by David Fraser
And Anthony knew that he, Anthony Marvell, had, in some way, found himself upon that inhospitable hill. He knew that in the nervous minutes before Richard Wright returned he had acted and spoken decisively, had not been half-looking for the confirmation of others that he was right, had been in fact as well as by rank Captain of the Company. Later he had enjoyed being ahead of events, anticipating what the Company Commander would need –
‘We’ll have to get some more to 6 platoon.’
‘I’ve done that. They’re well stocked now.’
Thanks, Anthony. Well done.’
Ever since 1940 Anthony had found himself growing in confidence and strength. He seldom stuttered now. He still had something coltish in his movements, still retained a recognizable amount of the undergraduate who brought to each new relationship, to every fresh companion, a certain impulsive intensity, generally mixed with laughter. But Anthony had grown up. Indeed, he sometimes felt almost middle-aged in his maturity. When he allowed himself to think of it he recognized the chief reason for this. Nobody who had been Anna Langenbach’s lover – who was still, he sometimes thought painfully to himself, her faithful lover – could feel less than a man. And now, outfacing the Germans somehow on a bleak Tunisian hillside, he knew that he was, too, a soldier.
The rear platoon of the Company, No. 6 platoon, had been relatively unscathed. Posted on a sharp reverse slope where the hill behind them fell more steeply, these thirty men constituted a backstop. They were also largely protected by the pitch of the ground from any but high trajectory German shells or bombs. No. 6 platoon was commanded by the third surviving officer of B Company, Second Lieutenant Thomas Vane. He was a quiet, rather dreamy youth. Wright had, from Vane’s first days in B Company, found him an irritation.
‘Not an adult, yet,’ he snorted. That’s his trouble. Babyface.’
Anthony was less sure. He had observed Vane closely on their second day on the hill, when shelling for the first time was really heavy, and some of it appeared to be searching the slope where 6 platoon were entrenched. Vane showed not the slightest concern. Anthony had walked down to 6 platoon area and found the Platoon Commander sitting in the bottom of his slit trench reading. A vicious ten minutes of German attention had just concluded. Vane looked up, and struggled to his feet with a gentle smile. The Company Second in Command might find fault, although he didn’t see why.
‘Enjoying your book, Tommy?’
‘Yes, thanks.’ He held it up to Anthony’s enquiring look. Homer! In paperback.
‘I doubt if there’s another Homer being read on any battle-front in the world in December, 1942, Tommy! How’s it going?’
‘Homer! Oh I enjoy it, it’s a splendid antidote to – to rain, or things like that.’
‘What about the last stonk? All well?’
‘Yes, we’ve been lucky. It’s a good place this. They pass over and explode a good fifty feet below us! The platoon are getting well used to it now, aren’t they, Sergeant Cubbon?’
‘They’re all right, sir,’ said Sergeant Cubbon.
Wright had first thought that Cubbon, a notably outspoken Battalion boxer, would despise Vane. Now, Anthony thought as he listened to the note in Cubbon’s voice and watched his face, Cubbon was rather proud of him. That had been on the second day. Vane had said seriously as Anthony left,
‘Is there anything I ought to be doing?’
Anthony had laughed.
‘Nothing as far as I can see. Get back to the Iliad.’
Nothing in the intervening period had shaken Anthony’s view that Vane was all right – perhaps even very good. Now it mattered. Wright squelched along the Company Headquarters trench and gripped Anthony by the upper arm.
‘We’ve got to turn out those sods in the hollow. They’ve done quite a bit of damage, they’re getting 4 platoon down.’
No. 4 platoon had lost seven men, several of them cut down by those vicious Spandaus in the hollow to their left.
‘I’m going to pick up 6 platoon and go for them. Work round the contour, and pump in everything we can from 4 platoon. At the same time get all the gunner support we can, concentrated on the hollow.’
Artillery had the hollow registered, and an artillery observer was with B Company Headquarters and listening. He nodded. ‘I’ve already been on and told them what you want to do, sir. All they need are your timings. But we won’t get more than two batteries on it, I don’t think. You see –’
Anthony cut in quickly –
‘You say you’re going to “pick-up” 6 platoon, Richard? Lead them yourself, you mean?’
