大象传媒

A rather eerie place was the German town of Geilenkirchen in 1945. It had bben fought over by the two sides several times and was being held by units of the Irish Guards, whom we relieved. The houses were severely damaged and we used the cellars as billets, especially as there was a great deal of sniping all the time. It was a depressing and dangerous place.

Early one morning, it fell to me to lead a five-man patrol across the "No Man's Land" which lay between the British and German positions. For some time there had been an unusual quietness from the enemy trenches in front of us. I was to take an Information Patrol, as opposed to a Fighting Patrol, and establish whether the enemy positions had been abandoned.

I set off with my patrol and silently moved across the intervening space until we neared the German trenches. With one man, I continued to observe the silent and empty trenches in front.

How far should we go into enemy territory?

Passing several more trenches, which I considered far enough, and just as I was going to give the order to withdraw, there was the sound of voices - German voices! So, the trenches were not abandoned, and could be used as the focus of a counter-attack against our position. This information was vital and must be conveyed to our intelligence unit so that there would be no relaxing of our vigilance.

It was therefore necessary to return silently, and safely, to our own lines. We started to cross "No Man's Land" once again. Fairly thick early morning mist enveloped us - increasing the feeling of eerie silence. Our great fear was the danger of stumbling into a German patrol returning from the British lines. If this happened the silence would be shattered by both patrols opening fire on each other, plus the trigger happy troops on each side who would make thing difficult for both patrols. We glided silently through the ghostly atmosphere towards the safety of our own lines, when suddenly we heard a movement. We instantly froze.

Somebody was approaching us. I gave the order to release the safety catches of our weapons, but no-one was to fire until I gave the command. The sound again, but from a different direction. Were we being surrounded by the Germans? The mist began to rise slightly, and there in front of us a large dark shape slowly emerged from the mist.

A cow! We only had a brief moment to identify the animal before, once again, it disappeared from sight into the mist. Unnerved, but also relieved, we finally made it back to our own positions.

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