'You're right, sir. Even if it's a pretty big one, you'd expect sentries watching the road and looking out for any movement from the east.'
As they reached a fork in the road, Captain Barclay called a halt.
'Come on,' said Peploe. 'Let's find out what the bloody hell is going on.'
They found Captain Barclay with Blackstone and Lieutenant Bourne-Arton of 11 Platoon, studying tracks on the road. The compacted earth, under the canopy of the trees, was still damp rather than dry dust, and there were clear signs of carrier tracks, tyre marks and even footprints.
There was also a three-way signpost, pointing to Virginal-Samme in the direction they had come and, at the fork, to Oisquercq. Ahead, it pointed to Rebecq, just a kilometre away.
'Troops have passed through here, all right,' said Barclay.
The man was a genius, thought Tanner. He walked forward, down the track ahead of them.
'Where are you going, Sergeant?' Barclay called after him.
'I'm looking to see if these tracks move off the road, sir.' He trotted fifty yards, saw nothing, then hurried back. 'If we keep going through the wood towards Rebecq, we'll soon find out whether they've stopped or moved on.'
'State the bleeding obvious, Jack,' said Blackstone. Tanner could see he was seething.
'When did the message come through that this was the rendezvous, sir?' asked Peploe.
'CSM? When was it?' said Barclay.
'About seventeen thirty.'
'And when was the field telephone packed up?' asked Tanner.
Captain Barclay turned to Blackstone.
'Don't look at me, sir. I was at the bridge. But a runner would have been sent if the orders were changed - it's probably some cock-up at Battalion. It's eight o'clock, though, sir. Half an hour after we were supposed to meet them here. I did try and hurry up earlier.'
Captain Barclay seemed about to reply but instead he sighed. Smoothing his moustache, he said, 'Right, let's get moving. We head for Rebecq and hope we catch up with them soon.'
Tanner watched Blackstone go back to the men. He saw the CSM mutter something to several troops from Company Headquarters, then furtive glances at the OC. One of the men was the quartermaster sergeant, Ted
Slater, a man Tanner had barely spoken to since Manston, but someone he had been keeping an eye on. Slater's limp had gone - in fact, there had been no sign of it ever since they had reached France - but Tanner had not forgotten Torwinski, or the other Poles, or that he and Sykes had nearly been burned alive. He was still not certain who had been responsible - the evidence was so maddeningly inconclusive. Damn it, if he was honest, now that he could think a little more calmly, he couldn't swear it had been Blackstone who had shot him on the bridge after all. Suspected it, yes, but the lieutenant had been right - there had been a lot of bullets flying. Nonetheless, Blackstone and Slater were friends, and as a consequence he neither liked nor trusted the quartermaster sergeant. Both men would have to be watched like hawks. As if there isn't enough to think about, he thought.
'What do you reckon has happened?' Peploe asked Tanner, as they rejoined the platoon.
'Orders probably changed.'
'And we didn't get them?'
'No, sir.'
'I suppose we just have to hope they're in Rebecq.'
'We need to stop whether the battalion's there or not, sir,' Tanner replied. 'The men need food.'
'Yes, of course,' said Peploe. 'I'd rather got used to B Echelon following us around.'
'If B Echelon isn't there, sir, we'll have to find something for ourselves.'
B Echelon was not in Rebecq, and neither were any other men of 1st Battalion, the Yorkshire Rangers. A large village, it was eerily quiet as D Company tramped down the main street. At the church they halted, and on Captain Barclay's instructions, Blackstone ordered the men to fall out. Immediately, the disciplined lines of three small columns crumpled as soldiers collapsed on the side of the road, some pulling out cigarettes, others taking thirsty swigs from their water-bottles.
'We'll hammer on the houses round about the church,' said Barclay, as the officers and senior NCOs gathered beside him. 'Peploe, we need your French again.'
While Peploe went across the street and started knocking on doors, Tanner ambled back to the platoon. Most of the men were now sitting beneath a wall by the side of the road. His side was hurting, an irritating, stinging pain, and his head had begun to throb. Too much smoke and cordite combined with fatigue.
He winced as he stood beside Sykes.
'How's the side, Sarge?' Sykes asked him.
'All right.'
'So where the hell is the rest of the battalion?'
'We're just trying to find out. Mr Peploe's putting that French of his to good use again.'
'When are we going to get some grub, Sarge?' said Bell. 'I'm starving.'
'Me an' all,' said Hepworth. 'I don't think I felt this hungry even in Norway.'
'Course you bloody did,' said Sykes. 'That was loads worse. Stop thinking about it, Hep. Think about lovely French and Belgian birds instead.'
'There's none here,' said Kershaw, another survivor of the 5th Battalion. 'They've all buggered off and I don't fancy that old dear over there.' He nodded in the direction of the elderly couple Lieutenant Peploe was now talking with on the other side of the square by the church.
'Use your imagination,' said Sykes. 'You have got one, ain't you, Hep?'
'That's what you do, is it, Corp?' said McAllister. 'Think about girls?'
'Always - that and how I can screw a few more quid out of you, Mac.'
They all laughed, Tanner too.
'We'll get some grub soon, I hope,' he told them. He saw Peploe striding back towards the church. 'Hang on. I'll try and find out now.' He turned towards Peploe as the lieutenant approached them. 'Sir?'
'They said they saw hundreds of men go through a short while ago,' said Peploe as he reached them, 'some in carriers and lorries, others on foot. The last went through a little over half an hour ago. Apparently they were heading towards Steenkerque.' He unfolded Captain Barclay's map and pointed to a small village a few miles to the south-west of Rebecq.
'South-west? Were they sure?' said Barclay.
'Positive,' said Peploe. 'I questioned that as well.'
'Well, that's just marvellous,' said Squadron Leader Lyell, sitting on the lychgate bench. 'Bravo, Hector. First class.'
'Put a bloody sock in it, Charlie,' said Barclay.
'For God's sake,' continued Lyell. 'All that time you were fannying about, listening to Tanner's tales of derring-do, when if you'd just got everyone going we would have reached the rendezvous on time and we wouldn't be in this mess.'
'Will you damn well be quiet?' said Barclay, turning on his brother-in-law. 'I will not have you undermine my authority. You're not with your squadron now, you're with us, and you'll bloody well keep quiet or else I'll leave you here by the side of the road and the Germans can have you instead.' His cheeks had flushed, Tanner noticed, and he was blinking rapidly, as he tried to regain his composure. 'In any case,' he said, now peering intently at the map, 'it's perfectly clear that the orders must have changed. I don't know why, but we didn't receive them.'