The Steel Fist Read online

  They watched the drifting cloud.

  They knew the enemy was watching too.

  W.D. and H.O. Wills made an expensive brand of cigarette called Passing Cloud. The same man who had accused Dempster’s section of windiness had an allusion to make.

  “Cor! Talk abaht passing bleeding Cland... reckon I could smoke a ‘ole packet of Woodbines while this bleeder’s bloody passing.”

  There was a quiet susurrus of amusement. Taggart was grateful to the humourist for easing the tension. His mouth was dry, his fingers gripped the Tommy gun so hard that they felt cramped. He eased his hold on barrel and stock.

  He felt an intense irritation with the entire German race. He did not know it then, as he was to come to recognise the fact in the months to come, but he was fired by the smouldering sense of outrage and anger that is what finally impels — and has always impelled — infantrymen into action. Let’s get at the damned enemy... let’s get this over with... they’ve mucked us about long enough.

  The cloud moved slowly and Taggart’s loathing and anger grew. He hated Hitler and his satellites and sychophants, he hated Goebbels and Streicher and Ribbentrop and General von Rundstedt. His only means of expressing his rage and detestation was by killing the Germans in the wood and behind the ridge.

  Darkness came.

  The patrol rose to their feet and pelted across the encumbering snow, snatching glimpses at the cloud, panting, counting the seconds, counting their strides.

  From the direction of the ridge came yells and gunfire. Grenades burst. Taggart did not spare a glance to see if Dempster was pulling back. In the darkness he could have seen only if someone fired a Verey light.

  From the wood came a fresh slash of tracer. It passed close on their right. Aimed at us or at George? Soon find out.

  The cloud began to shred. The half-moon peeped through the grey veil. Light filtered down on the scene.

  Taggart raised an arm and swept it down. The patrol fell prone.

  We must have made all but seventy yards. Damn this deep snow. But it is helping to hide us...

  Everyone pressed himself down into the snow, wriggling his body to effect the deepest depression possible in the few seconds that remained before the half-moon was totally revealed.

  A white Verey flare came from the wood and shone over the recumbent patrol. Tracer from a Spandau coursed overhead. There was a slight slope which partly hid the patrol from view; but the enemy knew just where they were.

  Looking over his right shoulder, Taggart could see that Dempster had not moved from behind his ridge.

  Damn and blast... move, damn you, George...

  He looked at the sky. Another small cloud was nearing the sliver of moon.

  His patience, scanty at the best of times, snapped. “Corporal, I’m going to make a rush for that small snowbank halfway between here and the wood. Cover me with all you’ve got. When I say ‘Three’, Udall. O.K.?”

  “Yessir.”

  Udall grimaced at Corporal Fysshe-Smith. His expression was compounded of wry humour and resignation.

  He counted under his breath with Taggart. They leaped from their hollows in the snow and, at the same instant, the Bren, a Tommy gun, and three rifles firing rapid, opened up. The tracer from the Spandau stopped abruptly.

  Thirty-five long strides to make... a few rifle shots from the wood. But the German rifle was a notoriously poor weapon. The German Army had pioneered submachine-guns and machine pistols at the end of the Great War and continued their development in the years immediately preceding the present one. Thank God for traditional British rapid rifle fire: the crack of bullets behind Taggart and Udall came with almost machine-gun rapidity, orchestrated with the Bren and Tommy gun.

  They reached the low hummock: a tussock of grassy earth about the size of a dozen molehills, now thrusting up the deep snow. Before he could throw himself flat, Taggart fell involuntarily. He felt a heavy blow on his right thigh, above the knee. There was immediate numbness and his leg folded, pitching him onto his chest.

  “Christ! Mister Taggart. I ‘eard it hit you... Christ!”

  Udall, lying panting with his shoulder jammed against Taggart’s, looked horrified; and — comically, it seemed to Taggart, in that moment of drama that could be the prelude to death — tearful.

  “All right... not bad...”

  Then the throbbing pain began.

  “I’ll put a tourniquet on, sir...”

  “Lie still, dammit. You don’t want to get shot as well, do you?”

