Alamein

by Iain Gale

  The radio crackled into life again: Nuts Five. Nuts Five. Where the hell are you? Can’t see you. Repeat can’t see you. Conform. Conform. Speed up. Off.’

  He was just beginning to give up all hope when dead ahead he saw several Crusaders and realized that it was the regiment at last.

  He swung into line and radioed in a little sheepishly. ‘Nuts Five in position. Off.’

  Thankfully there was no reply. They stopped the engine and while Evan began to read a cheap crime novel, Mudie spoke: ‘Can you pass me a biscuit, sir?’

  Douglas found the small packet of hard army-issue biscuits and having given one to the truculent Glaswegian helped himself and cut some cheese for them both from their meagre ration. He had just finished his food and was sitting outside, on the front of the tank looking into the misty dawn when there was a whoosh, followed by a huge explosion and a shell-burst about a hundred yards over to his left.

  For two hours the shelling continued. He was constantly surprised by the calmly phlegmatic attitude of his comrades, who acted as though the shells might be as innocuous as a shower of rain. In fact, they kept missing and Douglas presumed the gunners not only were unable to see the tanks clearly but had some problem with their ranging. By eleven o’clock he was becoming bored.

  He leant into the turret and pulled out the radio transceiver, clicked it on and spoke. ‘Sir. D’you think we’ll see any action today.’

  Nothing.

  He tried again. A fellow troop commander came on. ‘I say, Nuts One, what price this? When do we go in?’

  There was a crackle and the major’s voice came on the set. ‘Nuts Five. Pipe down will you, and don’t get overanxious. We’ll be in there soon enough.’

  He opened a tin of fruit and the crew brewed some tea. As he was eating a small party of men appeared in the midst of the tanks, an infantry sergeant and three privates with an enemy prisoner, a young German boy. Douglas thought that he could not have been much more than fifteen and hoped that he was wrong.

  The sergeant stopped to rest near Douglas and the German sat down on the sand. ‘Prisoner, sir. Sniper. Waited for us to pass through and then took pot shots at us. Hit some of my lads. Good men. What do you think we should do with him, sir?’

  Douglas looked at the lad. ‘Take him back to Brigade, Sar’nt. I should.’

  ‘Shoot the bugger, sir, that’s what I say. After what he did.’

  One of the privates spoke up. ‘Sarge, he’s just a nipper. Just give ’im a cup of tea and a fag. We don’t need to kill him.’

  The sergeant shook his head. ‘Well I say shoot the bugger. That’s what I say.’

  As Douglas watched, they went on their way, still arguing the boy’s fate. He wondered what would become of him and just then another infantry patrol appeared. One of the corporals approached him. ‘See them Jerry wrecks out there. Them two, sir? There’s a machine-gun nest in one of them. Why don’t you run over them, sir? Squash ’em flat with that you could.’ He pointed to the tank.

  Douglas smiled: ‘I’ll have to ask permission. See what I can do.’

  The man left and he radioed the squadron commander. ‘Sir, permission to fire on an enemy machine-gun post beneath a derelict tank.’

  The major thought for a moment, then: ‘All right. Give them a few bursts. But don’t take any risks.’

  Douglas spoke to the gunner: ‘See that wreck, Evan. Give them a few bursts of the machine-gun.’

  Evan smiled and the gun rattled into life, making the sand jump around the wreck. Then, nothing. Evan cussed: ‘Bugger. Bloody thing’s jammed, sir.’ He cleared the action and re-cocked the gun, then pressed the trigger. The gun sputtered out a few more rounds then stopped again.

  ‘Shit. Done it again. You should have run the belt over the six-pounder, sir, like I told you.’

  ‘Nonsense. It’s perfectly free on my side.’

  ‘No, sir. If you’d run it over the gun.’

  ‘Evan, you know that’s rubbish.’

  ‘Sorry, sir, but you’re talking bollocks.’

  ‘Evan! You can’t talk to me like that.’

  ‘But it is, sir. It is total bollocks. Should have run the ammo belt over the gun. Simple.’

  Douglas, fuming with rage, turned to Mudie: ‘Drive towards the enemy. Slowly.’

  Evan, realizing what was happening, wasn’t talking now but trying to fix the erratic machine-gun and swearing all the time. Douglas yelled into the i/c microphone: ‘Halt.’ The tank stopped and he peered through his binoculars.

