It was the afternoon by the time the three men of the 52nd found their battalion. The unit was resting where Colonel Whitlam had told Lieutenant Byford he’d find them – beside the Bois l’Abbé, the very wood where the trio had that morning linked up with Lieutenant Mitchell and the tanks. While Frankie and Taz had been at the battlefront, the battalions of the 13th Brigade had marched for twelve kilometres, crossing the River Somme via a bridge at Blangy-Tronville then passing through the Hallue Valley. They’d marched full of confidence, with helmets set at jaunty angles, cigarettes hanging from their mouths and laughter erupting from one group and another.

Lieutenant Byford now thanked Frankie and Taz, then set off to report to Colonel Whitlam. Frankie and Taz soon found their platoon among the sea of khaki uniforms lounging in the field where the mustard gas had wreaked havoc that morning.

‘So the wanderers return!’ Corporal Rait exclaimed, standing with his hands on his hips.

‘Bad pennies always turn up again,’ sneered Corporal Will Eager. Rait the Rat’s best friend had rejoined the battalion from hospital that same morning and was now in charge of a section in another platoon of the 52nd Battalion.

But Frankie and Taz received a warm welcome from Private Nash, who stood up and shook each by the hand. ‘I was worried that the Jerries might have got you two,’ he confessed. ‘Did you see any fighting?’

‘Only saw a blooming great tank battle,’ said Frankie, sinking wearily to the ground and laying his rifle down beside him.

‘No! Really?’ Nash exclaimed, his eyes widening with awe. ‘What was it like?’

‘Brutal,’ said Taz. He also took the load off his feet and proceeded to return his bayonet to its scabbard.

‘But we won!’ Frankie added with a grin.

This brought cheers from the men around them, who leaned closer to hear what Frankie and Taz had to say.

‘We heard that the Germans have broken through British lines and taken Villers-Bretonneux,’ Nash told the pair.

‘Yes,’ Taz replied. ‘We saw a lot of British troops falling back from there. They looked pretty shaken up, I can tell you.’

‘A German plane came over while we were on the march,’ said Nash, sitting down again. ‘The observer took photographs of us. Bleeding cheek, I thought. And there was us just having to smile for the camera.’

‘One Jerry plane dropped a bomb on a tank near us,’ said Frankie.

‘It didn’t get you blokes, though,’ said Nash.

‘Nah.’

‘I wish we could be camouflaged somehow so the buggers couldn’t see us,’ said Nash. ‘A bloke feels almost naked letting Jerry photograph us like that.’

‘Us camouflaged?’ Frankie asked, incredulous. ‘What, covered in netting, or dressed up like trees or something?’

‘They should invent a paint to make us invisible,’ Nash suggested. ‘Like in The Invisible Man.’

Frankie frowned. ‘In the what?’

‘The Invisible Man – the novel by H. G. Wells,’ said Taz. ‘Haven’t you read it, Frankie? It’s terrific!’

Frankie pulled a face. ‘I don’t have time to read books.’

‘If they covered us in invisible paint,’ Nash went on, ‘the Germans would never see us and we could just march up to their trenches and take their guns off them. The war would be over in a day.’

‘Wouldn’t work, Nash,’ Rait the Rat interjected from behind.

Nash looked around. ‘Why not, Corp?’

‘The sodding Fritzes always get what we’ve got, chum. Sometimes they even invent things before we do – mustard gas, for example. They’d get invisible paint, too, and paint all their men with it.’

Frankie laughed. ‘So we’d be invisible and they’d be invisible, and we’d all be charging around the battlefield like blind men.’

‘And bumping into each other and falling over,’ said Taz.

Men around them laughed at the thought.

‘Load of silly sods, the lot of you,’ Rait growled, putting an end to the revelry.

 

Lumbering towards Monument Wood, Mephisto was in search of its brother and sister tanks. As it rolled along, the machine-gunners replaced the barrels on their Maxims with fresh ones; the heat of battle having worn out the old barrels.

The area that Mephisto now entered was known as Monument Farm, while the exact locale it found itself in was called the Orchard. Scattered bricks lay where a farmhouse and outbuildings once stood. The trees of the orchard had been ripped from the earth by numerous artillery barrages from both sides, leaving just the occasional tree stump.

British troops had fled from their trenches all along the 1.6-kilometre front of the morning’s powerful German assault, but not every trench had been abandoned. Where officers or strong-willed NCOs survived, British resistance remained. The rapid German advance had passed them by, leaving them isolated, like small islands in a shark-infested sea. Here, nearer to Cachy, that resistance was at its strongest. As Mephisto crept through the remnants of the Orchard, Richard and the other weary crew members heard the pitter-patter of bullets on the armoured front and right side of their tank.

