Island Redoubt Page 5

  ‘This is the life’, said Tony through a mouthful of chocolate.

  ‘You’re bloody jokin’ aren’t you?’, said Yewell. He was using his bayonet to prise open the lid of the crate containing Mills bombs. It cracked off just as the colour-sergeant returned with a handful of Bren magazines.

  ‘Also got you some wire and some smoke grenades. Best of luck, lads!’ And with that he was off. The rest of the unit was already well down the road.

  ‘Where’s these sappers?’, said Sam.

  ‘God knows, but if they don’t turn up soon we’re off. Okay?’, said Yewell.

  ‘Fine by me, Yewell. I’m not having one of me heroic days, today.’

  ‘Can we actually chuck these grenades over to the other side?’, asked Sam.

  ‘Aye, course. We’ll use them as soon as we see infantry. There’s no point chuckin’ em at a tank. We’ll use the smoke bombs to cover the sappers if they need it. Tony, you stay on the Bren. Try and hit the periscopes or the sights on the tanks.’

  ‘Right boss’, said Tony feigning confidence.

  Just then the sappers turned up in a 30cwt Bedford. They jumped out and the driver pulled out to the cover of the trees about one hundred yards distant. As they began unloading explosives a lance-corporal came over.

  ‘You the lads covering us?’

  ‘Aye and by the way the Jerries are comin'. There was a whole battalion of infantry here a minute ago and now it's just us.’ Yewell indicated his two mates in the trench.

  ‘Right we’ll get moving then.’

  ‘And it's tanks. So, if you can get all this done before they arrive that would be nice’, shouted Tony after the sapper NCO.

  The engineers busied themselves attaching clumps of explosive to the supporting girders of the bridge. They wired these on tightly, backed up by thick timber for making scissors cuts that would hopefully have the whole thing tumbling into the stream. Wires leading from the charges were carefully placed to run the length of the bridge to the detonators which had been left in one of the former gun pits at the opening to the first span. Two sappers climbed underneath and, standing knee deep in water, added further charges to the underside of the central span - insurance against the first set of explosives not doing their job. Again, wires led away from this to a detonator. It was going well until they heard the rattle-creak of tracks.

  ‘Here they come’, said Tony drawing the Bren up purposefully to his cheek. He flipped up the sights, adjusted to six hundred metres, nuzzled in against the stock and with his free right pulled back on the cocking lever. It sprang back, lifting a round into the breech. He was pretty handy with the Bren gun and the other two knew it. They also knew that he would relish the chance to kill some Germans - he was natural fighter.

  Sam whistled attracting the sapper’s NCO, a corporal. He pointed in the direction of the sound and the corporal acknowledged with a wave of his hand.

  ‘Let’s get this done lads’, he urged. His voice was calm but conveyed urgency to his men. The engineers kept on with their task, knowing that to hurry was to get it wrong and put their efforts in vain. First of the enemy to appear was a squat, square Panzer III with a stubby fifty-millimetre cannon. It was green and black, purposeful. The commander ducked down into the turret just as Tony sent a burst of .303 towards him. The bullets flattened themselves against the thick steel of the tank.

  ‘Missed the bastard’, he swore. A thought sped through Sam’s mind - if they didn’t shoot then the Germans would have no reason to shoot back - but events were moving beyond that point already. Maybe in other circumstances, he thought, he might just have packed up and left the Jerries to it without a fight. Without stopping the panzer fired a shell which landed well behind the soldiers. The sappers kept on working with single-minded determination. Each man knew his job and did it as if there were no dangers to be faced. Another two Panzer IIIs followed their leader and behind them came the gawky eight-wheeled SdKfz 231, replete with antennae. Behind this there followed eight or nine troop-carrying SdKfz 251s from which infantry were now issuing like ants.

  The 231 opened fire with its machine gun cutting down one of the sappers. His body floated off down the river, little pale tendrils of blood marking its passage but still the others finished off their task. Tony fired accurate bursts at the dismounting infantry, injuring a few of them. The panzers began to spray the ground around the British positions with machine gun fire and the three fusiliers ducked down as the Germans edged forwards. Earth was lifted in little clumps, picked up by the 7.92mm bullets.

