‘The border’s over to the west,’ Watson pointed out, ‘and we’re still heading east.’
‘I know, but I really don’t think trying to go that way is a good idea. The area will be full of fucking Jerries, and we’d find it bloody difficult to sneak through their lines, and then we’d have to face a whole mob of French soldiers with itchy trigger fingers and watching out for anybody heading towards them. I think it’ll be a lot safer if we try to cross the border somewhere else.’
‘Where?’ Watson asked. ‘And do you have any idea where we are right now, bearing in mind we haven’t got a map or even a bloody compass?’
Dawson looked around him. They’d already moved – jogging as quickly as they could over the uneven ground – perhaps half a mile away from the killing ground, where they’d left the bullet-riddled bodies of the two German soldiers. They’d finally stopped for a breather, and were sitting down high on a slope, their backs to another large fallen tree. They were deep inside the forest and had been working their way through the thick undergrowth that grew on the steeper slopes of the heavily wooded valleys, where they hoped no mines would have been planted.
‘We’re in Germany,’ Dawson said.
‘I did know that,’ Watson remarked.
‘I remember the map that Lieutenant Charnforth showed us, or the rough lie of the land here, anyway.’ Dawson reached into one of the pockets on his battledress tunic and pulled out a folded sheet of paper and the stub of a pencil. Smoothing out the paper on his knee, he drew a rapid sketch, beginning with line running diagonally from the top left-hand corner of the page. Then he looped the line up in a curve to point upwards, then across to the right, then down again before extending it to the right. The finished shape was a gently curving line that ran from the top left of the page towards the bottom right corner, with a kind of n-shaped bulge in it.
Above the n-shape, Dawson drew an oval that he labelled with the letters ‘SB’. Above and to the left of that, he drew a smaller circle which he annotated ‘SL’. Finally, almost opposite the ‘SB’ oval, but to the left of the diagonal line and fairly close to it, he marked a dot and labelled it ‘CLC’.
‘Right,’ he said, turning the sheet of paper so that Watson could see it clearly. ‘The ‘SB’ stands for Saarbrücken, the ‘SL’ for Saarlouis, and the ‘CLC’ for Creutzwald-la-Croix, which is on the French side of the frontier, close to where we were camped. That line’ – he pointed – ‘is the Franco-German border, obviously. Now, we crossed it just to the east of Creutzwald-la-Croix, about here. So right now we’re somewhere in this area, between the border itself and Saarbrücken.’
‘So the closest part of the border, apart from just over to the west, is either to the south or, if you and this sort of map are right, due east of here? So we’re going to keep heading east? Or turn south?’
‘Yes and no,’ Dawson replied. ‘You’re right about where the closest border is, but I’m not happy about those two choices. If we head south, we’re entering a kind of pocket of German territory, with a fortified border on three sides of us, and I’d lay money that it’s going to be full of Jerry troops looking for trouble. And if we go east, we could miss the border altogether and just end up deeper inside Germany. We also need to think about pursuit. We’ve left three dead German soldiers behind us, and from what I’ve heard about the Jerries, they’re not going to take that lying down. I think that, once they’ve sorted out the French and re-established their border defences, they’ll send out a couple of patrols to hunt us down.’
‘Full of fucking good news, you are. I hadn’t thought about that. So what do you reckon we should do?’
‘If I was the NCO in charge of a Jerry patrol, I think I’d expect us to try to get across the border as quickly as possible, which means he’d probably think we’d start heading south or south-east.’
‘So we’ll go north?’ Watson suggested.
‘Almost right. If we go north, we’ll end up near Saarlouis, and that would be a really bad idea. I think our best bet is to follow the border up to the north-west, keeping to the west of that corridor of built-up areas that runs from Saarbrücken to Saarlouis. That way, we’ll stay away from the more populated areas and hope to cross the border somewhere up here.’
Dawson pointed at the line he’d drawn on the paper up to the north-west of the circle labelled ‘SL’. ‘As far as I remember from the map the lieutenant had, there are only small villages and hamlets in this area, between the border and that corridor of towns running along the River Saar, so we should be able to sneak through there unnoticed.’
‘We’ll use the sun to navigate by?’
‘Unless we can find a compass somewhere, yes.’
Watson nodded. ‘So let’s hope the weather stays fine. What about crossing the border itself?’
Dawson shrugged. ‘We’ll pick the best place when we get up there and find out what the defences are like.’
‘OK,’ Watson said. ‘You talk sense, as usual, Eddie. Let’s get moving.’
