The Black Jackals (2 page)

There was another succession of heavy thumps in the distance. They were more distinct now, and more clearly explosions. He turned and yelled towards the trench to his rear: ‘Sarnt Bennett, to me. And where's that tea?'

The tall sergeant came doubling over carrying a tin mug of tea which slopped out over the sides onto the ground, ‘Sorry, sir. Here you are. Lovely cup of char. They're getting closer.'

‘Yes. And faster than I'd expected. Any word from Battalion?'

‘Nothing from the Colonel, sir, but Major Cooke sent a runner with this.' He handed Lamb a note:

Lamb folded it and tucked it into his pocket. ‘Well, that's us told, Sarnt.'

‘Sir?'

‘We're to sit here and give the Jerries a bloody nose before blowing that bridge down there and legging it.'

‘Makes you think, sir, don't it? I mean, we come over here, the British army, best army in the world. And what happens? Bloody Belgians run away. The Frenchies can't make their minds up about where to fight. And we're left to do the donkey work. I don't think our top brass really knew what they were up against.'

Lamb smiled. ‘Yes, Sarnt, I wonder whether they did. But it's not for us to question them. And now it's up to you and me and the rest of the lads to make the best we can of this mess. I want two-man fire teams all along that forward slope, well dug in before the Jerries get here. We're bound to be outnumbered and outgunned, so we've got to make the best use we can of what we have got, and that's surprise. Where's the anti-tank rifle?'

‘Thompson's got it, sir. Over there in the trees.'

‘Get Thompson to bring it up here. We don't know what's going to come at us down that road. But when it does, whatever it is, I want every shot to count. There's a platoon of sappers due here any minute to wire the bridge, but they're going to leave us the detonator. But before we blow it I'm going to take out as many Jerries as possible. We'll wait for them to get across the bridge and then open up, and then as their reinforcements come across we blow it. Got it?'

Bennett smiled. ‘Got it, sir.'

The sergeant liked Lamb. He was a popular officer with the lads. Not perhaps what you'd call the classic ‘officer and gentleman' like some of them were – toffs, if you like – but a damn sight better than those that had just come straight from school or university. Lamb was a proper officer, he reckoned. He cared for the men and you wouldn't get him ordering them to do something that he couldn't have done himself. But more than that, Lamb was an officer, and they respected him for that. He was from a different world and he had a natural authority. Some said that he had been married before, into the gentry or even grander. That was what some said. But that didn't matter to Bennett neither. What mattered was that Lamb spoke to him and to the other men as if they really mattered. That's what set their officer apart. Bennett came back to the present, then saluted and hobbled back towards where they'd left Private Thompson and his anti-tank rifle.

Still looking at the refugees swarming across the bridge, Lamb's eye began to fall naturally on individuals. He looked at a woman in a floral dress yelling at her son to come back from the edge of the road, another struggling to keep a curly-haired infant daughter perched on a cart amidst a pile of dark wooden furniture; a father carried his sleeping baby like a rag doll, his face a picture of worry. He tried to look away. He preferred to see these not as real people, but as a column, like any other column that might be advancing towards him. Not an enemy, of course, merely an obstacle to be negotiated. He began to calculate their numbers. One thousand, two? More? There seemed to be no end and no beginning. But all the time he kept seeing their little stories unfold. A woman seemed to have lost something, perhaps a pet. An old man could walk no more and was being helped to sit at the side of the road against the wall of the bridge by a pretty girl. And then he heard it.

The unmistakable rumble of approaching vehicles shook the road and sent the civilians into a panic. They quickened their pace. The old man got to his feet and started to walk. Belongings, which a moment ago had seemed so precious, tumbled from the carts and were forgotten in the new urgency to save themselves. Staring hard through his binoculars into the trees in the distance, Lamb began to make out the trucks and men on horses too, with slung rifles. And alongside them now he could see men on foot: men in grey, carrying their weapons at the trail.

He was sweating now, more than he would have normally done even on this hot summer's day. The grey soldiers were mingling with the civilians. He could see their helmets clearly as they moved determinedly forward, could see them pushing through the refugees, using their rifle butts and shouting commands as they hurried along the dusty road, heaving the carts and belongings into the roadside ditches to make a way for the trucks. Clearing a way towards the bridge, towards his position, advancing into battle. There was no time left. No choice. No option. Lamb heard his company commander's words, ‘Whatever happens, Peter, blow that bloody bridge. It must not fall into enemy hands. I don't care who's on it. Mr Chamberlain himself. Just blow it.'

