‘Bugger. What the hell now?’ Watson asked.
‘Keep going,’ Dawson said, reaching down and picking up two stick grenades, ‘but drop your speed down. Make it look as it we’re just a couple of German soldiers on some routine mission.’
‘You’re going to try and fight our way through?’
‘We’ve got no bloody option, just for a change. We’ve got a truck-load of angry Jerry soldiers hot on our heels and a German road-block right in front of us. We can’t talk our way through, because we’re wearing British uniforms and neither of us can speak enough German to convince anyone.’
‘We could surrender, I suppose,’ Watson suggested, easing his foot off the accelerator pedal.
‘After the trail of carnage we’ve left behind? They’d shoot us out of hand. No, mate, I’m sorry, but it’s do or die. Either we fight our way through this or we die right here, right now.’
Watson glanced at his companion, then back towards the road-block, now perhaps only 100 yards away. ‘Right, then,’ he said. ‘Give me one of those Schmeissers and make sure the fucking thing’s fully loaded.’
Dawson picked one up, snapped a fresh magazine into place and handed it to Watson. Then he checked another machine-pistol for himself and slung it ready for instant use. Finally, he removed the safety caps from the two grenades and laid them gently on the seat beside him.
‘Ready?’ Watson asked.
Dawson nodded. ‘I’m ready. Start slowing down when you get close to the road-block, just as if you were going to stop, but don’t lose too much speed because we’ll need enough momentum to smash through that barrier. Hopefully the soldiers will see our German helmets and recognize them before they spot the colour of our uniforms, so that might put them slightly off-guard.’
‘The grenades?’ Watson asked.
‘I’ll wait until we get to about thirty yards away, then throw them. The moment I do, you floor the accelerator pedal and crash through that barrier. And when you get to the junction, just take any bloody road you can see on the other side and get us out of here.’
Watson’s right hand strayed nervously to the pistol-grip of the Schmeisser, to check it was within easy reach. He put both hands back on the steering wheel and looked straight ahead.
The soldiers manning the road-block were all armed with machine-pistols. Dawson also noticed that the four men had moved apart slightly, to give each of them a clear field of fire, and each soldier was holding his machine-pistol at the ready, pointing at the approaching truck, which was clearly the subject of their interest. One of them took a couple of steps forward and raised his left arm in the universal signal meaning ‘stop’.
Dawson held the first grenade in his right hand, below the level of the dashboard of the truck and well out of sight, clutching the ceramic ball in his other hand.
Watson dropped the gearbox down into first as the truck reached about forty yards from the barrier.
As he did so, Dawson pulled the cord on the stick grenade, priming the weapon. But he didn’t immediately throw it.
Watson glanced at him in alarm as he held the live grenade in his right hand.
Dawson counted one, two, and only then did he stand up in his cab and throw the weapon as hard as he could towards the four German soldiers.
‘Now, Dave. Hard as you can through the barrier,’ Dawson shouted.
One of the Germans squeezed the trigger of his Schmeisser, but his burst of fire was poorly aimed because he ran for cover at the same time. The other three men scattered, shouting in alarm and diving towards the only place that offered them even the possibility of safety – the motorcycles and sidecars parked just behind them.
As the truck started accelerating, the grenade exploded with a deafening blast, still in the air and close to where the four soldiers had been standing. Screams of pain filled the air. Dawson had already primed the second weapon and immediately threw that towards them as well. Then he grabbed his machine-pistol and aimed the weapon at the area where the Germans had dived for cover.
Watson wrenched the gear lever into second and again stamped his foot onto the accelerator. The truck swept past the two motorcycles, and as it did so Dawson fired three bursts, but at the motorcycles themselves, not the soldiers. Petrol poured from ruptured fuel tanks and two of the tyres blew under the impact of the bullets. Seconds later there was a dull ‘whump’ as the spilt fuel was ignited by some spark, turning the machines into a blazing inferno.
Then the front of the truck hit the steel barrier, a single red and white painted pole, the base mounted on a concrete plinth, the other end resting in a Y-shaped steel fork on the opposite side of the narrow road.
The truck probably weighed over two tons and at the moment of impact was travelling a little over twenty miles an hour. The barrier stood no chance at all. The pole was smashed to one side, the free end torn out of the steel fork, and the base twisted completely clear of the mount on the plinth. Both the truck’s headlamps shattered, but otherwise there was no real damage, the heavy steel bumper taking the brunt of the impact.
‘Keep going, keep going,’ Dawson yelled, swivelling round to check the scene behind them, his Schmeisser covering the area.
There was no sign of any of the German soldiers, no shots, so the grenades had done their work as bloodily and efficiently as ever. But just coming around the final bend, beyond the blazing motorcycles, was the German army truck that had chased them all the way from Kesslingen that afternoon.
He dropped back into his seat just as the truck roared up the gentle slope that led to the main road directly in front of them.
There were vehicles moving in both directions along it. He could see two lorries and a staff car heading south-west, towards the French border, and several lorries – perhaps eight or ten in all – were driving along in a well-spaced convoy, crossing in front of them from left to right. Somehow, they had to get through and find the road they needed.
As they reached the junction, one of the convoy lorries started to slow down and pulled across. Dawson could see the driver and passenger looking in shocked horror at the blazing motorcycles and scattered bodies beside the road-block. They were obviously going to stop and help.
