enemy aircraft.
They inched round a hairpin bend and hit a pothole, which jolted them sideways. Amid groans from the back, Anna was knocked against Chevannes. 'Sorry,' she said.
'Why would I mind having you thrown against me?' Chevannes smiled, and Anna, flustered, brushed her hair off her face. 'I must say,' he continued, 'I do admire you. It was a very brave decision you made, to come with us.'
'I wanted to help my country,' said Anna, quietly.
'Yes, but for us - well, we are soldiers, and we expect—'
'What's that noise?' snapped Tanner.
'I didn't hear anything,' said Chevannes.
Of course not, thought Tanner. You're bloody yapping too much. He strained his ears. Yes, there it was again, unmistakable - an aircraft, maybe two. His body tensed and he bounced up and down in his seat, willing the truck to go faster. 'I can hear an aircraft!' he yelled. 'Can anyone see it?' He turned to Chevannes. 'Sir, can you see anything?'
Chevannes leant from the cab, but as he did so, Hepworth shouted, 'Got them, sir! Two aircraft at five o'clock. Coming up the valley.'
'Get some bloody binoculars on them!' Tanner shouted.
Chevannes turned in his seat and leant out of the window, glasses to his eyes. The truck was gaining momentum once more. Beneath them was a steep, almost sheer, wooded valley. On their right, the mountain continued to climb. An old farmhouse now, perched on a cliff-top; more grass-roofed shacks. Tanner searched ahead for a place to shelter at the side of the road, but there was nothing. Rather, as the road straightened he could see the deep ravine to their left rising towards the long, narrow lake Anna had spoken of. Christ. They were even more exposed up here.
'Single engine, Sergeant!' Larsen called out. 'Two.'
'Stukas!' said Chevannes. 'Mon Dieu.'
Tanner tried to think. Drive straight on. Keep going. If they know about Sandvold, they're not going to hit us. He could hear them clearly now, the thrum of their engines. The road was rough, but clear and straight - almost dead straight. He put his foot on the accelerator and watched the needle flicker on the speedometer. Sixty, sixty- five, edging seventy kilometres per hour. What was that? Forty miles an hour? Come on, he thought. Keep going for me.
'They're right on top of us, Sarge!' said Hepworth. 'Bloody look at them bastards!'
'What are you doing?' said Chevannes, swinging back down into the cab. His face was tense, his eyes wide.
'I'm going to bloody well keep driving. The faster we move the harder it'll be for them to hit us. If I need to swerve off the road, I will.' His hands tightened around the steering-wheel.
The two Stukas flew on, until Tanner could see them, small but distinct. It was hard to know how high they were, but he guessed at least six thousand feet.
'They're flying past us,' said Anna.
'It's not possible,' muttered Chevannes. 'Surely not.'
'They're getting a lead before they dive.'
Sure enough, the aircraft turned 180 degrees on to their backs and dived at about a ninety-degree angle. Sirens wailing, they screamed towards them, the valley resounding to their deafening drone.
'It's such a terrible sound!' Anna closed her eyes and placed her hands over her ears. Then, as the lead Stuka seemed about to plummet straight into them, it levelled out. From its undercarriage they watched as a dark cigar- shaped bomb detached itself from the belly and fell, shrieking its death whistle, seemingly hurtling straight for them. Tanner pushed his foot down harder on the accelerator and ducked. A split second later a deafening explosion behind them rocked the truck. Tanner gripped the steering-wheel and righted it as the second aircraft pulled out of its dive. Another bomb howled towards them, debris from the first raining and clattering across the tarpaulin and metal cab roof. Tanner ducked again, Anna screamed, and there was another explosion, this time ahead.
Tanner felt the brakes lock, and momentarily lost control of the front of the truck, then regained it and straightened the Morris. With a screech of burning rubber, it slid across the stony road and they ground to a halt as a swirling mass of cloud and smoke enveloped them.
'Are you mad?' yelled Chevannes. 'Now we are sitting ducks!'
'Not in this smoke. Anyway, they're not trying to kill us, sir,' Tanner shouted back. 'They're trying to stop us!' He wound up the window, coughing as dust, grit and cordite choked him. Debris - stone, earth, bits of metal - clattered down once more. 'They want Sandvold alive,' Tanner spluttered, eyelids stinging. 'As soon as this clears I'll try to get us going again, but we don't want to fall into any crater.'
As Tanner had suspected, the two Stuka dive-bombers had gone without strafing. It was the confirmation he needed that the capture of Sandvold alive was the enemy objective. Knowing this made no difference to their goal of reaching the Allies, but it meant the Germans had to be careful about how they attacked them. That, he knew, was a useful advantage.
As the clouds of dust dispersed they could see the crater just ahead: a large hole spread across more than three-quarters of the road. The bank on the left, overlooking the lake, had collapsed, while boulders and other rocky debris were scattered twenty yards around it.
'Bollocks,' said Tanner, stepping out of the cab and hurrying to the crater's edge. Chevannes had followed him, and now, from the back of the truck, came Sykes and Lieutenant Larsen.
'Can't help but admire it, can you?' said Sykes, as they stood there regarding the damage.
'Bloody fine marksmanship,' agreed Tanner.
'We'll never get the truck past,' said Larsen.
'Damn you, Tanner,' said Chevannes. 'I knew we should have waited until this evening when we would have been out of sight of the Luftwaffe. Now we're stuck, unless you have any more bright ideas.'
'Well, sir,' he winked at Sykes, then turned back to Chevannes, 'if you'd take your men and keep a good watch out for any trouble, the corporal and I will get us moving again.'
Sykes delved into his bag and produced two cartridges of Polar dynamite. 'See, sir?' Sykes beamed at Chevannes.
'You wish to make another crater?' The Frenchman was clearly appalled.
'No, sir. We're going to blast away a bit of the bank. Then we drive round the crater.'
Tanner hurried back to the truck where Sandvold and the other men were waiting anxiously. Grabbing his pack, he said, 'Get ready with your shovels.
We're going to have to do a bit of clearing in a minute.'
'What the bloody hell's going on, Sarge?' asked Erwood.
'Bomb crater in the road. And we need to get past it, pronto.' He hurried back and took out his tin of safety fuse, which Sykes tied round the dynamite and placed in a small hole in the bank that he had already dug.
'How far back, Stan?' said Tanner. 'I've only got about forty foot left here.'
'Forty foot! Blimey, Sarge, we don't need anything like that! A foot or so should be fine. This stuff burns at two foot per minute, so just give me time to get out of the way. You might want to take the truck back a bit, though.'
Tanner nodded, cut the fuse and ran back to the truck. After he had reversed thirty yards, he saw Sykes signal, then put a match to the fuse and run down the road towards him. He turned to Anna, still waiting patiently in the truck. 'Might want to duck your head,' he told her. He kept an eye on his watch, following the seconds ticking by. A breathless Sykes reached him. 'Any moment now, Sarge.'
An ear-splitting crack rent the silence of the valley, the report echoing across the lake, while another cloud of dust briefly obscured the road. Once the rain of rock, stone and grit had settled, Tanner and Sykes hurried back to the crater to see the result of their efforts.
Hallelujah. A six-foot wide chunk of the bank had been blown, most of which appeared to have slumped into the existing crater. The road was a mess of rock, stone and earth, but it would soon be passable once more.
'Stan,' said Tanner, patting his corporal on the back. 'You're a genius.'
