Drawing his revolver from a shoulder-holster, he took a few moments to examine his shattered tank and could see that she’d never be repaired or recovered… that was clear enough. From where he was hiding beneath the angled left side and turret, he could see where they’d been hit: most of the Matilda’s rear had completely disintegrated, almost as far forward as the back of the turret. The tank’s armour was hardened steel that by the standards of the time was considered quite thick, but it was now bent and twisted apart in shreds, and one of her diesel engines had been smashed forward into the crew space by the impact, while the other appeared to be missing completely. He looked quickly around and spotted what was left of it a good five metres away, on the other side of the ruined AA gun. Half of the six-cylinder engine was also blown into pieces, with part of a piston and the crankshaft poking forlornly from what remained.
He was surprised at that moment as a sobbing and incomprehensible Angus Connolly suddenly dragged himself into view from the front of the wreck, his own pistol clutched in one hand and soaked from waist to feet with blood.
“Come on, Angus… we’ve gotta get out of here, boyo! Can you walk at all?” But neither his questions nor physically shaking the man by the shoulders produced any coherent reaction. Connolly was raving and too stunned to be brought to his senses, and Davids gave up trying, instead spending a few seconds examining his driver but finding no obvious wounds or injuries. He could only assume the blood coating the man’s lower body had belonged to Steven Hodges. He took another look around the wrecked rear of the Matilda and discovered the proximity of advancing Germans was now such that they needed to get out of there immediately: he could no longer afford to wait for Angus to regain his senses.
Grasping the man by the back of his collar, Davids forcibly dragged him to his feet and they made off at a run, keeping low and darting through the ruined, burning woods as fast as they could manage, with bullets and larger shells howling overhead and around them all the way. As they neared the A20, it seemed defences on the southern side of the road were still managing to hold on desperately, although there was no way of knowing for how long. Even as they reached the Hythe Rd and darted across, the defenders were already starting to falter and fall back. With their left flank already completely lost, they were now also receiving reports of enemy units pushing up from the south-east, and they’d be running the risk of a complete encirclement if they did nothing. The 1st London defensive lines began to break completely.
The battle on the northern side of the A20 was already a total rout following the bombardment and subsequent storming of the British lines, and the centre and right of the German advance pressed on toward Smeeth and Brabourne Lees as the left turned and put pressure on the flank of the already failing defenders on the other side of the main road. Reinforcements were also coming through in the form of elements of the 1st Fallschirmjäger and the 7th Panzer Division, pushing up from Folkestone and from Dover to the north-east, with the parachute troops riding in on the tanks’ engine decks and on the hull tops of infantry fighting vehicles.
Von Rundstedt had allowed Rommel’s 7th Panzer and a number of other mechanised units to push forward the moment they’d broken through the British defences ringing Dover, forcing a spearhead with armoured units that had landed at the Dover ports within an hour of its capture and had advanced immediately into battle. Those units were still equipped with the older P-2 and P-3 tanks and half-tracks, rather than the newer infantry-fighting vehicles, but their training and experience were second to none and they threw themselves at the enemy with enthusiasm, supported around the Dover area by gunships from SHG1.
Reinforcements pouring into to the Ashford area to prop up the weakening lines were draining troops and resources from throughout Kent and Sussex, and the focal point of the entire invasion was quickly centring on that relatively small section of the A20 as advancing heavy SS units smashed all before them. Guderian, Rommel, Hoth, Pieper and the rest of the armoured commanders were blasting huge holes in the British lines and making such strong advances that Army Group HQs were allowing them free reign, while using conventional infantry divisions to secure the areas already taken and move forward in their wake. London was just seventy-five kilometres from Ashford, and the speed of the advance on that first day was great enough to make the OKW very optimistic about capturing the enemy capital within days rather than weeks.
Thorne had been rather rudely forced during that period following the bombardment and storming of the British lines to realise how great the gulf was between theoretical knowledge and being an actual combat commander… a gulf so large that it now threatened to swallow him whole. All three of them were swept along as they were absorbed into a mass of routed infantry, tank crews and gunners retreating westward ahead of the Wehrmacht advance. Self-propelled assault guns had also begin to drop high-explosives into the British rear, and the random shelling was taking a severe toll on the unprotected men.
The wave of shattered men was nearing the outskirts of Smeeth now, Thorne and the others running with them, but as they reached the tree line at the western end of the wood and prepared to venture out into the open, several cries of warning rose through the ranks. A pair of attack helicopters appeared out of the clouds seconds later and howled in toward the retreating men, spraying rockets from their wing pods and blasting away with the cannon and machine guns in their chin-mounted turrets.
“Need pictures of them too…?” Kransky inquired tersely, breathing heavily and operating on pure adrenaline as the trio took cover behind a low stone wall at the edge of the trees and the gunships roared overhead.
“Pictures my fucking arse…!” Thorne swore in hysterical frustration, raising the Kalashnikov in his hands and emptying the magazine at one of the retreating choppers. The burst caused absolutely no damage, but the helicopter pilot took note in any case and entered into a sharp, banking turn back around as rifle bullets whined off its armoured hide, the reaction causing a marked increase in Thorne’s swearing as his tone changed from anger to fear.
Kransky managed to retain a great deal more calm, although he nevertheless cast an exasperated glance sideways at his commander as he lifted his own rifle and dropped the magazine from beneath its receiver. Allowing it to fall to the ground, he thrust his free hand into one of his coat pockets and came out with a second large clip, which he slammed into the slot beneath the weapon’s breech. Snapping back the cocking handle, he rose to his feet and quickly raised the M107 rifle to his shoulder. The high magnification of the scope mounted above its receiver was no use against such a fast-moving target, but Kransky had practiced long and hard with the weapon during his time at Hindsight, and the aircraft was far too big for him to miss. The rifle bucked savagely against his shoulder as he fired round after round at the approaching helicopter, the glinting brass of spent cases spiralling into the air as the weapon ran through its semi-automatic cycle.
The SH-6C gunship was proof against normal smallarms fire, and the pilot had been confident in his own safety as the aircraft howled past above the retreating enemy infantry, generally ignoring the random fire than occasionally ricocheted from its tough fuselage. Those feelings of safety dissipated in an instant however as he came about and caught sight of the lone rifleman standing firm at the tree line before him, an impossibly-large rifle at his shoulder. The helicopter was suddenly shuddering under impact after impact, as fifty-calibre, tungsten-cored rounds capable of punching a hole through an engine block found no difficulty at all in penetrating the gunship’s armoured fuselage and windshield. The first slug smashed through the aircraft’s tail boom for little damage, but the second and third struck along the fuselage, smashing vital equipment and puncturing fuel tanks. The fourth shattered and starred the front plates of the cockpit canopy, literally exploding the gunner’s head inside his flight helmet before passing right on through and slamming into the belly of the pilot in the raised seat behind him.