Take or Destroy!

by John Harris

  As the noise died down, it left the town so silent it seemed to be panting, trying to get its breath back. Wild-eyed, shocked men, their clothes torn and stained, their faces covered with dust, came into the streets in groups. A few of the natives started moving among the trees towards the mosque to send up a prayer while it was still possible, to stare at the damage, or inspect their wrecked boats in the harbour.

  There were a few prisoners, most of them wounded but also one or two who were unhurt. Among them was Swann, prodded forward by Bontempelli who had taken the opportunity as Swann stumbled ahead of him, his hands in the air, to jam a hurried clip of ammunition into the rifle at last. By sheer coincidence, he bumped into Sottotenente Baldissera leading in the remains of his mixed engineer company. There were considerably less than had set out for the airfield and they didn’t have a single lorry left.

  ‘For the love of God!’ Baldissera was blackened, filthy and exhausted, his clothes scorched. ‘Look who’s here - Double Ration!’

  There was also the indestructible Sugarwhite who rose out of the debris of the shattered roof, still twisted from the pain in his ribs, bloody, blackened and covered with dirt, just as Unteroffizier Upholz stopped the Kubelwagen he was driving by the harbour.

  They stood and stared at each other. Sugarwhite and the German sergeant-major. One of them tough, middle-aged and experienced, the other young, frightened and bewildered, his face streaked where the tears had run. Sugarwhite’s hair was white with plaster dust, his clothes were torn, he’d lost his Sten gun under the broken roof, and he felt his brain had been shredded by the explosions. But he was the card of the outfit, wasn’t he, and he still had to behave like a card. He managed a grin at Upholz standing by the jeep.

  ‘Taxi?’ he said, and even Upholz, who knew no English, caught the insult.

  And finally Bradshaw. They found him in agony from shattered eardrums, his face blackened so that his eyes looked spectral, just struggling from the debris of the stone warehouse, and pushed him, stumbling, along the mole to where the German officers were standing in a group.

  Tarnow, the least shocked by the battle despite his wound, started to question him.

  ‘How many of you were there?’ he asked.

  Bradshaw’s face was blank. ‘I am Lance-Corporal David Evan Oxshott, Number 2089675.’

  ‘You’d better tell us,’ Tarnow snapped.

  Bradshaw couldn’t hear him properly. ‘I am Lance-Corporal David Evan Bulstrode, Number 2089675.’

  ‘You said “Oxshott”.’

  Bradshaw gestured wearily, guessing at the words that Tarnow’s moving lips framed. ‘Oxshott-Bulstrode,’ he said. ‘Hyphenated.’

  Tarnow indicated the debris in the harbour and the still surviving Giuseppe Bianchi. ‘Why didn’t you blow them all up?’ he demanded.

  Bradshaw knew what was worrying him and he glanced at his watch. It was still going and the minutes were ticking by. ‘We did,’ he said. ‘Or we shall. There’s a delayed action charge on that one.’

  Tarnow’s face went white. ‘When?’

  Bradshaw grinned. ‘Any minute now.’

  The Germans glanced at each other. Then Bradshaw was bundled into a house, and Hrabak and Tarnow began bawling at the sergeants. A few men who’d wandered down the mole to stare at the wreckage began to run back into the town; others were sent to clear the harbour area. Within three minutes there wasn’t a living soul in sight. No Germans, no Italians, no Arabs.

  Five minutes later Giuseppe Bianchi went up. Devenish had done his work well, and they all heard the charge go and ducked their heads. A fraction of a second later, the ship split wide open. The funnel went clean over the wall into the sea. The masts shot into the air as if they were javelins hurled by a giant hand. A huge ventilator lifted across the harbour and dropped with a clang in front of headquarters. For about two minutes pieces of metal and wood and iron showered on the town, shattering tiles, removing roofs and doors, flattening the dome on top of the mosque as if it were brown paper instead of copper, and completing the ruin of the Mantazeh Palace. Palm trees were stripped of their leaves and reduced to bare poles. Most of the surviving Arab boats in the harbour became matchwood, and those that didn’t were washed up on to the roadway by an enormous wave.

