Darkest Hour (30 page)

A few miles short of Douai, a Citroen in front of
them, laden too high with cases and bags, swerved to avoid a mule that had
wandered into the middle of the road. The string holding the load snapped and
everything tumbled down across the road. A flustered middle-aged man wearing
spectacles and a Homburg got out to collect his cases and put them back.

'Bloody sensible that,' said Sykes. 'Why the hell
doesn't he pull off the road and sort himself out there?'

Captain Barclay was now standing up in the Krupp
yelling at the hapless man. 'Come on, Stan, let's give the poor sod a hand,'
said Tanner.

They jumped down from the cab, collected the remaining
cases, and put them on the verge.

'Merci, messieurs
,' said the man, pushing his spectacles back up his
nose.

Tanner pointed to his car and motioned to him to move
it.

'Ah,
oui, oui
,' said the man, tapping his head apologetically, and
got in.

The aircraft was upon them almost before anyone had a
chance to react - a faint whirr and then a deep-throated roar as it sped
towards them.

'Get down!' yelled Tanner, diving to the ground. For a
split second he thought the aircraft might pass without firing. But as it
thundered overhead, no more than a hundred feet above them, the Messerschmitt's
machine- guns opened up, two lines of bullets scything along the road ahead,
the first just inches from him. A splinter of stone clattered against his
helmet and nicked the edge of his ear. Then the fighter flew on, climbing
slightly, and disappeared over a line of trees.

'So that's a 109,' said Sykes, as he and Tanner dusted
themselves down.

'You two all right?' asked Captain Barclay, fifteen
yards behind them in the Krupp.

'Fine, sir,' said Tanner, dabbing at the blood from
his ear. 'Bloody close, though, eh, Stan?'

'Reckon he was aiming for our lot, don't you?'

Tanner shrugged. 'Maybe - and just overflew slightly.'

A curious smell now hung heavy in the air: a cloying
stench of oil, petrol, dirt and blood. Ahead they heard wailing. The mule that
had caused the hold-up in the first place lay sprawled across the road, its
owner bent over it sobbing. Further on there were more dead, and a boy was
screaming, the sound jarring Tanner's head. 'Jesus,' he muttered.

Then Sykes saw the Citroen. 'Bloody hell,' he said.
'Look, Sarge. The bastard.'

Following his gaze, Tanner saw a line of bullet holes
across the car. The driver was slumped, lifeless, across the steering-wheel.
Blood ran down the bonnet in front of him.

Poor sod.
Tanner was vaguely aware of Blackstone barking orders
to the men.

The men of D Company did what they could. They handed
out field dressings to the wounded and put the worst injured into the backs of
the trucks to take them to hospital in Douai. The Krupp shunted the car, mule
and cart off the road, with the stray cases and other belongings.

Before the German pilot's attack the men's mood had
been good, buoyed by food and rest, and by the knowledge that they were
nearing British forces. Now, however, they cleared away debris, wreckage and
broken bodies sombrely, speaking little. It was the boy that got to Tanner
most. Repelled by his screams yet compelled to go to him, Tanner had found him
- no more than ten years old, he guessed - with his leg nearly severed. His
parents were crouched beside him, almost demented with grief and by their
inability to help him.

'Smiler!' shouted Tanner, as the platoon medic tended
an elderly lady further back. 'I need you here now!'

Smailes hurried over and put his hand to his mouth as
he saw the boy. 'He - he's not going to make it, Sarge,' he stuttered. 'He's
lost too much blood already.' A dark stain covered the grass beneath him.

'Just do something,' snapped Tanner. 'You've got
morphine, haven't you?'

Smailes nodded.

Wide frightened eyes stared up at the two soldiers.
Smailes drew the morphine, flicked the end of the needle, then stuck it into
the boy's arm. A few moments later, the child's eyes flickered and finally
closed.

Tanner walked back towards the truck, the convulsive
sobbing of the boy's parents ringing in his ears.

