The Iron Stallions (14 page)

The following morning found them near the Yser. The Belgians had thrown their hand in during the night and the attitude of the villagers to the disaster was obvious from the number of white flags they saw. There had been a tremendous movement north during the night as the British pushed forward to fill the gap. They slipped into place just in time, and as dawn came, Leduc called for Josh.

‘The Germans are heading for the bridges over the river,’ he said. ‘The 12th Lancers are taking care of those at Dixmude and Nieuport. We’re to look after the one at Woumen. Get up there, Josh, and make sure it’s blown. An Engineer officer will join you.’

Woumen seemed deserted, the only sign of life the movement of stray dogs and cats. The streets were littered with scattered bricks, tiles and broken glass, and telephone wires hung in loops over the pavements. As they reached the town centre Josh edged forward between the buildings, and was just in time to see a big black Mercedes carrying a white flag and containing four heavily-armed Germans moving away eastwards from the girder bridge that spanned the river. As it gathered speed and disappeared among the houses, he saw a group of French and Belgian officers talking earnestly in a doorway and it dawned on him that the Germans had been coming to terms with them.

The armoured car moved cautiously forward, with Orne’s car in support and the rest of the squadron drawn up among the buildings behind. Leaving Ormonde in command, Josh gestured to Orne to follow and headed for the group. A fat French major waved him away.

‘I am taking over the defence of the bridge,’ he announced in English.

As he spoke, a car drew up with a squeal of brakes and a young Engineer officer climbed out with his sergeant.

‘I’ve been instructed to destroy this bridge,’ he said.

‘There is no need,’ the French officer insisted irritably. ‘I have made it my job.’

As they argued, a Belgian sergeant appeared over the side of the bridge, a pair of pliers in his hand.

‘I think these bastards have sold out to the Jerries,’ the Engineer officer observed quietly and gestured with his head to his sergeant. As the sergeant swung over the parapet and began to climb down among the girders, the Belgian ran to stop him but, dragging at his revolver Josh stuck it under the French major’s nose.

‘Call him back,’ he said. ‘Or I’ll blow your head off!’

The Frenchman’s eyes rolled but he called the sergeant back. Orne waved and his armoured car moved forward, its machine gun trained on the group.

The Engineer sergeant re-appeared. ‘The bastards had cut the lead,’ he said. ‘I’ve joined it up again.’

They followed the wire back along the bridge to a bar at the western end. A Belgian corporal was waiting there with a car battery and plunger. The Engineer sergeant shoved him away brusquely.

As he did so, a host of grey-clad figures on bicycles, their helmets gleaming in the sun, appeared among the houses on the opposite side of the river, the first of them already on the bridge as the Engineer officer pressed the plunger. Pedalling at full speed and unable to stop as the centre span dropped into the river, the leading rider performed a neat parabola and splashed into the water. The other cyclists piled one on top of another, just as the Lancers’ machine guns started to chatter, and in no time, the bridge was empty except for a few abandoned bicycles and a few sprawling grey figures. Lorries filled with troops had now appeared among the houses on the opposite bank, however, and men were scuttling into the buildings to keep up a heavy fire across the river.

Men with rubber boats appeared, hurrying in groups towards the sloping banks, but the machine guns scythed them down one after the other. Every attempt to move forward was stopped, but eventually artillery began to take a hand.

‘I think it’s time we got out of here,’ the Engineer officer said.

The Engineers managed to reach their car and miraculously swung it round and headed west, untouched. Running with Orne, Josh had almost reached safety when something hit him in the right buttock with tremendous force, to spin him round and fling him to the ground.

As he struggled to his feet, Orne stopped and turned towards him.

‘Keep going, Eddie!’ Josh tried to wave him away, but something hit him at the side of the head and his legs buckled and he fell back and sprawled on the cobbles.

Britain held its breath. A disaster of incredible proportions had occurred on the Continent. France was tottering on the verge of collapse and the Navy was rounding up small boats to get the BEF off the beaches. The incredible seemed to be happening. Those appalling Nazis were winning! At the very moment Winston Churchill was assuming power, it seemed he was going to have nothing to govern.

