Under Dark Skies Chapter 4

Chapter 4. Previous chapters can be found in previous posts. 

British Expeditionary Force
Monday, May 13th, 1940
Reims Aerodrome – Northern France

 

As was so often the case, Bill was back in Scotland in the Trials. He was exhausted and the bike was hanging together by a thread, but neither of them were going to stop. The smell of the ancient mud and heather from highland moors filled his nose, then suddenly he was in the pub in Fort William, and everyone was cheering as they hung his medal above the bar. The backslapping turned to slaps. In an instance he was back home in Norfolk, fired for taking the week off to compete and looking at an RAF poster.

“All I’ve got to give you is blood, toil, sweat and tears,” it said, and then he was laying in his bunk, grey morning light filling the room. Bill was the only one in the NCO bunky, but next door in the common room the radio was turned up. Through the static came a familiar voice.

“We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. We have before us many, many long months of struggle and of suffering,” static surrounded Churchill’s familiar voice.

Bill swung his legs over the edge of the bunk and slipped on his boots. In the common room half a dozen junior NCOs were sitting at the table listening to the radio.

“…what is our policy? I can say: It is to wage war, by sea, land and air, with all our might and with all the strength that God can give us; to wage war against a monstrous tyranny, never surpassed in the dark, lamentable catalogue of human crime,” Churchill continued. He sounded like he was warming to his subject and the words were rolling out of him like thunder.

The men in the room were motionless, hanging on every word.

“…what is our aim? I can answer in one word: It is victory, victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival.”

“Quite,” Sergeant Michaels said, taking a sip of his tea.

Bill walked over to the pot and poured himself a cup and leaned back against the wall to listen.

“… I feel sure that our cause will not be suffered to fail among men. At this time, I feel entitled to claim the aid of all, and I say, ‘come then, let us go forward together with our united strength.’” There was a silence at the end of the speech before the announcer cut in explaining that this had been recorded this morning in an emergency meeting of Parliament.

Bill looked around the room. Everyone was stony faced. The radio announcer suggested that Churchill had forced Parliament to open for that speech.

“Is Churchill Prime Minister now?” Bill asked.

“He got the job last Friday, mate,” Michaels laughed. “Where have you been?”

“In Belgium,” Bill replied absently, sipping his tea.

The junior NCOs exchanged glances.

“Why on earth would you want to go there?” Michaels asked.

“Someone asked me to give them a hand blowing up a bridge,” Bill replied. He was still a bit foggy after the long sleep.

“Did you manage it?” Michaels asked, sharing an incredulous look with the other NCOs.

“One less bridge for Gerry to supply petrol over,” Bill repeated what he’d said to Grimes the evening before.

“Meet any Germans?”

“A few too many, actually.”

“Right, give us the details!”

“I was the rabbit; I made a distraction and drew them away so the demolition boys could finish the job.”

“Jolly good, Corporal,” Michaels raised his mug.

“How are things here?” Bill asked.

“Lost three Hurricanes over the weekend. Another two are on fire outside this morning, but the weather’s closed in so hopefully we’ll have a day or two to get ourselves sorted.”

“Are we winning?” Bill asked, looking at the white faces.

“If we’re not, we’re making them pay for each step,” Corporal Allings said. The other men in the room murmured in agreement.

“Bloody right,” Bill replied, raising his cup to the room of tired men. “Want to see the latest in Nazi fashion?”

Everyone’s eyes lit up, so Bill put down his mug and dug the SS uniform out of his barracks box. Laying it out on the table it was a grand looking thing, though a bit grotty from the long ride. Say what you will about Nazis, but they design smashing uniforms.

“This is SS, isn’t it?” Allings asked, running a finger over the shoulder badges.

“It is,” Bill replied, “it’s a Scharführer SS uniform. They told me the equivalent of a sergeant.”

The men looked over the uniform with interest. After months in country this was the first time any of them had seen an enemy uniform up close.

“Got the hat with it?” Rawlings asked.

“Just the big stormtrooper helmet, but I left it with the bike.”

“BMW R12?” Corporal Smith asked. He’d been one of the first to take the two-wheel training and had gotten into motorcycling magazines since.

“Yep, boxer twin, telescopic forks. It handled better than it should have and flatters the rider. If you’re ever being chased by one you want to get a move on, or they’ll catch you up.”

“Did they let you hang on to it?”

“No,” Bill said with some regret. “I had to leave it on the grounds of a Belgian castle.”

“It happens,” Michaels laughed.

Someone had gotten a tray of bread and bacon from the mess and were putting together sandwiches with the tea. Bill fell in with them for breakfast. After such a mad weekend it was nice to see familiar faces and chat.

 

Even with the weather closing in the airfield was a constant buzz of activity. So many planes weren’t returning or were landing in pieces that it was becoming obvious to everyone at Champagne-Reims that things weren’t going well. Being centralized with bomber squadrons made the members of Seventy-Three aware of just how badly things were getting as the bomber crews were constantly being swapped for fresh faces.

