For the best part of an hour, they remained where they were on the edge of the German minefield until, at around eleven o’clock, they began to get moving again. Immediately, the dust was swirling thickly. It soon became almost impossible to see more than a few lamps ahead, as the fog of war thickened. Smoke was drifting across the battlefield, but directly behind them, the division’s armour inched forward. As it drove over the fine sand that covered the northern part of the desert, the tracks of the thirty-ton tanks ground the sand to powder and whipped it into the air. Tanner could feel it cloying his mouth and nostrils, catching in his eyes. Men were coughing and spluttering, but now the enemy was stonking them too, and although most of the shells were landing wide, Tanner found himself frequently taking cover. Smoke from the shells added to the misery, and as the fog thickened, the armour, densely packed into that narrow lane, began to flounder and crash into one another.
‘Jesus, sir,’ said Sykes, beside him, ‘this is a strange kind of hell, innit?’
‘It’s a sodding joke, Stan, that’s what it is, only I’m not finding it very funny.’
Amid the flash of explosions and umbrella of light from flares, Tanner watched the crouching signals men and sappers, bent double under the weight of their loads, barely recognizable under the increasingly thick coating of sweat and dust, struggling to lay wire, the vital link that would maintain contact between the forward troops and those following behind.
A hand fell on to his shoulder, and Tanner turned. Peploe was leaning out over the edge of his carrier. ‘Jack?’ he said. ‘Oh, good, it is you. It all looked so clean on the map.’
‘It’s horrendous,’ Tanner replied. ‘I don’t remember anyone mentioning the dust in any of the bloody briefings.’
Peploe began coughing, then pulled out a handkerchief, dampened it from his water bottle and wrapped it around his face. ‘My God,’ he said, ‘how the hell are we ever going to get through these minefields? It’ll be dawn before we know it, and then what?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Tanner. ‘I really don’t bloody know.’
28
Before the battle began, General Montgomery had established a small Tactical Headquarters on the coast a couple of miles north of El Alamein, while his chief of staff, General de Guingand, had remained with the main Eighth Army Headquarters at Burg El Arab. A caravan for the Army Commander, a map lorry, a few tents, all draped with camouflage nets – that was all, but it enabled Montgomery to be near to the front, and for his ADCs to be his eyes and ears.
Alex Vaughan had been glad of the move, and the chance it had offered to be near the thick of things. In the days running up to the battle, he had got to know the entire Alamein position as well as anyone. He had been one of three ADCs to ferry the chief about, but had also been sent off on his own, relaying messages or observing preparations. Certainly, the preparations had been thorough, and the visits to the enormous supply dumps and various Field Maintenance depots had reinforced the belief that now, at long last, the British Army would not be found wanting when it came to kit and ammunition. Everywhere he had looked, there had also been lines of wire linking one unit to another. Back in France, in the early days of the war, it had been lack of communication, Vaughan believed, that had been the key instrument of defeat.
The men, too, seemed to know what they had to do, the plan drummed into them by Montgomery in a way no other general had ever done before a battle. New words and phrases that could be easily understood and absorbed had been added to the military dictionary. The initial battle to get through the enemy minefields was the ‘break-in’, and the operation by the infantry was to be ‘crumbling’ – which, as it implied, meant they were to chip away at the enemy defences, breaking solid, in-depth infantry positions until the armour could burst through, fan out and deal with the enemy armour by force of numbers. Once through the minefields, the next operation was to be the ‘break-out’, the ‘dogfight’. Simple phrases, a simple plan, and everyone singing from the same hymn sheet. There was no room in Montgomery’s army for what he called ‘bellyachers’.
Vaughan had found himself falling under the chief’s spell. His energy, his force of character had been something to behold. His talks too – Vaughan had watched him addressing a battalion or an armoured regiment and had seen how quickly he’d had them eating out of his hand; his confidence was infectious. Evenings in the mess tent had been entertaining. Most of the staff at Tac HQ were young officers like himself and dinner was always marked by a series of provocative comments from the chief. Only once had Montgomery gone too far: the chief had goaded Vaughan to reveal all about his sex life in Cairo. Vaughan had answered noncommittally, saying he’d been too busy for such things since the war had begun.