'Come on, Tanner, chop, chop!' said Captain Barclay,
as he walked past the Krupp. 'The road's clear. We need to get a move on.'

'Yes, sir,' he replied, making no effort to hurry.

'Come on, Sergeant,' called Blackstone. 'Didn't you
hear the captain? Run!'

To hell with him.
Tanner ignored him.

'Tanner!' called Blackstone.

He looked up and saw that Lieutenant Peploe, Sykes and
the men behind were watching him and this sudden altercation with Blackstone.
Damn!
He turned slowly to face Captain Barclay and the
CSM.

'Oh, for God's sake,' muttered Lyell from the front of
Barclay's vehicle, 'you're acting like bloody kids.'

'Sergeant Tanner, did you not hear what the captain
said?'

Tanner sighed. 'Yes, Sergeant-Major.'

'And you thought you'd ignore what Captain Barclay
ordered you to do?'

Tanner said nothing. He knew he was trapped. No matter
what he said, Blackstone would use it to humiliate him further.

'What was that? I didn't quite hear it, Sergeant,'
said Blackstone.

'I apologize, sir,' he said to Captain Barclay.

'No respect, Tanner, that's your problem,' said
Barclay. 'Think you can do it all on your own. Now apologize to the CSM here,
and then I want you to
run
to your truck. We're
wasting valuable time.'

Tanner clenched and unclenched his fists, swallowed, then
turned his face up to Blackstone and forced himself to say, 'Sorry,
Sergeant-Major.'

'Get back to your truck, Sergeant,' Blackstone said,
in a voice loud enough for all those in the truck behind to hear, 'at the
double!'

'I'm sorry about that,' said Peploe, as Tanner got
back into the cab. 'That was completely unnecessary.'

'They're just flexing their muscles, Sarge,' added
Sykes.

Tanner took out a German cigarette and lit it. 'Let's
just get to Arras,' he said.

At the BEF command post at Wahagnies, twenty miles
north-east of Arras, General Lord Gort left his spartan office, went down the
stairs and into the large drawing room, now busy with numerous staff officers,
liaison officers and clerks working from makeshift trestle-table desks. The
clatter of typewriters and the collective hubbub of different conversations
filled the room. Dust particles hung faintly in the air, illuminated in the sunlight
that shone through the tall french windows; cleaning the building after
requisitioning it from the owners had not been a high priority and, in any
case, Gort's large command post staff had brought their own dust and dirt with
them.
           

Careful to make sure he looked as fit and energetic as
ever, he strode purposefully towards one of his aides-de- camp and said, 'Get
someone to bring a bite of lunch out to me in the garden, will you?'

'Right away, sir,' the ADC replied, getting to his
feet.

'Good man.' Gort nodded to the others, said, 'Carry
on, carry on,' then walked briskly to the glass doors, stepped out onto the
terrace and trotted across the lawn to the bottom of the garden where, beneath
a large cedar and out of sight of the house, there stood a wooden bench.
Sitting down, he rubbed his hands over his face and allowed himself a wide
yawn. For a moment, he gazed at the small pond in front of him. At its centre
stood a stone cherub, discoloured with age, whose mouth emitted a trickle of
water. In the murky pond, goldfish showed intermittent flashes of
golden-orange. Somewhere near by a wood pigeon cooed soothingly.

Lord Gort sighed and yawned again, then briefly closed
his eyes. Damn it, he was exhausted. He reckoned he'd had about two hours'
sleep last night, and not much more the night before. But that was only the
half of it: since 10 May, from the moment he had been awake to the moment he
had gone to bed, he had been on the go constantly, trying to organize his
forces, attempting to get some sense from Gamelin, Georges, Billotte and the
rest of the French high command, sending missives and orders, meeting with
commanders and liaison officers, seeing the troops, and trying to keep London
informed of increasingly confused events.