  ‘We can’t stay like this’, said Sam, above the din. He was scared.

  ‘Okay let's lob some grenades at the bastards.’

  Sam and Yewell began throwing grenades at the far bank as the sappers, having finished, sprinted back to the safety of a dug-out. One of their number was pinned down by withering fire from the German armour. Tony cut down a little party of Germans running bent-backed to the bridge, hoping to knock the charges into the water. They were courageous without a doubt.

  ‘Smoke, Sam’, yelled Yewell and together they lobbed smoke bombs at the bridge. One landed in the river and floated off, forlornly spreading a useless cloud of opaque grey smoke.

  ‘Shit’, said Sam and threw another. Each throw exposed his torso to the hail of German bullets that rent the air. Two German soldiers were on the bridge now, looking for the charges. With the gun set on single shot, Tony picked off one and then the other. The toppled into the water, surprised, shocked but ultimately dead.

  ‘Gotchabastard.’ He then raked the long grass on the other side of the bridge whilst his comrades continued to throw grenades. All the sappers were back now and two great explosions rocked the earth. Soil poured into the dugouts and fragments of steel and masonry fell to earth like large deadly hailstones. The metal spans were torn asunder and the bridge began to fall slowly into the river until the second explosion lifted it up in the opposite direction. Again, it fell into the river below, wrecked completely. They were all stunned for a few moments pausing to look at the destruction but the Germans regained their composure first and began firing again.

  ‘Let’s go!’, shouted the R.E. corporal and they began the sprint to their wagon. The fusiliers stood also, planning to hitch a ride out of the battle.

  ‘Last one’, said Yewell, throwing a Mills bomb. They barely registered the crack of that fatal bullet as they watched the last grenade arc over towards the Germans on the far bank. Yewell collapsed like a puppet into the trench. He looked as if he was intently studying the floor of the trench, looking for a dropped treasure.

  ‘C’mon, Yewell. Don’t fuck around!’, shouted Sam, grabbing the NCO’s webbing. He pulled him up, his body a dead weight.

  ‘Jesus!’, said Tony. The NCO was so clearly dead. Everything about him was snatched away in the split second that it took the bullet to pass through his heart.

  ‘Yewell!’

  ‘Let’s go!’

  ‘But Yewell!’

  ‘Dead. Now C’mon.’ They both ran for the wagon and jumped into the back. The sappers pulled them on board, eager to be away.

  Sam sat in silence as they drove. The men were all withdrawn and quiet for, despite having achieved their purpose, they had lost friends. Sapper Davison - Davy, his mates had called him - had been with them, laughing and joking, all the way through their odyssey in France. He was the black sheep of an Army family, not turning out quite as his father, a former sergeant-major in the Green Howards, intended. But that hardly mattered any more. Maybe he was some sort of hero now. Sam and Tony thought about - mourned really - their friend Yewell. He had been a lance-jack when Tony and Sam had met him. He hadn’t taken things too seriously and had been as surprised as anyone when he became their section commander a month or so before going to France. Somehow, he'd always just been a mate. They liked him - everyone liked him - and yet now he was gone. So suddenly. No warning. Of course, they always knew that it could happen - if not to him, then to someone. But i
t was still shocking.

  ‘Hard to take in’, said Tony. Sam just nodded. ‘What happens now?’, he continued, changing the subject. ‘Do this lot take us back to the battalion, or dump us off in the middle of nowhere?’ Still Sam didn’t answer and so Tony left him with his thoughts.

  It was getting dark when the truck pulled in and stopped. A pair of hands reached up from a twilight world to lower the tailgate and the soldiers dismounted. The sapper corporal came to the two fusiliers.

  ‘You can stay here lads and find your unit in the morning, if you want.’

  Tony shrugged a reply.

  ‘We’ll get you some grub.’

  ‘Will there be any transport for us, corporal?’

  ‘God knows but come and find me in the morning. I’ll be over there’, he said, pointing to a patch of darkness. ‘Do you actually know where your lot are?’

  ‘Ah’, said Tony. ‘That might be a problem.’

