'Oh, you're a bit more than that, Wooler.'
'This is above my head. It seems like it might have a fighting chance.'
'Yes, yes.' Mackie nodded. 'Well, that's how it seems to me. A fighting chance. But no more than that. You see, Wooler, the loss of the BEF was a dreadful blow, both materially and in terms of morale. We're putting up a fight. I think it's possible we can hold these bloody Germans on our soil, today and tomorrow. But it's certainly going to take more than we've got to drive them back into the sea. Which is where you come in.'
'And which is why,' Gary said coldly, 'what happened to Hilda was so useful.'
Mackie's face was hard. 'Yes, it was. I know how bloody this is for you, Wooler. Blame your mother, if you like. Peter's Well was sadly not the only atrocity the Nazis have committed on our soil. Himmler's einsatzgruppen, the SS killing squads, have been spilling English blood just as busily as they did on the continent. But Peter's Well was the one that was witnessed by an American. Your mother's telephone call from Tunbridge Wells was broadcast across the US by hundreds of syndicated stations. And here you are, her son and a grieving husband, an American already fighting this dreadful evil.'
'Good propaganda, right?'
'No. It's the truth, Wooler, cold and unvarnished. And it's precisely what is needed to make your countrymen realise that our fight is their fight, that the Nazis' threat to us is a threat to them. It's said that in the last twenty-four hours, despite the desperate situation, Churchill has spent more time working with the Americans than against the Germans.' He studied Gary. 'Interventionists versus isolationists – that's the language of the debates going on over there, isn't it? But didn't Jefferson himself warn that America should always fear a Europe united under a single hand? And even he didn't anticipate Hitler. Anyhow here we are. You lost Hilda, I know. But by making this contribution, you're helping to ensure there will be no more Hildas in the future.'
'I guess we all have our duty.'
'That's the spirit…'
There was movement at the ops table, and a stir among the listeners at the phones and wireless sets.
'They're moving,' Mackie said, his voice tight. 'They'll call this the Battle of England one day – win or lose. Watch and remember.'
XXXII
The fire roared down on the convoy from right and left, shells erupting from the fields and valleys of this folded, claustrophobic country. Once again the vehicles scattered. The Panzergrenadiers went roaring into the countryside, followed by a couple of the tanks, in search of pillboxes and other English defensive positions.
Ernst and the other men in the troop carriers leapt out to take up what positions they could find beside the road. Ernst found himself in a sort of drainage ditch, blocked by crisp autumn leaves; their smoky smell was rich.
'Where do you think we are?' Ernst shouted at Unteroffizier Fischer.
'God knows.' Fischer checked his watch. 'I know where we should be. On the other side of Haywards Heath by now.' He stumbled over the odd English name.
Ernst knew the route, roughly. From Uckfield they had headed west and north. The plan was to follow the A-class roads though Haywards Heath and Horsham and then make the long run up to Guildford. On the map it looked straightforward. But they had run into this sort of resistance as soon as they had left Uckfield.
More fire rained on the vehicles. It didn't come at random. The tank-busting shells were always targeted first at the lead vehicles in the column and the last, leaving the column trapped and ripe for further attack.
'India,' Ernst said.
The Unteroffizier snorted. 'We're going a bit slow, Gefreiter, but we're not that lost.'
'No. I mean, India is where the English learned this tactic, knocking out the lead and rear vehicles. How infantry can strike at a mechanised column. It's just what the Indians used to do to them in the Raj. I picked that up during our training in France.'
Kieser said, 'After the way they fell over at Dunkirk I never thought the English would fight this hard. Inch by bloody inch, eh, boys?'
The Unteroffizier said, 'But we're still rolling, lads, that's the thing to remember. The English are bastards, but we're worse. Right? The column's forming up again. Let's get back in the truck.'
Cautiously Ernst and the others clambered out onto the road surface. The units that had gone scouring into the hillside returned to the road, the burned-out tanks were being shoved aside by the heavy-lift vehicles, and the lorries' engines were coughing to life. A couple more vehicles lost, Ernst thought, and a bit more of their precious fuel used up.
The fuel was surely the crucial factor. The column had had no resupply since a convoy of fuel trucks had come up from the coast before it left Uckfield. There had been none of the supply dumps they had been promised, and not a single filling station had been found to contain a drop of unadulterated petrol. Already the fuel shortage was affecting the operation. Trucks had been abandoned, their tanks siphoned empty and their loads distributed among the surviving vehicles, and the flame tanks, so useful in country like this, had been neutered.
And even as he climbed back up onto the bed of his truck Ernst heard the drone of aircraft engines. The air war over the south coast had been going on all day; occasionally he glimpsed the metallic glint of a plane, or saw the bright colours of tracer fire. But this new engine noise, growing louder, was coming from behind him, from the north. He turned. A flight of Blenheims was sweeping down on the column, like predatory birds. Already the first sticks of bombs were falling from their bellies.
'Oh, shit,' said Kieser wearily.
Commands were barked out. 'Get out! Get to cover!' 'Get those anti-aircraft guns deployed!'
Once again the column had to scatter; once again Ernst found himself in a ditch. The planes were slow, but the convoy had no cover; the Luftwaffe was evidently otherwise engaged.
'Christ!' Kieser shouted. 'How do they know where we are?'
'They've got radio direction finders,' Ernst yelled back. 'That's how they know. And all these bloody partisans in the hills are reporting in every time we take a piss.'
The planes dipped lower, their machine-guns spitting fire, the bombs splashing craters into the road, and men began to scream. Ernst cowered in the dirt, burrowing into English autumn leaves, pulling his helmet low over his head.
XXXIII
The wooden blocks glided silently across the ops table, mirroring the blood and horror that must be unfolding out in the English countryside right at this moment. Gary wondered if these calm Wrens had night-mares.
He glanced at the big clock on the wall. Already it was almost two p.m.
'It's working,' Mackie said. 'It's only bloody working. Look, can you see – there's a lot of detail, but just concentrate on the Panzer divisions. You have the Tenth heading off east towards Ashford, and the Fourth pushing for Lewes. Well, they're so far from any support they might as well go back home. But the main thrust, the main line of breakout, is coming from the Seventh and Eighth, pushing up from the Sussex coast towards Guildford. Just where we want them.'
There was a fuss around the ops table, and the Wrens started sliding their blocks across the map with increasingly frantic haste.
'And it's starting,' Mackie said. 'Our counterattack. About bloody time.'
'Request leave to return to my unit, sir.'
'Of course, Corporal. I've ordered a car for you. Tell Monty to give old Hitler one from me! Sergeant Blackwell?'
'Sir. This way, Corporal…'
So Gary was led out of the bunker, bundled into a staff car, whisked out of the base, and rushed along roads crowded by troops and supply vehicles. There were a few civilians, fleeing north and west from the threatened towns of Sussex and Hampshire, the usual dreary parade of women and children and old folk. But such was the urgency now, and the volume of military assets on the move, that police, MPs and ARP wardens were peremptorily shoving the civilians off the road. It was all vividly real, after the monasticism of the ops room.