The corner of Wimpy's mouth twitched. 'Did he say anything?'
The ruined room filled Bastable's memory: the fallen chandelier and the smashed china, the tattered curtains and the rich brocade of the settee, the litter of plaster everywhere in the half-light.
dummy4
'He said ... they drove off the first attack. Then they were dive-bombed . . . Then the tanks attacked.' Bastable moistened his lips. 'I think ... I think he was buried in the rubble, and this woman found him and dragged him into her house, somehow . . . afterwards.' He still hadn't got round to telling Wimpy what he belived had happened to the battalion, the words kept escaping from him.
'Yes...' Wimpy nodded, as though he already knew what that
'afterwards' concealed: that Audley had been left behind by the victors only because they hadn't found him. Though, with those wounds, it wouldn't have made any difference, either way.
'Then he died ...' That also wasn't quite how it had been. But this wasn't the moment to pass on the dying man's rambling, incoherent message to Wimpy about his son David.
Wimpy was staring at him with that same look, white under dirt. He had been a friend, possibly even a family friend, of Major Audley's. Only, there was no room for friendship now.
'He's dead, anyway,' said Bastable brutally. 'And the battalion
—the battalion—'
'They're dead too,' snapped Wimpy suddenly.
'What d'you mean?'
'What do I mean?' Wimpy's voice rose uncharacteristically,
'What do I mean? I mean what I say—what else should I mean? I mean they're dead— the battalion's dead— the Prince Regent's Own South Downs Fusiliers is dead— they're dummy4
all dead... All except you and me, Harry—and A Company back in that other Colembert of theirs— and Lance-Corporal Jowett, back there in our Colembert . . and he'll be dead before long, if I'm any judge of wounds—they're all bloody well dead, Harry—that's what I mean.'
Bastable opened and shut his mouth without managing to get any words out of it.
'They're dead, Harry,' said Wimpy. 'They're all dead.'
'But—' the words when they finally came were as shrill as Wimpy's'—but they can't all be dead. There must have been prisoners— and the wounded?'
'Oh, there were—yes, there were—prisoners and wounded.'
Wimpy had recovered his voice, or something like it. 'Not a lot of them, Jowett said. The bombing and the machine-gunning had already knocked out a good many—the Aid Post was full before the tanks attacked ... But they did their best, all the same—they fought the bastards, Harry, they fought them . . . They couldn't stop them, but they fought them—
there's even one of their light tanks knocked out on the approaches to your bridge—God only knows how your chaps knocked it out, even though it's only a little one, but they did, somehow . . . But they couldn't stop them.'
Professionals—
A bloody shambles, naturally!
'The ones who were left—the ones who could—fell back into the town, towards battalion headquarters, Jowett said. He dummy4
was one of them. And Nigel's chaps came from the top of the town to reinforce them. But with the tanks, they didn't stand a chance—they were just too damn good, the Germans, he said—"They went through us like a dose of salts," he said—'
Professionals.
Professionals versus Amateurs.
'So they surrendered. There wasn't anything else they could do, because there was a tank in the street outside, and another at the back ... There were about fifty of them, plus the walking wounded who hadn't reached the Aid Post. And more of them turned up afterwards—he reckoned there were about seventy or eighty there in the end—'
In the end?
The Germans weren't bad to them—then. There was a bit of pushing and prodding, but nothing to speak of. One of them even gave Jowett a cigarette ... And then they herded them down to the river, first—Jowett thought that was while they searched the town, because they brought in some more prisoners while they were sitting there, beside the bank.
'And then some more Germans came up, in a car—different ones from the fellows who had done the fighting ... Or different uniforms, anyway. Officers, of some sort, Jowett thought. And they talked to the officers who were already there. He couldn't understand what they were saying, of course, but at first it seemed friendly, and then suddenly they were arguing—and the new lot, particularly one of them, dummy4
started to shout at the ones—the officers—who had been in the fighting.
'Then some lorries came down the hill, full of more soldiers
—'
THE SURVIVORS' STATEMENTS TO THE JUDGE
ADVOCATE GENERAL'S OFFICE
William Mowbray Willis
I, William Mowbray Willis, formerly of the Prince Regent's Own (South Downs) Fusiliers andlatterly of the 2ndl8th Royal West Sussex Regiment (Army Number 1047342) and now discharged from the Army and resident in South Ampney, Sussex, make oath and say as follows:
... the aforementioned Lance-Corporal Jowett then said to rne: 'Shortly after this German soldiers from the lorries took over from those who had been guarding us. The new guards wore black uniforms with camouflaged caps, and had "Skull and Crossbones" on their collars. Their officer had two bands of silver braid, between the elbow and the wrist, on his tunic, with some lettering between the bands, to the best of my recollection. The new guards treated the prisoners very roughly, driving them into a barn close to the bridge.'
Paragraph 4. Lance-Corporal Jowett then continued: 'After some minutes two of the guards took Major Tetley-Robinson from the barn. Major Tetley-Robinson, who had been wounded in the shoulder, was the senior officer present and dummy4
had been commanding the battalion since the death of the Commanding Officer. Shortly after this I heard a shot outside the barn. The Adjutant, Captain Harbottle, was then taken from the barn by the same two guards. Then, after a while, there was another shot.'
Paragraph 5. Lance-Corporal Jowett continued. 'The guards came back a third time. This time they took away an NCO, I think it was Sergeant Heppenstall of B Company, but I'm not sure as he had a bandage round his head. Corporal Pollock came to me and told me that there was a hole in the wall of the barn behind some sacks nearby, and that he intended to try to get through it and make a run for it. He said "I think they're going to do for us one by one, Bill, and I'm not about to wait and find out." I said I would go with him. The hole was not very big and Corporal Pollock couldn't get through it, but when I tried I did get through.'
Paragraph 6. Lance-Corporal Jowett continued: 'There were no Germans directly outside the barn by the hole, but there were some standing around a lorry about fifty yards to my right. There wasn't any cover, so I started running towards the river bank, trying to make for a big clump of reeds to my left. I'd got about half-way when I heard shouts behind me, and looking over my shoulder I saw that two other men had got out, but I don't know who they were. Then there were shots and screams. I went on running, but just as I reached the reeds I was hit in the upper leg and I fell into the river.
The water came up to my chest and it was all red, and I dummy4
couldn't stand properly, but I held on to the reeds growing next to the bank.'
Paragraph 7. Lance-Corporal Jowett continued: 'I don't know how long I stood there, it semed a long time. I heard the sound of grenades going off, and then a lot of firing, in bursts, like from an LMG. Then a German soldier finally appeared on the bank above me. He was very young and he had a zig-zag badge on his collar, on a green patch. He looked at me like he was sorry for me, and while he was looking at me there were more shots, single ones, which sounded as if it was further away, but I think they were inside the barn.