Alamein

by Iain Gale

  ‘Oh Jeeze, Lieutenant. Not again. How come you always get to win?’

  ‘Privilege of rank, Turk. Nothing more. Goes with the territory.’

  Charlie Turk, a muscle-bound quarterback with a navy-cut hairstyle and wearing a T-shirt with his British army-issue shorts, sat on a bunk in the back of the ambulance and paid the lieutenant his winnings. Then he picked up the pack and shuffled before dealing out two new hands on the rough red serge of the British army-issue hospital blanket.

  ‘Double or quits, Lieutenant. What d’you say?’

  ‘It’s your funeral, Turk.’

  Lieutenant Evan Thomas grinned. This would be the sixth game he had played against Turk. He looked at the wodge of dollar bills at his side and tried to guess how much he had won. Four hundred? He really hated to fleece poor Turk, but if the guy insisted.

  They fanned out their hands and took a look at them. Neither man smiled.

  At length Turk spoke: ‘Card.’

  The lieutenant handed him a card. He looked at it and said nothing.

  The lieutenant took a card. Turk smiled: ‘OK three kings. What you got?’

  ‘Full house. I win.’

  ‘Beats me. You win again. I swear, Loot, you’ve got the luck of the devil himself.’

  ‘Not the devil, Turk. I sure don’t get my luck from him. If anyone’s on my side, it’s got to be the big guy. Don’t you think?’

  Miller did not play cards, had not been brought up that way. His family were Quakers. For his part he had not yet decided, but he was pretty certain that there was some deity above them. He only hoped that whatever or whoever it was would be looking out for him in the coming battle. Because they were sure there was going to be a battle. A big one. That’s why they had been rushed here from Alexandria so fast. The lieutenant began to count his money. Miller guessed there was a time and place for everything and he had seen more things in this war than he had ever thought he would. And surely, even if God was against gambling, if He could countenance such inhumanity then He would bend the rules a little when it came to a card game. Although it did seem a little unfair that the lieutenant kept winning all the time.

  He liked Thomas, who wore his officer’s rank lightly. The service was nominally subject to British army law but they had worked it out with the Brits that their own officers could dish out whatever punishments were needed.

  Turk was a character too. A football player who had won a sports scholarship to Harvard and come out here to see some action before he was called up to the US army. He figured that it would give him some good battlefield experience and Miller reckoned he would probably be right.

  As for himself, he had not really known what to expect. He had joined and volunteered in the fervour that came of adrenalin and then halfway across the Atlantic on the Aquitania had almost regretted it when a member of the ship’s crew had attempted suicide and the game had become a reality. But by then it had been too late.

  One thing he did know. He had not yet seen a dead man, had not even seen a single casualty still on the battlefield. Sure, he had seen enough wounded in the hospitals in Cairo and Alexandria but did they really count? He reckoned not. They were all dressed and bundled up. Even the amputees seemed sanitized. No, Miller had not seen the full horror of war and he was not sure just how he was going to react to it.

  Turk’s voice cut through his thoughts: ‘See this. It’s crap, McGinty. Pure crap. The lieutenant wins every time.’

  The fourth member of their team, Joe McGinty, an Irishman from New York looked up from his copy of a comic book: ‘So why d’ya keep playing, you great lunk?’

  ‘Well I reckon he’s got to lose sometime, ain’t he? I mean stands to reason that even the lieutenant’s luck’s got to run out sometime, don’t it?’

  Miller shook his head and went on reading: ‘…the Persians, even before they were within the range of the arrows, wavered and ran away. Then the Greeks pressed on the pursuit vigorously, but they shouted to each other not to run, but to follow up the enemy without breaking ranks…’

  He wondered whether it would be like that when the British attacked and conjectured just what ‘pressed on the pursuit vigorously’ might mean. He envisaged ragged ranks of Greeks hacking in all directions, swords meeting flesh as the Persians fell under the advancing army. Razor-sharp steel slicing through skin and tissue and sinew and bone. ‘Pressed on the pursuit vigorously’. It sounded almost modern. Might even feature on one of Monty’s orders.

