El Alamein

by Jack Murray

  It took a few moments for his eyes to adjust to the darkness. He stared out into the night. The sounds of the enemy moving seemed like distant thunder. It never seemed to let up. There was a relentlessness to the way they waged war. The whole army acted in concert rather than as a collection of groups. No wonder they were winning. Danny was in no doubt that they would capture Tobruk

  Thoughts of Tom lay siege to his mind, landing on him like shells. His fists clenched and he fought back tears of frustration.

  But there was another feeling, too. It was the guilt of a man who was secretly relieved that someone has taken a decision that a part of him hoped would be made. The desire to be far away from violence and death, if only for a little while, was as undeniable as it was overpowering. A part of him wanted to believe that Tom and the rest of the men in Tobruk would hold out like they had before. That they would be relieved again. He knew this was an illusion.

  They were abandoning the port to its fate. Tom and the others would fight. And they would be defeated. Would they see sense and surrender or keep on fighting to the last? His chest tightened so much that he could barely breathe. His brother’s face, then his mother’s, filled his mind. What would he say to her? To his father? The truth felt like a dagger stabbing his heart.

  He was running away.

  20

  South west of Tobruk, Libya, 19th June 1942

  Manfred hadn’t felt so tired since the dark days of December when they’d been withdrawing slowly from the Allied onslaught. Then, sleep had been a rare commodity. Every day had been fight then run with the occasional turn around and fight back thrown in to leaven the daily dish of retreat.

  This time they had the momentum. They were driving forward and seeing the enemy turn tail. Yet it seemed to Manfred they would soon be in the same situation as the British and the Allies had faced six months previously. A relatively small army would be dominating thousands of kilometres of land, spread out like a fog over the sea. Their supply lines would be stretched to breaking point and targeted by the British whose piratical bent had not changed one iota since the days of Captain Morgan.

  But Tobruk would change everything.

  Even Manfred could see the importance of capturing the port. At a stroke they would have a place where new men and materiel could land and reinforce their push to rid North Africa of the Allies. The prospect of fighting through the Middle East was only marginally more appealing than struggling through the vast, frozen wilderness of Russia.

  At this moment, however, all Manfred craved was to sleep for a week. All around him he saw men sleepwalking. Among them there were the few. They could still find the energy and the motivation to bark out orders. Manfred had long since come to accept he was not like them. They belonged to the next level of man’s evolution. Perhaps supermen did exist.

  Basler was one such man. Inexhaustible, forever alert, forever committed to the drive for victory. The only thing Manfred was uncertain of was his commitment to the idea that that had brought them here in the first place. He suspected this had long since vanished in the face of another idea, infinitely more powerful. This cause was universal within the Afrika Korps and, unfortunately, shared by the enemy, too. The desire to survive. Every day was a battle to endure against the twin enemies they faced: the Allies and North Africa, itself.

  Manfred looked at the sores on his leg. There were some mild shrapnel wounds from a few days ago that had barely been treated. They weren’t painful or serious enough to prevent him fighting but they irritated him continually. His body could not self-heal because its energy and spirit were waging another war. One that involved the mind.

  He looked down with disgust at the food he was eating. This didn’t help either. The lack of fresh fruit and vegetables inhibited his body’s ability to heal. He knew the sores he had now would be his companion for months if they didn’t capture the port that had eluded them for over a year.

  Tobruk.

  It was so close now. They’d ripped up the defensive boxes surrounding the town. Thousands of prisoners, tonnes of supplies yet it would be all for nothing if they failed, once again, to capture the fortress.

  The success in driving the British away from the Gazala Line had, at least, allowed the Afrika Korps to recover stockpiles of food that had been hidden the previous year. Better still, Manfred was now outfitted in British clothes. He’d found a pair of grey corduroy trousers to go with what remained of his uniform. Last year he’d laughed at the German soldiers wearing English dress, now he was one of them. And he wasn’t alone. Basler was similarly attired and his transformation to English gent was now complete. Laughter at his new wardrobe was conspicuously contained to behind his back.

