To the south-west of Rouen, the road followed the course of the river fairly closely, and there were a lot of tank farms dotted along that particular stretch of the north bank of the Seine. It was clear to Michaels that those sites had probably been the target of the German incursion at Elbeuf. What he didn’t know was whether or not the German troops had crossed onto the north side of the river, or whether they were trying to control the tank farms from the southern bank, perhaps using heavy weapons to engage anyone they saw in the vicinity of the sites.
As they approached the first of the tank farms in that area, they could all see that half a dozen of the tanks furthest from the river were already ablaze, but there was no sign of life: no sign of any of the KFRE sappers anywhere inside the plant.
And within seconds the reason was quite obvious.
There was a sudden stuttering sound, and puffs of dust traced a lethal path across the unmade road in front of the Morris staff car.
‘Machine gun,’ Rochester called out, somewhat unnecessarily, because Dawson had already reacted, braking hard and steering the Morris off the road and down a narrow lane on the right-hand side that led directly towards the tank farm.
But it wasn’t the fact that it was a shortcut which was important. The lane had substantial trees and undergrowth on both sides of it, and one of the best defences against any weapon was to put a tree between you and it. The 15-hundredweight lorry followed close behind them, the heavier and wider truck smashing a path through the bushes and shrubs that partially clogged the lane, as both vehicles lurched and bounced over the uneven surface.
Dawson saw a cleared area ahead of them, where they would probably be visible to the Germans, and stopped the Morris well before he reached it.
On the other side of the river, the machine-gun fire suddenly ceased, the man behind the weapon – or perhaps the officer or NCO in charge – no doubt realizing the futility of continuing to fire at what was essentially a small wood.
‘At least we know the report was accurate,’ Michaels said, as the men gathered around him. ‘The Jerries are obviously dug in on the other side of the river, which I suppose is good news. If they’d managed to get across here, we’d be in real trouble.’
‘You mean we’re not in real trouble now?’ Rochester asked.
‘Trouble, not real trouble. The river is a barrier that they can’t cross, or at least not here, and if we make use of the cover provided by clumps of trees like this one we can stay out of sight.’
‘And if they can’t see us, they can’t shoot us,’ Dawson said.
‘Exactly. But we can’t just hide over here. We need to find out why it’s only those tanks at the back of the farm that are burning, not the others, and if possible we need to take out the man behind that machine gun before he does us any real damage.’
‘I can work my way through these trees if you’d like, sir,’ Dawson said. ‘I’m a fair shot.’
‘No you’re not,’ Michaels replied, pointing at a badge on the sleeve of the corporal’s uniform showing two crossed rifles. ‘That badge means you’re a marksman, and none of the soldiers under my command ever got to that level. If anyone can take out that machine-gunner and make the other Germans keep their heads down, it’s you. And you need to do it now, because we’re really pinned down here. Do you want someone to go with you, to act as a spotter?’
‘No thanks, sir. The Jerries are more likely to spot two people than one, so it’s safer if I’m by myself. I’ll go and take a look right now. Could you give me about five minutes and then do something to attract their attention? That’ll make it a bit easier for me to spot the machine-gun post.’
Dawson unslung his Lee-Enfield from his shoulder, checked that the magazine was fully loaded and that he had spare chargers in the cartridge carrier of the 37 Webbing he was wearing over his battledress.
‘Take a few more clips,’ Michaels said, and two of the KFRE sappers handed over their spare ammunition to him.
Then Dawson turned and began making his way through the stand of trees towards the river, moving with a speed and silence that was unusual for someone of his size.
Michaels stared at his retreating back for a couple of seconds, then glanced back at his men.
‘We’ll have to give him a few minutes,’ he said. ‘In the meantime, we’re not that far from the tank farm, so keep your eyes open in case there’s any sign of our sappers over there. And we need to work out how we’re going to get in there without getting shot, because there’s probably more than one German with a machine gun on the other side of the river, and a bunch of soldiers pointing Mausers in this direction as well.’
The trees and undergrowth formed a useful barrier against rifle or machine-gun bullets, but the small copse wasn’t particularly thick, and within about a minute Dawson could both see and hear the river in front of him, on the other side of the unmade road they’d been following. He stopped moving a few feet from the road, moved to the most substantial tree trunk he could see, and then peered around it, his eyes scanning the opposite bank of the river.
He was looking for any sign of the German patrol that he guessed had been positioned there to prevent anyone from getting into the tank farm, but in fact he heard them before he saw them. Or rather, he heard the sounds they were making.
He was too far away to hear them talking, but the noise made by certain types of machinery sometimes travels a long way, and almost as soon as he’d settled into position he heard the unmistakable sound of a machine gun being cocked. Maybe the weapon had jammed, or they’d had to change the belt or magazine, but whatever the reason, the sound carried.
It took him a few seconds before he located the source. There was another, smaller clump of trees almost opposite him, and beside that, barely visible in the shadows cast by those trees, he could see the occasional movements of men wearing the unmistakable field-grey uniforms of the Wehrmacht, topped with coal-scuttle helmets. It looked to Dawson as if it was a small patrol, as he could only see a couple of soldiers, and they both seemed to be staring across the river, directly at him.