Bill sorted out the bikes and then lent a hand moving fuel bowser around. Midafternoon, under low cloud and heavy drizzle, he was filling up a bowser when the drone of German bombers sent everyone into a frenzy. Bombs started dropping across the airfield, concussing the air, and flattening the wet grass with each explosion. Bill kept the spigot on. If one landed on the trench you were in you were done anyway, and Hurricanes couldn’t intercept if they were empty. The raid had been well timed as most of the squadron had just returned from patrol after the morning rain had lifted.

No buildings were hit but two of the runways were damaged. Ten minutes later they were being filled. Bombing was an inexact science. It did more damage to morale than the apparatus of war, perhaps that was reason enough to do it.

Bill finished the refill and navigated the heavy lorry over the rutted earth, staying clear of where the planes taxied and took off. Pulling up to the squadron’s line of Hurricanes, pilots were either jumping out of their planes to take a comfort break before going up again or were necking a sandwich and a mug of tea, often both. The ground crews swarmed around the bowser, running lines out to the nearest plane and began refueling. Bill climbed out of the cab and stepped aside. Nothing worse than a bystander in the way.

“Corporal Morris,” Flight Sergeant Grimes was striding across the wet grass towards him. “Got a minute?”

“Yes, Flight,” Bill replied, wiping his hands on a rag, and walking over to meet him.

Grimes glanced around to make sure they were out of earshot, but everyone was too busy to listen in any case.

“Bit of bad news,” Grimes began quietly. “We’ve lost an entire squadron of Battles in one go. They went down at the Belgian border just northeast of Sedan in the Ardennes.”

“The Germans hold Sedan, don’t they?”

Grimes nodded, “They’re well behind enemy lines. At least two of the planes landed with full crews. They managed to radio in before going down.”

Grimes was poker faced which left Bill wondering what the ask was.  Grimes seemed to be struggling with it himself.

“The squadron senior NCO is an old friend,” Grimes finally continued. “He’s taking this badly. They’ve already lost their entire squadron once before and this one will break them. They need a win. I thought you might be able to think of something.”

“How many crews are we talking about?” Bill asked.

“Two-Two-Six had all six of their Fairies on a bombing raid near Les Mazures on the Meuse River. If they all survived it would be eighteen men, but that’s an optimistic estimate.”

As ridiculous as the question was, Bill was already trying to work out how to do it.

“In a pinch, that Citroën TUB could hold that much weight. It wouldn’t be comfortable, but it’d hold them,” he finally replied.

“It’s not an order,” Grimes said, “but if you’re willing to try and get them, we have coordinates that’ll get you close.”

“I don’t want to see that many airmen left behind,” Bill replied. “I’ll do what I can.”

“Thank you, Corporal. Good luck,” Grimes turned and walked briskly back to the temporary HQ.

 

With the rest of the squadron doing double duty to keep planes in the air, Bill was able to run around behind the scenes putting together a plan with notes heavily cribbed from Biffy’s bridge adventure. He fueled up the Citroën and the Tiger and took everything else out of the nondescript civilian van. It would make him invisible, but the real trick was to avoid any German entanglements, he knew a man who might help with that.

Bill rode the Tiger around the perimeter of the massive aerodrome to the main French HQ. It was lunch time so hopefully he’d be able to find Pierre in the officer’s mess. Stepping in from the rain, he brushed himself off and looked around. Several French officers had stopped eating and were looking at the damp RAF corporal standing in the door. From the back of the room by the window a familiar voice rang out.

“Corporal Morris!” Pierre stood up smiling with a wave. “Join me!”

Bill smiled back in relief. He’d gotten the distinct feeling that he was about to be yelled at in French. Walking past the annoyed stares, he took the empty seat across from Pierre.

“You look worried,” Pierre noted over a meal that put the RAF mess to shame. “Want some coffee?”

“Yes please,” Bill replied, shivering from the damp.

Pierre filled a porcelain cup with spectacular smelling coffee. Fighting a war in your own country had its perks.

“What can I do for you, damp Corporal?” Pierre asked, handing him the cup.

Bill took a sip and then looked Pierre in the eye.

“We lost an entire squadron of Fairey Battles this morning. They’ve gone down in the Ardennes northeast of Sedan.  My Flight Sergeant is wondering if I can go get them.”

“That’s thirty kilometres the wrong side of the German line,” Pierre said, “and a lot of people to try and fit on the back of a motorbike.”

“I’ve got a civilian Citroën TUB that should hold them,” Bill replied.

“Of course you do.”

“What I’d really like to do is avoid any enemy entanglements. Do you have any idea where they’re concentrated up there?”

Pierre took a sip of coffee and gave it some thought.

“I can find you some of the latest reconnaissance from the area, but they won’t be happy to see an RAF enlisted man in there. Wait in the Quartier General front office. Tell them Captain Clostermann has asked for you and they should leave you alone.”

“Thanks, Pierre.”

