El Alamein

by Jack Murray

  Mathias Schuster stood up to his full six feet five and ran a hand down his exceptionally thin body. A grin lit up his face.

  ‘How do you think I maintain such a physique?’

  The other gunners laughed, and some bread was thrown in his direction which, much to his own surprise as much as his comrades, Mathias caught and popped into his mouth.

  Mathias put his hand to his forehead to shield his eyes from the midday sun. It was hot, not like summer, but still enough to burn. His skin, so white and delicate once, had hardened, like his body, to the rigours of the alien landscape that was now their home.

  He sat down again and used the bread to wipe up any remaining soup. He was no less hungry, though. He woke up hungry and went to bed hungry. Back home he’d never thought much about food. Now it filled his waking thoughts. If he got back home, he would dedicate himself to the cause of becoming obese. With such warm thoughts he heard the stir behind him of tank engines.

  He wondered if Manfred, Gerhardt and Lothar were out there now. It seemed like a lifetime ago since they were in training. Over a year of his short life had been spent in this horrible place. He’d been in action right from the moment he stepped onto the port side in Tripoli the previous May.

  Once again, he offered up a silent prayer of thanks to the heavens that he’d been considered too tall for service in a Panzer tank. They’d put him in the artillery. The luckiest break of his life. Well, almost. As he lay back against the big anti-tank gun, he heard a voice shouting out orders. He jumped up just in time to come eye to eye with Lieutenant Kessler.

  The two men viewed each other with mutual dislike. Everywhere he went. Every time. It didn’t matter where, the bullies would follow him. He was tall, skinny and smart. Different. They sensed weakness. Like a bee to pollen they came. Once it had been physical. Now it was verbal. Oddly, he no longer cared. Kessler could say what he wanted. Mathias would smile and salute. After so long in North Africa with these men, he knew where he stood. His comrades liked him. More importantly, they valued him. He took instruction well. He was tireless when digging trenches. And he was smart.

  ‘Schuster,’ barked Kessler. ‘Lying down again?’

  In fact, the whole gun crew had been resting but this was immaterial to Kessler.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ responded Mathias, eyes straight ahead. He avoided smiling but it was a close run thing. Best not to poke the beehive.

  Kessler glared at Mathias then, with nothing else to say, stalked forward to the next gun placement.

  ‘He loves you,’ said Sainz, a corporal and the crew’s leader. ‘Try not to get him too angry for God’s sake. I’ll bet you we’re the last to pull out.’

  An hour later, Sainz’s prediction proved accurate. Kessler returned and told them they would stay behind with one tank squadron. The other guns would be moved to a new position a kilometre away to the south west.

  ‘Might be better for us,’ pointed out Mathias to Sainz.

  The burly corporal from Leipzig shook his head and looked at Mathias, not without fondness.

  ‘Kessler has it in for you and that means for us also. Trust me. If they’re wrong and the Tommies attack again then we’re exposed.’

  ‘Let’s hope they try and outflank us,’ replied Mathias optimistically.

  ‘Hope? My feeling is we’re depending on their very predictability.

  19

  Bir Timer MR 380439, Libya: 5th June 1942

  Arthur slapped his cards down on the makeshift table and cackled loudly.

  ‘Read ‘em and weep, girls, read ‘em and weep.’

  This brought a predictable series of groans from the group around the table. Arthur pulled the matchsticks over towards him and pointed out that everyone around the table owed him the equivalent of thousands. Danny led the rest of the table in pointing out that his chances of ever seeing it, irrespective of what Herr Rommel had in store for him, were as likely as finding a virgin in a brothel.

  ‘Only if it’s you, son,’ pointed out Arthur which produced a prolonged burst of laughing, none louder than Danny’s. The winning hand was a pair of aces and eights. Unspoken around the table was a similar thought. This was the ‘dead man’s’ hand, named as such because it was reputed to have been what Wild Bill Hickock was holding when he was shot in the back by “Broken Nose” Jack McCall. The game was effectively over as the Londoner had all but cleaned out the other players.

  ‘I’ll prepare a chit for you boys on what you owe me,’ said Arthur.

