Tramp in Armour (46 page)

'How far away are those vehicles?'

'Half a mile, I'd guess. I can't be certain.'

'Maybe only a quarter?'

'No, at least half a mile. Barnes, our lights have gone.'

'I put them out. I don't want to risk them seeing us go up
the embankment.'

'Up there?'

Colburn stared in horror up the steep slope which rose
twenty feet above them. Had Barnes lost his judgement? He must have decided to make a last stand from the top of the
embankment, if they ever got up there. He couldn't have
realized the strength of the column which was moving against
them. He called down from the turret.

'There must be at least twenty or thirty vehicles heading towards us.'

'Listen, Colburn.' Barnes' voice was urgent. 'We're not
going to fight them - we're trying to dodge them. I came back over this canal with Jacques dead opposite this road behind us
which leads back into Lemont. We came over a huge barge
with a deck like an aircraft carrier - it almost fills the canal. We're going to reverse into this side street until Bert's nose is
pointed up that embankment - then up there is where we go.'

'Will the tank make it?'

'I don't know till we try it but it's our only chance. It's close
to dawn, so if we don't make it now we never will. When we
reach the top there'll he a split second for you to see whether
we're driving on to the centre of the barge. I'll be ready to brake, but I can't do that till we're off the slope. You'll have to react damned quickly. Got it?'

'If it's OK to go on, I'll say OK. If it isn't I'll say stop.'

The side road which led off at right-angles to the embank
ment was wide enough to give ample room for Barnes to re
verse into quickly. Then he paused briefly to flex his fingers. Without thinking about the chances against success he went forward, guessing that Colburn thought it was a maniac's last
throw, and up in the turret confidence was the last of the
emotions which inspired Colburn. He would have liked to look
two ways at once - up to the bill crest behind which the
armoured column was advancing and straight ahead where the
slope loomed like the side of a mountain. Beneath him the
tracks began to claw and grind up the gradient as though
finding it difficult to hold on to the lower slope and Colburn
found himself tilted backwards against the rear of the turret.
Barnes seemed to be going up at a fantastic pace. Supposing the barge wasn't in the right position to act as a bridge? Sup
posing the enemy column poured over the hill crest when they
were halfway up the embankment? Grimly he recalled his
remark to Barnes just before they had started out. Were there,
after all, too many 'supposings' in this equation? I don't think
we'll make this one, Colburn told himself.

Barnes had decided, and now he never asked himself
whether or not they could make it. His pain-battered mind was
concentrated on one idea only - get Bert over the top.
Because the tilt of the tank was longitudinal rather than side
ways the detonator boxes were holding their position well, but
could they stand up to this sort of treatment? The tank rocked badly as the forward tracks moved into a depression and then climbed out of it, the engines revving madly as Barnes fought
to take the tank higher. Very unstable, Colburn had called
British detonators, the Germans use Trotyl. The left-hand
track sank alarmingly into another depression and the box
slipped again, slamming hard against his shoulder, grating its
weight into the sensitive wound. He stiffened abruptly, swearing that he would throw out that box if they ever reached the other side, and, knowing that he was approaching the summit, he accelerated.

Colburn was standing upright in the turret now, holding
himself erect by grasping the front rim with both hands, be
cause it was vital to see instantly whether they were correctly placed to move across that barge, a barge he couldn't even see
yet. But he felt the acceleration and knew that Barnes was
going to rush it. Anxiously he leaned farther forward. They
reached the top.

'OK, Barnes! OK! OK!'

There it was - the barge. They were going to hit it dead
centre. The tank paused, its forward tracks in the air briefly,
then dropped level to the tow-path. It moved forward again across a few inches of water and landed in the middle of the
flat deck. The barge shuddered under the impact of its im
mense visitor and the tank moved on until it was halfway
across the deck. Then the engines stalled.

Colburn forced himself to say nothing. They were now
trapped on top of the embankment in full view of the approaching column once it breasted the summit of the hill. He heard Barnes trying again and again to start the engine. In
stinctively his eyes swept over the summit of the hill behind
which the column was advancing. Nothing yet, but the front of
the column must be very close now. He could imagine the
scene so clearly - the first heavy tank cresting the hill, spotting
them clearly silhouetted against the pale light, wirelessing
back to the column, continuing down the hill as more vehicles followed, the barrage of shells aimed point-blank ... He found
he was holding his revolver tightly and forced himself to relax his grip. His eyes rested on the plunger below him and then he looked again at the glow of light behind the hill, a glow which
seemed to grow stronger every second as Barnes repeated his
efforts to start the engines without success. Colburn glanced back the way they had come and the street was still deserted.

Who had summoned the armoured column? Probably the
owners of the second motor-cycle and side-car in the square they had crossed. Then the engines fired, the tank jerked forward, left the barge and plunged down the far slope at speed.
At the bottom Barnes turned in a wide curve and halted the
tank facing along the canal. He switched off the engines, rolled
back the hood and climbed out quickly.

