by John Harris
‘Actually, Sergeant,’ he said, ‘I think it’s tut-time we were off.’
As he straightened up, he was astonished to see three lorries and a motor-cycle escort come round the shoulder of the hill, heading down the dusty road from the POW compound. The pioneers Hochstatter had demanded appeared so unexpectedly, the sound of their engines drowned by the clatter of firing, that they were almost past before Sotheby’s party fully realized they were even coming. The first lorry roared on down the slope, but as the second one came alongside Sotheby woke up to the situation with a start and pulled the trigger of his Sten gun. Nothing happened and he realized he had the safety catch on. As he freed it, the third lorry drew level and he emptied the whole magazine into the driver’s cabin. As he did so, his men woke up, too, and Sotheby had the satisfaction of seeing the lorry swerve and roll off the road, turning over and over down the slope before bursting into flames, while one of the following motor-cyclists, either dead or in a catalepsy of fright, shot over the low cliffs, still sitting bolt upright, still grasping the handlebars, and dropped with a splash into the sea alongside the startled crew of HSL 117.
Surprised and pleased with the results of his work, Sotheby turned a grinning face towards Berringer. It appeared he could do things after all if he tried, and he waved his arm and started up the slope towards the POW camp.
Alongside him were Keely and the terrified Fidge. A product of the Gorbals, fighting was nothing new to Keely; war was only a difference of conditions and weapons. He loathed everything about the army because it imposed rules on him, but now that he was away from camp he was enjoying himself and itching to do something about killing Germans. Fidge was frankly horrified at what he’d let himself in for. When this lot was over, he kept telling himself, he’d muster out of commando training as fast as he’d mustered in.
As they scrambled over the top of the slope on to the flat ground beyond, they saw the compound in front of them.
Sotheby had expected it to be full of huts, but there were only two or three by the entrance where Veledetti and his staff worked. All the compound itself contained was a large number of ragged men, now lying flat on their faces for safety.
With one half of his men keeping down the fire of the few Germans and knocking chips off the huts where the Italians were crouching, Sotheby ran forward. Alongside him were Keely and Fidge. There were five Italians standing by the gate and Keely flattened the lot with one burst. But then an explosion of sustained firing came from a parked lorry in the shadows beyond and, just as he dived for the ground, Sotheby saw Keely stagger. It occurred to him that the POW compound wasn’t going to be quite as easy as they’d expected because he’d noticed peaked Afrika Korps caps near the lorry and realized that the men who wore them were the last of the group they’d ambushed on the hill, who for some reason or other had been delayed.
Keely was still on his feet, with Fidge close behind him for shelter, and as he pulled the trigger again, the firing from the lorry died away. When Sotheby looked up, Keely was lying on his face and Fidge was standing terror-stricken, wondering what to do next. It seemed to be Fidge who’d done the damage.
The firing from the lorry had stopped only momentarily. Its crew had dived for safety and, flinging themselves flat, they opened up again so that Sotheby had to scramble up and leap forward to knock the petrified Fidge flying.
‘Wu-well done,’ he said as he sprawled on top of him.
They could hear yelling now from the compound as heads lifted and British cheering started. But Veledetti had finally decided to make a stand in the guard-house, and as he and his men began to fire across the compound the prisoners’ heads went down again and the cheering stopped abruptly as the bullets flew, twanging on the wire and whining off into the darkness.
Sotheby lifted his head. Fidge was moaning. A bullet had nicked his ear and he was bleeding like a stuck pig. Without thinking, Sotheby half-dragged, half-carried him out of the firing, and almost hurled him into Berringer’s arms.
‘You all right?’ he asked.
‘Oi think Oi’m doying!’
As Berringer pushed Fidge away, Sotheby waved his arm. ‘Get those bub-bastards with the lorry, Sergeant,’ he said. ‘The rest of you, come with me.’
Diving across the road to the shelter of the bank beyond, he climbed up to the huts. There were a few Italians among them but they were shot down as soon as they appeared. Then Sotheby tossed a grenade through the window of the guardhouse and the shooting stopped abruptly. A moment later two Germans burst out of the hut, firing from the hip.