‘Where is that fire coming from?!’ Lieutenant Theunissen demanded, peering through his viewing slit.

‘One hundred metres to the right, Herr Oberleutnant,’ replied Papa Heiber, who had the best view.

‘Engage! Engage!’ Theunissen bellowed, punching one of the buttons in front of him to light up the lamp on the extreme right of gunner Eckhardt’s indication panel.

Eckhardt, looking through his front right port, saw the flashing muzzle of a British Lewis Gun to his right and the helmeted heads of British soldiers. Quickly, he spun the wheel that turned the tank’s big gun in their direction. Adjusting for range, he fired. The gun boomed. His shot fell beyond the target.

‘No! No! No!’ Theunissen yelled. ‘Lower your sights! Lower your sights!’

As Eckhardt adjusted his aim, Richard loaded another shell into the breech. At that moment, Mephisto was rocked by an explosion close by. Shrapnel clattered against its armour. A British artillery shell had landed just metres to the right of the tank.

‘The English artillery has our range! They have our range!’ Theunissen was almost screaming. ‘Get us out of here, Heiber!’ He pointed to a conglomeration of shell craters ahead and to their left. ‘There! There! Get us in there! Hurry! Hurry!’

Heiber did as commanded, accelerating towards the massive holes in the ground. As Eckhardt and the machine-gunners continued to fire on the British trenches, another shell landed where Mephisto had been moments before, and enemy bullets continued to rattle against the tank’s armoured sides.

‘It looks deep in there, Herr Oberleutnant,’ Heiber called as they drew closer to the craters.

‘Good, good,’ Theunissen came back. ‘We need cover from the artillery.’

‘But we might not get out,’ Heiber protested.

‘Nonsense. Keep going!’ To emphasise his point, Theunissen pounded the driver on the knee. ‘Keep going!’

Never one to disobey an order, Heiber eased off the accelerator and pointed Mephisto’s nose down the side of a crater, taking care not to let the tank lean too far to either side, in case it turned turtle. Down into the hole in the ground the tank eased, until it came to rest at the bottom of several linked craters, with just its cupola visible from the British trenches. Bullets now tickled the armour plating on the side of the cupola, close to Theunissen’s head.

Theunissen hunched fearfully. ‘The Tommies can still see us! I think the crater is deeper to our left. Go left, Heiber.’

But when Heiber tried to use the left track to turn them Mephisto wouldn’t budge.

‘Why are we not moving, Heiber?’ Theunissen demanded.

‘We are stuck, Herr Oberst. I did warn you –’

‘What! Stuck? That can’t be possible. Try again.’

Heiber applied full power to the left track. At maximum capacity, the engine on the left strained with a roar, then died.

‘What now?’ Theunissen said, the blood draining from his face.

‘The engine has stopped. We are stuck fast, Oberleutnant,’ Heiber replied with a helpless shrug.

‘But we’re a sitting target.’

‘Yes, we are,’ Heiber said matter-of-factly. As far as he was concerned, Theunissen had got them into this predicament and it was up to him to get them out again. ‘What are your orders?’

‘Try the other engine.’

‘But that will only take us around and around in circles.’

‘Try it!’

Heiber engaged the right track solo and tried to move Mephisto around to the right. But the tank remained where it was. Looking around at the commander, Heiber shrugged.

‘Turn off the other engine,’ Theunissen growled. ‘I can’t think with the noise.’

Heiber did so, and for the first time in many hours, the crew found themselves in a world of silence. Members of the crew exchanged worried glances.

‘That’s better,’ said Theunissen, removing his peaked cap and wiping his brow with his cuff. ‘Someone had better look outside,’ he said after a few moments. ‘Who is the nearest to the forward hatch?’

‘Rix, the youngster,’ said Heiber. Leaning low, he called into the forward compartment. ‘Rix, find out why we’re stuck. Use the forward hatch.’

‘Me?’ said Richard, looking up at the driver in horror. ‘Go outside?’

‘Do as he says, boy!’ said an impatient Sergeant Eckhardt, beside him at the gun. ‘Quickly! None of us want to be stuck here for long. Here, for your protection . . .’ Reaching to his belt, Eckhardt removed a 9 mm Mauser automatic pistol from its holster and handed it to Richard.

