Swordpoint (2011) (32 page)

‘George,’ he said. ‘I want your Punjabis.’

‘You can’t have ’em,’ Rankin fumed. ‘I need ’em here.’

‘George, they’re doing no damn good up there! They’ve just been shuttling backwards and forwards all day like a set of yo-yos. I want ’em here as fast as you can get ’em.’

Rankin tried to object but Tallemach interrupted.

‘Listen, George,’ he said sharply, ‘we’ve had a report from the North Yorkshires. One of Yuell’s men swam the river and then Yuell himself was brought across wounded. They’re still hanging on there and they think that with help they can move forward. Especially if we can get an air strike.’

‘You’ll be lucky in this weather!’

‘George, we’ve had a Met report. The RAF think they’ll be able to fly tomorrow. And it’s been raining so long the chances
must
be in favour of it breaking. George, you know damn well I never liked this crossing, but there’s suddenly a chance. It’s worth taking.’

‘Then why not here?’

Rankin seemed more bull-headed than ever and Tallemach suspected he was worried. Doubtless Tonge had had a few words with him and he was concerned about his future and wondering if he couldn’t pull a few things from the fire. Tallemach decided to stand no nonsense, sensing that Ran-kin would back down if he insisted.

‘Because the general’s called it all off up there,’ he pointed out. ‘We’re only reinforcing failure and you know as well as I do that that’s something we don’t do.’

There was a long silence; then Rankin’s voice came again, still doubtful. ‘Has the general okayed it?’

‘I haven’t been able to contact him yet and we can’t wait. I’ll have to justify myself when it’s over, I suppose, but I’m going to chance it.’

There was another silence, followed by Rankin’s grudging consent. ‘I’ll get ’em in lorries straight away.’

As he put the telephone down, Tallemach looked up at the brigade major. ‘Get hold of that chap, Fletcher-Smith,’ he said. ‘But get one of the docs to have a look at him first to see if he really is fit to go back.’

‘He looked it, sir. And perhaps he is. I gather he once almost swam the Channel.’

‘Did he, by God? Well, let’s not have anybody say we sent him when he wasn’t fit. If he is, bring him here. As soon as the Punjabis arrive, he’s going to lead ’em to Warley via that ditch he used. Then get hold of the Engineers. We’re going to have another go at throwing footbridges across. If they’re wide enough for one man, it’ll be enough to feed supports to the Yorkshires. Once they’re safely across, I shall want that bridge putting over for the tanks. Tell ’em to get on with it. We’ve wasted enough time as it is.’

Warley lay on the lip of the hollow, peering ahead of him. His eyes were prickly with lack of sleep and red-rimmed with staring. A strange, almost eerie lull had fallen over the battle and he could even hear a bird singing.

He listened for a while, thinking. According to casualty figures, they were defeated and as good as prisoners of war. But good soldiers trusted their instincts, not figures. They tried to understand silence on a battlefield, they tried to define tanks or cannon behind camouflage, they sensed the movement or non-movement of troops.

Despite his preference for civilian life, Warley was a good soldier and his mind was moving swiftly.

‘Hear that, Tony?’ he said.

Jago listened, his head cocked. He was a city-dweller and knew nothing about birds. ‘Sparrow?’ he asked.

Warley gave a short bark of laughter. ‘It’s a nightingale, you bloody idiot,’ he said. ‘The first this year.’

Jago was unimpressed. To him it sounded like a sparrow that couldn’t sleep. ‘So?’

‘You couldn’t have heard that a little while ago. I think the fire’s fallen off all round. Would you say something’s happened in front there?’

Jago was a good soldier, too, and now his own acute senses were alert. ‘Think the buggers fancy they’ve got us licked?’

‘I bet they gave the padre his truce because they thought they had. It’d be nice to prove ’em wrong, wouldn’t it? I was wondering if we couldn’t have a go at enlarging this bloody bridgehead. The wire’s cut over there on the right where those Teds came through this morning, and I notice the artillery’s made a gap on the left as well. If we split our force and go for ’em at a rush, we might just do it.’

