The infantry guns had got the range. Two of the shells slammed into Roul’s squad on the right hand side of RC-157. What had been a good position to defend against an attack along the road was a bad one to defend against an attack from the north. It was obvious that the Thais knew where his positions were. With a flash of insight, Roul knew why. The aircraft my men ‘scared’ off had seen where the machine gun fire had come from and reported back. Firing on that aircraft had been a really bad idea.
“Sergeant, order our first squad to drop back. Their position is already compromised and the artillery is ranged in on them. They can achieve nothing where they are. We’ll drop back to the ridge to the south here. We’ll still be blocking the road but we’ll be in dead ground for the guns to the north and west. And we’ll still be covering our line of withdrawal.”
Ambroise gave the orders. Horizon blue figures left their trench and headed backwards towards the huts that lined RC-157. Not all of them; two of the twelve remained behind, their figures still. The enemy artillery got two more before they reached cover. Shells from the infantry guns threw them in the air and left them twisted heaps on the ground. A third of the squad gone, Roul thought, and nothing to show for it.
“It’s the guns that kill, sir.” Ambroise sounded thoughtful. “They’ve got just two of them up on that ridge, but that section is all they need. Ahh, there they go. Clever little buggers, aren’t they?”
The two infantry guns fired a pattern of smoke rounds. White clouds billowed in front of Roul’s new positions. For a hideous moment, Roul had thought they were gas rounds. He almost gave a gas attack alert, but he realized what was happening when the Thai infantry broke from cover. He watched the small groups move forward, leapfrogging from point to point, with each group covering the rest.
Ambroise was watching them carefully. “Stosstruppen tactics. I think all the stories we heard about German instructors must be true. Or British veterans.”
“Milk-drinking surrender monkeys?” Roul was openly derisive. “The Siamese are attacking us, not running away.”
A stutter of rifle fire rose from the French positions along RC-157, but the smokescreen made the defensive fire ineffective. It was significant the squad machine gun hadn’t opened fire yet. Machine guns were always a priority target. Gunners never fired unless they had worthwhile targets or fixed lines set up. No machine-gun fire meant the defenders were firing blind.
“The Tommies in the trenches were good, Lieutenant.” Ambroise was patient, as befitted a veteran sergeant with a young officer to train. “In 1914, they knew all the tricks that the Germans claim to have invented for their stosstruppen and a few more besides. And they knew how to put them into practice. Their army lost that edge in the middle of the war, but they had it back by the end. But, those Siamese are German-trained. You can tell by the way they’re moving forward.”
Below them, the French squad machine gun finally opened fire. The two Thai infantry guns shifted fire to the huts occupied by the survivors of the squad. The pressure of the fire from the guns and the rifle fire from the advancing infantry started to push the French force back. With the smoke clearing, Roul could see further east along RC-157. The sight was not encouraging. The attack on his position was just one part of a company-level assault along the road. To make matters worse, He could see they were already in process of seizing Hill 218. That left his little command in a very precarious position.
“And its time for us to leave, Sergeant. We can’t stay here.” Roul knew the truth. In a few minutes, his position would be hopeless; its lines of withdrawal cut off. Then, his men would only have the choices of dying in a brave but futile fight or surrendering. “Order the men to fall back along the pre-planned route.”
Ambroise nodded and passed the orders out. The survivors of the first squad retreated again, leaving their position on RC-157 and falling back to the dirt track. Second squad peeled off and followed them; the third squad acted as a rearguard. Roul sighed and led his command section south as well.
As they trudged along the dirt track, Roul couldn’t understand what had happened. He had expected an infantry attack with bare steel and a desperate fight in the ruins of the huts. Instead, it seemed as if there had been hardly any fighting at all; just a few artillery rounds and a scattered series of rifle shots. Yet, he was retreating away from the position he had been ordered to hold, leaving five of his men behind. Somehow, he felt sick and disappointed in both himself and the morning’s work.
“Why, Sergeant? What did I do wrong.”
Ambroise looked around quickly. Fortunately, there had been nobody in earshot. “Quiet, sir. Don’t want the men to hear you’ve got doubts. Cut right into them that will. Nothing went wrong back there, sir; you did well.”
“But we’re retreating.”
“We got maneuvered out of position. That’s the way professionals do things. It’s amateurs who make gallant charges on heavily-defended positions. We had a good defense there; would have been a tough one to break. So the Siamese didn’t try. They just made it impossible for us to hold on there. And they took their time about it; did it right and didn’t worry about doing it fast. They’ve been taught well.”
Roul felt better. If the veteran sergeant thought he had done well, that took the sting out of a defeat. Yet, for all of that, it remained a defeat.
“I don’t believe the current situation is supportable. I would give it two years at most. That Man does not seem to realize that Britain and Germany are on divergent courses and a confrontation between the two is inevitable. A confrontation that will mean the destruction of one or the other. He is trying to deny the widening gap between the two nations and in doing so he is merely stoking the fires of the future conflict.” Captain Peter Fleming of the Grenadier Guards looked owlishly at Duke of St Albans. “You should hear my young brother on the subject.”
Osbourne de Vere Beauclerk nodded thoughtfully at his two guests. The contents of his wine cellar had only just started to recover after the depredations of Winston Churchill; now they were taking another nasty blow. Peter Fleming himself was abstemious enough, but his companion, Captain Mike Calvert of the Royal Engineers, was sinking whisky as a phenomenal rate. If he carries on like that, the Duke thought, his liver won’t last two years.
“What do you suggest we do about it? Stage a coup ourselves?”
Fleming shook his head. “That won’t work, not now. For good or ill, Halifax is established in power. We must not forget that he gained that power quite legally, even if his use of legality was underhanded. Events now have their own momentum and we must run with that. The situation will come to a head in two years; three at the very outside. We have that long to prepare.”
The Duke decided that being obtuse was probably the best approach at this point. “Prepare for what? Resuming the war?”
“That would be the best possible outcome, if fortune was to favor us. I do not think the Germans will make that mistake twice. To invade this country as an act of war against organized opposition is futile. Germany has neither the resources nor the expertise to do it. If they had tried last year, we would have slaughtered them. Damn it, we still might now. Look at what Wavell and his Desert Rats have achieved over the last few weeks. They knocked Italy out of the war and wrapped up the Italian Empire. We were safe here in our island, but Halifax and his cronies never saw that. No; next time, the Germans will come by stealth and we will not see the invasion for what it is until it is all but complete. We must prepare a resistance movement for after that invasion.”