  Turk, after his seventh losing game, had dealt an eighth. But no amount of money lost at cards could take his mind off a fear that had got hold of him. He was rattled and he wanted some answers. ‘What I don’t understand, Loot, is what we’re doing here. If we’re so strong why aren’t we chasing Rommel’s men back into the sea?’

  Thomas studied his cards as he spoke: ‘We’re playing a waiting game, Turk. Just waiting. Like when you play cards. We’re trying to out-guess the enemy, figure out his next move. The British are waiting for him to make a mistake then they’ll pounce.’ He played his hand.

  ‘Shee-it! Sorry, Lieutenant. But Jeeze. OK, you win. That’s it. I’m done.’

  McGinty spoke: ‘He’s got a point, Lieutenant. How did we end up here?’

  From the other side of the ambulance another man emerged. Ed Bigelow was a geology student at Princeton. His black-rimmed spectacles sat on the bridge of his birdlike nose. In one hand he held a piece of rock, in the other a small magnifying glass. If Bigelow had one failing it was his inability to stifle his penchant for wicked sarcasm. He smiled at McGinty: ‘Don’t you remember, Joe, you came out on that transporter ship. Across the sea. Big blue watery thing. Took a while to cross. Wow, your memory!’

  He hit the side of his head.

  McGinty gave him a look that said: one more comment like that and you’re a dead man.

  Thomas saw it too: ‘Cool it, McGinty, he’s only winding you up. You know how Monty got here. They were pushed back all along the coast. But hey, this is as good a place as I’ve seen to stand and fight.’ He turned to Miller: ‘What about you, Josh? You’re the student of classical history, you know your battles. Is this a good place to fight?’

  Bigelow spoke before Miller could answer: ‘Is anywhere a good place to fight?’

  McGinty saw his chance: ‘Oh, here we go. The philosophy student is here, guys. Say hello to the professor.’

  Turk looked at him: ‘Aw, give it a rest, Joe. It was a fair comment. Who wants to fight anywhere?’

  McGinty shook his head: ‘What puzzles me, Charlie, is how you ever got into Harvard.’

  ‘You seen me play? That’s how. And if you got anything to say about my brains clever klutz then talk to the fist, big boy. Dumb Mick.’

  Thomas stood up, ready to stop the fight. But Miller had seen it too, and knew that they were just tired of waiting and wound up not in fact by each other but merely by the terrible nervous tension which ran through everyone, the sense of the approaching battle and all the uncertainty it brought. He interrupted: ‘In point of fact this is a good defensive position. We have the sea on one side and the Quattara Depression on the other. We have no flanks.’

  McGinty looked interested: ‘So what you’re saying is, we’re safer here.’

  ‘You could put it that way, yes.’

  Thomas sat back down. Turk began to shuffle the cards. Miller looked back at the book: ‘Cyrus was pleased when he saw the Greeks winning and driving the enemy back before them…but he was not so carried away as to join in the pursuit…Seeing that no frontal attack was being made he wheeled right in an outflanking movement…’

  He wondered whether Rommel or whoever was now commanding the Germans and Italians over there might attempt something similar. Must remember to ask Lieutenant Thomas that one. Thomas was a good guy, in charge of a platoon of Fifteen Company of which they were a section. Each platoon contained five sections three of them with four ambulances, two with five. Each section was manned by one NCO, a spare driver
, a mechanic and five drivers, eight men in all for four or five ambulances.

  Thomas had been out here since May, taken part in the retreat from Tobruk and had seen a few friends die. Stuka attacks mostly. But there had been one time when the Germans had caught a convoy with machine-gun fire and mortars. Sometimes he spoke about it. Sometimes not. His actual name was Evan Winchall Thomas II and he was heir to a fortune on the east coast. His ambition, he had told Miller one starry evening as they sat drinking beer, was to go into publishing and Miller wondered whether he would ever achieve it.

  Since July Thomas’s platoon along with four others, with a total availability of twenty-two in all, had been posted to the New Zealanders. That was something else that had struck him in Cairo. The fact that they had come from all over the world to fight this war. Cairo, already a cosmopolitan city, was made all the more exotic by the thousands of battledress-clad men and women who thronged its streets by day and night. Miller had not visited the notorious Birka red-light district, though encouraged to do so by Turk. He had no desire to watch an ugly couple copulating for money. He had luxuriated though in the coffee houses, had drunk mint tea in Al Fashawi’s in the bazaar and eaten ice-cream at Groppi’s.

