Колин Форбс - Tramp in Armour

‘Tank coming… don’t forget… close lid.’

Looking sideways, he stared dazedly beyond the open doors of the hangar into the vast stockpile of shells and ammunition, his last sight before a German soldier hidden behind a pile of crates aimed his rifle and fired once, killing Colburn instantly. The machine-pistol fell and narrowly missed Barnes who was beginning to emerge from the hatch, his revolver in his hand. He looked quickly towards the corner where the huddle of Germans lay and then switched his gaze to the inside of,the hangar. His revolver jerked up and he fired twice. The German with the half-aimed rifle collapsed behind the crates. Jumping to the ground, Barnes ran round the back of the tank, climbed on to the hull, took a quick glance at Colburn and went down inside the turret. The Canadian who had just come over for die afternoon had been shot through the temple.

Settling himself into the gunner’s seat, he remembered that the two-pounder wasn’t loaded. Cursing, he stood up, flopping in a fresh round with sufficient force to make the breech-block close, settled himself again and traversed the turret. Using the shoulder-grip, he elevated the barrel several degrees. The German tank came-up behind the cross-wires, crawling forward like a huge dark beetle, a silhouette he had seen so many times in the past battle-scarred fortnight.

He squeezed the trigger and Bert shuddered under the spasm. The shot reached the target, the German tank stopped, flames flaring over the superstructure. Bert had just killed his first German tank. Barnes climbed back into the turret and looked at the plunger. It was extraordinarily quiet all of a sudden. Without thinking about it he gripped the handle firmly, paused, then pressed down.

Nothing happened. He had forgotten the switch. He lifted his head above the rim and looked round the airfield. The burning tank was well ablaze now but he couldn’t see any sign of Germans. Again without thinking about it he picked up the plunger-box and the spool of wire. Climbing down on to the hull, he closed the lid and dropped to the ground, paying out the wire which led back inside the gun slit. Peering round the corner of the hanger along the side they had come he saw no sign of life. He began to walk rapidly back under the hangar wall, paying out wire from the spool, going past the Germans Colburn had killed, past the tank transporter where an arc welding torch lay on the deck, still spitting out a spray of sparks. Feeding out the wire behind him close to the wall, he kept on walking like a robot, wondering whether the wire would last out.

To his exhausted, pain-racked mind the act of forgetting to turn the switch had seemed a sign, a sign that he might just survive if he refused to give up. He reached the end of the hanger and found that the area between the rear wall and the high bank was deserted. Still paying out wire, he crossed the concrete strip and began to climb the slope, the same slope from which he had looked down on the airfield with Jacques before they had made a detour round the airfield to the point where Barnes had seen inside the open hangar mouth with his field-glasses. He had almost reached the top of the slope when he heard trucks arriving on the concrete strip below him. He flopped on the slope, still holding the box, and lay perfectly still, his head turned sideways. Soldiers were spilling out of the trucks and forming up into two sections, then one section made its way down one side of the hangar while the second section followed the officer along the other side. Barnes climbed over the top of the ridge and staggered down inside a huge bomb crater close to the houses. Sitting down on the floor he looked at his watch, Colburn’s watch, stared up at the pale sky he might never see again, turned the switch and pressed the plunger. At 3.58 am the world blew apart.

The initial explosion came in two shock waves which blew away from Lemont straight across the laagar – the detonation of the tank-bomb followed almost at once by the subsequent blowing of the immense dump, which was then succeeded by fire which created a chain reaction of exploding ammunition. The first two shock waves swept over the laager like a tidal wave of destruction, caving in the tank walls like paper. Beyond the laager the shock waves smashed in the walls of the farm which housed German headquarters, and when Meyer, blood streaming from his forehead, staggered into his general’s office he found Storch lying across the floor, his skull crushed under a rafter which had fallen from the ceiling, one clawed hand stretched out towards the telephone which lay in a heap of plaster. Reaching down for the phone, Meyer sank to his knees, picked up the receiver and found that the field telephone had survived. He asked for Keller. He knew exactly what he must do – he must retrieve the situation from the disaster he had always feared since that day so long ago when they had crossed the Sedan pontoons. He had already heard the report that British tanks were moving up through Lemont to attack their rear and a column had been dispatched to intercept them without success. What Meyer had dreaded had now happened – the enemy had counter-attacked. The tremendous explosion which had just killed Storch was the final confirmation : there were no enemy planes reported so the British must have heavy artillery which had blown up the dump. He heard a voice speaking and broke in.

‘Keller, this is Meyer. General Storch is dead. The British are attacking from the south – yes, the south. Cancel the order for the advance on Dunkirk immediately. Do you understand? You have the waterline at your backs so now you must…’

Halfway through the conversation the line went dead, but Meyer was satisfied that Keller had grasped his order. From the tank laager there was now a series of explosions of increasing violence and for the first time Meyer had the terrible thought that he might be wrong. He could hear planes now, planes flying low overhead, and the ack-ack guns had opened up. With a curse he left the wrecked office and ran out into the garden. He heard the whistle of the bomb coming down and turned to run, just in time to receive the relics of the farmhouse full in his face as the bomb scored a direct hit.

At exactly 3.55 am Squadron Leader Paddy Browne was approaching the coast of France, leading his Blenheims on a dawn raid. His instructions gave him unusual latitude, but then the situation was, to say the least of it, unusual. Evacuation of the BEF imminent, the German Panzers lording it over the battlefield, the position changing almost from minute to minute. ‘Fluid,’ as the war communiques would say. His primary objective was the key rail junction at Arras, but if he saw enemy ground forces and could positively identify them, the choice of target was left to his discretion. ‘But for Pete’s sake, don’t paste our own chaps,’ the briefing officer had added.

Browne wasn’t particularly concerned with the Gravelines-Lemont area, but as he led his squadron over the coast his attention was drawn to it by a huge mushroom of smoke rising into the early morning sky, a mushroom which rose higher every second as though the whole of that corner of France were detonating. We’d better have a quick look, thought Browne, so he signalled to the squadron and took his Blenheim down. Two factors quickly convinced him that this lot was the other lot -he met flak at once and his keen eye saw beetles scuttling about on the ground as though they had gone mad. He could hardly believe it for a moment but he believed it the next moment. Hun tanks —a whole laager of them. Browne exercised his discretion: he gave the order to bomb. An avalanche of high-explosive rained down and when the squadron turned away there was no sign of movement anywhere between the breaks in the smoke pall. Browne’s only comment on the way back was typical.