As far as Ben could see these elite-type combat troops had been reasonably civilised with their prisoners. Maybe it was true that the Germans, still intent on an eventual armistice with England, were under instructions to be restrained. But then, he reminded himself, the best of the Wehrmacht were not representative of the culture of modern Germany.
The prisoners were shortly brought out, at gun point. There were other prisoners, brought here from emplacements along the invasion shore, regular soldiers and Home Guard and a few flyers in RAF blue and leather jackets. The fort was full of activity, as vehicles were serviced, horses fed, even bicycle wheels oiled. Ben tried to listen to the snippets of German conversation around him, hoping to learn something useful, but all he heard were typical soldiers' gripes about the cold food, the lack of alcohol, and the absence of women in this soggy place.
These men were all survivors of the battles yesterday, Ben reflected; save for the odd paratrooper, not a single German could have come here any other way but across that treacherous stretch of shingle. There was a smell of war about them all, with their unshaven faces and grimy clothes, a scent of cordite and diesel and petrol and dust, of burning and of blood.
The prisoners were marched up to the Bexhill road. A column was forming up here, men, horses, vehicles, guns, even one amphibious tank. Ben guessed these units were heading towards Bexhill and perhaps Hastings. As for the prisoners, maybe they were being marched to a POW camp somewhere. Ben didn't know where he was going, and he supposed he didn't need to know; he had no choices left, nothing to do but do what he was told, and survive.
As the column set off, Ernst walked behind the single tank. It had been made waterproof for its amphibious landing, but now the protective coverings and snorkel had been cut away, and its turret turned this way and that, questing, as the crew tested out the vehicle. There were a good number of trucks, some of them with seawater stains on their canvas tops. The horses were harnessed up to carts and mobile field weapons, and the infantry marched in their files on either side of the road. Some troops rode bicycles, many of them harvested from Holland and brought over on the invasion barges. There were even a few commandos out-riding on motorcycles; they were to be used as scouts, running ahead of the main column.
So they marched, north away from Pevensey. Their first objective was five miles or so inland, a place named on the leutnant's map as Windmill Hill. They soon left behind the rather dilapidated seaside villas at Pevensey. The column followed minor roads and farm tracks, but made reasonable progress over the level salt marshes beyond. The day stayed grey, even as the light gathered, and the drizzle and mist was depressing. 'If this is England, Churchill can keep it,' one man murmured.
But as Ernst walked with his comrades, swinging his arms and stepping out, he felt his blood flow, his heart pump, the clean English air filling his lungs, and he began to feel alive again. Why not? He was young, he was strong, his training was good, and he was with the best army in the world, a fact proven by accomplishment. He dared to look ahead, to the future. Perhaps he would be in London when the Fuhrer made his entrance – by barge, perhaps, along the Thames. What a grand day that would be!
The men rumbled into a marching song – 'Bomben auf Engelland', a popular favourite on the French beaches.
But this mood did not last long. Aircraft buzzed across the sky, out of sight above the lid of low cloud. Ernst winced every time one came close; he had seen troop columns strafed from the air on the continent. But no harm came from that quarter. Rumours went around the column that the RAF today was targeting the embarkation ports in France and the returning fleets of barges and tugs, trying to disrupt the invasion's second echelon.
And as the morning wore on the going became slow, disjointed. The first serious resistance they encountered was at a crossroads near a pub called the Lamb Inn, a location that commanded the levels behind them. That didn't take long to resolve, thanks to the tank. But after that the resistance became more frequent, and over and over again the column ground to a halt. Often Ernst couldn't even see what was going on up ahead. He would hear the thump of explosions, the pop of small-arms fire, occasionally a roar as the tank let loose its main gun, and see the smoke of burning petrol. Sometimes they would see one or more of their own vehicles, disabled or burned out and shoved over to the side of the road. There were a few German dead, a steady trickle; Ernst saw the bodies at the side of the road covered by tarpaulins from the disabled trucks. Medics patched up the injured.
And the troops would stare as they passed a blown-apart pillbox of piled-up sandbags, or a cleared-aside roadblock made of concrete and lengths of rail track and concrete anti-tank 'dimples', lines of little cones. The weapons in the blown-open pillboxes and bunkers, seemed crude. Ernst saw one mortar that looked as if it might have been used against Napoleon.
On they went. Every bridge was demolished, and the scouts had to find them places to ford the streams. Elsewhere there were ditches, meant to stop tanks perhaps, and the weary men scrambled down one bank and up another. These assaults were petty, but they steadily eroded the column's manpower, and took out their vehicles and horses and used up their ammunition. And, more importantly, they were slowed down.
A horse was killed by a mine in a grotesque explosion that burst the animal's carcass, showering the men with bloody fur and shredded bits of meat. The men took a break as the engineers dealt with that.
Two British troops, wounded but alive, had been taken in this place. The men sat on the ground with their hands on their heads. They wore what looked like proper army uniforms, with flat steel helmets, leather gaiters, boots, greatcoats and leather belts. One had an officer's stripes. But their arm bands read HOME GUARD. These two were old, Ernst saw with a shock as he passed, their hair grey, their faces deeply lined – either of them old enough to be his own father, if not his grandfather. Perhaps the rumours that had been circulating since France were true, that the British forces really were badly depleted by the catastrophe that had overtaken them at Dunkirk. Old these fellows might be, and defeated and captured, but they sat up straight like soldiers, one with blood trickling into a closed eye from a head wound, and they stared every German in the eye.
'Partisans?' muttered one man.
'No,' the leutnant snapped. 'You can't be a partisan until your country has surrendered, Breitling. Until then these gentleman are to be treated as prisoners of war.'
'They should be fucking shot,' Breitling said. 'Fucking English. Why can't they just roll over like the French?'
'Don't let it get you down, lads,' said the leutnant. 'Look at what we're up against. Old men and boys, and weapons from a museum. When the Panzers get over here on Tuesday they'll roll up this countryside like a carpet.'
But later Ernst overheard the leutnant muttering with an officer about this slow progress, and how it was becoming important they found fuel before they exhausted the supply they had brought over from France.
For Ben and the other prisoners it was not an arduous walk. Stuck in the middle of the column and surrounded by guards, they plodded steadily along. They talked quietly, swapped their stories, and bummed furtive cigarettes from each other. They seemed resigned to their fate, Ben thought.
The prisoners had to shelter like the rest from the attacks by the resistance elements. This was another product of the war in Spain, Ben supposed, that great warm-up fixture where the Germans had learned how to machine-gun civilians from the air and the British had learned to make Molotov cocktails.