  ‘Hurry up Arthur, I need something to clean my arse with now,’ said Corporal Alf Lumley, the gunner in Arthur’s tank. The group broke up and walked back in the darkness. The moon was blocked out by heavy cloud giving a chill to the air.

  Danny walked with Arthur back to his new tank. They looked at the M3 Stuart tank. For the past year it had been a stalwart of Allied armour. Yet, with the arrival of the larger and more powerful Grant, it somehow looked like a sardine tin with tracks. It had been tested in battle against the Panzers and been proven inferior. Having seen the devastation caused by the Grant, Arthur was less than impressed about returning to battle in this tank. Even in the dark, lit only by the campfires, it was plain that this particular tank had seen better days.

  Arthur spotted Danny gazing at the dents and bullet grazes. Nothing was said. Arthur shrugged and they parted. Danny returned to the makeshift tent that had been erected against their tank. Archie Andrews looked up from his book.

  ‘Did you win?’

  ‘No,’ replied Danny with a rueful smile.

  ‘I don’t know why you bother. You always lose.’

  Danny glanced over the shoulder of Andrews at the book. He was reading Don Quixote.

  ‘Is that Spanish?’

  ‘You’re quick,’ replied Andrews although not unkindly.

  ‘Did you learn it at university?’

  ‘No, I was there for a few years,’ said Andrews, setting the book down on his lap.

  ‘The Civil War?’ asked Danny in surprise.

  ‘Yes. Arrived a few months after it started. I went with some chums from Cambridge. It seemed the thing to do.’

  Danny sat down beside Andrews. He was no one’s idea of a soldier. The receding hairline, the spectacles and the rather skinny, unathletic body. Yet he’d probably gained more combat experience than anyone in their regiment.

  ‘I’d have thought you’d have had your fill of fighting after that. You might have been able to avoid it at your advanced age,’ laughed Danny. Andrews grinned.

  ‘Cheeky bugger. Yes, despite my elderly years, thirty really is quite ancient, it never occurred to me not to join up.’

  Andrews was silent for a moment. Danny watched him collect his thoughts, perhaps even his composure. There was no doubt that an old scar had become inflamed in the last few moments. He began to speak once more, but his voice tightened with hated became barely a whisper.

  ‘I was in Guernica, Danny,’ continued Andrews. He paused again. Danny felt his chest tighten. Whether it was guilt or empathy he didn’t know.

  ‘If you’d seen what they did. The bombing by those bastards.’ He spat the last word out with feeling. He stopped to regain some control then added, tears glinting in his eyes, ‘So many children dead. I never thought humans could be capable of such evil.’

  ‘I’m sorry for bringing it up again, Archie,’ replied Danny, honestly.

  Andrews smiled and patted him on the back.

  ‘Don’t worry. I was just going to say, though, if you’d been there, you’d have realised that to do nothing now would have been, in its own way, a greater crime. To sit back and allow these people to win? No. I couldn’t live with myself.’

  Danny nodded. His experience of the war and of the Germans had been different. The desert conflict had, in his experience and from listening to others, respected the rules of war. Danny recognized that, despite Andrews’ professorial manner, there was a hard glint in his eyes. He doubted the corporal would ever show much mercy whe
re German soldiers were concerned. However, neither of them, given their roles in the tank, would be called upon to make those instantaneous life and death decisions. As gunners, their targets were often half a mile away or further. The lack of proximity to the results of their fire protected them against self-reproach.

  -

  The shadow boxing continued throughout the next few days. The main threat came from long range shelling by the enemy’s eighty-eight-millimetre guns. This required the tanks to sidestep continually. It was a siege of sorts. Both sides were poised to strike but not yet prepared to commit. In between this dodging and weaving around artillery shells, there were occasional scuffles with stray tanks from both sides. It was wearying to the body and the spirit.

  Then the sky turned from blue to blood red and then, ultimately to black. The guns from both sides sang their shrill melody. But one thing was increasingly clear to Danny and the men. They were losing.

