“It is, quite. But I have little knowledge of the forces at your disposal. Perhaps my situation is more desperate than I realize.”
Price shrugged. “I imagine I am as ignorant of what you’ve got up on that hill as you are of my own forces.”
“So, why the meeting?”
“This desert is a strange place,” Price said, raising a hand and sweeping it across a section of the horizon. “There is nothing here, nothing of value at all except empty space on a map. And yet there is value in that empty space. It is the unlocked gate that lets each of us into the other’s backyard.”
“It is good to know we’re not just here for the suntans, ja?” Steiner mused.
Price smiled. “Did you know, in the sixth century B.C., an entire Persian army, fifty thousand strong, vanished without a trace in a sandstorm like the one we endured last night? Somewhere near the Siwa oasis, no more than a hundred miles from here. Fifty thousand men. Soldiers just like us, buried by the sands without a trace for two and a half millennia.”
“It is a sobering thought,” Steiner said. “Do you fear that we shall disappear out here as well? Our two forces struggling in battle to the last man, only to be lost for all time?”
“I don’t fear death,” Price answered. “But I don’t fancy the idea of dying without cause. We’re soldiers, yes. But we are also human beings.”
“Is that why you wished to meet me? To remind me of our common humanity? That is an unusual philosophy for a war zone.”
Price shook his head. “Nothing so maudlin, I assure you. But I’ve rarely had the chance to hold a conversation with my opponent that wasn’t conducted over the muzzle of a gun. It is nice to be reminded that some Germans aren’t mindless brutes.”
Steiner’s eyes hardened a bit. “Do not be so foolish, Lieutenant, as to think I cannot be brutal.”
“Brutality is often a necessity in war, Captain. But mindlessness is not.” Price stepped forward and extended his hand.
After a moment’s hesitation, Steiner accepted the offering with a hearty handshake. “This does not mean I won’t try to shoot you sometime soon, Lieutenant.”
“I’d be rather offended if you didn’t, old bean. Cheers!”
“Auf Wiedersehen, Lieutenant.”
The two officers turned from each other and began to walk back to their vehicles. Lynch merely nodded to the German sergeant who, like him, hadn’t said a word the entire time. The German returned his nod, and then the two men followed their officers.
Back at the car, Bowen was holding the rifle in his lap. “Well, no one’s dead, so I’m assuming that went well.”
“He seemed to be an agreeable enough chap,” Price said as he climbed into the car.
Lynch started the ignition and swung the car around in a wide U-turn, heading back towards their encampment.
“Well now, Lieutenant, do you have a plan?” Lynch asked.
“Of course I do, Tommy,” Price answered. “We shall sneak up on the poor buggers in the middle of the night, and then kill them all.”
Chapter 20
Half A Mile South Of The Outpost
October 31st, 2330 Hours
Price’s squad approached the enemy outpost, moving slowly and silently in an irregular, staggered formation. Each man carried only his weapons, ammunition, and other bare necessities, everything carefully padded and secured to eliminate the slightest noise or reflection. Each of the men was linked to those in front and back by a twenty-yard length of twine cinched to each man’s belt. This provided a silent means of getting the attention of the man in front or behind with a quick tug or two on the line.
At the moment, Lynch walked point, his eyes straining to see as far as possible in the night. Although the sky was clear and he could make out the terrain immediately around him, the bright moon above them bleached more distant features of their color and texture, making it hard to pick out any details. Lynch found that the moonlit rocks and sand played tricks along the corners of his vision, and many times he half-saw movement that turned out to be nothing more than a phantom of the moonlight and his own nerves.
The first few miles had been relatively easy. The squad set out half an hour after sunset on a bearing that would bring them about a mile south of the enemy outpost. Once they’d reached that spot, and the silhouette of the fortress was seen directly below the North Star, they’d changed direction and moved towards the enemy stronghold. This time, however, they moved far slower, spread out randomly so they wouldn’t appear as a regular line of shapes at a distance. The squad crept forward with a silent, careful pace, and Lynch employed every bit of his training in night maneuvers to ensure he didn’t step on a bit of dry brush or kick a rock while they advanced. The strain of such a state of alertness, coupled with their slow progress, was exhausting. That he and the other Commandos had slept fitfully at best through a raging sandstorm the previous night, and were therefore ill-rested to begin with, did not help matters any.