Jago shrugged. ‘The colonel said he’d drum up some more men when he got to the other side. Hadn’t we better wait for them?’

‘You know,’ Warley said slowly, ‘I’m inclined to think not. If we can get through that wire before daylight, we can get into those bloody machine-gun posts that have been bothering us before they know we’re there. They’ve quietened down a lot, and I notice there haven’t been any flares lately. I wonder if some of their people have been pulled out as reserves against the crossing at Castelgrande.’

‘It’d help if they had.’

‘You could take the right side, I’d take the left.’

‘What about the Baluchis?’

‘This one’s up to
us,’
Warley said. ‘If we’re quiet we ought to be able to get well forward. Then I’ll give everybody ten minutes and fire a Very light. How does it sound to you?’

To Jago it sounded terrifying, and he felt his body turn cold at the thought of it. He’d already survived taking more chances than he deserved, and he didn’t fancy taking another. But he’d been with Warley a long time and anything was better than sitting in the dip all next day while the Germans dropped mortar bombs on them.

‘I dare bet the Teds’ positions are deeper than this bloody dip of Deacon’s,’ he said. ‘And I’ll bet also that they’re better proof against mortars. After all, they’ve been there long enough to make ’em strong.’

‘Right. We go in with the Baluchis right behind us. If they keep close we can swamp those Ted posts in front. They can’t be held all that heavily or they’d have set about us, wouldn’t they? The Baluchis are agreeable to us running the show.’

‘All right,’ Jago said uncertainly. ‘Let’s give it a go.’

‘Good. You take everybody to the right of here. I’ll take everybody to the left. The Baluchis follow up in support. You’d better get round and warn your men. We start when I fire a red Very light. Okay?’

‘Okay. Any special methods?’

‘No. Just go like the clappers.’

‘You can’t sprint eighty yards and hope to arrive in good shape,’ Jago said. ‘We shan’t be able to hit a bloody thing.’

‘We shan’t be doing that sort of shooting,’ Warley pointed out. ‘And the quicker across the safer we’ll be.’

Jago nodded, aware that normally he was the one who advocated speed and dash.

Warley grinned under his dirt. ‘See you back here in an hour,’ he said. ‘We start ten minutes afterwards.’

Crawling flat against the earth along the lip of the hollow to the outlying positions, Warley and Jago readied their men. It was easier in the dark, though there were still a few machine-gun bursts to set their hearts beating faster. The ammunition and grenades the Baluchis had brought were distributed, and the men lit last fags, wiped their mouths with the backs of their hands, spat, cleared their throats and emptied their bladders; all the things they would have done if they’d been entering a race.

‘The safest place against enemy shelling’s always in the enemy positions,’ Jago told them.

There were a few silly jokes in whispers, and cigarettes were passed round for a last drag.

‘Gie’s one of thi cigarettes, Gasky,’ Rich asked.

Corporal Gask studied him in his expressionless way. ‘It’ll stunt your growth,’ he said.

Rich looked up at Gask’s lean six-foot-three. ‘It doesn’t seem to have stunted thine,’ he pointed out.

Deacon’s heart lifted as he heard them. Their spirits seemed to have revived at the prospect of moving forward.

‘We’re expecting big things from you, Frying,’ he told Syzling. ‘They might send tanks at us, so just let’s have a repetition of this morning.’

‘So long as you pass the bombs, sir,’ Syzling said and Deacon felt cock-a-hoop. Syzling seemed to have got hold of the ‘sir’ business at least. It was going to be all right in the future. No more curses. No more snarling. No more bad temper. No more sullenness.

They were going to use every man they had. Only O’Mara, the doctor, the orderlies and the wounded were to hold the position in the hollow. If they failed, it would be God help them all, but Warley was hoping they wouldn’t fail.

He got the remaining officers round him. ‘There’s only one order,’ he announced. ‘Get through those gaps and into the Ted positions before they wake up. They’re as tired as we are and I suspect they think they’ve got us pinned down. Let’s show ’em they haven’t. Information about the enemy: There isn’t any. They’re Nazis and that’s enough under the circumstances, I think. Any questions?’

