Barnes lay still for a moment, collecting himself, still clutching the machine-pistol. He had been warned by the shriek of brakes and he had been saved by the pillow of spare canvas between himself and the rear of the cab, and his own body had saved Jacques when the lad was thrown against him. They got up cautiously, like men expecting a limb to fall off, and Colburn was waiting for them at the foot of the open cab door, his pistol under his arm, blood oozing from a cut on his forehead and gash on the back of his left hand. He said they were little more than scratches.
‘Is Reynolds all right?’ asked Barnes.
‘Reynolds is all right,’ said Reynolds from the cab. ‘I don’t know why, but he’s all right. Probably only because he was inside this brute – we went through that wall like going through paper. I’m sorry, Sergeant,’ he added, ‘but I was concentrating on the truck and when we got over the bridge the wall was on top of me. And by the way, this job,’ he banged the wheel, ‘is a write-off. So it’s back to Bert now.’
‘You did damned well. No one could have survived in that truck – I riddled it before you bounced it over the edge and then the petrol went up – but I’ll go back and make sure in a minute. It’s a good job you braked when you did – we wouldn’t have gone through that like paper.’
He pointed to the house. Barely six feet beyond where the transporter had pulled up stood an ancient three-storey mansion. All the windows were broken, a wall creeper almost covered the front door, and the garden in which the transporter rested was knee-deep in weeds. No one had lived there for a long time, which was probably just as welclass="underline" opening the front door to find a tank transporter in the garden could be a disconcerting experience. Reynolds tried the engine several times but it refused to function, and while Barnes went back over the bridge Colburn and Jacques helped the driver to pull the tarpaulin off Bert.
Barnes approached the bridge with caution. Reaching the top he crouched behind the wall and peered over the edge to where the wrecked truck was still on fire. There was no sign of life but there was every sign of death. The vehicle had landed with its wheels in the air and by the light of the flames he saw huddled shapes lying in the grass, but the only thing which moved was the flames. Few of the men in the back could have survived the murderous fire of his machine-pistol, and any who did would have perished when the truck tumbled down the steep embankment. He doubted whether anyone was alive when the petrol tank blew. When he turned round to walk back he froze, his taut nerves trying to cope with the fact that a new crisis was at hand.
Headlights were coming down the road from the opposite direction. They were still some distance away but he gained the impression that they were approaching at speed. Running down the slope he heard the welcome sound of Bert’s engines starting up, but they still had to lower the ramp and bring Bert down it, and he knew there wouldn’t be time to do that before the oncoming vehicle arrived. Colburn must have seen something in his face because he asked the question immediately.
‘More trouble?’
‘I’m not sure. There’s something coming down the road from the north – on its own.’
‘We’d better set up an ambush. I’ll take the other side of the road…’
‘No, stick with me – otherwise we may end up shooting each other. Jacques, tell Reynolds to switch off his engine and sit tight. You get behind the end wall of the house and stay there. Come on, Colburn…’
The vehicle was quite close now and it sounded like a car, but it was still hidden by the bend in the road, and it was still travelling at high speed. They ran a short distance into the garden, stopping at a point where an undamaged section of the wall was shoulder-high. Peering over the wall-top beyond the bend Barnes saw that the headlights were quite close. He ducked out of sight and heard the car begin to lose speed as the headlights reached the bend. Well, they wouldn’t get far once they turned the corner and found half the wall strewn in their path. He looked back and wasn’t too happy to see that the glow of fire beyond the bridge clearly silhouetted the transporter with a British tank nestling on its deck.
‘I think it’s stopping,’ Colburn whispered.
‘It’s bloody well going to have to.’
‘It may be a civilian.’
‘Only people like Jacques are mad enough to drive about in battle zones.’
He timed it carefully, keeping low as the car crawled round the bend and then pulled up, its engine still ticking over. As he lifted his head he heard a clash of gears and the car began to reverse back round the bend. He had a quick impression -a black Mercedes staff car, the hood back, a German soldier driving and beside him an officer in a peaked cap clutching something to his chest. It was almost beyond the bend now, reversing rapidly. He lifted the machine-pistol, cradled it into his. shoulder, and rested the barrel on the wall-top. Aiming about two feet above the headlights he fired. One long burst. He heard a brief shatter of breaking glass and the car went crazy, still reversing but snaking from side to side. He fired again, arcing the gun. The car swung wildly sideways, crashed its rear into the wall and halted, its headlights shining on the opposite wall. The engine had stopped.
The driver was hunched over the wheel, head and shoulders drenched in blood. The passenger-seat door was open and the officer lay in the roadway on his back, capless, arms outstretched, staring up at the stars. A few feet from his right hand lay a half-open briefcase, the case he had clutched so firmly to his chest when the emergency had arisen. Barnes checked the officer, whose chest was torn with the bullets where the arc had moved across him and lifted one shoulder. He was a major, a dead major. Picking up the briefcase, Barnes took out a paper while Colburn examined the rear seat; holding the paper in front of the headlights he grunted.
‘This is your pigeon. You said you could speak German, Colburn, can you read it as well? This looks as though it could be interesting.’
‘Let me have a look.’
He scanned the lines briefly and then looked up, his face very serious.
‘This is interesting. It’s a battle order and this copy is for some Advanced Headquarters. Let me check it again to make sure I’ve got it right.’
‘This staff car can tell us something;’ said Barnes thoughtfully. ‘They can’t possibly be expecting anyone coming up from this direction or else it wouldn’t be travelling without escort. We may surprise the bastards yet.’
‘This document[6] is going to surprise you, Barnes. The German 14th Panzer Division is going to attack Dunkirk at dawn. They’ve found some secret road to the port just under the water – the whole area must be flooded along that part of the front as far as I can gather. Apparently this road is built up from the surrounding countryside so it’s only a few inches under the floods.’
‘Does it give the start-line for the attack?’
‘Yes, the funny thing is it’s Jacques’ home town – the attack is being launched from Lemont at 04.00 hours.’
Barnes knew that at the eleventh hour he had found his worthwhile objective. He checked his watch. 12.25 am.
‘We’ll forget about Calais,’ he said. ‘Jacques is going to take us home.’
‘It gives the name of the general who’s leading the attack.’
‘Really?’ Barnes wasn’t too interested as they hurried back to the transporter.
‘Yes. A General Heinrich Storch.’
TWELVE
Sunday, May 26th
Storch jumped out of the staff car, checked his watch, briefly acknowledged the salute of the waiting officer, walked down the hedge-lined lane on the outskirts of Lemont. 12.45 AM. Less than four hours to dawn. The lights of an armoured car at the end of the lane showed him the way while beyond the hedge on his left, to the north, the light of the moon shone down over the flooded areas, a vast lake which might have been the sea. When he reached the car he stopped and turned to the officer who had followed him.
6
Not only sergeants are lucky with documents. Twenty-four hours earlier, Lt-Gen Sir Alan Brooke, commander 11 Corps BEF, was handed a battle order captured from a German staff car which warned of an imminent offensive by Gen von Bock’s Army Group B – just in time for him to move more troops into the threatened area.