  The sounds of battle shook everyone awake in the middle of the night. In the darkness soldiers grabbed their webbing, helmets and rifles and ran for their stand-to positions. They didn’t know if the Germans were ten miles away or one mile away and the few shells that landed somewhere nearby gave no clues.

  ‘Where do we go?’, said Sam.

  ‘Stay here.’ Tony yawned, the first surge of adrenaline wearing off now. The desultory shelling stopped but they heard some small arms fire, distant like the sound of wood crackling in a fire. Sam rubbed his face and hunched his shoulders against the cold. He was low, depressed and wondered if he could go on - as if he had a choice. It wasn’t the enemy or the loss of Yewell it was the uncertainty of it all. He couldn’t envisage a time when this trial would be over. He couldn’t contemplate continuing. Sam could only hope that things would seem brighter in the morning.

  A voice came from the darkness.

  ‘There’s a truck heading to the rear, if you want to get on it. They go through a Military Police checkpoint and they should be able to tell you where your unit is. It might be your best bet’, said the Corporal.

  ‘Right, thanks’, said Tony. He was on his feet and pulling his webbing on.

  ‘Over at the CP’, came the voice again. ‘By the way, thanks for what you did yesterday, covering us and all. I’ve spoken to my OC about it. We’d never have the job done without you.’

  ‘It’s fine. Don’t worry about it.’ The two fusiliers walked quickly to the command post to get their lift.

  1940 The Canal

  ‘Irish Fusiliers? Let’s see.’ The sergeant studied a map with his torch. The yellow beam, the colour of old paper, flickered on and off erratically and he slapped the torch against his palm to make it work. ‘Bloody thing’, he cursed. Sam wondered how he kept his uniform so spotless and well pressed, his boots so clean. He looked down at his own boots, brown with dust.

  ‘Sir!’, he called into the back of the tent. A tall officer appeared. He was a captain, with wire-rimmed specs perched on a beaky nose. He was adding a peaked hat to his balding head as he came through. ‘Two Irish Fusiliers here, sir, trying to find their unit. I can’t see them on the map.’

  The officer looked at them suspiciously. ‘And why are you here, exactly?’

  ‘Just trying to get back to the battalion, sir’, said Sam. Tony nodded. Sam coloured slightly and resisted the temptation to gulp. He knew what was going through the officer’s brain and began to feel the guilt that the captain was ascribing to him. A deserter would be dealt with very severely.

  ‘No. I mean why are you here instead of with your battalion?’

  Tony explained, adding, ‘ring them up and ask them.’ He smiled and added, ‘Sir’, as if it was an afterthought.

  ‘Ring them up?’ The officer was indignant. ‘Where do you think you are and who do you think you are talking to?’

  ‘We’re not deserters, sir.’

  ‘I never said that you were….’

  ‘Well you’re acting as if we are, sir. If we were deserters it would be a pretty stupid thing to try and find our unit, sir. Wouldn’t it?’ The officer was incandescent with rage but Tony stood his ground.

  ‘Sergeant, arrest these men!’, he screamed.

  ‘Sir, I don’t think….’ The sergeant tried to pacify his lunatic superior.

  ‘Arrest them!’

  ‘And do what with them, sir?’ he said, calmly. ‘They’re not deserters.’

  ‘Not fucking deserters!’ Tony and Sam had never heard an officer swear like this before.

  ‘We’re not deserters’, said Sam. ‘We’ve just been shooting bloody Germans, sir. Our corporal’s been killed and we were nearly killed….’

  ‘You shut up!’, snapped the sergeant. Tony nodded, with a sideways look at Sam, sensing that the sergeant might sort the problem out unaided.

  ‘Sir. How many deserters do you know who have come to the MPs and asked for directions back to their unit?’, said the sergeant, reasonably.

  ‘Don’t you dare question me!’

  ‘Fuck's sake, sir. Take a powder.’

  ‘I’ll have your stripes for it you fucking….’, he was lost for rude descriptions of his NCO, ‘fucking….’

  ‘Fine, sir. Do that’, said the red cap with a resigned sigh. The officer had marched into the back of the tent by now. ‘Come here, lads’, said the sergeant. ‘I have no idea where your battalion is. Follow this road. Maybe you can hitch a lift. There are some defence works being put together at the La Bassee canal. You might be lucky and you might not…. but you will find somebody.’

