With sweat running down their faces and rifles on their shoulders, Taz, Frankie and Richard made their way along a busy communication trench in single file.
It was Monday 22 July, a warm summer’s day on the Somme. Two months had passed since Taz and Frankie had asked Lieutenant-Colonel Whitlam for a transfer. As expected, on 16 May the 52nd Battalion had been ignominiously disbanded and its men distributed as reinforcements to other 13th Brigade battalions. The 52nd and the sacrifices of its men had been consigned to history. But just before that took place Taz, Frankie and Richard had been granted their requested transfer.
Now members of the 26th’s C Company, Taz, Frankie and Richard stuck together like glue – partly because they were mates, and partly because Taz and Frankie were determined to protect Richard’s secret, for his sake and for their own. While they were by Richard’s side to vouch for this youngster with an oddly mixed accent, his story about being a Dutch immigrant to Queensland before the war would never be questioned.
The 7th Brigade, of which the 26th Battalion was part, had been brought in to replace the 13th Brigade in the trenches of the Villers-Bretonneux sector. Its four battalions had taken it in turns to face the Germans, with two battalions always in the frontline trenches and two in the support trenches behind them. Unlike the depressed mood the trio had left behind in the ranks of the 52nd Battalion, the men of the 26th were upbeat.
Since the Villers-Bretonneux battle, things had been relatively quiet here, with fighting restricted to nuisance raids. Every day and night, the 7th Brigade sent out small patrols of a dozen men led by an officer to probe the German lines opposite and to take prisoners for questioning. The Germans rarely attempted to mount similar patrols against Australian lines. Their main response came from the air, with their aircraft coming over at dawn most days to drop bombs on Australian lines before being chased away by anti-aircraft fire and the Australian Flying Corps.
Spared patrol work, life had been pretty placid and safe for the trio from the 52nd Battalion these past two months. The most activity they’d seen had been behind the lines, salvaging discarded equipment lying on the battlefield in the wake of the fierce April battle, and swinging picks as part of a 26th Battalion 200-man party digging deep trenches for telephone lines.
But now the three of them were worried. They had been summoned to appear before the commanding officer of the 26th, Major James ‘Rocks’ Robinson, at a special parade. Plodding along the communication trenches, they feared their secret had been exposed and that they were about to be punished for their masquerade.
Arriving at the battalion’s HQ dugout for the parade, they found a sergeant and another nine men from the battalion already lined up in the trench outside the dugout entrance, waiting for the major to join them from his underground quarters. As Taz, Frankie and Richard took their places at the end of the line, Frankie whispered to one of the men standing there. ‘What’s this all about, mate? Is it a punishment parade?’
‘Punishment?’ The soldier laughed. ‘Not likely, mate. There’s a special patrol on the go, and we’re all down for it.’
‘Oh.’ Frankie looked at Taz and Richard with surprise. ‘A patrol,’ he echoed.
Taz, leaning close to Richard, whispered, ‘How do you feel about that? Going back over there?’ He inclined his head towards German lines.
Richard shrugged. ‘I don’t know, Taz.’ What he did know was that he had no desire to fight his fellow Germans. ‘I will have to wait and see, I suppose.’
‘Ten-shun!’ bellowed the short, squat sergeant at the head of the line.
As the dozen men came to attention, Major Robinson emerged from the dugout’s low entrance with his head bowed, then straightened to his full height and looked along the line. The battalion’s intelligence officer, Lieutenant McFarlane, appeared behind him and stood at his shoulder. From inside the dugout came the clacking sound of a typewriter, as a clerk on the HQ staff belted out the final orders for the day’s operations.
‘At ease,’ the major called.
The men in the line stood easy. In the two months they’d been with the 26th, Taz, Frankie and Richard had never laid eyes on their new CO. They now gave him the once-over as he walked along the line, hands clasped behind his back, looking over the dozen men. Robinson was slim, narrow-faced and possessed an intense stare.