As he had expected, he saw no sign of the machine gun that had carved up the unmade road in front of them just minutes earlier, and he guessed that it would be mounted low down, perhaps beside or actually in one of the patches of undergrowth dotted along the riverbank, with the gunner lying prone behind the weapon. Spotting it would not be easy.
What he needed to do was essentially the same thing: to find a firing position that would be as invisible to the enemy as possible, and ideally protected by the shape of the ground or the trunk of a tree. Or both. As it happened, he had plenty of choice, and selected a spot about 20 feet away, where the ground sloped away from what looked to him like a large oak tree.
He moved slowly and cautiously through the undergrowth, trying not to make any noise and to remain in the shadows cast by the trees, until he reached the location he wanted. Then he lay down, eased the muzzle of the Lee-Enfield partially through the bush in front of him, and took out two of the chargers – metal clips each holding five .303 rifle rounds that allowed the cartridges to be pushed down into the Enfield’s 10-round magazine with the bolt fully retracted – and placed them on the ground beside him.
Then he changed his mind and replaced them in the cartridge carrier on his webbing. He’d realized that the Germans would be able to spot his location in exactly the same way that he had detected them, and certainly once he started firing. That meant that he would probably have to move his position after he’d fired his first few shots, and when that happened he didn’t want to have to start fiddling about picking up the charger clips from the ground. The best place for the bullets was in his webbing.
The distance from his sniper nest to the target he estimated at about 300 yards, well within range of the Lee-Enfield, which could deliver a bullet out to some 3,000 yards, though the effective firing range was about 550 yards, and he adjusted the ladder rear sight accordingly. Then he slowly chambered a round, trying to make as little noise as possible.
He pulled the butt of the rifle firmly into his shoulder and formed a bipod with his elbows on the ground to provide the steadiest possible firing position. He looked through the sights with his right eye, but kept his left eye open, like most trained riflemen. He moved his point of aim to the left and then to the right, checking that he could see every part of the area occupied by the German patrol, adjusted his position very slightly and then consciously began to control his breathing.
Good shots are born more often than they are made, and Dawson had discovered that he had an innate ability with a rifle that his army training had honed to a very high degree. He had been taught that breathing correctly was a major contributor to accurate shot placement. To avoid the weapon moving fractionally when the trigger was pulled, it was important that the muscles of the chest were stationary, which meant that the diaphragm had to be still, with no breath going into or out of the body. The best technique seemed to be to take a breath, release about half of it, then stop breathing and gently squeeze the trigger – not pull it, because that always moved the weapon – at that precise moment. One of his instructors had told Dawson that the shot should always come as a surprise to the shooter. What he’d meant by such a statement was that once the rifle was aimed, and the breathing of the sniper halted, the pressure on the trigger should increase infinitely slowly, and at some point in its travel the weapon would fire, emphasizing the importance of maintaining the sight picture. And that technique was what Dawson had found worked best for him.
For what seemed like a very long time, but was in reality perhaps only a couple of minutes, all he could see or hear were occasional movements as one of the German soldiers changed position, and odd snatches of unintelligible conversation when the wind blew towards him.
But suddenly that changed, and he heard urgent shouts from the other side of the river. He guessed that Michaels or somebody else in the group had done something to attract the attention of the Germans, maybe stepping into view for a few seconds, or had tried the old trick of balancing a helmet on a length of wood so that only the top of it was visible to the enemy, in the hope of drawing their fire and making them reveal their positions.
An old trick it may have been, but whatever the KFRE men had done, it worked. Almost immediately, the sound of a machine gun opening up filled the air, and then Dawson could very clearly see the narrow gap between two bushes where the black muzzle of the weapon protruded, the end of the barrel producing small and brief rhythmic flashes of flame as the weapon fired.
Knowing where the business end of the weapon was located, it was a fairly simple task to estimate where the shooter had to be. Dawson moved his point of aim about 3 feet behind the end of the muzzle of the German weapon and gently squeezed the trigger.
The machine gun ceased firing. There was a sudden howl of pain from across the water, and almost immediately a German soldier stood up, his left hand clutching his right shoulder. He staggered backwards a couple of steps and then seemed to collapse.
Another German soldier ran forward, clearly intent on reaching the machine gun, but Dawson had already worked the bolt of the Lee-Enfield and was prepared for his second shot. The German soldier reached down, as if to pick up the machine gun, but as he did so Dawson’s next bullet caught him somewhere on the torso and he fell backwards out of sight.
The tally was one probably dead and one certainly wounded after the first two shots, which Dawson was quite happy about. But he knew that the German troops were well trained and highly disciplined, and that now they knew there was a man with a long rifle facing them on the other side of the river, they would certainly be much more cautious and do their best not to show themselves and become targets.
And as if in confirmation of that, less than a minute later another burst of machine-gun fire erupted from the southern bank of the river, bullets slashing through the undergrowth and thudding into the trunk of the tree beside which Dawson was hiding. One of the enemy soldiers must have seen his muzzle flashes, and crouched down out of sight to reach the weapon.