  What was left of the Boujaffar collapsed like a pack of cards, burying a sergeant and six men who were dragging out the bodies of the commodore and the ship’s captain who had died there. So did half a dozen houses along the front and the warehouse where Bradshaw had sheltered. Wutka’s wooden bridge dissolved into splinters and a long stretch of the mole was reluced to scorched and torn concrete as stark and empty as the moon.

  11

  . . . with resultant assistance to the army advancing from El Alamein. Qaba was occupied for the Eighth Army on 10 November.

  By the time Operation Cut-Price slipped back into Alex on 1 November, it was already becoming clear that the Axis had been dealt its first real body-blow of the war.

  Every unit of the Eighth Army was on the move now, passing swiftly through the destruction they had wrought, even staff cars, ambulances, water carts, signalling vans, rear workshops and casualty clearing stations racing to get ahead, nobody knowing where their headquarters were and nobody giving a damn. Nose to tail they were pouring past all the old familiar places, tanks and guns without end, their tyres and tracks making marks like zip fasteners in the sand.

  The news of the victory had been flashed from a destroyer which had met the remains of Babington’s little fleet, and everybody aboard Umberto became conscious of a wonderful feeling of elation. They’d fought their share of the battle, and though for them it had taken only around half an hour - in some cases a mere matter of minutes - it had been fierce throughout and they’d done exactly what they’d set out to do. A few hadn’t survived, a few had been hurt, a few were missing, and for most of those who’d returned, it was enough fighting for the rest of the war, enough even for a lifetime. Indeed, a lot of them would scrounge free drinks off it for years to come, and would certainly bore their relations with it for the rest of their natural lives.

  The signal, ‘Smash-hit’, had reached Alexandria within minutes of Giuseppe Bianchi going up, and had been relayed to Murray by telephone. During the whole of 31 October, he and Kirstie McRuer had held on to their patience and their nerves as they’d waited, still not quite able to absorb the full implication of the news that was coming in from the desert.

  A great wedge had been driven into the German line and their counter-attacks had achieved nothing but the destruction of their own tanks. Rommel, the great myth, the ever-successful general, had been out-thought for once and attempts by Stukas to halt the advance had come to a dead stop in an inferno of anti-aircraft fire. The Littorio, Trento and Trieste Divisions were known to have vanished in the maelstrom and the 21st Panzers very nearly so, and the whole landscape was a mass of derelict vehicles sending up their spirals of smoke to the empty blue sky.

  Then, in the afternoon, with the belief already growing in every heart that the tide, which had run so strongly against Britain for so long, had turned at last, news came in that the navy had picked up Babington’s ships. There were smiles at once, but faces fell again when it was learned how few there were. When the little fleet sailed into the harbour, half of Alexandria turned out to watch them arrive. Umberto’s funnel looked as though it had been peppered again and again by a gigantic shotgun, her main mast was gone with the top of her mizzen, and her wheelhouse was a mass of blood-stained splintered planking and punctured steel.

  The cheers that greeted her died as she came alongside and the ambulances drew up and the wounded were helped ashore. The unwounded survivors followed, a little overbold now -- even Taffy Jones, quite recovered and as noisy as ever. Then the telephones began to ring. In Bryant’s office. In de Berry’s. In Murray’s.

  Kirstie McRuer, waiting with the door ajar, heard Murray speaking, heard him asking about the dead, the wounded and the missing, and the th
underous silence as he listened intently while names were given. As she heard the click of the telephone, she rose and went to the door. Despite the heat, she felt as cold as ice.

  In the corridor people were still discussing the battle in the desert. Montgomery had been right all along. The feeling they’d had that this time it was all going to be different had been correct. The Afrika Korps was as good as beaten - completely, finally and for all time. Rommel’s rear areas were already in a state of panic. The information sent back by Intelligence was that the panzers were running down like an unwound clock for lack of petrol; the whole desert was alive with British vehicles, every man in them aware of the exultation of victory.

  The excitement made the return of Cut-Price all the more poignant and Kirstie waited silently by the door for Murray to speak. He was sitting with his hands on the desk, his fingers entwined, staring at the telephone, and as he became aware of her at last, his expression changed with an effort.

  ‘Complete success, Kirstie,’ he said. ‘All four ships, spares, petrol and lorries. Also, as far as we can make out, several guns and God knows how many Germans and Italians.’

  He was talking quickly, deliberately, spinning it out, she knew. ‘What about the men?’ she interrupted. ‘Who’s dead?’