Before the war, Robinson had been a schoolteacher in Brisbane, and many men in the battalion felt that his two nicknames stemmed from that time. One of them was ‘Old Uniformity’. Robinson certainly liked his unit run in a uniform manner, and he dressed with surprising neatness for an officer on the battlefield. But ‘Rocks’, his other nickname, seemed the most appropriate. Frankie reckoned the major must have liked rocks when he was a schoolteacher, but Taz had heard that some officers felt that Robinson had rocks in his head because of the brazen operations he often came up with. And he’d just come up with another one.
‘Right, gentleman,’ said Robinson, halting and facing the line of men. Sounding like a schoolteacher addressing his students, he went on. ‘Tonight, you’ll be going on a little excursion into No Man’s Land. There’s an abandoned Jerry tank out there called Mephisto.’
As the major paused to allow this information to sink in, Taz, Frankie and Richard glanced at each other in alarm.
‘In April,’ Robinson resumed, ‘the 52nd Battalion briefly took possession of this tank in an orchard at Monument Farm. But ever since our new front line was established just short of the orchard, this Jerry tank has been left sitting out there between the lines. We believe that Jerry has been using Mephisto as a lookout post. And we can’t have that, can we?’
Smiles appeared on the faces of some of the men in front of him.
‘So tonight,’ Robinson continued, ‘we will be bringing that Jerry tank back to our lines.’
‘How, sir?’ asked one of the men.
‘I hope we don’t have to carry the blinking thing,’ another mumbled.
‘You gentlemen are going to take steel cables out there and hook them up to Mephisto,’ the major advised. ‘The other ends will be attached to winches on two carrier tanks from the 1st Gun Carrier Company, which will be waiting near our lines. Those tanks will then drag Mephisto back here. Officers from the Gun Carrier Company and myself have already chosen a route for this, and tonight, before you go, the battalion will have clearing parties out preparing that route.’
‘Crikey!’ Frankie exclaimed.
‘Sergeant Hanson has hand-picked you men from A, B and C Companies to recover the tank,’ said Robinson. ‘You are men of pluck, he tells me.’ This brought smiles along the line. ‘And I believe that three of you C company men only recently joined us from the 52nd. Furthermore, those three men were the only survivors from the 52nd Battalion platoon that kept Mephisto out of Jerry hands last April.’
‘Step forward, those three men!’ bellowed Sergeant Frank Hanson, from the head of the line.
Taz and Frankie promptly took one step to the front, but Richard hesitated. Taz glared at him and motioned with his head for the German to also step forward, which Richard then did.
Major Robinson looked at Richard with a frown. ‘Were you there at Mephisto in April or not, man?’
‘Yes, I was there, Major,’ Richard replied. ‘I was most certainly with Mephisto in April.’
‘Very well then,’ said Robinson, satisfied by the response. ‘Can you men tell me what condition the tank was in when you last saw it? Is it intact?’
‘It looked pretty intact to me, sir,’ Taz volunteered. ‘At one point while we were there the Germans got around behind us and set off a demolition charge inside it.’
Robinson frowned. ‘How much damage did that charge do?’
‘Not much damage that I could see, sir. Bits of metal were sticking up from the roof. Other than that, it seemed as solid as a rock.’
‘What about the tracks? Were they intact?’
Taz nodded. ‘As far as I could tell, they were, sir.’
Robinson was clearly pleased to hear this. ‘Very good. We’ll drag the monster back here by hook or by crook. But if the tracks are in working order, our job will be all the easier.’
Now Frankie piped up. ‘The tank’s in a blooming great shell crater, sir. It won’t be easy to budge. Can’t we just leave it where it is? It’s not hurting anyone out there.’
Robinson’s face clouded over. ‘If we don’t grab it, Jerry will,’ he countered. ‘They’ve already recovered one of their tanks from the same area. We don’t want them getting this one too, do we, Lance-Corporal?’ He directed his piercing gaze at Frankie.
‘I suppose not, sir,’ Frankie replied with a sigh. He had no desire to risk his skin on such a chancy venture between the lines, especially after his last encounter with Mephisto had resulted in the deaths of almost every member of his platoon. ‘The generals said we had to get it, did they?’
