‘So here it is, Keller – the start line of the final advance. It doesn’t look much from here, does it?’
The lights of the armoured car beamed north across a flooded field below the level of the lane. Water stretched as far as the eye could see towards Dunkirk, but standing up above the surface of the lake ran a double line of six-foot poles like slim telegraph poles immersed by the inundation.
‘Keller, how far do the marker posts stretch?’
‘Ten kilometres, sir. We felt it inadvisable to mark the passage any further at the moment.’
‘Quite right, Keller, quite right.’
Storch paused, slapping his gloves slowly against the side of his leg. He was in an excellent humour and when this mood took him he liked to show his subordinates that their general was capable of a certain light-hearted touch.
‘So, Keller, you are telling me that between those posts lies the road to Dunkirk – that we do not have to possess supernatural powers like Christ to walk upon the waters?’
Keller, a religious man, as Storch knew well, blinked and stirred uneasily. What could be in Storch’s mind now? He kept his face expressionless and answered with admirable brevity.
‘Yes, sir.’
Keller waited anxiously. He was never quite sure how to deal with the situation when Storch talked like this for it was closely akin to another mood which could be the precursor to an almighty row. He said nothing further and waited while the general walked to the front of the armoured car, standing to gaze for a moment through the gap in the hedge. Then, without warning, Storch marched forward between the posts, his boots splashing up water but never sinking more than six inches below the waterline. He walked on and on, almost out of sight, and then came back again, deliberately kicking up great spurts of water like a small child on its first day by the sea. Reaching the armoured car, he paused and lifted his night glasses to look the other way, focusing his gaze to the south where a line of heavy tanks was drawn up along the extension of the road on higher ground. Beyond the tanks he could see the small airfield which was serving as the main tank laager and beyond the groups of small dark shapes loomed the hangar, the main ammunition dump. Meyer had once again complained that everything was crammed into too confined an area but the floods had dictated that. At that moment Keller had the misfortune to say the wrong thing.
‘I hear, sir, that the main dump is very close to the laager.’
‘You’d like to move it, Keller?’ Storch inquired.
‘No, sir. I just thought… that is… Colonel Meyer…’
‘Meyer has been here recently?’
‘Only for a few minutes – to check the water level…’
‘Really, Keller, it is most fortunate for you that I have only wet my boots. Had the water risen to my thighs we might well have had to look for your replacement. Till 04.00 hours, Keller!’
Barnes rubbed his eyes and checked his watch. 12.45 AM. The tank rumbled along the side road, its lights full on, the tracks churning round at top speed. In the turret beside him Jacques warned that they were approaching the southern outskirts of Lemont. The French lad knew exactly where he was and now he felt strangely excited as the road he had known since boyhood rolled past under them. He had chosen a roundabout route to enter the village and Barnes had asked him to find a place where they could park Bert safely for a short time. He thought he knew just the place.
Inside the tank Colburn sat behind the two-pounder in Davis’ old seat. A loaded machine-pistol lay across his lap and already he was becoming accustomed to the small metal room, the gentle sway of the hull, the endless grumble of the tracks. He missed the fresh air of five thousand feet up but at least here he had solid ground under his body. Oddly enough, now that they were so close to the battle zone the thunder of the guns had died, as though preserving their energies – and their ammunition – for one final effort when day came. And daylight was close now. But he was on edge because he had nothing definite to do, and in this respect he envied Reynolds. The driver in the nose of the tank had his head projecting above the hatch and gazed stolidly forward. His hands held the steering levers stiffly because his arms felt as though they were on fire and even the slightest movement increased the pain. They were almost there, Barnes had said, and Reynolds was anxious to get it over with. Now that they were so close to the Allied lines and that Dover was just across the water he found himself thinking of England and home. With a bit of luck they’d soon be there. He’d be able to get some leave and go back to Peckham. A pint of bitter at The Grey Horse. It made him feel thirsty and then he forgot about it as Barnes’ voice came down the intercom with a fresh instruction.
‘You turn left,’ Jacques had just told Barnes, ‘just beyond that white building.’
Barnes gave the order. ‘And that farm you mentioned, Jacques, those isolated outhouses…’
He broke off as the tank turned down a narrow track. At the , edge of the headlights he could see a strangely familiar shape, and when the track curved the beams played full on the bulky silhouette. Barnes stiffened and as Jacques pointed to the farm buildings beyond an open gateway he gave the order to halt.
The stationary vehicle which had startled him was tilted over at an acute angle, lying just inside the field with one track caught in a deep ditch. It was Bert’s twin brother – a Matilda tank. Jumping to the ground he walked towards it, hearing Colburn’s footsteps behind him. When he played his torch over the tank he saw that it was derelict, half the turret blown away, its right-hand track torn loose, the rear of the hull burnt black.
‘Looks like one of yours,’ Colburn suggested quietly.
‘It’s one of ours all right. There’s been a helluva scrap here. Look.’
In the field behind the tank uniformed bodies lay scattered across the grass, on their stomachs, on their backs, on their sides, and sometimes the uniforms were German but many were British and all dead. Barnes picked up several rifles and found them empty. There was only one tank, the single Matilda, and in its solitude it seemed to emphasize the terrible shortage of armoured forces with the BEF.
‘The Panzers came through,’ he remarked to Colburn, who made no reply.
They walked farther down the track and by the gateway they found more empty rifles, British .303s, their dead owners lying close by. Barnes followed his torch beam cautiously into a yard surrounded by outbuildings and when they searched them they found that the place was deserted – deserted of human life but there were several British fifteen-hundred-weight trucks parked round the edges of the yard which had obviously been some minor transport depot. Inside the buildings were more trucks and further evidence that a unit had been in residence recently – a pile of unwashed billy cans, a dixie full of scummy water, several respirators and a Lewis gun without a magazine.
‘I’d like to have another look at that truck in there,’ said Colburn, flashing his torch on a truck with an RE flash at the rear.
‘I’ll be back in a minute. I want to get Bert parked.’
Barnes left the Canadian and explored the area immediately round the buildings, finding only empty fields which were strangely still and silent in the pale warm moonlight, the air heavy and muggy as the earth released the heat of yesterday, the buzz of unseen insects in his ears. Across the fields he could see a roof-line which looked as though it had been cut from cardboard – the roofs of Lemont – and behind them a solitary searchlight wearily probed the sky. When he returned to where he had left the Canadian he found him inside the truck which carried the RE flash. He was shining his torch over layers of wooden boxes.