The Black Jackals (11 page)

Kurtz shook his head. ‘You did well, Kuchenlein. And the British? Where are they now?'

‘One of them was killed, and we took the other three prisoner. It's OK, we beat them up a bit. For the Lieutenant.'

Kurtz wiped the blood from the cut on his forehead. ‘Kill them.'

‘Yes, sir. Right now?'

‘Yes. Now in the town square. Hang them from lamp-posts. Then report back to me. No, wait there. I'll come and watch.'

Lamb looked across at the lifeless body of Private Farrell and cursed. No doubt Kurtz would rejoin his unit. It would not be hard to find, unlike theirs. How could he have let this happen? He stood up and shouted, ‘Sarnt Bennett, Mays, Valentine. Is anyone hit?'

He looked around and at once saw carnage. The length of the road was strewn with the bodies of the dead and wounded. Someone was shouting for a stretcher-bearer. A man close by who had been hit by a bomb fragment and lost an arm and half his face was calling for his mother. Lamb stared and then snapped out of his trance: ‘Christ almighty. Sarnt Bennett, who's left?'

Bennett was standing at the roadside, beside the smoking wreck of a cart and its dead dray horse. ‘There's Smart, sir, Corporal Mays, Wilkinson, Tapley, that's all from number 1 section. Stubbs and Parry, sir. Valentine, of course. Perkins, Butterworth and Hughes. And then there's the odds and sods. Four of them.'

‘I make that twelve of us plus four hangers-on. Good God. We've lost half our strength.'

Lamb walked over to Bennett and looked him in the eyes. ‘I promised all of them I'd bring them through. All of them. I've failed.'

Bennett shook his head and managed a smile. ‘No, you haven't, sir. You've saved half of us. And don't forget, some are wounded.'

‘But the others. Perhaps I expect too much.'

‘We'd have done it anyway, sir. Even without your orders. It's not you, Mister Lamb. It's the war. And don't forget Corporal Briggs's section. Back at Warlus, sir.'

‘Yes, of course. You're right. We'll head back to the town. Although it's possible that they've fallen back further north in all this mess. We had better make sure. It's entirely in the wrong direction of course, but the only thing to do is to make for Aubigny and then work our way back down towards Warlus from there. And we should bury Farrell, Sarnt. Can't leave him like that.'

‘Very good, sir.' He turned to the men who had crawled out of their ditches and were brushing the mud from their battledress. ‘Come on you lot. Wilkinson, Tapley. We'll bury Farrell here. Then we're off to find Corporal Briggs's section.'

Valentine said nothing but Lamb could tell from his expression that there was something about the plan of which he did not approve.

The shallow grave dug, four of the men helped to heave Farrell's body into the mud and then covered it with soil. They pushed his rifle, minus the firing pin, deep into the mud at its head and hung his tin hat on the butt. Lamb bowed his head and the others followed suit. He felt a hollowness in his stomach. He had known that this moment would come, that he would be obliged to conduct a field burial service for one of his platoon, but that knowledge made none of it any easier. He began, ‘Lord God, who givest and takest away, look down upon this thy servant and grant him everlasting peace.'

He turned away from the grave and wondered whether he had said enough. Enough to honour the final moments and precious memories of a man. He was haunted again by the men he had lost, saw their faces and heard their voices in his head. They were good men, whatever the colonel had said, men who believed in what they were fighting for, however well trained and fit they might be. He looked at those who were left: Bennett, his trusted cockney sergeant, Smart, loyal to the end, Parry and Stubbs, Frank Mays, Wilkinson and Tapley, Perkins, Butterworth and Hughes, and of course the enigmatic Valentine.

They shuffled away from Farrell's grave. Lamb heard a few muttered goodbyes. Some of them touched the tin hat for luck. He looked at Bennett and nodded. The sergeant spoke. ‘Right lads. Let's get on.'

They turned and moved into column, moving off quickly down the road, and Lamb prayed that he would be in time, that Briggs's section would not have been overrun.

He took out his map and, seeing that there was a turning off the road to the left, led the men into the hamlet of Ecoivres. They skirted the place to the north and passed through three other settlements which, unlike those on the main road, were not deserted. Why, he wondered, were the people still here? Why did they not join the stream of refugees? Some were fleeing, certainly. A dozen or so laden horse carts passed by, moving in the direction of Arras. But for the most part the French watched from their windows as Lamb and his handful of men passed through their villages.

