The Black Jackals (16 page)

An educated accent came from the blackness. Valentine. ‘Have we stopped, sir? Pity. I was starting to enjoy that. Just like the dodgems at Margate.'

Bennett growled at him, ‘Put a sock in it, Corporal, or I'll have your stripes. There's a Jerry truck up there and we don't know if we've been spotted, so we're leaving the bus here. Right. Everybody out.'

The men clambered over the tailgate and down onto the cobbled road, making as little noise as possible. As Lamb was moving towards the wall of the house something caught his eye and he cursed. Where their truck had collided with the brick wall, the rear axle had been bent so badly that the near-side tyres stood at an angle. The damage was beyond hope. He called to Bennett and pointed: ‘That's it then. Truck's US.'

Bennett gawped. ‘God, I'm sorry, sir.'

‘Not your fault, Sarnt. You did your best.' He went to the cab and looked in. ‘Madeleine. I'm afraid the truck's kaput. You'll have to come with us.'

Now they would see if his judgement had been right to allow her to come. She would have to keep up and perhaps even go with them into combat. She climbed down from the cab and followed Lamb and the others to the shelter of the wall. They were in single file now, with Mays and two others at the front, then Lamb, Smart and Bennett, with Valentine and the odds and sods bringing up the rear. Slowly, with rifles at the ready, they walked to the end of the house. Mays went forward and, crouching on one knee, peered gingerly around the corner.

The German truck was still there. A soldier in a forage cap was leaning against the side of the truck, looking quite relaxed. The driver, presumably. As Lamb watched, another man, with short, wiry fair hair, appeared from the doorway of a small house next to the fuel station. His tunic was half unbuttoned and he had a flagon in his hand. He laughed and shouted to the man by the truck, and although Lamb could not make out his words it was clear that he wanted him to join him. Mays whispered: ‘Christ, sir, he's bloody drunk.'

It was true enough. The man in the doorway looked four parts gone. Clearly whatever men were in the truck had temporarily lost their unit but had found a store of local wine or cider. Again the man in the door shouted, and this time the driver shrugged and walked across to join him. Both of them went into the house. Lamb ran back to Bennett.

‘Jerry's in there right enough. Probably no more than a platoon of them, though. And by the look of them they've had a skinful of local plonk. We're going in, fast, while they're still on the sauce. We'll take both flanks at once. You and Valentine's mob take the left flank, I'll take the right with Mays. Smart can stay here with the girl.'

Bennett nodded and silently motioned to the men to his rear to follow him. Then at a running crouch he crossed the road and they followed. Lamb looked behind him, signalled to Smart to stay where he was with Madeleine, and waved his hand forward for the others, then he rejoined Mays on point and, leading from the front, pistol in hand, moved fast across the road towards the truck.

From inside the house they could now hear the sound of voices and music. A crackling gramophone was pumping out some jolly French dance-band song. Someone shouted louder. Others laughed. Lamb and his men had reached the door now, and as he looked round to Mays, ready to attack, another voice spoke from their front, in German, getting closer, and then the driver walked out of the building, laughing and looking back the way he had come, with a parting word. It was the last thing he ever said. As he turned and glimpsed the khaki figures, Mays rose and clamped a hand over his mouth, at the same time sliding his bayonet neatly into the German's side. Then, as the man fell in agony, he twisted his neck for good measure. Lamb heard the crack. He looked at Mays and nodded, surprised at his efficiency. He knew the corporal had a shady history, and some said he had once been part of a Brighton razor gang. Perhaps they were right. They left the corpse, and on a count of three Lamb and Tapley hurled a grenade into the house. At the same moment Bennett's men did the same at the rear door. They turned away for a second and heard the terror in the voices of the drunken Germans as they saw the grenades fly in. Then it was too late. The explosions pushed a pocket of dust and debris out of the doorway and into the yard, instantly followed by screams. Lamb yelled ‘Now', and they burst in through the door, firing as they went, into the general darkness and the dust. Bennett, he knew, would hold back so as not to get caught in their fire.

