'Why didn't it drop any bombs?' asked Barclay.
Tanner's patience snapped. 'It's a reconnaissance plane, sir. They've been coming over all morning.' He turned his back on the captain and strode off. 'Come on, boys,' he said. 'Iggery. We need to get a move on.'
As they stepped out of the yard he looked up at the wooded ridge above them. It was still and peaceful, quiet in the warm early-summer afternoon. For how much longer?
Chapter 8
They said little as they hurried towards the bridge. It was further than Tanner had appreciated - three- quarters of a mile, at least - and he wished he had asked whether there was a boat at the farm they could use. He also felt a stab of irritation that the Frenchmen had not offered one of their many vehicles to take them the short drive. Christ, they had enough of them. But they were twitchy, that had been clear. The Germans were pushing them back, and retreat sapped confidence - he'd seen it in Norway - like rot setting in. Reversing it was damnably hard.
Commandant du Parc had been expecting the Germans to attack at any moment and Tanner suspected the Frenchman was right. He hoped they still had time to fetch Lyell safely but it was best to be prepared so he had insisted that each of his small rescue party bring plenty of ammunition. Every man was now carrying four Bren magazines as well as at least half a dozen clips of rifle bullets. He had also shoved half a dozen Mills bombs into their haversacks and respirator bags.
'You don't need a sodding gas-mask, Billy,' he had told Ellis. 'Get rid of it and stuff the bag full of ammo instead.'
'I thought this was supposed to be a cinch,' Hepworth had grumbled.
'And so it will be, Hep,' Tanner had replied, patting him on the back. 'Just in case, hey?'
He now noticed that Hepworth, carrying the Bren on his shoulder, was lagging. He trotted back to him, took the machine-gun and slung it over his own shoulder instead. 'Come on, Hep. Stop being such a bloody old woman.'
'I'm still knackered from a five-day march.'
'Did he grumble this much in Norway, Sarge?' asked Ellis.
'He was worse,' said Sykes, whose eyes were on the field where the pilot lay. 'The squadron leader's still up there, Sarge,' he added, as Tanner came alongside him. 'Look.'
Tanner used his spare hand to raise his binoculars. 'He's still lying down, too,' he said, pausing briefly to steady his view. 'Bastard better not be dead.'
At the bridge the French lieutenant ushered them past the sentries, then left them. The lock was deep, perhaps as much as forty feet. Under the bridge there was a kind of gallery from which observers could watch traffic approaching or moving in and out of the lock.
'This'll take some blowing,' said Sykes. 'It's a big old piece of engineering.'
'There's certainly nothing like this on the Rochdale canal,' said Hepworth, unable to resist peering over the rails to the viewing gallery and the water below.
'Move your arse, Hep,' said Tanner.
The five men hurried across. Just beyond the canal lay the original tributary of the river Senne - clearly the Belgian navvies had been unable to widen the river into the shipping canal it had become along the stretch towards Brussels.
They nipped down the bank to a track that ran beside the large turning circle in the canal below the lock, then hurried along it by the water's edge. Tanner led them up the bank and through a meadow to another track beside some farm-workers' cottages. As they reached a thick hedge on the far side, he paused.
'It's the field above, I'm sure,' said Sykes, reading his thoughts.
'Yes - but we need to find a way through this. It's denser than it looked from the other side.' To Tanner's right, the hedge seemed to thicken into a copse, so he led them to the left and, sure enough, at the field's corner found an open gate and a track that led up the side of the meadow. Feeling the sun behind him, he looked through his binoculars again and saw the prostrate pilot a couple of hundred yards ahead, the blue of his uniform trousers just visible through the grass.
'There he is,' he said.
'Is he moving?' asked Sykes.
'No. Come on. Let's go and get him, dead or alive.'
The meadow was already thick with wild flowers - a wet April and a warm first two weeks of May had seen to that. The grass was two foot high in places, Tanner noted, and caught at their feet, making it hard to walk through. It was no wonder they could hardly see Lyell now.
The men were no more than twenty yards from the immobile body when he moved suddenly, pushing himself up on his elbows.
'Jesus, you made me jump,' said Lyell. 'Thank God you're not Germans.'
So he wasn't dead or even dying, thought Tanner. 'Sorry, sir,' he said. 'We've come to rescue you.'
Lyell looked at the blood on his hand and his face twisted with obvious pain. 'I think I've been out cold,' he muttered. 'Only came to a few minutes ago. Christ, my bloody head hurts.'
'We'll get you back to our lines and then an MO can attend to you, sir,' said Tanner.
'How long have I been out?'