Lamb wondered whether Briggs and his men had fallen back. Perhaps they might even be in Aubigny at the projected rendezvous point. The thought of adding them to the depleted platoon cheered him, and he rounded the bend in the road with an unusually buoyant feeling. It was then that he heard the firing: a machine gun, some distance up ahead. Lamb crouched and signalled to the men to do the same. There was an embankment to their right and he motioned to Bennett to come with him and peer over the top. The two men climbed slowly and raised their heads above the crest.

It took all of Lamb's self-control to remain silent at the sight that met his eyes. Bennett stared, wide eyed. Across the field before them, perhaps 300 yards away and down a shallow slope in what looked like a chalk quarry, a German officer was walking past some lifeless bodies. From their clothes they seemed clearly to be civilians. To the right, beside the quarry, stood two half-tracks with more Germans milling around their open doors. Lamb watched as the officer drew his pistol and emptied the chamber into one of the bodies. It jerked, then the man climbed from the pit and rejoined the machine-gun teams, and as he turned Lamb caught sight of his face and recognised him as their former prisoner, Kurtz. For a moment his hand went to his pistol and he looked at Bennett who was also instinctively moving his rifle. But Lamb placed a hand on the barrel and shook his head. The range was not a problem, but he knew that the consequence might be disastrous, whatever their sense of outrage.

Lamb knew at once that it was more than likely Briggs and the others were among the dead, and he cursed himself again for having allowed Kurtz to escape.

He shook his head, tapped Bennett on the shoulder and together they slithered silently down to the men.

Lamb spoke quietly. ‘It's no good. The Jerries have taken the town. They must have captured Briggs and the others.' He paused. ‘I think you know what that means.'

They said nothing.

Lamb went on, ‘We need to get out of here pretty sharpish before they spot us. Follow me.'

Running at a crouch, they moved quickly back across the fields the way they had come. Lamb's only hope was that, his thirst for blood temporarily slaked, Kurtz would stay in the village. They could move on by night, he thought, try to skirt the German front line. He guessed that Kurtz's unit must be one of the furthermost advanced of the Germans in this area. In any case it was the only hope he had. To go directly west was madness now, but perhaps they could head north and then cut across and outpace the advancing Germans to the Somme. Paramount in his mind now was to deliver the message to General Fortune. It was clear to him, after witnessing the débâcle at Arras, that the Germans were winning, and winning fast. The British might have the power to mount a good, quick attack, but the sheer weight of numbers and firepower in the advancing German army was overwhelming.

The colonel had told him that once they took Arras the Germans would surely head due north to cut off the BEF in an ever-tightening pocket. By heading north east and then south west rather than directly into the advancing Germans, Lamb reasoned, he and his men stood a fighting chance of just missing the Panzers and jumping out of the deadly noose.

After they had gone perhaps two miles from the town, Lamb held up his hand. They stopped for a moment and he listened for the sound of pursuit, but heard nothing. To their left he saw a building – a barn. He waved to Bennett and indicated that they should make for it. It would keep them under cover from enemy planes and motorcycle riders until dark, and then they would start off again.

They ran low and closed in on the barn. Lamb wasn't taking any chances. They had to be sure it was not occupied. He looked at Bennett and made a signal, pointing at himself and then at Smart and Tapley who were tucked in close behind, indicating that the three of them would edge to the door and open it. Bennett and the others stopped and knelt low in the wheat while Lamb and the two men moved forward. The door was shut but not locked, a bolt hanging open, and it was quite possible that someone was inside. Lamb moved to the door and with the other men on either side quickly pushed it open and pointed his pistol into the dark. Nothing. The two privates closed in, and together they entered. It was dark inside save for the light from three or four slits in the roof where the tiles and rafters had fallen in.

Lamb turned to Tapley. ‘There's no one here. Get the others.' And then, ‘No, wait.' He could hear something. A human or animal sound. Sobbing.