Both men drained their coffees and stood up. Bill followed Pierre out of the officer’s mess as many eyes followed them.

The Quartier General was a permanent building with heat, which Bill found magical after a winter living in various forms of temporary shelter. The officious git at the front desk could speak English but was determined not to. Bill finally got a dismissive gesture towards chairs in the lobby and went and sat in one. Pierre appeared a few minutes later with a notebook full of scribbled details. He sat down next to Bill in the waiting area and started a rapid fire debrief.

“Most of the German activity is on the east side of the Meuse. That river, eh? They have a major supply line running down the road from Hargnies that we’ve been trying to hit for the past week, but they provide strong air cover over it. Maybe head north to Vervins and then come in from that way, you’re only likely to meet light patrols. Their main push is into Sedan and then south.”

Pierre hesitated, closing the notebook, “Just because they are looking the other way doesn’t mean this will work William. Are you sure you have to do this?”

Bill smiled tightly, “I don’t have to do anything, but I don’t want people feeling hopeless and that’s how things are starting to get over our way. If I can nip in and get a few boys back home, it’ll help.”

Pierre nodded, “Bonne chance, mon ami.”

They stood together and shook hands.

“I’ll pop by later in the week and tell you how it went,” Bill smiled.

“I’m sure you will,” Pierre replied, though the worried look in his eyes didn’t go away.

 

With everyone running about putting their planes back together again, the barracks and mess were empty. Bill ate alone before dinner was scheduled. The ceiling had dropped to only a few hundred feet making visibility poor and grounding the planes, it was going to be a cold, damp evening. After getting food into him, Bill filled a thermos with tea and put together a sandwich to bring along. As everyone else was coming in for dinner, Bill headed out into the rain. The Citroën had non-descript grey paint that faded into the wet landscape. It was going to be such a handful unloaded that driving it in the wet made Bill distinctly uncomfortable. That’s when inspiration struck. Why not put a bike in it and ride back? If he vacated the van and let the aircrew drive it back, more of them would fit in the van.

The obvious choice was the only non-RAF bike he had: Louis Jeanin’s Tiger. The brace of Nortons and the lone Triumph were all sitting under a dripping tarpaulin. The Tiger was still cooling from the ride over to Pierre. Bill eased it out from under the tarp and rolled it over to the van. Dragging a plank from the bike shed and setting it as a ramp, he pushed the Tiger up into the van and tied it to the side with bits of rope. If the Citroën stopped bouncing about so much, he might not end up in a ditch.

With another couple of hours until dark, Bill shut the doors and double checked that the radiator was full, and that the engine had oil. He also went over everything with an oil can and checked and filled the tyres. The strange layout of the TUB made this a bit of an adventure but knowing where everything was seemed prudent, though doing it half under a tarp in pouring rain wasn’t fun.  Watching Biffy check the details and put his bridge demolition plan together had given Bill some idea of how to ensure success when a job had so many potential surprises.

As everyone else went back to putting their planes back into service, Bill hit his bunk and tried to sleep. He must have had a kip because the next thing he remembered was the sound of the other junior NCOs coming in after a long day on the field. He sat up and began putting his civilian clothes on. When he came through out of uniform the conversation around the card table stopped.

“That looks like trouble,” Michaels observed, putting his cards down.

“Off to see if I can bring some Fairey Battle crews back,” Bill replied, snagging a mug, and filling it from the ever-present tea pot.

“Long way to go?” Michaels asked.

“Ardennes,” Bill said, sipping his tea.

“Isn’t it full of Nazis?” Allings asked with a look of concern.

“That’s the tricky bit,” Bill replied, draining the tea.

“What’s the plan?” Michaels’ curiosity mirrored the room’s.

“Drive the Citroën van up there. Pretend I’m French and hope any Germans I ran into aren’t because my French won’t take it, find the crews, hand them the van and then ride back providing cover.”

“Think it’ll work?” Michaels asked.

“I’m about to find out,” Bill smiled, pulling on his dark blue fishing gansey and stepping out into the rainy night.

The hand knitted fisherman’s gansey was a gift given to him the day before he enlisted. It was a reminder of someone special at home, and it was remarkably good at repelling water, which would be handy tonight. She’d made it in her family pattern, and it was a unique thing. In the uniformed world of war, he had little chance to wear it.

The TUB fired up even though it had been sitting in the wet. As weird as the van was, you had to admire the engineering. Bill looked over his shoulder. The Tiger crouched in the back of the van staring back intently with its slotted black out headlamp. The chance to ride it again, this time possibly in anger, sent a thrill up Bill’s spine.

He put the van in gear and bounced over the rutted, wet field toward the gate. If they gave him any stick, he’d have them contact Grimes, but the bored French MP at the gate gave him a wave when he pulled up and he was through into the kind of darkness you only find in the countryside at night in the rain.

With the Tiger in the back the Citroën was manageable. Bill made good time north through the weather which was more tedious than terrifying. He pulled into Signy-l'Abbaye, on the edge of the Ardennes Forest just before midnight and turned off the lights. Sedan was east of him, and Pierre’s notes had suggested that this was where all the German attention was. He hadn’t seen another vehicle on the road having stuck to small back roads all the way up.