The lorries were driving forward, almost on the bridge, with the infantry running close alongside them. Lamb could see an open-topped staff car, and in the back seat two officers. They were laughing as they drove onto the bridge, and were almost at the centre now. Three lorries followed close behind, forcing the shuffling pedestrians aside. Then one of the men raised his hand and the car and the trucks stopped, although the refugees continued past them. The officer opened the door, got out and walked across to the parapet of the old bridge. He leaned against it and scanned the river and the opposite bank, forcing Lamb and his men to cower in their slit trenches, and then his eye alighted on something, something at the edge of the bridge. He gazed at it for an instant and then turned to the car and shouted something before starting to run back the way they had come.

Lamb muttered to the corporal at his side, ‘Blast, he's twigged it.' Then, stifling his conscience, he swallowed dryly and gave a quick nod to the corporal. The man, a recent addition to the ranks, a volunteer named Valentine, looked at him and raised an eyebrow. Lamb nodded again. ‘For Christ's sake man, let them have it!'.

Valentine shrugged and pushed down hard on the handle, and almost simultaneously it seemed the bridge went up with a deafening explosion, sending fragments of brick and stone flying high in the air along with what remained of the officers and their driver, parts of two of the trucks and their occupants, and the civilians who had been pushing past them towards salvation.

Lamb shielded his eyes and yelled down the line to the platoon, ‘Take cover. Get down, all of you. Watch your heads.'

As he spoke small pieces of masonry, wood and nameless debris began to fall among them, clattering off their tin hats. Luckily the larger pieces were confined to the vicinity of the bridge, and most fell into the river. As the smoke began to clear Lamb peered down the grassy bank to survey their handiwork.

He could see the span of the bridge, and there in the middle of it a large hole, as if some giant had taken a bite through the side of the wall. Beyond it lay a yawning void. Good, he thought. That should hold them for a while at least. But then as the smoke dispersed he saw around the bridge, across the road and in the river below, dozens of bodies and parts of bodies and burnt and shattered fragments of what had been possessions. Lamb stared as his heart filled with guilt and pity, and he tried again not to look at people, merely objects. But there was the woman in the floral dress, and over there the man and his daughter. What was left of them. He knew that he had timed it as well as he could, had allowed two German lorries onto the bridge before blowing it. Now he noticed among the civilian corpses a number in field grey, and he felt the better for it. But the feeling did not last for long, for amid the patter of the falling fragments, another sound arose – a low moaning, punctuated with terrible screams. He shook his head, and Valentine looked at him with pitying eyes.

Lamb spoke. ‘Well done, Corporal. That'll slow up the Boche.'

The man looked at him and Lamb noticed, not for the first time, the irritating smirk that seemed to lie permanently around his thin lips and his curiously educated accent. ‘Please don't thank me, sir. Not for doing that.'

‘I had no choice, man. You saw. The enemy . . .'

‘I saw, sir. And I promise that I shan't tell anyone what it was that you just did. Why should I want to do that, sir? They might get the wrong end of the stick.'

Lamb stared at him and was just about to challenge his remark when a voice from his rear shattered the opportunity.

‘Sir, look. Over there. In the trees.'

Lamb raised his field glasses and looked through them across the river towards a spinney of poplars by the edge of the road. At first he thought the shapes he could see were more refugees, but then he saw the flash of steel and knew at once that they were the enemy.

‘All right, here they come. No one fire until I give the command. Parry, set up the mortar over there. Zero in on the centre of the bridge. They might try and use the wreckage to get across.'

He had hardly spoken when there was a burst of machine-gun fire from the opposite bank. ‘Take cover.'

Lamb pulled his revolver from the canvas holster on the left side of his webbing belt and yelled, ‘Sarnt Bennett, Corporal Briggs. Get that Bren working. Thompson, you and Massey get on the anti-tank rifle. Save it till you see any tanks. The rest of you save your ammunition until you see a good target, then let them have it.'

