Darkest Hour (16 page)

'Peploe,' said Barclay, flicking away a fly from his
face. 'All dug in?'

'Yes, sir. Sir, it's about the Hurricane that's just
come down.'

'What Hurricane?'

'The dogfight, sir.' Peploe looked at Barclay as
though he was mad. 'The one that's just been going on above us.'

Barclay faced Wrightson. 'Oh, yes, we heard that.
Machine-guns going off and so on. I hadn't realized a plane had come down.'

'At least two, sir,' said Tanner.

Barclay glanced at him briefly -
you again
- then returned to Peploe. 'What about them?'

'A pilot's landed on the far bank, sir,' continued
Peploe, 'opposite the French. We're not sure if he's alive, but the thing is,
sir, I think he may be your brother-in- law.'

'What?' Barclay took his pipe from his mouth. 'What
are you talking about? It can't be Charlie.'

'His plane had the same squadron markings, sir. LO-Z.
That was Squadron Leader Lyell's personal aircraft.'

'But how on earth could you tell?'

'Sergeant Tanner was watching through binoculars, sir.
He saw the markings on the fuselage.'

CSM Blackstone appeared in the doorway at the back of
the house. 'What's going on, sir?' he asked.

'It seems my brother-in-law's been shot down and is
lying on the far bank. Tanner saw the code on the Hurricane as it came down.'

Blackstone snorted. 'With respect, sir, I find it hard
to believe that Sergeant Tanner could possibly see that from down here. Sure
you're not just trying to get back into the OC's good books, Tanner?'

'I know what I saw,' said Tanner.

'Sir, who the pilot is - surely that's irrelevant,'
said Peploe. 'I just wanted to let you know that it might be Squadron Leader
Lyell and to ask your permission to send a team of men to fetch him. Since he's
opposite the

French I thought I should clear it with you and also
ask their permission. There's a bridge just round the bend in the river,' he
added. 'We could cross there - or even go over the one at Oisquercq.'

Barclay nodded. 'Yes,' he said. 'All right. You speak
Frog, don't you, Peploe?'

'A little, sir.'

'Good. Then let's get the men ready and speak to the
French commander at the farm.' He turned to Tanner. 'But I think it only fair
that once we've cleared it with the Frogs you go and get Squadron Leader Lyell,
Tanner. A chance to make amends for your indiscretion back at Manston, eh?'

Tanner swallowed hard, his face rigid with the effort
of controlling his irritation. 'Yes, sir,' he said. 'I'd be glad to.' He meant
that, at least: it would give him an opportunity to gather his bearings. It was
hard when you were travelling along roads with high hedgerows, through villages
and woods, to get much of a picture of the land around. With the tree-lined
fields and the woods behind them, Tanner had only a vague sense of how this
part of the Belgian countryside fitted together. The slope on which Lyell had
landed would, he guessed, give him a clear and far-reaching view back towards
their own lines.

'How many men do you think you need?' Peploe asked.

'Three should do it, sir. Two to carry him, if
necessary, and two to watch our backs.'

'All right. Who do you want to take?'

'Sykes, sir, with Hepworth and Ellis.'

'Why don't you take Lance-Corporal Smailes as well?'

'He's done the medic's course?'

'Yes.'

'Good thinking, sir. I don't think there's time to go
to Battalion for stretcher-bearers.'

'Just get on with it, Sergeant,' snapped Barclay. 'The
poor man could be dying in agony for all we know. I want to mount this rescue
operation right away.'

When they reached the farm, they were stopped by North
African troops who stared at them sullenly, with pointed rifles, until a young
sous-lieutenant
came over and ordered his men to lower
their weapons. Apologizing, he led them to Battalion Headquarters at the main
farmhouse.

'Un
moment
,' he said, leaving them to wait in the yard while he
hurried inside.

Barclay clicked his tongue against his teeth. 'For
God's sake,' he muttered.

Tanner looked around. Stacks of ammunition boxes stood
near a shed across the yard; a staff car and a motorcycle were parked to one
side. Coloured troops, in strange dark red woollen caps, double-breasted tunics
and knee-high strapped leggings, walked past. The French mountain troops in
Norway had had superb uniforms - far better than anything the British had been
given - but Tanner was surprised by how old-fashioned these colonial troops
were, as though they were from an earlier era. He moved back a few paces and
saw a larger yard at the rear of the building where a number of vehicles -
trucks, armoured cars and infantry tractors - were lined up. He was watching
men loading boxes onto the back of a truck when his attention was caught by two
men speaking animatedly, white Frenchmen, officers, wearing large khaki berets.

'What are they saying, Peploe?' said Barclay, softly.

Peploe listened, 'They're talking about the bridge,
sir, that and the lock system by it. They must be sappers. They've laid charges
but one thinks they haven't put down enough explosive.'

One of the officers, older than the other, turned now
and saw them, shook his head in frustration and hurried off.

'They're expecting Jerry, then,' said Barclay. 'What
do they know that we don't?'

For God's sake
, thought Tanner. Couldn't the OC see the signs?
Captain Barclay was clearly a bigger fool than he'd thought.

The
sous-lieutenant
now reappeared
with a tall, good- looking officer in his late thirties. 'Commandant du Parc,'
explained the lieutenant.

'I am second-in-command here,' he said, in heavily
accented English. 'How can I be of assistance?'

Peploe explained in French. Du Parc replied.

'They were about to send a party out themselves,'
Peploe translated to Barclay, then smiled, 'but they're only too happy to let
us take on the task.'

'But your men must be quick. Captain,' said Commandant
du Parc in English once more.
'Les Bockes'
he added, 'they
are coming soon, I think.'

