Free Ride Out The Storm by John Harris Page B

resent Hatton, though his eyes flickered to the wavy ring on his sleeve. ‘You going across?’ he asked.
    ‘I suppose so,’ Hatton said. ‘We’ve just arrived.’
    ‘Who are you?’
    ‘ Vital. ’
    The lieutenant grinned. ‘She’s not very big, is she?’ he said.
    ‘I expect she’ll be big enough,’ Hatton said and realised immediately, as the lieutenant’s eyes smiled, that he’d said something rather clever and perhaps rather brave.
    ‘I expect she will,’ the lieutenant agreed. ‘Been in long?’
    ‘No. Fortunately, there are plenty of people aboard to tell me what to do. Are they bringing the army out?’
    ‘Unofficially, yes. And a beautiful bloody balls-up it is too. We’ve been at it for days now. Boulogne and Calais have had it and at Calais we’re not even trying. They’re there to stop Jerry on the western flank and that’s what they have to do.’
    The idea of being sacrificed for the rest of the army caught at Hatton’s breath. It was a noble ideal but he felt it could be very uncomfortable and probably without much future.
    ‘How far have the Germans got?’ he asked.
    The lieutenant looked up. ‘Worry you?’
    Hatton swallowed. It worried him a great deal but he tried to pretend it didn’t. ‘Not so’s you’d notice,’ he said.
    The lieutenant smiled. ‘Well played,’ he said.

    Lije Noble was another who was feeling doubts about his own skill and ability that morning.
    He’d spent the night cowering under a hedge with several other men, terrified at the prospect of tanks and wishing to God someone would get a move on and get him away. When he woke at first light, a corporal was giving him a nudge with a boot. As he opened his eyes the silence was uncanny after the remembered tumult of the previous evening and the thought occurred to him that he was dead. For a moment the unreality persisted then the boot jarred again.
    ‘Come on,’ the corporal said.
    ‘What’s up?’
    ‘Burial party. In the wood.’
    Noble accepted the spade that someone handed to him, but as soon as the corporal turned away, he dropped it and slipped round the back of one of the lorries. At the other side a sergeant was standing with an officer.
    ‘Got your explosives, Galpin?’ the officer was asking.
    ‘Yes, sir.’
    ‘Right, take your men and head for Bergues. Pick out the bridges that’ll have to be blown as we come through, and plant your stuff.’
    As he turned away, Noble reached for the haversack containing the brandy and cigars.
    ‘I’ve got to get back to my unit, Sarge,’ he said. ‘It’s at Bughem near Bergues. Can you give me a lift? Me van went up in the wood there.’
    As the lorry roared off, Noble was never so glad to see the back of anywhere as he was of that wood, but as they moved slowly north, dropping men two at a time at the bridges and locks as they passed, he began to feel better. To the south, over Arras, he could see a pall of smoke hanging in the air and farmhouses burning in the area between, with gun flashes coming regularly through the smoke and the occasional glint of a pair of field glasses, which gave him the unnerving feeling that everything he did was being watched by the Germans. He glanced at the sky. A recce plane had appeared above them and he’d learned by this time that recce planes were invariably followed by dive-bombers. He was grateful he wasn’t in one of those awful streams of vehicles he’d seen, moving nose to tail at the pace of an active snail.
    The sun was just beginning to get up as the lorry slowed to drop the last two men. Beyond the bridge where they stopped was a cornfield and they all climbed out for a smoke. To Noble, it seemed an event of great importance and, after the events of the lasts few days, one that was enormously civilised. He reached for the haversack and, extracting the cigars, offered them round.
    The pulsating sound of distant gunfire seemed to drum on the canvas cover of the truck but it was far enough away not to