Take or Destroy!

by John Harris

  Taffy’s eyes were popping. ‘You speak Welsh, man?’

  ‘Welsh is the language of Paradise, Taffy bach.’ Bradshaw’s voice was suddenly thick with Celtic intonation.

  ‘It’s Welsh you are yourself?’

  Bradshaw’s smile became a broad grin. ‘But not such a bloody welsher as you are, Taff.’

  9

  The troops were praised by the general, specialized equipment was drawn, and ways and means of getting ashore were worked out.

  To tell his men what they were going to do and where they were going to do it, Hockold used the general’s method and had them sit down round him in a little amphitheatre of sand in one of the wadis. Captain Amos had produced a blackboard with a rough plan of Qaba drawn on it.

  ‘Qaba,’ Hockold said, jabbing with a billiard cue. ‘Two hundred miles away, fifty east of Mersa and twenty west of Fuka. There’s a prisoner of war cage there that contains two thousand of your chums whom we hope to set free.’

  The information put an immediate expression of interest on their faces. They all knew someone who’d been slipped into the bag and the thought that they might release a few friends was good for their morale.

  ‘Our object: to destroy a fuel dump, a spare parts depot, and these four ships here. I know they’re there because I was in Qaba a week ago.’

  It was news to them that Hockold had been behind the German lines and they regarded him with new interest. Previously he’d been just an ordinary sort of half-colonel, brusque in manner and difficult to approach, who’d been appointed to push them around.

  ‘We shall be split up into several parties,’ he went on. ‘And every officer and sergeant will be given a map of the town. I want you all to look at them and familiarize yourself with the details so that if anything happens to your officer or sergeant, someone else can take up where he left off. We shall go in by ship, so that when you’ve done your job, you will make your way to the beaches or the mole and return aboard as fast as possible. Any way you can. Swim --’

  ‘I cad’t swib,’ Waterhouse yelled from the back.

  ‘Then you’ll have to take a running jump,’ Murdoch said and there was a yell of laughter.

  Hockold was glad to see the growing cheerfulness, and he was just beginning to feel that he had them in the palm of his hand when they became aware of a cloud of dust approaching. Almost immediately, without warning, they found themselves facing the new general. The briefing was hurriedly postponed and the general climbed to the seat of his car, squinting into the sun like an actor under a spotlight. ‘Come closer,’ he said, gesturing. ‘As close as you can. So you can hear me.’ Then he told them everything, his plan for the coming battle and what he expected of his men.

  ‘When I assumed command of this army,’ he said, ‘my orders were simply to go down into the desert and destroy Rommel. And that’s exactly what I intend to do. So give your minds and your hearts to your jobs and do them with all your might, so that with God’s help we can throw the Germans out of Africa and set about cleaning up the mess they’ve made in Europe.’

  And that was it, and he was tossing out packets of fags handed to him by an aide. ‘Have a smoke,’ he said. ‘Enjoy them. With luck before long you’ll be smoking German cigars.’

  While they were still scrambling for the cigarettes the car drew away. Rabbitt hurriedly called them to attention and Hockold stood at the salute with Murdoch and Sergeant Bunch - set in concrete as usual - and someone raised a scattered cheer. To one or two of the cleverer ones like Bradshaw it was obvious that the chat -- not quite so spontaneous as it seemed -- was a calculated attempt to get their tails up; but to most of them it was just the Old Man, coming down among his pals, the swaddies, the chaps he knew had to do the dirty work. And any general who came and talked without spit and polish and without you having to stand in the hot sun for an hour while he had a pink gin with the colonel, any general who told you what he was going to do and chucked fags about, was all right.

  The next day the equipment lorries arrived, containing everything they wanted. Working on the principle that the army never gave you half what you needed, Hockold had indented for twice as much as he thought he’d get, and when it came it was twice what he’d expected, twice as many Brens, twice as many radios, twice as many Tommy-guns, binoculars, compasses, pistols and Stens.

