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  Sykes – a short, dapper major in a cavalry regiment – was the tactics expert, an experienced officer with a gift for strategic analysis and appreciation, both conventional and unconventional, of any given situation. He and Dawson had been tasked with assessing the static fortifications the French and Belgian armed forces were relying on to stop, or at the very least to slow down, the inevitable German invasion of Western Europe. They’d already investigated some of the Maginot Line forts in France, with mixed results, and the check they’d carried out at Eben Emael was their first job in Belgium. As soon as Sykes had written his report, they’d move on to inspect the fortifications at three of the other units in the area, at Diepenbeek, Barchon and Battice, the latter another newly built fort that was located a mere ten miles from the German border.

  It took them only about fifteen minutes to drive the four miles to their temporary quarters in the village of Wonck. They were staying in a small guesthouse where Sykes – who spoke French like a native – had charmed the landlady into letting them stay in the two best rooms. That was a very non-standard arrangement, an officer and an NCO sharing the same billet, but it was a small village and there was no other available accommodation. And Sykes was a man who regarded rules as somewhat flexible.

  After they’d eaten dinner together, Sykes retired to his room to work on his written report on Eben Emael. Dawson walked the couple of hundred yards to the nearest tavern to sample the local beer, but returned early. Half the fun of being in a bar was the conversation, and he spoke only very basic French, though ordering ‘une bière, s’il vous plaît’ hadn’t exactly taxed his linguistic ability. The beer, when it had arrived, hadn’t been to his taste either. According to the label on the bottle, it was called ‘Dubbel’, and when he poured it out it was almost red in colour and both smelt and tasted of fruit rather than hops.

  He walked back to the guesthouse through the darkened streets – blackout procedures were already in force – and was in bed by ten thirty. He fell asleep almost immediately.

  Chapter 2

  10 May 1940

  Wonck, Belgium

  The sudden roaring of an engine woke Dawson. For a moment or two he had no idea where he was or what he was doing. Then he glanced at the wall clock opposite him, its face faintly illuminated by the moonlight coming through the window. He climbed out of bed and walked across to the window, pulled back the curtain and looked down into the cobbled street below.

  At first, he saw nothing. Then a small truck with an open back roared down the street, engine racing, and braked and bounced to a halt a few tens of yards away. Two men wearing Belgian army uniforms appeared from a building on the opposite side of the road, ran across to it and climbed into the loading area at the back. Then the vehicle drove on. Dawson could see there were perhaps a dozen or so soldiers sitting on bench seats in the back of the truck, some carrying weapons.

  It could, he supposed, all be part of some military exercise. Somehow he didn’t think so. He glanced again at the wall clock. A quarter past one in the morning. Outside, the new moon – the only illumination – was casting faint shadows across the cobbled street.

  He stood beside the window for another few moments, then strode across to the chair where he’d placed his uniform and started to dress. He’d just pulled on his trousers when there was a brisk double knock on the door. Dawson slid back the bolt and Major Sykes stood on the threshold, in uniform but unshaven.

  ‘Something’s up,’ he said, then noticed that Dawson was already half-dressed. ‘Good man. I’ll see you downstairs. Bring all your gear. We’ll stow everything in the staff car until we can find out what’s going on.’

  By one thirty, Dawson and Sykes were in the Hillman and heading out of Wonck, back towards the fort at Eben Emael.

  ‘Some flap at the fort, sir?’ Dawson asked, driving through the now-silent streets.

  ‘Maybe. If something is going on the staff at Eben Emael should know about it. Hopefully, we can get inside, talk to them and get some details.’

  As they got closer to Eben Emael they encountered several trucks on the road, and saw numerous Belgian soldiers in battledress carrying rifles marching – some of them running – to and fro.

  They reached the road near the fortress entrance a few minutes later, and Dawson drew the staff car to a halt on a level grassy area well clear of Block One. Then they both stared across at the huge underground structure.

  ‘What the hell’s going on?’ Sykes muttered.

