Episode 10: The Battle of Arras (Tank Battle) (3)
“Uh, Platoon Leader? Do you copy?”
“Yeah.”
“Sorry, but can I ask just one question?”
“Go ahead.”
“Where exactly are we headed right now?”
“We’re heading home. You asking because you don’t know?”
Now that the sun had set and darkness had fallen.
We were still wandering through the forest.
***
After the battle ended, I, who had been waiting in the forest until the artillery fire died down, turned the radio back on and attempted to raise friendly forces.
But for some reason, the radio wouldn’t work. Only hissing static came through, with no response whatsoever.
“Hey, why’s this thing suddenly acting up? It was working fine just a few hours ago, so why’s it suddenly dead?”
Not knowing the cause, I fiddled with it for a while before belatedly discovering that the antenna on the tank had been snapped cleanly in half. It was clearly severed during combat.
With the antenna in this state, there was no way the radio would work.
“Guess we’ll have to find where friendlies are ourselves.”
With communication impossible, we made plans to regroup with the main force under our own power.
I unfolded a map that I always carried but had never properly looked at, starting by confirming where we were.
Then I tried to estimate where our forces might be positioned.
Until a few hours ago, we had been fighting in Arras.
From there, I had moved left and kept going straight for a while.
So… we should be roughly around here.
Since the counterattack at Arras had failed, our forces would have retreated further west from their original positions by now.
Therefore, we had to head west now.
To be exact, southwest.
The north and east were crawling with Germans.
If my guess was right, the distance to the friendly front line wasn’t that far.
If we kept going like this, and if luck was on our side, we should reach it within two or three hours.
But then…
“Platoon Leader, are you sure this is the right way?”
“I told you it is. Have you been lied to your whole life or something?”
“That’s not it, but…”
“Then just drive. This is definitely the right path.”
Adam seemed to find me completely untrustworthy—which I understood—and kept asking if the road we were on was really the right one.
I wanted to snap and ask if he was second-guessing my decision, but truthfully, I was just as uneasy.
Strange. According to the map, there should be a fork in the road by now…
Growing anxious, I took out the map and compass to check if we were on the correct path.
If my eyes weren’t mistaken, there was nothing wrong according to the map.
Judging by the direction the compass pointed, we were properly heading southwest.
But when in the world was that fork in the road going to appear?
Could the map itself be wrong?
And if we had been on the wrong path because of that…
At that thought, a chill ran down my spine and cold sweat trickled down.
In the worst case, we might get lost wandering like this and run into Germans.
Perhaps we had already wandered into German territory without even knowing.
Just then, Adam, driving with the hatch open, spotted something and called out to me.
“Platoon Leader, fork in the road!”
“Huh? Wait, really?”
Thank God. The map was accurate, and my judgment hadn’t been wrong.
We had been on the right path.
“Which way do we go now?”
“Hold on… Right, we need to take the right path.”
We still had some distance to go before reaching the friendly front line, but the thought of having found the right path made my heart feel light enough to soar.
However, the god of misfortune had not yet lost interest in me.
About ten minutes later, Adam spoke again.
“Uh, Platoon Leader? We have a problem.”
“What kind of problem?”
“Well… we’re starting to run low on fuel.”
“…What?”
Damn it all.
I’d been so focused on the path that I’d completely forgotten about fuel.
Even if we were on the right road, the tank couldn’t move without fuel.
A tank out of fuel was nothing more than a lump of scrap metal.
“How much is left?”
“At this rate, we’ll run dry in 40 to 50 minutes. What should we do?”
Hoo. Just when things were starting to look up, now fuel had to come and bite us in the ankle.
If we ran out of fuel, we would have no choice but to abandon the tank and proceed on foot.
‘Wait. That might actually be better.’
After thinking it over carefully, it might actually be the preferable option.
The tank was large and risked being detected by the enemy because of the noise. Its sickeningly slow speed was just another drawback.
Still, having grown somewhat attached to this thing, I felt a bit reluctant to throw it away like a worn-out rag.
Besides, I didn’t know what kind of disciplinary action I’d face for abandoning the tank and walking back.
Even if it was unavoidable circumstances, you never know.
After a long deliberation, I came up with a clever move.
A revolutionary way to reach the friendly front line before running out of fuel without abandoning the tank.
“Turn right. Keep going straight!”
“Huh? Is this the right way?”
“Yeah. It’s the right way, so don’t worry. We’re taking a shortcut.”
If we’re short on fuel, we just take a shortcut!
Actually, there were two routes on the map: the one we’d been taking was the standard route, and this one was the shortcut.
Truthfully, even taking the shortcut, I couldn’t be certain we’d reach the friendly front line before running out, but it was certain that the distance would be shortened.
Of course, this path had its drawbacks as well.
It was winding and rough, and since it ran relatively close to the German front line, I couldn’t be sure if our forces still held it.
Well, seeing as we hadn’t caught so much as a glimpse of the Germans so far, it was almost certain they weren’t nearby.
If they were, they would have shown up by now. Right?
***
“Hoo… fucking life.”
Private James Parker heaved a deep sigh, as if the ground would sink.