Using a torch, he scanned the map. Les Mazures was a village deep in the forest just west of the Meuse River, the same waterway they’d crossed in Belgium, but down here it was a much smaller river. With the rain and now a forest, Bill couldn’t have asked for better cover, but good cover also meant poor sight lines. He could easily round a corner to discover a hundred Nazis having dinner.

He turned the headlamps on and put the TUB into gear before rolling under the deeper shadows of the trees. The road followed a tributary that would eventually feed the Meuse. The running water was producing its own mist, cutting visibility even further. He passed through Villaine, another forested village where all the cottages and shops were dark, but on the outskirts, he saw a light ahead and pulled off the road onto a dirt path and turned everything off.

Looking at his map again by torchlight, he was less than ten miles from where the Fairey crews had gone down. As he double checked the map a heavy-duty vehicle rumbled past on the road behind him. The lightless TUB sitting in the shadows hadn’t drawn any attention. That had been a big, military lorry, possibly a troop carrier. A familiar sound followed as a pair of sidecar outfits passed by, and then Bill’s heart jumped in his chest, the mechanical groan of a treaded tank was getting louder.

Staring at the rear-view mirror, Bill sat motionless in the shadows. He’d seen tanks but never up close, he was in the wrong branch of the service for that sort of thing. A Panzer heaved into view behind him, making quick progress down the country road. It had a bright spotlight on it that was scanning the forest. Bill could make out the manned heavy machine gun mount on top next to the spotlight. That gun would turn his van into Swiss cheese in seconds. The light swept across the Citroën as the Panzer rolled down the road, but it didn’t hesitate; a nondescript French delivery van was the best possible camouflage.

Behind the Panzer another large lorry passed and finally something smaller, maybe one of those little square Kübelwagens he’d seen at the Luxembourg border last week. Was that only last week? As the convoy of mechanized soldiers thundered into France unimpeded, Bill’s heart started to slow down. The dirt road continued into the forest ahead. He’d intended to fire up the TUB and drive hard into the woods had they stopped, but his civilian camouflage and going to ground had done the trick.

He gave it a minute more and then started up the van and backed it out onto the road. The pavement was in rougher shape after being churned up by the Panzer, so slow and steady it was. Knowing that mechanized unit was blocking their way out was something to keep in mind. Along with the heavy machinery, there must have been dozens of men in those vehicles.

Chapter 5 can be found here.

Under Dark Skies Chapter 3

Chapter 3 (earlier chapters can be found in previous posts)

British Expeditionary Force
Sunday, May 12th, 1940
Operation Chokepoint: Infiltration into Belgium

 

Biffy wasn’t joking about moving quickly. Just past midnight they crossed the border into Belgium. A civilian police car and a military staff car were waiting for them there and they crossed in moments. Shortly after they were flying north again in the darkness. The crescent moon was growing and shed a bit of light, but Bill was depending on the slitted headlamp and the lights of the car to show him what the roads were doing. Several times they had to slow due to bomb damage and work their way around some rough bits, but they were often doing better than sixty miles per hour nearly blind.

The Mercedes was making quick time on empty, Belgian roads. The man at the wheel knew how to handle a car and was winding it out whenever he could, sometimes pulling right up behind the civilian police car which then redoubled its efforts to stay in front.

Bill trailed along at the back on the BMW which had long legs for this kind of work. Those telescopic forks were so good, they felt like the future, and the engine and gearing were such that the bike could easily roll along at sixty miles an hour. Bill wondered if it had been breathed on since the R12s he’d read about topped out at sixty. This one was happy looking at the other side of it.

The Belgian countryside flew by in the shadows. By 2am the fast-moving group found themselves east of Liège and within striking distance of their target. Castle Selys-Longchamps was a Belgian operational centre for the front, so they pulled into the grounds. Several Belgian military vehicles were packed under the trees. A young man in full field kit carrying a rifle waved them into the area and silence swept over them as ignitions were cut.

Bill swung a stiff leg off the BMW and stretched in the damp grass. The men in the staff car were also getting out and stretching after an intense blast through the dark. Whether Biffy was any good at planning was put to rest as one of the military lorries revealed another carafe of steaming black coffee. Biffy waved everyone over, and they stood in a circle around the warm metal container with camp mugs in hand.

“We’ve made good time, gentlemen,” he began, a voice in the dark. “The main rail line crosses the river that divides Belgium and The Netherlands just northeast of here. Latest Belgian intelligence shows multiple German units on this side of the river, the Dutch side doesn’t seem to have any special attention. We’ll do this as under the guise of a rabbit hunt. The staff car will park under the cover of the bridge and you two will wire it to blow. Bill, you get off the road a hundred yards back. If we draw any attention, we’ll explain we’re looking for a saboteur on a motorbike. If things look like escalating, you pop out, fire a couple of shots over our heads and then make for back here with all possible speed. We’ll do a bad job of following you with the Germans. Questions?”