To the old woman at Braxby, attended these days only by two Ackroyds almost as old as she was herself because the rest were involved either in farming or fighting, it was hard to believe. She had seen too many men go off to war. She had been waving goodbye ever since 1861, when she’d seen them passing her Virginia home still wearing cloaks and plumes in the manner of the Cavaliers of her adopted country.

As she perused the newspaper she heard a car arrive. It was her son’s widow, Fleur, who, the minute the fighting had started, had gone back to the Red Cross work she had undertaken in the war which had killed her husband.

She sat down opposite the old lady, her eyes dry but with a bleak despair in her face which told how much she was struggling with her emotions. Lady Goff understood. She had lost her son, Dabney, when this younger woman had lost her husband.

‘You look tired, dear,’ she said, aware as she spoke of the pointlessness of her remark.

Fleur nodded. ‘We’ve been busy, Mother,’ she said. ‘We don’t know yet what’s happening, though. It’s a bit like standing on a stage waiting for the curtain to go up, and feeling the play might turn out to be different from the one we were expecting.’

She drew a deep breath. ‘Some of the nurses are a bit on edge,’ she went on. ‘One or two of them have fiancés or boyfriends with the BEF and it’s pretty obvious they’re being evacuated under fire. Yesterday a group of officers arrived. They were dirty, and one was dressed in civilian clothes because he’d lost his uniform swimming for his life after the ship he was in had sunk. They ought to have gone through the normal army casualty routine and been cleaned up, because we’re not a dressing station, but they looked as if they’d come straight from the battlefield.’

The old lady held her breath, trying to steady her nerves. ‘I expect things will turn out all right in the end, dear,’ she said, once again aware of the stupidity of her remark.

Fleur sighed. ‘Then the buses began to arrive,’ she continued. ‘Mostly stretcher cases. There were so many we had to get anybody we could find to help carry them in. They wore beards, Mother, and there were Thomas splints sticking out at all angles. Some of them were French. They were all filthy and smelled appallingly. We had to cut their uniforms off and, Mother, we were told to cut the seams in case the uniform had to be used again. Surely, things can’t be as bad as that!’

Remembering the end of the Civil War in America and the suffering that had occurred then, the old lady thought it could well be as bad.

‘We had to soak off some of the dressings,’ Fleur continued in a shaking voice. ‘And their feet were in a dreadful state from marching. We even had to cut off their socks. There was so much cutting, it blunted my scissors. We got them undressed somehow, but they all had to be cleaned up for the theatre and, of course, they were all so tired they just kept going to sleep and we had to wash them like that. Some had no equipment and some were dying, Mother, and we had to send for the relatives. There was one officer–’ Fleur stopped and caught her breath ‘–Mother, I thought it was Josh.’

She took hold of herself again and went on more firmly. ‘Mother, an army that’s merely withdrawing doesn’t send home its wounded in this condition. And these weren’t lines of communication troops either. These were men from the best regiments. What’s happening, Mother?’

The old woman was silent for a moment. She knew that Braxby Manor was referred to in the family as Headquarters and herself as the High Command. She’d always been flattered by the name because there was an element of truth in the joke. But a certain amount of responsibility went with it, too – such as listening to everybody else’s troubles.

‘Have you spoken with Josh’s wife, dear?’ she asked. ‘What’s her name? My memory’s so bad, I can’t remember names.’

‘Ailsa. No, Mother, I haven’t. She seems to have been caught up in it, too. When I telephoned, her mother said she’d gone to the hospital to see what was happening and she’d had a hurried message to say she’d been roped in to help.
She
has a son out there, too. Josh’s friend, Toby Reeves. Two, probably, because one’s in the Air Force.’ Fleur stopped, lit a cigarette, inhaled deeply, then sighed and went on. ‘I tried Chloe in Scotland because, of course, Angus is also involved.’

‘Who’s Angus, dear?’

‘Chloe’s husband, Mother. Surely you remember? He’s with one of the Scottish battalions.’ As the old lady nodded, Fleur went on. ‘But she’s heard nothing either, though she did eventually manage to get in touch with Toby Reeves’ brother. He’d been flying over the other side of the Channel and he said the whole coast of France was in flames.’

Lady Goff sat still for a moment, trying to prepare herself for the worst. It could be her grandson, or it could be her granddaughter’s husband. Tragedy wasn’t selective.