  ‘Get some sleep,’ ordered Basler returning to the bivouac. ‘The attack begins at 0520 tomorrow.’

  Of course, even dressed like a country squire, Basler still had the capacity to jolt them from their more childish fancies.

  ‘The minefields?’ asked Manfred.

  ‘Paths are being created at the moment. There will be no artillery fire, just an aerial attack. They’ll come over from Crete.’

  Brief and to the point as ever. Basler rarely wasted even a syllable.

  Work on the tanks had stopped now and a strangely expectant silence descended over the leaguer. They had been here before. And failed. This time things felt different. The capitulation of the enemy had renewed belief that the fortress was within their reach. One last effort, thought Manfred, before he swiftly felt coherence ebb away to be replaced by random ideas and memories and then he was falling, falling, falling into darkness.

  -

  ‘They’re out there,’ observed Bert Gissing, draining yet another brew.

  There was going to be little argument from Tom on that. They’d talked of nothing else for a month now. The muffled sounds of the Afrika Korps, although many miles away, still carried through the night to the check post on the inner perimeter manned by the 201st Guards. Bert gazed out into the darkness. Ahead the minefields and the barbed wire were visible for about fifty yards before they dissolved into the haze of the desert. He shivered despite the slow rise in temperature.

  ‘How much longer?’ asked Tom for the seventh time at least.

  Bert glanced at his watch. Their stint was due to finish at 0600 and then they would have a well-earned sleep.

  ‘Another five minutes and counting,’ replied Bert. He watched Tom fish some cigarettes from his pocket. He took the one offered and put it in his mouth. The two men looked at each other expectantly.

  ‘I’ve no matches left,’ said Tom.

  ‘Me neither,’ came the reply.

  A series of oaths followed from Tom and chuckles from Bert. Tom left his friend in search of a light for his cigarette. A minute later he returned. A pale orange glow lit his face casting demonic shadows around his eyes. Tom was now profiled against the backdrop of tanks from the 4th Royal Tank Regiment. He stopped suddenly and turned to look at the tanks and then back to Bert. Then he shrugged and said, ‘The welcoming committee.’

  It was said with a grin but inside he wasn’t so sure. For the last few weeks, they’d listened with increasing dismay and no little concern about how the renewed push from the enemy had seemed to sweep aside the defensive boxes around the Gazala Line. One after one they’d fallen like a row of dominoes: Bir Hacheim, the 150th Brigade Box, Knightsbridge.

  He walked up to Bert and lit his cigarette. There was a distinct rumble in the air now. Tom thought about Danny. He felt his stomach knot at the thought of his brother and what he’d had to face over the last few weeks. He was afraid. There was no use in denying it.

  The rumble in the distance was more distinct now. It was getting closer. Bert and Tom exchanged looks. Bert frowned. From somewhere else there was a hum. Tom spun around to face the town and the dark silhouette of the escarpment to the east. He gazed skywards.

  Men were emerging now from behind the tanks. Some were running, others staggering, half asleep. The hum was
louder, deeper and more malevolent. Tom and Bert ran to retrieve their helmets.

  ‘Not much warning, was there?’ said Bert.

  The low hum was transforming into a higher pitch. Tom and Bert stood transfixed as the ack, ack began exploding uselessly in the sky. Now the noise of the planes was changing again into something far more terrifying. The Stukas began to scream as they descended sharply towards the harbour. They began bombing and strafing defensive positions a few miles away on the escarpment.

  ‘Just planes?’ asked Bert in a hushed tone.

  His question was answered immediately as the first shells began to rain down near them. The accuracy, given the distance, was frightening.

  ‘What was that you said about them being out there?’ asked Tom sprinting towards a trench.

  -

  For once Manfred was glad that visibility was so poor. Orange smoke obscured his view. It was necessary though to stop the Stukas, the Messerschmitt’s and the HE-111 bombers blowing up the very attack they were supposed to be supporting. The scream of shells and Stukas vibrated through Manfred’s body like a terrified shiver.

  Somewhere up ahead, inevitably, was Captain Kummel. He was the first through the ditch and into the alleys carved out in the early hours of the morning through the minefields. The Panzers poured forward before fanning out to avoid the artillery and anti-tank fire emerging from Tobruk and the escarpment.