Sotheby yelped and fell flat on his back, but someone killed one of the Germans with a single shot and, as the other began to run across the compound, a sailor stood up among the sprawled prisoners with a stone as big as a football in his hand. He was a huge man and he flung the stone with all his strength. It struck the German at the back of the head just where his peaked cap finished, and felled him as if he’d been pole-axed.
In the sudden silence, Sotheby sat up. Inside the guard-house there were a few moans of ‘Mamma’ and ‘Aiuto!’ as Sotheby got to his feet, blood staining his sleeve and dripping off his fingertips.
‘Lor’,’he said.
‘Where’d it get you, mate?’ the sailor asked through the wire.
‘Fore-arm.’ Sotheby pulled up his sleeve and stared at the wound, surprised to see how slight it was. ‘Don’t think it’s much.’
The firing by the lorry seemed to have stopped and they could see Berringer moving back to them at a crouch. The men with the wire-cutters ran up, and as the gate was torn to pieces they were surrounded by shouting, excited men. A few of them ran into the guard-house and, picking up dropped weapons, pushed out the surviving Italians, their hands in the air. An infantryman in tattered shorts kicked Veledetti just for spite and Sotheby turned on him.
‘Stop that!’ he said.
‘The bastard’s an Italian.’
‘I said sus-sus-sus-stop it!’
A few more of the prisoners had picked up weapons and crowded round Sotheby.
‘What happens next, sir?’
‘You gug-gug-gug - ‘ Sotheby’s jaw worked wildly and he began to blink rapidly ‘ - you go down into the tut-tut-tut - ‘ His excitement at his success was so intense he found he couldn’t speak, and he turned in disgust to Berringer. ‘Tut-tell ‘em, Sergeant,’ he managed.
Berringer explained. There was a yell of delight and the horde of men streamed off. Sotheby watched them go.
‘Where’s the signaller?’ he asked.
‘Here, sir.’
‘Warn Umberto that the pup-prisoners are on their way.’
As he spoke, there was an ear-splitting crack and another icy-white flash from the cliff above, and they flung themselves to the ground. The explosion seemed to suck the breath from their bodies and, even as they whiffed the cordite fumes, they saw the shell explode near the Roman arch.
Sotheby lifted his head, frowning. ‘I think we ought to dud-do something about that bastard, Sergeant,’ he said.
8
Strongpoints were set up and warehouses full of Luftwaffe, panzer and transport spares were set on fire.
To Major Nietzsche, surveying what he could of the battle from the windows of a house near the Bab al Gawla, it was obvious that the struggle for Qaba had now reached a critical phase. The din was still tremendous but the British, established in the buildings round the Roman arch, weren’t moving forward and they weren’t showing their heads. From the naval barracks opposite the German headquarters, von Steen’s sailors were keeping up a heavy fire towards them, and Nietzsche was just wondering what else he could do to dislodge them when the pioneers arrived from the POW camp.
Instead of the hundred he had expected, there were only fifty because two of the lorries seemed to have gone astray somewhere; but they were all toughened soldiers and he began to spread them out among the houses and shops of the business quarter. As he worked he heard a fresh outbreak of firing from the dire
ction of the POW compound and he swung round to Wutka who had appeared alongside him. ‘Better take a dozen men and see what’s happening,’ he said. ‘We can’t raise Veledetti. Macht’s gut. Hals und Beinbruch!’
Wutka signed to the men around him and moved off at a run between the houses, while Nietzsche turned his attention again to the British. He had sent snipers to occupy strategic positions and they were already diving down alleys and pounding up stairs, to kick doors open and stamp past startled civilian occupants to occupy bedrooms and windows.
The fire coming from the area of the Roman arch and from what sounded like a captured Spandau set up in one of the buildings at the end of the harbour was heavy, and it was hard to do much in return. The 75 on the cliff above the POW compound was firing but it was still unsighted and its shells were only hitting the fringe of the British positions, so it was necessary to get the 47 near the Mantazeh Palace to bring its fire to bear. There was also a telephone line in Hochstatter’s office to the 47 at the end of the mole, which could be swung round with a bit of initiative for a clear shot at the buildings round the arch. So far, for lack of orders, it seemed to have done remarkably little.