  The words were brutal enough to make Murray look up sharply. ‘Babington,’ he said, frowning. ‘Hardness. Two of the HSL skippers and one ML skipper. The captain of Horambeb, Watson and Brandison. Those are known. Carter, the captain of the LCT, is alive but he’ll be a long time in hospital.’

  ‘What about the shore parties?’

  Murray paused, staring at the telephone again, troubled by the evenness of her voice. ‘Murdoch’s not among them. Nor are the Americans. Devenish is wounded. Amos is missing --’

  ‘What about George Hockold?’

  Murray’s head lifted as though it weighed a ton, then his eyes moved to her. He drew a deep breath that seemed to hurt him.

  ‘He’s not with them.’

  Kirstie stared at him for a moment, suddenly sensing what had been troubling Hockold through his silences. When she spoke her voice seemed dry. ‘Thanks,’ she said.

  She turned away and, closing the door behind her, aware of Murray trying to explain -- ‘They may be in the desert, of course!’ - she leaned against it. ‘Oh, damn,’ she whispered. ‘Damn! Damn! Damn!’

  Then she drew a deep breath, blew her nose and, going to the desk, drew a sheet of paper from the typewriter she’d been using and began to look for mistakes. It was difficult because she couldn’t see very well.

  ‘The British raid on Qaba,’ Rome radio announced on 2 November, ‘was a complete fiasco. A small amount of fuel was destroyed and one or two lorries were wrecked, but it is worthy of note that even the night clubs in the town are still flourishing.’

  No one in Qaba took the slightest notice. The only night clubs Qaba had ever possessed were brothels, and it was already growing clear that the results of Cut-Price were causing tremendous damage far beyond the town itself. Reports were coming in of guns left by the roadside because there was no transport to haul them away; of tanks and tank workshops surrendered intact because they’d run out of fuel; of aircraft destroyed by their own crews for lack of spare parts; and trucks abandoned with their petrol gauges empty. The old routine was ended. They all knew it. North Africa would never be the same again and the feeling that it would all go on and keep on going on for ever had vanished.

  Over the town there was a hush, sorrowing and austere. The streets were those of a dead place and everybody seemed to be white with dust. There were still a few flattened bodies lying about and a few wounded groaning among the shattered houses. What was left of Andolfo, Guglielmotti and Cassandra were mere scorched hulks. Of Giuseppe Bianchi there was no sign except an upturned stern and a few steel plates sticking out of the water. The ruins made the place look like the end of the world.

  The dead, some of them out of sight among the wreckage, were beginning to smell now, and all over the town they were being buried where they were found. Many of them were smoke-blackened, mutilated and slippery; peeled and contorted human shapes atrociously denied. Here a face was split almost in two so that the eyes were not human and only the rough hands showed the owner to have been a man; there dead fingers still tried to thrust a grey tangle of intestines back into a torn body. Down on the beach Sergeant Gleeson, half out of his tank, his arms over the edge of the turret, was still struggling to escape, his blue face staring at the men approaching gingerly with ropes to get him out of sight before they all had nightmares.

  Where Umberto’s shell had wrecked the searchlight behind the palace, the earth had caved in, the ground was churned up, and the barbed wire fence had been ripped to pieces. There was a dead German lying there, his face black, a coagulated trickle of dark blood oozing from his mouth, and an Italian minus everything but his head, his face fixed in horror; flesh, hair and uniform matted together in a purple mass crawling with flies. They used the hole the shell had made for the grave, lifting the bodies in silently, and hurriedly shovelled the dust on to the upturned faces and staring eyes.

  All over the town, little groups of men stared at the opened earth, and here and there mouth organs filled the air with the notes of ‘Ick hatt einen Kameraden’. Near the flattened area round the harbour Jumpke was still expounding on his escape when he ought to have been dead like the other men at the end of the mole. ‘I didn’t even know I could swim,’ he kept saying. More groups were trying to clear the debris at the fuelling post, the lorry park and the petrol dump, and men from the airfield were digging a grave for those of Baldissera’s Italians who hadn’t survived the return to Qaba.