‘I’m using my initiative, Lance-Corporal,’ Robinson responded, irritated by Frankie’s impertinence. ‘But the brigade commander, General Wisdom, has approved this operation.’
‘And what the major wants, Pickles,’ Sergeant Hanson interjected, ‘he gets!’
‘I’m sure resourceful Australians like yourselves will find a way to get the tank out of the crater,’ Robinson remarked dismissively. ‘Sergeant Hanson, brief your men,’ he instructed, before turning on his heel and disappearing into his dugout, closely followed by the intelligence lieutenant.
‘Gather round, you blokes,’ called Sergeant Hanson, a Queenslander from Mount Larcom. Taz, Frankie and Richard joined the others in forming a semi-circle in front of Hanson. ‘Here’s what we’re going to do. At eleven tonight, just as Jerry is settling down to sleepy-byes, we’re going to set off to pay this tank of theirs a visit, and invite it – very politely, mind – to our lines.’
One of the men sniggered at this.
The smile disappeared from Hanson’s face. ‘Assemble back here at ten-thirty. We’ll be going over with fifty rounds of ammo per man. Jerry may not like us taking his little tank away and could put up a bit of resistance. Make sure your .303 has a sling on it – we’ll need our hands free over there. Any questions?’
‘What if we can’t get the bleeding thing out of the hole?’ one man asked.
‘That’s not an option, mate,’ Hanson firmly replied. ‘The major wants this tank, and we’re going to get it for him. That’s it. Buzz off, all of you. I’ll see you back here at ten-thirty tonight.’
The group broke up, and Taz, Frankie and Richard walked back to their trench in silence. There, they sank down and sat side by side with their backs against the trench wall.
‘Well, ain’t that a turn-up for the books!’ Frankie exclaimed. ‘Sending us back to get flaming Mephisto.’
‘Incredible!’ said Richard, not sure what to think about this.
‘What do you reckon, Taz?’ Frankie asked.
Taz, laying his head back and looking up at the hazy sky above, smiled to himself. ‘I think the gods are having a laugh at our expense. That’s what I reckon.’
The sun hadn’t long gone down when, at 10.30 pm, Sergeant Hanson and his twelve chosen men assembled outside the HQ dugout. Lying on the ground were two lengths of tightly wound steel hawser. Each, when unravelled, would be more than a hundred metres long.
‘The cables are a present from the engineers,’ Sergeant Hanson advised. ‘When we move out, I want six men to a hawser.’ With that said, he proceeded to split the party in two.
Walking along the line, Sergeant Hanson handed out shoulder slings for rifles. Each man fitted this to his weapon before slinging it over one shoulder. That done, the sergeant inspected the party’s equipment, particularly making sure each man had brought his gas-mask, which was contained in the regular bulky canvas container that hung around their necks. Following along behind Hanson, a quartermaster corporal handed each man ten five-bullet clips for his Lee-Enfield, and two Mills bombs.
Like the others, Taz, Frankie and Richard stuffed magazines and grenades into the canvas pouches strapped to their chests. All three had mixed feelings about the stunt they were about to embark on. Taz was worried about how Richard would react. Frankie’s old fears about being killed had returned. And Richard was numb, not knowing what he would do when he was reunited with Mephisto or if he came face-to-face with German troops.
Once the ammunition had been distributed and Sergeant Hanson was satisfied that his party was ready for action, they were joined by Major Robinson and Lieutenant McFarlane, the intelligence officer.
‘Good hunting, gentlemen,’ Robinson said with a tight smile, looking around at the men. ‘Bring back the prize!’
‘Right, you lot, let’s be having you,’ said Hanson. ‘A cable to each group. Hoist them up onto your shoulders. Come on, be snappy about it. Let’s go!’
As six men lifted one length of hawser between them, spreading it out over some ten metres, the other half-a-dozen took up the second hawser and did the same. Taz, Frankie and Richard were the first three in their group.
‘Christ! It’s heavy!’ one man complained.