  Evan swore: ‘Bugger. Bloody thing.’

  Douglas looked hard at the wreck for any sign of enemy activity. If they were still there, he thought, they must be petrified. The radio came to life. It was the major: ‘Nuts Five, am going back to the NAAFI for lemonade and buns. Take charge. Off.’

  Douglas realized that his troop had been left alone. Evan shouted: ‘The only way this bastard’s going to fire is if I mount it on the turret and fire it direct.’

  They managed to get the gun up through the hatch and lodged it securely in the turret mounting. Douglas yelled at Mudie, ‘Advance!’ and the tank rumbled forward. Evan opened fire again and hit the wreck. There was a shout from behind them and an infantry subaltern leaped on to the tank and beamed at Douglas. ‘Awfully good of you to help us out, old boy.’

  The subaltern looked at the wreck, shouted, ‘There they go,’ and they watched as two Germans climbed from a gun pit to its left. The men advanced towards them, their hands raised. And then an extraordinary thing happened, something which Douglas had simply not expected. From other gun pits all around them, other Germans rose up and began to walk towards them. Evan was the first off the tank but not before he had borrowed Douglas’s revolver. Together with the young subaltern they began to walk from pit to pit yelling at the surrendering Germans. ‘Come on. Get out of it.’ Douglas found a rifle lying in one of the machine-gun pits and pointed it at the men. He tried to think of the German for ‘move’ and settled on ‘Raus, raus’, which he began to shout with gusto.

  As they collected the prisoners they also picked up their guns and supplies: rifles, machine-guns, Spandaus mainly, and the treasured Luger pistols. Douglas and Evan loaded them on to the back of the tank, tied them in place and then climbed aboard and drove along behind the column of prisoners. There were about forty of them, he reckoned. He clicked on the radio and spoke to the major: ‘Nuts Five. Have taken some prisoners.’

  ‘Nuts Five. How many prisoners exactly? Over.’

  ‘About figures four zero. Over.’

  ‘Bloody good show, Nuts Five. Most excellent.’

  The colonel came on the line: ‘Douglas. We want you to get these chaps straight back to our Brigadier. You deserve to get all the credit for this.’

  ‘Not really, sir. It was my gunner and an infantry lieutenant who did most of it.’

  ‘Nonsense. It’s your kill. In at the death. You get the credit. Get it for the regiment, Douglas.’

  Evan piped up: ‘You’re a bloody fool to say that, sir. Reckon you’ve just thrown away your MC.’

  Douglas chose to ignore this last piece of insubordination. ‘Well, if that’s the case then it was totally undeserved.’

  Still wondering what he should do, take the credit or give it to the infantry, Douglas surveyed the turret. It was a mess. The machine-gun ammo belt had coiled itself everywhere and the microphone and headphone wires were a tangled heap into which had melted an upturned tin of Kraft cheese. He managed to find a set of phones and a mike from which he tried to wipe the congealed cheese. It was useless. Nevertheless, he placed the messy but still functioning phones on his head and pressed the on button. ‘Nuts Five. Permission to retire.’

  ‘All right, Nuts Five. Retire and reorganize and call in at the CO’s tank as you go. Off.’

  As he drew alongside Piccadilly Jim’s tank a head popped up through the turret and yelled across. But such was the noise from the two engines that he was hardly able to hear a thing.
Only the words ‘good show’, ‘recommend’ and ‘MC’ came across. Douglas could hardly believe it. They halted for a quarter of an hour and brewed up in silence before rejoining the regiment. Douglas leant against the tracks of the tank and pulled out a piece of paper from his pocket. Since coming to the front he had been trying to write a new poem, something of how he felt about what they were doing. He had given it a working title, ‘The Offensive’, and to date had managed two opening lines. ‘The stars are dead men in the sky/Who will applaud the way you die.’

  It was good, he thought, very good, but he had not been able to think of the following line. He had thought of some deity looking down and watching but could not work out how to express the idea. Something perhaps about the sun. The sun was omnipresent and to the Egyptians the sun had been a deity. Hardly surprising. He tried a line:…the way you die: /The perfect sun…’

  No. Perfect was not right. He needed a word that summed up the mercilessness of the whole thing. Cruel perhaps. Or callous. Or easy. The easy sun. It sounded right. He was about to write it down and it was at that moment that the first of the German tanks began to advance towards them out of the setting sun. Shells came crashing in around the tank and he heard the now familiar whoosh of an 88. Tanks supported by anti-tank guns, a lethal combination that meant business.