'Does he have intelligence of this?' Barclay asked
Peploe.

Du Parc laughed as Peploe repeated the question. 'No,
but the sky, the aeroplanes that come over to have a little spy on
us ...
la retraite
of our men across
le canal.
Of course
les Boches
will be coming.' He chuckled again. 'It is obvious.'

Course it bloody is,
thought Tanner, and saw Barclay redden.

Commandant du Parc spoke to Peploe again.

'He says we should cross the bridge over the lock,'
said Peploe, 'just round the bend in the river. His men can give us covering
fire should it be necessary - as can our chaps, sir. He'll also send us an
escort to the bridge.'

'Merci, Commandant
,'
said Barclay.

Du Parc bowed slightly, then spoke to the
sous-lieu- tenant,
who hurried back into the farmhouse.
A moment later he reappeared with another junior subaltern, a thin- faced lad
with a poorly grown moustache. Du Parc spoke to him, then the young French
officer turned to Tanner.

'Shall we go?'

'Bonnechance'
said du Parc.

Barclay and Peploe saluted. Barclay looked at his
watch. 'Right, Sergeant,' he said to Tanner. 'Get Squadron Leader Lyell back
here and be sharp about it.'

Just then an aircraft roared over the building from
behind them, making them all flinch and duck. It was so low that they could see
the black crosses on the pale blue underside of the wings. Men shouted and a
machine-gun began to chatter but the twin-engine Junkers 88 climbed lazily over
the hill in front of them, banked along the ridge then disappeared.

'Merde
,' muttered du Parc.

'Why didn't it drop any bombs?' asked Barclay.

Tanner's patience snapped. 'It's a reconnaissance
plane, sir. They've been coming over all morning.' He turned his back on the
captain and strode off. 'Come on, boys,' he said. 'Iggery. We need to get a
move on.'

As they stepped out of the yard he looked up at the
wooded ridge above them. It was still and peaceful, quiet in the warm
early-summer afternoon. For how much longer?

They said little as they hurried towards the bridge.
It was further than Tanner had appreciated - three-quarters of a mile, at least
- and he wished he had asked whether there was a boat at the farm they could
use. He also felt a stab of irritation that the Frenchmen had not offered one
of their many vehicles to take them the short drive. Christ, they had enough of
them. But they were twitchy, that had been clear. The Germans were pushing them
back, and retreat sapped confidence - he'd seen it in Norway - like rot setting
in. Reversing it was damnably hard.

Commandant du Parc had been expecting the Germans to
attack at any moment and Tanner suspected the Frenchman was right. He hoped
they still had time to fetch Lyell safely but it was best to be prepared so he
had insisted that each of his small rescue party bring plenty of ammunition.
Every man was now carrying four Bren magazines as well as at least half a dozen
clips of rifle bullets. He had also shoved half a dozen Mills bombs into their
haversacks and respirator bags.

'You don't need a sodding gas-mask, Billy,' he had
told Ellis. 'Get rid of it and stuff the bag full of ammo instead.'

'I thought this was supposed to be a cinch,' Hepworth
had grumbled.

'And so it will be, Hep,' Tanner had replied, patting
him on the back. 'Just in case, hey?'

He now noticed that Hepworth, carrying the Bren on his
shoulder, was lagging. He trotted back to him, took the machine-gun and slung
it over his own shoulder instead. 'Come on, Hep. Stop being such a bloody old
woman.'

'I'm still knackered from a five-day march.'

'Did he grumble this much in Norway, Sarge?' asked
Ellis.

'He was worse,' said Sykes, whose eyes were on the
field where the pilot lay. 'The squadron leader's still up there, Sarge,' he
added, as Tanner came alongside him. 'Look.'

Tanner used his spare hand to raise his binoculars.
'He's still lying down, too,' he said, pausing briefly to steady his view.
'Bastard better not be dead.'

At the bridge the French lieutenant ushered them past
the sentries, then left them. The lock was deep, perhaps as much as forty feet.
Under the bridge there was a kind of gallery from which observers could watch
traffic approaching or moving in and out of the lock.

'This'll take some blowing,' said Sykes. 'It's a big
old piece of engineering.'

'There's certainly nothing like this on the Rochdale
canal,' said Hepworth, unable to resist peering over the rails to the viewing
gallery and the water below.

'Move your arse, Hep,' said Tanner.

The five men hurried across. Just beyond the canal lay
the original tributary of the river Senne - clearly the Belgian navvies had
been unable to widen the river into the shipping canal it had become along the
stretch towards Brussels.

They nipped down the bank to a track that ran beside
the large turning circle in the canal below the lock, then hurried along it by
the water's edge. Tanner led them up the bank and through a meadow to another
track beside some farm-workers' cottages. As they reached a thick hedge on the
far side, he paused.

'It's the field above, I'm sure,' said Sykes, reading
his thoughts.

'Yes - but we need to find a way through this. It's
denser than it looked from the other side.' To Tanner's right, the hedge seemed
to thicken into a copse, so he led them to the left and, sure enough, at the
field's corner found an open gate and a track that led up the side of the
meadow. Feeling the sun behind him, he looked through his binoculars again and
saw the prostrate pilot a couple of hundred yards ahead, the blue of his
uniform trousers just visible through the grass.

'There he is,' he said.

'Is he moving?' asked Sykes.

'No. Come on. Let's go and get him, dead or alive.'

The meadow was already thick with wild flowers - a wet
April and a warm first two weeks of May had seen to that. The grass was two
foot high in places, Tanner noted, and caught at their feet, making it hard to
walk through. It was no wonder they could hardly see Lyell now.

The men were no more than twenty yards from the
immobile body when he moved suddenly, pushing himself up on his elbows.