Колин Форбс - Tramp in Armour

His instinct was to give the order to reverse, to take the tank backwards on to the firm ground they had left. Opening his mouth, he closed it again without speaking. Work this out, Barnes, and quickly. The front seems stable, so it may be on solid ground; only the back is going down. If you reverse you may never reach firm ground. Switching on his pocket torch, ‘ he swept the beam behind the tank. They appeared to have broken up a very thick crust of earth baked hard by weeks of sunshine, exposing a horrible sticky ooze lower down which gleamed in the torchlight. Go forward then? Climbing out of the turret he walked forward over the left-hand track, sat down and gingerly lowered one leg. Firm enough. But in the beams of the headlights he had told Reynolds to switch on he could see the same type of pallid baked earth, the surface cracked with tiny fissures. Was that firm ground or were they perched on an island of solidity with more quagmire ahead? At least the tank had stopped tilting backwards now, as though it had found a precarious equilibrium. Colburn came out of the turret and climbed down on to the hull.

‘What are you playing at, Sergeant?’

‘We’ve run into a bog. It’s as soft as butter behind us now and I’m not too sure of this lot. Get ready to grab me – I’m going to test it for firmness.’

He lowered his full weight on his right leg and the ground held, but it was rather like treading on a sponge. He slipped the other leg down and stood up, felt a crumbling sensation under his left leg and the ground caved in. He started to go down, suddenly up to his knees in filthy ooze. Hands grabbed him from behind, hauled him bodily backwards and lifted, sitting him back on the track, legs astraddle it. Carefully, he turned round and scrambled back on to the hull.

‘Thanks, Colburn. You just about saved my bacon there. No way ahead and no way back. Get me a rope from that box near the compass. I’ve got to find out how far away we are from the shore.’

He waited until Colburn had emerged from the turret again and then tied a loop under his shoulders, handing the free end to the Canadian. The tractor had arrived now and it stood on the bank of the quagmire with its headlights beamed direct on to the tank, blinding Barnes as he made his way along the rear track while Colburn stayed on the hull. The farmer was shouting non-stop across the quagmire in French and with his limited knowledge of the language Barnes, couldn’t understand a word. If only they’d speak slower. He shouted back slowly in English that he was crossing to the bank and received an outburst in reply. Looking back to make sure that Colburn was in position, he pulled a face.

‘Pity you don’t speak French as well as handling machine guns.’

‘I know German. Do you think he might savvy that?’ ‘Don’t try it, for God’s sake. He’s probably only friendly because we’re British.’ ‘How can he know that?’

‘Because of the uniform – he must have seen enough of them before we decided to trot off into Belgium. Here goes. Don’t haul me back unless I’m in real trouble. I’ve got to find out how far it is to the bank.’

‘You can see that by the tractor.’

‘He’ll be yards farther back than he need be. It must be his quagmire.’

Reaching out sideways well beyond the track his right foot touched firmness. But for how long? He put his full weight on it and the ground held. He put his other leg down and there was no feeling of sponginess. He was away from the tank now. Get on with it. A bold step forward with the right leg: it landed on more firmness, a tuft of grass. Were they really as close as this to safety? He lifted the other foot and when it reached the earth it went on going down at an alarming rate, straight through the crust into liquid mud which sent up a dank nauseating smell. Jerking his other foot off the tuft he thrust it forward as far as he could and it hit solid earth, his legs splayed wide apart in front and behind him. He tried to heave the rear foot loose but found he was in serious trouble: it had sunk in up to the knee and the quagmire was wrapped round his leg like some monstrous sea creature determined to suck him down into its lair. Fighting down a rising sense of panic, he heaved again with all his strength, feeling the leg coming up reluctantly, mud oozing and sucking as he pulled. Then it came free with a jerk and he fell flat on his face, aware that the ground under his body was hard and still. Strong hands locked under his shoulders and helped him to his feet. By the light of the tractor’s beams he looked into the farmer’s face, the long lean face of a man in his forties, still babbling away in French.