  Feeling like new men, they were divided into squads. Amos was with Hockold because he knew what was going on, all the distances, all the times and numbers. Number Five Party, which had a job that isolated them, could safely be left to the experienced Murdoch who would think well ahead and handle emergencies with his usual ruthless efficiency. Watson, who had proved experienced, able and cool-headed, had been given the ships. Second-Lieutenant Sotheby was with Collier’s POW party because that seemed the place where someone who was nervous and not very bright could get into the least trouble. Blood-and-Guts Swann was considered more than capable of handling the refuelling post and warehouse; especially since Brandison, whose job was to capture the bridge on the mole, would be around to back him up.

  At this point, Tent 7 was split up yet again. Bradshaw was with Devenish and Sergeant Bunch in the ships party; Belcher was with the dour, sour Comrie in the warehouse party under Swann and Brandison, while Keely was stuck with Fidge in Collier’s group. Because he could shoot the eye out of a rat at half a mile, Baragwanath Eva was with Docwra in a group of snipers whose job was to stop anybody picking off the leader of the operation. This party also included Willow, Gardner, Sugarwhite and Waterhouse; while, due to his size and the fact that he could run at full speed with a load like a drayhorse without even noticing it, Ed By was with the Three Stooges in Murdoch’s party, travelling in the landing craft, with Auchmuty and Cobbe and the rest of those built on the heroic scale. Jones the Body was with this party, too, but only after loud complaints that he was as strong as anybody, look you, and had joined up to get into a bit of action.

  Waterhouse was loud in his derision. ‘I’ll tell you why I’b ‘ere!’ He raised his voice in a riotous yell. ‘I’b ‘ere because I got called up and got no choice. That’s why I’b ‘ere.’

  Belcher grinned. ‘I joined to get the judies,’ he said. ‘Uniform does something for a feller.’

  ‘Oh, agreed!’ Bradshaw looked up from his book. ‘Nobody was interested in me in civvies, but when I put on a uniform, vast lustful village girls with breasts like clock-weights and bums like garden rollers ran after me down the street to drag me off my bike.’

  ‘Did they catch you?’ Waterhouse asked.

  ‘Sometimes. But I gritted my teeth and endured it like a man.’

  That afternoon the officers drove to Cairo where Rear-Admiral Bryant had set up a briefing conference. There was a large blackboard with a map of Qaba drawn on it with the gun positions marked, and Bryant stood up to tell them what to expect.

  ‘German headquarters,’ he said, using a pointer. ‘POW compound. Naval barracks. Mosque. Batteries - each of which consists of one 47 and light weapons. There are also machine guns on the roof of the naval barracks and the German headquarters, and in these houses here. Colonel Hockold will tell you more about them.’

  He went on to explain what preparations had been made and what weather, currents, and conditions they might expect. Then General Murray gave them a rundown on Montgomery’s battle plan and how they were to fit into it. Next, Commander Babington rose and began on the real details.

  ‘Start signal will be Umberto’s gun and the explosion aboard ML 112 at 0100 hours. You understand that, Dysart?’

  Lieutenant Dysart nodded indifferently. His job was already done. All he had to do now was touch two wires together.

  Babington’s gaze took in the ships’ captains - Lieutenant-Commander Hardness, who was to have Umberto; Lieutenant Stretton, an ex-Merchant sailor like Carter, who was to command Horambeb; Carter himself, lined-faced and so casual he seemed drunk; and the skippers of the launches, all of them young enough to look like boys. ‘As
the convoy arrives off Qaba,’ he went on, ‘the RAF launches will break off and go in fast to their beach. Horambeb will go into this stretch of dredged water - here - on the outside of the mole, and will get her ropes ashore. Umberto’s troops will disembark across her. Landing Craft 11 - ‘ he looked at Carter who seemed to be asleep ‘ - Landing Craft 11,’ he repeated.

  Carter looked up. ‘I’m listening,’ he said.

  ‘It’s your job to put your ship as close to the harbour as possible and get the tanks ashore quickly, so they can deal with the 47 just above the slip.’

  ‘Provided that the 47 just above the slip doesn’t deal with me first,’ Carter observed.

  ‘It’ll be your job to see it doesn’t,’ Bryant snapped.

