Authors: Andrew Mackay
“Grenade!” Thompson shouted.
A German potato masher grenade cart wheeled through the air – hit the wall of the house, rebounded and exploded back in the street. “Here comes another! Take cover!” Another grenade flew through the air, and sailed through Thompson’s window. The grenade blew up and shrapnel whistled through the air.
“I’m hit!” Shouted Alan as he dropped his rifle and put his hands up to his eyes. He collapsed and hit the ground as Sam hovered over him.
“Where are you hit?” Sam asked with his hands on Alan’s shoulders.
“In my face. I can’t see! I can’t see!” Alan screamed as he sat sprawled on the floor, blood streaming from his face down his hands and arms.
“Take your hands away, Alan!” Sam ordered through the smoke, his ears ringing from the impact of the grenade explosion.
“I’m blind! I can’t see! I can’t see!” Alan wailed.
“Take your hands away, Al, let me look at you,” Sam insisted. He gently laid his hands on Alan’s and prised his shaking fingers away. “It’s alright Al,” Sam reassured him.
“I’m blind…” Alan moaned.
Sam knelt down and examined Alan’s face. It was covered with blood. He emptied some water from his water bottle onto the corner of his sleeve and wiped away some of the blood. Sam stopped wiping and examined the wound. “It’s a piece of shrapnel. It’s cut you on your cheek, and it’s sliced a nice clean wound. Lots of blood, but not very deep. The medics should be able to sew you up with half a dozen stitches.”
“What about my eyes?” Alan asked. His black hair was matted thick with blood.
“They’re fine. Your eyes were caked shut by the blood, that’s all, Al,” Sam reassured him.
“Oh my God!” Alan’s bloody hand went to his mouth. “Corporal Thompson!”
Sam bent over and ran through to the next room, remembering to keep his head down as a brace of bullets buzzed through the open window and drilled a neat line of holes in the back wall. He bent over Thompson’s silent and still form. Sam turned him over. Thompson’s wide-open eyes stared back at him. “He’s dead, Al.”
“And Willy?” Alan asked about Thompson’s partner.
Sam examined Willy, who lay on his front next to Thompson. His back looked like a bloody sieve and was still smoking. “He’s a goner too.”
“Christ!” Alan muttered, clutching a torn piece of his uniform shirt to his war wound. “What do we do now?”
“We keep fighting and we pay those dirty murdering Nazi bastards back for Corporal Thompson and Willy.”
The boys had hardly resumed firing when they heard three long loud whistle blasts which signaled the cease fire.
“Alan, Sam – are you alright?” A bodiless voice came from upstairs.
“Yes, Lance-Corporal,” Alan answered. “But Corporal Thompson and Willy are dead.”
The boys heard a curse. “Bad luck. I’m taking over command of the section. Check the enemy dead. We don’t want any prisoners. We’ll cover you, but be careful. Don’t do anything stupid. Grab any Hun weapons and ammunition that we can use.”
“Yes, Lance-Corporal,” Sam answered.
Alan and Sam cautiously poked their heads out of the door and slowly crept out into the street with their rifle butts pulled tight into their shoulders. Other Fusiliers were doing the same. Alan and Sam stepped over dead and dying Germans and prodded them with their rifles. Isolated shots echoed down the street as the RRiFFs admistered the coup de grace to wounded enemy soldiers.
Alan returned to the house with two rifles slung over one shoulder and two sets of webbing over the other. Sam staggered into the house with several belts of ammunition draped around his neck and carrying a MG 42 machine gun in his arms.
“Blimey lads – who do you think you are, Pancho Villa? All you boys need is a sombrero and a handlebar moustache and you would look like Mexican banditos!” Lance-Corporal Vincent exclaimed as he walked down the stairs. “It looks like you’ve captured the arsenal of the entire Nazi army!”
Alan and Sam grinned at Vincent like a pair of Cheshire cats.
“I’ll have that!” Vincent exclaimed with a triumphant look on his face, as he grabbed the machine gun.
“Hey!” Sam protested. “That’s not fair! I found it! Finders keepers!” He vainly tried to hold onto it.
“Listen Sam,” Vincent tried to reason with him. “Do you know how to fire it? No, I thought not, so give it here.”
Sam reluctantly surrendered the weapon like a defeated general surrendering his sword.
