The two Germans came back slowly, machine-pistols hoisted over their shoulders, talking in low tones. They were less than a dozen yards away when Barnes lifted the machine-pistol. He fired one continuous burst, shifting the muzzle slightly from side to side to cover them both. They were still collapsing to the ground when he ceased fire, half a magazine still unused. At that moment the engine of the transporter kicked into life. There had been a fourth man – the driver, with instructions never to leave his cab. Barnes leapt down on to the grass verge and the door on his side was still open as he ran forward, pulling up short just before he reached the opening. Keeping back out of sight he shoved the muzzle of his pistol round the corner, aiming it upwards, firing one short burst. As he ran back to the rear of the vehicle, round the end and along the other side, the engine was still ticking over but the transporter hadn’t started moving. He was still cautious when he reached the closed cab door. Grabbing the handle, he hauled the door open and jumped back, his pistol levelled, but the precaution wasn’t necessary. As the door opened the driver’s body toppled sideways, landing in the road with a soft thud. The German was dead, bis right side riddled with bullets. Switching off the motor, Barnes went across to have a look at the other two soldiers. They were also dead. Sergeant Barnes was in sole possession of one German tank transporter.
TEN
Saturday, May 25th
They were roaring through the night like a thunderbolt, twin headlights ablaze, the long beams stretching far into the darkness, the giant transporter swaying gently from side to side as Reynolds stepped up the speed. Fifty-five, sixty, sixty-five miles an hour. On the other side of the cab Barnes gazed along the beams which still showed only endless open road, while between them Colburn turned round to peer through the tiny window at the back of the cab.
‘Don’t worry,’ Barnes assured him. ‘Bert’s still there – his weight alone will keep him on board even moving at this pace.’
His mind travelled back to what had taken place at the edge of the quagmire before they started their headlong dash to the north, and he smiled grimly as he thought that whatever happened now they had been responsible for eliminating at least one German heavy tank, even if the method used had been, to put it mildly, unorthodox. When he had examined the vehicle he found that it was in perfect working order except for the machine gun and the wireless set. To Barnes’ mind it should have been possible to repair the firing mechanism in a few hours but instead the Germans had loaded the tank on to a transporter. This action alone pointed up the Germans’ prodigal use of equipment. He had just finished his examination when he heard a heart-warming sound – the sound of Bert’s engines tuning up faultlessly. By the time that Reynolds and Colburn arrived inside the tank he had decided exactly what he was going to do.
He was going to head all-out for Calais, the last port before Dunkirk, possibly the twin keys to the whole campaign. If they could come up behind the Germans, causing the maximum possible damage to their rear, then they might be able to strike a heavy blow at a decisive moment. Above all else, he prayed that they would find a really major objective. Bert, going all-out, had a maximum speed of fifteen miles an hour, whereas the German transporter if driven to its utmost limits, could multiply that rate by four. But as a preliminary they had to get rid of one Wehrmacht heavy tank. This operation took less than thirty minutes.
First, they made a cautious reconnaissance to find out where the quagmire began. The wire fence proved to be the boundary and a short way from the gap through which the German soldier had walked to his death they found a faded notice board which carried a warning. The next stage was an even more cautious reversal of the transporter to a position close to the edge of the swamp. Barnes drove the vehicle while Colburn guided him with a torch. The third stage was the lowering of the ramp at the rear of the vehicle, followed by the infinitely satisfying moment when Barnes climbed into the driving compartment of the tank, fiddled with the controls, drove it backwards and forwards a few feet along the deck, and then reversed it for its final journey. He climbed out of the hatch and jumped clear as the machine was clattering down the ramp.
Wobbling erratically in the moonlight it proceeded across the field. It travelled backwards a dozen yards on an even keel, like a robot moving through the night, then suddenly it lost its stability, the front tilting downwards as the tracks churned up a rain of wet mud. It continued at that angle for a short distance, advancing without pause, hurling back great goutfuls of ooze which made them jump sideways. A few seconds later the engine sound changed, coughing and spluttering as the huge tracks sank so deep that only the hull and turret were visible. The hull went under. The engine sound cut out altogether while the turret submerged and Barnes saw with amazement the turret disappear in a matter of seconds, leaving behind only a disturbed whirlpool of mud and water. They had been lucky – they had driven Bert into the harder end of the swamp. ‘What happened to that farmer?’ he asked Colburn.
‘As soon as he heard the rattle of your machine-pistol he cleared off across the fields. I don’t think he liked the idea of being mixed up with dead Germans.’
‘And yet he had the guts to fetch those beams.’
‘I guess he thought he’d done his, bit – you can’t blame him, he probably had a wife and family.’
‘I don’t blame him but I’d like to have thanked him with a bottle of Mandel’s wine.’
It took them another ten minutes to put Bert aboard the transporter and to cover his silhouette with the tarpaulin they always carried. Under Barnes’ instructions, Reynolds had reversed Bert back up the ramp and along the deck until his rear rested behind the cab wall so that in an emergency he could be driven off in the minimum possible time. Then they had carried the dead Germans well away from the roadside into the field opposite the quagmire, collected all the spare machine-pistol magazines they could lay their hands on, and climbed aboard.
It was surprising, Barnes thought as he sat in the cab of the transporter which was now thundering north like an express train, it was surprising what you could do in thirty minutes. The question now was what they could do behind the German lines near Calais. He looked at his watch, Penn’s watch. Thirty minutes to midnight. At this rate they would reach the Calais area soon after midnight, that was assuming they drove all the way without interception, which of course wouldn’t happen. It was the surprise element which they had on their side, surprise plus audacity. He had a vivid picture of that Panzer column which had driven through the night with its lights full on. Well, they had their lights full on and this was a German vehicle they were driving. Finally, there would be an element of near-chaos close to the battle zone.
‘I still say these might come in very useful,’ remarked Col-burn. He produced three German helmets piled on top of each other from under the seat.
‘Under what circumstances?’ demanded Barnes. ‘Put one of those on and you can get shot as a spy.’
‘Just a thought.’ He put them away again and produced a machine-pistol. ‘This baby is very good. While you were killing Germans back at the quagmire I found out from Reynolds how to use it – just in case. Look.’