Lynch glanced over his shoulder and saw the silhouette of Higgins behind him. Lynch noted the large, angular shape of a machine gun hanging at Higgins’ chest from a makeshift patrol sling. Price had decided to bring both of the captured Italian machine guns along to provide the squad with as much firepower as possible. Both Higgins and Brooks, another one of the new men, each carried a Breda with their ammunition pouches stuffed with magazines. Stilwell, one of the other new squadmates, served as an ammunition carrier for both men, his haversack bulging with more loaded magazines. McTeague one again took possession of the squad’s Bren gun, inviting wry comments from Nelson and Lynch to the effect that McTeague should just give up his rank and remain a squad machine gunner if he was going to wind up carrying the weapon on every mission.
In addition to the two extra light machine guns, Stilwell, Hall, Johnson, and Herring, men who normally carried rifles, were carrying Thompsons tonight. Men of the Desert Group and the armoured car crews willingly exchanged weapons with the Commandos to ensure that every man in the squad had an automatic weapon. Bowen was the lone exception with his scoped Lee-Enfield; it would make little sense for the squad’s sniper to give up his most lethal instrument. Lynch knew that Johnson, Bowen’s spotter, would do yeoman’s work protecting his teammate if the fighting got thick.
Lynch’s attention snapped back to the task at hand as his ears detected a faint sound off to his two o’clock. It was the sound of metal on metal, perhaps a trigger guard or bolt handle clinking against a belt buckle. Instantly, Lynch stopped and tugged three times on the twine leading back to Higgins. There was a single return tug of acknowledgement, and Lynch very carefully lowered himself onto his belly. Looking behind him, he saw the dark outlines of his teammates disappear one by one as they went prone against the desert sand.
Time passed, and Lynch wondered if the sound had been another figment of his overactive imagination. But then, from off to his right, he heard the distinct sound of a boot sole scuffing across a rock. Looking only indirectly towards the sound as he’d been taught during night maneuvers training, he caught the dark outlines of three men moving across his field of view, perhaps a hundred yards away. Lynch heard faint whispers in Italian, the occasional scraping of wood against metal; the sounds of men carrying weapons and equipment on the move. The three-man patrol was maintaining good discipline, although they fell short of Commando standards for night operations.
At first, Lynch thought Price was going to let them pass, but there was a soft tug on the twine to get his attention, and Lynch turned to see another shadow had slipped next to him. It took Lynch a moment to recognize Herring, and the young man leaned in close and put his lips to Lynch’s ear.
“Price says we take them. You, me, Nelson. Quiet-like, with blades.”
Lynch nodded, his movement felt more than seen against Herring’s face. Leaving his Thompson on the ground, he untied himself from the guideline, then rose to a crouch. He looked and saw the low, hulking form of Nelson silently approaching. Herring reached out an
d tapped Lynch’s shoulder, and as one, the three Commandos slipped away from the others and after the Italian patrol.
The stalk took ten minutes, and the Bersaglieri died without a sound. The Commandos first matched speed with their quarry, and then with great care, increased their pace just enough to eventually overtake the patrol two hundred yards from where they’d passed by. Each of the Commandos chose a victim and struck from behind with a lightning-quick stab or slash, while free hands clamped over throats or mouths. In a matter of seconds, the three Italians were lowered to the ground with the sort of odd tenderness one normally reserves for a drunken mate after a night of too many pints at the local pub.
The dead were given a perfunctory pat-down, and a few items were pocketed. Lynch tucked a German-made stick grenade into his belt, while he watched Herring deftly pocket a gold-faced watch. Noticing the speed and efficacy with which Herring looted the corpse at his feet, Lynch once again wondered where Herring must have come from, and why Price had allowed him into this squad, without ever having faced the Germans in battle.
