Gosland, leading No 1 Section a short distance behind the H.Q, group, watched Taggart go to ground, then leap onto the tank, and, finally, be held up by the fire from Bredas and Schmeissers.
It was time for him to launch the direct assault which would divert some of the defenders from the other sides of the fort. He ordered his men to spread out, so as to give the impression of greater numbers. Under the covering fire of two Brens, he led his section in a charge towards two of the places from which machine-guns, sited to take the most advantage of the ruins, were preventing the crew from leaving the tank and Taggart's party from leaving its shelter.
To the left of the gate, as he faced it, he could see that part of the tower had toppled sideways, and, with the wall, which had fallen outward, formed a mound twelve feet high and thirty feet long at the base, somewhat narrower at its top. This formed a good strongpoint, from which a few men with a couple of machine-guns could sweep away attackers approaching the gate or moving in from the flanks. It was an obstacle that had to be overcome.
With bullets sighing past their heads and spattering among their feet, the section charged as far as a crack in the ground which had opened when the explosions caused an earth tremor which had the effect of a minor earthquake. This fissure was three feet wide and three feet deep, and ran for a good fifty yards, parallel to the front wall. It was a ready-made trench, and the Commandos jumped down into it, on Gosland's order, with relief: the fire from the mound was becoming uncomfortably accurate: three men had gone down, killed, and two had toppled into the trench, wounded.
Gosland felt an upsurge of good Yorkshire obstinacy as he peeped over the edge of the trench. The survivors of the section could, in fact, work their way along the crack that sheltered them, and move in from the far flank. But his orders were to make a frontal attack. Taggart was held immobile, after showing him the way: Taggart had rushed in unhesitatingly and would by now have been inside the fort if the tank had not been crippled.
‘Corporal Nolan.’
‘Sir?’
‘Take a Bren and two riflemen, and get down to the far end of this trench. Open fire on yon mound of rubble, where they've got the Breda. As soon as you start, I'm going to charge the bloody thing. Just draw their attention, that's all. Don't show yourselves.’ He raised his voice. ‘Don't anybody move until I'm on top of yon bloody heap of muck. Kulick.’
‘Sir.’
‘You ready?'.’
‘To come with you, sir?’
‘Right.’
‘I'm ready, sir.’
Nolan and his three men were already several yards along the fissure. Gosland took a final look around. He felt sick at the prospect of what he had taken on, but he knew he had to do it. If he did not, Taggart's group would surely be wiped out. If that happened, the others would not be able to blow up the inside of the fort.
A stream of tracer leaped from the far end of their trench.
Gosland climbed out, Kulick close beside him, and, in the few seconds while the Breda team on the mound was looking to its right, they covered the distance to the foot of the mound.
Gosland heard a shouted order in German.
Fuck my luck, he thought. They're not bloody Ities, even if they have got a Breda.
A Schmeisser yammered, with nasty little spurts of red and yellow flame at its muzzle. Gosland felt a mighty slam on his left shoulder, as though an opposing forward had charged into him in a game of Rugby League. He felt his upper arm begin to throb. He knew that if he loosened his grip on the barrel of his submachine-gun he would not be able to raise his left hand to hold it again. His fingers tightened. Blood was running down his sleeve.
He rested the butt of the gun against his right thigh and pulled a grenade free, removed the ring with his teeth, and threw it. It burst, and the base plug whizzed past his ear. He heard shouts and wailing, and there was no more Schmeisser fire.
On his left, Kulick was halfway up the mound, clambering with the agility of the gorilla he resembled. Gosland started up after him. A bullet slammed into his left forearm, but he held onto his gun, spraying bullets as he went. He saw and heard fire from Kulick's Tommygun.
The Germans on the mound were shooting down with another Schmeisser. They could not depress the Breda enough to get the two Commandos in their sights. A stick grenade came rolling down, but passed between them and burst on the ground.
