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In the darkness we could just distinguish some remains – possibly they had been sheds. English Farm they called it. This is where our tanks were to rendezvous for the battle. The timing was exact and we went on without having to wait for each other, but not before some German bombers unloaded. Meant for us? Did the enemy know of our impending attack, or was it just a routine raid on English Farm because it was there? Then a star shell fell on our route. We stopped instantly, or so we liked to think; no man moved. The entire line of tanks, eight of them, was glistening, brilliant metal against the velvety blackness of the night. It burned on and on. What an age they took to open fire. Bayliss, at my side, suggested they were just having a good laugh as they watched us, standing to attention there like a lot of military dolts. We had not recovered from our first bombing; dread of the immediate future weighed heavily on our attempts at being carefree. No weight so leaden as the weight of freedom from care. Perhaps Miss Whybrow and Mrs Thompson had been right – I should have run away. Too late, too late.
In another ten minutes we could not be affected by what happened to English Farm. Suppose, though, the presence of the tanks had given away the impending attack. It is difficult now to believe that our anxieties were of so little substance.
The route we were pursuing now became jammed with traffic; suddenly without warning troops came from nowhere. We waited. Nothing happened. I ordered Allen to switch off the engine. On that packed road no one spoke. Occasionally a mule whinnied or harness jingled.
As I write these words I know that I have not forgotten what happened that night at English Farm, what was going to happen on the
St Jean–Wieltje Road at Cambrai, at Amiens, in the ‘train bleu’ after years in the black areas of a second world war; I see them still in the watch fires of a thousand sleepless nights, for the soul goes marching on.
“If the Boche start shelling we