Something tells me I don’t really want to know, Lynch thought.
In a moment, the men cleaned their knives on the uniforms of the dead, and five minutes later, they were back with the rest of their squad. Weapons were gathered, and without speaking a word the entire time, the twelve men resumed their march towards the hilltop fortress. Lynch pulled open the shirt pocket of his battledress blouse and looked at the luminous dial of his watch. It was almost midnight.
Midnight on All-Hallows’ Eve, Lynch thought with a grin. Time to give Jerry and the Eyeties more than just a fright.
Chapter 21
The Outpost
November 1st, 0001 Hours
Steiner raised the binoculars to his eyes and scanned the moonlit desert once again, hunting for any man-made shapes or movement. From the firing step atop the fortress wall he could see for kilometres in any direction, but although the sand seemed to glow with the reflection of the bright moonlight, it was impossible to clearly discern features he knew he could pick out easily during the day.
On any other night, Steiner would have been asleep two hours ago, but his encounter with the British Commandos had unsettled him. Knowing the enemy was out there somewhere in the desert, hiding and plotting nearby, kept him from his bed. He was by nature a hunter, a man who needed to have the initiative on his side. Even when he sat waiting to ambush a convoy, lurking like a spider in the center of a web, he felt completely in control of the situation.
But this uncertainty, this waiting in the dark for something to happen, was chipping away at his nerve with disturbing effectiveness. The night was either a soldier’s greatest ally or his most dreadful enemy. Either it hid him and protected him from the searching eyes of the opposing side, glaring out from behind the muzzles of their guns, or it conjured all manner of unknown terrors lurking just out of sight. Shells, blades, bullets - any of them could kill from the shadows, striking before their victims knew what hit them. Normally Steiner appreciated the darkness for the freedom it gave him to move and strike unseen, but now that he was on the other end of that equation, a thread of fear coiled in his belly.
And, although he was loathe to admit it to himself, the Commando’s story of the long-lost army buried in the desert only added to his uneasiness. Steiner was a soldier, first and foremost, not a Nazi. Although his father had sworn fealty to the party in order to remain a successful businessman, privately the Steiner family had no love for Hitler and his politics.
When war loomed on the horizon, Steiner knew he would find himself in uniform, one way or another. With his fluency in English and his passable Italian and French, he was able to join the Brandenburg regiment and soon found himself here in Libya. As unappealing as it was to shepherd a unit of Italians around the desert, it was far preferable to being sent into the endless depths of Russia to wage a campaign that, as far as Steiner was concerned, was pure madness. Out here in the desert, he had a degree of autonomy, of freedom that few other Wehrmacht commands provided.
Along with that autonomy, Steiner also believed that he had the power to decide when a situation was hopeless, and act in the best interests of his command. The ancient fort they occupied might have been formidable once upon a time, but in 1941, it was nothing but a gunnery exercise for an artillery officer and his battery. A couple of British “six-pounders” could knock the fortress into rubble within minutes, and far outrange anything he had at his disposal. If that artillery was defended by a couple of light anti-tank guns and some seasoned infantry, there’d be no way for him to counterattack without losing his entire command.
Steiner smiled grimly to himself, remembering how impressed Lieutenant Lewis had been when shown the outpost’s defenses. Machine guns, mortars, anti-tank guns...all of them impressive to a man who commanded little more than a town car with a bit of armour plate and an oversized hunting rifle. But a squadron of Matilda tanks could roll right up to the base of his fortress with little difficulty while pounding his defenses to bits with their 40mm cannons and machine guns.
No, his greatest defense was being unnoticed out here in the desert. And now that the British knew where he was, even if he repulsed an attack by these Commandos, it would be just a matter of time before shells or bombs knocked his position into rubble. And when that happened, Steiner, the rest of his Brandenburgers, and the Italians would end up as nothing more than shriveled corpses buried in the sand, lost and forgotten by those who’d sent them here, another short list of names to be added to the miles-long butcher’s bill.