Bill liked the bit where he never had to try and have a conversation with anyone because he didn’t speak any of it. If riding quickly was his main job, he had a handle that. He nodded curtly along with everyone else.

“The Belgians are supplying us with a crate of dynamite, so we need to load that into the trunk of the Mercedes and then avoid big bumps,” Biffy continued. “It’s half past three now. If we can be ready to go by four, we can be at the target before dawn. We can have it wired on a timer and be out of enemy territory before the sun comes up. Check your kit and get yourself sorted. We move in thirty.”

The two younger, dangerous looking fellows in lieutenants’ uniforms immediately went over to a Belgian vehicle that was parked a distance from everything else and began removing a wooden crate carefully. Bill finished his coffee and then took a nature break. Returning to the BMW he looked it over, but it seemed perfectly happy after its prolonged, high speed night flight through Belgium. The German uniform he was wearing included a service revolver, a newer model of the same Luger he’d found in the crashed Dornier. It was amazing to think that happened only yesterday, and he still hadn’t slept yet. The coffee must be what’s keeping him on his toes, but eventually he’d have to put his head down somewhere and have a kip.

He unclipped the Luger and removed it from the holster. They’d done basic firearms training when he joined the RAF, but guns weren’t his focus. Biffy was watching them load the crate into the back of the Mercedes and pack straw around so it wouldn’t shift.

“Um, sir,” Bill began, holding up the Luger.

“Ah, not so familiar with German handguns, eh?”

“Haven’t had much opportunity.”

Biffy took the pistol and demonstrated how to turn off the safety and open the chamber.

“Testing firearm!” he shouted.

No one stopped what they were doing. Biffy turned to face one of the large trees in the area, aimed the Luger at it and pulled the trigger. The concussion from the shot was stunning in the quiet night.

“This one shoots straight, they don’t always. You’ve still got six more bullets in it. If things go cock-up, pull out on the bike, fire your shots then toss the gun and go.”

“Yes, sir,” Bill replied, taking the smoking Luger back and turning on the safety.

“Hopefully, it won’t come to that. Is the bike alright?”

“Yes, sir. Once I’m moving, I can get it to dance.”

“Perfect!” Biffy’s eyes glinted in the dark. “Part of me is hoping you have the opportunity to dance!”

Biffy turned and walked over to a senior officer. They began talking in German. He was the one who would be doing the majority of the talking if they ran into the enemy.

Preparations were wordless and quick; these men had done this before, which made Bill feel even further out of his depth. The Belgian soldiers supplied more petrol for the vehicles and Bill took the panniers off the bike, which included a heavy jerrycan full of fuel, and left them under a tree. Given more time he would have stripped it down further. The fenders on it looked like they were made from cast iron and weighed a ton. Biffy called them all together one final time.

“Gentlemen, this is a quick in and out. Our captain here will do the talking if we run into any German military. You two look unapproachable,” he nodded to the two-man demolition crew. “Since he doesn’t ‘sprakenzee Deuch’[1] , our sergeant will be down the road out of sight on the bike. If things look tense, he’ll pop out and provide a distraction. When we get to the bridge, we’ll park under the arch the road passes through. Demolitions will rig the girders where they leave the foundation over the river. Ten minutes to set up a basic circuit?”

The taller of the two young men nodded.

“Once we’ve got the bridge wired, we make haste back here. If you get separated, you’re on your own. Get back over the river. There’s an intact bridge five miles south of the target we’re going to cross to get in. Eleven miles north is another bridge, but there is a lot of activity up that way so I wouldn’t suggest it. If you’re on foot, an alternative might be seeing if you can find a rowboat to get back into Belgium. Off we go!”

Bill returned to the bike and kicked it to life. The men folded themselves into the Benz and carefully made their way back to the dirt road that led to the castle, going out of their way to avoid bumps. Bill fell in behind them, a bit further back than before.

The road bridge into Lise in the Netherlands was the first goal. Even in the bottom of the night the Belgian military were active, and a number of vehicles were in motion on their way to the bridge. The Belgian army staff car leading them got them waved through two roadblocks when they finally crested a ridge and saw the river wreathed in fog.

The Belgian car led them down to a fortified placement on the west side of the bridge. Another military vehicle that had seen better days was waiting there. Biffy jumped out of the Mercedes when they pulled up and everyone killed engines and lights. After a brief chat with the front-line officer, they shook hands and Biffy returned to the Benz. The beaten-up army vehicle moved aside and let them onto the bridge, lights out.

They crossed through the thickening river fog and stopped again. The Belgian officer handed Biffy a map through the window. Bill kept an eye out but there wasn’t much to be seen in the grey wall of fog. Bill hunkered down on the BMW, feeling the heat from the engine rising up around him. After another brief discussion and a handshake. The German staff car started up and took a right up the road next to the river. Bill kicked the BMW over and followed. As he passed the front-line officer the man gave him a salute and Bill nodded awkwardly in return.

