Episode 11: The Arras Tank Battle (4)
The moment I realized that the force we had run into was the German army, my mind went blank and time seemed to stop.
The German troops were just as flustered by the sudden encounter.
The heaviest, most uncomfortable, and most bewildering silence of my life filled the air.
In reality, it was an extremely brief span of mere seconds, but it felt like well over an hour.
A single gunshot broke the awkward silence.
One of the German soldiers guarding our captured troops had fired at me.
“It’s the British!”
Firing in a panic without properly aiming, the bullet struck the tank’s turret and ricocheted away.
Coming to my senses belatedly, I dove into the turret like lightning and shouted.
“Adam! Forward!”
“Sir?”
“Move forward! Ram them!”
“Ah, yes, sir!”
As Adam engaged the gears and drove the tank forward, the German driver’s face, which had been staring at us with a blank expression, twisted in terror and shock.
BAM!
The tank crashed straight into the lead truck of the convoy.
Immediately, the German soldier in the driver’s seat threw himself outside. Then he ran for his life.
The officer in the passenger seat did the same, hurling himself out of the truck and fleeing without looking back.
With the road blocked, the drivers of the trucks behind also abandoned their vehicles and leaped outside.
Meanwhile, the German soldiers guarding the prisoners opened fire on my tank all at once.
In the darkness, over a dozen yellow muzzle flashes bloomed and vanished like smoke.
However, the bullets failed to leave even a scratch on the armor plate and all bounced off.
“Adam, close the hatch! And reverse!”
“Yes, sir!”
While Adam closed the hatch and shifted into reverse, I rotated the turret and aimed at the Germans firing their weapons.
Each time flames erupted from their muzzles, I could make out the faint outlines of enemy soldiers.
Then I fired.
Caught in a hail of bullets from the Vickers machine gun, the German soldiers fell like autumn leaves in a storm. The way the enemy twisted and collapsed as if dancing looked like a scene from a B-list martial arts film.
But the red blood pooling on the ground was real, not fake syrup made of sugar and food coloring.
In an instant, the surroundings filled with screams and shouts in German.
The gunpowder smoke produced every time I fired stung my eyes and made my nose run incessantly, but I couldn’t stop shooting.
The enemy was right in front of me.
“Adam! Stop! And turn right!”
“Understood!”
But Adam must have misunderstood me, because he turned the tank to the left instead of the right. Because of that, my aim was thrown off.
“Hey, you idiot! I said right, not left! We can’t move forward because of the trees!”
“I-I’m sorry, sir!”
“Then back up for now!”
While Adam was reversing the tank, an unexpected turn of events occurred up ahead.
Taking advantage of the Germans being distracted by us, the Allied prisoners had launched an assault on them.
One of the captured soldiers picked up a fallen German’s rifle and pulled the trigger at an enemy right in front of him.
“Kuhk!”
The German, shot in the neck, collapsed to the side, gurgling. Taking this as a signal, the other prisoners lunged at the Germans en masse.
Prisoners trying to seize weapons and Germans trying to stop them became entangled in a sudden, chaotic brawl.
“I’ve turned right!”
“Good, forward at once!”
As the tank charged, the soldiers who had been grappling and fighting one another scrambled away in shock.
I pulled the trigger again, but in short bursts, and aimed at the empty sky above them.
Because enemy and Allied troops were mixed together, firing blindly risked hitting our own men.
Fortunately, that alone was enough to drive the Germans away.
The Germans, thrown into confusion, couldn’t tell whether I was shooting at them or firing into the air.
The majority of them were too busy fleeing in panic.
Of course, there were some brave Germans as well.
They scattered to the left and right on their own without orders, firing back in resistance and throwing grenades, desperately trying to break the tracks.
But it was useless against the Matilda I, a tank designed for infantry support.
They burst with loud noises, but the tracks remained perfectly intact.
With the grenades proving ineffective, the Germans then attempted to climb onto the tank directly.
They were trying to stop it with their own bodies.
“The Germans are trying to get on! Move!”
I tried to sway the tank left and right to prevent these unwelcome guests from boarding.
The Matilda I lacked side skirts, so it was not easy to climb aboard while it was moving.
If careless, one could get caught in the spinning tracks and be turned into minced meat.
Whether the Germans knew this or not, they approached the tank bravely, but hesitated, unable to climb on.
In the meantime, our soldiers, now freed from captivity, provided covering fire.
Germans loitering near the tank were cut down by gunfire.
The surviving enemies, apparently realizing hope was lost, fled into the forest.
Just as I was starting to relax, thinking the enemy had nearly all vanished, a powerful shockwave struck us. It came from behind.
“Ugh, what was that?”
“I-I don’t know, sir!”
Wondering what had happened, I looked around, and heard human voices from behind. It wasn’t English that I could understand.
Then, acrid smoke poured into the interior.
At the same time, I felt intense heat.
A rifle grenade fired by a remaining enemy soldier had struck the tank’s side.
Fortunately, neither Adam nor I were seriously harmed, but the tank was another matter.
In the engine compartment at the rear of the tank, flames were blazing with bright red tongues.
“Damn it, we’re hit! Bail out!”
I hurriedly thrust myself out of the hatch. Then I threw myself out without delay.
The cold, hard ground greeted me.
My skin was scraped and bleeding. My already aching joints throbbed even more.
I barely managed to keep my balance in mid-air, avoiding the disaster of landing face-first.
As I was struggling to rise, a German soldier emerged through the smoke from the opposite side.
He was a soldier who looked young even at a glance.
But he didn’t see me. He was facing Adam, who was lying on the ground gasping for breath.
Pointing his gun and shouting something in German, Adam flinched and raised both hands.