“Good lad. Alright, lads, we’re moving out immediately.” The rest of the Section came down the stairs. “Let’s go.” Vincent and his Fusiliers filed out of the house and started threading its way through Wake High Street. The scene was that of utter carnage. There were dead Germans and crashed and burning motorcycles lying everywhere. Spent cartridges littered the ground and pools of congealed blood were already starting to attract flies in the heat. The RRiFFs trudged through the smoking and burning village towards Fairfax.
Vincent and his men reached Fairfax an hour or so after the battle of Wake ended to find the rest of the battalion already digging in. Wake Road ran straight through the village from north to south. Norwich Road was a tree lined sunken road that cut through Wake Road at right angles from west to east just before the first houses of Fairfax began. A man kneeling down on Norwich Road had cover from view as well as cover from fire from both Fairfax and from the fields on the Wake side of the road. The Fusiliers were spread and stretched out to the left and right on the road for several hundred feet and were frantically digging in with whatever came to hand. Those lucky enough to have liberated a set of German webbing made use of an entrenching tool; the others used their helmets, mess tins or their bare hands.
Oberstleutnant Christian von Schnakenberg lowered his binoculars and took off his helmet. He smoothed away his matted hair and wiped the sweat and dirt from his eyes. He was at the edge of a small forest about a quarter of a mile from the enemy positions. “Verdamnt!” He turned around to face his second in command, Major Frederich Lindau. “They’re digging in. We don’t have enough time to attack them before it becomes dark.”
The motorcyclists had suffered over three hundred casualties in the landing, the fighting in King’s Lynn and in the ambush at Wake so von Schnakenberg’s regiment, The First Battalion Potsdam Grenadiers, had taken over as the spearhead. The Grenadiers had remained pinned down on the wrong side of Wake Bridge whilst the motorcyclists were being massacred and had been unable to help. Von Schnakenberg’s men were chaffing at the bit and they were burning to avenge their fallen comrades. They had lost dozens of friends and comrades trying to cross the bridge and swim across the River Ouse to help the trapped soldiers of the motorcycle battalion. Devious booby traps and cowardly sniper attacks had claimed further lives. The Grenadiers were like a pack of blood thirsty dobermans straining at the leash. Von Schnakenberg doubted if he and his officers could hold them.
Von Schnakenberg turned around and faced his second in command; “Freddy,” he asked, “what do we know about the enemy forces?
“We found half a dozen enemy dead in the village with the letters “H.G.” on their armbands. Poorly dressed in a mixture of military and civilian clothes. No doubt they’re Home Guard,” Lindau explained. “We also found discarded but destroyed shotguns and .22 target shooting rifles, plus their shell cases and 0.303 rifle cartridges.”
“But no machine gun shell cases?”
“No, sir.”
“So,” von Schnakenberg thought aloud, “poorly dressed and poorly equipped but well led. They wiped out most of a battalion after all. How are the men?”
“A Company has suffered heavy casualties but the other companies are fine. The whole battalion is eager to attack, sir.” Von Schnakenberg seemed unsure and uncertain. “Oberstleutnant, the enemy has been lucky once. But they’re schoolboys and old men. They must have suffered casualties and they’ve probably used up most of their ammunition. They’re Home Guard, Oberstleutnant. Surely the Potsdam Grenadiers are a match for them?”
“What the hell…?” Alan said. A loud explosion made Sam and Alan duck down into their foxholes like frightened rabbits.
“Take cover!” Lance-Corporal Vincent shouted. “Mortars! Heads down!”
The mortar shells landed in the field to the front of the Fusiliers’ positions, in Fairfax, behind the soldiers and on top of the men themselves. Alan and Sam sat crouched down in the bottom of their shelters with their knees pulled in tightly to their chests with their hands wrapped around their heads. The earth shook continuously and mud and grass slid into the foxholes. Alan had the horrifying thought that he might be buried alive.
“Stand to! Battalion! Three hundred yards to your front. Rapid fire. Rapid fire!!!” Hook’s instantly recognizable voice thundered through the Fusiliers’ shelters.
Sam stuck his head out of his foxhole. German soldiers were less than three hundred yards away.
“Get stuck into them!” Vincent screamed.
Sam rapidly worked the bolt, pushing a round into the chamber. He’d hardly pulled the butt into his shoulder and brought the foresight to bear on a distant grey figure when he pulled the trigger.
“Keep it up. Keep it up!” Vincent shouted his encouragement.