  The air was hot with more than just shell and shot. By mid-morning the tank was oven-hot and progress slow. Thankfully the marksmanship of the Allied artillery did not match the standard of the Afrika Korps. In fact, to Manfred’s eyes, it seemed perfunctory. Perhaps their progress had been greater than he’d imagined, and the Allied gun crews were fearful of hitting their own men. Position after position was being overrun. It felt so different to this time last year when they’d been held at bay by pinpoint anti-tank shelling.

  By 1000 Manfred’s tank had run out of orange smoke bombs to mark its position. The dust being thrown up by the bombing made identification of friend or enemy tanks next to impossible for the Luftwaffe. At Manfred’s suggestion they resorted to sending up purple flairs to the next wave of Stuka attacks.

  The radio spat updates on the progress of the attack. The 2nd Battalion, with Gerhardt, had driven Allied tanks eastwards while Manfred and the 1st Battalion rolled west towards Gabr Gasem. The 21st Panzer division was now winning the battle on the escarpment north of Kings Cross which was being used by the Allies to shell the Axis advance. Bit by bit the defensive ring around Tobruk was being dismantled.

  -

  The truck stopped at the edge of the Pilastrano ridge and the remaining soldiers debouched to the thunderous sound of explosions. Was this the third, fourth or tenth wave of aerial bombing? Tom had lost count. He glanced up briefly at the blue sky and saw the HE-111 bombers flying off having deposited their deadly payload. He didn’t doubt others would follow.

  Billowing black smoke rose into the cerulean sky. Vehicles and buildings lay ablaze after the latest attack. It seemed the enemy was picking them off area by area in a concerted yet methodical dismantling of their fighting capability and their spirit. Evil smelling smoke laced with tongues of red crackled a malign portent that worse was to come.

  The Pilastrano ridge was on the western side of Tobruk. Defensive ditches had been dug but they now looked dangerously exposed when faced with the likely arrival of the tanks as well as the constant threat of aerial attack. Soldiers were dotted along the ridge but how they were meant to fight back was a mystery to Tom. He surveyed the appalling scene and arrived at a rather black conclusion.

  ‘It’s like that Errol Flynn movie,’ yelled Tom over the noise of the explosions.

  ‘Which one?’

  ‘You know. The one where he plays General Custer.

  ‘They Died with Their Boots On?’

  ‘Yes, that one,’ shouted Tom as they ran inside the fort to take cover.

  ‘Glad you’re so chipper about our chances,’ replied Bert. He laughed grimly as he said this.

  ‘I’m not,’ admitted Tom watching soldiers streaming to take cover. He looked around him. The fort was becoming more crowded, yet the reason why was unclear to him.

  ‘This is no good. We’ll be sitting ducks if we go in there.’

  ‘Any suggestions about where we go?’ asked Bert. His eyes darted around looking for somewhere they could move to. The glare of the afternoon sun made him squint. He saw Tom staring up at a bunker sixty yards away. A six-pound gun was peeking out from a gap. No one seemed to be manning it.

  ‘What about there?’ asked Tom.

  In the distance they heard the rumble of the German advance, but the number of explosions had died down since the last sortie from the Luftwaffe. Bert glanced up to check there were no more planes and then nodded. They clambered over the ridge and made their way to the gun placement.

  The reason why it had ceased firing became immediately plain when they arrived. Two dead bodies lay in the small bunker. They dragged the dead men out of the way. There was no time for a eulogy.

  ‘Sorry, mate,’ said Tom by way of apology for his rough handling. The sound of tanks and other vehicles was growing louder.

  ‘Can you remember how to fire one of these things?’ asked Bert all of a sudden.

  ‘That’s a point,’ replied Tom, staring at the breech. Then another more important thought struck him. ‘Where’s the ammo?’

  They looked around. All they could see were spent shells. Their eyes met.

  ‘That’s not much bloody good.’