  When they’d been at Eben Emael the previous afternoon, they’d noticed two wooden barrack buildings outside Block One, the entrance to the fort. Capitaine Verbois had explained they were used for administrative functions during the working day. That seemed perfectly reasonable, but what neither man understood was why now, in the middle of the night, the barracks were the scene of such frantic activity, lights blazing from the windows. Teams of men were busily engaged in emptying all the offices inside them. Others had apparently started tearing the buildings down.

  ‘Funny time to be doing that,’ Dawson remarked.

  ‘Yes,’ Sykes said shortly. ‘I’ll try and find an officer.’

  He strode down the track towards Block One, Dawson a couple of paces behind him, having secured the car as best he could. They ignored the regular soldiers who passed by, carrying files, telephones and other office equipment. Finally the major spotted a junior officer – Dawson thought from his insignia that he was a lieutenant – marching briskly towards the fort entrance and stopped him with a shouted command.

  The young Belgian officer stopped abruptly and peered towards Sykes. As soon as he spotted the major’s rank badges he came to attention and saluted.

  For a couple of minutes Sykes and the lieutenant held an animated conversation in French. The Belgian officer was clearly eager to get back to whatever he was supposed to be doing, but seemed to be answering every question Sykes asked him. Finally the major beckoned to Dawson, and the three men started walking together towards the Block One entrance.

  ‘This is a bloody shambles,’ Sykes said in English. ‘Apparently the balloon went up at double-oh thirty, and the fort was put on full alert. The officer in charge is billeted in the village of Eben Emael itself, and he was summoned immediately. When he got here he contacted Liège to confirm it wasn’t just another exercise or a false alarm – apparently they’ve had quite a few of those – and he was told it was for real. I’ve no idea what intelligence the Belgians have received to prompt this action, but they seem to think the Germans might be heading this way.’

  ‘But all that’s what you’d expect the officer to do, isn’t it?’ Dawson asked, sounding puzzled.

  ‘Yes. He did exactly what he should have done. That’s not the problem. The reason these men are emptying these offices is that they’re supposed to be demolished in time of war. Nobody seems to know why, but that’s a part of the standing orders at Eben Emael. Nobody here seems to have noticed we’ve already declared war on Germany. It apparently didn’t occur to anyone in the Belgian military that war was actually inevitable and to have demolished these buildings a lot earlier. So instead of manning the fort’s defences and summoning the additional garrison, all the effort is going on this pointless activity.’

  ‘Surely they must have gun crews manning the cupolas in the fort?’ Dawson asked.

  ‘The gun crews, Dawson, are the people trying to demolish those buildings over there. The point is they’re not doing what they should be doing. That’s why it’s a shambles. And they’re short-staffed as well. This place is supposed to be garrisoned by twelve hundred personnel. There are only about six hundred people actually in the building, and another couple of hundred billeted in the nearby villages. So even if all the available personnel were here, they’d still be about thirty per cent below complement. As it is, at the moment they’re fifty per cent down.’

  ‘So why haven’t they summoned the extra staff living nearby?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Sykes mutte
red, ‘but I’m going to try to find out.’

  The three men arrived at the Block One main entrance, where they all had their identification checked before they were allowed inside.

  Inside Fort Eben Emael were two levels of tunnels – the intermediate and lower. The intermediate tunnel system lay about sixty feet below the surface of the mound, and served the various gun emplacements that constituted the fort’s principal armament. The lower level was about 120 feet below the plateau’s surface, the same level as the ground outside the fortress, and housed the administrative areas, accommodation, mess-halls, galleys and shower rooms. It was along this level that the young Belgian lieutenant led Sykes and Dawson, stopping eventually outside a half-open door bearing a name and rank written in French. But Dawson didn’t need to understand the language to recognize that it was the office of the commanding officer.

  The Belgian army lieutenant rapped smartly on the door, then pushed it aside and stepped into the office.

  ‘You wait out here, Dawson,’ Sykes murmured, as the lieutenant gestured for him to enter. ‘This won’t take long.’