  As Babington sat down, Hockold reached for the pointer. ‘Four parties will go into the town,’ he said. ‘Major Murdoch’s will go as fast as possible for the fuel dump. The main party will set up a medical aid station and headquarters near the Roman arch and keep open the Bab al Gawla and the Shariah Jedid for their return. The first party ashore will be the ladder party, which will capture the wooden bridge on the mole before it can be destroyed, with the main party close behind ready to pass through them. The refuelling station and warehouse party will pass through the main party when they’re established by the arch. The explosives parties will remain below until they’re certain the mole’s in our hands. Any questions? Meinertz, how about you?’

  Lieutenant Meinertz looked at the plan of Qaba and decided that what seemed easy to the navy was going to look a lot different to a man shut up in a little tin chamber pot; especially as he still wasn’t happy about his gunner, who seemed to have been born with a congenital defect in his eyesight and couldn’t have hit a bull in a passage after dark. Since, however there was little chance at this stage of getting a new gunner, there didn’t therefore seem to be any relevant question, and he shook his head.

  As Hockold sat down, Air Vice-Marshal de Berry straightened his long legs.

  Towering above the table, puffing at a cigarette in the amber holder, he outlined the RAF’s share in the operation. ‘We’ve planned a course to bring the aircraft in from the sea so that their engines will drown the noise of the launches. Blenheims will go in first in groups of three, dropping metallic strip and flares, but they will then circle to the south and come in again to drop their bombs. They’ll be followed by Bostons, who will also arrive in threes, interspersed at four-minute intervals with Bombays, so that the bombs and the flares and the dummy parachutists are dropping over a long period to keep the Germans guessing. The Bostons and Blenheims will be loaded with high explosive, antipersonnel bombs and incendiaries to cause as many incidents at the airfield as possible.’

  As he sat down Hardness, the captain of Umberto, asked a question. ‘I notice we have no fire support,’ he pointed out.

  ‘You won’t need it,’ Babington said. ‘In addition to the RAF’s effort, you’ve got the biggest diversion it’s possible for anyone to have and it’ll have been going on for several days when you arrive. You’ve got the whole of the Eighth Army making it.’

  After the conference was over, Hockold drove Kirstie to the club for a drink. She wasn’t in a talkative mood because the battle was near now and the thought saddened her. Her eyes gentle, she watched Hockold as he jerked out his case to offer her a cigarette. At the conference he’d seemed sure of himself but now he was brusque and clumsy again as he always was with her.

  ‘How do you feel about it now, George?’ she asked.

  Hockold frowned. ‘Think we’ll pull it off, given normal luck,’ he said.

  ‘Does it mean a lot to you?’

  ‘There’ll be a lot of lives lost if we don’t.’

  ‘I didn’t mean that. I meant, from the point of view of your career.’

  He was silent for a while then he lifted his head. ‘It would be nice to make brigadier,’ he said. ‘And pulling this off would help. I’ve not moved fast in the army - others my age have done better - but I’ve never expected to hit the headlines. Not even in wartime. I was never at the top of the ladder, Kirstie. Just one of the ordinary people in the middle. That’s what I am, I’m afraid.’

  It was the first time he’d really talked to her about himself and her heart went out to him for his modesty, his self-deprecation and his honesty.

  ‘So I think brigadier would satisfy me,’ he went on. ‘And this is my chance. If it doesn’t come off, I never shall do it, because to get to the top any other way you have to trample on people and I’m afraid I’m not made that way.’

  It was the longest speech he’d ever made to her and certainly the most he’d ever said about himself. She looked at him, seeing a sensitive, kind, painstaking man who took refuge behind his frowns and silences, and she felt curiously close to tears.

  Later he drove her home. She shared a flat with several other ATS officers in a shabby block near a restaurant that dispensed over-spiced oily food. Nightshirted pimps stood on the next comer selling their sisters or blue Egyptian sex books. Not far away they could hear packed trams pounding by on rusty rails and the cry of the muezzin coming like a mourning wail across the close-packed flat-roofed houses. Somehow, the place went with her, modest, unsophisticated, but worldly. Some of the Englishwomen in Cairo had acquired house-boats on the Nile opposite the Gezira Club and still discussed the Wine Society’s lists and regarded Lili Marlene only as a tune that grew boring with too much repetition; somehow it pleased Hockold that Kirstie hadn’t opted for that.