There weren’t, and Warley continued, ‘You have a quarter of an hour to get your men as far forward as you can. This bloody country’s full of dips, so you ought to be able to get up close. And see there’s no noise. Tell your people to tie handkerchiefs round the Bren mags and things like that, so they don’t clatter. I want you in their lines within half a minute of the whistle. Get cracking.’

The order group broke up. It was the shortest and simplest briefing they’d ever experienced but by this time they all knew exactly where they were going and suspected that if they didn’t arrive quickly, they’d end up dead or prisoners of war.

As they met again, Warley and Jago consulted their watches.

‘Ten minutes from now,’ Warley said. ‘You ready?’

‘Ready as I’ll ever be.’

O’Mara joined them. ‘If this doesn’t come off, Padre,’ Warley told him, ‘try to go on holding this place until help comes. Or is that against your beliefs?’

‘I don’t think Almighty God’s going to count the whys and wherefores in an affair like this,’ O’Mara observed. ‘As they did at Pearl Harbour, let us praise the Lord and pass the ammunition.’

‘Say a prayer for us, Padre.’

O’Mara moved his hand in a blessing. ‘God go with you,’ he murmured, an infinite sadness in his eyes.

‘Right,’ Warley said. ‘Here goes.’

He hitched at his belt and climbed out of the dip.

The Very light soared up, dragging a long tail of grey smoke, until it was out of sight in the darkness; then it burst into a red glow. As Warley’s whistle went, they clutched their weapons and followed him.

In the light of the flare, Warley could see men already running for the gaps in the wire. His heart thudding, Jago leapt into the trench but Gask had arrived ahead of him and appeared to be beating up on his own the two or three Germans who were manning it. At home, the instructors had always insisted they should go into the attack yelling furiously and pulling fierce faces. Being an unimaginative type, however, Gask had been given up as a bad job and told he’d never be much good in an attack. The instructors couldn’t have been more wrong because he was using his rifle and bayonet in the best drill manner – up, two, three; six inches of sharp Sheffield and no more – but all still in his usual expressionless manner.

Over on the left, a little behind Jago’s group, Warley’s foot caught in a looping strand as he passed through the wire and he did a nose-dive into a German machine-gun position. The top of his helmet crashed against a German helmet and slithered off into a German face and the two men collapsed in the bottom of the foxhole. Warley sat up to see CSM Farnsworth alongside him, clubbing the life out of the German, and as he struggled to his feet they caught in a charcoal brazier that had scattered hot coals. His trousers began to smoulder, and he slapped at the sparks to extinguish them.

‘Christ,’ Farnsworth panted. ‘A fire to keep you warm! That’s something our lot never think of.’

‘Come on!’ Warley sounded equally breathless. ‘This is only the beginning. The real position’s further on.’

As they scrambled from the hole, another machine-gun started and someone screamed. Then the gun stopped abruptly and didn’t start again. Just in front of Warley, yet another one took its place, but it was firing to his right towards Jago’s men and he heard the bullets swishing through the undergrowth past him. The next moment, he and Farnsworth and a few more found themselves hard up against a concrete pill-box with the gun firing over their heads out of a slit.

It was Henry White who moved first. He knew exactly what to do because he’d done it before in the mud at Passchendaele in 1917. Reaching for a grenade, he pulled the pin and slipped it silently through the aperture. The machine-gun still went on firing in short bursts; then, just when they were wondering what had gone wrong with the grenade, there was a tremendous crash and it stopped.

‘Round the back,’ Warley yelled.

As they reached the rear of the pill-box, they saw a German soldier scrambling away up the slope, screaming, his clothes on fire. Grinning, McWatters shot him in the back. The inside was a shambles with a wrecked gun and four bleeding bodies. Running off to the right, they fell into a covered timber-lined trench, and Warley realised with surprise that there were now twenty-odd men with him whereas originally there’d only been three or four.

‘Two of you stay here,’ he said. ‘The rest come with me.’

They set off up the covered trench, and saw a torch coming towards them. Duff fired his Sten at it; it went out and they were in darkness. Somebody was moaning in front of them, ‘
Mutter! Mutter! Hilfe mir!
’