‘Thanks,’ said Barnes. ‘Can you speak more slowly?’ ,

Unlooping the rope from his shoulders, he looked behind the Frenchman to where the tractor stood and then walked up to it. Tied to the side were half a dozen iron stakes with ring heads: the stakes were at least sis feet long and the farmer had obviously been erecting a fence.. With sign language he indicated that he needed the stakes and the farmer nodded his head vigorously in agreement. Cutting the rope with his knife he carried three of the stakes to the bank and called out:

‘Get Reynolds up on to the hull. He’s to get the two steel tow-lines and attach them to the rear of Bert. I need a hammer over here, too. This chap’s got some iron stakes – if we can fix the tow-lines to them it may stop Berk sinking any deeper while we think up something.’

‘OK.’

While he was waiting the farmer began to make a great effort to tell him something in a few words of English, spacing out the words one by one in his anxiety to convey the message.

‘Stop… stop… there!’ He pointed at the tank. ‘I bring big big wood.’ He was gesturing madly, scooping his hand as he pointed at the tank again. ‘Big wood. Back soon. You wait.’

What the hell else can we do, Barnes wondered. Colburn had reacted quickly and he threw the hammer into the pool of light from the tractor just before the machine was driven off. To start with, Barnes had to hammer the stakes down in the dark, but once he had them firmly embedded he held the torch in his left hand and hammered with his right. Reynolds had attached the two lines to the rear of the hull long before Barnes had driven in the stakes so deep that he thought they should hold up Bert for at least a while, at least until the farmer came back, if he came back.

The quagmire was an eerie place at night and even though it was now completely dark he could see the tank’s silhouette outlined against its own lights. The shadows of Reynolds and Colburn waited on the hull and somewhere far above them a squadron of planes flew through the night at a great height. It was still very warm and muggy and the mosquitoes were active now, biting the back of his neck. He was only satisfied when the stakes were several feet into the ground and then he flashed his torch to show the edge of the quagmire.

‘Before you throw me the tow-lines, is Bert still sinking?’

‘I don’t think so.’ Colburn’s voice. ‘I think the tank’s balanced on the island for the moment but it’s still badly tilted at the back.’

‘As far as I could make out that farmer is coming back with a load of heavy wood. That’s all I could get but I imagine he’s got some idea of bridging this gap. Now, I’ll stand well back, Reynolds, so throw me the first line.’

The loop landed within inches of the stakes where Barnes had left his lighted torch on the ground. He wrapped the line tightly round the stakes close to the ground and then passed the end through an iron ring. When the second tow-line arrived he repeated the process. Now all they could do was to wait, hoping that the farmer would come back and that he would bring something they, could use. Occasionally he called out to the men on the tank, but carrying on a conversation across the quagmire seemed pretty unsatisfactory so soon they said nothing and the minutes dragged by with agonizing slowness. Leaving the headlights on bothered Barnes because this drew attention to them from the road, but he decided that they must risk keeping them on to make sure that the farmer could find them. They waited a whole hour before lights appeared across the field behind them, and then the tractor chugged across the grass and pulled up close to the bank. Barnes ran forward to see what the farmer had brought, and for a moment he couldn’t see anything until the man pointed to behind the vehicle. He had dragged across the field two immense beams of wood which were attached to the back of the tractor by chains. While the farmer undid the chains Barnes measured their length by pacing. About ten feet long. He would have put the distance between the shore and the front of the tank at twelve feet, but that was only a rough guess. They’d just have to try it, anyway – as a fighting vehicle Bert might just as well be at the bottom of the swamp as immobilized on that island when daylight came. He stood on the bank and explained the plan carefully to Colburn and Reynolds, but that was the easy part. He now had to explain it to the farmer, and this was only achieved by careful gesturing. It became clearer when Reynolds had thrown two coils of rope on to the bank, and then they started.