by Shaun Clarke
‘Yes. It’s rather like mountaineering, which I’ve done quite a bit. The higher you go, the more dangerous it becomes. The more dangerous it becomes, the more beautiful the world looks and the more heightened your senses become. I would call that seductive.’
‘You’ve climbed some dangerous mountains, haven’t you?’
‘Yes,’ Stirling replied.
‘Those climbs must have heightened your senses in a truly dramatic way.’
‘They did. They made me feel supremely alive. The desert can do that as well – as can the war we’re conducting here.’ He glanced at the horizon, where explosions and burning fires were streaking the sky with criss-crossing lines of red, yellow and purple, now visible between pyramids of pulsating, silvery, eerie light. ‘That spectacle on the horizon is part of all that. It means death, but it’s beautiful.’
Halliman sighed. ‘It certainly reminds me that they’re dying while we live … and that certainly makes life seem all the sweeter.’
‘You only truly appreciate life when you’ve come close to losing it,’ Stirling said. ‘Few are privileged to do so.’
They both slept on that notion.
Up at first light the following day, the men had a quick breakfast of wads and hot tea, then dismantled their shelters, rolled up and packed their groundsheets and ponchos, poured petrol on their own waste and burned it, and in general removed all traces of the camp.
Moving out with the vehicles spaced well apart, in single file, just like a foot patrol, the column soon reached the southernmost tip of the Western Desert, where many battles had raged back and forth over the past few months. It was therefore no accident that the men soon found themselves passing through an eerie flat, white landscape littered with the blackened wreckage of bombed tanks, armoured cars, troop lorries and half-tracks, both Axis and Allied, with whole areas of flatland given over to mass graves covered with hundreds of crude white crosses.
‘We’re south of El Agheila,’ Captain Halliman explained. ‘We’re now heading north to Sirte and Tamit. We’ll be there quite soon, David.’
Surprisingly, though the sky overhead was filled with aircraft, both Axis and Allied, the column was not attacked and eventually, just before last light, they reached the DZ for the first raiding party, to be led by Stirling.
After clambering down to join the rest of his group, Stirling walked over to Callaghan’s lorry to wish him good luck.
‘Don’t forget,’ he added, ‘that even as we speak, General Ritchie’s Eighth Army is advancing on Benghazi and might, indeed, wrest it back from the Afrika Korps today. Because of this, our recent intelligence will be relatively useless. What I mean is that the situation will be changing every minute and we’ve no way of knowing whether or not the planes we’ve targeted are going to be called into action, thus leaving us again with empty runways. Also, more importantly, we’ve no way of keeping in touch with the Axis troop movements, which means we could run smack-dab into them. For this reason, then, no matter what happens, just try to do as much damage as you can, as best you can, wherever you can, then get the hell back to the desert RV. That’s it, Paddy, good luck.’
‘The same to you, David.’
The LRDG lorries moved off across the desert, churning up clouds of sand that obscured the sinking sun. Stirling waited until they had disappeared completely, then turned to his men.
‘Right, chaps, let’s get going. Irregular single file behind me. Jimbo, you’re out on point as lead scout. You, Frankie, are coming up the rear as our always dependable Tail-end Charlie. Does that sit well with you?’
‘Yes, boss,’ Private Turner replied, pleased to be called by his first name and to use the word ‘boss’ in return, instead of the usual ‘sir’. Frankie had never liked the rigidity of normal Army protocol, which is why he had applied for L Detachment. This new, informal approach, particularly when combined with the unusual nature of the work, made him feel pretty good. ‘Tail-end Charlie it is,’ he said, then turned away and went to the back of the column to take up his position.
Captain Stirling raised and lowered his hand, indicating ‘Move out’.
Beginning the hike at sunset, they arrived in protective darkness at the road that ran west of Sirte, beyond which lay the airfield. Once there, Stirling’s luck, if such it could be called, changed for the worse yet again.
Just as they approached the road, advancing in single file, intending to cross it one by one, the lights of a slow-moving vehicle appeared in the north, where the coastline lay, and came inexorably towards them.
