Not Flag or Fail (17 page)

“Shall we use the daggers it will be quieter?” Ronny said.

“Don’t be stupid, there’s no need to kill them; they’re not a threat.” I replied, shocked by Ronny’s willingness to do it.

“No not now but they were, they were probably going to kill Me.” he answered almost petulantly.

“Let’s just tie them up for now.” I said and told him to get one of them to climb up onto one of the shelves. When this had been done I used the small cutters on the clasp knife to cut off a length of wire and used it to tie the German’s hands behind his back. I had nothing against him personally but felt I had to make sure, so I tightened the wire pretty tightly which caused him to grunt with pain. This done I did the same with his feet and then repeated the whole thing with his mate on the other shelf.

“If we’re not going to kill them don’t you think we should at least gag them?”

Ronny asked, but I told him that I felt that if we closed the door, most sound would be deadened and there was little chance of them being heard.

“Silent as the grave, you could say!” Ronny quipped.

With the soldiers facing the outside of the tomb and knowing that he couldn’t be seen, he reached down behind the coffin and pulled out the despatch case.

“Oh well at least the Holy Grail is still here anyway, shall we go?”

I persuaded him that we should stop long enough for a smoke which we did, each of us at the same time helping our prisoners to a last smoke before we left them to their fate.

Outside the tomb, we pulled the door to, I used the last of the wire to retie the gate to the railings and then we were on our way again.

Cloud had covered the moon and it had become much darker. We set off down the path towards the canal as quickly as we dared, the encounter had slowed us down but we were still the right side of four o’clock so with luck we would have at least ninety minutes of relative darkness before we had to seek cover. I calculated that if we doubled up through the lanes we could maybe do six or eight miles, which would take us nearly halfway to Dunkirk.

Nearing the end of the lane we could see light shining from the old stables, it was reflecting on a motorcycle parked on its stand next to a Kubel wagon, it looked as though the Germans had fixed the place up and were using it as some kind of guard post. I could understand their reasoning; it was close to a crossroads with the added attraction of a good view of the canal.

Fortunately this time we were not intending to use the canal for our escape. At the bottom of the path we cautiously turned right towards the dead end.

We were lucky, we had guessed right, although a dead end for vehicles, the road tapered off into a small path that ran along the bottom of the canal embankment. I turned to Ronny and asked him if he was ready for a trot, he didn’t need asking twice, for over an hour with pauses for a breather every ten minutes, we jogged along through the darkness.

After about an hour, to our left, we saw a little bridge that carried the canal across the lane in front of us. We stopped, looked cautiously around everything seemed quiet enough, so we got out a torch and the map and found the bridge. I was really pleased, we had done just over six miles since we had started off, all that PT. at Aldershot must have paid off, and we weren’t even out of breath.

Ronny studied the map for a while longer before eventually telling me that he thought that the embankment carried on for about another ten miles. He thought it would be just over another eight miles to the spot where we had parted company with Captain Forbes-Hamilton.

We crossed the lane and followed the path again on the other side, trotting along silently in the darkness. I was thankful that Fishy wasn’t with us I imagined him waking up everyone for miles around, as he jogged along, moaning about being forced to run.

In the trees around us birds started their first tentative calls and as if spurred on by this warning of the impending dawn, without any discussion we gave up the ten minute stops and just kept on running.

After about another twenty five minutes or so we realised that it was becoming just too light to carry on so we slowed down and started to look for somewhere to hide up. The other side of the path to the embankment had changed from field to thicket woods and back again several times during our journey, now it appeared to be woodland, skirted by wire fencing.

“Come on.” said Ronny and climbed over. I followed him and we found a path that led into the wood, blackbirds shouted out their disapproval of us as we passed below them, eventually they must have tired of it and fell silent.

It was much darker in the wood so Ronny used his torch to enable him to use his map and compass and determine our position. Once he had checked his reckoning, he showed me where we were. So far so good, cutting out the breaks had meant we had added another four miles to the total. The map showed a small farm on the other side of the wood, we had a whispered conversation, whether to risk trying French hospitality, or staying put in the wood, we decided on staying in the wood.

We found an area with a lot of undergrowth and looked around for a possible hiding place. Between two elm trees I noticed a lot of smaller bushes; a quick look revealed that most of the growth was towards the top and that we could easily get underneath it and get out of sight.

Inside the hide we spread out our ground sheets and got comfortable. I pulled out one of the tins of food and broke in half one of the bars. I took a drink of water and whispered to Ronny that it must be breakfast time. We both ate the high energy food which tasted of peanuts with a slightly minty flavour and we had a piece of chocolate for desert. Throwing caution to the wind we finished off with a cigarette and then tossed up for who would sleep first, I won but we agreed that as we were both dead tired the first sleep for each of us would only be an hour, just to take the edge off the tiredness.

As the day wore on we took longer periods of sleep until around midday Ronny woke from his sleep and we agreed we were well enough rested. Lunch was the same as breakfast but we did without the cigarette knowing that either the smell or the smoke could give us away if anyone was looking.

Other than as a secure area to sleep in, our hideout had little to recommend it and neither of us relished the thought of spending another nine or ten hours in there, but we knew it would be foolish to venture out in the daylight.

Ronny was beginning to annoy me, constantly checking the map as if he expected to find a secret passage that would take us to the coast.

“Why do you keep looking at that?” I whispered, hinting that he was getting on my nerves. He replied that he was trying to memorise it so that we wouldn’t have to use it when we were on the move. I felt a little embarrassed that I hadn’t realised, that as with most things he did, there would be a good reason.

“Good idea.” I whispered as a sort of apology and then fell silent again.

