The Black Jackals. Iain Gale

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СКАЧАТЬ might be against the enemy they now faced, an enemy expert in a new sort of warfare led by commanders who nursed bitter resentment over their nation’s last humiliating defeat thirty years ago. The British army might be the best in the world in its heart and soul, but for years it had been starved of resources at the expense of the RAF and the Navy. That would be the way to win any future war, the experts had said. Well, he wondered where those ‘experts’ were now. Not sitting here, that was for sure. It occurred to him that his little band of thirty men, No 1 platoon, were equipped in almost exactly the same way that his father’s platoon would have been when they had sat in almost exactly the same place twenty-five years ago. What had they learned? he wondered. Precious little. The Germans had cut a swathe through Europe with their Blitzkrieg tactics, and Lamb sensed that it was not just the Belgian soldiers who might be outmatched. His men would stand and fight and die if they were ordered to. But without the right weapons and equipment, he knew they would be quite powerless.

      There was another succession of heavy thumps in the distance. They were more distinct now, and more clearly explosions. He turned and yelled towards the trench to his rear: ‘Sarnt Bennett, to me. And where’s that tea?’

      The tall sergeant came doubling over carrying a tin mug of tea which slopped out over the sides onto the ground, ‘Sorry, sir. Here you are. Lovely cup of char. They’re getting closer.’

      ‘Yes. And faster than I’d expected. Any word from Battalion?’

      ‘Nothing from the Colonel, sir, but Major Cooke sent a runner with this.’ He handed Lamb a note:

      Enemy observed to be advancing steadily from the east, direction of Louvain. Hold and engage. Delay as long as you can, then blow bridge to your front and withdraw.

      Lamb folded it and tucked it into his pocket. ‘Well, that’s us told, Sarnt.’

      ‘Sir?’

      ‘We’re to sit here and give the Jerries a bloody nose before blowing that bridge down there and legging it.’

      ‘Makes you think, sir, don’t it? I mean, we come over here, the British army, best army in the world. And what happens? Bloody Belgians run away. The Frenchies can’t make their minds up about where to fight. And we’re left to do the donkey work. I don’t think our top brass really knew what they were up against.’

      Lamb smiled. ‘Yes, Sarnt, I wonder whether they did. But it’s not for us to question them. And now it’s up to you and me and the rest of the lads to make the best we can of this mess. I want two-man fire teams all along that forward slope, well dug in before the Jerries get here. We’re bound to be outnumbered and outgunned, so we’ve got to make the best use we can of what we have got, and that’s surprise. Where’s the anti-tank rifle?’

      ‘Thompson’s got it, sir. Over there in the trees.’

      ‘Get Thompson to bring it up here. We don’t know what’s going to come at us down that road. But when it does, whatever it is, I want every shot to count. There’s a platoon of sappers due here any minute to wire the bridge, but they’re going to leave us the detonator. But before we blow it I’m going to take out as many Jerries as possible. We’ll wait for them to get across the bridge and then open up, and then as their reinforcements come across we blow it. Got it?’

      Bennett smiled. ‘Got it, sir.’

      The sergeant liked Lamb. He was a popular officer with the lads. Not perhaps what you’d call the classic ‘officer and gentleman’ like some of them were – toffs, if you like – but a damn sight better than those that had just come straight from school or university. Lamb was a proper officer, he reckoned. He cared for the men and you wouldn’t get him ordering them to do something that he couldn’t have done himself. But more than that, Lamb was an officer, and they respected him for that. He was from a different world and he had a natural authority. Some said that he had been married before, into the gentry or even grander. That was what some said. But that didn’t matter to Bennett neither. What mattered was that Lamb spoke to him and to the other men as if they really mattered. That’s what set their officer apart. Bennett came back to the present, then saluted and hobbled back towards where they’d left Private Thompson and his anti-tank rifle.

      Still looking at the refugees swarming across the bridge, Lamb’s eye began to fall naturally on individuals. He looked at a woman in a floral dress yelling at her son to come back from the edge of the road, another struggling to keep a curly-haired infant daughter perched on a cart amidst a pile of dark wooden furniture; a father carried his sleeping baby like a rag doll, his face a picture of worry. He tried to look away. He preferred to see these not as real people, but as a column, like any other column that might be advancing towards him. Not an enemy, of course, merely an obstacle to be negotiated. He began to calculate their numbers. One thousand, two? More? There seemed to be no end and no beginning. But all the time he kept seeing their little stories unfold. A woman seemed to have lost something, perhaps a pet. An old man could walk no more and was being helped to sit at the side of the road against the wall of the bridge by a pretty girl. And then he heard it.

      The unmistakable rumble of approaching vehicles shook the road and sent the civilians into a panic. They quickened their pace. The old man got to his feet and started to walk. Belongings, which a moment ago had seemed so precious, tumbled from the carts and were forgotten in the new urgency to save themselves. Staring hard through his binoculars into the trees in the distance, Lamb began to make out the trucks and men on horses too, with slung rifles. And alongside them now he could see men on foot: men in grey, carrying their weapons at the trail.

      He was sweating now, more than he would have normally done even on this hot summer’s day. The grey soldiers were mingling with the civilians. He could see their helmets clearly as they moved determinedly forward, could see them pushing through the refugees, using their rifle butts and shouting commands as they hurried along the dusty road, heaving the carts and belongings into the roadside ditches to make a way for the trucks. Clearing a way towards the bridge, towards his position, advancing into battle. There was no time left. No choice. No option. Lamb heard his company commander’s words, ‘Whatever happens, Peter, blow that bloody bridge. It must not fall into enemy hands. I don’t care who’s on it. Mr Chamberlain himself. Just blow it.’

      Chapter 2

      The lorries were driving forward, almost on the bridge, with the infantry running close alongside them. Lamb could see an open-topped staff car, and in the back seat two officers. They were laughing as they drove onto the bridge, and were almost at the centre now. Three lorries followed close behind, forcing the shuffling pedestrians aside. Then one of the men raised his hand and the car and the trucks stopped, although the refugees continued past them. The officer opened the door, got out and walked across to the parapet of the old bridge. He leaned against it and scanned the river and the opposite bank, forcing Lamb and his men to cower in their slit trenches, and then his eye alighted on something, something at the edge of the bridge. He gazed at it for an instant and then turned to the car and shouted something before starting to run back the way they had come.

      Lamb muttered to the corporal at his side, ‘Blast, he’s twigged it.’ Then, stifling his conscience, he swallowed dryly and gave a quick nod to the corporal. The man, a recent addition to the ranks, a volunteer named Valentine, looked at him and raised an eyebrow. Lamb nodded again. ‘For Christ’s sake man, let them have it!’.

      Valentine shrugged and pushed down hard on the handle, and almost simultaneously it seemed the bridge went up with a deafening explosion, sending fragments of brick and stone flying high in the air along with what remained of the officers and their driver, parts of two of the trucks and their occupants, and the civilians who had been pushing past them towards salvation.

      Lamb СКАЧАТЬ