Колин Форбс - Tramp in Armour

‘Barnes, he never moved – he never moved. And we’re in a British tank.’

It worked, Barnes thought, the element of surprise worked there. Perhaps the sentry hadn’t done his homework on tank silhouettes. He might have been posted there from other duties and he was tired out, so when a vehicle came down the streets of German-occupied Lemont with its headlights blazing he assumed that it must be all right. He could even have been asleep on his feet. But the main thing was it had worked once and it could work again. Colburn’s voice spoke urgently.

‘I can see the embankment clearly now – we’re close to the turn. You’ll have to watch this one, it’s narrow. I’ll guide you round…’

Barnes reduced his speed close to zero. He remembered this bend and it was the worst one they would have to negotiate. The route they were following had been so simple that he had known exactly where they were ever since leaving the farm building. Once they had entered the village the way had led straight forward down the first street, across the square, continuing along the street beyond up to the first left-handed turn down the hill. At the bottom of the hill they turned right and then it was straight on again by the side road at the foot of the canal embankment. If they could only manage this corner… They were almost round the sharp turn when it happened. They were moving slowly forward and then there was a terrific jolt and the tank stopped, its engines still ticking over. Barnes had jammed on the brake, warned by the impact and the scraping sound he had heard just before the jarring crash which rammed the detonator box savagely against his shoulder. He struggled against an overwhelming desire to be sick, too shaken to try and thrust the box back while his hands were free. Then he heard Colburn.

‘Track’s jammed against the left wall. Sorry – my fault. We’ll have to get out of here quickly – that-sentry has started to walk down the hill. Reverse slowly. We can’t go forward.’

Inside the hull Barnes heard the harsh grind of metal plate along immovable wall as he reversed carefully. Then the tank stuck. He grimaced and thought for a few seconds. If they weren’t very lucky he could immobilize them. He remembered once seeing a track split and come apart, so that the tank hull moved for a few yards while it splayed out track like unrolling a metal carpet. If that happened they were done for, and there was that little matter of the sentry coming down the hill to investigate. They couldn’t go forward so they’d have-to go back. Gritting his teeth, he reversed, hearing, feeling, the agonized grind of metal over stone. Then they were free again. And still intact. Colburn guided him round without haste and then they were moving along the next street, the headlights probing its emptiness and desolation. Barnes glanced at his watch, the one he had borrowed from Colburn. 3.30 am.

Up in the turret Colburn put the revolver back on the ledge next to the plunger box and wiped both his hands dry. The revolver had seemed a more appropriate weapon for one sentry. Taking a last look back at the dangerous corner he concentrated on observing the view ahead, issuing occasional instructions to keep Barnes in the dead centre of the street, his mind chilled. On his right a row of two-storey houses ran down the side of the street as a continuous wall, the upper-floor windows just above the level of his turret. To his left ran the high embankment of the unseen canal, a steep-sloped embankment at least twenty feet high which closed off the view across open fields. Ahead lay the street, a canyon of shadow, apparently deserted, the forward movement of the beams exposing only empty road. It seemed quite uncanny and as the tank ground forward Colburn found his nerves screwing up to an almost unbearable pitch of tension. Within the next few minutes they were bound to run into something very big.

Barnes was experiencing the same emotion, as far as he could experience anything beyond the mounting pain which gripped bis whole body. The tenderness of the shoulder wound was almost unendurable now as the side of the detonator box sagged against him, a relentless pain which should have obscured all others, but he could still feel the aching bruise on top of bis head where the German sentry had knocked him out and the back of his burnt left hand felt strangely disembodied, as though it might float off the end of his arm. And over it all flooded a tidal wave of fatigue which threatened to drown his mind, a wave held back more by pain than by any effort of will.

Another part of his mind mechanically operated the steering levers and the two control pedals – the gear-box clutch pedal on the left and the accelerator on the right. There was a hill in front of them, a hill which rose almost level with the embankment then a steady drop with a side turning off to the right, then another hill beyond that…

Colburn’s voice was taut. ‘We’re running alongside the canal embankment now – there’s a line of houses on the right. Still no sign of trouble.’

Which was exactly how Barnes was visualizing it. Had they got away with it? Already they were driving along this road at the very edge of Lemont – the village ended abruptly at the embankment and beyond there was open country. Jacques had told him that it was very much of a side road, which was why they had reconnoitred along this route. And now they had left behind what Barnes had anticipated might well be the grimmest part of their journey – the dash through the village. What lay ahead didn’t bear thinking about but it almost looked as though they might reach the airfield. In his mind’s eye he saw the lie of the land ahead. They had come in one way, along this road to the empty house of Jacques’ father, and then for safety’s sake they had come back across the fields on the far side of the embankment… He heard the shot, one single report. Then another.

Colburn had been striving to watch all ways at once – the road ahead, the road behind, the line of two-storey houses to his right and the silhouette of the high embankment which showed more clearly now against a faint glow. Dawn was on the way. He looked for his watch and remembered that he had loaned it to Barnes. The line of the embankment was dropping now as they began to move uphill. He knew that soon he would be able to see across it and he kept reminding himself to keep a sharp eye on those houses. There was no reason to suspect any danger from their darkened windows but they worried him because they were so close and the upper windows looked down on the tank. He picked up the revolver and the weapon gave him a sense of security.

The emergency happened so unexpectedly that it almost took his breath away. A window on an upper floor was flung open and the curtain must have been attached to it: a pool of light flooded out and illuminated the tank below. Colburn looked up and saw a German soldier, his pudding-shaped helmet clearly visible, staring down. He heard him shout, saw him reach back into the room and then lift a machine-pistol. Colburn reacted instantly, raising his revolver, he fired twice. As the tank moved on the German toppled into the garden below.

‘Barnes, a Jerry opened a window and spotted us. He was going to shoot but I got in first.’ Colburn wished that the damned intercom wasn’t simply one-way. It was like talking to a ghost. ‘If they’ve got a phone in the house they’ll be all over us soon now. Unless he was alone with a girl. He had his helmet on,’ he added with unconscious humour.

Barnes thought of the joke and smiled grimly. He hoped that the German had been with a girl: if that were the case she’d probably try and get a neighbour to dump the body into the convenient canal. Not that it was likely if the village had been evacuated, so they’d better assume a warning was going out. They must be close to the top of this hill now, and close to where he had crossed the canal with Jacques over that huge barge. Was there something wrong? He could have sworn he had heard Colburn suck in his breath. Colburn had sucked in his breath and now he was no longer looking at the houses or at the embankment. He was gazing straight ahead and as they moved over the hill-top his mouth was dry with fear such as he had not known since they started their fateful journey through Lemont.