Колин Форбс - Tramp in Armour

As they drove steadily along a hedge-lined road between a sea of empty fields which stretched away on all sides Barnes knew that he was feeling the strain, the strain of standing upright in the turret for long periods while the sun beat down fiercely on him, so fiercely that his shirt and trousers were almost as generously soaked with sweat as they had been with water when he had emerged from the river. His task of endless observation was arduous enough to test the strength of the fittest person since it involved keeping up a constant watch -on the road ahead and behind, on the landscape on both sides of the road, and above all on the sky, since they had good reason to know now that a moment’s unguarded relaxation might be punished by the sudden swoop of a Messerschmitt. But Barnes was not feeling at his strongest and a further drain on his strength was the non-stop pounding of his shoulder wound which he was finding it impossible to ignore, while at the same time he had to take his weight on the left leg because the right kneecap was badly bruised where it had struck the underwater rock. Mentally, Barnes was still functioning, but physically he was in a state.

Shading his eye against the sun’s glare he stared along the road to where a small building stood by the verge, or rather to where the relics of a building stood. It must have received a direct hit from shell or bomb. But what caught his attention was a pole which spanned the road outside the wreckage, a red and white striped pole. He spoke into the mike.

‘The frontier’s dead ahead. We are just about to cross the border into France.’

He could see now that the Customs post beside the pole had camouflaged the existence of a gun position, a gun position which had been completely wiped out. The 75-mm barrel lay by itself and several French helmets were scattered across the ground, but there were still no German helmets to indicate that the enemy had also died. Bert rumbled forward, smashing aside the pole like matchwood. They were on French soil. When Penn asked permission to come up into the turret for a minute Barnes readily agreed. It must be like an inferno down inside the tank this afternoon.

‘Back on home ground,’ remarked Penn lightly.

‘We’re still a long way from home,’ Barnes replied grimly.

‘Any chance of a drop of mild-and-bitter?’ He meant water.

‘Not yet. We’re down to half a bottle.’

‘I do think we should have gone into that town,’ Penn said hoarsely.

‘And run into a Jerry ambush most likely. Tanks aren’t for towns – not tanks on their own roaming about behind the enemy lines. It only needs a couple of anti-tank guns at either end of the street with us in the middle and we’re finished. You should know that by now.’

‘Well, we can’t go on like this much longer. Reynolds must be near the end of his tether stuck out there in front driving on and on hour after hour.’

‘Reynolds has not complained,’ Barnes answered drily.

‘But Reynolds is a good boy.’

‘If this is going to be the quality of your conversation you’d better get back behind your gun.’

Perm clambered down into the fighting compartment without a word and Barnes immediately regretted his reply, but having said it he had to leave it. God, the strain must be telling for him to say a damned silly thing like that, but the tension was the product of strain. He reckoned it up. In twenty-four hours he had enjoyed barely two hours of uneasy sleep and Reynolds had made do with the same ration, but Penn hadn’t slept at all, and prior to that both of them had made do with four hours’ sleep a night for four nights while Barnes lay unconscious. Yes, they badly needed a safe bivouac for the night. And eight hours’ sleep. He scanned the sky again.

Inside the hull the temperature was ferocious, the air almost non-existent. Penn sat in his vest and trousers, hugging the shoulder-grip, his hand close to the trigger guard. Their experience with the lorryload of German infantry which had roared over the bridge in their faces had impressed on all of them the need for a constant state of alertness, although at this moment it was purely a reflex action with Penn to take up the position. His brain was becoming numbed, numbed with the heat, with the diesel-fuel odour, with the endless throb of the engines, with the hypnotic grind of the tracks. He had reached the stage where he was frightened he might faint and this was why he had gone up into the turret. The dizziness increased and he kept shaking his head to clear it. The thirst he was suffering from was so intense that his tongue clove to the top of his mouth and he could almost see foaming tankards of beer, wishing to God that his imagination wasn’t so strong. The tank ground on.

In the nose of the tank Reynolds wore a stolid expression. He was hot and sticky and he was thirsty, too, but they would get a drink when Barnes gave permission. In the meantime he could wait. He was neither worried nor resigned – he was just doing his job, driving Bert in accordance with instructions. He had experienced a little trouble with the monotony of the road rolling towards him on and on like a slow-motion conveyor belt which never stopped, but he countered this by glancing sideways across the fields frequently. So they were inside France now, were they? It didn’t seem to make much difference to Reynolds – one field was like another and if they hadn’t put up that pole you’d never have noticed any change. Fuel was going down, of course, but Barnes would do something about that. The tank ground on.

Water, fuel, ammunition, food. These were the basic commodities, in that descending order of priority, vital to their existence as a fighting unit, and they always loomed in the front of Barnes’ mind. They loomed large now while he was coping with his aching wound, his bruised kneecap, the heat and the thirst, maintaining all-round observation at the same time. He knew exactly what the position was – they had sixty gallons of diesel left, but the tanks at the rear of the hull had a capacity of ninety gallons; they had half a bottle of water; a meagre quantity of bully beef, sufficient for another meal, and some tea. They were stuffed to the gills with ammunition, of course. A pity they couldn’t eat that. He began to think that perhaps they had better investigate the next place they came to and he shaded his eyes to make sure that he wasn’t seeing things. No, there it was – a line of buildings on the horizon straight ahead of them. He spoke into the mike.

‘We’re approaching a town. I’ll be taking us in to have a look at the place.’

From that moment the whole atmosphere changed for the better. Glancing down inside the turret Barnes saw Penn looking up at him. The corporal grinned and winked. Even Reynolds reacted,-sitting up a little higher on his seat, straightening his shoulders, gripping the steering levers a little more tightly. It was like the approach to the promised land for them. Water, fuel, ammunition, food. If they were very lucky they might load up with everything they needed. And information, an item which Barnes was tempted to add high on his priority list. If they could only know exactly where they were what a weight off his shoulders that would be! He called to Penn to come up out of that hothouse again and the corporal almost sprinted up into the turret, his voice positively light-hearted.

‘Maybe we’ll be off the old bully beef tonight. I wonder what’s on the menu at the Restaurant de la Gare.’

‘We’re behind the German lines,’ Barnes reminded him.

‘Even so, providing their lordships aren’t in residence we may get a slap-up supper. Now, let me see, I wonder what I fancy.’

‘A bottle of water,to start with.’

‘Boeuf a la Bourguignonne with haricots verts would be acceptable. Yes, that’s it. Washed down with several bottles of vin ordinaire, of course. We can’t really afford vintage wines on Army pay, can we?’