FINALLY THE REGIMENT reached their positions along the river Dyle in Belgium. The next day Sergeant Williams was ordered to send out a patrol to reconnoiter the terrain in front of his battalion. He could have dispatched another non-com, but he wanted to see for himself what the country across the river was like.
He chose a corporal who was alert and intelligent, and Three Fingers Brown, as driver. Brown had been refused enlistment early in the war, because he had only three fingers on his right hand. He had then challenged the recruiting sergeant, and they had gone to a shooting gallery where the non-com was so badly beaten that Fingers’ enlistment was immediately accepted. Short, stocky, cheerful, and dependable, he was a good man to have around.
Armed with pistols and a machine gun, in a scout car, they crossed a small bridge, the mines having been pointed out to them. The road led straight ahead, and before long they were in a wood, winding through lanes for perhaps half an hour with no opposition and no enemy visible. At last they came to a small stream over which was a tiny stone bridge. A Belgian farmer working in the fields rose from his vegetables as they passed. There was a half frown on his face and something of a warning, the Sergeant thought, in his bearing.
“Most likely this bridge is mined,” said the Sergeant. “I’ll ask him.”
During the long winter months when most of the battalion non-coms were spending their evenings over glasses of beer in the cafés and estaminets along the frontier, Sergeant Williams had been studying and taking French lessons from the cure of the nearby village. By this time he was able to speak the language with fluency and a horrible British accent.
He leaped from the scout car and walked over to the farmer. As he did so, a frightful sound came from the rear.
“Hinauf.” Stick ’em up.
He whirled around. From the thicket across the road stepped five German soldiers in coal-scuttle helmets with Schmeisser pistols at their hips. They were the first Germans he had ever seen. They were not to be the last.
In the car, Fingers and the corporal sat foolishly, mouths open, hands high in the air. Slowly the Sergeant swung round and stuck his up too. His face flushed. I just can’t believe it, he thought. In the regular army since I was sixteen, worked up from private to sergeant, and taken prisoner on the third day of battle without ever having fired a shot.
His next thought was of his family in the house on the Folkestone Road in Dover. This means they’ll be more alone than ever, for we’ve copped it. A German prison camp and the end of the war for the lot of us. The Sergeant was cheesed off.
The officers stepped from the woods and searched them. These were the first British guns they had seen, and each one was passed back and forth with interest. Then one officer beckoned, and a small German weapons’ carrier issued from an unnoticed road. He ordered the Englishmen back into their own car, and indicated they were to follow. As the cars lined up, a German soldier sat in the rear of the weapons’ carrier, with a machine gun on a tripod between his knees. It was pointed directly at them.
The corporal started to climb into their car, but Sergeant Williams shoved him aside and got in beside Fingers, the driver. A German officer observed this, said something to the man in the rear of their vehicle, and the machine gun swung to the right and gave forth an eloquent burst of sudden, sharp sound. Then the barrel swung back and lined up on their scout car.
The German patrol piled into their machine, the officer signaled, and they moved across the bridge. For perhaps a couple of miles they bumped across a country road. Then, far ahead, the Sergeant observed a crossroads with several signposts. His mind became active. As the senior non-com he had got them into trouble; now his job was to extricate them.
Coming close, they saw it was a main crossroads. The enemy car winked its lights to show it was turning left, the machine gun swung ostentatiously from side to side. Fingers winked his lights to indicate he understood the signal.
“Go right, Fingers,” said the Sergeant. His mouth never moved as he talked. “Go right and drive like hell.”
The little cockney said nothing. But he heard, understood, responded. Gaining speed, he came closer to the enemy weapons’ carrier, so near they could see those cruel blue eyes behind the machine gun. As they neared the crossroads, Fingers seemed to be obeying orders and following the German car. Then at the last second, he swerved violently right, tossing the two others against the windshield, and raced down the empty road.
Almost immediately machine-gun bullets spattered past, but they were soon out of range. With a good start they had made half a mile before the German car reversed itself, turned back around the corner, and came after them.
Two clouds of dust roared down that country lane. Some school children on bicycles dismounted and ran to the side of the road in fright. A handful of chickens scuttled off as Fingers tore ahead. He managed to keep their distance, but the Sergeant realized he had no idea where they were or where they were headed. Back to the British lines and safety, or straight for the Germans and captivity? Or just moving in a kind of no man’s territory between the two?
Around a curve loomed the red-tiled roofs of a hamlet. “Slow down, Fingers, slow down and be ready to turn.”
As their car slowed down, the German weapons’ carrier drew closer, and bullets spattered the road behind them. Yet the Sergeant knew what he was doing. “Slow down, never mind them, slow down, I tell you. Take the first turn you see. That’s an order.”
Fingers braked as the bullets began to sing off the rear of the car. They swung round a corner and, seeing a half-hidden drive in a farmyard to the right, Fingers turned the car on two wheels with a tire squeal that brought faces to the windows of the house. The three men leaped from the car before it stopped, raced across a vegetable garden toward a friendly wood. Just then the German carrier, traveling at seventy miles an hour, made the curve and hit the cobblestones of the village street.
There was the inevitable crash, the enemy car striking a brick wall at one side, an enormous cloud of dust, and then silence. Looking over their shoulders, the three British soldiers observed Germans scattered up and down the street. They raced into the wood, running as fast and as far as they could. In an hour they had thrown off any pursuit, and began walking. Thanks to the Sergeant’s compass, they headed west, and in another half hour saw the welcome sight of the Dyle, with British embankments on the far side.
At first the sentries on the opposite bank fired at every movement they made. The Sergeant feared the firing would attract another German patrol, so he edged down behind some bushes near the bridge, stuck up a pole with a white handkerchief on it, and called out. After some conversation he managed to halt the British fire. They crossed gingerly, and were immediately taken before an intelligence major who gave them a severe examination before their identity was established.
“Second Wilts?” he said. “Why, your blokes withdrew an hour ago.”
The Sergeant couldn’t believe it. “What for? Without any fighting?”
“Yes, I believe the Belgians on our left have packed up. Anyhow, we’ve all been ordered to withdraw to prepared positions. By the way, laddie, what’s the matter with your forehead? What’s that lump there?”
The Sergeant put a hand to his forehead. There was an enormous lump which throbbed and pained badly. He had struck his head on the windshield when Fingers turned at the crossroads, but in the excitement of escaping had not felt it until that second.