Crusader (A Novel of WWII Tank Warfare)

by Jack Murray

  There was a tacit acceptance that they should wait until the latter part of the afternoon before setting off again. The sounds of war were beginning to peter out when they resumed their walk. The guns remained their guide, though. The heat was definitely more bearable now.

  Time dragged.

  The sun could still burn but there was probably another two hours of light. They could manage that, so they set off again. The remaining daylight would give them sufficient time to reconnect with the rest of the army or, at least, have visibility. The rest had helped their mood if not Manfred’s concerns about his legs. After walking some way, Fisher noticed the strangeness of Manfred’s gait.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ asked Fischer.

  ‘Blisters,’ said Manfred.

  Fischer nodded and replied, ‘I can feel two coming also.’ As he said this, he heard a particularly loud explosion. They were getting nearer. To who, God only knew.

  Manfred grinned and indicated the direction of the loud boom, ‘Could be worse, I suppose.’

  ‘True.’

  The proximity of the battle was now uppermost on their minds. They were obviously getting closer but could not see anything as the valley was not an entirely flat plain. There were ridges that denied a full view of the horizon. Soon, they could see a pall of black smoke rising into the sky.

  ‘What are the chances we meet our boys or theirs?’ asked Fischer. It was more rhetorical, but Manfred had been thinking about nothing else.

  ‘We should be on the right side of the battle. My only worry is that the desert is swarming with British. They come behind our lines. They call it the Long Range Desert Group.’

  ‘Yes, I’ve heard of them,’ replied Fischer. He could think of nothing to say about them, so the subject dropped. They trooped along in silence. The sounds of fighting provided a fanfare for their reappearance.

  ‘Do you think they’ll have the red carpet ready?’ asked Manfred.

  Fischer laughed and replied, ‘Either that or being shot for desertion.’ He saw the look on Kohler’s face and laughed even more.

  ‘Bastard,’ grinned Kohler. ‘You had me there.’

  A few minutes later they heard a different sound. It started as a low hum but soon became a growl. It was coming from the air.

  The three boys looked at one another. An aeroplane. But whose? They cast their eyes around them to for a place to hide but there was none. They were in the open. Completely exposed.

  ‘Take the shirts off our heads,’ ordered Manfred, who removed his makeshift head scarf.

  Fischer quickly did so as did Kohler. The three of them continued walking, their shirts stuffed into their trousers. Then Fischer began to laugh. At first Manfred was confused then he looked at his companion. Then, he began to laugh, too. It was funny. Two blond haired boys in the middle of the desert. No pilot in the world could mistake the two boys below for anything other than prime examples of the Aryan race.

  ‘How do you do?’ said Manfred in English.

  ‘Jolly good,’ replied Fischer. ‘Would you like some tea?’

  Kohler looked at the two of them as if they had gone mad. He shifted his gaze from the two boys to the plane then back.

  That was it for Manfred. He collapsed onto the ground laughing hysterically as the growl of the plane’s engine grew louder and louder. They could see it clearly now and it was heading directly for them. And flying low.

  Fischer was spluttering with laughter trying to say something else. As the plane drew nearer, he staggered in front of Manfred and cast a shadow over him. He managed to say something at last that was recognisably English.

  ‘Cheerio, old chap.’

  28

  South east of Sidi Rezegh Airfield, Libya, November 22nd, 1941

  The plane roared over Fischer’s head. A whoop of laughter ensued from both boys.

  ‘He nearly took your stupid head off,’ shouted Manfred, still laughing.

  Fischer shook his fist at the pilot. The plane was a Hurricane. The British fighter plane that had caused significant problems for German shipping in the Mediterranean and now in North Africa.

  ‘Road hog!’ shouted Fischer towards the departing plane. Moments later they could hear it firing on their comrades. Another plane had joined it. This silenced the two boys and they looked at one another with a degree of shame. Somewhere up ahead, comrades of theirs, perhaps no older than them, would be dying.

