大象传媒

HOW I NEARLY MISSED THE WAR (PART 2)

LOST

Came the dawn and with smoke screen thinning we found ourselves voyaging,if that term could be applied to our floating caravan, amongst all sorts of tank landing craft, lighters and barges purposefully going about their business whilst we waddled on.We were lost. We hit the beach, or rather scraped ashore ingloriously and jolted to a halt. The raft carried its own bulldozer to push itself off after discharging its cargo. First off, I splashed through water only deep enough to cover the tyres. So much for waterproofing. The snorkel, or elephant鈥檚 trunk up the back of the cab that would have allowed the engine to breathe under six feet of water, but not me, was redundant. Keeping the revs up I followed a shouted instruction from an MP to go for the gate. Gate being a cutting in sand dunes laid with Summerfield track, then on to a rough road and away. We had landed on the wrong beach! The MP did not know who we were and gave no directions; I was becoming used to this. After driving for about twenty minutes I stopped on a plateau of stubble, burned out in parts and strewn with wrecked and abandoned equipment. When I stopped there was a squeal of brakes and the three, 3,tonners and compressor truck were lined up behind me. A dozen blokes came forward wanting to know where I was going. God knows! High up and exposed there was nothing to indicate where we were and nobody to direct us. Around our horizon quite a distance away we could hear bangs and thuds and faint chatter of machine gun fire. There was a war on but I could not see it and we were detached from it Where were we to go? Neither our corporal nor our lance corporal issued any instructions. Wherever we went seemed to be heading for trouble. Who said you can do no wrong if you steered to the sound of guns! The sensible thing seemed to be to draw off the road, dust track, as it was. We did so and froze.

We had motored over a dust hidden, grimy, white tape used to show which area of ground had been swept for mines, we were clearly on the wrong side. Everybody sat still while three sappers with bayonets angled them into the ground, concentrating under the lorries and the area adjacent to the road. It proved safe and everybody alighted. I was on my feet, yet still somewhat unsteady from the sea passage. It was, I think, a unanimous decision to stay put until somebody from the company came looking for us. Always assuming the company knew we were rushing to join it! We kicked our heels, brewed tea, made a meal of sorts and brassed off and disinterested, turned in for the night. No guards. We had by now found a use for the flimsy 4-gallon petrol tins. Not a new idea. Cut them in half, fill with sand, splash in a little petrol and chuck in a match. A cooker fit for brewing tea. With a wire handle threaded through the sides, we proceeded, as did the rest of the army, with the cookers hanging thereafter on the towing hooks of the lorries.

IN THE FOLD

Early next morning, just after we were up, a corporal on a dust covered motor bike arrived in a rush and a cloud of dust demanding to know 鈥淲here the f... have you been?鈥� We referred him to our corporal who we decided was in charge. We were told brusquely to follow the bike and keep up. Off we set dropping down from the plateau into close hedgerows and embankments and small field, that we learned, was the bocage. Close country, heavy banks with high hedges and no long views. In due course we were directed into a small field in which the company was dug in. Vehicles were strung along the hedges, forming the perimeter of the field, and some were dug in down the depth of the truck hulls. Everything was covered with camouflaged nets and branches of trees. The company HQ was in an underground bunker and they looked as if they were here to stay. They had arrived in this field two days ago. We found out later why such precautions were necessary.

I had a quick look around but when, two of us, went to have a look up the road we were ordered to stop. A field length away squatted the blackened remains of what I was told had been a Tiger tank. It was festooned with spare track across the front with a squat turret and a large drooping gun with a large muzzle piece. Side armour plates masking large wheels and massive tracks. Beside the tank lay two fly covered rag blackened bundles, crew who had not escaped. Over everything the smell of smoke and decay cloyed, we were warned in no uncertain terms not to stay or poke around. Mines and tiger tanks were things of terror. We were not to forget. Keep clear.

