'Now listen to me, Mac, were you at Company Headquarters this afternoon? No. Did you hear the orders that were sent to us by Battalion? No, you didn't. Should you listen to idle tittle-tattle? No, you bloody well shouldn't. You're a sodding lance-corporal now, Mac. Start bloody well acting like one, and use your brain rather than your backside.'
Tanner dropped him back to the ground. 'And that goes for all of you,' he said, looking around the men. 'You're soldiers, not bloody schoolboys, so less of the mithering. What's happened has happened. We head in the direction of Arras. Hopefully we'll find some Tommies on the way and they can tell us whether we're supposed to be somewhere else. Now, let's get some grub inside us.'
There was, Tanner knew, something in what McAllister had said - Captain Barclay was a fool - but poisoning the rest of the company against the OC, as Blackstone was doing, was unforgivable. He had seen officers lose the respect and control of their men and it was painful to witness. But while in peacetime such a thing was unfortunate, in wartime it could be very dangerous indeed. Discipline, not dissent, was the best antidote to any crisis.
Chapter 10
Saturday, 18 May, was a long day for the men of D Company, 1st Battalion, the Yorkshire Rangers, and one in which tempers had begun increasingly to fray; it had started shortly after midnight and had continued as dawn had given way to morning, and morning to midday. They had not seen a single British soldier, let alone the rest of the battalion, but their route had been dogged by people. Countless numbers of refugees - men, women and children, the elderly and even infirm - had appeared on the roads the moment the sun had risen and had seemingly increased with every passing hour. Their plaintive questions and appeals for help got on the nerves of the men and reminded them that they were heading backwards from the Germans too: running away from the enemy.
Above, aircraft had droned, mostly formations of enemy planes rather than British or French. Behind them, and to the south, they occasionally heard muffled explosions and the distant crump of guns. Around noon, they reached a crossroads in the middle of the flat, wide countryside just to the north of Mons, and were forced to watch as a French column turned onto the road, heading south towards France. The troops' progress was painfully slow. Carriers, guns, lorries and other trucks crammed with soldiers inched their way through the refugees, the men shouting at them to move out of the way. Tanner saw a woman on a bicycle hit by the wing mirror of one lorry - it only clipped her, but she tumbled into the side of the road. She got to her feet, waving a fist and cursing.
Their own small column was halted while the French troops passed on their way, the men moving off the road and collapsing onto their backsides in a field of green corn. The air was thick with dust, fumes and the misery of Belgian civilians struggling to escape the Germans. Away to the south, they heard the faint dull thud of explosions.
'Bombers?' Peploe asked Tanner.
'Must be.' Tanner gestured at the crawling French vehicles. 'Worth asking them for a ride, sir?'
'Nothing ventured,' said Peploe. In front of them, a staff car had ground to a halt while a man with a laden wooden cart battled to get his mule over the crossroads. The French officer was yelling at him, and Tanner smiled as Peploe interrupted. The response was an irate torrent of abuse.
'Nothing gained,' said Peploe, ruefully, as he rejoined Tanner and the rest of the platoon. 'They're heading to St Quentin anyway, which is too far south for us. Apparently every transport is already chock-full of men. He reckoned we'd be quicker on foot - although he didn't express it quite as politely as that.'
'Bloody Frogs,' said Tanner. 'I'll remember that next time one of them asks me for help.'
'Sir,' said Sykes as he came over to Peploe, 'surely we could ask the Frogs to take the squadron leader?'
'They didn't seem very keen to help, I'm afraid,' Peploe replied. 'I did ask.'
'But if Captain Barclay tried?' suggested Sykes. 'And perhaps a different Frog officer?
'It would certainly be good to offload him, sir,' said Tanner to Peploe. 'It's not as if he's been particularly grateful. He's complained more than the men have.'
'All right,' said Peploe. 'I'll ask Captain Barclay.'
Tanner, Sykes and several others watched Peploe pick his way through to Barclay. They saw the captain shake his head, despite Peploe's best efforts to persuade him otherwise.
'Nothing doing, I'm afraid,' said Peploe as he rejoined them a few minutes later. 'The French have their hands full.'
'Bollocks, sir,' said Sykes. 'We saw him - he didn't even ask them.'
'I'm sure he has his reasons,' said Peploe.
At this point Tanner spotted McAllister muttering to Bell and Ellis, and gesticulating covertly at the OC. When he noticed his sergeant's eye on him, he stopped immediately.
Tanner turned back to Sykes and Peploe. 'The lads are fed up. We need to watch morale, I reckon.'
'They are, Sarge,' agreed Sykes, 'me an' all. The sooner we get to Arras the better.'
By afternoon, as they continued west of Mons, the numbers of refugees had thinned, but progress was no faster because the effort of marching for the best part of sixteen hours was taking its toll. Feet were sore, legs ached and stomachs were empty. To the east and south, more dull explosions ruffled the air.
'Some poor bastards are gettin' a pastin',' said Sykes, as Tanner tramped alongside him.
Tanner looked up to the sky. 'Nasty amount of bombers been going over.'
'Where's ours, Sarge? That's what I'd like to know.'
'You and me the same, Stan. Looks one-sided from down here, doesn't it?'
Just before four o'clock they stopped for their hourly ten-minute breather. They were on a low ridge of woods and open farmland, overlooking a river valley to the south. Tanner lit a cigarette and regarded the men, most of whom had lain down on the grassy verge. Several had their eyes closed, almost asleep already. He felt tired too,