This was one of those strange parts of Europe where the borders followed a tortured history of conquest and take back. This pocket of Belgium bulged over to Germany, but The Netherlands was now north of them. Because of this it was a nightmare to defend and had been quickly conceded, but the rapid advance meant things were still chaotic, especially in the countryside where they were headed. German paratroopers had taken Eben-Emael so quickly it had made a mess of any plans.

The Mercedes’ taillights shone red through the thick fog, providing the only source of direction as they followed the river. The road was paved and clung to the edge of the Meuse. They crept north moving slower than they’d planned, but the fog also provided excellent cover. Finally, the massive rail bridge appeared as a monolithic shadow in the mist. The staff car pulled into the even darker shadow of the arch and went dark. Bill pulled up at the entrance. The plan was going to have to change if visibility was this poor.

“Go through to the north side of the bridge and keep an eye out,” Biffy said quietly as Bill pulled up.

He kicked the BMW into gear and pulled through to the other side. When he killed the engine, his blood froze. German voices could clearly be heard through the fog. Still sitting on the bike, he shifted it into neutral and made a three-point turn, so he was facing south, and then, leaving the bike there, crept back through the bridge tunnel to the Mercedes.

“German voices, north of the bridge,” he whispered to Biffy.

The two young men were lifting the crate out of the back of the car and paused after hearing that, waiting for the next order.

“We proceed,” Biffy said quietly and calmly. “Hauptsturmführer Müller and I will stay up that way. If we run into anyone, we’ll delay them as long as possible. Take the bike just south of us. If you hear voices being raised, take your shots, and then get south back to the bridge as planned.”

The two demolition boys took the crate between them and carefully made their way down the south side of the muddy riverbank into a darkness so absolute Bill couldn’t understand how they could work in it, but it didn’t seem to bother them. The German speaking French soldier dressed as an SS Captain and Biffy in his SS Major uniform both followed Bill back to the north end of the tunnel where the German voices echoed hollowly through the fog. It sounded like they’d made a camp by the river.

Bill rolled the BMW quietly back through the tunnel and past the Benz. He stopped when he could just make out the bridge in the darkness. Minutes passed by. He eventually stepped off the bike, pulled it up onto its stand and went for a stretch and a pee by the river. If anything, the fog was even thicker now, with rolls of it blowing through.

The bridge and river along with the dense fog made for strange sound distortion. The end of this long night was wearing on Bill as he alternately sat against the warm BMW and occasionally got up to stretch. At one point he nodded off for a moment and was woken up by unfamiliar voices. The tunnel amplified the voices of the people standing in it. The French officer’s upper-class accent was clear even though Bill couldn’t understand the words. Standing up, Bill threw a leg over the bike and waited tensely. The mist was a lighter tinge of grey; sunrise wasn’t far off.

The two figures of the French officer and Biffy loomed in the shadows under the bridge, followed by way too many silhouettes. Bill’s adrenaline surged. The French officer was speaking with one of the figures and gesturing around the area. This was it, time to do his bit. Bill pulled out the German handgun and turned off the safety as he’d been shown. Aiming at the top of the arch with a shaking hand, he was about to pull the trigger when he remembered the bike wasn’t running. Getting caught trying to start it wasn’t the way. Holding the Luger awkwardly, he stepped down on the kick starter and the BMW thudded to life. Bill pulled it off the stand. The figures in the mist had frozen at the sound.

Bill held up his shaking hand and began pulling the trigger. The gun jumped in his hand and the figures in the mist scattered for cover. When he stopped firing, Bill threw the gun into the mud and spun the heavy bike on the wet road before roaring away with a handful of throttle. Behind him shouts of “achtung” and “halt” and then sporadic gun fire erupted. One bullet sizzled through the mist nearby but by then Bill was thundering through the fog as fast as he dared.

The small town of Vise lay ahead where the road bridge back over the Meuse lay. It had been stone silent when they passed through earlier but now in the predawn there were people out and about. The fog was patchier a couple of miles south of the bridge and when Bill could see better, he urged the BMW forward. The bridge back to free Belgium loomed in the grey morning light and Bill aimed for it. Skidding to a stop at the intersection, he turned right to cross the river. Several locals looked wearily at the madman in the SS uniform on a Nazi bike.

Behind him vehicles roared in the fog and a moment later a sidecar outfit and Biffy’s Mercedes staff car burst out of it. The two German army types in the sidecar looked grim. The French officer in his SS uniform was yelling at them and pointing at Bill while hanging out of the back window of the Benz.

Bill gunned the motor and tore off over the bridge. The outfit gave chase with the Mercedes right behind. As Bill got onto the bridge, he looked back up the riverside where two panzerwagens were catching up with them. Ahead of him the Belgian military was on full alert, watching the pale motorcyclist thunder towards them. A bullet whizzed by from the Belgian side.

“Marvelous,” Bill thought. “If I slow down, I get shot by Nazis and if I keep going, I’ll get shot by Belgians.”

