Free Tramp in Armour by Colin Forbes

The crowd was dazed, stunned with terror, unable even to attempt to run for safety in the shock of the sudden onslaught. In front of him Barnes saw an old man turn and stare at the plane as it came straight along the road with a scream and a stutter. He must have taken a dozen bullets in the chest before he crashed back against a cart. As the first machine screamed past, Barnes tugged out his revolver and waited for the next one, steadying the gun barrel across bis arm. The second Messerschmitt pulled out of its dive and sped over the procession almost immediately. Barnes saw the outline of the pilot's helmet, the black cross on the fuselage, the swastika on the tail. He fired three times in rapid succession, knowing that it was hopeless. Unless a .455 bullet burst through the petrol tank he might just as well be armed with a bow and arrow, but he had to try something. The third machine was coming now, its nadir so low that it almost skimmed the heads of the panic-stricken refugees. Barnes fired, swearing foully as he switched his eyes to the west where another one was coming, and at that moment a horse went berserk, dragging its cart off the road as people scrambled desperately to escape this new menace.
    There were six machines altogether, and when they had flown away from the carnage the afternoon was suddenly horribly quiet. Only the heart-broken cries of sobbing women disturbed the stillness as Barnes clambered to his feet and ran over to the stationary Renault. When he reached the car and looked inside he clenched his teeth: the woman in the Renault had taken the full blast of the machine gun and now she was hardly identifiable even as a blood-soaked corpse. The engine was still running so he leaned over and switched off the ignition. He would give these refugees what help he could and then head for Arras non-stop.

    The tank rumbled southwards at top speed and the road ahead was clear as far as the eye could see, another panorama of Belgian pastureland spreading away with hardly a tree anywhere, which meant no cover from air attack.
    Standing in the turret, Barnes concentrated on keeping all- round observation: the deserted road ahead, the road behind, the fields on either side where people worked a long way off and never seemed to notice the passage of a British tank and, above all, the sky overhead where the most instant danger could strike without warning. Below him Penn occupied Davis' old position behind the guns, while in the nose of the tank Reynolds sweltered as he handled his driving levers, his head thrust up through the open hatch, relieved that once again they were on the move and that Barnes was in command. To Reynolds, all was well with the world so long as Barnes was in command. Behind the turret sat Pierre. He was perched outside the tank on the engine covers and already had grown accustomed to the gentle wobble of the hull as the huge tracks ground farther south with every revolution. There had almost been a row between Barnes and Penn over taking the Belgian lad. At first, Barnes had refused point-blank.
    'We need him for information,' Penn had protested. 'He knows the country and we don't. Supposing we're inside a town close to the battle area - accurate information will be vital. Our lives may depend on it and the only one who can get it quickly from the locals is Pierre. He's taken some chances with us already - he was with us in the building all the time the Panzer column was moving through Fontaine. We didn't know it at the time but if he'd been caught with us they'd have shot him. And he brought food for us.'
    It was probably the gesture of bringing food which had finally persuaded Barnes to let Pierre travel with them until he could drop him off in an area more peaceful than Fontaine. They were on the point of departing when Pierre had come running back from the village with sticks of French bread under each arm and a satchelful of tinned meat hanging from his shoulder. He even had a packet of