Stirling signalled immediately for the men behind him to lie down, then he too fell to the sand, just behind Jimbo Ashman. The latter, being an experienced soldier, was already flat on his belly by the edge of the road, holding his Sten gun at the ready.
The lights came towards them, advancing along the road. As they came closer, other lights floated into view behind them, then more lights behind those. They floated eerily in the darkness, beaming down on the road. Gradually gaining in definition, they turned out to be the lights of troop lorries. The first rumbled past, then the next, a third and fourth. Behind the fourth lorry was a German armoured car, followed by a tank.
Stirling sighed in despair. His raiding party was trapped at the side of the road by an Afrika Korps armoured column moving up to the front. It was composed of hundreds of vehicles, including tanks, armoured cars, half-tracks and troop lorries, and it was carrying thousands of men.
It took four hours to pass.
Lying there belly-down by the side of the road, Stirling was convinced that he was going mad. The armoured column passed at a snail’s pace, hundreds of vehicles, one by one, and he checked his watch compulsively, obsessed by the time, realizing that his time was running out and that soon he would have none left to spare. The strain was almost intolerable, but he had to bear it, wondering meanwhile what the men behind him were thinking as they, too, lay flat on the ground and watched their opportunities slip away.
When, four hours later, the last of the German vehicles had passed, Stirling realized that there was not enough time left to go on to the airfield. He had been foiled again.
‘Damn, damn, damn!’ he whispered, hammering his fist into the sand.
‘You said it yourself, boss,’ Sergeant Lorrimer consoled him. ‘The Crusader battle has made everything unpredictable and we’ve no way of knowing what to expect. Let’s do what we can, while we can, wherever we can, then get the hell out of here.’
Charmed to have his own words flung back at him, Stirling smiled again.
‘Damned right,’ he said.
‘So?’ Lorrimer asked, always keen to present a challenge.
Stirling checked the time again. ‘Because that bloody armoured took four hours to pass, we have approximately sixty minutes left to cause some mayhem and madness. Let’s do it, Sergeant.’
‘I’m here to obey orders, boss. Just give me the word.’
‘Weaponry?’
‘This time, just in case, we brought along a Browning 0.5-incher and a Bren light machine-gun. The men, apart from those, are reasonably well equipped, with a combination of bolt-action rifles, tommy-guns, and that new thing, the 9mm Sten sub-machine-gun. Not too many worries in that direction, boss. No need to sweat.’
‘Land-mines?’
‘Absolutely.’
‘Hand-grenades.’
‘Naturally.’
‘You’ve just made my day, Sergeant Lorrimer. Let’s get set to hit and run.’
‘It’s as good as done, boss.’
‘We need transport.’
‘I’ll call it up.’
Having brought along a No 11 radio set, Lorrimer used it to recall one of the LRDG lorries that had gone on to Tamit. Twenty minutes later, even before the arrival of the vehicle, a German staff car came along the road with a full complement of top brass. Placed in charge of the Browning 0.5-inch machine-gun, Jimbo had no hesitation in squeezing the trigger and sending a hail of bullets into th
e German officers. They died amid a convulsion of flailing limbs as their vehicle, also peppered with bullets, careered off the road, dived nose-first into the sand and exploded when its petrol tank was punctured.
‘We’ve just given our position away,’ Stirling said, sounding pleased, ‘so let’s hope that LRDG lorry gets here and takes us elsewhere.’
Luckily, it did. Five minutes after the destruction of the German staff car, which had burst into flames and was pouring oily black smoke, an LRDG lorry arrived to hurry them out of the area.
‘Take us ten miles down the road,’ Stirling said, ‘towards the enemy lines. That way, we can pick the bastards off before they get this far. Nipping them in the bud, as it were. A bit like gardening, really.’
Once driven along the road by the LRDG corporal, they planted some land-mines across the desert road, actually an MSR, then spread out again belly-down on the ground and waited for more Axis traffic to pass. The next time it was a troop lorry packed with Italian soldiers. It was blown up by the land-mine, flipped onto its side, and started burning as the unfortunate troops spilled out onto the road. There, before they could even scramble onto their feet, they were chopped to pieces in the triangular fusillade of bullets from Jimbo’s 0.5-inch Browning and the Bren light machine-gun being fired by Frankie.