Gosland's magazine was empty. He could not reload. He let the gun dangle from its sling and drew his pistol. Blasting at every figure he could see, with the heavy .45, he reached the top in time to see Kulick swinging his Tommygun like a club, with one hand, and firing his pistol with the other.
The Breda crew were lying dead over their gun and Gosland did not know whether it was he or Kulick who had killed them.
He turned to Kulick. ‘Shout together to the C.O. to tell him we're here.’
Their concerted bellow reached Taggart, who stood up and shouted, with his hands cupped, ‘Nobody shoot at the mound.’
Then he and his group pounded over the wreckage of the wall; and came face to face with a hastily improvised barrier of debris, from behind which came a hail of Breda bullets. He heard a voice, which he could not know was Pennati's, shout an order.
To the left of the barrier was a door. In the light of the half moon and the fires, Taggart read the word ‘Armeria’ and guessed what it meant.
‘Sergeant Major... everyone... not you, Corporal Owen... we'll go for the Armoury... get the flame-throwers.’
Dodging from one pile of rubble to the next, firing bursts at Pennati and his men behind their barrier, they worked their way to, then through, the door.
Ten flame-throwers were ranged along one side of the big room. A minute later, four of them were in the Commandos' hands and their long streaks of flame were playing about the courtyard. Vehicles parked there began to burn.
Pennati and his small party left their shelter and ran for the open.
Beyond the half-dozen parked lorries and a scout car, stood barrels of petrol and oil.
‘Get your demolition charges down quickly, Corporal.’
There was no need for Taggart to give the order. Owen was already beavering away.
The Commandos fetched more of the flame-throwers, the original four now empty. They spilt petrol and oil everywhere.
They shot their flames over the flood that was trickling into every crevice. It went up in a scorching wall of flame, and they had to run to save themselves.
They were barely out of the fort when the last of the explosive detonated, and the fort began to tumble and burn fiercely.
Stray shots still came from here and there, as the Commandos picked off the few surviving Italians and Germans who ran out of the burning fort.
Pennati, wounded in both legs, dragged himself to the shelter of a heap of what had been big stone blocks forming the outer wall.
Taggart, going round the ruins with Vowden, counting the dead and wounded, saw a movement and ran towards it, his finger on the trigger of his Tommygun. His orders were not to leave a single survivor.
He looked down at Pennati's haggard, pain-wracked face.
They glared at each other in silence.
‘I recognise you, Captain Pennati. I don't know if you speak English, but I've been watching you through binoculars for several days.’
‘You are the Commanding Officer?’
‘Yes.’
‘We gave you a good fight.’
‘You did. How badly hurt are you?’
‘Both legs. I cannot walk.’
Taggart shouted for a medical orderly.
‘Attend to this Italian officer. Make him comfortable before we go. Make sure he's got some water handy.’
Taggart turned to go.
Pennati croaked ‘You are a gentleman. May I know your name?’
‘I'm sorry, but that could be useful to the enemy.’
There were sixteen dead Commandos and Taggart had them brought to one place and laid in a neat r
ow. He wished he had time to bury them.
There were eighteen wounded, of whom two had leg injuries. He was determined not to leave them. Two stretchers were improvised and, with the fort smouldering, and Pennati, the only survivor, staring after them. X Troop hurried away.
TEN
They had four hours during which to march without worrying about concealment. Once the sun came up, the air search would begin. Within the next two hours, Generals Gariboldi and Rommel would know all that had happened at Fort Jebel Asad and troops would shortly after be setting out after them. The course they were following was difficult, and mostly impossible, for any kind of vehicles: but infantry unwearied by battle and unimpeded by wounded could travel fast in pursuit.
Taggart was preoccupied by the Brigadier. If they could not find him because the Beni Mharrib were not where Abdul Waraq had said they were, they had no time to spare for a search. They must be at Point A at the appointed time. If they were not, the Valentias would return 24 hours later; but they had slim hope of remaining undiscovered until then. The Brigadier, weighed against the survivors of X Troop, who would be taken prisoner, was expendable. Taggart had no wish to abandon the Brigadier, but had no choice if they did not find him within the next twelve hours.