He paused in the silence and identified the direction from which it was coming. In the far corner, on a pile of hay, was a dark shape. At first he thought it might be a wounded soldier, of either side, and kept his pistol ready. But then the shape sat up and in the shafts of light breaking through the rafters of the barn Lamb saw at once that it was a girl. She was in her early twenties, he guessed, and her face, which would have been beautiful at any other time, was a white mask of terror. Lamb moved closer and for a moment he wondered whether she might lash out at him. She pulled back further into the shadows and began to whimper more loudly.

He stopped and looked at her in the semi-darkness. She had a gash on her head and her green floral dress had been torn at the front. She edged away from him again and began to mutter in French.

Lamb held up his hands in mock surrender and spoke softly. ‘Don't worry. We're British. Anglais. Amis.'

The girl's gaze changed slowly from horror to a smile and she began to cry, almost hysterically, wiping at her face and pushing back her hair. Lamb reached forward and knelt down beside her in the straw. She wiped at her eyes with the back of her hands, smudging her make-up, smiled up at him and then, realising that her dress was wide open, pulled it together as best she could.

Lamb realised that, apart from gazing into her eyes, he had also without realising it been staring at her exposed skin, seduced by its pale softness, and felt suddenly embarrassed that he should be having such thoughts when she was clearly in great distress. He covered his shame with another smile. ‘Please, go on. Tell me what happened. The Germans?'

She nodded. ‘I . . . I ran out of the back door when they came.' Her English was good, he thought, better certainly than his French. ‘The Germans came to take us. They took my father and my brother. But when I got out I just ran into another German.' She was stifling the sobs now. ‘He grabbed me. He grabbed my arm and held it tight. It hurt. Then he tore at my clothes and . . . touched me.' She stopped, sobbing again. Lamb turned away but she went on: ‘I scratched his face. Right in his eye. There was blood and he shouted and let go. So I ran. I ran and ran. They fired after me. One of the bullets hit my leg. It knocked me over but it only hit the skin. And then they gave up and I came here. I thought you were Germans.'

Lamb shook his head. ‘No, mademoiselle. Anglais. But the Germans are still in your town. There's been some shooting.' He did not think this was the time to tell her about the executions, but something in her face told him that she had probably guessed.

‘I heard it. Where can I go?'

‘You'd best come with us. We're heading north.' He had decided now that they would head up to Bethune and then directly west to Etaples. Then they would have to use the coast to try to get down to Fortune's division on the Somme. He just prayed that the Germans would not beat them to it. ‘You'd better come with us. For a while at least. Do you have anyone you can stay with?'

‘I have a cousin in Montreuil. It's near Etaples. I could stay there. My mother's neice.' She paused, looking alarmed. ‘Oh God, my mother, my father, my brother. What will they do? The Germans . . .'

‘Don't worry about them now, miss. You stay with us. Here, have some of this.'

He reached into his tunic and brought out a hip flask. It was something he kept only for the direst of emergencies. He unscrewed the cap and held it out to her. She sniffed at it.

‘It's brandy. Cognac.'

The girl took a swig and coughed. ‘It's quite good. Much better than I thought you would have.' She flashed a smile at him and again Lamb felt conscious of the moment.

‘I'd get some rest now, miss, if I were you. You're safe now.'

She smiled again. ‘Please call me Madeleine. Madeleine Dujolle.'

Lamb smiled back at her. ‘Thank you. I'm Peter Lamb. Lieutenant. North Kents. These are what's left of my men. Corporal Valentine here will lend you his blanket roll.' He turned to Bennett. ‘We'll stay here till nightfall, Sarnt. Post a man on each side of the barn, inside if you can. I want to know the slightest movement out there. See if you can rustle up some food. Whatever you've got. But no fires. We don't want to burn the place down. The rest of you get some kip, and that means you too, Sarnt. Better make the most of it. I reckon we're all going to need it over the next few days.'

* * *

Some twenty miles to the south, Panzer Major Manfred Kessler tapped a cigarette on his case three times. He flicked at his lighter and lit it and then looked again at the map which his second-in-command Hauptman Fender had spread out on one of the track-guards of his command tank. He poked a finger at the map, at a place marked ‘Cuinchy'.

‘If we are here, Fender, then the enemy must be over there. And we've got them on the run.'

‘Yes, sir. It would seem so.'

‘And you say we've received an order to halt?'

‘Yes, sir. The radio operator just picked it up. In code. From High Command: ‘You are to deny the canal line to the enemy but on no account to cross it.'