  Then the first of the tanks appeared in view. It was German. They ducked down. But it was too late. They saw the tank draw to a halt. Tom’s breath was coming in short gasps now. He glanced at Bert. His friend was white with fear. Tom peeked over the mound of the bunker and his worst fears were confirmed.

  The turret was moving.

  -

  The tank trundled along the road at a leisurely pace. Manfred and Basler’s eyes were glued to their sights. Ahead they could see soldiers streaming into the fortress. To their right lay a low escarpment. Dug into the ridge were signs of gun placements.

  ‘I see a gun. Ten metres up at two o’clock.’ said Manfred, peering through his telescope. ‘Traversing right.’

  ‘Hurry,’ replied Basler. ‘If it’s a fifty-seven millimetre we’re dead at this range.’

  ‘I wonder why it’s not firing,’ replied Manfred. His movements were rapid, but he was calm. The gun did not seem to be manned.

  ‘I can’t see anyone,’ responded Basler squinting through his periscope. ‘But we need to put it out of action. Fire when you’re ready.’

  The gun was now in Manfred’s sights. He glanced at Kleff. The young loader was tensed but ready to load the shell into the breech.

  ‘HE shell.’

  Kleff nodded and quickly opened the breech. The movement was swift and they were ready. Manfred did not want to waste his ammunition. Nor did he want to look foolish by missing. He took a second to confirm the accuracy of his aim. His finger hovered over the firing button.

  -

  ‘It’s pointing at us, Bert,’ said Tom breathlessly. His heart was racing and he felt faint with fear. ‘Have you a white handkerchief?’

  ‘No,’ said Bert. He could barely speak. His throat tightened.

  Tom uttered an oath then took off his helmet and stuck it on the end of his rifle. He started to hold it up. In a moment of refined cruelty from fate, the helmet fell off.

  ‘Bugger,’ said Tom through gritted teeth. He stared at the helmet temporarily paralysed by his stupidity.

  ‘Quick,’ said Bert. Panic gripped both of them for a moment then Tom scrambled to pick up the helmet. He wrapped the band around the tip of his gun.

  Tom’s arm was shaking as he carefully raised the rifle up. Nausea choked his throat. His stomach was knotted in fear as he waited for the crump from the gun that would spell the last thing he would ever hear.

  -
/>
  ‘When, you’re ready,’ said Basler, irritably. He sensed there were other tanks behind him now and he didn’t want to be responsible for holding the advance up. The first comments were coming through on the radio telling him to hurry up.

  Manfred pressed the firing button.

  Nothing.

  ‘Not again,’ snarled, Basler. ‘I thought you’d fixed this.’

  Manfred reddened in embarrassment but also anger. He swung around to Klef who immediately opened the breech and then slammed it shut again. This had worked in the past and there was no reason to suppose it would not do so again.

  ‘Fire, dammit,’ roared Basler. His eyes were blazing.

  Perspiration matted Manfred’s forehead. He wiped his eye and checked his aim once more and then his thumb moved towards the trigger. Easy does it.

  ‘Stop,’ shouted Basler suddenly. ‘They’re surrendering.’

  ‘What?’ asked Manfred as he pressed the button.

  21

  Little Gloston: 21st June 1942

  Stan Shaw heard a scream from the kitchen followed by the sound of crockery crashing to the floor. Sweat dripped from his face like a broken drainpipe in a rain shower. He wiped his forehead and wondered whether Kate had seen a mouse. He waited a moment and then heard nothing else. He returned his attention to the horseshoe.

  It was just after midday and hunger pangs were just beginning to make their presence felt in his stomach. He was looking forward to eating the bread he’d smelled coming from the kitchen. He liked it toasted with butter piled onto it like bricks. He pitied the poor city folks with their heavily rationed access to food. This was never a problem in the country. Milk, butter, eggs were currency now. The thought of the butter melting on the toast made his mouth water in anticipation. It would be good to have a rest. His right arm ached from a morning spent trying to get horseshoes ready for the Leddings’ family. Not just his arm. His shoulder had been giving him trouble for the last year or two. The doctor had said it was the early onset of arthritis. Inevitable, he said, given the type of job he did.