A motor-cycle was standing near one of the lorries that had brought the pioneers down from the POW compound. It belonged to one of the outriders who had accompanied them and Wutka decided he’d better use it to go and get the gun into action.
Reaching Hochstatter’s headquarters wasn’t too difficult but the Boujaffar was a wreck now and as he dived into its shelter he saw the body of the elderly commodore who had brought in the convoy lying with one of the Italian captains under a pile of chairs and tables. Somewhere in the darkness he could hear a voice moaning, ‘I wish to die for the Fuhrer. I wish to die for the Fuhrer.’
Hochstatter’s office was a shambles and Hochstatter had joined von Steen in an attempt to set up a new headquarters in the naval barracks across the road, but the telephone still worked and Wutka grabbed it and rang the crew of the 47 across the harbour.
‘Get that damned gun firing!’ he screamed. ‘The Tommies are in the houses round the Roman arch!’
He slammed the instrument down and ran outside again to head for the 47 by the palace before going on to find Veledetti. As he crouched in the doorway of the wrecked hotel, he glanced upwards. Aeroplanes were still heading over the town towards the airfield, but they were coming in penny numbers that puzzled him as he stared at the sky, trying to pick them out. The flare of flames and the flash of guns seemed to have drawn the brightness out of the stars so that instead of hanging like great shining lanterns in the African sky they seemed dim and small and insignificant in a way that troubled Wutka.
Near him the wounded soldier in the wreckage had changed his tune - ‘Mutter! Hilfe! Wo hist du, Georg? Wann kommt der Arzt?’ - and he moved into the shadows looking for him. He turned out to be little more than a boy, and his uniform was saturated with blood. Near him lay the bodies of his comrades. As Wutka stooped over him, the boy’s cry changed. ‘My name is Otto Knaben. I live at Mariatheresienstrasse Drei. My name is Otto Knaben -’
As he saw Wutka, his moans stopped. ‘Walnn kommt der Arzt?’ he asked feebly.
‘Bald,’ Wutka said. ‘Soon.’
‘Immer bald; the boy moaned. ‘They always tell me that.’
Wutka turned away, knowing he could do nothing. ‘Christ damn the war,’ he said bitterly, and glanced up at the stars again, as though they were the only stable things in the world.
It was at that moment that Sugarwhite, after lying stunned for a good ten minutes following his collision with the camel, picked himself up. His mouth seemed to be caked with salt, he had twisted his ankle and had a cut on his nose, while the two smallest fingers of his left hand appeared to have been damaged. He still felt dizzy and his chest was bruised where he’d fallen on his Sten. Why he hadn’t blown a hole in himself he couldn’t understand, because his legs and arms felt as though the camel had danced a fandango on him. It still sprawled a few yards away, like a heap of old coconut matting, all long legs and neck, snorting its life blood out through its nostrils in a red froth into the dark dust that jumped and quivered in the fire from the naval barracks and the business quarter towards the Roman arch.
Staring at the leaping dust, it seemed to Sugarwhite that it would be a good idea to find somewhere safer, but as he scrambled to his feet, his body rolled to the vacuum of a passing shot. The crack that followed was as if the shell had exploded right alongside him, and he heard the whine of flying fragments of steel and the clatter of them falling to earth with the scraps of stone they’d gouged out of the nearby buildings. Swathes of smoke were drifting past, choking him, as if he were in hell, and he could hear the harsh chatter of machine-guns.
As he got a grip on himself his fear dried in his throat. ‘Steady, the Buffs,’ he said aloud and he began to sort himself out slowly, still dazed but surprised to find he wasn’t afraid. Anger was growing in him. So far he hadn’t shot anybody, hadn’t committed mayhem of any kind and, bruised as he was, he was very anxious to do someone some harm.
Looking round, he saw that Hockold had edged forward with a group of men under Amos and Rabbitt into the buildings on the water’s edge directly opposite the Shariah Jedid. But the German gun by the Mantazeh Palace suddenly opened up on them and Sugarwhite, still trying to get his breath, saw heads go down like a lot of coconuts in a coconut shy. The shell struck the base of the Roman arch and stones were gouged out of it. Almost immediately another shell struck it and, as more stones crumbled from almost the same spot, it occurred to Sugarwhite that the arch was beginning to look a little top-heavy and that it wouldn’t take much more to bring it down.