The Italians ran left and right, dropped to their knees, crawled on their bellies, some trying to unsling their weapons, many shouting curses or orders, but the triangular hail of bullets made the ground spit and explode, first around them, then between them, filling the air with swirling sand, and they screamed, convulsed and jerked like demented puppets, then fell back into the murk, their clothing in tatters, punched with holes, torn to shreds, and often died beneath the bodies of their comrades, who were falling like nine-pins.
‘You’re not bad at all,’ Jimbo said to Frankie, both men oblivious to the screams of the wounded scattered around the blazing Italian troop lorry. ‘You’re pretty good really.’
‘Those two bastards are born killers,’ Lorrimer told Stirling. ‘I’m not suggesting it’s good, I’m not complaining that it’s bad, but I’m certainly saying they’re the kind we’re looking for. Take that as you may, boss.’
‘I take it as read,’ Stirling replied. ‘Now let’s move on, Sergeant.’
They moved on along the road, heading towards the enemy lines, and again took up their positions on both sides of the road. This time they hit an Italian tank, first stopping it with land-mines, which blew its treads off, then punching holes in its side armour and fuel tank with a combined burst from the Browning 0.5-incher and a Bren light machine-gun, and finally slaughtering the crew in a hail of fire from their combined bolt-action rifles, tommy-guns, and 9mm Sten sub-machine-guns as the unfortunate men, some on fire and already screaming dementedly, tried to escape the series of convulsions that were filling the interior with flames and smoke.
When the attack was over, with nothing left alive in the pall of smoke covering the burning tank and road, the SAS men moved on again.
So it went for the next few hours, a precise routine repeated constantly, with the men attacking Axis transports along the MSR, using a combination of land-mines, machine-guns, and automatic and semi-automatic rifles which, between them, created a devastating cross-fire. Tanks exploded internally. Lorries burst into flames. Staff cars careered off the road and rolled over in clouds of dust, the officers inside peppered with bullets that ricocheted off the doors, shattered the windows, and in general created a bedlam that drowned out the screams of the dying. Other soldiers, not so lucky, were incinerated in the flames, choked in the dense smoke, or expired slowly in the agony of amputated limbs and punctured stomachs. Very few survived.
Leaving the smouldering wreckage and its dead, Stirling’s group advanced even closer to the Axis lines to attack again, exactly as previously – land-mines for the vehicles, machine-guns and small arms for the troops – before those travelling in the direction of Sirte could find the previous victims.
As the vehicles included tanks, armoured cars, half-tracks, staff cars and lorries, the results of Stirling’s attacks along the MSR, moving ever closer to the front, were more impressive than even he realized at first. Certainly, by the end of the few hours left to him after being stopped by the four-hour-long convoy, he had caused an enormous amount of damage to the Axis transports attempting to move along the MSR.
‘I couldn’t have picked them off easier at a funfair in Brighton,’ Jimbo said to Frankie as they packed up their machine-guns and moved out. ‘A regular little duck-shoot, that was. We should do it again sometime.’
They moved out with minutes to spare, heading back across the desert, leaving their last victims sprawled across the wide MSR in a welter of burning petrol, melting rubber, buckling perspex, smouldering upholstery, shattered glass, and red-hot, twisted metal. They also left the stench of cordite and scorched flesh, heading gratefully back into the pure air of the clean, silent desert. The buzzing of flies and the whining of mosquitoes did not count in this reckoning. Now the desert seemed pure to them.
Four hours later, in the early hours of the morning, Stirling arrived back at the desert RV, where Callaghan, already sitting in his poncho tent with a glass of whisky and cigar, told him that his group had destroyed a whole squadron of aircraft on the airfield at Tamit.
‘A real fireworks display,’ he told Stirling. ‘Flame and smoke to the heavens.’
‘That sounds like Irish hyperbole,’ Stirling replied, ‘but being Scottish, I’m pleased to accept it. Pour me a whisky, thanks.’