“Wait, wait! Don’t shoot!”
The moment the German soldier tried to approach Adam, I drew my pistol and shot him in the back.
Hit by my bullet, he fell quietly backward.
His eyes were filled with emptiness.
But there was no time to be lost in sentiment.
I ordered Adam to grab the fallen German’s rifle, then picked up the grenade hanging from the soldier’s belt.
It was a stick grenade, commonly called a “potato masher.”
A fierce firefight was still underway between the Germans and our troops.
I crept toward them and pulled out the grenade.
It was my first time using one, but thanks to a few videos I had seen on “YouTube,” I roughly knew how it worked.
After pulling the safety pin, I threw it over the enemies’ heads without hesitation.
Then I quickly covered my head and flattened myself against the ground.
A loud explosion rang out, and the gunfire snapped off as if cut with a knife.
When I came to my senses, the surroundings were filled with Allied soldiers letting out cheers.
The surviving soldiers had gathered around me at some point, shouting in celebration and expressing their gratitude with genuinely moved faces.
“Thank you, Second Lieutenant!”
“You’re a hero!”
“Thank you, Second Lieutenant! You saved us all!”
“Ah, y-yes… yes.”
I accepted the countless requests for handshakes with a dazed expression.
The soldiers also crowded around Adam to shake his hand.
It felt like being at a festival. If you excluded the corpses strewn about, that is.
“Wait, just a moment! Who here has the highest rank among you?”
Having finally come to my senses, I looked for the highest-ranking man among the freed soldiers.
Then a soldier with a mustache raised his hand. He was the one who had shaken my hand first.
“Over here, Second Lieutenant!”
Looking at his rank insignia, he was a Captain.
I belatedly saluted.
“Oh, pardon me, Captain!”
“No need to salute. I should be the one saluting you!”
“Could you please explain what situation this is?”
At my request, the Captain laughed heartily and summarized the situation up to now.
They belonged to various different units and had all been taken prisoner by the Germans, being transported somewhere.
According to the German officer in charge of transporting them, they were being sent to a POW camp, though he hadn’t told them where.
Anyway, they had been marching for hours when I appeared driving a tank.
And then… well, I suppose there’s no need to explain what happened next.
After hearing their story, I explained to the Captain what I had been through and my plans going forward.
For the moment, we agreed that both of us needed to get to the Allied lines.
To do that, we needed to prepare.
“Hey, check these trucks. Can they move?”
There were three trucks the Germans had abandoned.
The lead truck had collided with the tank, cracking its windshield and shattering its headlights, but it was still operational. The remaining two were in relatively good condition as well.
The problem was the wounded soldiers left behind in the trucks.
Among the wounded were some of our men, but the majority were Germans.
Because everything had happened so fast, the Germans hadn’t been able to retrieve their own wounded.
The German wounded, now suddenly prisoners themselves, gazed at us trembling with fear.
They seemed to think we might kill them.
“What should we do with these fellows, Second Lieutenant?”
The Captain also worried about how to handle the sudden addition of prisoners.
Then a soldier nearby shouted.
“Let’s kill them! All the Germans should be killed!”
Hearing this, I said sharply to the soldier who had spoken, my face stern.
“Shut your mouth, soldier. I was the one asked, not you.”
The soldier immediately clamped his mouth shut.
Judging by how red his ears were, he seemed to know he should be ashamed.
“I think we should take them with us, Captain.”
“But won’t there be insufficient room in the trucks? Of course, there’s no need to kill them, but wouldn’t it be better to just leave them here?”
The Captain had a point.
There wasn’t enough space for everyone in three trucks.
But if we left them here, half of them would almost certainly die.
About half of the German wounded appeared to need immediate medical attention.
Though they were the enemy, I bore them no particular malice.
It would only be natural for a 20th-century Englishman to gnash his teeth at the sight of Germans, but I, who had been living in 21st-century Korea before ending up here, was almost a third party in this matter.
I had to save anyone who could be saved, even if they were the enemy.
Above all, I had absolutely no desire to do something that the North Koreans or the Imperial Japanese would do.
“Then, how about this? We take only the seriously wounded who urgently need treatment, and leave the rest here. Didn’t they also put our wounded in the trucks?”
“Hmm, you have a point. Very well, I’ll follow your decision.”
The Captain turned around and ordered the soldiers to pick out the severely wounded Germans and load them onto the trucks.
Some openly looked disappointed, but they loaded the prisoners without complaint.
The German prisoners visibly relaxed once they realized we weren’t going to kill them.
Seeing them, I somehow felt pity.
“Hey, set them down gently. Don’t just drop them. They may be the enemy, but they’re still human beings.”
“S-sorry, Second Lieutenant.”
A soldier who had been dropping a wounded German like a sack of potatoes carefully set the man down in the cargo bed at my rebuke.
This is why they say an army runs on hierarchy.
Fortunately, one of the captured German medics spoke a little English.
I returned the remaining medical supplies to him and told him to stay here until the Germans came for them.
Since most of them were wounded, they wouldn’t be able to go anywhere even if they wanted to.
The medic nodded repeatedly as if he understood.
“It sure burns well…”
The tank was already completely engulfed in flames.
Though it had been slow, an unwieldy nuisance that couldn’t shoot properly because of its exhaust smoke, it had done its part admirably and I was grateful.
Gazing at the tank being cooked from the inside, Adam spoke in a melancholy voice.
“It may have been a slow crawler, but it was a fine iron steed, Platoon Commander.”
“I think so too. It wasn’t perfect, but it was still a pretty decent tank.”
Leaving the burning tank behind, we set out for the Allied lines.
Because there weren’t enough seats, some passengers had to ride hanging onto the roofs or the running boards.