There was a wooden jetty, surrounded by native boats, extending into the harbour in front of the gun, and the gun crew was having difficulty in bringing their weapon to bear. It had never been intended to fire the gun into the town and the wooden masts and rigging of the feluccas were in the way so that the shells were missing the low buildings where Hockold’s party were established. Even as Sugarwhite considered the situation, a third shell hit the base of the Roman arch. His eyes widened as he saw it teeter, moving almost like a tree in a high wind. Then it toppled and crashed, bas reliefs of Roman legionaries and all, thundering down in a heap of ancient stones and a cloud of lifting dust. To Sugarwhite there seemed something terribly sad in an edifice which had defied nature for two thousand years being knocked to pieces by some bloody rotten little Nazi gunner; it helped to poison his attitude a little bit more.
The bullets were still stirring the dust nearby. He had no idea where anybody else was and was terrified of being shot by his own side.
‘War Weapons Week, Weymouth,’ he yelled into the whirling dust.
‘Over here, you soft sod,’ a voice called back from a group of mud-brick houses alongside the mosque and, taking advantage of the confusion that the fallen arch had caused, he set off for them in a crouching run. As he did so, a burst of firing from the houses across the Shariah Jedid made him dive rather more hurriedly for shelter than he’d intended and he knocked his knee badly and jarred his injured fingers.
As he sat up he saw Sergeant Freelove staring down at him. ‘Where’ve you been?’ he demanded angrily.
Sugarwhite looked up indignantly. ‘I’ve been getting shot at,’ he said. ‘That’s where! I think I’ve broken my ribs!’
Freelove seemed unimpressed and gestured towards the remains of the Roman arch and the settling dust. ‘Well, you’re needed up there,’ he said sourly. ‘Up by them houses. Get stuck in!’
Sugarwhite had expected at least a ‘How are you?’ or a mug of tea and a word of sympathy, but all he’d got was ‘Get stuck in’ as if he’d been shirking. But then, as he crouched down by the mud dwellings, he realized what was causing Freelove’s impatience. Hickey, the American doctor, was using the shelter of the buildings as a dressing station and the area around him was like a scene from a nightmare. Small groups of men were huddled the
re, clutching injured limbs, their faces pale and desperate in the glare of the flames which made their bloodstains look black. They had lost all interest in the battle and were concerned now only with getting to safety. Around them, stones and rubble were scattered across the road under the drifting dust and smoke. Not far away two or three dead Germans sprawled like half-empty sacks of flour. Behind him, a stone-built hut was burning fiercely, someone still screaming inside. Alongside it there was a dead mule and a bullet-chipped cart, and in its shelter Hickey was crouching over a man who still clutched his rifle with pain-filled desperation.
Another man was lying on his side, his trousers slit to the thigh, a bandage round a shattered knee, and near him an RAF corporal lay propped against a pack, snoring with a wound in the head. Mitchell, one of the Stooges, was by the side of the road, quite still, his hips and legs twisted unnaturally. A fourth man was trapped under a collapsed wall, moaning, his hair white with dust. ‘Oh, Christ,’ he was muttering. ‘Oh, Christ, my back!’ Two or three other men were trying to drag him out, tossing bricks and rubble aside with a ferocious, desperate speed. As Sugarwhite stared, sudden tears in his eyes, he saw Hickey, his hands red with blood, crawl over to him and, breaking the seal of the morphia capsule of a hypodermic, calmly begin to screw on the needle.
Someone was mewing with terror nearby and Sugarwhite saw it was Taffy Jones, cowering under a hand-cart containing drums of petrol, his head down, his face chalk-white, a string of saliva hanging from his open mouth. Remembering his old ebullience, Sugarwhite gaped at him aghast. Yet somehow he couldn’t condemn as a coward a man who could so publicly display his funk when all the rest, just as afraid as he was, felt obliged to hide theirs in case their friends should sneer. Sugarwhite gulped, hating every German in the world for the suffering they had caused, even for the humiliation they were bringing on the wretched Taffy.