‘Of course. Can’t send Tommy Vane on this one on his own.’
‘I think he’d do it very well.’
‘Well, we’ll never know –’ Wright gave out some quick orders, timings. Sergeant-Major Phillips listened quietly, his face impassive. A series of explosions sounded from nearer the crest of the hill, followed by a familiar cry –
‘Stretcher bearers!’
The cry came from the direction of Sergeant Brinson’s platoon. It was possible to reach this, moving along a contour of the hill with circumspection, avoiding the machine guns in the hollow.
‘Bugger!’ Wright stood up, careless of his prominence, head and chest above the slit trench lip. He yelled –
‘Who is it?’
‘Sergeant Brinson, sir! Mortar!’
‘I know it was a mortar, you bloody fool!’ Wright cursed meaninglessly below his breath.
Brinson and his brave platoon had not been dislodged by all the German assaults from front and flank. Beneath a hail of bullets and grenades Brinson had been steady, disapproving, unshaken. Now a mortar bomb had found him: poor, sour-faced, gallant Brinson. He had lost, although they were not yet sure of it at Company Headquarters, nine men out of his twenty-eight. The platoon would now be commanded by Corporal Fletcher, a Battalion weight-putter, phlegmatic, slow of movement and, some thought, of wit.
At this moment there came a confusion of shouting and some bursts of Bren gun fire from the left-hand platoon, No. 4. A handful of Germans could be seen to jump from the hollow and start to run towards 4 platoon. As quickly they jumped back again.
‘Stretcher bearers!’
Sergeant-Major Phillips, organizer of stretcher bearers, marshalling, encouraging, never raising his voice, was active again.
‘We’ve lost a large part of our right forward platoon, including the commander,’ Anthony thought. ‘The left forward platoon are shaken, and within close range of a bunch of Germans who are trying to get at them any minute. The only platoon of the three who haven’t had it too bad is No. 6. Now Richard’s going to lead No. 6 in a charge into the hollow. And if that settles their hash there won’t be much of B Company left to face the next serious German attack.’ He knew that he had a weakness, or he supposed it was such: he could see the gloomy possibilities of situations with too much ease. As if responding to his thoughts, Wright said,
‘We’ve got to clear them out of that hollow, come what may!’
Anthony saw for the first time blood running down his Company Commander’s wrist and Wright saw Anthony’s eyes. His own voice was impatient.
‘It’s nothing. Now look –’
Anthony held up his hand. He heard a call from the cave.
‘Captain Marvell!’
The signaller didn’t know that Wright was with him. Anthony dived down and snatched the headset. The radio was carefully placed to gain maximum protection but in such a way that its aerial could perform its function. He listened to an urgent voice from Battalion Headquarters. He acknowledged the message. Richard Wright appeared at the entrance to the cave.
‘Richard, it sounds as if D Company were hit pretty hard by that tank attack up the valley, past us. What’s left of D have been moved back to the woods. Couldn’t hang on. Quite a lot knocked out.’
‘Christ!’ said Wright. ‘That means –’
They stared at each other, thoughts of an imminent counterattack by 6 platoon
into the hollow temporarily obliterated.
‘It means,’ Wright said softly, ‘that the bastards are between us and Battalion Headquarters. They’re pretty well all round us. And all round C Company.’ He gazed at Anthony, hardly seeing him, his mind working, his eyes bright. There was still blood running down his hand, through his fingers.
‘He really is at his best,’ Anthony thought, with a twinge – not for the first time – of rather jealous astonishment. ‘He’s enjoying this. I’ll swear he is!’
‘Right! I’m going to move 5 platoon back –’
‘Sh – sh!’ Anthony listened again and acknowledged again. It was a long message. It contained clear orders. He might have brought Wright to the set but Wright, surprisingly, was somewhat inept talking on radio. His blunt assurance, his decisiveness left him. He was apt to be hesitant and verbose. Anthony looked up.