The two men stood up, hitched their weapons over their shoulders and prepared to move off. ‘There’s something else we need to think about,’ Dawson said, as they started walking. ‘Unless we’re really lucky, we’re going to be out here on the wrong side of the border for at least a day or two. We’ve got no rations, not even any water bottles, and we’re going to need to find some food – or at the very least something to drink – if we’re going to make it.’
They were well away from the obvious tracks through the woods, most of which ran along the lower, more level, sections at the bottoms of the valleys that characterized the area, but still they proceeded with caution, ever watchful that a sniper might be scanning the woods through the telescopic sight of his rifle, or a German patrol lying in wait for them somewhere. But for the first hour, as their route slowly took them further to the north, towards the edge of the Warndt Forest, they saw nobody at all.
‘You reckon we’re clear of the Jerries now?’ Watson asked, as they crested a ridge and started the descent on the other side. A basic rule of hill-walking is that you should never surrender height – climbing uphill is exhausting, so once height has been gained, walkers should do everything possible to remain as high as they can. Dawson and Watson were both well aware of the principle and were doing their best to adhere to it, so although they were having to both climb and descend, they were trying to keep their descents to a minimum, walking across the frequent slopes rather than down them.
‘For the moment, I think we are. They won’t know which way we went after we left those two dead soldiers, and the further we walk, the wider the search area will become. Why?’
‘Because I’m pretty much knackered, that’s why.’ Watson pointed over to the west. ‘The sun’s going down, and I think we need to find somewhere to hole up for the night. This country’s too bloody rough to try walking over it in the dark. If one of us twists an ankle or breaks a leg out here, we’re both buggered.’
Dawson nodded. What Watson had said was compellingly obvious and, in any case, he was really tired himself. It had been, by any standards, an extremely full day. They’d gone from the dangerous, but ultimately routine, clearance of a minefield to what amounted to a full-scale battle with the German army. They’d each shot and killed a man, and Dawson had blown another one to pieces with his improvised grenade. They were now deep inside enemy territory, where they were liable to be shot on sight by any German soldiers they met and, most probably, they were also on the run from at least a couple of enemy patrols who would be looking for them somewhere in the forest behind them.
‘Yeah, Dave. That’s a good idea. Let’s start looking for somewhere right now.’
About fifteen minutes later, the two sappers found a spot that looked as if it would do. It was close to the top of another ridge, where a couple of trees had fallen over, their collapsed trunks forming a giant X-shape. The area between the exposed roots and the point where the trunks crossed offered a concealed hollow that could easily accommodate both men.
‘That’ll do,’ Dawson said, and climbed over the roots into the partially concealed opening, Watson following behind him.
When both men crouched down, they were completely invisible, except from directly above.
‘What’s on the menu for dinner?’ Watson asked, as they settled down and dusk began turning the surrounding trees into dark and menacing monochrome shapes.
‘That’s the problem, mate. I’ve got one small bar of chocolate in my pocket. What’ve you got?’
‘Sweet FA. Nothing,’ Watson admitted.
‘You’re welcome to share this,’ Dawson offered, pulling out a small foil-wrapped packet from a pocket. ‘We’ll have to find some food tomorrow.’
For a couple of minutes they sat in silence, chewing the chocolate, then Dawson spoke again.
‘I don’t think we can both go to sleep at the same time, Dave, not out here. It’s just after eight now. If you try and get your head down, I’ll wake you up at two, and then we’ll change over. Or would you rather take the first watch?’
Watson shook his head. ‘No, I’m whacked, so I’ll have no trouble getting to sleep now. But are you OK? I mean, can you stay awake for the next six hours?’
‘I’ll do my best, mate. If I don’t think I can keep my eyes open any longer, I’ll give you a shake – fair enough?’
‘Yeah, no problem. God, what I wouldn’t give for a brew-up right now,’ Watson muttered, turning onto his side at the bottom of the hollow and closing his eyes. ‘I’ll probably dream about tea and scran, crap though it usually is.’
Dawson chuckled, then stood up and moved to one side of the hollow, where a protruding root offered a reasonable seat. He checked the Mauser rifle, ensuring that the magazine was fully charged and that there was a cartridge in the chamber, and did the same with his Schmeisser MP 40 machine-pistol. Then he placed both weapons so that they were within easy reach, took his seat on the root and leant back against the trunk of the fallen tree. He scanned all around him, glanced down at Watson, who was already snoring softly, then back out at the darkening forest.
It was going to be a very long and boring night, but, as far as Dawson was concerned, the quieter and more boring it turned out to be, the better.