  Udall ignored the stricture. He took a length of cord from a pocket — he was still a boy scout at heart and carried all manner of objects that other soldiers didn’t —and tied it round Taggart’s leg; then began to tighten it by twisting a pencil through it.

  Taggart, who had turned onto his back, had fumbled out his first field dressing and was trying to undo his trousers.

  Again he lost patience.

  “Oh, sod it. Let’s kill those bastards first.”

  He unhooked two of his grenades: hefted one in his right hand, levered himself up to his knees, and, using all his strength, hurled it into the wood. Before it could pitch, he chucked the second; then fell flat before the first one burst and flung a chunk of metal into him.

  The two Mills bombs exploded within three seconds of each other. The base plug from one whirred inches over the heads of Taggart and Udall.

  Screams, groans and shouts of anger followed the detonations. A shrill whimpering superimposed itself on the continuing screams and groans. There was the noise of men bashing their way through undergrowth.

  Fire from the rifles, the Bren and Tommy gun, from Udall’s rifle and from Taggart’s Tommy gun, poured into the wood. There was another yell of agony.

  Taggart was clenching his teeth.

  “I’m going to ease off this tourniquet.”

  “Take it slow, sir.”

  “It’ll be all right. I’ve put the dressing on. What the hell is Mister Dempster’s section doing?”

  They stared towards the bridge. No sign of movement. Taggart struggled to load a white flare in his Verey pistol.

  As the moon went from sight, he fired it.

  Its widespread glow showed enemy infantry doubling towards him and Udall, while another group breasted the low ridge above Dempster’s hiding place.

  Taggart slammed a last magazine into his Tommy gun and began shooting. The men charging at him stopped. He tossed a grenade as high as he could. In the flash of its explosion he saw men drop.

  Corporal Fysshe-Smith and his three companions were shooting at the men on the bridge. Taggart and Udall turned their fire in that direction also.

  In the glare of more bursting Mills bombs, thrown by Dempster’s patrol, Taggart saw Dempster leading his men back, doubling towards the corporal.

  “Come on, Udall.”

  “Back to Fishy, sir?”

  “Into the bloody wood, man. You want to see how many of the bastards we got, don’t you?”

  “Bleedin’ ‘ell! Mister Tag...”

  “Besides, there are weapons to pick up. I’ve used all my ammo.”

  Hobbling, Taggart plunged through the snow. Udall took him by the arm and he shook off the helping hand. “Don’t wait for me... double ahead.”

  Udall might as well have been deaf.

  One pistol shot rang out ahead of them and a heavy bullet buzzed past. With it, the whimpering ceased.

  Taggart tripped over a German officer holding a smoking Luger. He knelt down and felt for an artery in the German’s neck. He had died immediately after firing the pistol shot.

  The moon was visible again and by its thin light they searched the fringe of the wood. There were seven more dead men. They picked up two Schmeissers and some spare magazines. They cut off identifying insignia from uniforms.

  Taggart had forgotten the pain from his wound. It asserted itself again. He felt weakness and nausea.

  He turned to leave the wood.

  “Come on, Udall.
You did well.”

  As they approached the last trees they saw a group of men with the easily recognisable forms of Corporal Fysshe-Smith striding at their head and Dempster a pace behind him.

  Taggart, despite the agony of his wound, counted. “God! Eleven. Is that all that are left of George’s patrol: six?”

  “Looks like it, sir.” Udall was uninterested and sounded it. His concern was with his officer. “Can you manage all right, sir?”

  “Yes... thanks.”

  Speaking cost an effort and Taggart had to pause and draw breath to fight off the pain.

  “Rodney?”

  “Mister Taggart?”

  Dempster and the corporal chose the same moment to call.

  “Here.”

  In a few seconds they were standing in front of him.

  “Thanks, Rodney... bloody good show... we’d have had it, if you hadn’t...”

  “Save it, George.”

  “Christ! How bad is it?”

  Dempster went down on one knee to peer at the blood-stained trousers leg and the bullet hole.

