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had given us a rough outline he walked off to one of the other crews, leaving us free to talk.
    “Blimey Bomb! They are leaving us in the shit.” said Jack Hampton, trying to sound tough but I could see his bottom lip trembling as he spoke.
    I didn’t answer straight away, probably because my thoughts were pretty much the same as Jack’s.
    I looked around at the faces of the rest of my crew, all of them looked worried.
    “Ok,” I said at last, “the Lieutenant isn’t asking us to be hero’s, he’s just telling us it’s time to do what we signed up for, and if we are going to get out of this, that’s all we have to remember, we’re here to do a job.”
    “Nobody said we’d be doing it on our own though Bomb, did they?” cut in Fishy.
    “Take a look around Fishy, we’re not on our own, all the crews are here.” “What are you saying then? That Jerry’s better at this than we are, eh? Better than the pride of the flippin Royal Artillery” Fishy looked down at his feet but the others chuckled,
    “I’ll second that.” said Harry.
    “Rather,” said Ronny “bring em on!” to which we all laughed, even Fishy.
    I sent a couple of the lads over to get some extra armour piercing shells and then we waited.

C HAPTER T HREE
    Almost as soon as the lads came back we heard the sounds of aircraft. They were on us before we saw them; earth exploded all around us as they released their bombs, the wailing sirens of the Stuka’s filling the air in a terrifying cacophony that made it difficult to even think.
    But somehow I did think. “Take cover!” I screamed, pointing to the dug-out and seconds later the five of us fell into it, in a jumble of arms and legs. What a brilliant decision, because right behind the Stuka’s came Messershmitt’s. The machine guns from which tore up the earth, where a second ago we had stood.
    We watched struck dumb and horrified as the bullets ricocheted around the gun position, demolishing everything in their path.
    “Blimey! I don’t like this anymore.” said Harry, as he pushed his tin hat back, getting a better view of the proceedings from behind the tarpaulin.
    We could hear more bombs exploding as the planes pressed home their attack.
    “Shall we give ‘em some back Bomb?” Fishy shouted from the back of the dugout.
    “Are you after a medal or something?” I replied “The only thing you’ll give them if you leave here is your arse, our best hope is to sit this one out.”
    Just as quickly as it had started the attack was over, we left the dug out after about five minutes of silence. Slowly other blokes started to appear from around the other gun positions.
    The amount of damage caused by the attack was difficult to believe. Four men had been killed and twelve were injured (two seriously). Four guns including ours had been damaged beyond use and five trucks once again, including ours, were rendered useless when a direct hit on one that was loaded with HE had blown up the others.
    We attended to the wounded, buried the dead, reorganised the guns and stripped anything useful from the damaged equipment. When all of this had been attended to, Captain Roberts called us all together. I think we were all feeling guilty that we hadn’t returned fire but Captain Roberts explained to us that we had done the right thing in taking cover.
    “We have an important job to do here and we can’t do it without you. So I need you alive and operating your guns, you’re no good to me dead.”
    “Stay alert and with any luck we can get our revenge when they start coming down this road, and believe me they will start coming and soon so be ready.”
    With that he walked back to the command tent.
    The lads split up into their crews again and we walked back, we’d been given another gun that had previously been the property of one of the injured crews. We moved out our old one and put the replacement into position and then we got the stove lit and put on a big Dixie of stew and some potatoes