Ride Out The Storm Read Online Free

spattering of firing broke out and this time he knew it was not German. Then he heard the thump of a gun, and the screech of a shell whistling overhead and decided it was time to head for the ditch. Several of the Germans went with him, but most of them stayed where they were, merely ducking their heads and laughing at their friends’ nervousness. Up ahead he heard a muffled explosion and saw a column of smoke rise into the air.
    ‘They’ve hit one of the lorries,’ someone said – indignantly, as though the enemy weren’t playing the game – then Scharroo saw men running forward, their equipment bouncing on their backs, among them the blond young god, still cramming cherries into his mouth as he ran.
    The firing ahead was growing stronger now and a sergeant came running along the column, shouting, ‘Get those lorries away! Get them away!’
    The drivers ran to the cabs, and the vehicles started to back and fill as they turned in the narrow road. For a moment there were all the signs of panic and Scharroo saw another lorry burst into flames and the driver running from it, beating with his hands at the flames springing from his jacket. Other vehicles – lorries, scout cars, motor cycles – came through the smoke, and the men who had moved forward so arrogantly appeared to be having second thoughts about their invincibility.

    The lorries had vanished behind a bend in the road now, with the exception of two up ahead, which were slewed slantwise across the tarmacadam – one of them in the hedge. They were burning furiously, and suddenly the air seemed full of flying pieces of metal as Scharroo crawled back to where he’d left his car. The din was terrific with the chatter of machine guns and the steady pop-pop of rifles, and above it the thump of the hidden gun ahead.
    Gingerly raising his head, Scharroo saw two or three figures lying in the dust, one of them without a leg and apparently trying to bite the ground in its agony. The chattering of the guns went on and he saw leaves drifting down through the sunlight as they were snipped from the branches above his head. Nearby an officer, his head well down, was shouting into a radio microphone, and just alongside Scharroo a sergeant was cursing furiously in steady gusts at the men ahead.
    It seemed humiliating to crouch there in the afternoon sun and Scharroo was beginning to think they’d be there for the night when he heard the roar of engines and the clatter of tank tracks.
    ‘Here are the panzers,’ the sergeant yelled, his grin reappearmg.
    The tanks rumbled round the corner where the lorries had vanished, the grey snouts of the guns poking forward, and the sergeant went wriggling along the ditch to where they waited. The tank commander seemed to be trying to pin-point his enemy and Scharroo saw the gun swing. The crash of the shot jarred his teeth and made him jump, and lifting his head, he saw it had torn aside part of the hedge.
    Then the second tank fired, the hedge burst into flames, and the Germans jumped from the ditch and began to run. The rattle of machine pistols and tommy guns started again. Then it was all over and everything was silent except for the crackle of flames and the distant drone of an aeroplane high overhead. The officer was walking forward now, his pistol in his hand, and Scharroo saw the sergeant shove a man in khaki uniform through the hedge. He fell on his knees in the ditch, then rose slowly, his hands in the air. Several more men followed and stood in a group in the dusty road, their hands on their heads.
    The Germans were surrounding the Englishmen now, their grins reappearing, their confidence returned. One of them gestured derisively at the weary captives and at the still shapes sprawled under the hedge, and there was a gust of laughter. There was something cold-hearted in it that chilled Scharroo. Even in war there seemed room for compassion and he suddenly had a feeling that these ardent young Nazis had had it drilled out of