  Alexandria if anything was better and they had been allowed to use the New Zealanders’ YMCA hostel where they could get a clean bed and breakfast for sixty-two cents. Miller looked up. The situation was still tense.

  ‘What’s your opinion of Cairo, Professor?’

  Bigelow looked up from his rock and twiddled his spectacles: ‘Cairo is like a woman. A woman who has let herself go. She is not young, far from it, and is over-painted, overpowdered, overscented and fat. Her vices, while somewhat deplorable can be amusing, but what is really unforgivable is her lack of fastidiousness with regard to her own person. She is though, a lady and something of a wit.’

  Turk laughed: ‘I never heard such crap, Prof.’

  Miller smiled. ‘You’ve excelled yourself, Ed. And I tend to agree with you, on all counts.’

  Turk spoke: ‘Prof, what I don’t get is why you’re here out in the desert with us and not back in Cairo in HQ.’

  ‘Because I want to be here. What is the point of observing the action when you can be part of it?’

  ‘Looks like you’re about to get your chance.’ McGinty pointed to a soldier wearing a tin hat who was running in the direction of the lieutenant. The man presented him with a sheet of paper, saluted and ran off, before Thomas had time to return the gesture.

  ‘I don’t think I’ll ever get used to this saluting lark.’ He unfolded the paper: ‘Thank God, orders.’ He read carefully then folded the paper and put it in his breast pocket. ‘OK, saddle up, guys. We’re to drive to the New Zealand field dressing-station.’ He pointed: ‘It’s no more than a mile down that track. Moon Track.’

  Half an hour later, as they bumped across the sand, Miller thanked God for the Dodges and their superior suspension. McGinty read his mind: ‘This vehicle is the ultimate in comfort.’

  ‘You know, we’re lucky to have it. The new guys have had to take what they could, mostly crummy British Humbers and Austins.’

  The ambulances had become their homes, infinitely preferable to occupying the trenches and dugouts abandoned by the enemy which were often infested with rats and fleas. Instead the Dodges offered bedroom, dining room and kitchen. An old shell storage box strapped to the front fender made a fine wardrobe, lice and flea-free and the exhaust pipe doubled up as a camp stove. By night they draped blankets across the windows to avoid infringing the blackout while a stretcher slung in the centre made an excellent table.

  Miller reflected how quickly they had adapted to the hardships of desert life. The soldiers had been helpful, cautioning them not to put their hand into any holes in rocks; scorpions and vipers liked nothing better than a nice dark hole; always to check their boots before they put them on for the same reason. They had showed them how to ‘brew up’, that meant make tea, using a sand cooker where you tipped petrol into a tin half-filled with sand then set fire to it before putting your billy-can on the top to boil the water. Sweet and strong, that was how the British soldiers liked their tea, the New Zealanders too. Miller was beginning to get a taste for it. Well, there was no alternative. Nothing of course could prepare you for the khamsin, the desert wind that blew across the sand fifty days of every year. The Bedouin said ‘if the khamsin blows for three days a man can surely kill his wife. For five days and he has the right to kill his neighbour. Seven days and he may kill himself.’

  At length they arrived at the field dressing-station, a New Zealand station just inside the British minefield area. The first thing that struck Miller was the bigger-than-usual lorry parked up beside the surgical tent. Pictured on its side was a vampire bat. A blood truck, refrigerated. No sooner had they pulled up than to their surprise a British voice addressed them, straight from the Home Counties rather than Auckland or Wellington.

  ‘I say, you men there. This way.’ A British army officer was standing beside the entrance to the surgical tent. He smiled: ‘Captain Anderson, Army Medical Corps. You’re the Americans?’

  ‘That’s us, sir. All the way from the US of A. Here to help in any way we can, Captain.’

  ‘Well, glad to have you here. I trust that all your men are acquainted with the battle evacuation procedure?’