He could see the officer who’d wished him luck waving his arms and yelling to the Belgian soldiers on the bridge, so he kept going, hoping for the best. Approaching the roadblock, he held up a hand and the officer pointed him through a gap in the vehicles and Bill took it.

By this point the Germans on the sidecar outfit had slowed, but the Benz surged past them onto the bridge and drove right at the Belgians. The sidecar seemed to think better of it and turned around back to the east side where many German vehicles were now parked with troops swarming around. As the Mercedes filtered through the gap in the Belgian line the Germans on the east bank began to fire and everyone ducked for cover. The Benz pulled up next to Bill behind one of the heavy Belgian military lorries.

“That went well,” Biffy laughed, sticking his head out of the window of the car. “When you fired your shots the demo boys had just returned. There was a whole regular army regiment north of the bridge! We told them to aid us in capturing the deserter when the bridge lit up. We didn’t take it down, but it’s severely damaged. Follow us back, Corporal, good job!”

Bullets were being exchanged across the river behind them. Both sides were bolstering their forces and it looked like it was going to turn into a pitched battle, but there was little they could do dressed as SS, so they made their way back east to Selys-Longchamps.

The ride back was the hardest bit. Bill kept dozing off as the early morning sun hit his face. They pulled back into the castle grounds they’d left only hours before to find the officer’s mess was in full production and breakfast waiting for them. Bill got off the bike feeling a hundred years old, but the smell of eggs and bacon were calling.

 

Biffy thanked them for their work over breakfast, eaten off metal trays and drunk from steel camp cups; it was one of the best breakfasts Bill had ever had.

“The main structure of the bridge got damaged when the demolitions went off. Can you confirm that, Pierre?” Biffy asked around a mouthful of eggs.

“Oui,” the German speaking French officer replied with a quirky grin. “They won’t be running trains over that any time soon.”

Biffy nodded vigorously and turned to the two demolitions men, “Are you two headed to Achnacarry?”

They glanced at each other before the taller blond one replied, “nothing confirmed, but it looks a good site.”

“Achnacarry in Scotland?” Bill interrupted, surprising himself.

“And how would a Norfolk lad like you know where a remote castle in Scotland is?” asked the younger dark-haired demolition man.

“I did the Scottish Six Days out of Fort William in ’38. Achnacarry’s just up the loch from there. We spent a day bouncing across the grounds,” Bill replied, sipping his coffee.

“Did you finish it?

“Silver medal.”

“Impressive! I watched a day of it last spring while on leave. It’s a ferocious thing.”

“What the corporal is not telling you is that he also rode from Norfolk to the Trials, competed on his bike, and then rode it back again,” Biffy interjected.

The hard men at their make-shift table were appraising Bill now in a different light. Things had relaxed at mission’s end, and everyone seemed more comfortable with each other. This latest revelation had Bill’s stock rising.

“We’ll have to stay in touch, Corporal,” the taller blond man said. “We’re aiming to bring in bike training.”

Biffy smiled and raised his mug, “that was a good night’s work, gentlemen. I’m off to Antwerp for some things and Pierre and Bill must get back to the war. I’ve arranged with the Belgian Army to run you both back to France after you’ve finished breakfast.”

Biffy was an efficient eater and had already cleared his plate. Leaving it on the hood of the staff car they stood around he gave them all a nod and turned to go, “Get yourself some sleep gentlemen, you’ve earned it.”

The remaining four quickly finished their breakfasts and necked their coffee. A Belgian NCO appeared and directed Pierre and Bill into the car they were eating breakfast on.

“Sirs, I’m to take you south to the French border at Cendron where the French military will take you back to your units,” he paused for a moment looking a bit emotional. “Thank you for your service today, for Belgium.”

Pierre and Bill glanced at each other, both taken aback by the emotionality in his voice.

“It has been our pleasure,” Pierre said, stepping forward and taking the man’s hand in a firm shake. “We are all in this together, eh?”

“Yes, sir,” the man replied, almost in tears.

Their little action in the night had evidently buoyed up the troops. It hadn’t occurred to Bill that what they did might help these exhausted soldiers keep up their fight. The sergeant ushered them into the back of the staff car and then ran around and jumped into the driver’s seat before driving them through the camp and out to the road. Exhausted, grotty tough-as-nails Belgian regular army types smiled and waved as they passed by.

“It’s a relief to be out of the wind?” Pierre asked as the car bounced across the wet lawn and onto the gravel driveway.

“Usually, it’s all I want to do,” Bill replied with a tired smile, “But this morning all I want to do is sleep.”

“Oui, moi aussi!” Pierre laughed.

They drove south on winding roads through the morning sunrise, but soon both were sound asleep. The sun was high when the driver shook them awake.

“Sirs, we have arrived at the border,” he said, opening the car door to let warm morning air in.

Bill and Pierre rubbed their eyes and stretched while getting out of the car. At the border crossing a French military Citroën was idling and its driver was standing by. They changed cars quickly and were soon moving through the French countryside back to Reims.