I wanted a fag and a cup of tea, I was stiff from inactivity, I had nothing to read and I couldn’t even whistle, worse still, it was only just after two p.m.

“Only another seven hours of this,” I whispered “then we can go for a walk.” We played I-Spy for a while, which was good because it made us keep looking around, eventually the game petered out as it was not much fun when all you could do was whisper and most words began with T for tree.

At a clearing about thirty yards away a vixen appeared with three cubs, we were entertained, watching the cubs’ play-fighting whilst she went to look for food.

She came back shortly with a small rodent, probably a vole, though it was difficult to be sure from this distance. Whatever it was, it was still alive and she left the cubs playing with it whilst she went off again. The next time she came back she was carrying a small rabbit, which she put down whilst she smelt the air around her.

Whether she had got our scent or something else we could not be sure but she picked up the rabbit carcase and went back into the undergrowth followed by the cubs. One carrying the vole, which was no longer moving and the other two falling over each other as they continued to play.

Our own senses were now heightened, we sat there silently, looking and listening, both of us holding our Thompson’s. After a few minutes we caught the faint sound of voices, as we listened we decided they were getting closer, I whispered to Ronny not to use the guns unless we had to.

A couple of minutes later the owners of the voices came into view, two German soldiers were strolling down one of the paths that led through the wood. Their rifles were slung over their shoulders and they were talking quite loudly, as they came closer we saw that they were only about seventeen or eighteen years old, one of them, tall and thin, wore spectacles and had a lot of acne, it was doubtful if he had ever shaved. The other considerably shorter and considerably fatter, had a ruddy complexion and was chewing on some kind of chocolate that he held by the wrapper, while he made a point of kicking up as many dead leaves as he could as he walked along. They stopped almost in front of our hide, standing on the path about five yards away and spoke rapidly to each other. The fat one finished off his chocolate, threw the wrapper down and leaning on a nearby tree began to urinate.

From some distance away we heard a shout, to which the thin one shouted back, “Nein Herr Feldwebel “And another shout from the distance got a second reply of “Yavol Herr Feldwebel.”

After Fatty had finished his pee and buttoned his fly they both unshouldered their rifles and walked off towards where the shouts had come from.

When they had disappeared from view Ronny whispered to me.

“You’ll never believe this, but I think that was a search party.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Because as near as I could get to understanding it, between mouthfuls of chocolate, the fat one was saying that the Sergeant must be mad if he thought anyone would be stupid enough to hide in a wood when there were all these farms around, where you could get food. Then his mate said something like, as far as he was concerned he would rather have a stroll through the woods any day than spend the afternoon washing dishes. Somehow you know I don’t think Hans and Fritz were what you would call crack troops.” Ronny finished off with a smile.

“And let’s be thankful for that eh?” I replied.

If it was a search party, had they found our two Germans in the tomb I wondered, or was it perhaps them they were looking for? Either way we could do no more than stay where we were, which is exactly what we did until nine o’clock that night.

The wood was dark again now; and we’d had as much inactivity as we could take.

We packed up what kit we had and I decided to put the papers into the inside map pocket of my jacket and leave the despatch case hidden in the bushes. We came out of the hide, stiff and aching; cautiously we made our way through the wood, back over the fence and onto the path at the bottom of the embankment. It was a relief to trot along in the darkness, the jogging motion loosening some of the stiffness out of our bodies. Eight miles, Ronny had calculated the distance to where we had left the canal before, the path was easy to follow and was in darkness thanks to the shadow cast by the embankment so we could make good progress.

I worked out roughly that if we kept up this pace we could be there in about an hour and a half, we could be back at the cave if all went well before Four a.m. which meant we could make our escape tonight and not have to wait until tomorrow.

Ahead of us we could make out another bridge or tunnel where the path was intersected by a road we slowed to a walk and approached cautiously but although early the night was quiet and we were not expecting any delay. To the right the road was clear, the bridge on the left was in darkness but there were no signs of headlights from either direction.

We started across the road, hurrying to seek refuge in the shadows on the other side.

“Halt” screamed a voice and at the same time the inside of the bridge burst into brightness as a searchlight illuminated our surroundings and from several directions we heard the sounds of weapons being cocked ready to fire.

A German officer emerged into the glare of the light brandishing a pistol, his English almost perfect as he spoke

“Good evening gentlemen are you lost? I think most of your countrymen have already gone home”

As my eyes adjusted to the glare from the searchlight I could see that there were several other men pointing machine pistols in our direction, I quickly realised that resistance would be futile.

“I must insist that you place your weapons on the ground, let me assure you that if you give me trouble my men will shoot you”.

Looking at each other with a sense of hopelessness showing on our faces Ronny and I did as he asked placing down the Thompson’s and our pistols neither of which we had yet fired. A sergeant came up to us and removed our daggers, clasp knives and torches but did not take the coloured lenses. Then he spoke to his men in German and we were shoved after him as he walked off towards the bridge. Someone turned off the searchlight and as our eyes adjusted to the darkness under the bridge we could see hidden from view an Opel truck and a Kubel wagon.

Without ceremony Ronny and I were shoved into the back of the truck with the eight men who had formed the patrol. The officer accompanied by the sergeant and our weapons were in the Kubel wagon leading the way to wherever we were going.

Fifteen minutes later we pulled up outside a single story stone building that looked as though prior to being requisitioned by the Germans it may have been a local schoolhouse, there were several other German trucks and motorcycles parked outside and a row of six large dark tents had been erected on what I guessed would once have been the playground.

We were taken into the schoolhouse and told to sit down on the small wooden forms that lined the walls of a corridor, two soldiers were left to guard us standing opposite us and holding rifles.

A door opened and the sergeant we had seen earlier came out into the corridor and motioned for us to follow him into the room.