'I thought we'd stall at the top,' he remarked. 'No sign of
that column? Good. Colburn, could you come down and give
me a hand to dump this bloody box?'

He checked his watch. 3.40
am.
Twenty minutes to zero
hour.

The field below the embankment was firm hard earth and
there were no hidden quagmires to hold up their advance,
although not so far off to the left was a vague glimmer of
flooded areas. The tank rumbled forward as Barnes gazed
through the slit window from his lowered seat, following the
same course he had taken when he had returned from the re
connaissance with Jacques. The next twenty minutes would
decide the whole issue, would decide whether the 14th Panzer
Division would advance across the waterline to spring on an unsuspecting Dunkirk, or whether they could muddle things so
drastically that the Panzers would be delayed, perhaps fatally.
Colburn was talking now.

'I think I can see the archway under the embankment.' That archway was the end of the line, a phrase Colburn had
spoken just before Barnes had set off on the reconnaissance
which had deprived them of Reynolds, but without that recon
naissance they would never have reached this point. Through
the archway lay an open field with the aerodrome beyond - the site of a huge ammunition dump and the laager of the waiting
Panzers. Tight-lipped, Barnes peered through the slit window
as the tank rolled forward in the early morning light.

He found that he had increased speed without realizing it
and he wondered about that archway. Would it be wide
enough? He had paced out its width, immediately thinking of
Bert when he had crept under it with Jacques, and he had
estimated that in an emergency they should just be able to
manage it. They
had
to manage it - the archway was the only
means of approaching the target from this side of the canal.
The growing light was apparent even through his narrow win
dow and he prayed that the defences had not been reinforced
since they had left the place, but there was always the chance
that the Germans would confidently rely on the heavy column
they had sent along the road to investigate the intruders. He
wondered how Colburn was feeling, knowing that these might
be his last few minutes of life.

In the turret Colburn kept looking to the east where the pale
glow of dawn was spreading across the horizon. If they had
been half an hour later they would never have passed through
the village successfully - and even if they had got through the
14th Panzer Division would already have been on the move. Would they really manage it? He glanced down at the plunger
again with a feeling of wonderment, suddenly conscious of the
fact that he might be dead within the hour, or sooner. It was
an odd sensation and involuntarily he shivered. There was a
sharp chill in the air now and white mist was rising off the
fields. He had seen the same mist rising off the early morning
fields near Manston. Then he saw the archway clearly and Manston faded.

The archway looked far too narrow to allow the passage of
the tank, its stone walls so close together that Colburn thought
they could let through nothing larger than a farm wagon. A
feeling of bitter disappointment swept through him - they were going to be stopped at the last moment because of a
single archway. There was no question of driving the tank up
the embankment a second time - the slope here was even more
steeply-angled, to say nothing of the fact that if they reached
the top their advance would be stopped by the canal itself. A
sense of overwhelming frustration was in his voice when he
spoke.

'Barnes, this archway's too narrow to get through - I'm sure
of it.'

The tank ground forward, moving away from the embank
ment in a wide semi-circle until Barnes had brought it into a
position where it directly faced the arch, and now he could see
that the field beyond was shrouded in mist, masking their approach from the Germans. Colburn gave up protesting and
leaned far out as he guided Barnes forward every inch of the way, his gaze switching backwards and forwards between the
incredibly narrow arch and the forward tracks. The ground
was very uneven at this point and Barnes found it difficult to
follow the Canadian's instructions precisely. He was close to
the archway when Colburn called out urgently for him to halt: he was too far over to the right. He reversed some distance and changed his angle of direction a fraction, moving forward at a
crawl, his eyes straining to see more clearly, forcing himself
not to look at the wristwatch which was ticking away vital
minutes. They must get through this time. The dark archway
crept towards him and now the light beyond was stronger,
illuminating the semi-circle clearly. It was almost daylight
now. The front hull moved inside. Suddenly there was a jarring sound, the screech of steel grating along stonework. The tank shuddered violently through the length of its hull and then
stopped abruptly as Barnes braked. Perhaps it was useless. This could be one obstacle they might never overcome, not
even in broad daylight. He rolled back the hood and from
above him a torch beam flashed along the wall.

The vicious clash of steel against stone had frightened Col
burn and now he tried to estimate the position by the light of his beam. They had driven into the left-hand wall, of course.
In their anxiety not to repeat their earlier mistake they had
erred too far in the opposite direction, but was the manoeuvre
even possible? He flashed the torch on the other side and the light penetrated a gap between tank and wall, a gap no more
than six inches wide, if that. So theoretically it was possible,
but with such a narrow clearance they would be extraordi
narily lucky to pass clear through the archway in this light. He called down direct to Barnes.