Колин Форбс - Tramp in Armour

‘So far, so good, as the man said to the girl,’ joked Penn.

‘There’s still the bridge.’

‘Not a sausage yet, not even a German one.’

Barnes looked back. The stone arch was much smaller now and it looked amazingly peaceful from inside the tunnel of trees, the sunlight showing up its white stone with great clarity. It seemed incredible that at any second the engines of war would be streaming across it on their way to a battle zone. Barnes turned round to face the front, feeling the coolness of the foliage-wrapped tunnel on his face, and his heart leapt into his mouth. Their road was blocked.

The light was dimmer inside the tunnel, which was why he hadn’t spotted the obstacle – in the very centre of the river, barely ten yards ahead, a giant boulder projected-from the water. The rock was black and pointed at the summit, its nearside sheer and massive, forming an island round which the river divided into two separate channels. Bert was capable of mounting a vertical obstacle two feet high, but the height of the boulder was at least four feet. In the time it took the tank to move forward a couple of yards Barnes considered the alternatives: climbing it was out of the question; ramming it could be suicide – they’d stall the engine or damage the hull; by-passing the obstacle by driving Bert out of the river and along the bank slope would be near-suicide. But the third alternative was the only possible one so he immediately began issuing warnings and instructions to poor Reynolds who was now being asked to overcome the insuperable. The operation called for no less than taking the tank from the river bed up on to the steep slope and then endeavouring to pass above the boulder with the vehicle tilted at a precipitous angle high above the river. Penn listened with a drawn face until Barnes had completed his preliminary instructions and when he spoke his voice was strained.

‘Can we manage that? You could topple us over sideways.’ ‘It’s the only way – we’ll have to manage it. Keep a sharp lookout on that bridge.’

‘Well,’ said Penn lightly, ‘it’s a good job we’ve got plenty of time.’

‘Do watch that damned bridge, Penn.’ Penn hadn’t taken his eyes off the bridge except for the brief downward glance when the tank had dropped precipitately, but at the moment Barnes was in no mood for his corporal’s pleasantries. They were very close to the boulder and the closer they came the-more immovable it appeared. Yes, the only way was up the bank and along its side. Reynolds commenced the manoeuvre under Barnes’ watchful eye, braking the left track so that the right one turned the tank towards the bank. As they left the water and mounted the left-hand slope a spasm of alarm ran through Barnes: the bank was much steeper than it had appeared. Instead of the undergrowth sinking several feet under the tank’s weight it flattened down no more than a foot, enormously increasing the hazard because when Bert tried to move along the slope parallel to the river it would be like a cyclist riding up the wall of death. We could topple sideways, Penn had suggested. Well, Barnes knew what the likely result of that would be for the men in the turret: they would end up on the river bed and twenty-six tons of dead-weight tank on top of them. The tracks moved forward, the tank inched up the slope, and then began to turn which could prove quite fatal. Reynolds had braked the right-hand track and now the revolutions of the other track slowly swung the massive weight round on its axis, then he stopped briefly. The tank was parallel to the river below, the turret tilted out over the water, tilted so steeply that Barnes and Penn had difficulty in keeping their balance and their bodies were perched at an acute angle. Now for it.

They were all only too aware that even the slightest error of judgement would take the tank over sideways, and that even if they survived, which was unlikely, Bert would land on the bed of the river flat on his back like a helpless beetle, his tracks churning the air. And to Barnes it was quite clear that it all hinged on a few degrees of tilt; even a few extra pounds of weight on the right-hand side could be sufficient to start the fatal sideways topple. He gave the order. The tank began its forward movement. Foot by foot the tracks advanced, clutching at the earth below the undergrowth, and no one spoke, no one moved, every nerve end geared to the painfully slow revolutions of the steel tracks. They were beginning to creep past the huge boulder below when the crisis came. Barnes saw the left-hand track start to lift gently, increasing the tilt by several degrees. His hand gripped the turret rim as he took his decision. The bodies of Seft and the sentry were sliding over the engine covers to the right – he saw that when he glanced over his shoulder – and those bodies were adding well over twenty stone to their dead weight. Literally, dead weight, he thought grimly.

‘Penn, cut those ropes – quickly!’

Reacting instantly, Penn pulled out his sheath knife and nervously leaned down over the back of the turret, being particularly careful not to lean sideways. The ropes were taut with the weight of the slithering bodies and he sawed rapidly, his nerves so keyed up that he observed each strand giving way until the rope, thinned to a few strands, suddenly snapped of its own accord. Seft’s body rolled off the sloping hull and fell with a great splash into the channel of water alongside the boulder. Penn was so preoccupied in trying to watch the bridge while he cut through the second rope that he never even saw the first body land, but Barnes had a quick glimpse of the corpse sinking below the surface before he switched his gaze back to the front tracks. They were pressing down the undergrowth slowly, like an animal feeling its way across treacherous ground, and he knew that even the merest extra lift could unhinge Bert’s precarious balance.

On his jacked-up seat in the nose of the tank, Trooper Reynolds was drawing on all his experience of the engines as he desperately tried to judge just how slowly he could keep moving without a fatal stalling of the motors, because if that happened he was sure that even the vibrations of re-starting the engines might well tip them into the river, and this was an experience that no training had prepared him for. Only his intimate knowledge of the tank’s structure and idiosyncrasies could pull the trick if anything could. For several minutes Barnes had not spoken a word, knowing that words were useless and that he must leave it entirely to Reynolds to perform this diabolical operation. They were three-quarters of the way past the boulder when Barnes saw the upper track move against a clump of brambles, but instead of pressing them down the track began to climb as it mounted some unseen obstacle beneath the undergrowth. Here we go, Barnes told himself. He prepared to shout to Penn to jump, knowing that he had to stay on board himself because Reynolds wouldn’t have a dog’s chance of scrambling up out of the hatchway in time. The track was still climbing, but Bert still clung limpet-like to the side of the bank, poised at an impossible angle. Then Barnes felt the wobble as the tank began to heel over. At that moment Penn sawed through the final strands of rope and the sentry’s body broke free, toppling off the hull into the river. The wobble stopped, the upper track savagely trampled down undergrowth and dropped at least six inches to lower ground. They had recovered their balance. Penn’s voice was breathless.

‘Thought we were going, then. Two passengers couldn’t stand the strain – they got off.’

‘I think you were just in time, but we’re not out of the wood yet. Any sign of the Panzers?’

‘Bridge still like a picture postcard. Can’t last like this much longer.’