  He tucked away the poem and saw the major’s tank pulling back and spoke to Mudie. ‘Retire please. Slowly.’

  They moved in reverse and after a few dozen yards came to a halt. The radio crackled. They had picked up one of the other tanks calling up artillery support.

  ‘Smoke. Smoke for God’s sake. Give us some smoke, we’re being hit from all sides. Smoke. For Christ’s…’ The radio went dead.

  He crouched down in the tank turret and waited for the shell that would destroy them. Perhaps, he thought, this is my moment. I’ve just taken forty prisoners and been recommended in all probability for an MC. Now I get killed. Perfect. He realized that he was absolutely terrified, more than he could remember ever having been in his life. Also that he had no idea whatsoever as to what was going on around him.

  There was a shout down the radio. ‘Open fire, Nuts Five. Range one zero zero zero. Give those buggers every round you have. Over.’

  It was a general squadron order and as they prepared to fire, Douglas heard the other squadron commanders report. ‘One OK off, Two OK off, Three OK off.’

  Douglas spoke into the intercom. ‘Evan. Open fire.’

  ‘I can’t see a fuckin’ thing.’

  ‘Bugger that man, fire at them. Fire at range one thousand.’

  Evan fired the six-pounder and Douglas reloaded it in an instant. Within a few minutes the deflector bag was full of shell cases. Douglas threw out the hot cases with a gloved hand while Evan fired the now mended machine-gun, an entire belt of ammunition passing through it in seconds. The smell inside the turret was vile. Ammo fumes, cordite, smoke and hot metal. They were all coughing now. Douglas could feel the sweat trickling down his back.

  Looking out he could see the colours of the tracer crisscrossing the desert. To his left a heavy machine-gun rattled away. Above their heads shells flew towards the enemy, 75s by the sound of them. But the night was drawing in fast and as visibility grew close to nil the firing suddenly ceased. He spoke to Mudie: ‘Head for home.’

  The tank rattled and creaked back towards the regiment and their leaguer. Douglas felt as if he had been in battle all his life. Every bone, every joint in his body seemed to ache. But there was a sense too of exaltation of a sort he had never felt before. He had been in battle for a day. His first day. It had been a real baptism of fire. Now he knew what it was to be in combat, the reality of all those stories he had fed on as a boy. But there was more than this. Much more. For he had survived.

  THIRTY-FIVE

  8.00 a.m. HQ Eighth Army de Guingand

  He looked at the piece of paper that lay on his desk. A note scribbled in haste by John Poston and intended for him to pass on to Montgomery. He thought that instead he would incorporate it in the morning’s situation report. He read it again.

  ‘Last night units of Australian 26th Brigade engaged the enemy’s 90th Light Division at the railway line. They succeeded in crossing the railway line and reaching the coast but took heavy casualties in the process. Turning east to attack Thompson’s Post they removed the 125th Panzergrenadiers from the battle as an effective fighting unit.’

  It was the news they had been waiting for. The Australians had broken through and reached the coast at the same time annihilating one of Rommel’s crack units. He wrote it out in his own hand and then added a postscript.

  ‘The Australians performed throughout the attack with quite exceptional bravery. They have taken over 5000 casualties.’

  PART THREE

  Operation Supercharge

  Sunday 1 November

  THIRTY-SIX

  Dusk Near Kidney Ridge Miller

  He stood by the Dodge and gazed spellbound at the scene before him. It was as if an entire people were on the move, a great horde of humanity busily going in different directions. For two days infantry, tanks and transports had been assembling in the rear echelons of the army. The noise was incredible, a hubbub of tongues and argots combined with a grinding and clanking of the machinery of war and the titanic rumble of the armour. It was only, he supposed what armies had done for countless centuries and he imagined such a scene taking place in Carthage or Rome or here in Egypt. The difference of course was that these men carried weapons beyond the imagining of their ancient forebears and they fought not on horseback but in steel machines.

