Колин Форбс - Tramp in Armour

They had followed Jacques round a sharp corner and immediately Reynolds was jamming on the brakes, the huge vehicle still trying to move forward against the restraining pressure. The Renault was stationary perhaps seventy yards ahead, and no farther than fifty yards beyond the stopped car lights were strung across the road. One of the lights, a red lamp, moved from side to side.

‘Road-block,’ said Barnes tersely.

Colburn stirred beside him. ‘Hadn’t we better move up closer to Jacques?’

‘No, we stay here. Reynolds, switch off the headlights but leave the side ones on – we may have a visitor in a minute. And turn off the motor -I want to hear what’s going on – but get ready to start it again as soon as I tell you.’

Leaning out of the window, he turned his head and listened. The big guns had obligingly paused with their cannonade and he heard a voice, a staccato voice probably speaking in German. Then Jacques began to turn the car round in the road. He had only commenced the operation when a burst of machine-pistol fire shattered the night. The car stopped in mid-turn and ran back into the ditch, its front wheels still on the road. Barnes had his head poked out of the window when he heard another burst. As it broke off he detected a faint noise and looked up the road but it was difficult to see anything between the transporter and the Renault, whose lights were now beamed across the road. Colburn grasped Barnes by the arm.

‘For God’s sake…’

‘Quiet! I think he’s almost here.’

The running footsteps were very close and as Barnes jumped down into the road Jacques appeared, his breathing laboured, his expression bleak. He spoke rapidly.

Tm all right. They opened fire when I wouldn’t drive up to them. As far as I could see there’s only three or four of them but they’ve got a pole across the road ’

‘Any sign of a field gun? A gun with a shield and a big barrel?’

‘No, but there was one man crouched by the roadside behind a sort of rifle on legs.’

‘Anti-tank rifle. Which side is he on?’

‘The left as you approach them. I saw a motor-cycle and side-car behind the rifle…’

‘Anyone in it?’

‘No, but there are three more men behind the barrier – it was one of them that fired at me. I managed to get out of the car on this side.’

‘Get up here quick.’ Barnes was unfastening one corner of the tarpaulin and he held it while Jacques scrambled up on to the transporter deck. ‘Get on to the tank behind the cab and lie flat on the engine covers – the turret should shield you from any bullets that may be flying about.’

‘We’re going through it?’ asked Jacques.

‘Yes, so keep your head down.’

Re-fastening the tarpaulin, he climbed back into the cab and gave the order to move. He held the muzzle of his machine-pistol well below windscreen level and Colburn extracted his own pistol from under the seat. The transporter began to move forward, headlights blazing again, while inside the cab three men gazed fixedly ahead.

‘No shooting unless we can’t avoid it,’ Barnes warned. ‘We stopped and they’ll think there’s something funny about that but they’ll recognize their own vehicle. We’re not stopping whatever happens and they may lift the pole. Reynolds, get up some speed and keep going – I’d like at least forty miles an hour when we reach that barrier, more if you can manage it.’

The transporter began picking up speed fast as Reynolds put his foot down. He had reached a speed well in excess of forty as they flew past the abandoned Renault and ahead the lights of the road-block rushed towards them. Barnes was leaning well forward now, straining his eyes to see as much as possible before they reached the obstacle, which was clearly visible in their headlights – a narrow pole mounted several feet above the road. And something else, too. On the left a soldier lay behind the anti-tank rifle, while beyond rose the silhouette of the motor-cycle and side-car, a soldier already astride the cycle. The pole remained obstinately down. Barnes shouted.

‘Reynolds, if you can, drive over that rifle and the cycle – as long as you can get us back off the verge to the road. Leave it to you…’

Reynolds made no reply, his broad shoulders hunched forward over the wheel, his head quite still as he stared through the windscreen. They hadn’t opened fire yet. The fact that it was a German vehicle was confusing them. Barnes braced himself for the impact, grabbing the edge of the window and spreading his left arm across Colburn’s chest to hold him back. Cleverly, Reynolds left his manoeuvre until the last possible moment, driving straight down the centre of the road, heading for the middle of the barrier, increasing speed. Twenty yards. Fifteen. Ten. He turned the wheel. The anti-tank rifle, the soldier, the man on the cycle, rushed towards them and then the huge transporter loaded with twenty-six tons of tank smashed past the impediments. The wheels ground over something, the cycle and side-car were hurled sideways, the soldiers catapulted through the air, and then they were through the barrier as Reynolds swung the transporter back on to the centre of the road. Not a shot had been fired. In his concentration on the anti-tank rifle Barnes had never even seen the pole go: when he leaned out to look back all the lights had disappeared and the beams from the Renault were fading into the distance. He gave one simple order. ‘Accelerate.’

General Storch stormed into the Lemont farmhouse which was his temporary headquarters, his voice preceding him down the narrow passage.

‘Meyer! Where are you?’ He reached the entrance to the room serving as his office, closed the door quickly and took off his cap. ‘Ah, there you are! What has gone wrong?’ He was talking rapidly as he strode to a table clothed with a large-scale map of the area. ‘I have just heard that you have sent an instruction countermanding my order.’

‘Only provisionally, sir.’ Colonel Meyer stood up behind the table and screwed the monocle into his eye, his expression worried. This was going to be another bad night.

‘But it was only an hour ago that we went over the order together – the order to attack at dawn, at 04.00 hours. That road to Dunkirk is only three inches under the waterline in spite of the fact that the French opened the sluice gates at Gravelines – so what has happened since?’

Meyer picked up the message form from the table and held it out for the general to read, but Storch ignored it, stripping off his gloves, his voice urgent.

‘You’ve read it, so tell me.’

‘It’s a message from GHQ, which came in after you’d left, sir. It was because of this that ,I issued my order – to be confirmed later subject to your approval.’

‘What are the armchair lot up to now?’

‘The message is not complete – it was garbled in transmission. We’re still having trouble with the wireless but I’m sure the meaning is clear.’

‘We haven’t much time,’ the general reminded him, examining the map as he spoke.

‘It orders us to halt on the waterline, to stay where we are now. General von Bock will attack the BEF from Belgium. I gather that General von Rundstedt is worried about the condition of the tanks, and that’s why he’s halting us.’

‘May I see it?’ Storch took the message and read it through several times, then looked up cynically. ‘It doesn’t really say all that – and it’s certainly garbled.’

Meyer took a death breath. ‘When I was talking to Rundstedt on the field telephone several days ago in your absence he explained his views – he wishes to preserve the armoured forces for the coming battle against the French south of the Somme.’