‘L Detachment, SAS, has earned its wings,’ Callaghan told him. ‘You need doubt it no longer.’
Stirling looked up at the vast, starlit sky and asked his one, burning question: ‘Where are the others?’
17
Dropped off by T2 Patrol at Nofilia, over 120 miles east of Sirte, Lewes made for the airfield under cover of darkness with Lieutenant Greaves and his troopers, including Corporal Taff Clayton and Private Neil Moffatt, determined to prove the worth of his bombs. Unfortunately, as before, the problem was not the bombs, but the shortage of targets and the lack of adequate prior intelligence.
With the best will in the world, Lewes could do little at Nofilia because there were only a few Axis planes on the runway, so widely dispersed that it took an age to get from one to the other. To make matters worse, the need to tie the SAS raids to General Ritchie’s advance on Benghazi had left no time to correct the erratic timing of the Lewes bomb fuses. Thus, the bomb on the first plane, timed to ignite in thirty minutes, went off much earlier, before the raiders were even clear of the second plane.
That first bomb exploded as the men were making their getaway, thus drawing the Axis sentries to the airfield. Even worse: the second bomb never went off – either because the fuse had malfunctioned or, just as likely, because the early explosion of the first bomb had given the enemy warning in good time to either defuse, or remove completely, the second bomb.
In any event, by the time the single explosion erupted behind them, illuminating the night sky with jagged fingers of yellow flame that were almost instantly smothered in a blanket of ink-black smoke, Lewes and Greaves were already racing away from the airfield, to begin their trek back across the desert to the RV. Glancing back over their shoulders, they saw the flames and smoke of the burning plane, with Axis troops converging from all sides to the scene of the blaze.
‘Only one!’ Lewes exclaimed bitterly. ‘Not even two!’
‘It’s the luck of the draw,’ Greaves responded. ‘Come on, Jock, keep running!’
They fled from the unguarded perimeter as fast as their legs would carry them, glancing repeatedly back over their shoulders to check that the Axis troops now surrounding the blazing plane had not decided to follow the saboteurs. In the event, none of them did, which made the getaway easy. Nevertheless, the SAS men slowed down to a quick march only when the airfield behind them was out of sight beyond a line of smooth, wave-li
ke sand dunes painted pale white by the moonlight. When the dunes too had disappeared, the men slowed down to a normal walk.
‘What a bleedin’ cock-up!’ Taff said to Neil, just before they broke into single file. ‘I thought we’d really bought it that time, mate, what with all those bleedin’ Germans flooding over the runway when that bomb went off early.’
‘I was saying my prayers, I can tell you,’ Neil replied solemnly. ‘Nearly shitting my pants, I was. We were lucky they all went for that burning plane and didn’t come after us.’
‘One fucking bomb! It breaks your bleedin’ heart.’ Taff could hardly believe they’d had such bad luck. ‘So much for so little!’
‘Not as bad,’ Neil said. ‘One bomb’s better than none – and it kept the Germans and Eyeties busy, at least.’
‘Look for the silver lining, right? You’re a bloody optimist, Neil.’
‘I like to look on the bright side, that’s true. So what happens now?’
‘We’re going to the RV. Linking up with Captain Stirling and other raiding parties that were sent off on raids in the same area at approximately the same time. Then the LRDG lorries will take us back to base and a nice cup of char.’
‘I can’t wait,’ Neil said.
In fact their jocular manner hid a bitter disappointment that nagged remorselessly at all of them as they made their long march through the night.
The desert’s darkness was deep, though a pale moon shone down, and the silence had an unreal, eerie quality that made some of the men uneasy. Planes often flew overhead, obviously heading for Benghazi, and occasionally lorries were heard in the distance, taking troops to the front. Lights fanned up in the distance, illuminating the northern horizon, reminding the men that the war was still engaged and that the planes overhead were on bombing runs against the beleaguered Axis forces.
‘It looks pretty from here, doesn’t it?’ Taff said. ‘But I bet it’s hell over there.’
‘We’re marching in the right direction,’ Neil told him. ‘Well away from that shit.’