The sixteen-year-old took the pistol, then, plucking up his courage, peeked out a small round spy-hole in the middle of the forward hatch.

‘Hurry, boy!’ yelled Lieutenant Theunissen.

Seeing no sign of British troops in the crater, Richard unfastened the hatch door. Pistol in hand, he climbed out into the light of day and dropped to the ground. As fresh air washed over his bare torso, the sounds of battle from further west met his ears. Anxiously, with the pistol at the ready, Richard looked around. The crater, which was really a series of linked holes created by several shells falling in the same spot, was more than two metres deep in places and at least three metres deep at its centre. There was no sign of anyone, living or dead, in the vicinity.

‘All clear out here,’ Richard called with relief. ‘No Tommies.’

‘See what the problem with the tracks is, boy,’ Theunissen called through a cupola flap. ‘Why are we unable to move?’

Richard dropped to his knees to inspect the front of the tank. Mephisto’s angled steel nose was lodged against the earthen wall at the front of the crater, with its big gun pointing uselessly into the ground. Beneath the nose was the remnant of a deep, wide ditch, over which the tank’s tracks were hanging. The ditch was probably all that was left of an irrigation channel that had fed the orchard here in peacetime, thought Richard. It looked ominously wide, and he remembered how, during training outside Charleroi, BadenI had become stuck in a stream bed. Experience would show that an A7V’s tracks could not cross a gap wider than 1.5 metres. This ditch beneath Mephisto’s nose was at least two metres across.

Richard wasted no time out in the open. Climbing back into the forward compartment and closing the hatch behind him, he reported to Theunissen. ‘Mephisto is stuck fast against the bank, Herr Oberleutnant. At the front, the tracks have nothing to grip on to. They are hanging over the remains of a ditch.’

Upon receiving this news, Theunissen called to Hartmann. ‘Mechanic, try to get the left engine started again.’

Both Hartmann and Hess laboured unsuccessfully for five minutes with the engine crank, before giving up, exhausted.

‘I think the left engine overheated, Herr Oberleutnant,’ Hartmann advised, craning his neck to look at the commander in his elevated seat. Breathing hard, he wiped his forehead with the back of his hand.

‘Start the other engine,’ Theunissen instructed.

‘Yes, Herr Oberleutnant.’

Transferring the crank handle to the other engine, Hartmann was soon able to get the engine on the right started, and it turned over reassuringly.

‘Heiber, try reversing the machine,’ directed Theunissen. ‘The one engine may be enough to get us free.’

Heiber didn’t say anything, merely doing as instructed. But that didn’t achieve anything, either.

With their one good engine shut down again, Theunissen sat deep in thought.

‘What shall we do, Herr Oberleutnant?’ Heiber inquired.

‘I don’t know, I don’t know!’ Theunissen came back. ‘Don’t rush me. I’m thinking. I’m thinking!’

‘With respect, Herr Oberleutnant,’ Eckhardt called calmly, ‘perhaps you should send a message back to Oberst Kessel and arrange for another of our panzers to be dispatched to tow us out of here.’

‘Ah, a good idea, Feldwebel Eckhardt,’ Theunissen said gratefully.

‘Yes, send one of my girls with the message,’ said Hess, looking towards the cage of pigeons.

‘I wouldn’t be trusting my fate to a bird,’ said Krank. ‘Send a runner, Herr Oberleutnant. Or two or three runners to make sure the message gets through. Mark my words, the birds will never get through. And Krank is always right.’

‘Don’t you go maligning my birds!’ Hess protested. ‘They’ll do the job. Besides, they deserve an opportunity to fly free.’

‘No,’ said Lieutenant Theunissen definitely. ‘I will go back.’

‘Several of the men should go too, Herr Oberleutnant,’ said Heiber, ‘in case you don’t get through with the message.’

‘Yes, yes,’ Theunissen responded. He removed his spectacles, the lenses misted over with the sweat from his face, and cleaned them with the cloth of his jacket. ‘The rest of you will have to stay here and make sure the enemy does not get its hands on this panzer.’

‘I wouldn’t be leaving the Maxims here for the Tommies to get their hands on, Herr Oberleutnant,’ said Eckhardt. ‘Take them with you. They are of no use to us in this hole in the ground.’

Theunissen nodded. ‘Very well. Machine-gunners, dismount your weapons. You will return to our lines with me. The rest of you, arm yourselves as best you can. Mephisto must not fall into enemy hands while I am organising another machine to tow it free.’