  It didn’t. Sykes emerged about two minutes later, his face flushed with anger or irritation.

  ‘Let’s go,’ he snapped, and strode away down the corridor, Dawson following. The major didn’t speak until they were once again outside the fort, then he turned and stared back at the massive structure.

  ‘This is a bloody comedy show,’ he said. ‘God knows who drafted the standing orders for this place, but he’s a fucking idiot. Those barracks are being demolished to avoid any documents and equipment falling into enemy hands in the event of an invasion. The OIC has pulled men off the gun crews to do the work, which means the guns are virtually unmanned. The man’s following orders, but he’s not really thinking. He doesn’t seem to realize that, standing orders or no standing orders, it makes better sense to man the guns and forget about the barracks, if there really is an invasion threat.’

  ‘And is there, sir?’

  ‘I’ve still got no idea. Nor has the major who runs this place. He’s talked to Liège, and the command there has confirmed the alert is real, without specifying what event or intelligence triggered it. But it’s worse than that. If there is a German invasion, and enemy troops invade Belgium through Holland, the guns on this fort will stay silent. The orders forbid firing the weapons into Holland.’

  ‘What – even if there are a couple of Panzer regiments heading this way?’ Dawson asked.

  ‘That’s what the standing orders say,’ Sykes confirmed. ‘There are no circumstances in which the poor sod of an officer in charge can instruct his gunners to fire without a direct and specific order from one of the Belgian army units based in this area, and only then at targets nominated by them. So if that chain of communication breaks down, that’s it. This place looks impressive, but as far as I can see it’s going to be sod-all use in stopping a Jerry advance. Oh, the only other thing I gleaned from the officer was that a full country-wide alert was called at one thirty this morning, so all of Belgium’s armed forces should now be at battle readiness. Which makes what’s happening here all the more bloody ridiculous.’

  Sykes and Dawson stood in silence for a few moments, leaning against the side of the staff car. Then Dawson returned to a point he’d raised earlier.

  ‘And they still haven’t called-in their extra staff, as far as I can see. Why not?’

  ‘I asked. The reinforcement plan is for Cupola Nord – that’s one of the two retractable steel firing points – to fire a sequence of twenty blank rounds. That cupola is fitted with twin seventy-five-millimetre cannons. Everybody for miles around will hear the sound of the shots. As well as a signal for all off-duty staff to return to the fort, it also alerts the Belgian army troops guarding the bridges near Liège that an attack is imminent, which allows them time to prepare to fire the charges and destroy the bridges. Part of the Belgian war plan is to blow up the three bridges over the Albert Canal as soon as they know an invasion is coming. That would stop an advancing German army from crossing the canal and the Meuse River, at least for a while.

  ‘Actually,’ Sykes said, considering, ‘using the guns as an alarm system isn’t that bad an idea, though twenty rounds seems a bit excessive. A volley of half a dozen would be enough. But the gunners who should be firing those blank shells are still down there’ – Sykes pointed at the activity around the barrack buildings – ‘walking about carrying typewriters and files and stuff. A comedy show.’

  ‘Can’t they send vehicles to alert the off-duty staff?’ Dawson asked.

  Sykes shook his head, then nodded. ‘Probably,’ he said, ‘but the officer in command has decided not to. Instead, he’s ordered the gun crew at the other cupola – that’s Cupola Sud – to fire the rounds instead. That should happen any time now.’

  Sykes pointed to his right, towards the top level of the fort, where a curved steel object, looking something like the top section of a huge buried steel ball, was just visible in the moonlight.

  ‘That’s Cupola Sud,’ he said, ‘so we should see movement any time now, when the crew prepare to fire it.’

  ‘So what do we do, sir? Thin out or hang around and see what happens?’

  Sykes looked again at the bustle of activity around them, at the teams of men working under the lights in and around the two barrack blocks.

  ‘We’ll stay in the area,’ the major decided, ‘at least until we find out what’s really happening here. Make sure your rifle’s loaded, in case the bloody Jerries really are heading this way.’