  Thomas nodded: ‘Sure, Captain. We’ve studied it enough. Stretcher-bearers bring the wounded to the regimental aid post where they’re seen by the MO then we pick ’em up and take them to an advanced dressing-station for treatment.’

  The captain suddenly noticed the door of the Dodge on which was painted the insignia of the AFS, against the background of the red cross on white, an American eagle wearing a top hat.

  ‘What the devil’s that?’

  ‘It’s the uh…unit insignia, sir, officially approved by your top brass. They call it “the chicken”.’

  ‘Is it indeed. I mean was it? Do they? Well I never. Mind you if it bonds you all together then we must agree. Where was I?’ He paused and stared at the men: ‘I say. Don’t your men salute an officer?’

  ‘Well, yes in theory they should, sir. But they’re not trained soldiers you see, Captain. Perhaps you could cut them a bit of slack?’

  The captain stared at Thomas: ‘Cut them what? I think it highly improper, Lieutenant, for any man in the King’s uniform not to salute an officer. And that includes you. You will rectify the situation and ensure that in future your men salute at the appropriate time. Is that clear?’

  ‘Sir. Very clear, sir.’

  ‘Oh, and incidentally I shall be moving out pretty soon. There’s a New Zealand officer taking over here, a Major Coswell. And, Lieutenenant, I suggest that you make sure that you remember what I’ve told you. He’s a bit of a hero from what I hear. He and his team were put in the bag in the big Wavell push. Suffice to say, they escaped. You can stand your men down. I’m sure someone will find you when they need you.’

  He walked off into the tent. Thomas turned to the men and removed his peaked cap. ‘Well. That told me.’

  McGinty spoke: ‘Listen, Loot. Way I understand it we’re not under military law.’

  ‘We still have to take orders though.’

  Turk shook his head: ‘But we ain’t what was the word? “Amenable to summary punishment”.’

  Miller spoke: ‘In effect we’re camp followers.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘In the old days, when an army went to war it took its baggage train and attached to the baggage train were always what they called “camp followers”. You know, wives, girlfriends, the guys who provided the food and water and beer. Bakers, blacksmiths. Well in a sense, that’s what we are.’

  ‘I ain’t no wife or girlfriend. And I ain’t no baker.’

  ‘But you are here to help the army. You’re part of the army establishment.’

  It was true. They were not militarily trained and the British army was nervous of them. They had been gi
ven a basic course in the way the army worked and its organization and the idea of saluting by an RASC lieutenant shortly after they had landed. But soldiers they were not and never would be. They were misfits, thought Miller, and not for the first time he worried about how they would fit in in the thick of battle.

  Thomas wiped the sweat from his forehead with a spotted handkerchief. ‘OK. Now Colonel Blimp’s gone I think we can relax for a while, boys. Turk, hows about a game of poker?’

  Bigelow took off his glasses and began to polish them as he spoke. ‘Have you thought, Lieutenant, that this might not be such a great time to gamble?’

  ‘Say again?’

  ‘Well, sir. You see I reckon that you can only have a certain amount of luck. It’s what the Limeys say too. And by the law of averages, it stands to reason, don’t you think that if you use all your luck up here, playing cards with Turk, and winning all the time, then when we do get up to the battlefield your luck may just run out?’

  Thomas laughed and began to deal: ‘OK, Turk and anyone else who wants to make a quick buck. Let’s play cards and see if you can win it all back from me before we have to move.’

  SEVEN

  8.00 p.m. Behind Bab Al Quattara Lieutenant Ralf Ringler

  It was almost dusk when Lieutenant Ralf Ringler finally reached the area which for the last month had held the small command post of Panzergrenadier Regiment 104. For a moment though he wondered if he hadn’t taken a wrong turning somewhere back across the sand. It was easy enough to do in this wretched wasteland. For, instead of the stripped-back, rock-walled and sandbagged strongpoint to which he had become accustomed, there stood a huge tent. He stopped and stared at the wall of field-grey canvas and watched as the battalion orderlies went hurriedly in and out carrying boxes of rations and cases of wine. The battalion adjutant, Major Werter, came out puffing on a short cigar and, seeing Ringler’s absent-minded look, smiled and went towards him.