‘That’s not what I heard,’ the chief had said, eyes twinkling. ‘I heard you had a stunning Polish spy as a lover. I can hardly imagine a more scintillating sex life than that.’
Vaughan had said nothing, but Montgomery had not finished. ‘Whatever happened to her, Vaughan?’
‘She was murdered, sir. Had her throat slit.’
‘Well, that was rather careless of you, wasn’t it?’
Later, John Poston, the senior ADC, had taken him aside. ‘Don’t mind too much what the chief said. You know what he’s like. Always trying to stir it up.’
‘It’s all right. It’s, er, still a bit raw, that’s all.’
And to give Montgomery his due, he had apologized. The next day, driving down to see 7th Armoured Division, he had said, ‘I was out of line last night, Vaughan. Wrong of me. I’m sorry.’
‘That’s all right, sir.’
‘Good. Say no more about it, then.’ Nor had he.
Vaughan was certainly of the opinion that Montgomery was far and away the best commander Eighth Army had had, but two aspects of the chief’s plan troubled him; as a mere major and ADC, though, he felt unable to mention them. The first was the location of the main thrust. Vaughan had seen enough of the line to know that in the north the going was very soft indeed. Salt-bush and vetch mottled the ground, but in between it was sand – sand that would turn to powder once the weight of British armour went over it. Dust clouds might act as a smokescreen, but might equally make a once-simple plan very confusing indeed.
Around the centre of the line, however, at the Ruweisat Ridge, it was stony and firmer for the heavy British armour. Furthermore, he had seen the intelligence reports and knew that the bulk of the enemy’s own tanks were in the south. It struck him as more sensible to launch a heavy infantry attack in the north, on a narrow front and supported by plenty of artillery, and then, when the enemy was distracted with it, to force the bulk of the armour through the line at Ruweisat and take on the panzers. He realized that this was only an opinion, and he hoped the chief would be proved right, but he could not dispel the nagging doubts he had about so much infantry and armour bludgeoning its way together on such thin, sandy ground.
His other concern was the fire plan. He had watched the opening barrage the previous evening, standing with the other ADCs outside the chief’s caravan, clutching his ears and feeling the ground trembling beneath his feet. It had been an impressive display, no question about it, but he could not understand why the chief had put less than half of his nine hundred field guns in support of the main attack. Why hadn’t there been more like seven hundred behind that ten-mile attack line? He had also realized that each gun was effectively firing straight ahead. By his calculations, that meant there was one gun for every forty-five yards of the ten-mile attacking front. And that didn’t seem quite so impressive. He couldn’t understand why a mass of guns had not been directed to pour fire in concentration on to one target at a time.
He had brought this up with the chief, but had received only a patronizing smile. ‘Perhaps I should make you my CRA, Vaughan,’ he had said.
‘But it seems like the old fire plans of the last war, sir,’ Vaughan had replied, ‘and they never really worked.’
‘That’s enough, Vaugha
n,’ Montgomery had snapped. ‘Don’t you think that if you were right our fire plan would be as you suggest?’
Ah, well. Perhaps there had been something in what the chief had said. Time would tell soon enough.
The chief had gone to bed at ten, as was his usual way. It was, Montgomery had told them, important that he slept well and that his mind was always sufficiently rested. Barrage or no barrage, he had correctly surmised that there was little more he could do that night. Vaughan had followed soon after, wrapping himself up in his sleeping-bag, with a tarpaulin to protect him from the dew, and settling down in the sand beside the chief’s caravan.
It was around five thirty a.m. that Tanner watched two squadrons of Crusaders and Grants from 2nd Armoured Brigade veer clear of the Moon track and, bypassing the Rangers and the sappers ahead of them, surge forward across the uncleared minefield.
‘What are they playing at?’ said Tanner, as he sat beside Peploe in the company command carrier.
‘They’ve been ordered to, sir,’ said Bradshaw, who was tuning into Brigade’s net. ‘Orders from General Briggs to push on.’
‘No wonder they call him the Black Pirate,’ said Tanner.
Flares and explosions ahead continued to show fleeting glimpses of the tanks as they pressed forward, but it was not long before fierce firing could be heard and in moments several tanks had been knocked out, burning brightly in the darkness.