  First it was the death of the Lieutenant-Colonel Uniacke of the 5th Royal Tank Regiment. He’d been sharing the load of protecting the series of boxes on the Gazala Line with them. Then, a day later, the commander of the 3 RTR, ‘Pip’ Roberts, was wounded and narrowly escaped death when his tank was destroyed by a HE shell.

  Bir Hacheim fell despite the heroic resistance of the Free French. Then the combined 1st and 6th Royal Tank Regiments given such fearful beating by the Germans, it forced their withdrawal on the 12th of June.

  Things came to a head for Danny and the regiment on the 13th of June. The day started at 0530 with a sandstorm that initially paralysed both sides. The storms blew intermittently during the day limiting movement from the regiment. Early reports suggested that the artillery was making an impact on the German tanks. But then news came through that tank support was needed to avoid the Rigel Ridge being overrun. Danny and the squadron set off, reaching the ridge soon after five in the afternoon.

  Their instruction simple to express, difficult to achieve; delay the enemy armour. Danny wished that the man who’d given this order could see what he was looking at through his telescope. Spread out across half of the horizon was a dark, malevolent wave. A tidal surge that Danny knew was unstoppable. He could scarcely believe that so many enemy tanks could still be operational after all this time. Their own tanks were falling apart. Over the last fortnight they’d been on the receiving end of a battering.

  ‘Do they ever stop?’ wondered Andrews as he gazed at the approaching swell of German armour. They made a fearful sound like a throbbing growl. The ground seemed to tremble beneath them.

  ‘Apparently not,’ observed Benson. The two men could have been chatting at Simpsons over breakfast. A shell exploded fifty yards in front of their tank, a gout of sand flying twenty feet into the air. Benson raised one eyebrow and added, ‘Looks like the party is starting. Shaw, can you send them a few invitations?’

  Danny pressed the firing button a split second later. The firefight began. The tank was rocked time and time again by shells. Explosions ripped the atmosphere all around. After only a few minutes the air was an acrid blue with smoke and cordite.

  ‘C’mon, Danny,’ said Andrews, ‘They’re getting closer. Can’t you do something?’ He took off his spectacles and polished the mist from them.

  ‘You can have a go if you want,’ replied Danny as he squeezed another shot off.

  ‘I see myself as more of a sniper, old chum. I’ll leave the wild lunges to you and that big gun of yours.’

  A loud explosion to their left told them that one their tanks had been hit. There wasn’t time to see who it was or if anyone had survived. Meanwhile, the Germans kept advancing, impervious to the losses they were sustaining.

  The quick fire and manoeuvre tactics employed by the Panzers limited the impact of the long-range shelling from Danny and the remaining Grants’ seventy-five-millimetre guns.

  ‘The bastards won’t stay still,’ said Danny through teeth that were rapidly becoming too clenched to speak. ‘This damn gun is useless. I can’t move it to hit them.’

  ‘I think Fritz has worked this out,’ observed Benson drily. ‘Archie, are they in range yet?’

  The crump of the thirty-seven-millimetre was Andrews’ answer.

  ‘That’s a yes then,’ said Benson but there was an edge to his voice now. The Germans were closing and with each yard the intensity of fire grew. The radio was ablaze with communications between the tanks. The regiment was losing tank after tank

  ‘I make them five zero, zero yards now,’ said Benson on his mic. Whether he was providing firing instructions or sending a coded message to withdraw, Danny couldn’t decide. Behind them, Allied twenty five pounders were making more noise than impact. But Archie Andrews’ AP Armour Piercing shells were making their presence felt.

  ‘PG, start to move back. Slowly,’ ordered Benson.

  Six Grants backed away from the ridge and disappeared into the night that had fallen seemingly without anyone, least of all the Germans, noticing. Danny listened closely to the radio traffic for news of the tanks that had been hit. Then his heart froze when he heard the following message.

  ‘Picked up survivors from Jenkins’ crew.’

  This was Arthur’s tank.

  -

  A mood of despondency was descending on the men. A mute sense of defeat lay heavy in the air. A tacit feeling that it had all been avoidable. The limitless courage of the 8th Army was simply not enough when confronted by an enemy that was better prepared, better organised, and better led.

