing powers and he attributed these to his total abstinence. Looking up, squinting against the sun's glare, Meyer had a view of Storch's profile now - an arrogant curve of nose, the thin wide mouth, the sharply pointed jaw-line.

'It sounds like bombing,' the general commented. 'Our
Stukas must be taking out the next town. So, you think we ought to stop here do you, Meyer?'

'Or withdraw to a less-exposed...'

'May I remind you, Colonel Meyer,' Storch paused, still listening, 'that this Panzer division is under my command, and I, in turn, am responsible to the Corps Commander, General Guderian*, who takes his instructions from General von Rundstedt?'

* General Guderian, who had carefully studied General de Gaulle's work, 'The Army of the Future', was chiefly responsible for the development of the Panzer divisions. Guderian later took the armoured host to the southern approaches of Moscow.

Meyer was appalled. What on earth was coming? Surely Storch was not contemplating sending him back to base? He stood stiffly as the awful realization of his tactical error dawned on him. For Storch could easily interpret what had just been said as faint-heartedness in the face of the enemy. Meyer said nothing as Storch continued in the same silky tone.

'And may I also remind you of General Guderian's orders
that the Panzers are to be let off the leash - to push forward as
far and as fast as they can while their petrol lasts out?'

For the first time the general looked down at his GSO as he pulled down his earphones in position, listened, and then lifted them again. His voice was harsher now.

'It may interest you to know that the spotter plane has located and identified the obstacles in our path - two French farm carts. I don't imagine, Colonel Meyer, that we should allow ourselves to be troubled by such
opponents.' He stood up in his turret, erect as a ramrod. 'Meyer, please return to your tank - the advance will continue in the general direction of Amiens.'