by Shaun Clarke
Finally, when Tobr uk fell to Rommel’s Afrika Korps and the British effected a fighting withdrawal towards El Alamein, Marty was one of those who made many daring raids against Rommel’s long supply lines, this time without the help of the LRDG, which had evacuated Siwa Oasis and moved approximately 560 kilometres south to Kufra Oasis.
Left to his own devices, and with over a hundred battle-trained SAS troopers under his command, Major Stirling requisitioned fifteen new jeeps and eighteen three-ton trucks. The jeeps, which were ideal for the desert, were fitted out with .303-inch twin-Vickers K machine guns front and rear. As they had been designed by the RAF specifically to shoot down aircraft, Stirling decided to do just that and keep his Lewes bombs in reserve. In other words, instead of dropping his men off near their targets and letting them hike in under cover of darkness to plant the bombs, they would just drive straight onto the airfields and shoot the Axis aircraft to pieces with their Vickers K machine guns.
For Marty, this was the most exciting work of all, a dangerous Boy’s Own adventure that made him feel intensely alive. Nothing in his previous experience could quite match the exhilaration he felt as Corporal Red Lester gunned the engine of his jeep and raced through the floodlit darkness towards an enemy airstrip, the roaring of the jeep’s engine drowned out only by the wailing of the enemy’s warning sirens. As the jeep raced across the desert, with other SAS jeeps spreading out on both sides of it, Marty and Tone– one seated up front beside Red, the other in the rear– would open fire with their machine guns, raking the Axis troops guarding the airstrip, making them scatter and run for cover. As the jeep then bounced off the desert sand and onto the tarmac of the runway, Red would wrench at the steering wheel, turning in towards the parked aircraft, weaving wildly left to right, the reinforced tyres screeching, enabling Marty and Tone to rake the aircraft with a double fusillade of bullets from their pintlemounted machine guns.
Expertly avoiding the other SAS drivers doing the same, Red would keep driving, from one parked aircraft to another, as the planes peppered by the bullets from the machine guns exploded noisily, filling the air with jagged yellow flames and billowing clouds of black smoke. Obscured by the pall of smoke, and while the Axis forces were still dazed and firing blindly, the SAS jeeps would race back to the desert, the rear gunners laying down a fusillade of fire that ensured they were not pursued by the enemy. They would then drive across the moonlit plain until they were back at the FOB.
During those months of hair-raising adventures, Marty felt more alive than he had ever imagined possible and was seduced by the desert’s lunar beauty: the cliffs of the upland plateaux rising out of the heat haze; the golden sand dunes framed by the clear blue of the sky. He was also entranced when, as often happened, the SAS jeeps passed Arab traders, their loose robes fluttering, swaying rhythmically on their camels, distorted by the heatwaves shimmering up from the desert floor, looking archaic and unreal.
To jolt Marty back to the modern world, however, the jeeps also passed the blackened wrecks of Daimler armoured cars, Sherman tanks and Bedford trucks, many with charred corpses still inside them. In such places the desert floor was littered with other gruesome signs of recent battles: tattered clothing, bullet-riddled steel helmets, the odd booted foot or sun-bleached clenched fist thrusting up piteously from the sand. No one ever remarked on those.
Gradually moving deeper into enemy territory, led by the man whom Rommel’s Afrika Korps had now labelled as ‘the Phantom Major’, the column of SAS jeeps eventually reached the southernmost tip of the Western Desert, where many even more recent battles had raged back and forth. Here Marty found himself passing through an eerie landscape of flat white seria littered with the blackened wreckage of bombed tanks, armoured cars, troop trucks and halftracks, Axis and Allied, with whole areas of flatland given over to mass graves covered with hundreds of crude white crosses. Though this was a socalled ‘gentleman’s war’, where the troops of both sides treated each other with respect, the horrors of battle could not be ignored or avoided.
Nevertheless, Marty thrived on it and could have done it for ever had not the hand of God, or the devil, intervened.
Believing that Rommel was going to make his drive for Alexandria and Cairo before October, MEHQ insisted that the SAS, heavily reinforced by regular army troops, mount an attack against Benghazi. As this would have constituted a total raiding force of 250 men, many of them untrained for this particular kind of warfare, Major Stirling wanted no part of it, but eventually acceded to it under pressure.
Marty’s recollection of the subsequent operation was one of hellish chaos and despair. Sitting up front in the jeep driven by Red Lester, moving in on the garrison of Benghazi during the evening of 13 September, he and his comrades were uncomfortable because this time, instead of being a small group of like-minded individuals, they were accompanied by many other jeeps containing relatively untrained regular army soldiers. On the approach to Benghazi, the desert’s darkness was deep, though a pale moon shone down, and to Marty the silence had an unreal, eerie quality that made him feel even more uneasy.