Bill asked after a moment, “Sir, are you a translator?”

Pierre’s easy smile returned, “Ah, non. I fly bombers pour l’Armée de l'Air. We have been flying over eastern Belgium for the past two weeks, so I knew the area.”

“Ah,” Bill replied. “I’d assumed you were a translator because your German is so fluent.”

“I’m not sure how Biffy knew about that. My mother is German.”

Bill hesitated for a moment before asking, “Is it difficult fighting your own people?”

Pierre looked him in the eye, “Nazis are not my people. My mother is Jewish. If we don’t stop them, I doubt there will be many of ‘my people’ left in Europe.”

There were a couple of Jewish fellows in Seventy-Three. Nice chaps. Bill couldn’t understand what the problem was with them, but Nazis seemed to talk about little else given a chance. Bill pressed on.

“Why do Nazis hate Jews so much?”

Pierre seemed taken aback by the question and paused to consider his answer.

“I think Hitler had bad experiences when he was younger and now it has become one of Nazi Germany’s main distinctions. A common enemy has a way of making people blind to other things.”

“Sorry if I offended…” Bill began, but Pierre waved off his apology.

“My friend, it’s people not asking these questions that caused the problem to begin with.”

They drove in silence for several minutes. The Citroën was much newer than the old Belgian car and silently glided over the pavement. It occurred to Bill that they were driving for hours away from the war to get back to the war. This wasn’t his father’s war of trenches and mud. Pierre seemed to read his mind.

“This war is like no other. I worry that we aren’t fighting it the way the Nazis are. Have you read about what happened in Poland?”

“Only that is was over before it began,” Bill replied.

“Blitzkrieg is what the Germans call it, ‘lightning war’. They use mechanical support to move much faster than their opponents. Poland had a good army, but it was swept aside in only a few weeks. I fear the same may happen with us.”

“But the allied countries have so much man-power,” Bill replied.

“Oui, but we respond slowly to this Nazi lightning.”

Bill was surprised to hear this from a French officer, not that he spent a lot of time talking to French officers.

“Isn’t the Maginot Line impregnable?” Bill asked.

“It may be, but I’ve flown over it many times and it has never slowed me down,” Pierre hesitated again, but Bill was starting to realize it was his way of thinking through a difficult topic in a foreign language. “It would have been invaluable during The Great War, but this isn’t that war.”

Any time an officer had talked to the squadron they had been absolutely certain of victory, but maybe that was just for show. It had never occurred to Bill that the people running things doubted what they were all doing. They drove on in silence into an overcast afternoon.

 

Reims-Champagne was running at full chat as their car pulled up to the gate. Pierre rapid-fired French to the guard and in seconds they were bouncing over the grass towards the main French buildings.

“My squadron has been scrambled and I missed it,” Pierre said, worry in his voice. “I’ll have the driver drop you off at the RAF north field.”

He collected the Belgian overcoat they’d given him and pulled it on over the rumpled SS uniform.

“What should we do with these?” Bill asked, gesturing at his own German outfit.

“Souvenir, I suppose?” Pierre smiled. “I’m going to fold mine up, keep it in my barracks box and hope I never have to use it again.”

He opened the door of the car as it rolled to a stop in front of French HQ.

“Bon chance, William, it has been a pleasure meeting you,” Pierre said, offering his hand.

The two men shook, and Pierre turned to face the busy airfield. As he walked away a bomber limped in trailing smoke and hit the ground hard beyond the control tower. The car jumped into gear and bounced over the field to the north end of the sprawling air base where the RAF’s temporary buildings had been growing like mushrooms in Bill’s absence.

He thanked the driver and made sure to get his Belgian overcoat on before getting out of the car. Things looked hectic. Two of the squadron’s Hurricanes were refueling and another was a burnt husk beyond the busy hangars. Men were running to and fro rearming and refueling. A squadron of Fairey Battle light bombers were lining up for takeoff while a group of Hurricanes, two of them trailing smoke, were landing behind them on the rutted field.

Bill pushed through the busy entrance to the operations hangar and found Flight Sergeant Grimes orchestrating field maintenance under the heavy clouds. Bill waited while he directed mechanics and support staff with questions. When the last left, Grimes looked over at Bill.

“What have you been up to, Corporal?”

Bill undid the top button of his Belgian great coat showing the SS uniform underneath. Grimes’ eyebrows shot up.

“Belgian coat, SS uniform underneath… did it go well?”

“One less bridge for the enemy to supply petrol with,” Bill smiled through a grotty face.

“Jolly good,” Grimes replied, eying Bill’s grey face. “When was the last time you slept?”

“I might have had forty minutes in the car ride back.”

“We’re busy but we have a lot of new bodies, and everything is where it needs to be. Drop by the mess and then hit your bunk. The war will still be here for you tomorrow.”

Bill stood to attention and then went to look for a place to lay down.

Chapter 4 can be found here.