Tramp in Armour (9 page)

'How provocative can you get?' growled Barnes.

'Pardon?'

The German attack came without warning, without mercy,
came out of clear blue sky from in front of the sun so that it was almost impossible to detect their approach, but Barnes
heard them coming.

'Down!'

He shouted the word again and again to the bewildered
crowd and then dropped flat on the grass beside Pierre as the
first Messerschmitt swooped along the column, its engine
screaming, its machine gun blazing non-stop. The crowd was
dazed, stunned with terror, unable even to attempt to run for
safety in the shock of the sudden onslaught. In front of him Barnes saw an old man turn and stare at the plane as it came
straight along the road with a scream and a stutter. He must
have taken a dozen bullets in the chest before he crashed back
against a cart. As the first machine screamed past, Barnes
tugged out his revolver and waited for the next one, steadying
the gun barrel across bis arm. The second Messerschmitt
pulled out of its dive and sped over the procession almost immediately. Barnes saw the outline of the pilot's helmet, the black cross on the fuselage, the swastika on the tail. He fired three times in rapid succession, knowing that it was hopeless.
Unless a .455 bullet burst through the petrol tank he might
just as well be armed with a bow and arrow, but he had to try
something. The third machine was coming now, its nadir so
low that it almost skimmed the heads of the panic-stricken
refugees. Barnes fired, swearing foully as he switched his eyes to the west where another one was coming, and at that moment a horse went berserk, dragging its cart off the road as people
scrambled desperately to escape this new menace.

There were six machines altogether, and when they had flown away from the carnage the afternoon was suddenly horribly quiet. Only the heart-broken cries of sobbing women disturbed the stillness as Barnes clambered to his feet and ran over to the stationary Renault. When he reached the car and looked inside he clenched his teeth: the woman in the Renault had taken the full blast of the machine gun and now she was hardly identifiable even as a blood-soaked corpse. The engine was still running so he leaned over and switched off the ignition. He would give these refugees what help he could and then head for Arras non-stop.

The tank rumbled southwards at top speed and the road ahead was clear as far as the eye could see, another panorama of Belgian pastureland spreading away with hardly a tree anywhere, which meant no cover from air attack.

Standing in the turret, Barnes concentrated on keeping all-
round observation: the deserted road ahead, the road behind,
the fields on either side where people worked a long way off
and never seemed to notice the passage of a British tank and,
above all, the sky overhead where the most instant danger
could strike without warning. Below him Penn occupied
Davis' old position behind the guns, while in the nose of the
tank Reynolds sweltered as he handled his driving levers, his
head thrust up through the open hatch, relieved that once
again they were on the move and that Barnes was in command.
To Reynolds, all was well with the world so long as Barnes
was in command. Behind the turret sat Pierre. He was perched
outside the tank on the engine covers and already had grown
accustomed to the gentle wobble of the hull as the huge tracks
ground farther south with every revolution. There had almost
been a row between Barnes and Penn over taking the Belgian
lad. At first, Barnes had refused point-blank.

'We need him for information,' Penn had protested. 'He knows the country and we don't. Supposing we're inside a town close to the battle area - accurate information will be vital. Our lives may depend on it and the only one who can get it quickly from the locals is Pierre. He's taken some chances with us already - he was with us in the building all the time the Panzer column was moving through Fontaine. We didn't know it at the time but if he'd been caught with us they'd have shot him. And he brought food for us.'

It was probably the gesture of bringing food which had finally persuaded Barnes to let Pierre travel with them until he could drop him off in an area more peaceful than Fontaine. They were on the point of departing when Pierre had come running back from the village with sticks of French bread under each arm and a satchelful of tinned meat hanging from his shoulder. He even had a packet of coffee in his pocket. No one had inquired too closely as to how he had obtained these provisions: after all, there was a war on.

And now, as the tank left Fontaine far behind them, Barnes was weighing up many things. It was pleasant to have the sun shining down on them, but it was from the sun that the Luftwaffe made its
sneak attacks, so frequently he shaded his eyes to scan the sky, straining his ears for the first warning sound of approaching engines. The landscape ahead was beginning to undulate and he kept a careful observation along the ridges to detect any signs of gun positions which might lie in ambush. So far they had only met Belgian horse-carts on this lonely road which seemed to go on for ever, horse-carts which plodded past while their drivers stared at the tank as though hardly able to believe their eyes. As he kept up his vigilant watch Barnes was also trying to locate on the map the road they were travelling along and he was puzzled. There was a road from Fontaine which led south-west in the general direction of distant Arras, but this road had gradually turned until they were heading due south Without mentioning his discovery, he kept an eye open for landmarks.

They were going to run into trouble soon now, Barnes could feel it in his bones. They were travelling with their guns loaded and the power-traverse on, and Barnes bad given Pierre strict instructions that in case of trouble he must immediately leave the tank and take cover. The farther they moved along this peaceful road, the only witnesses to their progress cows grazing in the fields, the tauter Barnes' nerves became. It was only a matter of time before they met something big and when that happened he'd have to take a lightning decision. He only hoped that he was up to that. He had reached the stage where he accepted the throbbing and. pricking of his shoulder as a
permanent burden, as much a part of himself as breathing, but he did wish that the dreadful pounding headache would go away. Under the circumstances it was remarkable that he reacted at all when the emergency arose, and the fact that he reacted instantly was little short of a miracle.