Watson powered the truck onto the tarmac surface, swerved around the front of the slowing vehicle and swung left, cutting directly in front of the staff car with four soldiers sitting in it – two officers in the rear seats and a driver and escort in the front. The driver sounded his horn angrily, and the escort stood up, bringing his machine-pistol to bear.
Dawson stood up and spun round. He was in no mood to mess about. Before the German could fire his weapon, a stream of nine-millimetre bullets from Dawson’s Schmeisser smashed into his chest, throwing him backwards and sideways out of the vehicle. He fired another burst at the front of the staff car, rupturing both front tyres and blasting holes through the radiator.
Watson stood up in his seat as well, clutching his Schmeisser and looking for a minor road away to the north-west, towards the border with Luxembourg.
Another soldier stepped from behind the now stationary convoy lorry and lobbed a stick grenade towards the truck, but Watson saw him immediately, dropped back into his seat and accelerated hard.
Dawson swung round and fired at the soldier with his machine-pistol, but after a second or so it jammed and his bullets all missed.
‘Fucking German junk,’ he muttered, dropped it and grabbed another one.
The grenade exploded some thirty yards behind them, and they felt the blast, but the steel body of the truck protected them from its effects.
‘Up there,’ Dawson snapped, pointing at a junction about 100 yards in front of them.
Ahead of them, another of the lorries in the north-east-bound convoy had obviously seen what had happened and decided to do something about it. The driver swung his heavy vehicle across the road, barely twenty yards away, clearly aiming to ram them.
Dawson aimed the Schmeisser and fired a long burst. The windscreen of the oncoming lorry shattered, but the vehicle still hurtled towards them.
‘Go left,’ Dawson yelled. ‘Go around it.’
He fired another two bursts at the lorry, aiming lower, at the engine and tyres, trying to do some serious damage, but the vehicle didn’t stop.
Watson braked hard and wrenched on the steering wheel. The truck swung left, just missing the wing of the approaching lorry, which rumbled past them without stopping. Dawson’s shots had obviously hit the driver, because the vehicle careered off the road and crashed in the ditch that ran alongside it.
Watson turned the steering wheel back again to the right-hand lane and pressed the accelerator, crunching his way through the gearbox once more. Another lorry in the convoy was heading towards them, but the driver showed no inclination to swing over from his side of the road. But Dawson could see the muzzle of a weapon poking out of the window beside him. He fired another couple of bursts as the two vehicles closed on each other. Bullets peppered the steel of the cab and engine compartment, and with a sudden bang the lorry stopped dead, clouds of steam pouring from under the bonnet.
They were clear. In a few seconds they reached the junction, and Watson swung the wheel to the right, sending the truck surging off the main highway and down the narrower road that curved away to the north-west, scattering stones and debris behind them.
Dawson looked back again as the truck bounced over the uneven surface. The other lorries in the convoy had slowed, several had already stopped. Grey-clad figures ran down towards the road-block, but three others headed towards the north side of the road. And they all carried rifles.
‘Keep your head down,’ Dawson ordered, ‘get the speed up and start weaving. There are three riflemen behind us.’
As he said the words, a bullet smacked into the rear of the truck somewhere, and another ploughed through the right-hand side front wing.
‘If they hit one of the front tyres, we’re buggered,’ Watson shouted.
‘Just keep going. They’re on foot. We’ll be out of range soon.’
Other shots rang out. Several bullets hit the rear of the vehicle, and one smashed through the windscreen, but neither man was hit. The truck kept going, and that was all that mattered.
‘I think we’re clear now,’ Dawson said, risking another glance behind them, back towards the road.
‘I bloody hope so.’
There was massive bang from the right-hand side of the truck.
‘Oh, fuck,’ Watson said. ‘That’s one of the bloody tyres.’
Dawson leant out of the cab, over the side of the vehicle, and looked down. ‘It’s the middle axle,’ he said. ‘Keep your foot down.’
The truck had three axles and six wheels. Dawson couldn’t see any reason why it shouldn’t keep running as long as at least four of the tyres remained intact.
‘Was it a bullet?’ Watson asked, raising his voice over the increased noise level. Bits of tyre were flapping and banging against the wheel arches as the truck rushed on.
‘Probably, or the punishment we’ve inflicted on it. Either way, we’ve still got five fucking tyres, so there are a good few miles left in it yet.’
Dawson looked back again. What he saw on the main road, about half a mile behind them, wasn’t entirely unexpected, but it still caused him to curse.
A German army lorry was just making the turn to follow them. It was too far away for him to identify it positively, but he had no doubt, no doubt at all, it was the one that had been chasing them all afternoon.
Watson heard his companion’s expletive and glanced behind them. ‘It’s that fucking SS officer and his men, isn’t it?’ he demanded, as he spotted the lorry turning to follow them.
‘You can bet your life it is. At least we’ve got a bit more of a lead over them now and we must be getting close to the border.’ Dawson bent forward to study the map. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘If we’re where I think we are, we’ve got about another four miles to go, that’s all.’
Watson leant forward and patted the dashboard of the truck. ‘Keep going, old girl,’ he said. ‘We’re nearly there.’
Dawson again checked behind them. Some 700 yards distant, the German army lorry showed no signs of giving up the pursuit.