Tramp in Armor

 

I first read Colin Forbes' 1969 novel Tramp in Armour two or three decades ago and loved it. I'm pretty sure I remember reading it a second time in 2005, on my first trip to South Sudan. In those pre-Kindle days and with a 30 pound limit on luggage (we fly into Sudan on a small putt-putt plane), I was only able to bring a few paperbacks for the trip and had to ration them carefully. 

Anyway, my paperback disappeared some time ago, but I recently ran across another copy and enjoyed reading it yet again.

In May 1940, a British tank is trapped in a railway tunnel in Belgium for several days right after the Germans attack. When they dig themselves out, they find themselves many miles behind enemy lines.

This is the basic premise of Tramp in Armour, an unlikely plot made possible because the German tanks blitzing across France have outrun their infantry and there are few actual occupation troops between "Bert" (the British tank) and the front lines near Dunkirk. Still, getting back to the Allied lines is not without danger. A series of mini-adventures keep the tension high and present us with a number of truly edge-of-your-seat action scenes. The tank has to hide under a bridge while a German armored column drives right over them; they have to deal with a "helpful" Belgium civilian who may not be who he claims to be; French looters take a potshot at them; a wounded crewman needs a doctor, and so on. Every time they fight or plan their way out of one dangerous situation, something else dangerous pops up almost immediately. The story's pace is one for which the word "breathless" was created.

It's great stuff, with the non-stop prose going fast enough to hide most of the more unrealistic parts. The main character--Sgt. Barnes--is an excellent soldier able to improvise constantly, but he's also very human, subject to exhaustion and mistakes. 

There are a series of coincidences near the end that might stretch credulity too far. First, they kill an officer in a staff car that just happens to carry vital information with him (though, to be fair, the author footnotes that something similar happened in real life.) Second, the crew is joined by a downed RAF pilot who happens to be an demolitions expert. Third, they just happened to find some abandoned explosives. 

But, since this leads to a fantastic final battle in which Barnes rigs the tank to become a bomb aimed at a vital German ammunition dump, I'm willing to forgive what might otherwise be one coincidence too many. Also, by this time, the crew has gone through so much and accomplished so much by the skin of their teeth, that (dramatically speaking) they have earned a little good luck.

Sadly, Tramp in Armour appears to be out-of-print at the moment. Keep an eye peeled for a used paperback. It'll be worth your money.