Колин Форбс - Tramp in Armour

As he fell, Barnes smashed his forehead on the German’s steel helmet, which stunned him for a second, but his brain forced him to his feet, still holding the knife hilt which he was pulling at savagely. It wouldn’t come out. Penn appeared from under the arch.

‘I was just going to shoot him.’

‘That’s what I was afraid of. Here, hold this.’ He handed him his own torch which he had switched on. Then he was tugging the German over on his back, unhitching his steel helmet, which was a struggle because the head flopped back inside it. He got it loose and thrust the helmet at Penn. ‘Get this on… someone’s got to act as sentry – they’ll expect to see him. I’m too short so you’ve just volunteered. Grab his machine-pistol, man.’ He was unbuttoning the greatcoat, trying to push the body over on its stomach and only succeeding when Penn helped him. The throb of the advancing engines resounded in his ears. ‘Reynolds, you stay there with Pierre.’ They had the sentry over on his stomach now, both of them hauling a sleeve over limp arms. ‘The knife,’ said Penn, ‘we can’t…’ ‘Yes, we can. You stand with your back to the bridge wall so they can’t see it.’ The sleeves were free now. Taking a firm hold of the coat, Barnes ripped it clean up over the haft of the protruding knife and helped Penn inside the coat. ‘Now, follow me, but keep out of sight till I tell you – we may be too late…’

Scrambling back up the bank like a terrier, ripping his hands and face on the brambles, he reached the top and peered over the parapet. The leading vehicle was alarmingly close but its headlight beams hadn’t yet reached the bridge. He could hear that deep-throated mechanical rumble clearly. They had tanks, all right.

‘Just in time, Penn. Here, your top button’s undone. Get over that side, your back to the wall. Hold the machine-pistol across your chest. All you have to do is to stand there so they see you. Away you go!’

Penn dashed across the bridge and took up his position. With a last look at the headlights, Barnes felt his way rapidly back down the bank, hand scraping over the wall. At the bottom he trod straight into the river and retrieved the sentry’s lighted torch. Switching it off, he flung it under the bridge and got back on to the bank. Now for the really difficult part. Feeling around in the dark, his hands touched the sentry’s legs, grabbed his ankles. He took a deep breath and began to move backwards under the arch, hauling the German with him. He wondered if he was going to make it: the body weighed several stones more than Barnes and it was like trying to shift a buffalo, but inch by inch he pulled it back until it was well under the arch. Then he bent down and toppled it over the edge so that it fell into the water between the river bank and Bert’s right-hand track. As he stood up he found that his legs were trembling with the effort and sweat was streaming down his back and over his forehead. In standing up he bumped into someone. Pierre. His voice sounded strangled.

‘I think I’m going to be ill – Reynolds attacked me.’

‘Reynolds,’ growled Reynolds, ‘shoved a revolver Into his belly – he was trying to play hero. Wanted to come up and help.’

‘Don’t be ill over us,’ snapped Barnes. ‘You asked for it.’

‘I think I will be all right.’

‘Sit down, Pierre, and stay down.’ Barnes reached out a hand in the dark and pushed it against Pierre’s chest until he felt him sitting down on the footpath. ‘And if we have one cheep out of you Reynolds will empty his gun into you…’

He stopped speaking, holding the wall for support. A vehicle rolled over his head. Twin beams swept over the river bank and briefly passed over the small copse in the field. Then they were gone as the vehicle proceeded north. In no time at all more wheels moved over them, more beams swivelled, then vanished. To make sure that Pierre understood the situation Barnes touched his head lightly with the muzzle of his revolver, bending down to whisper:

‘Just keep it quiet, laddie, and you’ve nothing to worry about.’

Nothing to worry about, that’s a good one, thought Barnes. Four more vehicles rolled over and then he heard a different sound coming, the smooth grinding clatter of heavy caterpillar tracks. The arch seemed to shiver as it rumbled over, little more than twelve feet above them, a German tank moving at medium speed. Before the rumble had disappeared they could hear the next monster approaching the bridge, reducing speed slightly, the tracks clanking like the tread of a small leviathan. As he leant against the stone wall Barnes felt scared stiff and wondered how poor Perm was feeling.

Penn was petrified, gripped by such a paroxysm of fear that he had almost lost all sense of feeling any emotion. He had just taken up his position when the first vehicle arrived, headlights briefly glaring in his face, then sweeping over the bridge, round the corner, and up the road towards Fontaine. An armoured car. Penn had stationed himself at a point where the bridge wall curved away from the road, so that he presented a profile to the oncoming vehicles – a profile of a pudding-shaped helmet, a greatcoat, and a machine-pistol. He held the weapon at an angle, its muzzle pointed across the road to be sure that they would see it. Another armoured car swept past and Penn began counting: Barnes would want to record the make-up of the column afterwards, always assuming that there was going to be an afterwards. As he stood there Penn was horribly aware that it only needed one vehicle with an officer to stop and he would be done for. Four more armoured cars drove past and then Penn experienced an even sharper terror as he heard the approach of a familiar rumble. The tanks were coming – they would have commanders erect in their turrets, men who would have time to look him over as the huge vehicles turned the corner. He froze rigidly, his hands locked so tightly over the machine-pistol that the muzzle began to quiver. Hastily, he loosened his grip and prayed as the first tank mounted the bridge, his eyes staring ahead at the opposite wall. When the vehicle drew level with his position his eyes were fixed at a point on the lower turret and he was conscious of the figure above. The tank moved past, went round the corner, picked up speed. He let out the breath he had been unaware he was holding and wondered how much more of this he could stand. The second one was coming over now…

In times of danger Penn had learnt to practise a little mental exercise which he called to himself ‘putting the mind into cold storage’. It involved suppressing all feeling, all normal reactions, and was in fact a temporary suspension of the brain’s activity by concentrating on one thing only: now he concentrated on his counting. He had counted the passage of twenty heavy tanks when he realized something – not one of the commanders had spared him a glance. As they came over the bridge they were far too concerned with getting their tank round the corner to bother about a sentry whose presence they accepted as part of the night landscape. Penn even reached the stage where he welcomed the arrival of a tank because he had discovered that the trucks of motorized infantry were far more dangerous. The first one to arrive gave him a frightful shock. As the headlights passed beyond him he was able to see it clearly – a replica of the one he had blown up with the two-pounder. The truck drove forward slowly and from under the rim of his helmet Penn saw the officer sitting beside the driver in his cab. The officer looked sideways at Penn, then the cab was past. Without warning the open back presented itself to Penn, a back crammed with helmeted German infantry nursing their weapons. A sea of blank faces stared out at him as the truck back-fired at the corner and almost stopped. For God’s sake keep moving, keep moving! The truck went round the corner and vanished. His hands were so wet now that he had difficulty in holding the weapon straight. Count, keep on counting. Nothing else matters but counting. He wiped his hands quickly on his greatcoat. Another truck now. The same frowning glance from a peak-capped officer, then the sea of staring faces at the back of the truck. He could do without any more of those. Send me some more tanks, please. He almost giggled at the thought and his own reaction bothered him. Was the fearful strain driving him round the bend? Watch it, another damned truce As the vehicle disappeared he heard Barnes’ voice from behind the parapet at his back.