He had been walking without rest for two hours now.
The soles of his feet burned as if on fire, and his clothes were plastered to his skin with sweat, leaving him feeling wretched.
What he needed most right now was a hot shower and a comfortable armchair.
But such ‘luxuries’ were unthinkable on a battlefield where life and death hung in the balance.
Let alone for prisoners of war.
Born in the slums of Birmingham, James had grown up under a violent mother, just like his violent father.
Living in a cramped house of barely nine pyeong, he often skipped school to play with friends or steal things.
He stole anything he could get his hands on.
From laundry hung on clotheslines, to apples displayed at a fruit stand, to pedestrians’ wallets, to someone’s bicycle in a wealthy neighborhood.
Naturally, before the blood on his head could even dry, he was coming and going from the police station’s holding cell like it was his own home.
James’s parents were people who had no interest in their child to begin with, so they didn’t care whether he went to a holding cell or stood trial.
Under his parents’ indifference, his criminal record eventually caught up with him, and at age seventeen, James was sentenced to two years in prison for habitual theft.
When he was released, he was only nineteen.
All that remained for the recently released him was a handful of pence, a short letter informing him that his parents had died of alcoholism, and the worn leather jacket on his back.
For him wandering the streets looking for work, the army—which provided meals and lodging—was quite an attractive job.
And Hitler’s invasion of Poland happened to be a great help in his ‘employment.’
When war broke out, the British Army needed more young men, and despite his criminal record, James—who had no physical issues—was able to enlist.
After two months of training, he was assigned to the British Expeditionary Force and sent to the French front.
Life in France was pleasant at first.
There was little training, and they were allowed leave once a week.
He would go out with fellow recruits to a small tavern near the base, ordering wine and roast goose as one of life’s small pleasures.
But the good times came to an end when news arrived that the Germans had crossed the border.
The infantry company James belonged to was tasked with cooperating with the French army to halt the advance of a German tank unit.
But when they arrived at the front line, the French forces weren’t there.
Upon hearing that the Germans were coming, they had fled without even notifying the British forces.
James’s company, left alone in the open field, was ambushed by the German armored unit while digging trenches.
They met the worst possible end—most of the company, including the company commander, were killed, and the rest were taken prisoner.
“Damn it, becoming a POW without even getting to fight properly. It’s a disgrace to a British soldier.”
James grumbled as he dragged his heavy feet.
Everyone, including him, was walking in the footsteps of the person in front.
At the front of the prisoners’ column, three German trucks loaded with wounded soldiers and captured weapons were moving at a crawling pace.
“Hey, James. Where do you think we’re going now?”
His fellow recruit, Peter Merklin, struck up a conversation.
He too was one of the young men who had chosen to enlist, unable to find stable work like James.
“Who knows. Probably Germany, I suppose?”
“Tch, I hate Germany. The women are ugly, and thinking of staying in a place with gloomy weather is depressing.”
James snickered at Peter’s silly joke.
Then a German soldier monitoring the prisoners scolded them in broken English.
“You there, you two! No talking!”
“Tch!”
The two closed their mouths again and walked in silence.
On the outside, he pretended nothing was wrong, but James was sick with worry. The thought of being locked in a POW camp until the war ended made his future seem pitch black.
Of course, staying quietly in a POW camp might be better than dying on the battlefield, but James, who had already experienced prison life back in England, thought the battlefield was preferable.
Dodging bullets on the battlefield was far better to him than being locked up like livestock, unable to do anything.
“Sigh, my fate… If I’d known it would be like this, maybe I should’ve applied for the navy.”
“What navy for a guy who can’t even swim.”
“I told you to be quiet—”
Just as the German was about to lecture them again, a strange sound was heard.
It was quite different from the truck engines.
The prisoners, and even the Germans, stopped walking.
Meanwhile, the sound grew louder.
James thought the sound he was hearing resembled tracks rolling. No, it was definitely tracks.
“Hey, over there!”
Peter’s eyes went wide as he spotted something in the darkness.
James turned his head in the direction Peter pointed, and his eyes widened, as did the eyes of the German soldier watching them.
What they had discovered was none other than…
***
“Adam, how much fuel is left now?”
“In 20 minutes, the engine will probably die.”
“Really? Then in 20 minutes, it’s goodbye to this thing.”
I let out a sigh and stared holes into the map.
We now had only 20 minutes left.
Fortunately, the path was still following the map.
Could we reach the friendly front line before running out of fuel?
As I was looking at the map thinking this, Adam suddenly stopped the tank.
“Hey, Adam! Why are you stopping? I didn’t tell you to stop yet.”
“P-Platoon Leader! Look ahead!”
“Ahead?”
Looking ahead as Adam said, I witnessed an unbelievable sight.
Three trucks and soldiers lined up in a row were staring blankly at us.
Friendlies?
I recognized that some of the soldiers staring at me were wearing the distinctive flat Brodie helmets of the British Army.
But the soldiers next to them were wearing different helmets.
Square, angular, crude-looking helmets.
Wearing those meant only one thing…
“They’re Germans!”
The very thing I’d feared had finally become reality.