Sorry, mein Führer, that’s not going to happen.
Steiner let his field glasses hang around his neck and picked up his rifle before leaving the wall and descending down into the courtyard. He nodded to his senior non-com, Bauer, who was in the process of making his rounds, checking on all the weapon emplacements and ensuring none of the men were asleep or otherwise shirking their duties. Bauer saluted and walked over to Steiner.
“Sir, the Bersaglieri are awake and watchful. They are all well aware the enemy is out there tonight.”
Steiner nodded. “Good. They’re a dependable lot - for a bunch of foreigners. And our men are standing watch as well?”
“Four-man shifts every three hours, as you ordered, sir.”
“Excellent,” Steiner hesitated for a moment. “Arno, I want you to relay an order to the men, but only the Brandenburgers.”
“Yes, sir?”
Steiner glanced around to make sure none of the Italians were within earshot. “I have every confidence in our men and the Bersaglieri, but if the unthinkable happens, and the situation here becomes hopeless, I do not want men risking themselves without cause.”
Bauer looked rather perplexed. “Sir, I’m not sure I understand.”
“What I’m saying, Feldwebel,” Steiner whispered, “is that no German should die here if retreat is a viable option. Yes, stand and fight if we have hope of victory, but if we face only death or capture, it is for the good of the Reich that we go on to live and fight another day.”
In the moonlight, Steiner saw Bauer’s lips draw together in a thin line, a sign of displeasure he’d become all too familiar with over the last year. Bauer was an exceptional soldier, and a good sergeant as well, but he was of the ‘do or die’ school of soldiering, an unblinking adherent to the sorts of military ideals that had sent untold thousands of men marching into the meat grinders of the last war for little gain or purpose.
But in the end, Bauer was a soldier who followed orders. He snapped a textbook salute. “Jawohl, Hauptmann.”
Steiner returned the salute, then watched Bauer walk away before turning towards the barracks. It was time to attempt a few hours of sleep, and hope against hope they all lived through the night.
Chapter 22
The Outpost
November 1st, 0030 Hours
The blade of Lynch’s F-S knife punched deep into the small of the Italian’s back, and the man’s body ar
ched against him, arms flailing, legs spasming. Lynch’s other hand was clamped against the sentry’s mouth, and his fingers gripped hard, digging into the soft flesh of the man’s cheeks, spittle trickling through his fingers. Lynch drew the knife free and thrust again, this time bringing the blade around the body and up under the sternum, driving it deep into the heart. Through the knife’s hilt, Lynch could actually feel the dying man’s heart beat as it struggled, impaled on several inches of cold steel.
Finally, with a last shudder and the acrid stink of warm urine, the sentry died, and Lynch lowered him to the ground. Looking to his right, he saw Herring do the same to the sentry’s partner. This pair had been patrolling the base of the hill, the last obstacle before the Commandos began their ascent up the western slope of the crescent. Price hadn’t expected this side to be unguarded; the Germans were far too clever for that. But if approaching from an unexpected angle gave them even the slightest edge, Price and the rest of the squad were more than willing to give it a go.
Looking up the hill, Lynch cleaned and sheathed his knife, then turned as Price leaned in close.
“Take Herring up the hill with you. Find the path. Once you’re there, give us three tugs on the line and we’ll follow up. Then we make for the fortress, fast and hard as we can,” Price whispered.
Lynch tapped Herring on the shoulder and the man nodded. Herring had one end of a heavy climbing rope looped across his torso, the line coiling over his shoulder and behind him to a pile on the ground. Both men slung their Thompsons across their backs, cinching the slings tight so the heavy, ten-pound weapons wouldn’t slide around their bodies and bang against a rock. They also unbuttoned their pistol holsters, and by touch alone, both men confirmed their weapons were cocked, with a round in the chamber.
Commando- The Complete World War II Action Collection Volume I Page 42