Their surprise was complete. Coughing, they continued firing until Lamb yelled for them to stop. The interior of the house was a shambles. What the drunken Germans had not wrecked in their search for booze, Lamb and his men had done with their grenades. Shattered possessions lay everywhere in what had been the house's dining room. On a bullet- and shrapnel-scarred table in the centre of the room four German soldiers lay slumped in death. One was missing half of his head; another, a sergeant, had a hole clean through his forehead, although the exit wound had taken away the back of his skull. Another two lay sprawled across the terracotta-tiled floor in pools of their own spreading blood. Their booty, a dozen bottles of wine and several flagons of cider, lay shattered around the room, the red wine mixing with the blood on the floor. Gradually the dust settled and Bennett and his men came in from the back of the house.

Lamb saw him. ‘Any more?'

‘Two dead in the kitchen out the back, sir. Grenades got 'em.'

‘Good. That must be the lot. Tell the men to watch out, Sarnt. We can't be sure there aren't more further into the village.'

Lamb took a second look at the corpses and was struck by a thought. That truck out there was now theirs for the taking. And if the driver was worth his salt and a good, efficient German, it would also be full of petrol. If not, there was more in the pump waiting to be taken. Corporal Mays and his men moved through the house and into the yard. Lamb gazed around the room. Although the grenades had torn into some of the corpses, some of the uniforms had hardly been touched at all.

He turned to Bennett. ‘Help me get these Jerries out of their clothes. Just three of them will do.'

Bennett stared at him. ‘Do, sir?'

‘Camouflage, Sarnt. We're taking that lorry out there and we're going south, and we can't very well do that dressed in this, can we?' He tugged at his sleeve. ‘You, me and one of the others. They look about the right size.'

Bennett started to help him unbutton the uniforms of the sergeant and another of the men at the table. It took a matter of minutes.

Lamb called across the room, ‘Stubbs, take the clothes off that man there and put them on.'

‘Sir?'

Bennett spoke. ‘Just do it, Stubbs.'

Lamb unbuttoned his own tunic and trousers and within minutes was pulling on the German NCO's uniform. It was reasonably neat, with a single shrapnel rip on the arm and unexpectedly crisp and hard after his soft British army battle-dress, which he had had made at some expense. The grey trousers were narrow, allowing them to be tucked neatly into the jackboots; the tailored tunic fastened, he felt like he was wearing a corset. He did up the collar and placed the hat on his head, just as Bennett and Stubbs finished adjusting their own dress. Lamb picked up the leather belt with its eagle badge and the inscription ‘Gott Mit Uns'. As he did so he took a moment to survey the piece of equipment which had caught his eye when he had first seen the dead sergeant: a holster, and within it an .08 Luger pistol. He clipped it around his waist, undid the button and slid the Luger from the pouch. It fitted nicely into the palm of his hand, and instinctively Lamb opened the breech in the handle and checked the ammo. Seven bullets.

Bennett looked at him, grinning. ‘You look a proper sight, Mister Lamb, sir, if you don't mind my saying so. A really proper nasty Nazzie.'

Lamb laughed and moved his shoulders around in the unfamiliar jacket. ‘Thank you, Sarnt. Just doesn't feel right. Not at all.'

He straightened his cap, catching sight of it in the cracked mirror above the fireplace, until its peak was over his eyes. His temporary demotion in rank amused him. He handed his own uniform to Smart with instructions to stow it in his pack. ‘Come on then. Let's show the others before they take us for the real thing and shoot us.'

With Bennett's men following on they walked through the ruined dining room and into the yard, where the remainder of his small command did a double take.

Tapley sniggered. ‘Blimey, sir. You don't 'alf make a good Jerry.'

Bennett growled: ‘That's enough now.'

‘But, Sarge, you can see as well as me . . .'

‘You heard me. As you were.'

Lamb spoke. ‘Right. Here's what we're going to do. We're taking that truck there and we're going to drive hell for leather towards the Somme. You lot are going to sit in the back and keep very, very quiet and look after our French guest, and Sarnt Bennett, Stubbs and I will sit in the cab and pretend to be Germans. Just pray that we don't get caught. Corporal Mays, see what's in the back of the truck.'

Mays pulled up the tarpaulin covering the wooden rear transport section of the Opel Blitz, and gasped. ‘Blimey, sir. I think you'd better come and have a dekko at this.'