‘We’re to withdraw tonight.’
‘Give up this bloody hill!’
‘Give up this bloody hill. C Company first, to the Pimple. Then us, through them.’
The Pimple was a round, convex bump over which the tracks ran to the forward companies. It was six hundred yards to their rear. Anthony told him the orders about timing. Wright’s eyes blazed.
‘We’ve beaten them! We’ve not been driven off this hill!’
‘I imagine,’ said Anthony, ‘that if we were left here the Battalion would be sliced in two. And as we’re not going back till the small hours of tomorrow morning, we’ve got plenty of time to show we’ve not been driven off this hill. We’ve got to hold it for hours still!’ It was just before three o’clock in the afternoon.
‘Is the whole Battalion going back, sir?’ asked Sergeant-Major Phillips.
Anthony guessed so.
‘We’re to withdraw through C Company on the Pimple. We’re to go into reserve in the area of that clearing in the woods where Battalion Headquarters were before we advanced four days ago. Behind those shacks we passed in the darkness, coming up.’
‘Bloody place!’ said Wright automatically. ‘Right! It’s not going to be easy. Unless we want to go back arm-in-arm with these bloody krauts.’ He was muttering, thinking aloud –
‘We’ll have to put up quite a show, give the impression we’re going for them, make them sit tight, give ourselves time to get away.’ His head turned suddenly. Like a dog sensitive before others to an alien sound Wright could sniff danger or battle a moment or two ahead of the rest. He was never mistaken.
‘Here they come again, sir!’ called Sergeant-Major Phillips. The Spandaus had opened up from the hollow as Wright and Anthony raced up from cave to slit trench. At the same time a new wave of Germans came over the crest in front of what had been Sergeant Brinson’s platoon. As before they came in short rushes, whistles blowing, words of command shouted, stick grenades hurled from now here, now there. Anthony could count about twenty. But the rush seemed to spend its force more quickly than before. Was it wishful thinking, or had the enemy lost heart?
‘That’s my lot, sir.’
Corporal Fletcher grunted the words in the darkness. Last platoon past the checkpoint. Wright had thinned the Company out from rear to front, keeping a bold face to the enemy, dressing B Company’s shop window, up to the last moment. He had posted a patrol forward when darkness fell, in some trenches dug earlier and later abandoned when company losses mounted, but occupied by neither side. Wright re-occupied them, and later ordered a timely demonstration of fire and grenade throwing in the general direction of the German infiltrators in the hollow, in the heart of B Company’s forward area. Let those Germans be alerted – but defensive! Let them reconsider any attack plans of their own in the face of this aggressiveness! Under cover of this demonstration, noise ripping the air, the patrol slipped back and, on cue, the forward platoons stole away. Rear sections first: forward trench men last: each past a platoon checkpoint: each platoon past Anthony. And then on, in single file, down a steep stony track in the wet dark night.
‘That’s my lot, sir.’ Corporal Fletcher, so far, was handling his responsibilities with aplomb. His breathing in the darkness was so stertorous that it seemed impossible the Germans did not share the information he imparted, just as his boots struck rock with a sound which, in Anthony’s nervous perception, must be audible in Tunis itself. But from beyond the now abandoned trenches no sound came.
The line of soaked, tired, filthy and hungry men began filing off the hill: it had been decided to try to feed them after, not before, withdrawal. Next they should pass the Pimple, with C Company in position upon it. C Company sentries would be expecting them. Everybody’s nerves were taut, the strain telling on men whose resistance was already lowered by exposure and fatigue. Men who had been gallant when the Germans had been advancing upon them, who had held their ground steadfastly, now stumbled through the night fearfully, without assurance. An accidental collision in the darkness evoked a savage curse, hissed with venom albeit between trench-mates, beloved friends. The rain came down without mercy. It would be light in about three hours, the grey, cold light of a Tunisian dawn.
