The first two German soldiers appeared in front of him, Mauser rifles in their hands, perhaps fifty yards away. Behind them, Dawson could see other shadowy figures moving, taking advantage of the cover provided by the trees, but still making fairly quick progress towards him.
He shifted the barrel of the rifle slightly, but ignored the leading two enemy troops. Instead, he picked a soldier some distance back in the forest, waited until the man was silhouetted between two trees and then squeezed the trigger. The rifle jumped against his shoulder. The soldier fell backwards, killed or at least badly wounded.
Then, while the German soldiers dived for whatever cover they could find, Dawson eased back behind the tree and picked up one of the stick grenades. In easy, fluid movements, he pulled down the priming cord and threw the weapon over-arm as far as he could towards the two leading troops.
But even before the crack of the grenade’s detonation, Dawson was up and running, running for his life, through the forest to the south, looking for another spot he could use for an ambush.
Shots echoed from behind him, but none came close. He guessed that the Germans soldiers were still stunned by the blast of the grenade and either couldn’t see him or couldn’t aim accurately enough to hit him.
A couple of hundred yards further on, Dawson skidded to a halt at the edge of a small clearing and looked back, but saw no sign of pursuit. He glanced at his watch and checked the position of the sun, to ensure that he was still heading in the right direction, then ran on, trying to put as much distance as he could between himself and the Germans, because he knew they wouldn’t give up the chase. He guessed they were regrouping before they followed him.
And then another thought struck him. Unless the SS officer had positioned a second line of soldiers further south – and Dawson didn’t think there were enough troops to let him do that – he, Watson and Celine were now through the line. There should be no enemy forces in front of them so, as long as they kept moving, and kept moving faster than their pursuers, who should now be more cautious, they had a chance of making it to the border.
Dawson grinned to himself. There were a lot of ‘shoulds’ in that scenario, but for almost the first time since he and Celine had run away from the farmhouse, he thought they had a real chance of making it.
Twenty minutes later, he caught up with the other two. Watson was still walking, largely unaided, and Celine was checking behind them constantly, looking out for any danger.
‘Thank God, Eddie,’ Watson muttered, as Dawson fell into step beside them.
‘Just keep going, mate, and we’ll be OK. How far to the border now, Celine?’
‘Not that far,’ she replied. ‘Maybe two or three kilometres.’
‘That’s less than two miles,’ Dawson mused. ‘About an hour, then. Right, I’ve not seen any Jerries since the shoot-out. I’ll stop somewhere in a few minutes while you two get a bit ahead of me, just in case they’re catching us up.’
A dense clump of bushes provided the most suitable location Dawson could find, and again he settled down, acting as a sniper, to watch for any pursuit. But again the forest seemed quiet. He could neither hear nor see any sign of enemy troops. After about ten minutes, Dawson stood up cautiously and moved on.
‘I think we’ve lost them,’ he said, fifteen minutes later, when he caught up with Celine and Watson once again.
‘Are you sure?’ Celine sounded doubtful, at best. ‘You think they just gave up, after everything?’
‘Maybe,’ Dawson said. ‘They know we’re somewhere in this forest, but they don’t know where. So, at the moment, we have the advantage, not them. They know we’re armed, because I’ve just ambushed them. If they try to move quickly, they know they could run into another hail of bullets or get a grenade thrown at them, so they have to take it slowly. I think we’ve simply out-distanced them.’
‘God, I hope you’re right, Eddie.’ Watson sounded desperate. The pace he and Celine had been walking had obviously taken it out of him.
‘There is maybe another reason,’ Celine suggested, and both men turned to look at her.
‘They could be trying to get ahead of us again, you mean?’ Dawson said.
‘It is possible. I destroy their truck, but they may move quickly through the forest, but to the west, to cut us off before we get to the border. That maybe is why you have seen no soldiers.’
‘Right,’ said Dawson decisively. ‘We can’t be more than about half a mile from the border. We’ll keep going, but a bit slower. Keep your eyes and ears open.’
They covered the next 500 yards or so in complete silence, listening for any sounds that seemed out of place.
Then Celine stopped suddenly and stared over to her right.
‘What is it?’ Dawson hissed.
‘A soldier. I am sure I saw a soldier over there.’
‘How far away?’
‘Maybe a hundred metres. I just saw him through the trees.’
For a moment, Dawson stared in the direction Celine was pointing, then made a decision.
‘We’ll do the same routine,’ he said, unslinging the rifle from his shoulder. ‘There’s enough cover here for me to hide. You two go on and I’ll watch your backs. Take it slowly and quietly, OK?’
Celine nodded and led Watson away, taking advantage of the undergrowth and foliage to avoid being seen, and continued walking steadily towards the border.
Dawson ducked into cover beside a tree, a position that offered him a good view of the wooded area that lay to the west of his position, checked his rifle and prepared the last stick grenade for throwing.
But before he saw any of the soldiers, one of the Germans obviously spotted Celine and Watson. A shout in German was followed by a single rifle shot from the west, and then two more. Dawson still had no target in sight.
He had no idea if either Celine or Watson had been hit, or even killed, but he knew he had to draw the fire somehow.
He sighted roughly where he thought the shots were coming from – difficult in a forest, where the sound tends to bounce off tree trunks – and squeezed the trigger.
Almost instantly, a volley of shots peppered the undergrowth around him, the bullets being fired from at least two positions. It looked as if the Germans had positioned themselves in a north-south line, and the three of them had walked right into the trap.
Dawson snapped off another couple of rounds, but he still had no visible targets. There was really only one course of action left to him. He wriggled backwards out of his hiding place, pulled the cord on the stick grenade, threw it as hard and as far as he could over to the west, then turned and ran, dodging left and right as he did so.
The crack of the grenade exploding was loud in his ears, and was followed almost immediately by volleys of shots. Dawson knew he was presenting a difficult target, running and weaving through the trees, altering his path every couple of seconds, but even so, some of the bullets came very close to him, smashing into the trunks of the trees as he ran past them.
Then he felt a massive blow on the right side of his chest, a blow that knocked him sideways. Dawson tumbled to the ground, rolling over and over on the forest floor, and then lay still, lying flat on his back, his eyes open and staring at the green canopy of leaves high above him.