Dawn found them in a desolate region where there was good cover if they had to fight another battle. They had left no tracks on the way, crossing barren hills, and had passed no bedouin camps; but Taggart had had the eerie suspicion all the time that unseen watchers could be trailing them. He knew nothing about Arab tribesmen, but reason suggested that if X Troop had not arrived without being seen it was unlikely that their movements now were unobserved, even by one solitary bedouin.
Some of the wounded were showing signs of exhaustion already. All of them had lost blood, some had wounds that caused particular suffering. Halting at dawn, to breakfast on biscuits, cheese and tea, Taggart conferred with his officers, Troop Sergeant Major Vowden and Sergeant Quested.
‘I'm not going to split the wounded into a separate party. We have to assume that we might have a fight on our hands if these Beni Mharrib chaps refuse to hand the Brig over to us. That means we have to keep a strong enough force, but still provide adequate care for the wounded.
‘I must keep everyone together. Corporal Irwin, if we meet trouble you'll be in command of the wounded. I'll give you two Bren gunners and two riflemen to march with them. You and those four will stay with them if we're in a fight.’
‘Very good, sir.’
‘If we have to leave you for any reason, keep hidden, stop as often as you can, to rest them, keep an ear cocked for aircraft; and don't abandon anyone.’ Taggart unfolded a map. ‘We'll R.V. at this point at midnight. That will allow time to go on together to Point A.’
‘I understand, sir.’
‘We're short of ammo: so, if we're attacked, we can't let loose with all the Brens, or even the Schmeissers and the Breda we've picked up. If you have to shoot, use as few rounds as you can.’
An hour after sunrise they heard the first searching aeroplane and went to ground among rocks and camel scrub until the danger was past. In this way they moved on for the next six hours, always halting at the first drone of an aircraft and spreading out to hide in whatever cover offered.
By noon they were an hour behind the schedule that Taggart had set. If the Beni Mharrib had moved, there was scant time to look for them and rescue the Brigadier.
It was shortly after midday that a low-flying CR42 fighter took them by surprise.
They were plodding up a hill, the stretcher-bearers immediately behind Taggart, Corporal Owen — still gloating over the holocaust at the fort — MacIntosh and Jorrocks and a Bren gunner, so that the pace would be regulated to that of the slowest. The slopes were littered with boulders, which forced them to follow a weaving course. Tired, filthy, sleepy and hungry, everyone cursed the obstructions.
The aircraft came in sight only a few seconds after they had first heard its engine. Everybody fell flat; thankful now for the cover of the boulders. The stretcher-bearers were the slowest, taking care to put the two men with leg wounds down gently. The other wounded were hardly quicker. The Italian pilot could not have failed to see the hurried movements.
Taggart had given orders about what to do in an event like this. The pilot, flying at minimum cruising revolutions, had time to attack at once, before he overshot. Bullets darted around the Commandos as thickly as hail in a storm.
Three of the Bren gunners opened fire. The CR42 was only 300 feet above them, following the contours. He had had to make a shallow dive in order to attack.
The Bren at the front of the troop and the one at the rear were best placed to allow the least amount of deflection. One firing from in front of the CR42 and one from astern, along its flight path, they caught it while its pilot was still shooting. Their bullets hit it in the engine and tail unit. White coolant smoke and oily black fumes gushed from it. Bits flew off the rudder and tail planes. The pilot banked clumsily away and headed down the slope to the valley from which he had climbed.
The aeroplane disappeared from sight, but presently they heard a crash and saw a column of smoke rising.
‘I hope he didn't manage to get a message off,’ Taggart said. ‘I doubt that he did. R/T range is too short at low altitude, and the hills blanket transmission as well. He'd have had to climb a few thousand feet to be sure of being heard.’