  They sat for a while in the old Humber, talking, ignoring the scruffy urchins who passed with the hawkers wearing galabiyahs like empty laundry bags.

  ‘When it’s finished, George,’ Kirstie asked. ‘What then? What happens after that?’

  He sat in silence for a moment, because he wasn’t sure there was going to be any ‘then’, or any ‘after’ either. The image he’d seen of himself, lying among the wreckage of Qaba, still troubled him by coming at the most unexpected moments. He had almost mastered it now, but not quite, and he had never managed to discuss it with Amos or Watson, and certainly not Murdoch, because he’d always felt that people who told others about their presentiments were being unnecessarily maudlin.

  ‘George?’

  He realized she was looking at him, wondering at his silence, and he pulled himself together.

  ‘I suppose,’ he said slowly, ‘that we shall join up with the rest of the army and move west.’

  She frowned. ‘So that when you leave, it’ll probably be the last we shall see of each other.’

  Hockold’s head turned quickly and she smiled. ‘I hope not, George,’ she said. ‘But I think we ought to have a last drink in case, don’t you? To celebrate. Or to wish you well. Or until we meet again or something.’

  He handed her the brief-case she’d carried. The setting sun was in his eyes as he glanced at the white buildings and at the telegraph poles and the odd gharry laden with noisy soldiers of the Cairo garrison. For a moment they had a strange sort of clarity, illuminated by a bright light as if he were seeing them for the last time. He was quiet for a moment and she spoke quickly to break the silence. ‘Have you ever been to Peebles, George?’ she asked.

  ‘Once. I come from Cumberland. It’s not far.’

  ‘My father farms there. We have a few acres.’

  He opened his door, climbed out and appeared by the passenger seat. She looked up. ‘I think we ought to try to keep in touch, don’t you?’ She was trying hard not to make demands of him or frighten him off, but she felt somehow that he needed to know that there was someone on his side somewhere, waving flags for him, and shouting encouragement. ‘After the war even. Perhaps I could persuade you to visit us.’

  He looked down at her. For a moment she seemed to be miles away so that she was small and dimly outlined. ‘Yes,’ he said, thinking that after the war, even after Qaba, there would be no visiting anybody for him, none of the quiet things he enjoyed in life, nothing but silence and
an aloof darkness. It was a strange feeling which - because it seemed so inevitable - didn’t depress him in the slightest. ‘You must visit Cumberland, too,’ he added.

  ‘I’d like that, George.’

  ‘Truly?’ He was really only making conversation because under the circumstances none of it had much meaning.

  ‘I mean it. Honestly I do.’

  He didn’t answer and there was another long silence as he wondered how she’d feel when she learned what had happened to him. He went on explosively. ‘Why didn’t you marry again, Kirstie?’

  ‘Nobody asked me.’ She smiled. ‘At least, nobody I wanted. I had plenty of proposals, of course, but not many of them for marriage.’ There was another silence. ‘Why didn’t you marry, George? I’ve never asked you.’

  Hockold shrugged. ‘Just never thought about it,’ he said. ‘Even thought I ought not to with the war.’

  He managed to help her from the car without wrenching her arm, but for a long time neither of them moved, both of them busy with their thoughts. Then she turned and headed for the door. With her hand on the knob she turned. Her face was curiously sad as she stared at Hockold.

  ‘War’s a time when people should marry and have families, George,’ she said. ‘If only to make up for everybody who gets killed.’

  10

  RAF and naval experts and American troops joined the force. Morale was remarkably high.

  With the plan settled, the training grew more particular.

  Quite unnoticed, as the days had passed, a metamorphosis had occurred and, although they could hardly even now be called commandos, they were still a lot better than most. Brandison’s party could run the length of the mole in a matter of seconds, while Murdoch’s party, despite packs weighing up to ninety pounds and spare magazines for the Brens, could run the mile they would have to run in a matter of eight and a half minutes. They even began to get ideas; and Eva and Docwra, both experienced at trussing other people’s sheep, devised what they considered a good method of securing prisoners so they couldn’t escape, only to be quietly corrected by Murdoch who showed them a much better one with the prisoner’s thumbs fastened behind his back and a loop round his neck. ‘If he tries to free his hands, he’ll strangle himself,’ he pointed out.