‘I can’t believe what I’m hearing, sir,’ Bradshaw said to Peploe. ‘They’ve lost four tanks just like that.’
‘May I?’ said Peploe, and Bradshaw offered his headset. ‘I see what you mean. There’s a chap who’s just said, “I’m having trouble with my horse’s insides. I think I urgently need a vet.” I’m sure that’s not standard radio code.’
‘Who the bloody hell are this bunch?’ asked Tanner.
‘I’m not entirely sure, sir,’ said Bradshaw.
‘Someone’s now lost a shoe and says he needs a farrier,’ said Peploe. ‘Oh, hang on a minute. This is more serious. This one sounds really bloody scared. He’s been hit and he’s baling out but doesn’t know how they’re going to get back.’ He looked at Tanner. ‘I wonder whether we ought to go and help. Look,’ he said, pointing back towards the east, ‘it’s getting light. They’ll be sitting ducks before long. If we send a carrier, then at least we can help pick up some of the crews.’
‘And have a quick dekko while we’re about it,’ said Tanner. He was already jumping out of the back and hurrying to the vehicle in front of them. Bell, 3 Platoon’s sergeant, was in the passenger seat beside his driver, Rifleman Upton.
‘Tinker, we’ve got a little errand to run,’ said Tanner.
‘I don’t like the sound of that, sir.’
Tanner clambered into the back, ordered four of Bell’s men out, but told Greening, the Bren gunner, to remain. ‘We’re following those tanks that went forward a little while back.’
‘Bloody hell, sir, do we have to?’ said Bell.
‘Yes, so let’s get a move on.’
It did not take long and, following the tracks, they passed through the minefield without trouble. Five tanks were now burning, and in the thin light of dawn, Tanner could see an enemy tank screen some five hundred yards ahead. Italians, he reckoned, 75s, arcs of stones built up around each one. Closer by, several Grants were firing, but from static positions. The creeping light revealed the dead that now littered the desert floor, Italians and Highlanders, the bodies already thick with flies.
‘No wonder they’re getting hit,’ said Tanner. ‘Upton, make sure you bloody well keep moving. Don’t stop, all right?’ He now spotted three tank crew lying behind a large bush of desert vetch and a further crew hiding behind a trackless Crusader. He watched one of the men poke his head from around the side of the tank only to be met by a burst of machine-gun fire. Ah, so that’s the problem. But where was it coming from? Then, as they hurried forward, a burst of fire greeted them, too. Swiftly bringing his binoculars to his eyes, he scanned the open desert. Got you. A few hundred yards away: a two-man Italian MG crew dug in beside some vetch.
‘Pull back a moment, Upton,’ he called. He wanted to be clear of the enemy machine-gunners while he took out his Aldis sight and fixed it to his rifle. ‘All right,’ he said, once he had done it. ‘Upton, I want you to move forward again, then briefly stop. Greening, I want you to fire a good burst at eleven o’clock and at a range of five hundred yards. Got it?’
A nod from Upton and Greening.
‘Right,’ said Tanner. ‘Let’s go.’
The carrier sped forward, lurching and creaking, the tracks squeaking.
‘Stop!’ called Tanner. Beside him, the Bren chattered loudly, and Tanner brought his rifle to his shoulder, resting the barrel on the carrier’s high side, and found his quarry immediately. He could see the machine-gunner, who was firing at one of the Grants but now changed his aim towards the carrier.
Too late, mate. Tanner breathed in and squeezed the trigger. Through the scope he saw the Italian jerk backwards and his crewman lean over to help. A moment later, Tanner fired a second time and he slumped forward too.
A shell landed nearby and Tanner shouted, ‘Move! Head for those three on the ground.’ The carrier sped forward and as they neared the three cowering tankmen, Tanner yelled, ‘Come on! Run!’ beckoning them with his arm. They looked around nervously, then crouching, hurried towards the carrier. Upton paused to let them jump into the back, then on Tanner’s command, lurched forward again, halting only once in the lee of the knocked-out Crusader.
‘Come on!’ bellowed Tanner, jumping clear and pushing them into the back of the open carrier. Machine-gun fire spat out again, from away to their right, as Upton reversed, turned, then sped back the way they had come.