He felt anger now. Anger at what he had just been compelled to do, an act that sickened him and went so much against everything that he believed in. Killing helpless civilians. And here now was the chance to assuage that anger, against the men who had caused it. He heard the Bren rattle into action and saw the flash from the muzzles of the German rifles as the enemy responded. There were shouts from across the river.

Lamb yelled at the section closest to him, ‘Perkins, Dawlish, all of you, keep your heads down and your guns trained on the road. See the first flash of field grey that comes into range and you open fire. Smart, get on the blower back to Company HQ. Tell them we have contact. Enemy tanks, estimate zero six, infantry four zero plus.'

As his batman spoke into the handset of the .38 radio, the enemy machine gun crackled again and turned over a few sods of earth on the lower part of the riverbank. Smart turned to him. ‘Can't raise them, sir. Line's dead. Not a thing.'

‘Keep trying.'

Lamb opened the chamber of his revolver, checked that it was full and snapped it shut again. His fellow officers agreed: the Enfield pistol was a sad excuse for a sidearm. They said the enemy had automatics that never jammed and fired like a dream. He couldn't wait to get his hands on one. But that of course would mean either taking one off a dead German or winning one himself in hand-to-hand fighting. Perhaps, he thought, in the next few minutes he would have a chance to do both. But his keenness quickly turned to disappointment.

Bennett was at his side. ‘Pull back, sir. CO's orders. We're to pull out.'

Lamb shook his head. ‘What?'

‘We're pulling out, sir. From the CO.'

Lamb shook his head again and laughed. ‘No, Sarnt Bennett. This is no time for one of your pranks. There's hundreds of Jerries over there and it's our business to deal with them and see they don't get across this damned river.'

‘Sorry, sir. It came direct from Battalion, it did. Our orders are to withdraw. Clear as day, sir.'

Lamb frowned. This was no joke. ‘You must have got it wrong. We can't be pulling out, Bennett. We've just blown the bloody bridge and we've got the enemy pinned down. And what about those poor bloody civilians down there dead in the river? I'm telling you, man, the Jerries won't get across here for hours, and then we'll be waiting for them. You can see that. What we need is reinforcements.' He turned to his batman. The poor man was still trying to contact company HQ. ‘Anything?'

Smart shook his head.

‘Right. Is that runner still here, Sarnt?

‘Sir.'

‘Then get him to take this message back to Company HQ: “Need reinforcements soonest. Your order not understood. Please send help. Enemy now in range preparing to engage.”'

The sergeant pursed his lips and nodded. ‘I'm sorry, Mister Lamb, sir. That runner is straight from the CO. It was quite clear, sir. Pull everyone out, he said. Everyone, sir. And that means us. I'm sorry.'

Lamb stared at him. This was madness. First they tell him to stand his ground and to blow a bridge, killing dozens of innocent people, and then they tell him to abandon the position.

Lamb shook his head. ‘I'm sorry too, Sarnt.' He paused. ‘I'm sorry because I just can't do that. Not until we've killed a few more of them, at least. Then perhaps we'll come along. Eh? Why don't you tell the Major that we're . . . I know. Just tell a runner to tell him we're caught up in a firefight and trying to disengage. Tell him that we'll be with him presently. Just as soon as we can retire without the risk of taking any further casualties.' He was damned if he was going to pull back now.

The sergeant looked at him and smiled. He had somehow sensed that Lamb wasn't going to take an order like that without some sort of protest. ‘Very good, sir. If that's your orders, that's your orders.'

‘That is an order, Sarnt Bennett. Send one of the men back to the CO. Thank you.'

The sergeant turned and was about to go when he looked back. ‘There was one other thing, sir. Runner said that he'd heard on the wireless at Battalion HQ that Mr Chamberlain's been given the heave-ho. Winston Churchill's the new PM. Fat lot of good that'll do us though, sir, eh?'

‘Thank you, Sarnt.'