The leading platoons of B Company must, Anthony reckoned, be approaching the Pimple by now. He was moving with the rear of the column, ears pricked for any menacing sound behind them. The men in front seemed to be halted, immediately sinking to the ground with what was, in small part, the soldier’s instinct to get down, and in much larger part was sheer exhaustion. A whisper ran through the files in front. Anthony began to pass men, brushing his way forward down the sodden, silent column. A figure was standing in the middle of the track.
‘Who’s that!’ It was a low, suspicious grunt, the only permissible mode of speech.
‘Captain Marvell. Which platoon’s this?’
‘5 Platoon, sir. C Company’s sentries just ahead. On your feet, lads.’
The column in front seemed to be moving again.
Men lurched to their feet, breathing their swear words, shifting the weight of their damp packs on their aching shoulders. At that moment a familiar sound sent them flat again.
‘Get down, get down!’
Nobody needed the order. The first German shells hit the Pimple at exactly the moment when B Company was beginning to file through the covering position established there. Whistle, crump, crack, whistle, crump, crack – this was no casual, harassing fire. Concentrated, intensive, it could mean only one thing. A German attack! A German night attack against a company in hastily adopted, temporary, positions, with another company passing through them, on the march to the rear. To emphasize that this was, indeed, the situation, the unmistakable sound of several Spandau machine guns cut the night air. The Spandaus were firing from the flank of the line of B Company’s withdrawal – from the direction of the valley down which German tanks and infantry had advanced that morning towards the Battalion’s rear, overrunning the hapless D Company.
With a good deal of relief Anthony heard Wright’s voice in the darkness, near at hand down the track. Wright was shouting. There was no longer the slightest need for quiet.
‘Anyone seen Captain Marvell?’
‘It’s Major Wright! Anthony heard a man mutter, wholly unnecessarily, to his neighbour. Anthony, without surprise, recognized the touch of relief, of confidence in the soldier’s voice.
‘Captain Marvell?’ Wright was bellowing.
‘I’m here!’ Anthony moved as fast as he could in the darkness towards Wright’s voice. On either side of the track men were crouching, lying, wriggling into fire positions, facing the general direction of the Spandau fire. The German bullets were for the moment passing harmlessly high. Their hum could be heard by all and men burrowed as deep as they could into the ground, fatigue suddenly driven out by fear. Where C Company’s positions were, only God knew. But perhaps Wright, also, knew? He was extraordinary, the instinctive warrior, whether in darkness or in daylight, whether wounded or whole. He seemed to know, like an ancient warhorse, an animal trained for war, where his and other troops were and should
be, where an enemy was, what would happen – a minute before it did.
‘I’m here!’
He could tell Wright’s shape from other shapes. The Company Commander was standing beside the track, oblivious to Spandaus. He must have just cracked a joke. From the crouching men beside him Anthony heard a round of grateful, nervous laughter. He heard Wright call –
‘And there’s still three bloody weeks to go before Christmas!’
‘I’m here. It’s Anthony.’
Wright grabbed his arm and immediately swore. His outline looked somewhat distorted. In the darkness Anthony saw some lighter-toned surface hung on Wright. Wright’s arm was in a sling.
‘Are you all right?’
‘Shut up! Corporal Thomson’s patched up my arm, I’m perfectly all right.’ Corporal Thomson was the Company Medical Orderly, thought to have ambitions toward surgical practice and keen on demonstrating his skills. He was known, unkindly, to the men of B Company as ‘Crippen’.
‘Are you sure Crippen’s done the right –’
‘Shut up, Anthony. And get down here.’
With his uninjured arm, Wright dragged Anthony down beside him, in the lee of a small cluster of rocks. Bursts of Spandau fire continued, sporadically.
‘Anthony, I want you to get back to Battalion Headquarters as fast as you can. I’m going to keep the Company here as they come back – dig them in on the reverse side of the Pimple.’
Already, as he spoke, men were moving on down the track and apparently branching off it under some sort of control. Anthony heard Sergeant-Major Phillips’s voice.
‘It’s obvious there’s going to be a Jerry attack bloody soon. I’m not going to have it hit B Company strung along this track. I’ve seen Freddie, agreed where we’ll go.’ Freddie Lang commanded C Company.