  ‘What about you, sarge?’, said Tony. ‘Your stripes?’

  ‘Sir’s under a bit of pressure. We all are. Just get going and good luck.’

  ‘Thanks, sarge’, said Sam. Tony gave him a little wave and the two fusiliers set off in the morning gloom to find their regiment.

  They walked for mile after mile, each one seeming to take longer than the last. Sam played games in his own mind to pass the time, trying to estimate how often another mile had been travelled by looking at the time which had elapsed since the last estimated mile had been completed. By the time he had done this for eleven miles he was fed up and they both stopped for a brew. It was light now as they perched on the dew-damp roadside bank. Tony began boiling water and Sam assembled the ingredients for a ‘cup of scald’, as his mum called it. He smiled as he thought of the comforts of home. Through the canopy of trees that drooped over the road they could see fighter planes scorching across the sky. Some were British - Hurricanes - and some were French - much smaller planes that neither man recognised. Apart from that there was near silence. The dew evaporated, seeming to lift summer country smells to their noses. It was all wrong for a war.

  As Tony added hot water to their tin mugs he broke the silence.

  ‘Are you scared?’

  ‘Now?’

  ‘Aye, or ever?’

  ‘I don’t know. I was scared at the bridge and I suppose I have been scared a few times. Like the Stukas. They scared me and the fighters….’ Sam sipped his tea before he continued. ‘Mostly I’m just fed up. Sometimes I feel a bit sad when I think of home…. Will I ever see it again?’

  ‘Mmm. Your mum’s cookin’ - that sort of thing. Your own bed even if you have to share it with a load of others.’

  ‘I had a bed to myself’, said Sam.

  ‘Ah, what it is to be a Protestant.’

  ‘You could have avoided all this. Unless Ireland came into the war.’

  ‘Aye. That has occurred to me but it’s too late to be thinkin’ about that now’, laughed Tony. ‘De Valera will never let Ireland into the war.’

  ‘Will your brothers join up?’

  ‘One’s in the Irish Army. He sent me a photograph. He looks a right bag of shite in his uniform.’

  The sun beat down on them as the woodland gave way to open pastureland. Cows grazed - war or peace it made no difference to them.

  ‘I hope they still get milked’, remarked Tony.

  ‘What do you kno
w about cows?’, laughed Sam.

  ‘We have cows in Dublin’, came the indignant reply. ‘Urban cows. Famous, they are.’ A distant drone interrupted their reverie. They arched their necks to watch a squadron of bombers, two-engined crucifixes, fly high above them, heading into Belgium.

  ‘And those are?’

  ‘Blenheims’, said Sam categorically.

  ‘It must be reassuring for the RAF to know that we won’t be shooting at them with our powerful rifles and machine guns’, said Tony, ironically. His voice was that of a Pathé newsreader, but with a distinct overtone of Dublin. Ahead of them at the roadside they spotted a light truck, no more than a green box at this distance.

  ‘Might get a lift here’, said the Dubliner and they quickened their pace for about three minutes. ‘Probably not, though’, he said as they closed in. The truck had been ripped apart by machine gun fire. Three out of four tyres were punctured, the bonnet was holed diagonally, bullets having torn long stab wounds in metal flesh. The warm air stank of petrol. In the back sprawled a dead British soldier with an anti-tank rifle lined up beside his corpse as if a quick attempt at tidying up had been made.

  ‘God’, said Sam, in a respectful whisper.

  ‘The front’s worse’, said his mate. ‘Two dead’uns up here.’

  A lance-corporal with a bullet though his left eye lay back against his seat and the driver to his right was slumped low behind the wheel with his arms raised as if to surrender or to shield himself. He had taken four or five bullets in his chest and shoulder. None of them had been dead for long.

  ‘Do we bury them?’

  ‘I suppose so, Sam. Get their dog tags and then dig a pit’, he said, gingerly lifting the head of the front seat passenger. He reached into the other man’s tunic to loosen his shirt and then jumped as the lance-corporal made a low groaning noise. He leapt back from the truck in shock.

  ‘Jaysus! Shit! He’s not dead! My God he’s not dead! What do we do?’