“Very bloody funny,” Gawler growled in return, his tone indicating he thought rather the opposite. “Fussier than the Royal Tank Regiment, I’ll warrant!”
“They’re takin’ more a’ those new 10-pounders down to the coast, I see,” Davids changed the subject with a smile, ignoring the corporal’s return shot as he huddled above his crew on Grosvenor’s glacis plate, greatcoat wrapped about him.
The passing convoy was towing a mixture of the usual 2-pounder anti-tank guns, identical to the weapon mounted in a Matilda’s turret, and a new weapon that had only begun to appear in the last month or so. The 10-pounder anti-tank gun — official army title ‘QF 10-pounder Gun HLPS Mk.1’ — was an interesting weapon, and the tankers had learned that new Matildas and Valentines coming off the production lines were also being armed with it in place of the venerable 2-pdr. It fired a shell that was basically a 3-inch mortar bomb fitted with a hollow-charge warhead, and could also fire high-explosive rounds and all the other types normally used for that same mortar. The 81mm projectile was fitted into a shortened and necked-down version of the 3.7-inch AA cartridge case, and used what the armourers called a ‘High-Low Pressure System’ that meant the weapon produced far less recoil than a normal AT gun.
That recoil was low enough that the weapon could be mounted on quite a light and handy gun carriage, and its weight in action of just 750kg was lower than the 2-pdr it was replacing. Yet the 10-pounder still exhibited far better penetration against armour plate, and could be accurately used out to an effective range of 800 metres. A lack of recoil also meant no requirement for heavy construction in its components, and was also the reason it could be mounted on smaller turret rings such as that of the Matilda, Valentine or A-series Cruiser tanks, although there was the trade-off disadvantage of fewer rounds being carried due to their increased size. So far the new guns had worked well in practice, but were yet to be blooded in actual combat.
There were a half a dozen or so of the 10-pounders dug in along their section of the lines and around the A20 itself, intended to slow any enemy thrust toward Ashford. There was a vital rail junction that converged on the town from Sussex and Surrey in the west to join the Southern Line coming from Folkestone, continuing north-east toward Maidstone and on to London. It was an important supply and rally point, and if it wasn’t held, the defences throughout South-East England might well falter or even collapse.
“Rather put me faith in one o’ those ‘three-point-sevens’,” Angus Connolly growled from between Hodges and Gawler, sipping at a coffee he’d argued for simply because everyone else was having tea, and he wanted to be difficult. “Any bastard comes in range of them’s well fooked!”
All of them nodded in agreement at that observation. Four 3.7-inch medium AA guns were also dug in slightly behind the main line of 10-pdrs by the road. The weapons had recently been fitted with direct-fire sights and broad shields that hung over their barrels, making them look quite uncannily like the 88-mm Flak-36 that was the enemy’s direct counterpart. The shields gave extra protection against shell splinters and small arms fire, although they’d never stop a tank shell, and the new sights for the first time allowed them to be used as direct-fire anti-tank weapons. With a calibre of 94 millimetres, it had been supplied with two new and extremely potent anti-tank shells that promised to make the gun just as deadly as the feared German ‘88’, if not more so.
“It’ll mean fuck-all what you put yer faith in if that fuckin’ ‘supergun’ draws a bead on us,” Gawler muttered, a little unsettled as the thought occurred to him. Rumours of what had happened at Dover and at Guston Railway Tunnel the week before had spread throughout southern England and had helped morale not one whit. “We’ll all be fucked!”
“That’s all shite!” Davids snapped, far too quickly for his rebuttal to be entirely convincing. “A load o’ bloody tripe spread by fifth-columnists and fuckers like that Lord Haw Haw boyo! No such bloody thing as a Godalmighty ‘supergun’!”
“Tell that to the poor bastard I ran into in town two days ago,” Gawler retorted, his tone and expression deadly serious. “Bugger was with a field hospital unit headed back to London… Royal Marine he was… one of the crew of the railway gun that got slaughtered at Sandgate. Two shots were all it took and they was all dead… just like that!” Gawler snapped his fingers crisply for effect. “Only him and three other fellers got out with their lives, and all of them wounded… said it felt like the bloody Germans was throwin’ battleships at ‘em.”
“That’s fookin’ stupid,” Connolly grumbled after a pause, during which his mind had thought unsuccessfully through what the corporal had said. “How the fook would Jerry throw a whole fookin’ battleship…?”
“Fer Christ’s sake, Angus,” Gawler began as Davids snorted with muffled laughter and Hodges simply groaned and shook his head. “How in the name of all that’s holy did you make lance corporal?”
“The RSM said ah was too much of a cunt to stay a fookin’ private,” came the innocent, matter-of-fact reply, and all of them suddenly burst into fits of laughter, save for a bewildered LCPL Connolly himself. Laughing so hard he almost fell off the Matilda’s glacis plate, Davids was glad of the humour: any such moments were few and far between, and went a long way toward lightening a mood that over the last weeks had gradually but steadily turned distinctly sour.
Port of Boulogne-sur-Mer
Pas-de-Calais, Northern France
Thursday,
August 22, 1940
Berndt Schmidt, Milo Wisch and the rest of his men watched as the 2nd SS Shock Division reversed their tanks and armoured vehicles each in turn into the hold of the assault ship Dresden. Fifty brand new P-4A Panther tanks were being loaded into the large assault ship via the tall, clamshell doors in its bow. Five more identical LSTs were lined up within Boulogne-Sur-Mer’s Bassin Loubet, a section of docks separated from and to the west of the main harbour, while fourteen more were also in the process of loading in the rest of the port area or waiting at the harbour entrance for clearance to come in. These final preparations for invasion were going on in ports all the way along the French and Dutch Channel Coast, and although no one had given the troops a confirmed date as yet, all knew that it must be soon.
Their own part in the preparations had been completed weeks ago, and Berndt and the rest of the SS tankers of the 3rd Div had been temporarily reassigned to help load thousands of tonnes of stores onto those same LSTs that were soon to make their all-important trip across the Channel. As a junior officer, Obersturmführer Schmidt wasn’t required to take part in manual labour of that kind, but he preferred the company of his troops, and his presence working among his own men raised their respect for him greatly.
Bare to the waist in the bright sunshine and sweaty from the exertion, they took a smoke break that afternoon and were puffing thoughtfully on cigarettes as the hustle and bustle of the ship-filled port went on about them. Forklifts had deposited pallets stacked high with wooden crates of ammunition, stores, food and other supplies, and men had been forming a human chain to transport those crates up the relatively narrow gangplank leading into a small freighter’s side hatch, where another work crew stacked them into the hold.