  Danny was not immune from this despair nor silent in his anger as he watched the regiment being disbanded then reformed from one day to the next. The number of working tanks whittled. The men were unable to overcome the challenges posed by the enemy, the desert and by the inept leadership that was endemic from Gazala all the way to Cairo and beyond.

  ‘C’mon, Danny lad, I thought you’d be happy to get out of this hell hole for a while,’ said PG as he and the crew discussed the rumour that they would be returning towards Alamein.

  ‘If we leave, then Tobruk will be on its own again,’ pointed out Andrews. His round, rimless glasses glowed like two orbs in the lamplight.

  ‘They can hold out for a few weeks. They did it before,’ said Gregson.

  Danny stared into the distance and replied coldly, ‘Weeks? By the time we go back to Alamein and regroup, months will have passed, and you know it. Then our Colonel Blimps will just figure out a new way to fail against the Germans. They’ve been doing it since World War I and they’re still doing it now.’

  Andrews glanced towards PG and Gregson to warn them to talk about something else. Although the crew were close and had come through so much together, the subject of Tobruk was invariably guaranteed to stoke tension.

  ‘Well, if it’s all the same to you, Danny, I like my skin the way it is. And if we’re told to hop it tomorrow, I for one, will be singing ‘Show Me the way to Go Home’ all the way back.’

  Even Danny smiled at this but felt a crushing weight descend on his chest. He hated the thought of facing an enemy whose rumbling tanks could still be heard in the distance. He hated abandoning Tom even more. For the last week they’d been involved in a series of scuffles with tanks, artillery and soft skinned vehicles. It seemed to Danny the Germans were intent on avoiding the fight as much as they were. He suspected the encounter on the first day had been as costly to them as it had been for the Allies.

  Tobruk would probably be abandoned to its fate once more. There was nothing he could do except sit and rage at the weak leadership and try to deny the sense of relief he felt inside.

  He thought about Tom. A wave of guilt rose up and threatened to overwhelm him. He wanted nothing more than to take the tank and join him and the other men in Tobruk; to fight it out side by side. If they were to fall then, at least, they’d be together when it happened. Another other part of him recognised the lie he was telling himself.

  The news on Arthur was only marginally better. He’d escaped the tank but had been
badly burned. No one could tell Danny just how badly. His hands gripped one another in knuckle-white frustration. At that moment Captain Benson returned to their bivouac.

  ‘Lights out,’ ordered the Benson, slumping down to the ground.

  ‘Sorry, sir,’ replied PG. ‘We got caught up on tactics.’

  Benson raised an amused eyebrow at this. He studied PG for a moment and said, ‘Will we win?’

  ‘There’s a rumour going round that we’re going to pull out, sir,’ replied PG. Benson looked slightly shocked by this. He saw McLeish, Thompson and Andrews turn towards him and realised everyone was thinking the same. Gregson was snoring away by this stage. He looked at the wireless man and smiled. Then he turned to the other men again. They were clearly expecting him to confirm or deny the rumour. He nodded and replied resignedly, ‘Yes. We’re heading back east. Night march. We leave at 2200. That gives us an hour to pack up.’

  Danny was aware that the captain was looking at him. It was as if he wanted Danny to say what was on his mind. Danny obliged.

  ‘And Tobruk?’

  Benson’s face was taut with fatigue but also something else. Sympathy.

  ‘I know your brother is there, Shaw. I’m not any happier about this than you are but things are not going our way. The order has come from the very top. We can’t let Jerry capture any more prisoners or equipment.’

  Once again, they’d been out thought. Danny refused to believe they’d been out fought. Never that. The worn out faces around him bore testimony to the spirit that was being whittled away not by the men of another army, nor by the hellish conditions they were being asked to fight in. Their defeat was solely due to inferior leadership.

  ‘I’m sorry, Shaw. Tobruk will hold out; you’ll see.’

  Danny doubted even Benson believed that now. There was little point in arguing with him. He was a good man and Danny liked him. He nodded to Benson and rose to his feet on the pretext of taking a spade for a walk. In truth, he wanted to be on his own. He walked away from the leaguer to a spot where he could be alone with his thoughts.