Pistols and stick grenades stored in lockers in the forward and rear compartments were now shared between the men who would remain with the tank, and detonators were inserted in the grenades. Richard handed the pistol back to Eckhardt and took possession of another Mauser automatic from a locker. He looked at the Mauser in his hands, with its square, ten-round magazine in front of the trigger, and then turned to Sergeant Eckhardt. ‘Are there any spare magazines, Feldwebel?’

Eckhardt shook his head.

‘So I have to defend this panzer with ten bullets?’ Richard queried with a worried frown.

Eckhardt made no reply.

‘Those of us remaining with the machine can’t stay inside,’ Heiber commented to Lieutenant Theunissen while he, too, armed himself.

‘Why not?’ said Theunissen, as he once more hung his spectacles over his nose and ears. ‘Why would you give up the protection of the armour?’

‘Our vision is too limited inside, Herr Oberleutnant,’ Heiber answered. ‘There are too many blind spots. Tommies would be able to creep up to the panzer and fire in through one of our gun ports.’

‘Or drop in a grenade,’ added Eckhardt.

‘It would be suicide to remain in here,’ said Krank, jamming stick grenades into his belt.

‘Heiber is right,’ Eckhardt went on. ‘It will be a safer proposition to defend Mephisto from outside.’

‘Very well, if that is your choice,’ said Theunissen. ‘Feldwebel Heiber, I will leave you in charge here.’

‘Yes, Herr Oberleutnant.’

‘The men who are to remain, go out first and cover the rest of us.’

Richard jammed the Mauser into his waistband along with two long-handled grenades. Pistol at the ready, he grabbed his grey undershirt from where he’d stuffed it with his tunic and led the way out through the forward hatch. Sergeant Eckhardt followed immediately behind. Scuttling to the nearest earthen bank, they took up positions around the western side of the crater, facing the nearby British, taking care not to show their heads above the crater’s lip and invite a fatal bullet. Mephisto’s machine-gunners then helped each other manhandle their heavy weapons out through the forward and rear hatches – with each Maxim weighing twenty-six kilograms. Once the guns had been removed from their permanent mounts inside the tank, they were useless. To be operated, they needed to again be mounted, inside a tank or on the sled-like cradle used by infantry machine-gunners.

Theunissen and Heiber were the last to emerge. Dropping to one knee in the middle of the crater, Theunissen took out his pistol and called to his crew. ‘As long as one of you is left alive, you will defend Mephisto from capture until I return, or die in the attempt. Have I made myself clear?’ In response, there were grim nods all around the crater. ‘Then, good luck to us all,’ the squat lieutenant added.

Keeping low, Theunissen ran to the eastern side of the crater, where he paused. The machine-gunners, cradling their heavy Maxims in their arms like babies, followed him. After taking a deep breath, the lieutenant crawled up the angled side of the crater, then pulled himself to his feet and, almost bent double, ran off at a stumbling gait, disappearing from the sight of the men he had left behind. Struggling under the weight of his gun, a machine-gunner followed suit, likewise clambering up the side of the crater and running towards the rear.

Richard, pulling on his shirt and buttoning it, watched the machine-gunners’ progress, expecting at any moment to hear the British open fire on them. Sure enough, when two machine-gunners, both naked to the waist, clambered up into the open, a Lewis gun and rifles started firing. Bullets began to whizz and whine by the pair and kick up dirt at their feet. Somehow, both men managed to escape unharmed. The next man up wasn’t so lucky. Hit in the leg, he tumbled to the ground, dropping his load. But as quickly as he went down, he picked up his Maxim and pulled himself to his feet. Limping, he ran on. The next two men both got clear without being harmed.

Only one machine-gunner remained. It was Wagner, who only weeks before had assured Richard that, in Mephisto, they were going to win the war and earn themselves an Iron Cross each. Wagner had apprehensively held back as his comrades scrambled from the crater. He was now the last to make a run for it. And now, too, the British close by were ready and waiting.

‘Get a move on, Wagner,’ called Sergeant Eckhardt. ‘Christmas will arrive if you wait much longer.’

‘I’m going, I’m going,’ Wagner returned with a quaver in his voice.

Cradling his machine gun, Wagner slowly crawled up the side of the crater on his stomach. He paused just below the lip, then up he rose. He had only taken a few paces before Lewis gun rounds ripped through the air. Wagner was dead before he hit the ground.

‘Langemeyer,’ Sergeant Eckhardt then said, looking at one of the machine-gun loaders in the crater. ‘You take Wagner’s place. Collect his weapon and follow the oberleutnant.’

