Колин Форбс - Tramp in Armour

From his vantage point at the hill crest he could see over the summit of the hill beyond where a chain of headlights moved towards him, an endless chain which threw up a great glow of light behind the next hill summit. He had no doubt at all that he was looking at a column of armoured vehicles advancing down the road they were moving along, probably a column sent for the express purpose of intercepting them. My God, he thought, and I was kidding myself up that we might have got away with it. We’re finished now, finished.

‘Barnes! There’s a whole stream of traffic on the road ahead. It’s still some distance off but it’s coming towards us and we’ll meet it in the next few minutes. They’re on-to us – it must be Panzers, a helluva lot of them.’

Barnes’ reaction staggered him. He felt the tank pick up speed as it moved down the hill, the tracks grinding round "faster and faster as they rumbled forward at ever-increasing pace as though Barnes couldn’t wait to meet the oncoming column in head-on collision. For a moment he thought he had gone mad and then they reached the bottom of the hill and stopped. The headlights went out and Barnes rolled back the hood. He paused for a second while he heaved the detonator box back into position, using both hands to push the case firmly against the side of the hull. Then he jacked up the seat so that when he sat down his head would be above the hatch. He called up to the anxious Colburn.

‘How far away are those vehicles?’

‘Half a mile, I’d guess. I can’t be certain.’

‘Maybe only a quarter?’

‘No, at least half a mile. Barnes, our lights have gone.’

‘I put them out. I don’t want to risk them seeing us go up the embankment.’

‘Up there?’

Colburn stared in horror up the steep slope which rose twenty feet above them. Had Barnes lost his judgement? He must have decided to make a last stand from the top of the embankment, if they ever got up there. He couldn’t have realized the strength of the column which was moving against them. He called down from the turret.

‘There must be at least twenty or thirty vehicles heading towards us.’

‘Listen, Colburn.’ Barnes’ voice was urgent. ‘We’re not going to fight them – we’re trying to dodge them. I came back over this canal with Jacques dead opposite this road behind us which leads back into Lemont. We came over a huge barge with a deck like an aircraft carrier – it almost fills the canal. We’re going to reverse into this side street until Bert’s nose is pointed up that embankment – then up there is where we go.’

‘Will the tank make it?’

‘I don’t know till we try it but it’s our only chance. It’s close to dawn, so if we don’t make it now we never will. When we reach the top there’ll he a split second for you to see whether we’re driving on to the centre of the barge. I’ll be ready to brake, but I can’t do that till we’re off the slope. You’ll have to react damned quickly. Got it?’

‘If it’s OK to go on, I’ll say OK. If it isn’t I’ll say stop.’

The side road which led off at right-angles to the embankment was wide enough to give ample room for Barnes to reverse into quickly. Then he paused briefly to flex his fingers. Without thinking about the chances against success he went forward, guessing that Colburn thought it was a maniac’s last throw, and up in the turret confidence was the last of the emotions which inspired Colburn. He would have liked to look two ways at once – up to the bill crest behind which the armoured column was advancing and straight ahead where the slope loomed like the side of a mountain. Beneath him the tracks began to claw and grind up the gradient as though finding it difficult to hold on to the lower slope and Colburn found himself tilted backwards against the rear of the turret. Barnes seemed to be going up at a fantastic pace. Supposing the barge wasn’t in the right position to act as a bridge? Supposing the enemy column poured over the hill crest when they were halfway up the embankment? Grimly he recalled his remark to Barnes just before they had started out. Were there, after all, too many ‘supposings’ in this equation? I don’t think we’ll make this one, Colburn told himself.

Barnes had decided, and now he never asked himself whether or not they could make it. His pain-battered mind was concentrated on one idea only – get Bert over the top. Because the tilt of the tank was longitudinal rather than sideways the detonator boxes were holding their position well, but could they stand up to this sort of treatment? The tank rocked badly as the forward tracks moved into a depression and then climbed out of it, the engines revving madly as Barnes fought to take the tank higher. Very unstable, Colburn had called British detonators, the Germans use Trotyl. The left-hand track sank alarmingly into another depression and the box slipped again, slamming hard against his shoulder, grating its weight into the sensitive wound. He stiffened abruptly, swearing that he would throw out that box if they ever reached the other side, and, knowing that he was approaching the summit, he accelerated.

Colburn was standing upright in the turret now, holding himself erect by grasping the front rim with both hands, because it was vital to see instantly whether they were correctly placed to move across that barge, a barge he couldn’t even see yet. But he felt the acceleration and knew that Barnes was going to rush it. Anxiously he leaned farther forward. They reached the top.

‘OK, Barnes! OK! OK!’

There it was – the barge. They were going to hit it dead centre. The tank paused, its forward tracks in the air briefly, then dropped level to the tow-path. It moved forward again across a few inches of water and landed in the middle of the flat deck. The barge shuddered under the impact of its immense visitor and the tank moved on until it was halfway across the deck. Then the engines stalled.

Colburn forced himself to say nothing. They were now trapped on top of the embankment in full view of the approaching column once it breasted the summit of the hill. He heard Barnes trying again and again to start the engine. Instinctively his eyes swept over the summit of the hill behind which the column was advancing. Nothing yet, but the front of the column must be very close now. He could imagine the scene so clearly – the first heavy tank cresting the hill, spotting them clearly silhouetted against the pale light, wirelessing back to the column, continuing down the hill as more vehicles followed, the barrage of shells aimed point-blank… He found he was holding his revolver tightly and forced himself to relax his grip. His eyes rested on the plunger below him and then he looked again at the glow of light behind the hill, a glow which seemed to grow stronger every second as Barnes repeated his efforts to start the engines without success. Colburn glanced back the way they had come and the street was still deserted.

Who had summoned the armoured column? Probably the owners of the second motor-cycle and side-car in the square they had crossed. Then the engines fired, the tank jerked forward, left the barge and plunged down the far slope at speed. At the bottom Barnes turned in a wide curve and halted the tank facing along the canal. He switched off the engines, rolled back the hood and climbed out quickly.

‘I thought we’d stall at the top,’ he remarked. ‘No sign of that column? Good. Colburn, could you come down and give me a hand to dump this bloody box?’

He checked his watch. 3.40 am. Twenty minutes to zero hour.

The field below the embankment was firm hard earth and there were no hidden quagmires to hold up their advance, although not so far off to the left was a vague glimmer of flooded areas. The tank rumbled forward as Barnes gazed through the slit window from his lowered seat, following the same course he had taken when he had returned from the reconnaissance with Jacques. The next twenty minutes would decide the whole issue, would decide whether the 14th Panzer Division would advance across the waterline to spring on an unsuspecting Dunkirk, or whether they could muddle things so drastically that the Panzers would be delayed, perhaps fatally. Colburn was talking now.