  Fischer collapsed on the ground dejectedly. Manfred patted him on the arm. Then he took his shirt out and put it around his head and shoulders. Nothing was said. Instead they listened to the rattle of the machine guns. As quickly as it started it was finished. The planes circled around once more but flew off and headed back to where they came from.

  ‘You’re both mad,’ said Kohler. There was nothing funny about their current situation. He was irritated by the light-hearted manner adopted by the others. He marched on ahead. Alone.

  The two boys helped one another up from the ground and started back on their march after Kohler. Gradually their amusement dissipated. They began to discuss if they should arrive in time to help or wait until the firing had finished. Ahead they could see their own lines. At least their assessment was correct.

  The question was now urgent. The last thing they wanted to do was to be mistaken for the enemy. This was not entirely without reason. Manfred suspected that many German tanks had been destroyed by their own guns in the fog of war. They were now in the middle of a wadi, a valley bordered by ridge less than two kilometres ahead upon which they could see armoured trucks. Further ahead of the trucks would be the tanks and the screen of eight-eights. The chump of the big guns and shells filled the air.

  ‘What do you think?’ asked Manfred. They couldn’t avoid the subject any longer.

  Fischer looked at his watch. For the first time Manfred noticed it. A Patek Phillipe. Swiss. Expensive.

  Fischer grinned at Manfred.

  ‘Twenty first birthday present. My father represents them in Germany. It’s after five. I say we wait until things calm down.’

  Manfred collapsed onto the ground without saying anything. His feet and legs were in agony now. He wasn’t sure he could have walked much further even if he’d wanted to. The thought of being on a tank tomorrow was now haunting him. He just wanted to rest, sleep for a week, have a long bath and shave. His face itched damnably as a result of the sand and three days without shaving.

  Around half an hour later the sound of battle receded as the light began to fade. The three boys looked at one another and got slowly to their feet. They began to slog forward through the hard sand. Manfred noticed for the first time that even Fischer was finding the going hard. At least it wasn’t just him.

  As they neared the ridge a shot rang out. A bullet pinged into the sand nearby. They ducked in case more followed. Then a voice shouted out, ‘Identify yourselves.’

  ‘Don’t shoot,’ shouted Fischer back. He remained crouched but waved. ‘We’re German. Our tank was destroyed yesterday.’

  ‘Come forward slowly.’

  The three of them had no problem obeying this order. Their movements were paralyzingly slow. In fact, so much so that the order was rescinded, much to their amusement.

  ‘Hurry,’ shouted the sentry.

  ‘Make up your bloody mind,’ responded Fischer. Something of his old arrogant self was returning.

  They reached the ridge and began to scramble up the face. It was an undignified end to a traumatic twenty-four hours. At the top they were greeted by a number of infantry soldiers. Their guns were trained on the three boys.

  ‘Myself and my Arab friend wish to join the glorious Afrika Korps,’ said Fisher sourly. Manfred had to choke back the laughter. The soldiers seemed less than amused by this, but they were in no doubt that they were dealing with Germans.

  Manfred added, ‘Where do I sign up?’ Kohler looked askance at his friends; fully convinced they’d gone mad.

  ‘Funny bastards,’ said a corporal. ‘Come th
is way.’

  The atmosphere relaxed a little. While there was no mistaking two six-foot blonde-haired German-speaking boys for anything other than what they said they were. However, the three boys would still require processing.

  They were led to a bivouac where a senior officer sat at a desk. He looked up at the new arrivals surrounded by three of his men half-heartedly pointing guns at them. The officer was in his mid-thirties and an infantry captain. The sight was not entirely unfamiliar.

  ‘Sir, we found these men. More stragglers. They came from the south east,’ said the corporal.

  The captain stood up. He seemed about a foot shorter than the boys. Manfred wondered idly about the inverse relationship between height and seniority. The walk and the evident fact they’d survived had made him feel light-headed. This realisation woke him up. The last thing he wanted to do was to collapse but my God he felt like it. He could feel his legs stiffening with every passing second of the wholly gratuitous inspection.

  ‘What happened?’