With a look of terror on his face, Private Langemeyer turned questioningly to Papa Heiber.

‘Yes, Langemeyer, do as he says,’ said Heiber.

Langemeyer let out a little groan, then crossed to the far side of the crater. Taking a deep breath, he scuttled up the side, exposing himself. Bullets came his way but, in ducking to collect the Maxim gun that had fallen from Wagner’s grasp, Langemeyer avoided the lead that was intended for him. Carrying the gun, he made his escape.

British shells began to fall nearby, and the crewmen who remained in the crater with Mephisto hugged the earth and drew their knees up into their stomachs to make themselves less of a target for flying shrapnel.

‘Feldwebel,’ Richard called to Papa Heiber, as the shells burst closer and closer to their hiding place, ‘do you think the English know that Mephisto is here and are trying to destroy it with their shelling?’

‘It is likely, youngster,’ Heiber replied gravely.

‘Are we safer out here or back inside the panzer?’ Private Krank asked no one in particular.

‘If they hit the fuel tank,’ said Sergeant Eckhardt, ‘you don’t want to be inside the panzer, Krank.’

‘Yes, it would be like Hades in there,’ said Hartmann. ‘You would fry, my friend.’

‘My girls!’ Private Hess exclaimed. ‘Those English swine are not going to get my girls!’ Ignoring the falling shells, he jumped up and ran back to Mephisto’s open rear hatch.

Moments later, Hess emerged, holding up the cage containing the tank’s carrier pigeons. Seemingly oblivious to the bombardment, he stood beside Mephisto and opened the small door to the cage.

‘Get down, you fool!’ Heiber called.

‘Yes, get down, Hess!’ said Corporal Hartmann. ‘Do you want to be killed?’

But Hess ignored them both. ‘Come along, my girls,’ he said to the pigeons. ‘Out you come.’ When the birds would not emerge, Hess reached in and took out the trio, one at a time. Kissing each pigeon, he then held it up and released it with a flourish of the arm. ‘Fly away, my pretty, to freedom.’

One by one, the grey birds fluttered up into the overcast sky. Just as the last took to the air, a shell landed on the edge of the crater close to Hess. Shrapnel scythed through the air and smoke billowed. When the smoke cleared, Hess was lying motionless beside Mephisto with his mouth open and eyes staring. The birdcage lay mangled beside him, the ragged corpse of the last pigeon close by. High above, the first two birds circled, then flew away towards the east.

Corporal Hartmann, moaning with pain, was rocking back and forth and clutching the back of his right leg. Metal fragments from the same shell that had killed Hess had ploughed into his thigh.

Papa Heiber made his way to the wounded Hartmann and surveyed the corporal’s wound. ‘You’ll live,’ he declared, ‘unlike that fool Hess.’

‘Is Hess dead?’ Hartmann asked through clenched teeth.

‘Quite dead, my friend,’ Heiber said, unbuttoning his tunic. He proceeded to tear strips from his undershirt to serve as bandages for Hartmann’s leg. ‘And then there were nine of us.’

‘In a hole in the ground in an orchard,’ said Richard, half to himself. He felt very uneasy about what might lie ahead and checked to make sure that his pistol’s magazine was full.

‘A hole in the ground that will become the grave of us all,’ said Krank downheartedly, looking at Hess’ still frame, then up to the eastern lip of the crater, where the soles of Wagner’s boots were clearly visible. ‘And Krank is always right.’

‘Heiber,’ called Eckhardt, ‘we’re too close to the machine. The English will continue to target it and we will fall victim to their shelling.’

‘What do you suggest, Eckhardt?’ Heiber responded as he bandaged Hartmann.

‘We withdraw to the next shell crater over there.’ Eckhardt nodded to the southeast. ‘We can still keep an eye on the panzer from there.’

‘Yes, let’s do that,’ Krank quickly agreed. ‘It’s too hot here for comfort, Feldwebel.’

Heiber thought for a moment, then nodded. ‘Very well. But no further than the next shell crater. We are under orders to defend Mephisto, and defend it we must.’

‘We will wait for a lull in this shelling, then relocate,’ said Eckhardt, as shells continued to fall close by. ‘Do you agree, Heiber?’

‘Yes, but we wait for nightfall,’ Heiber returned. ‘No point taking foolhardy risks.’

‘Nightfall?’ groaned Krank. ‘God in heaven, we will all be dead by then!’

‘Nightfall,’ Heiber repeated firmly.