Lamb smiled and, as his sergeant turned and trotted off at a running crouch to send word to Battalion HQ that they would not be obeying the new orders, he turned back to his front. It was strangely quiet again now, save for the occasional groan from one of the wounded. So Chamberlain, the great appeaser, had finally gone and Churchill was in. He wondered what his father would have made of that. He had never had a good word to say for Churchill after the Dardanelles. Lamb frowned. The man was damned old, too. Didn't the country need new blood now? A young man at the helm? The news did nothing to raise his downcast spirits. He peered across the river and began to make out small grey-clad figures darting through the trees. They were moving up in some strength. Within minutes he knew they would be dug in. Focusing his field glasses, he froze as he noticed that at the edge of the road across the bridge, where the charge had blown a hole, a party of men were climbing down into a section that remained above the river bed, passing down planking and metal sheets. A bridging party.

Without thinking he shouted to Valentine, who was in the neighbouring trench, ‘Corporal, how many grenades do you have in that hole?'

‘Dunno, sir. I've still got mine, and White has the same. Then there's Perkins and Butterworth.'

‘Right. Get them all over here to me and yell across to Mays to do the same with his lot. Double quick. And bring a sandbag.'

‘A sandbag, sir?'

‘You heard me. A sandbag. Empty.'

He was staring intently now as the Germans began to dig themselves into holes around the places where the debris of the bridge had already raked the earth into shallow holes.

Mays came running up to the trench, clutching four hand grenades against his tunic. ‘Here you are, sir. Corporal Valentine's on his way.'

‘Thank you, Mays. Get back and keep up a steady sniping fire against those men. Tell Sarnt Bennett to get the Bren firing at them too. Long range, I know. Just try to stop them digging in.'

Mays went off and Lamb watched him go. He admired his lanky stride and remembered a cricket match back at the depot at Tonbridge, officers versus men, when Mays's spin bowling had caught them all on the wrong foot. He was a mild-mannered man, a farmer's boy who wrote letters home at any lull in the fighting, and, though he would never admit to it, had been going out with the same childhood sweetheart since he was 16. Lamb hoped that he would make it through to see her again when this lot was over.

As he was thinking, Valentine slipped into the slit trench next to Smart and Lamb. ‘Grenades, sir. As many as we could find.'

‘How many?'

‘I've got four, sir. And a sandbag.' He lingered over the word as if to emphasise its apparent absurdity, and held out the limp piece of canvas sacking.

‘Right, with Smart's that makes nine. Thank you, Corporal. Pile them on the floor. There.'

Valentine placed the grenades gingerly in a roughly geometric pile with those that Mays had left and stood back to admire his handiwork.

Lamb, who had been staring at the Germans through his field glasses, now saw him. ‘Right. Now get back and help Mays to keep those Jerries' heads down.'

He opened the sack and gave it to Smart. ‘Right. You hold it, I'll fill.'

Taking the grenades from the pile on the floor of the trench one by one, he placed each of them carefully inside the sandbag, conscious all the while that time was running out. ‘Right, Smart. Well, man, aren't you going to wish me luck?'

Smart stared at him but before his batman could say anything Lamb was up and over the top of the trench and running hell for leather down the grassy embankment towards the German lines, the heavy bag of grenades clutched tightly to his chest.

He slipped and slithered down the muddy slope, praying with every step that he wouldn't fall and hearing his heart pounding in his chest, all the while keeping his eye on the Germans ahead of him. Over to his right he was aware of a flash and then the deep rattle of a machine gun. The earth around his running feet began to fly in all directions as bullets tore into the grass and mud. From his rear he heard the familiar answering cough of the Bren, and the enemy machine gun stopped. But then as soon as their own had paused to reload and change barrels, the Germans opened up again.

As he ran further to the left, away from the gun, he was aware that it must now be traversing, following him, but always just a fraction behind. He had reached the river now and almost stopped as he felt a bullet whistle past his face. Rifle fire now, from the opposite parapet. The Bren was in action again and he could hear the intermittent crack of the bolt-action Enfield rifles. Bennett, Mays and Valentine were doing well. Lamb kept on running, jumped the headless bodies of two civilians and saw dead ahead of him the helmeted heads and field-grey torsos of the Germans digging into the earth to the right of the bridge, preparing a fire pit for mortars and machine guns. That was his first objective, and then he'd find the bridging unit. Suddenly nothing else mattered but to reach them and to do what he had set out to do. Any other thoughts of home were now gone from his mind. Nothing there now but the urge to do whatever it took to make sure that the men digging those holes and spanning that chasm would never finish their job.