A bee hummed lazily in front of him and he followed
its path enviously. It had been a devil of a morning. Up at five with the news
that the chief of the Imperial General Staff himself, General Ironside, was
about to visit. At six o'clock on the nose, Tiny Ironside had walked in,
blustering as usual, to hand-deliver a personal message from the war cabinet.
At the conference soon after he had pointed to the map hanging in Gort's office
and announced that the entire BEF should withdraw southwest to Amiens, closer
to their lines of supply. 'We've all agreed this plan,' he had announced.
'Churchill and the cabinet were unanimous.'

Gort had patiently pointed out that it was not the war
cabinet who were commanding the BEF and explained that to leave their positions
on the Escaut
en masse
and move the best part of a
hundred miles directly across the flanks of the German panzers' advance was not
merely impossible but plain suicide. Of course, the CIGS had quickly come round
to his point of view, but this, Gort felt, should have been perfectly clear to
him back in London. What Gort had offered to do, however - and he'd been
thinking about it since his meeting with Billotte the previous night - was use
his two reserve divisions, the 5th and 50th, for a counter-attack south of
Arras and the river Scarpe to the east of the town. If the French mounted a
similar attack from the south, Gort had suggested to the CIGS, it might be
possible to close the gap that had been punched by the German panzer divisions
between the Allied armies north of Arras and the Scarpe, and those south of the
river Somme.

It was a positive plan at least - one that promised
aggressive action rather than passive defence, and Ironside had seized it
wholeheartedly, just as Gort had known he would. The CIGS had immediately
headed straight off to see Billotte and Blanchard, taking Pownall with him,
determined to put some resolve into the French commanders and persuade them to
join in Gort's proposed attack.

Gort took off his cap with its red band and laid it on
the bench beside him, ran his hand over his largely bald head, then closed his
eyes, letting the May sunshine warm his face. He wondered how Ironside and
Pownall were getting on. It was essential that the French should play ball but
his conversation with Billotte the previous evening had left a deeply
unfavourable impression.

Perhaps they could yet turn it around but all morning
he had been unable to banish the niggling suspicion that the French had shot
their bolt completely. Once again, he found his thoughts returning to what now
seemed a horrible inevitability: evacuation of as much of the BEF as possible.

A cough brought him from his thoughts and he opened
his eyes to see a young RASC lance-corporal holding a metal tray on which there
was a bottle of beer and a plate of bread, cheese and chocolate. 'Your lunch,
sir.'

'Thank you,' Gort replied. He indicated the bench.
'Just put it down there, will you?'

The orderly left him and Gort continued to sit where
he was, drinking his beer and eating the cheese and bread. This end of the
garden was a peaceful haven: warm, softly scented and alive with the calming
sounds of early summer. Nonetheless, the soothing ambience could do nothing to
relieve the gloom that swirled in the British commander-in-chief's head - a
gloom that would only deepen as the afternoon wore on.

Around the time that General Lord Gort was eating his
lunch, D Company, 1st Battalion, the King's Own Yorkshire Rangers, finally
reached BEF Headquarters. It was not, as Captain Barclay had assumed, in Arras
itself, but centred around a chateau in the small village of Habarcq, some
seven miles to the west.

They had learned as much on entering the city where,
in the town hall, they had found the headquarters of the town's garrison. A
Welsh Guardsman had redirected them, having confessed he had no idea where 13th
Brigade were, or 5th Division, and least of all the 1st Battalion, the
Yorkshire Rangers. Captain Barclay had cursed irritably, but Lieutenant Peploe,
who had woken as the truck rumbled over the broad cobbles of the Grande Place,
had been glad of the brief detour into the town. Despite a splitting headache
and light-headed- ness, he had been sufficiently
compos mentis
to wonder at the reconstructed beauty of an ancient town that he had seen
before only in a selection of picture postcards taken soon after the last war -
which his mother had brought back after a visit to find his uncle George's
grave. He remembered them well: the squares of broken buildings, the piles of
rubble and, not least, the skeletal town hall and its damaged belfry. Now,
however, it was as though the postcards had depicted a lie. Arras had emerged,
phoenixlike, from the wreckage, as splendid and opulent as it must have been a
hundred or more years before.