Lamb walked across to the truck and peered in. Inside lay four German machine guns, MG34s, attached to bipods for light use, and with them several unopened boxes of drum ammunition. Lamb whistled. ‘Quite a catch. They should make nice present for our chaps on the Somme. They can kill the Jerries with their own guns. Stack them in the centre of the truck and arrange yourselves around them. Might be a bit of a squash, but I promise I'll be as quick as I can.'

He knew it was not a promise he was likely to keep. Their new acquisition had changed his mind from the route he had planned to take to the sea and by foot across the estuary flats. The quickest route to the Somme was obvious: straight down the D928 to Canchy and then on to Abbeville. Then across the Authie and on to the Somme. But Lamb knew that, just as before, to take the obvious route would mean encountering German units
en route
. The only option, once again, was to go across country.

He opened out his map on the bonnet of the German truck and called over Bennett, Mays and Valentine. ‘Right. This is where we should go.' He moved his finger down the long straight road to the south. ‘At least it's where we would go if there weren't so many Jerries in the way.' He moved his finger to the left. ‘And this is where we're going to go.' He traced his finger down the line of a smaller road. The men peered at the map. It was not hard to see the lack of settlements as it made its way through open countryside and woodland. ‘There are fewer towns along there, and if we're lucky there won't be any roadblocks. That's what we want to avoid at all costs. Being stopped. My German's not worth a shilling.'

Mays said, ‘Sir, Corporal Valentine speaks German.'

Valentine scowled at him, furious at having a confidence betrayed.

Lamb frowned. ‘Do you, Valentine? Do you speak German? You haven't mentioned it before.'

Valentine smiled in that particular, insincere way of his. ‘Well, I do have a smattering, sir. Not much. Schoolboy really.'

‘Not much is ten times better than mine, Corporal.'

He turned to Stubbs. ‘Right, get out of that Jerry uniform and give it to the corporal here. You're changing places.' He looked back to Valentine. ‘We'll have you up with the Sarnt and me. You're travelling in the cab, Valentine.'

‘Only too happy to help, sir.'

Lamb wondered why Valentine hadn't mentioned his ability before, and also how Mays had come to learn about it. He was sure there could be nothing sinister about it, but all the same Valentine was a rum sort and if he had abandoned his roots, as it appeared he had in refusing to accept the responsibility of a commission, then who knew what else he might betray? He would tackle Mays about it when they next had a chance to talk.

Bennett interrupted his thoughts. ‘So are we planning to drive in daylight, sir?'

Lamb nodded. ‘Absolutely. We've got to bluff it out. Time is everything. Besides, I'm not worried about being spotted from the skies. We look like the real thing from above now. Whoever we might fail to fool will be on the ground.'

Lamb climbed up into the cab and eased himself into the driver's seat. It felt strange to be sitting on the left of the vehicle, and he took a moment or two to acquaint himself with the controls. The German machine felt very different to the Bedford. For one thing it was a fraction higher and longer, although the driver's seat was ranged lower. But the main thing he noticed was the gears. There were five of them, plus reverse. The speedometer, too, extended over a different range. Of course it was in kilometres, but even working that out Lamb could see that it was set to gauge a good fifteen kilometres an hour more than the maximum speed of the British truck. It was no great surprise. Anyone with a modicum of mechanical experience knew how good German engineering was. Perhaps, he thought, that's partly how they had managed to come so far into France in so short a time. He pressed the starter button and the machine kicked into life, over-revving as he pushed on the accelerator. He turned to Bennett. ‘I should hold on, Sarnt, if I were you. It might be a bit of a bumpy ride.'

He edged out of the yard and onto the road, past the body of the German driver, and into the village street.

He felt as uncomfortable as he had ever been. He was wearing an enemy uniform and driving an enemy vehicle in enemy territory. And he was only too aware that if they were captured he for one would be shot out of hand as a spy. But he told himself again that when he had started off on this mission he had suspected it was going to land him in challenging situations. As far as he was aware he was the only man with any chance of getting word to General Fortune that if he was forced to retreat the only way home would be from the port of Le Havre. And it occurred to Lamb that, if that did prove to be the case – if Fortune were pushed back by the might of the German advance – then for the entire 51st Division, all 10,000 men, he was probably now the only hope.