It was essential to hold on to this belief. He had enough troubles on his hands. The pilot had wounded two men: not badly, for they were ricochets, not direct hits. They were lucky that no one had been killed.
Two hours later another fighter came in sight, but they were some miles away by then and, because it was flying higher than the first one, had enough time to conceal themselves. But it did not fly in their direction.
‘They'll be looking for a much bigger party,’ Taggart told the others when they next rested. ‘The idea was to make the enemy think a large force had been able to get in, attack, and get out again. I think we can fairly say that the attack was as devastating as if it had been made by a whole battalion.’
Stuart, his voice weak and slow, said ‘I have a theory they'll think we made for the coast: that would be the obvious way to take us off; by sea. There are plenty of small bays along that stretch of coast, where a destroyer could come close inshore; or a submarine. Of course, if they think we're a couple of hundred strong, they wouldn't be looking for a sub; but an armed merchantman or a destroyer would make sense. I'm sure that's the reason why the air search has been so thin.’
‘You could be right. As for the air search, I have an unpleasant suspicion that it's being concentrated around Point A, because of the earlier report of our landing there.’
Stuart felt too exhausted to answer.
Gosland croaked, drily, ‘We shall see when we get there.’
His wound ached, his throat was parched, his left arm was in a sling, but he insisted that he could still lead his section.
That unwelcome prospect was still some way off. First, they had to divert from their direct route to make towards the small oasis where the Beni Mharrib were encamped; if they were still there.
A mile from the place, Stuart pointed out landmarks to Taggart and asked if he wanted him to go ahead with a patrol, to ascertain if the Arabs were where Abdul Waraq had left them.
‘We'll all move in together, Angus. Let's have five minutes' halt while you tell me how we should approach.’
The oasis was only two acres in area. Situated on the floor of a shallow valley 200 yards wide, its trees and shrubs grew a short way up the slope of the far side of the valley and half-way across the valley bottom. The best approach was behind a ridge of bare rock which stood twenty feet back from the edge of the valley wall on the Commandos' side.
Taggart ordered the wounded and an escort of two Bren gunners and two riflemen to remain behind in a shallow saucer well behind the ridge. He led the rest, with Stuart, towards the ridge and the v
alley. Gosland took half of the remainder 100 yards further along the ridge, to cover the far end of the valley.
It was a stiff climb up the ridge. They paused below the skyline. Taggart said ‘Now we'll see if we've wasted our time.’
Prone, they wriggled over the crest and down the far side, to the lip of the wadi wall.
Peering down from between two rocks, Taggart felt again the wave of frustration and dismay that had come with his first sight of the German tanks at the fort.
On the edge of the trees stood three armoured cars. They bore Italian insignia and each was armed with two 8 mm Breda machine-guns.
An officer stood in front of the car in the centre, with a man on each side of him, holding a submachine-gun. The guns were pointed at the immediately recognisable figure facing them.
Taggart, watching through field glasses, said quietly to Stuart ‘It looks as though the Brig's tearing them off a strip.’
‘I bet he is. How do we get him out in one piece?’
A score or so of Bedouin, armed with rifles, stood behind the Brigadier: who appeared to be challenging and threatening the enemy, rather than the reverse.
‘Two of those cars could be useful for taking our worst-wounded on to Point A. We'll put a couple of rounds from the Boys into the one on the left. Sergeant Quested.’
‘Sir?’
‘D'you think you can drop the man on the Italian major's left without hitting the Brigadier if you miss?’
‘Let me see, sir: it's a hundred and thirty or forty yards from here; there's no wind; the angle isn't good, though. If I set my sights for a hundred and fifty and aim for the middle of his back, I think I can hit him. And I know the Brigadier isn't in the line of fire. I'll borrow MacIntosh's rifle; I've used it before.’
‘I cannae miss the Itie from here myself, sir.’ MacIntosh sounded indignant.
Taggart grinned at him. ‘I know your opinion of the Brigadier, Mac. I'm not handing him to you on a plate.’
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