‘Who would have thought it’d come to this?’ Frankie said with a grunt of exertion as he took his share of the load. ‘I’ve ended up in a flaming chain gang!’
An amused smile appeared on Major Robinson’s face. He watched the party depart, with the intelligence officer leading the contingent from the trenches, then returned to his dugout. Lieutenant McFarlane, meanwhile, guided Hanson and his two lines of hawser-bearing men to where two ugly British gun carrier tanks stood, their engines shut down, on the edge of No Man’s Land. Built on the chassis of a Mark I tank, these gun carriers had a flat platform at the front and two small armoured cabs in the rear – one for the driver, the other for the brakeman. Until now, these two machines had been used to salvage British tanks from the battlefield, including Lieutenant Mitchell’s Sir Lancelot in May. Tonight they were standing ready to reel in Mephisto.
Following the lieutenant’s example, all thirteen men of the recovery party dropped to one knee beside the nearest gun carrier, gratefully dumping their weighty hawsers to the ground. There, they waited as the lieutenant and the sergeant conferred in whispers with a British officer from the Gun Carrier Company.
Out in front, the low shapes of 26th Battalion men clearing a path for Mephisto could be made out. Lying on their stomachs, they were using entrenching tools and lengths of wood to level the ground. Meanwhile, to both the east and west of their location, artillery could be heard rumbling like distant thunder.
Kneeling there, Taz looked at Richard, who seemed to be having trouble keeping his rifle on his shoulder. Having spent his time in the German artillery and then the tank corps, Richard had rarely needed to handle a rifle. And he’d certainly not used one against fellow Germans. It was the last thing he wanted to be carrying.
‘Here, let me help you,’ said Taz, relieving him of the rifle. He slung it diagonally across Richard’s back with the strap across his chest. This way, it couldn’t fall from his shoulders.
Richard smiled weakly at him. ‘Thank you, Taz.’
‘Are you all right?’ Taz whispered.
Richard nodded blankly in reply.
Frankie was looking up at the sky. A rising quarter-moon was every now and then peeking from behind clouds. That moon would dimly light their way, but it would also make it easier for the Germans to see them coming. ‘Don’t take me tonight, please, God,’ said Frankie. ‘This war’s almost over.’ What a cruel irony it would be, he thought, to survive this long only to cop it while trying to steal a tank from under Jerry’s nose – all because of a whim of Rocks Robinson’s.
Sergeant Hanson scuttled to join the trio’s group. ‘You three blokes from the 52nd stick close by me,’ he whispered. ‘You know the lay of the land where the tank’s located.’
‘It all looks the same out there, Sergeant,’ Frankie returned.
‘Just the same . . .’ Hanson drew a revolver from the holster on his hip and waited, his eyes on their intelligence lieutenant.
After a time, men from the clearing parties came in from No Man’s Land with their implements, passing the recovery party with the occasional hushed ‘Good luck!’ as they returned to the trenches.
Before long, friendly artillery shells could be heard passing overhead and exploding well to their front on German trenches. The barrage wouldn’t last long. This was a light bombardment designed to keep enemy heads down while the recovery party went forward. As the moon slid from behind a cloud, Lieutenant McFarlane checked his watch and then, looking around to Hanson, pointed east. It was eleven o’clock.
Hanson nodded. ‘Let’s go!’ he whispered to the men around him, coming to his feet.
Taking up their lengths of hawser, the two lines of men rose and followed Hanson out into No Man’s Land, one group behind the other, with Taz leading the foremost group. The intelligence officer didn’t move. Remaining where he was with the gun carriers, McFarlane watched the thirteen men disappear into the night.
It was hard going for Taz, Richard, Frankie and the others. Admittedly, the clearing party had created a flat path ten metres wide all the way to the Villers-Bretonneux–Domart road, but beyond that they had to cover ground pockmarked by shells, littered with the debris of battle and not a few bodies. On top of that, they had to carry their awkward lengths of hawser.
The light bombardment covering their advance ceased. Just as the party crossed the road, German shells began to land over towards Monument Wood on their right. But the barrage soon crept nearer to the advancing recovery party. As shells exploded relatively close by, it was possible to see yellow-brown clouds rising from the detonations.