  Thankfully, Fischer had also woken up to the seriousness of their situation. He began to speak. Fischer summarised with great clarity the events of the previous day. This unquestionably tallied with what was known. The captain nodded and turned to the corporal.

  ‘Get these men in a car and back to their Panzer group, Corporal Huber. Actually, no. Feed them first.’

  Neither Manfred nor Fischer said anything. Their eyes remained directly ahead. But Manfred could have cheered the little captain at that moment. They were dismissed. The corporal led them out of the bivouac. Manfred exchanged a glance with Fischer and Kohler. Fischer’s face was a mask hiding his exhaustion. Kohler looked like a wreck, but they were back. They were alive. Old rules would apply, perhaps.

  -

  Forty minutes later, with darkness falling rapidly, the three found themselves in a jeep heading towards the tank leaguer just south of hill 175, a natural defence to the east of Sidi Rezegh airfield. The corporal who’d found them was their driver. His initial suspicion had long since disappeared. Like them, he was tired, determined to get things over quickly and return home in one piece.

  ‘You wouldn’t catch me in one of those death traps,’ said Huber.

  The boys laughed. Manfred replied, ‘Safer than being in the open. You could get killed out there.’

  It was Huber’s turn to laugh. In fact, the four of them were laughing as they drove near the leaguer. They were stopped at the perimeter and then ordered to drive to the tent of Major Fenski.

  Huber pulled up outside and the three boys followed him into the tent. Fenski was studying a map with a number of senior officers including Lieutenant Basler. The corporal handed Fenski a note from the captain. Basler, however, spoke up at this point.

  ‘I recognise these boys. They were in Overath’s tank,’ said Basler. He walked over to the three boys and studied them. He could see they were exhausted, sun burned and caked with dust.

  ‘Had a nice stroll in the sun, then?’ asked the lieutenant walking forward, fixing them with a stare.

  Manfred and Fischer looked to one another while Kohler stared fixedly ahead. There wasn’t really an answer to this, so they treated the question as rhetorical. Unaccountably, Manfred felt nervous. Was there a possibility they would interpret their presence as a failed attempt at desertion? With the SS one never knew.

  ‘Just you three? There were no other survivors?’ continued Basler.

  Manfred shook his head and briefly explained what had happened.

  ‘The South Africans took me to their brigade camp a few kilometres away. They questioned me. I said nothing. I sensed they were not going to torture me. Then they took me away from the camp and dropped me a kilometre away from where they’d picked me up.’

  Basler smiled grimly. He switched his gaze to Fenski and said, ‘It sounds as if these boys missed an opportunity to get out of all this.’

  Fenski smiled, ‘Well, there’s no doubt about their bravery and their patriotism. I’m not so sure it reflects well on his intelligence.’

  The other officers dutifully laughed at this. Manfred looked at the group and felt appalled. Among those laughing were men who’d sanctioned the patrol. A patrol that took over twenty tanks out of the safety of the anti-tank gun screen, within range of the enemy guns. And for what? Manfred’s face was set in stone. Anger uncorked a well of adrenaline through his body. The faces of Overath and Kastner swam into view. The men in the other tanks; all sacrificed needlessly.

  For the first time Manfred felt a seed of doubt. Not about the justness of their cause. That much was clear to him. No, this was about leadership. Rommel was exceptional. The Afrika Korps was exceptional. Their training. Their equipment. All superior. However, Manfred was less sure that these fools were capable of delivering the victory that their many advantages warranted.

  Basler, at least, seemed unamused. He motioned for them to follow him. On their way to the tanks Basler questioned them on the events of yesterday and their trek back to the camp. The questions were precise and pushed Manfred for more detail on the South Africans. Manfred was unable to say much.

  ‘They didn’t give me a guided tour,’ replied Manfred. Basler stopped and shot Manfred a glance. Manfred realised what he’d said and his face reddened. ‘Sorry, sir, what I meant was…’

  Basler shook his head and began to walk forward again, the others struggled to keep up; the effect of their long march was now catching up on them. As they walked forward through the leaguer, they saw the other tank crews looking at them. It was clear what had happened to them. A few came over to say hello. Then Manfred saw his friend, Gerhardt. Had Manfred not felt so sore by this stage he’d have laughed when he saw his friend’s mouth fall open.