At the time they were travelling at reduced speed on his instructions because they were approaching a hump-backed
bridge. The character of the countryside had changed again
and now there were low hills close to the road. Even from the
elevated vantage point of the turret he found it impossible to see the stretch of road immediately beyond the bridge, so as
they drove forward his gaze was fixed on the crest which was
still a hundred yards away. Instinctively, he didn't like the
look of the bridge. He began to give precautionary orders, just in case.

'Two-pounder. One hundred. The bridge ahead.'

Below him, Penn's head was pressed hard against a padded
bracket, his eye peering steadily through the telescope at the small circle of countryside which centred on the bridge crest. The two-pounder's leather-bound grip was fixed tightly round
his shoulder, under his armpit, so that only the slightest
movement of that shoulder automatically raised or depressed
the muzzle of the gun. His left hand gripped the power-tra
verse lever while the other hand gripped the trigger handle.
Now the cross-wires inside the glass circle were aligned dead
centre on the bridge crest. The range was set, he was ready,
and all this had taken only a few seconds.

Barnes had hardly completed giving the orders, Penn had
just completed obeying them, when it happened. Straight over
the crest of the hump-back, travelling at high speed, recklessly
high speed, hurtled a large covered truck. Barnes registered its
identity in a flash - even to the soldier peering round from the back, leaning well out, a pudding-shaped helmet set squarely
on his head. A German detachment of motorized infantry.

'German truck! Fire!'

The barrel dropped slightly, because now the truck was over the hump, still tearing towards them. Knowing what to expect, Barnes gripped the turret rim. The tank shuddered under the stomach-jerking spasm of the recoil, the shell screamed forward, its target rushing to meet it. The two missiles met in frightful collision, the shell smashing into the truck just above engine level, exploding with a roar, ripping apart metal, canvas, flesh. Inside the turret the air reeked of cordite fumes as Barnes, who was now behind the gun, re-loaded, flipping in a fresh round with a certain force to make the breech-block close. Then he scrambled back to the top of the turret, the tank still trundling towards its target. In the nose of the vehicle Reynolds stared at the truck with grim satisfaction. God, that had been a close one!

The truck was pulverized, but the force of explosion plays strange tricks and this explosion had hurled from the open back several German soldiers still clasping their machine-pistols, throwing them out on to the grass verge where they lay stunned for a second. But when Barnes looked out from his turret they were recovering, jumping up off the grass, the reflex of fear speeding their movements as they darted into the field, spreading out the target. In a matter of seconds, if they were well trained, they would be circling round the tank. Barnes gave instant orders.

'Driver, right, off the road, right. Besa. Besa. Right. Well
right. Fire!'

Penn's trigger hand jumped to the Besa. Reynolds swerved
off the road, through a low wire fence, over the grass, heading
straight for the running men. The Besa began to stutter, a hail
of bullets catching the man on the right-most flank, catching
him in mid-stride, in mid-air as he began to flop, his body
hiccupping convulsively, the machine-pistol falling from his
grip.

'Besa. Traverse left, left...'

Coolly, without panic, Penn's mind and hand paralleled Barnes' intentions and the turret began to swing, taking the flail of bullets with it. Get the one on the far right first, then sweep left against the forward movement of the running men, catching all five men as they desperately tried to spread, depressing the Besa to sweep it at ground level over those who had dropped to the grass. In half a minute it was all over and Barnes gave the order to take the tank back on to the road.

The smashed truck sagged grotesquely to one side, still on its wheels but keeled over at a crippled angle, flames licking over the bonnet, the torn canvas at the back catching alight. Then the petrol tank went up, a dull thump. Flames soared up and the canvas flared, burning rapidly, exposing the metal framework. Halting the tank, Barnes waited until the conflagration had died down, his eyes' scanning the summer sky constantly for aircraft, but it was empty of any sign of war. Only on the ground death disfigured the gloriously sunny day. As soon as the flames began to peter out Barnes gave the order to move the tank forward. The shelled truck now blocked the way, the wreckage standing in the middle of the road. Carefully he guided the tank along the grass verge, turning it so that the front hull faced the truck broadside on.

'Driver, move forward slowly and tip it over the edge.' The tank crawled forward, its tracks bumping the side of the truck. Foot by foot, it thrust the truck backwards towards the slope at the end of the bridge, a slope which Barnes now saw led down to the canal. From the turret he could see over the hump of the bridge and the road beyond was clear for miles. He could also see on the floor of the cab and inside the truck itself a huddle of clothes which bore little resemblance to uniformed soldiers. The truck was almost on the brink now, pushed backwards by the tank which was manoeuvring the vehicle like a bulldozer shifting waste material. As the truck began to topple a helmeted figure scrambled out from under the bodies, dropping to the roadway and swinging his machine-pistol round in one movement. God knew how he had managed to survive the holocaust but now he survived only seconds. As the machine-pistol came round Barnes fired his revolver at the same moment as the Besa began to stutter. The German fell back over the edge a few seconds before the truck toppled, crashing down the slope on top of him with a jarring grind of crumpling metal as the vehicle landed on the edge of the canal, settling like a crushed concertina. There was an unpleasant smell of burnt rubber as Barnes gave the orders to reverse, drive forward over the bridge, and halt on the far side. Then he clambered down into the road and went back over the bridge.