  A few Arabs, some of them with looted cigarettes, a few with abandoned British weapons with which they intended to pay off old scores in the Borgo Nero, wailed round their own dead and the wreckage where stray shells had brought down their homes. Their leaders shouted angrily at the destruction of the Mantazeh Palace and the roof of the mosque, or gestured wildly over the splintered planks of their boats. Though Hockold had stressed that native property was not to be touched, the sweep of the arm of war was always a wild one. Even the camel drivers stared at the splintered poles of the palms and realized they would have to find shade elsewhere from now on.

  Smoke still hung over the town, and everybody knew that defeat was at hand. They’d heard that British tanks and infantry had reached the Rahman Track, the last defence behind the lines, where they had destroyed the Ariete Division and were now smashing the German units there, cutting off whole groups of bewildered men from the rear. Then news came in that von Thoma, the commander of the Afrika Korps, had been captured, that Fuka and the forward supply base at Daba had gone, and that the British were pushing into Libya in the direction of Sollum, and going like a pack of hounds for Tobruk itself.

  The first shattered Italians who passed through Qaba improved on the story. ‘There was no petrol,’ they said, ‘and no armour, and when they came with bayonets we legged it.’

  Then a major in a staff car appeared from Rommel himself to find out if it was true there was no petrol. He didn’t have to ask twice, and Hrabak demanded to know more.

  ‘There’s been an order,’ the major said. ‘We’ve got to return.’

  ‘Return where?’ Hrabak said.

  ‘To the front. It’s Hitler’s order.’

  ‘Then Hitler should come out of those damned headquarters of his,’ Hrabak said bitterly, ‘and take a look at Qaba. Or better still, get hold of a gun and help.’

  Tarnow was watching him but Hrabak didn’t care because he had a feeling now that Tarnow didn’t care either.

  The sun was hot and some of the Italians tramping through the town had thrown away clothing and weapons and bandaged their feet with rags. One group started a fire by the roadside. They had found a can of petrol and, because they’d thought it was water, had smashed it in fury and set it alight. More cans were added to the blaze, and then anything
they could think of -jackets, sandbags, straps, bandoliers, puttees, webbing belts, jerseys, packets of letters, postcards, even money - everything, but what they stood up in. They gave it the Fascist salute, shouting sarcastic Evvivas for Mussolini, and finally someone found a large portrait of Hitler and held it up in an attitude of mock obeisance so that everyone could see it before, with a shout of ‘Sieg Heil’, tossing that into the fire, too,

  Hochstatter watched them. His body frail and shrunken underneath his uniform, he looked an old man, his face lined and haggard, his grieving eyes dark in his head.

  ‘I think, Hrabak,’ he said, ‘that it’s about time we left.’

  Even Tarnow didn’t argue, and they found a car and filled it with the last can of petrol in Qaba, then drove up the Shariah Jedid, past the ruined Roman arch, and the burned-out warehouses, towards the wrecked lorry park and the blasted area of the petrol dump. As they reached the top of the hill, Hochstatter stopped the car and, standing up, looked back.

  ‘I think we shall lose this war,’ he said.

  He was still looking back, when, coming over the brow of the hill, out of sight and soundless until the last moment, the Hurricanes found him.

  The remains of the car were there when the dusty vehicles came in out of the desert, heading back past what was left of the fuel dump and the lorry park with its blackened skeletons.

  Narrowed eyes stared at the grave alongside. ‘Oberst Eitel-Friedrich Hochstatter,’ the name on the cross proclaimed, ‘Geboren 6.6.92, gefallen 5.11.42’.

  Nobody said anything. They were too tired, their eyes dark slits peering out of grey masks, unshaven, stinking of sweat, dirt, grease and gun oil, and so tattered they’d been shot at by trigger-happy Australians who’d thought they were Italians. They had very nearly reached the limit of their endeavour.

  They had buried the wounded who had died well to the south near the Rahman Track on the 6th, placing them in the earth by a solitary wooden cross they found bearing the words, Ein unbekannter englischer Soldat -- a faded reminder of some long-dead fight - and as they’d thrown the last spadeful of dusty earth over them, heavy grey storm-clouds had rolled up and great hailstones had come down to fill the arid wadis with water. Already the westward-moving convoys were slowing to a crawl and, as the mud started, the roads became jammed and they had remained motionless for hours among the thousands of halted vehicles, able to do nothing as the Germans streamed away; nothing but take off the gluey coverings that went by the name of socks and wait.