  Then Gerhardt jogged over to them. They shook hands. Anything more would have been as unseemly in this context as it would have given rise to endless mockery. Manfred was just as relieved, in fact, to see his friend was still alive.

  ‘We thought you were goners,’ admitted Gerhardt, a few minutes later.

  Manfred shook his head. The events of the last twenty-four hours and his fatigue were beginning to tell on his emotions.

  ‘We were lucky,’ admitted Manfred. ‘I was lucky. Had Fischer and Kohler not dragged me out of the tank, I’d be dead now. What did I miss, then?’

  ‘When the other tanks returned, we went back along the valley towards the escarpment south of Sidi Rezegh. So we were north west of you. We got involved with the Tommies at the south of the airfield.’

  ‘How did it go?’ asked Manfred.

  ‘We battered them, Manfred. You’ve no idea. They were sitting ducks. Their tanks can’t take it. We must have destroyed all their tanks. There was a Tommy in a car. You wouldn’t believe it. He was driving up and down leading them. We just kept firing at them all afternoon. The only reason we stopped was because we ran out of ammunition. So we had to pull back. We were to withdraw east ten kilometres south of Gambut that night. It was after midnight when I went to sleep. I’ve never slept so well, Manfred. Next morning we travelled over the Trigh Capuzzo to the northern escarpment. We didn’t do much to be honest. We made our repairs and waited for orders. Then we moved back to the southern escarpment because we still had to finish off the British armour.’

  ‘Sounds like you’ve been on holiday,’ said Manfred, grinning.

  ‘Holiday’s over, then. We’re making ready to launch an attack tonight.’

  Basler, meanwhile, had just returned from organising a tank for the boys. It was likely they would be together in one of the tanks recovered from the battlefield that had not been too badly damaged. This was a nightly chore which, in the past, had often seen German soldiers in contact with their British counterparts recovering tanks. There was rarely any attempt to continue the battle. They had a job to do at that moment which did not involve killing.

  ‘Come with me,’ said Basler.

  The lieutenant led them down the leaguer to a tank which was brightly lit up.
A maintenance crew was working on it. The noise being made must have carried for miles in the silence of the desert, thought Manfred. Sitting by the tank were a couple of men that Manfred had seen before but did not know well.

  Lieutenants Peters and Thurow looked up as Basler arrived with the three boys. The two lieutenants acknowledged one another.

  ‘Who are they?’

  ‘Stragglers from yesterday.’

  ‘God in heaven,’ said Lieutenant Peters.

  ‘Have you got room for them?’

  ‘Yes,’ replied Peters. ‘A few of my boys have dysentery.’

  ‘I’ll leave them with you,’ said Basler. ‘I have to go now.’

  Manfred joined Fischer in Peters’ tank while Thurow took Kohler off to join another crew. Although neither said as much, both Manfred and Fischer were happy with the arrangement. Kohler was a morose presence. He didn’t feel ‘lucky’.

  What Manfred knew of Peters was positive. He’d been over since the beginning. Fischer, meanwhile, was already inspecting the tank. It had received an almighty battering.

  ‘Not very pretty, is it?’ said Peters to Fischer. He stood up and introduced the other tank members. Corporal Werner was the tank gunner, He was in his thirties with shrewd eyes and deep lines on his forehead.

  The driver was a small, bespectacled Austrian called Lang. He looked like a travelling salesman for Bosch. Manfred was amused to see Fischer bristling at the relative ‘demotion’ back to wireless operator. The introductions were quick because it was apparent, much to Manfred’s horror, that they were preparing to pull out. A swift glance at Fischer and he saw the same thought was racing through the Bavarian’s head.

  ‘No rest for the wicked,’ whispered Fischer when the others were out of earshot.