‘Good work, Upton,’ said Tanner. He sat down, breathed out and looked at the seven men they had picked up. ‘Well, well, well,’ he said, to the lieutenant now sitting opposite him. ‘My old mate Harry Rhodes-Morton.’
‘Tanner,’ said Rhodes-Morton. ‘Good God. I didn’t recognize you at first.’
‘Nor me you. I didn’t realize it was your mob set off on that suicide mission.’
‘You know this man, Harry?’ said one of the others.
‘Er, yes,’ said Rhodes-Morton. He rubbed his face, which was filthy with oil and sweat. ‘Look here, Tanner,’ he said, ‘I’ve got to admit I’m jolly glad to see you. Didn’t think I’d ever say that, but, er, really I am.’
‘War,’ said Tanner, ‘is a great leveller.’
‘Yes,’ said Rhodes-Morton at length. ‘Yes, it is. You and your men very probably saved our lives back there. Thank you.’
Tanner took out a packet of cigarettes and offered one to him.
‘Thanks,’ said Rhodes-Morton.
‘Don’t mention it,’ Tanner replied.
‘Christ,’ said Rhodes-Morton. ‘That was bloody terrifying.’
‘We saw the brew-ups,’ said Tanner. ‘Did anyone get out?’
Rhodes-Morton shook his head. ‘One of them was a good friend of mine. An old friend – I knew him from home.’
‘Charlie?’ said the other officer.
Rhodes-Morton nodded. ‘I can’t believe he’s gone. Just like that.’ He clicked his fingers.
A short while later, Tanner dropped them back with the rest of their regiment, most of which was still toe to tail behind the Minefield Task Force. As he got out, Rhodes-Morton faced Tanner. ‘I owe you an apology. I was arrogant and rude. I’m sorry.’ He held out his hand.
Tanner shook it. ‘Forget it,’ he said. ‘But just tell me one thing.’
‘Yes?’
‘Who worked out your radio code?’
‘Ah, yes,’ said Rhodes-Morton, looking embarrassed. ‘I’m afraid we’ve been struggling a bit on that so we decided to use our own.’
‘Based on horses and cricket,’ grinned Tanner.
‘Er, mostly, yes,’ Rhodes-Morton admitted.
‘Well, it’s entertai
ning, I’ll give you that.’ He slapped him on the back, then jumped into the carrier.
‘This battle,’ said Rhodes-Morton, ‘it’s going to be tougher than we thought, isn’t it?’
Tanner shrugged. ‘Fighting in the desert’s always bloody confusing. No one ever knows what’s going on. Keep your head down and shoot when you see the enemy. Oh, and don’t go charging after them. Stick to those basic rules and you’ll be fine.’
The carrier lurched forward again and Tanner sat down. He’d tried to sound confident to Rhodes-Morton, but he had been surprised by the depth of the enemy defences: there would be no easy fight once they broke clear of the minefield. No wonder Monty had said it would take a week. This battle was going to be a hard slog, no mistake, and bloody treacherous for those in the van, like the Yorks Rangers. With the sun beginning to rise behind them, and now stuck in the middle of the enemy’s minefields, Tanner wondered how they would last the day, let alone a week.
*
Vaughan and the other ADCs had been up since dawn, and had headed out in their jeeps to report on the night’s progress from the various parts of the battlefield. Vaughan had been sent to report on the 51st Highlands’ sector and that of 1st Armoured Division. The Highlanders had lost a lot of men – Vaughan had seen reams of ambulances beetling back and forth as well as all too many bodies – but General Wimberley had reported that both his infantry brigades were now well forward of the enemy minefields, even if not at the imaginary Oxalic objective line.
Vaughan had then motored on to 1st Armoured Headquarters, where General Briggs had painted a horror picture of dust, smoke, confusion and appalling congestion, but despite his armour being nose to tail halfway across the enemy minefields in the three lanes of the northern corridor, the onset of daylight had not caused them to suffer as much as he had feared. The dense fog covering the minefields had helped but, as Briggs had pointed out, ‘Jerry’s lying doggo.’
Hellfire (2011) Page 44