  Miller’s world had changed irrevocably over the past few days, but he still could not help but find in the momentous events taking place around him resounding echoes of the past. He had changed. His values had been challenged and he was no longer the utterly self-assured young man who had come out here to help repair the wounds of flawed humanity.

  For the last three days there had been a lull and they had spent some days out of the line, being used, it seemed to Miller, to move around everything except that which they had come to move, wounded men. He had transported flour, water, medical supplies and tinned fruit. But not one casualty.

  ‘That’s because there ain’t been no wounded to pick up,’ said Turk, wryly. ‘On account of the fact that the Brits are winning. Perhaps the Krauts have just given up and run back to Uncle Adolf.’

  Bigelow, now fully recovered from his buttock wound, raised his head from his book and observed, ‘No, I don’t think so, Turk. I think it’s something else. They haven’t been firing at us because we haven’t been firing at them. And d’you know why that is? Word is that Monty’s preparing for a second big push and that this time it’s going to be done with tanks.’

  Turk looked puzzled. ‘What d’you think, Lieutenant?’

  Evan Thomas pondered for a moment: ‘I think the Prof’s right. All I hear at HQ is talk of this big push. It’s bound to be a tank battle. The Brits need to give Rommel a real bloody nose and the best way to do that is with their tanks.’

  ‘Our tanks,’ Turk reminded him. ‘Shermans and Grants.’

  ‘Our tanks. OK Turk, you win.’

  ‘We win, Loot. With babies like these on our side, who’s gonna stop us?’

  He pointed to a long column of Sherman tanks that was moving up the track and into the divisional holding area. As they came past Miller noticed that on the side of one of the turrets someone had painted, quite deftly, a huge eye. The eye of Horus. It intrigued him. One of the troopers was sitting on the hatch and as the tank drew closer to them, Miller yelled up at him and pointed. ‘Hi there. Like the decal. But why the eye of Horus?’

  The man, who was actually the tank commander and an old Etonian who had left his classical studies at Oxford to join the cavalry, heard his approval and shouted to him. ‘Thanks, Yank. Well spotted. Nearest thing they’ve got out here to a God of War. Had to have something on there to put the wind up Jerry. I
put it on with sump oil and the black off a brew-tin.’

  Miller watched him go and prayed that Horus would watch over the fellow classicist, whoever he was. The evening wore on and, without orders, they stood and watched the procession go by. Miller had managed to find some tins of maconochie stew and heated it up over a sand burner. They washed it down with a half-dozen bottles of Egyptian Stella beer, that Turk had bartered in exchange for two packs of Lucky Strikes. And then they stretched out on the bonnet and roof of the Dodge and watched the stars and heard the rumble of the tanks. The sky was alive with lights: starshells and tracers of orange, green, red and blue and bright white.

  It was 1 a.m. precisely when the barrage began. A week ago it might have alarmed him, but Miller was used to it now. He heard the thumps, looked up and saw a wall of flame over in the west. So this was it. He knew now that within a matter of minutes the British and their six nations of allies would be advancing, tanks and men moving forward to death or victory. And for the first time he felt a real part of it. That alarmed him. It was not a feeling he had expected to experience. Yet here he was wishing with all his might that this night the British would prevail against their enemies and in simple terms that meant kill them.

  No one was sleeping. Thomas, who had disappeared half an hour before, turned up at 2 a.m. with fresh orders. ‘OK. Here’s the gen. We’re a roving unit. We sit tight here and whenever Division gives us the nod, we move out and help whichever guys need us most.’

  Turk spoke: ‘Like we’re the cavalry and we come to the rescue of whoever needs us. Wow.’

  ‘Got it in one, Turk. We’re the damn cavalry.’

  The first call came through to them at 3 a.m. Thomas got the order over the wireless then hurried around from the makeshift signals hut to the ambulance park. Miller and Turk had been playing cards – brag – with some guys from a New Zealand ambulance unit, and winning well. Around them hundreds of men were hunched up sleeping, or trying to sleep, despite the constant traffic grinding through this terrible place along the single track road. Somewhere, perhaps not too far away some wag was playing a wind-up gramophone – ‘Night and Day You are the One’. Intermittently someone shouted at him to turn it off. Thomas coughed and spoke: ‘OK, you guys, we’re on. There’s a British tank regiment about three miles distant due west. The Sherwood Rangers.’