‘I think, dear, we’d better have a cup of tea,’ she said. ‘Then I think you ought to go home and have a sleep.’

Fleur lifted her face and the old lady saw her eyes were moist. ‘I can’t go home, Mother,’ she said. ‘The place’s so empty. Can I stay here?’

Suddenly the war seemed to be on their very doorsteps. As the holocaust on the Continent died down, it was obvious that invasion was expected hourly. Signposts were removed and the names of the railway stations were painted out, while the coastline was suddenly smothered in barbed wire and trenches were being dug everywhere. There was still no news of Josh, though they’d heard from Chloe that her husband and Toby Reeves were safely back in England, and Ailsa had telephoned to say that Josh had been on some duty away from the Regiment and no one knew what had happened to him.

It seemed that though the BEF had been saved, it was now totally devoid of arms. The country, however, seemed to he aware at last that it was at war. Known Nazi sympathisers had been rounded up and there was a new spirit abroad. Holidays were cancelled and absenteeism had vanished from the factories, while phenomenally long hours were being worked and production was soaring after the slothful months of the Phoney War. It might have made splendid reading if only Josh weren’t still missing.

Curiously, life seemed remarkably normal. Shops remained open when one felt somehow they ought to be closed. People even still played games. Only a few things were different. Rationing had been stepped up and the Government was asking for aluminium pots and pans to make Spitfires. Winston Churchill, breathing defiance at the Germans, was working day and night – though he still managed to address a short note to Lady Goff, whom he’d known since he’d first run across her husband at Omdurman, to indicate there would be no surrender. Then the post brought a letter from a hospital near Reading signed ‘Edward Orne, Squadron Sergeant-Major, 19th Lancers,’ enquiring about Josh. Orne had seen him wounded by the bridge at Woumen, he said, and had managed to carry him clear. At that time, however, things were growing critical and units were being overrun and he had no idea what had happened after that because he’d been wounded himself in the leg. The Regiment, he pointed out, had lost many good men, including Lord Ellesmere, but they were now back in England, refitting and expecting to be sent to North Africa at any moment to face the Italians.

For a while, the old woman sat motionless, tears in her eyes. Poor Ned Ellesmere! He’d been such a dear little boy. And killed in battle like his father! Some families had the most atrocious luck and the world was such a silly place when men like Josh and this splendid Sergeant-Major Orne could risk their lives while other stupider, less honest, less courageous people could stay at home in perfect safety and even make money out of the suffering.

Realising unhappily that she was thinking of her surviving son, Robert, as she brooded she saw his Rolls Royce appear in the drive, and immediately her small face set in a stubborn mask. When he appeared, Robert was accompanied by a red-haired, long-nosed man with glasses.

‘This is my solicitor, Frank Sleete,’ he introduced. ‘I was just passing and thought I’d drop in. See how you were.’

The old lady eyed him warily. Robert never just ‘dropped in’. ‘I’m very well,’ she lied determinedly. ‘And a long way from dying. What brings you this way?’

‘I’ve been named co-ordinator for this new local defence force thing that’s being set up against invasion: the LDV. It stands for Local Defence Volunteers.’

‘Ellis Ackroyd says it stands for Look, Duck and Vanish.’

Robert frowned and cleared his throat. ‘Ellis is an old man now, Mother.’

‘You’re not so young yourself, Robert.’

‘The right age for a co-ordinator, Mother,’ Robert said stiffly. ‘And the position calls for a man with military experience. I was in the Yeomanry in the last war, you’ll remember.’

‘And promptly resigned when they were sent to France,’ the old lady pointed out coldly.

Robert frowned. ‘I didn’t come here to be insulted, Mother.’

‘Then why did you come, Robert?’ The old lady faced him unflinchingly, her eyes bright, her chin firm. ‘And why have you brought your solicitor. Is he running the LDV also?’

Robert coughed uncomfortably and Sleete ostentatiously began to look out of the window.

‘How are you all for money, Mother?’

‘You know very well how I’m off for money. What I have is swallowed up in the upkeep of this place.’

Robert glanced at Sleete. The old lady was not too slow to catch the look and was wary. ‘Those cottages, Mother. You’ll remember I spoke to you of them once before. I’ve decided to increase my offer for them.’