Midday and we queued up with mess tins for a meal, being served up by the company cooks. A stew with a 录 slice of bread. The lad besides me asked, "what the hell was the game." To be told," We have been eating biscuits until now, and if you are so pernickety,why the Hell did you not bring some bread from the ship?鈥� Along with various remarks regarding malingerers. We had arrived. Once I had arrived nobody seemed to care who I was or what I had to do. The other lads drifted away to join up with their mates. I knew nobody. When I asked about sleeping arrangements I was told to dig myself a slit trench, by a Geordie who pointed out a spot behind a lorry, parked next to a hedge. With a grin, he handed me a shovel and told me to get a bend on, it would be dark soon.! The ground seemed loose enough and I finished a shallow hole in the dark. I was bewildered. I thought the army was an organised body, which cared for its men. Maybe I was a liability. I seemed abandoned and certainly brassed of. I was wet and the rain poured down, the tail end of the gale that had followed us down the channel. I woke up in the night soaking. My slit trench had been dug adjacent a back-filled grease pit that overflowed into my scrape. The Geordie with the grin had had his joke. I was seething and vowing vengeance, as I discarded my battle dress and donned denholms, from the kitbag in my truck, in the half light of morning.

detected. There was no second chance in this game. The second model consisted of four coils fixed on a bar intended to cover a broader track. The sweeper carried the apparatus in the manner of a sandwich man by webbing straps over his shoulders. It seemed a good idea, but I was told it was difficult to tell which coil had located the mine and there was a problem of how to put the thing down, if he was to defuse the mine. The fuse usually consisted of a trigger device screwed into the top of the mine whether a Teller or S-mine. Three prongs that fired the mine sometimes surmounted the fuse. A piece of wire or nail inserted into a hole in the side of the detonator stopped the striker, rendering the mine safe. Many sappers preferred to search for mines by gently probing with their bayonet. It was done by inserting the bayonet into the ground at an angle of 45 degrees.

Returning from a second journey in the afternoon I was redirected by an MP only to find myself in Creully where Montgomery had his headquarters. It was in the process of moving. There was a lot of activity with numerous guards and MPs The 21st Army group sleeve badge of crossed swords on a dark background was much in evidence. People wearing the badge certainly thought they were a cut above other less important beings. I was being hustled away from the area being regarded as an interloper. A lot of brass was present and salutes were flying. The area seethed and tension could be felt. Trucks stood around under a great amount of camouflage netting. I was curious but glad to leave the scene without delay.

The sapper accompanying me was a powerful Northumberland man with a strong local accent. He asked me why I was wearing denholms. I told him about my unfortunate experience during the night, to which he said that he was not surprised at the trick played on me. He said the make up of the company created factions and they were a rough bunch. They had been drawn from different parts of the country early in the war, were mainly miners and a little suspicious of each other. 183 Field Company had been a special tunnelling company that had worked on Dover defences and would have been the first line if Germans had invaded. There were strong contingents of Yorkshire miners, Welsh miners from the Rhonda and others from Staffordshire. No Scots! Anybody else was an outsider and in my case, being a Scot who arrived late, definitely beyond the pale. Whilst I thought the idea of directing me to dig a trench next to a filled grease pit was malicious, the sapper assured me, it was regarded as a joke and part of initiation of being accepted. I did not think I wanted to be accepted as much as that, but I would put a good face on it and bide my time.

In Normandy before I arrived the company had been employed in many field tasks, although its main purpose was bridge building, for which it had trained for many months in England. . The company to which I was to have been posted to after wireless training, along with the others, had landed on D-day. Before I landed, I was told, it had come a cropper clearing a minefield to create a park for tanks. Whilst they had lifted Teller mines, other wooden box mines covered in pitch had been missed by the mine sweepers, and when the tanks arrived many of the sappers had been blown up. The casualties had been so great that the company was disbanded. The survivors were posted to the other companies as reinforcements. From now on it seemed as if the army was starved of reinforcements. It was said a number of units were disbanded in Normandy rather than being rebuilt.

THE DONKEY

Foraging around a few of us came across a shattered farm with fallen timber roofs, smoke marked walls, missing windows and shell pocketed walls. There was a lot of rubble lying around with loops and strands of barbed wire discarded, forming traps for the unwary. In the courtyard a forlorn donkey with a large head, long ears and tufted tail stood with its lacerated legs braced and covered with flies. It looked dejected. It was grey, and more so, covered with dust and caked crusts of blood. A couple of lads poked straw at it but it only shivered and declined to eat. It remained immobile and abandoned, a home loving domestic beast caught up in a disaster neither of its making nor that it could understand. After a discussion it was decided we could not adopt it but something should be done about the flies. The animal would not stand still when a field dressing was placed against a wound and skittered sideways at every

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