  Sykes unsnapped his belt holster, pulled out his Webley & Scott Mark IV service revolver, opened it and checked that the chambers were loaded, then replaced the weapon in his holster.

  ‘This could be a bloody long night,’ he muttered, ‘but let’s hope they fire the alert signal very soon. At least that way they’ll have all the available personnel on site, just in case this is for real.’

  Chapter 3

  10 May 1940

  Eben Emael, Belgium

  But for well over an hour, Cupola Sud remained motionless. Like Cupola Nord, in action it was designed to rise some four feet clear of the surrounding armoured concrete structure. This would expose the holes in the side of the steel column through which the twin seventy-five-millimetre cannon would fire. There were actually three openings in the armoured steel – between the holes for the barrels of the weapons was the top of a periscope sight to allow the gunners to check the fall of shot.

  At ten past three, Sykes lost patience, told Dawson to remain where he was and re-entered the fort. He was back in under ten minutes, shaking his head in disbelief.

  ‘Un-bloody-believable,’ he snapped. ‘They aren’t able to fire the cannon in Cupola Sud because during some previous exercise the firing pins were removed – presumably as a safety precaution – and they didn’t put them back properly. They’ve had to find an armourer to refit the pins correctly. The OIC assures me the cannon are now ready to fire the alert signal. It’s only three hours late, after all.’

  At three twenty-five exactly Sykes and Dawson saw the cupola rise silently out of its concrete base and rotate slightly. Then the silence of the night was shattered by a thunderous explosion as the first blank round was fired from the seventy-five-millimetre cannon. A second round followed swiftly, then a third, but then the gun fell silent. Flames and smoke suddenly erupted from around the cupola.

  ‘I think it’s on fire,’ Dawson muttered, staring upwards.

  ‘It’s made of armoured concrete and tempered steel. How the hell can it be on fire?’ Sykes demanded, pulling a pair of binoculars from a door pocket on the staff car.

  He focused the binoculars on the cupola, then lowered them.

  ‘It’s not the cupola that’s burning – it’s the camouflage netting around it. The muzzle flashes must have ignited it. I mean, didn’t they even think about that, for God’s sake? It looks as if the smoke’s obscuring the view through the periscope sight, and
that’s why they’ve stopped firing. Can anything else possibly go wrong here?’

  Even as Sykes fell silent, both men heard another sound. From high above them, somewhere in the dark sky to the south, came the sound of aeroplane engines. A lot of aeroplane engines. They stared upwards, trying to work out in which direction the aircraft were flying.

  ‘I think they’re heading west, sir,’ Dawson suggested.

  ‘I agree. That’s not good. That could be a squadron of German bombers on their way to hit targets at home.’ Sykes looked across at Dawson, his expression grim. ‘I think this could be it, sapper. I think the show’s about to start.’

  * * *

  Three-quarters of an hour later, klaxons sounded around the fort, and all the activity around the partially demolished barrack buildings ceased as the personnel streamed into the fort through the Block One entrance.

  ‘They’re manning the anti-aircraft machine-gun posts,’ Sykes said, watching the activity through his binoculars. ‘Time we moved away, I think.’

  The two men climbed into the staff car. Dawson lifted the bonnet, replaced the rotor arm he’d removed as a basic anti-theft measure, then started the engine and sat in the driving seat.

  ‘Leave the lights off,’ Sykes instructed, ‘just in case.’

  ‘Where do you want to go, sir?’

  ‘That small hill over there’ – the major pointed to the south – ‘looks as if it’s the nearest high ground, and we can keep an eye on the fort from there. Park the car as close as you can, then we’ll climb up to the summit on foot.’

  Fifteen minutes later, the two men were lying prone behind a clump of scrubby bushes that provided the only cover on top of the small hillock and watching Fort Eben Emael carefully. Sykes was using his binoculars, slung on a cord round his neck. Dawson had his Lee-Enfield rifle beside him, fully loaded, but without a round in the chamber. He had four other loaded charger clips in his pouches, where he’d be able to grab them quickly if he needed to reload his weapon.