Allied planes often flew overhead, obviously heading for Benghazi, and occasionally trucks were heard in the distance, taking troops to the front. Lights fanned up far away, illuminating the northern horizon, reminding him that the war was still engaged and that the planes above– Hadley Page Halifax four-engine bombers, judging by the sound of them – were on bombing runs against the beleaguered Axis forces.
Poor bastards, Marty thought.
Suddenly, unexpectedly, the ground erupted with a deafening roar right beside him, pummelling him with its force and filling the air with seething sand and billowing smoke. Even as Red wrenched at the steering wheel, instinctively turning away from the blast, a whole series of mortar explosions tore up the ground between the advancing SAS vehicles.
‘Christ, they’ve seen us!’ Red bawled, wrenching the steering wheel in the opposite direction, away from yet another deafening explosion, racing into a cloud of swirling, hissing sand.
Instantly, following on the explosions, the sound of Spandau machine guns came from the front and the air was filled with the whipping sound of many bullets, which ricocheted noisily off the wildly weaving, screeching SAS jeeps.
‘Open fire!’ Red bawled at Marty and Tone as more mortar shells exploded and he was forced to keep driving straight into the billowing clouds of sand and smoke.
Shocked to have been taken by surprise this way– yet aware enough to realize with burning rage that Major Stirling’s doubts about the attack had been correct – Marty opened fire with his Vickers K machine gun. He aimed desperately at the only thing he could see ahead – the flashing of enemy guns in the murk – as the jeep raced into the swirling, choking sand and smoke, between the violently erupting soil of more explosions. Behind him, Tone did the same, the roaring of his machine gun hammering at Marty’s head and adding dreadfully to the general bedlam as the jeep bounced over potholes and rocked wildly from side to side, pummelled relentlessly by the many explosions, deluged in swirling sand and boiling smoke.
Even as Marty was firing at the silvery flashes in the murk ahead, having nothing else to aim at, the ground erupted under the front of the jeep right beside him, throwing it up and over onto its side, with men screaming as they were hurled through the air and then slammed to the ground. Other men, desperately firing their machine guns from the sitting position, screamed and shuddered violently as they were riddled with a murderous fusillade of enemy bullets. Two more jeeps, swerving wildly to avoid the mortar explosions, crashed into each other. One toppled over in an immense fountain of sand; the other burst into flames that engulfed the unfortunate men, turning them into quivering, blackening shapes that emitted dreadful, inhuman screams, before they collapsed, still burning and smoking, over the melting barrels of their machine guns.
Marty was still firing his own machine gun at the silvery flashes straight ahead when he saw the jeep driven by Sergeant Bellamy cutti
ng across the front of the advancing column. Ignoring the hail of enemy gunfire, Captain Kearney stood upright beside Bulldog, his body rocking from side to side with the swerving of the jeep, holding onto the frame of the windscreen with one hand and frantically signalling with the other that the SAS drivers should turn their jeeps around and retreat.
Releasing his finger from the trigger, Marty braced himself where he sat as Red careened into a wide turn, narrowly avoiding collision with another jeep that emerged suddenly from the murk of swirling, billowing smoke and sand. Even as Red completed his turn, a mortar shell exploded just behind the other jeep, picking it up from the rear and spinning it over, throwing the men out like so many rag dolls. Marty saw the men sailing through the air and disappearing into clouds of sand as the jeep smashed upside down on the desert floor and burst into flames.
Most of the jeeps not damaged or destroyed were now racing back the way they had come, through dense clouds of spiralling sand and drifting, black smoke.
Just as Marty swung his machine gun around to pour a hail of fire at the enemy positions behind him, he was deafened by a mighty roaring, blinded by a jagged, rapidly expanding sheet of white light, seared by a wave of fierce heat, then sucked up into a funnel of spinning darkness and noise. Almost instantly he was spat out again, sent flying through the air, turning over, in a roaring vacuum, then slammed brutally back onto the ground, his head filled with streaming stars.
Turning onto his back, he saw the jeep tipping over, throwing Red and Tone out. Rolling away frantically, he just managed to avoid the spinning vehicle when it crashed upside down onto the ground where he had lain, causing clouds of sand to billow up around it.
Clambering to his feet, feeling dazed, spitting sand from his mouth, Marty heard the whipping of bullets on both sides of him, followed by a harsh, metallic cacophony as they ricocheted off Red’s overturned jeep. Two of the tyres were melting in crimson-yellow flames, giving off an acrid stench; the other two exploded when they were peppered with more enemy bullets.
As he was hauling himself back to his feet, Red suddenly went into convulsions, becoming a patchwork of blood, torn clothing and gleaming bone. He was slammed back against his overturned jeep, from which more bullets were ricocheting noisily, then he shuddered even more violently and collapsed.
Horrified, Tone lurched forward to help his dead friend, but Marty, though just as shocked, bawled ‘No!’ and grabbed him by the shoulders to push him to the ground, falling on top of him as the jeep’s petrol tank exploded, engulfing the vehicle and the dead Red in flames.