The distant German figures kept on coming. They seemed to be advancing in waves. They ran forward a few yards and then disappeared, diving into the ground. They opened fire and then popped up a few seconds later in a different position, and then kept coming.
Alan allowed himself a satisfied smile as he fired and saw a German crumple and hit the ground. He looked to his left and saw Vincent with the captured machine gun pulled up tight against his shoulder. But something was wrong: Vincent’s finger was on the trigger but he was not firing. What the hell was going on?
Oberleutnant Wilhelm von Schnakenberg lay down in the grass, his face smeared with a mixture of dirt and sweat. He was sweating profusely and panting like a dog. Wilhelm was a happy man; his platoon, despite taking casualties, was fighting well. He and his men had now reached a point roughly one hundred meters from the enemy position. They were now ready to start the final attack. He smiled to himself as he remembered his big brother’s shocked reaction when he announced his intention to follow in Christian’s footsteps and go into the family regiment. Christian had done his best to dissuade him; but alas to no avail. Many of Wilhelm’s friends and fellow officers had good-naturedly remarked that they doubted if there was enough room in the Potsdam Grenadiers for two von Schnakenbergs. He had replied that there was enough fame and glory to be won for both of them, and plenty left over to spare.
His elder brother, Christian, was the youngest Oberstleutnant in the German Army and had led the First Battalion the Potsdam Grenadiers through the fighting in Poland, Holland, Belgium and France. Wilhelm was proud of his brother, but he had a lot to live up to and he had a desperate desire to prove that he had earned his place in the regiment. He was there on his own merits as a result of what he had done and not because of who he was.
A loud whistle blast cut through the air. Wilhelm immediately leapt to his feet, “Potsdam!” He screamed at the top of his voice. The other Grenadiers leapt to their feet, “Potsdam! Potsdam!” They shouted. This is it, Wilhelm thought to himself. A final bayonet charge guaranteed to put a poorly equipped enemy to flight. The soldiers charged through the knee-high grass towards the British.
A chainsaw like staccato ripped through the air.
“What the-?” Wilhelm said to himself. All around him men were dropping. His men. He recognized the sound of an MG 42. Machine guns! The enemy doesn’t have machine guns! The bullets caught him across the chest, tearing bloody holes diagonally from left to right. He crumpled to his knees. A terrible burning pain spread from his chest across the whole of his body. Blood began to dribble out of the corner of his mouth. As his eyes filled up with tears and his vision began to blur he thought to himself, “machine guns… German machine guns…it’s not fair.”
Alan’s eyes opened wide with fear as he heard the loud whistle blast tear through the air. Hundreds of Germans suddenly appeared as if they had grown out of the ground and started charging towards the Fusiliers. A bugle blast pierced Alan’s ears. Vincent’s finger tightened on the trigger and his machine gun began to fire. More machine guns joined in. The Germans were stopped in their tracks as if they had run into a brick wall. One second there were hundreds of soldiers charging towards them and the next second there were none. The Grim Reaper had cut down the German stalks of wheat with a giant British scythe.
Another bugle blast. “Charge!” Vincent screamed, the blood lust was in his eyes, “Come on!” Alan climbed to his feet and charged after Vincent. Everywhere he looked, to his left and right; Fusiliers were scrambling out of their foxholes and charging towards the Germans. The surviving Germans quickly surrendered. The fight had been knocked out of them. Those lucky enough to escape were running towards the forest dragging their dead and dying with them.
After five minutes of fight and flight it was all over. The RRiFFS returned to their positions with more German weapons, ammunition, booty and prisoners. Sentries were set and the remaining members of the battalion fell into a deep and exhausted sleep.
Christian von Schnakenberg stared out over the battlefield numb with shock and awe as he watched the tattered remnants of his regiment straggle home. The Grenadiers stumbled and staggered into the forest in ones and twos or sometimes with a wounded comrade propped up with an arm around the waist. Many soldiers were without helmets, their uniforms torn and covered with blood, dirt and gore; most were without weapons that had been abandoned in their haste to get away. All semblances of discipline and order had disappeared. They were no longer soldiers. They were a rabble. A mob. They wandered past von Schnakenberg without a word. Defeat was written all over their faces. And something else. Shame. Shame that they had not carried the enemy position. Shame that they had been beaten so badly, by “schoolboys and old men” as their officers and N.C.O.s had described them before the attack, bragging and boasting about how they would be no match for the high and mighty Potsdam Grenadiers.