“You and me both, mister,” Thorne agreed heartily, still staring at the camera’s LCD screen and taking pictures as he watched more light armoured vehicles and infantry spread out across the distant tree line. “Hel-lo…” he growled with slow, emphatic sourness “…here come the ‘big boys’!” His eyes never left the screen as he lowered the zoom momentarily and scanned back and forth, now able to pick out the unmistakably low, squat silhouettes of main battle tanks beyond the trees. The Germans were following standard ‘overwatch’ procedure, and as soon as the first group were in position to give covering fire, the newly-arrived armour and troops would begin to slowly push forward across the open fields toward them.
“Those ‘big boys’ really are… big…!” Davids observed slowly, his voice wavering with uncertainty as his mind registered how large those new tanks actually were… far larger than any he’d ever before encountered, their shape alien and unnerving. The two-piece gun barrels projecting from their flattened, hemispherical turrets were longer than anything the defenders had seen fitted to a tank, German or otherwise, and just the sight of them was enough to place doubt in their minds regarding their ability to fight back.
“Shit a brick…!” Thorne exclaimed softly, the officer’s use of such language surprising Davids as the Australian continued to fire away with more photographs. Although there were some minor differences in detail, he also recognised the heavy tanks instantly, along with the shape of the main gun they mounted.
He looked up over the top of the camera for a moment, as if taking in the ‘bigger picture’ before them, and made an important decision. Lowering the camera and turning it off, he removed the lens and slipped both back into one of the large pockets of his jacket, immediately unslinging his rifle and drawing back the cocking handle.
“Those tanks are too much for your gun, sergeant,” he stated matter-of-factly as he engaged the weapon’s safety, the remark heard by all of the Matilda’s crew and doing their confidence no good at all. “The three-point-sevens can probably take them out… and maybe the ten-pounders from the flanks… but your two-pounder won’t even scratch the paint unless you can shoot ‘em in the arse!”
He paused for a moment, his eyes never leaving the approaching tanks as the rumble of their engines and the squeal of their tracks echoed eerily through the misty air. “I’m pretty sure the gun they’re mounting is an eighty-eight millimetre Flak-36, and I don’t have to tell you how nasty they are! Let your CO know that you guys’ll be able to take out the light tanks and probably the infantry vehicles, but you should leave the big bastards to the heavier guns!” He gave an apologetic grin. “That being said, I’m now going to bugger off! It looks like the shit’s about to hit the fan, and I need to make sure my boy’s tucked away somewhere safe and sound.” He reached out and patted the sergeant on the shoulder. “Good luck, mate, and don’t piss about if things turn savage: that lot’ll cut you lot to pieces, given half a chance!” With that final, less-than-encouraging piece of wisdom, Thorne backed carefully away to the rear of the Matilda while Davids began to pass on his information he’d been given to his commanders.
“Out of that bloody tree, Richard,” Thorne growled sharply as he approached the American’s position, Ritter in tow. ‘Things are going to get a bit bloody nasty right around here, and it might be a good idea to find somewhere a little less unsavoury!”
“I sure as hell don’t like the look of those tanks, buddy!” Kransky admitted, not at all unhappy to be leaving the area under those circumstances. He dropped from the tree’s lower branches, and all three began to make their way west toward the A20, away from the defensive lines. “Never seen anything like ‘em in France: your boys have been holdin’ out on us!” The last remark was directed at Ritter with a fair amount of chagrin.
“From me also…!” The pilot shot back, more than a little bemused. “I’m a pilot… not a grenadier… and I’ve been…” he gave a wry smile. “…‘out of the loop’, I think is the phrase…?”
“You want to watch those sayings!” Thorne advised with a thin smile, breathing heavier as they continued at a fair pace. “That’s the second time you’ve used one of the phrases you’ve heard around Hindsight, and the ‘jig’ will be up very quickly if the wrong people hear you say something like that!” Changing the subject, he nodded his head in the direction of Smeeth. “The town’s only about a klick away across the fields, and there was a church there that may be a good place to hole up and let the battle pass us by… might be worth having a closer look…” There was no chance to speak further, as guns right along the British line suddenly opened up in a shattering crescendo that had all three men instinctively diving to the ground.
“Ahh crap…!” Thorne snarled, rolling over and finding cover behind an oak before peering around from behind the thick base of the tree as the battle began in earnest. “There goes the fuckin’ neighbourhood! Come on… let’s find somewhere a bit less stressful!” He dragged himself to his feet and took off at a crouched run, the other two following on behind and racing to catch up.
Davids had been drawing a constant bead on one of the nearer light tanks as the guns around him fired, Grosvenor also opening her account in that moment as the P-1C they’d targeted almost disintegrated under the shattering impacts of at least half a dozen simultaneous shell hits. The tanks and infantry fighting vehicles caught in the middle of the open fields were cut to pieces, the new anti-tanks shells of the 3.7-inch AA guns proving to be quite capable of punching holes through the thick frontal and side armour of the Panther tanks. Ten-pounder AT guns and dug-in Matildas took on the lighter vehicles accompanying them, many of the crew and troopers killed inside their vehicles as they brewed up under the onslaught of solid shot and explosive, shaped-charge shells.
“Light tank… three hundred yards…!” Davids called out, sighting on another enemy target at the tree-line and designating it.”
“On target…!” Gawler confirmed a second later as the turning turret came to a halt.
“Fire…!”
The tank jumped in its pit as her main armament barked and a pointed, two-pound slug of hardened steel streaked away from Grosvenor’s muzzle in a very flat arc. It smashed through the Weisel’s turret front, the light steel and aluminium armour nowhere near thick enough to resist. Both of the turret hatches instantly blew open, followed by fire and smoke that poured skyward as the vehicle rolled quickly to a halt. No crew bailed out.
“Hit…!” Davids crowed, already seeking the next target. “Infantry carrier… two-fifty yards…!”
“On target…!”
“Fire…!”
The gun fired again, and another shell hurtled away down range, punching through the side of an infantry fighting vehicle and this time shattering its engine as it came to an abrupt halt in the middle of the open field. Infantry and crew instantly began to pour from the rear assault ramp, and Grosvenor opened up with her co-axial machine gun, adding its fire to the fusillades of bullets already filling the air across the fields as lines of British Infantry entrenched ahead of the tanks and guns engaged the exposed German grenadiers.
Panther-321 and the rest of the 2nd Platoon were at the edge of the tree-line, watching 3rd Platoon advance with supporting infantry across the open ground as the ambush broke out. The division had lost relatively few tanks throughout all their battles so far that day, and now they’d suddenly lost almost an entire platoon in just a few moments, several heavy panzers left burning furiously along with half a dozen shattered Marder infantry fighting vehicles and a number of smaller P-1Cs. Smoke from muzzle blasts and fire from light-weapons was rising right across the distant defensive line, and in the failing light it was almost impossible to pick out any specific targets in the shadows running along the base of those woods.