Crawling away from the searing heat and tugging at Tone to make him follow, Marty raised his head when he felt that he was safe and saw the last of the retreating SAS jeeps disappearing into the murk. Seeing Red’s charred body not far away, in the furnace of the burning jeep, he was badly shaken by an unfamiliar combination of horror and grief.
Suddenly, the mortar shells stopped falling and the firing of the German guns tapered off. Spitting sand from his mouth and rubbing it from his eyes, Marty squinted into the dense, lazily drifting clouds of sand and saw two shadowy figures, both crouching behind their overturned jeep. When eventually they stood up, facing the enemy positions, he recognized them as Captain Kearney and Sergeant Bellamy.
Shocked and still not quite believing what he was seeing, Marty was about to call out when the silence was broken by the soft jangling of weapons and spare magazines as many men advanced from the direction of Benghazi. Before he could turn in that direction, he saw Kearney and Bellamy reluctantly raising their hands above their heads, signifying surrender. Looking in the other direction, he saw a great number of shadowy figures, all holding their weapons at the ready, emerging ghostlike from drifting sand and smoke. As they came closer, spreading out, taking on shape and detail, he realized, with a sinking heart, that they were German soldiers.
Rising slowly, carefully, to his feet, with a nervous Tone beside him, Marty raised his hands above his head, understanding that for him and the others this war was over.
To be continued…
Also available in the ‘Exit Club’ series as Kindle ebooks: Book Two: Bad Boys Book Three: The Professionals Book Four: Conspirators Book Five: Old Comrades
GLOSSARY
agal small Arab cap or band for holding a head-dress in place
ARU Air Reconnaissance Unit
ASU active service unit
atap a kind of jungle palm
BBE Bizondere Bystand Eenheid
beasting psychological trick of pleasantness followed by abuse, used by Directing Staff (DS) during exercises
Bofors gun light anti-aircraft gun
Casevac
CCO
changkol
chappal
COBR
COMMCEN COPS
CQB
CT
casualty evacuation (a casevac helicopter)
Clandestine Communist Organization a kind of hoe
Indian sandal
Cabinet Office Briefing Room communications centre
close-observation platoons
close-quarter battle
communist terrorist (note: two CTs, CT
DPG
DPM DS DZ
E and E Exfiltration Fincos FOB
Fred (a Fred) futah
GEO
gharries Ghibili GIGN
GPMG green slime nickname for members of the SAS Intelligence Corps GSG-9 German border police anti
terrorist unit
HALO high-altitude, low-opening, said of a certain kind of dangerous parachute jump
Int and Sy Group Intelligence and Security Group
jarit a meal of raw pork, rice and salt, left to putrefy buried in the ground in a bamboo shoot, favoured by the Dyaks of Borneo
Ju Stukas German fighter planes
Keeni-Meeni Swahili term used to describe the movement of a snake in the grass, adopted by soldiers as a description see next)
counter-terrorist
Diplomatic Protection Group disruptive-pattern material
directing staff (in exercises) drop zone, a landing zone for parachutists
escape and evasion
surreptitious withdrawal of troops, spies etc., esp. from danger field intelligence NCOs
forward operating base
a tout for MI5
long-sleeved Arab robe
Spain’s Grupo Especial
de Operaciones
horse-drawn carriages
a hot, dust-carrying wind
Groupment d’Intervention de la Gendarmerie
general-purpose machine gun of undercover work
kijang a barking deer found in the jungle Kremlin, the nickname for the intelligence section of Regimental HQ kukri a machete
kunjia Omani knife
LMG light machine gun
LRDG Long Range Desert Group LUPS laying-up positions, dug out of the desert floor or earth, usually for sleeping in
LZ landing zone
maroon machine Parachute Regiment troops in Northern Ireland
Milos military intelligence liaison officers MIOs military intelligence officers MPI mean point of impact, a term used by marksmen
MSR main supply route
NITAT Northern Ireland Training Advisory Team
NOCS Italian Nucleo Operativo Centrale di Sicurezza
OP observation post
padi Malayan paddy-field
parang large, heavy Malayan knife also used as a weapon
PC patrol commander
PIRA Provisional IRA
PNGs passive night-vision goggles QRF quick-reaction force
R and I resistance to interrogation RAOC Royal Army Ordnance Corps Rattan Malaysian climbing palm REME Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers
RTU return to (original) unit, a form RV
samsu
SARBE SAS
SBS
seladang Senussi SF
shemagh
souk
Tab
> TAOR Tapai
ulu yomping of punishment for misdemeanour rendezvous point
a strong spirit made from rice surface-to-air rescue beacon Special Air Service
Special Boat Section
wild ox or bison of Malaya Muslim fraternity found in 1837 security forces
a type of shawl worn around the head by Arab peoples
Arab market-place
route march
tactical area of responsibility a rice wine favoured by
the Dyaks of Borneo
Malayan jungle as known by the natives
a colloquial word for marching
Other Kindle e-books by Shaun Clarke Underworld Red Hand
The Opium Road Dragon Light
