lead truck and command tank had made it across. Clods of earth pelted the ground as Luc bobbed up and targeted the gun crew. He got two men with two shots, but the third swung the gun in Luc’s direction, then ducked behind its armoured flanks and opened fire on Luc’s position.
As Luc sprinted desperately for cover, PT pulled a lever that sent an artillery shell across the water towards the rear of the convoy. Edith jumped out of cover at the roadside and rolled a stick of plastic with a pressure-sensitive detonator under the track of the command tank.
Flames blinded Marc, and even 50 metres from the blast the water vapour was painfully hot. As this cleared, he saw that the bridge’s metal framework had buckled, directly beneath the mining pan. Most of the guards were on the ground, either dead or writhing in agony with blood pouring from burst eardrums.
The explosion had lifted the rear of the first Tiger tank, but its driver had accelerated and made it across the river. The second tank had smashed into the buckled section of road and now balanced precariously over the water, with its crew clambering out of the turret.
An open-topped German staff car had been running between the second and third Tigers. Its driver had slammed the brakes when he’d heard the blast, but the tank behind took longer to stop. Its front track had rolled up on to the Kübelwagen, flattening the rear end and pulverising the two officers in the back seats.
As Edith’s plastic successfully blew the track off the small command tank, Marc and Luc used their sniping skills to hit crew members scrambling out of the Tiger stranded in the middle of the bridge. One of the tank crew reached cover as the bridge started creaking again. A slab of road tilted off into the water, followed by the stranded Tiger.
The huge tank hitting water sent an enormous wave downriver. Meantime, the crew of the Tiger which had made it across swung its turret towards PT and Michel’s artillery position.
The pair got 20 metres clear before the 88-mm shell tore up their position, but both lads were still knocked down by the mud and plants thrown up by the blast. PT found himself going head over heels down the embankment, before being engulfed in the wash thrown up when the tank hit the water.
Marc and Luc scrambled away from the bridge. They took out two men escaping from the stricken command tank, then watched aghast as Daniel crept up behind the first Tiger. The gun aimer inside had spotted Michel pulling a muddy and half-drowned PT up the embankment about 100 metres away and was making fine adjustments to his second shot.
As the 88-mm blast rang out, Daniel hopped on the back of the tank. Marc thought the eleven-year-old had gone insane. But it was a hot morning, which meant that the inside of the tank was even hotter, and one of the last things Daniel had noticed before climbing out of the trees was that the lead tank was travelling with its turret flap open.
Marc couldn’t bear to watch as Daniel clambered on top of the turret, pulled a pin from a grenade and then kept hold for five seconds so that the crew inside didn’t have time to lob it out again.
‘Run, you crazy little bastard!’ Marc screamed.
Daniel took a dramatic leap off the turret and scrambled to the roadside as the grenade erupted. This blast was muffled, but the secondary explosion when the magazine of 88-mm shells exploded was louder than the plastic and dynamite that took out the bridge.
While Daniel grabbed all the glory, Edith had cut around the back of the 20-mm gun. The truck’s driver had been shot by Luc when he tried to run, but there was still a single German shielded behind the cannon and trying to reload. She took him out with a rifle shot in the back.
As the sounds of battle dwindled to a few panicked Germans shooting at ghosts, PT and Michel scrambled away from the river in dripping clothes.
‘Are we in control on this side of the bridge?’ PT gasped, as he looked at the three wrecked vehicles.
‘Truck, command tank and one Tiger made it across,’ Luc reported. ‘No signs of life.’
‘Nice one,’ PT said. ‘There’s more dust coming up behind the trees. I think there’s another column of tanks coming. The good news is, there’s no way you’ll get anything as wide as