Dawson rolled sideways and then sat up with his back to the trunk of the tree, the safest position he could adopt, and waited for the fusillade to end.
The moment the firing stopped, he stood up and, with frequent backward glances to confirm the line he was following, he walked away from the river and deeper into the copse. When he’d gone about 10 feet, the machine gun opened up again, and the moment he heard that, he dropped to his stomach and waited for the firing to cease. He was fairly sure he was out of sight of the gunner, but he hadn’t lasted as long as he had by taking chances.
When it did stop, he stood up again and, still hidden from view by the tree trunks and thick undergrowth, he moved about 20 yards to the left, found another suitable sniper position and adopted the same firing stance as he had done before.
The machine gun fired, again, almost as soon as he’d settled down, but the gunner’s point of aim was still his previous location, and that was too good an opportunity to miss. Dawson sighted on the end of the barrel of the machine gun, which he could still clearly see now that he knew what he was looking for, shifted his aim slightly to the left and squeezed the trigger. This time, there was no cry of pain, and no sign of a wounded man staggering backwards from the weapon. Instead, the machine gun simply ceased firing the moment Dawson took his aimed shot, and the implication of that was quite obvious. After that, there was complete silence, and no sign of even stealthy movement from the other side of the river.
Maybe it had only been a three-man patrol, or maybe the officer or NCO in charge had stationed three of his men to cover that one tank farm while he and the rest of them headed further along the riverbank to the next site. Or perhaps there were more German soldiers than that on the other side of the Seine, but Dawson’s three well-placed shots had convinced the others to keep their heads down.
A good sniper is a force multiplier, a man or a woman – many of the best Russian snipers were female – who could quite literally control a part of a battlefield by eliminating every enemy soldier who came into view. Then the simple and understandable fear of becoming the long-distance assassin’s next target would serve to neutralize almost any number of combat troops. Dawson wasn’t a sniper, but the present scenario suggested that his skill with a rifle was doing pretty much the same thing as a qualified sniper could.
‘Corp,’ a voice said from behind him, and Dawson swivelled his head slowly to look at the man who had just spoken.
‘Yeah?’
‘The captain says we’re going into the tank farm in the truck in a couple of minutes,’ the KFRE sapper said to him. ‘He’d like you to make sure that the Jerries keep their heads down.’
So no pressure there, then.
‘I’ll do my best.’
‘Good.’
A faint rustling indicated that the soldier had gone back the way he’d come, and Dawson switched his attention back to the patch of undergrowth and trees on the opposite side of the river. Behind him, and to his right, he heard the sound of the engine as the lorry started, and he rested his finger lightly on the trigger of his Lee-Enfield, just in case the Germans had simply been lying doggo, waiting for their targets to move into view before opening fire.
But he saw nothing as he heard the truck moving steadily away from him and towards the gates of the tank farm. The only movement he could detect on the other side of the river was the occasional twitch of a branch or a bush as the erratic wind blew up or died down. So maybe he had taken out all of the enemy soldiers. There was no way of knowing for sure.
Dawson kept watching, alert for the first sign of any hostile activity, while he listened intently to try to gauge what progress Michaels and the others were making in the tank farm. He could faintly hear their voices, though he couldn’t make out what they were saying, but a few minutes later he heard the unmistakable crack as a gun cotton charge detonated, followed in just a matter of seconds by a sequence of similar explosions. And those were themselves soon followed by the characteristic whooshing roar as one of the kerosene tanks exploded.
As the third and fourth kerosene tanks cooked off, Dawson saw movement on the opposite shore. It wasn’t in the same place as he’d seen the German soldiers, but further over to his right. And it wasn’t a man, or even a group of men that he had seen, but a truck with a closed cab and an open cargo area behind it, bouncing and rumbling along what looked like another unmade road close to the riverbank.
That was a vehicle he wasn’t familiar with, but it didn’t look unlike the 15-hundredweight lorries that were the workhorses of the British army, and he guessed it was either carrying more German soldiers or the NCO in charge of the patrol. Whoever it was, they had no doubt been alarmed by the sight of the flames and smoke pouring out of the ruptured tanks behind him.
Shooting at a moving target is always more difficult than hitting something that’s stationary, obviously, but the truck wasn’t moving particularly fast and Dawson knew that he really had to stop it before it reached the group of trees on the opposite bank, where the occupants could disembark from the vehicle out of his sight. He needed to immobilize it while it was still out in the open ground, where he could pin down the German soldiers.
He changed position, moving his rifle further over to his right, watching the approach of the vehicle as he did so and fractionally adjusting the sights on his Lee-Enfield. When the lorry was about 50 yards from the group of trees where the small German patrol had established its position, Dawson aimed very slightly ahead of the moving vehicle, and then squeezed the trigger.
The effect of the bullet’s impact was immediate.
He saw the windscreen of the lorry shatter and guessed that the driver had instinctively put his foot down, because the vehicle suddenly speeded up. That was exactly what he’d hoped it wouldn’t do.