  “Never mind that. Everyone all right, Corporal?”

  “No one hit, sir.”

  “George... your chaps... how many? We’ve got to get back.”

  “Two killed and two badly wounded.” Dempster’s voice was laden with anger, shame and misery.

  “Let’s get back as quickly as we can. You’d better go ahead. We’ll follow. Sorry to hold you chaps up...”

  “Balls. We’re all going back together. We’ll rig up a stretcher and...”

  “Stuff that. I’ll walk...”

  “Lean on me, sir. Me shoulder’s about the ‘eight of a thumb stick for your height.” Udall sounded cheerful. To hear his admiring tone, one would think Taggart must be over six feet tall instead of two inches under.

  “I will later, if I can’t manage on my own.”

  “Carry your Tommy gun, sir?”

  “No thanks. I’ll manage.”

  Thwarted, Udall walked at Taggart’s side as solicitously as a nanny.

  “We walked into an ambush, Rod...”

  “Keep it for later, George. Let’s concentrate on guarding our backs while we work our way to the redoubt. There seems to have been a hell of a lot of action tonight, judging from the noise and the flares. Damn this bloody leg. I hope the sod who plugged me was one of the dead we found.”

  Udall gave Taggart a startled, slightly appalled look. He glanced at the corporal; who gave him a grim stare and a shrug.

  Dempster plodded on, looking chastened. He did not react overtly to what Taggart had said.

  A thought passed through the confusion of his mind: I’ve seen his eyes look as cold as the North Sea, when he’s angry. It’s odd how gentle grey-eyed people can look, too. He’s the hardest man I’ve ever come across. Stubborn sod, too. Stubborn, quick-tempered, amazingly good-natured on the whole; and tough as anyone in the whole bloody regiment. I bet there isn’t anyone in our Regular battalions, not the toughest regimental sar’ major, who can fight better. And feel more callous about the enemy.

  It seemed to Dempster that these were highly desirable characteristics and he wished he shared them.

  I don’t deserve to be going back at all... lost four men... and froze when... when the chips were down, as they say in the cowboy flicks.

  I wonder how much he saw? How much does he guess? Christ! I’m a bloody fool... wish to God I could put the clock back and start the patrol all over again.

  He felt unlucky and nervous and he wondered whether it was the cold or tiredness or plain fear, noise and confusion, dazzling flares, all crowding in on him in retrospect, that was the root of the shivering that shook him from head to foot as he slogged defeatedly through the snow.

  Four

  “The M.O. swears my leg will be a hundred per cent fit a month from now.”

  “I’ll feel guilty for the rest of my life if it isn’t.”

  “Don’t be dramatic George. Or, if you must, transfer to ENSA.”

  Dempster’s gloom lifted. “At least I’d get in amongst the girls if I did.”

  Ten days in hospital followed by a week’s sick leave had brought Taggart back to the battalion five days after it had returned from The Maginot Line. He had spent his leave comfortably in Paris. Excellent food, pleasant entertainment and some light-hearted lechery in the arms of an attractive woman officer in the French military nursing Service had helped to allay the worry that he might never again be able to play first class rugger.

  The battalion was in position on the Belgian frontier. The officers were in civilian billets and messed in a small country house. The troops were in requisitioned large public buildings or French Army barracks. There were villages and towns nearby for recreation. Half the battalion at a time manned the trench line.

  On his first evening back on duty, Taggart was in a favourite inn, by the fire with Dempster, after dinner in the mess. He had hoped to spend the evening with all his brother officers and catch up with their news. He had already learned how they had fared during the rest of their time in The Maginot Line and what casualties the battalion had suffered. Now, after the mild dissipation and female company in Paris, he wanted masculine companionship and the robust life of the mess.

  He had demurred when Dempster invited him out for a drink. He had guessed that Dempster was bent on confession and self-reproach; of which he wanted no part.

  “Only for an hour, Rodney. We’ll come back and beat it up with the chaps later.”

  “Oh, all right. Just for an hour.”