‘Gas! Gas! Gas!’ bellowed Sergeant Hanson. He stopped in his tracks, pulling off his helmet and reaching for the canvas bag hanging from his neck.
The two carrying parties immediately dropped their hawsers. One length hit the toes of the man behind Frankie. After letting out a howl of pain, the soldier proceeded to ignore the injury completely, too preoccupied with trying to remove his gasmask from its container. All the men around him were doing the same.
Having seen what mustard gas could do, Frankie and Taz wasted no time in getting their masks on, and Richard followed suit. Within seconds, all thirteen men had pulled on their masks and returned their helmets to their heads.
One man jammed his hands in his pockets.
‘What do you think you’re doing?’ Sergeant Hanson demanded through his mask.
‘Gas burns the skin, Sarge,’ the private replied in a muffled voice. ‘It can’t get me hands if they’re in me pockets.’
‘That’s no way to fight a war! Pick up the hawsers, all of you. We’ve got a job to do.’
‘Do you think the Germans are onto us, Sergeant?’ Taz asked as he and his team took up their load.
Looking to the south and then to the north, Hanson could see German shells exploding on Monument Wood and Villers-Bretonneux. He shook his head. ‘Jerry’s just being his usual obnoxious self, Dutton.’ Hanson cast his eyes over the others. ‘Come on, let’s go!’ He resumed the march towards the Orchard, weaving a course around shell holes in their path.
As yellow gas wafted around them, the two carrying parties set off after the sergeant. It was even harder going now. The men breathed heavily inside their masks while perspiration coated their foreheads, threatening to roll down their faces and fog up their eyepieces.
They had only been walking for another few minutes when Hanson stopped. Dropping to one knee, he waited for the first party to catch up to him. ‘That look familiar to you, Dutton?’ he asked Taz when his group arrived.
Although the gasmask limited his vision, Taz could make out what Hanson was talking about. Twenty metres ahead, the trunks of long-ravaged fruit trees were visible, jutting jaggedly from the earth. This was the Orchard.
‘That’s it, Sergeant,’ Taz replied.
‘Right.’ Without another word, Hanson rose up and led the men forward, bringing them to the lip of a massive shell crater. Immediately in front, surrounded by a thin cloud of gas that clung to the bottom of the crater, sat Mephisto.
‘There’s the bugger,’ said Frankie.
Hanson slithered down the side of the crater to stand beside the German tank, then motioned for his men to send their hawsers down after him. Gratefully letting go of their loads, the two parties dumped the hawsers into the hole and slid down after them.
‘You three, with me,’ Hanson said to Taz, Frankie and Richard. ‘The rest of you, line that eastern side of the crater and make sure we aren’t interrupted by Jerry.’
Nine men unshouldered their rifles and took up positions along the rim, facing German lines, at the very same spot that Taz and Frankie had fought on 24–25 April. Hanson got down on his knees and peered under the front of the tank, where its tracks hung over the old trench. Hampered by his gasmask, wafting gas and the darkness, he felt around Mephisto’s steel nose.
Before long, the sergeant let out a triumphant cry. ‘Aha! The Kaiser’s tank designers very kindly gave these monsters towing hooks.’ He turned and looked up at Taz, Frankie and Richard, who stood watching him. ‘Bring me one of them hawsers,’ he instructed.
The trio dragged the end of one of the hawsers to the front of the tank. Its large metal eyelet slipped snugly over the tank’s in-built towing hook.
‘Very handy,’ said Hanson. Regaining his feet, he instructed the trio to help him. They unravelled the hawser, carrying the free end up the edge of the crater, around two tree stumps and then back the way they had come. As they laid out the hawser, gas still hung in the air, shielding them from German eyes. Once they’d taken the length of cable as far as it would go towards the waiting gun carrier tanks, Hanson led the trio back to the crater at the trot.