  Everyone, Taggart reasoned, needed catharsis. Revealing his private feelings was not his way of obtaining it; but he did not want to be brusque with George, who was a good fellow and manifestly in need of a moral crutch.

  He did his best to postpone the embarrassment that he foresaw, by trivial chatter.

  “I gather Corporal Smith is enjoying all home comforts again. He looked positively sleek when I saw him.”

  “That’s quite an attractive woman he’s getting his oats from. Where the devil did he learn enough French to be able to insinuate his way into her... bed, to put it politely?”

  “Jewry is international, old boy. Fysshe-Smith’s,” Taggart said it with a mocking inflection, “father was born Fleischer. He changed his name; and tacked on Smith to make it sound more English. Our wily corporal has relations all over Europe. He knows a useful bit of three or four languages.”

  “Odd chap.”

  “He’ll go far. After all, Napoleon rose from the rank of corporal.”

  “He put up a better show than I did the night of my first patrol.”

  Damn. I should have kept off the subject of Fishy-Smith:

  I might have guessed George would use it as a key to open the door that I’d much rather he kept locked. Oh, well, here goes.

  Taggart took a sip of armagnac and sat back.

  “I don’t recall you putting up a bad show.”

  “You must have seen that I... well, I suppose I panicked a bit... or at least I dried up... you know what I mean... it was exactly like forgetting one’s lines. Only I didn’t have to say anything: I was supposed to do, not spout lines. I froze solid.”

  “You hung on behind that strip of higher ground to wait and see what happened, surely? You didn’t want to pull back too soon and lose men.”

  “More men.” Dempster shook his head. He sounded bitter and looked distressed. “When we made contact with Jerry I should have gone straight in. I hesitated, and Sergeant Blacker thought I was going to press straight on. He stood up and began to move forward and the first burst of Spandau killed him.”

  “He should have waited for your order.”

  “I’d been going too fast, not recceing the ground properly. I led them right into the trap. I was keyed up, you see, to get it over quickly. Rushed in.”

  “Sergeant Blacker was an old hand. He should have advised you quietly.”

  They both thought about the dead sergeant. H
e had fought in France in the last nine months of the Great War and then, as a Regular, served in India for four years and seen action on the North-West Frontier. He had joined his regiment’s Territorial battalion ten years before the new war.

  “I’m the one who’s paid to show initiative. Anyway, Blacker was never more than a lance-corporal before he came into the T.A. I wasn’t relying on him in any way. I hesitated, Rodney, and I can’t deny it. I was too hasty in the first place and then I dithered. And then...” Dempster paused and stared into the fire, emptied his glass and shuddered as the brandy burned his gullet. “I got the wind up.”

  He turned to look at Taggart.

  Taggart met his eyes. “We all have the same feeling in action. It’s normal to have the breeze up you.”

  “I started to run away. Did you guess that? I half-stood up and took a step back. My bloody batman was in the way and I tripped over him and fell.”

  “I wish you wouldn’t tell me all this, George.”

  “I tried to run and I tripped and fell. The shock brought me to my senses and I pretended I had been stepping back to nip behind a tree, like the rest of the section. So I stayed there and Jerry pumped tracer into us and another man was killed. Then I became a bit angry... and slightly potty, I think... my head actually felt dizzy and I yelled “Charge!” and we rushed at Jerry and that was when the other two were wounded. Jerry cut their legs right from under them. I saw it. They were both caught at knee level by automatic fire. Then they started the most hideous screaming I’ve ever heard. We tried to pick them up, but we were under too heavy fire... we tried to drag them and they yelled blue murder and begged us to stop, to leave them, to clear off. One of them was shouting ‘If you’d only fuck off, Jerry’d stop shooting... he’s going to kill us if you don’t fuck off’.”

  “So you fucked off,” Taggart said matter-of-factly.

  “And Jerry followed up. I felt so humiliated at having to send up an S.O.S. And then you turned up, and damn nearly got killed extricating me from my own mess.”

  “I was nowhere near being killed. A stray bullet in the thigh... the fleshy part of the thigh... couldn’t have been cushier. I’ve just had a wonderfully randy sick leave, thanks to...”