‘Any of you three know anything about engines?’ Hanson asked, after they’d slid into the crater again. ‘The gun carrier officer told me we need to disengage Mephisto’s tracks from the engine so that they can run freely when he starts dragging this thing. He said there should be levers inside that do that, near the engine.’
‘I’ll do it, Sergeant,’ Richard volunteered. Little did Hanson know that Archie Rait had seen Papa Heiber operate those levers many times during Mephisto’s short operational life.
‘Good man,’ Hanson returned. ‘Go to it then.’
Richard hurried to the rear hatch on the right side of the tank, but found that it was bent in at the top and stuck fast as a result of Lieutenant Biltz’s explosive charge. So he decided to try the front hatch that he had always used. Rounding Mephisto’s rear, Richard suddenly came to a halt. In front of him lay the remains of Rait the Rat, undisturbed but partially rotted away since he, Taz and Frankie had departed the crater in April.
A chill ran down Richard’s spine. The sight reminded him that the bodies of Sergeant Heiber and other members of Mephisto’s crew would still be lying in the smaller shell crater nearby. Stepping around Rait, and making a deliberate effort not to look at what was left of the dead Englishman’s face, Richard reached the front hatch. The door opened all the way, allowing him to clamber inside the tank.
Moonlight penetrated the cabin via a gaping hole in the forward roof, making it easier for Richard to find his way to the engines in the centre of the tank. Richard fancied that he could hear Papa Heiber’s voice telling him where to find the levers he was looking for. There they were, up beside the metal bucket seat where Heiber had sat, above the engines. Reaching up, Richard was able to disengage both without difficulty.
The youth didn’t linger inside Mephisto. Quickly exiting, he returned to the others and reported to Hanson. ‘It is done, Sergeant.’
‘That was quick work, my lad,’ Hanson responded with delight. ‘All right, you three, wait here until I get back.’
The sergeant climbed up the side of the crater, then went loping back towards Australian lines. When he came running up to the two waiting gun carriers, he vigorously waved his arms to signal the drivers to advance. Closing their cabin doors, the drivers started their engines. They were so loud Hanson reckoned they could be heard all the way to Berlin. With a lurch, first one, then both gun carriers began to move. At five kilometres per hour, the two tracked vehicles rolled side by side towards the crater where Mephisto lay. Hanson walked behind them, knowing the engine noise would soon attract German fire. Sure enough, once the two tanks reached the spot where the end of the first cable lay, German shells began to fly overhead and explode not far to the rear.
Ignoring the falling shells, Hanson darted forward and grabbed the end of the hawser, fitting it to the tip of a shorter cable attached to the gun carrier’s salvage winch. Once the winch began to wind, Hanson ran back to the crater. By the time he dropped down beside Taz, Frankie and Richard, the slack on the hawser had been taken up. Using the tree stumps as leverage, with cable quivering and engines straining loudly, the gun carrier began to winch in the metal monster. Mephisto’s nose slowly came around to the right.
‘Righto!’ called Hanson. ‘Now for the other cable.’
There was a second towing hook fitted to the left front of Mephisto, and Hanson, Frankie, Taz and Richard quickly attached the other hawser to this. They then repeated their earlier action, unravelling the second cable and carrying the free end up out of the crater and over exposed ground to the other gun carrier, hooking it up to its winch. After the quartet scuttled back to the crater, Mephisto was slowly dragged out of it by the two machines. By the time the German tank had been hauled onto level ground, the strain had conveniently uprooted the two tree trunks that had been used for leverage.
The sergeant now called in the men stationed on the crater’s far lip. The recovery party had done its job. As the two gun carriers dragged Mephisto in, like fishermen hauling in a big catch, Sergeant Hanson, Taz, Frankie, Richard and the rest of the men scurried back to the 26th Battalion’s trenches, reaching them unscathed. Shells continued to fall all around, and German machine guns loosed off hundreds of rounds in the direction of the withdrawing gun carriers. But they did no damage. Rocks Robinson got his wish – the 26th Battalion successfully salvaged Mephisto, keeping it out of German hands, with the help of a boy from Queensland, a boy from Tasmania and a boy from Bavaria.