Deaths on the Nile

by Scott Palter

  Balbo knew how to keep his face a mask. He and the Prince would have much to discuss. He promised Wolff that his air force staff would provide the proper details on where the German planes were being posted. Another half hour of small talk saw the German on his way. The two Italian rulers had much to ponder. They had been politely asked to start a propaganda campaign of their own. They decided to lead this off with a radio speech by Il Duce. Balbo foresaw that getting Benito Mussolini to accept a speech anyone else wrote, was going to be one of the labors of Hercules. Yet the damned Germans were right. To many Italians, Germany was just an extra-large-sized version of their traditional Austrian foes. It would take the magic of their leader’s oratory to begin to change this.

  1400 hours local; 1300 hours CET

  7 September 1940

  Joey’s expanded auto repair workshop, Camp Gorlov, Italian Colony of Libya

  Joey had woken up satisfied with the bargain he’d made. He’d never had his ashes hauled more expertly in his young life, even by pros. What he was unprepared for started with being handed his morning coffee straight out of bed. Clara’s 13 kids included many old enough for chores. His uniform was cleaned and lightly ironed, neatly folded across a camp chair. The heavy stains would need an industrial cleaning, but it no longer stank of sweat and machine-oil. His work boots were clean. Not polished. Polish was silly for a working mechanic. Clean was nice. Something he himself never made time for, but nice.

  Breakfast was the same food the mess hall was serving, but it was brought to him. Clara had somehow commandeered a folding table to serve from. Thirteen kids, Joey, Clara, and her brother sat down for a quick ‘family’ breakfast. Joey was sure he wouldn’t remember half the names, but it felt homey. Sort of nice.

  Clara spent most of breakfast reviewing a ‘lesson plan’ with a girl who looked barely thirteen. The younger lady was in charge of the ‘littles’ while the rest worked. As Joey got up to leave for work, her brother Carl fell in behind him. So did Clara and seven teens and tweens of both sexes. Joey started with a ‘What the Fuck?’ but Clara, clearly in charge, just motioned him to keep going. Weird.

  Joey did as he was told. There was a new gang at work. Peter’s brother Paul had brought them from the camp in the same ship that had taken Clara to Libya. Joey and Paul did a quick meeting, reviewing the morning’s work. When work crews started to be formed to do it, Clara’s kids were all lined up, waiting to be given assignments. Joey shot her another ‘what gives?’ look. “Apprentices, dear. They can fetch and carry. Tools always need putting back. The boys need to learn a trade. The girls might find this a good trade as well. If not, they are extra hands. Besides, women have better fine-finger dexterity than men anyway. You guys supply the raw power. We supply the finesse.” Joey had only seen one lady mechanic in his life. She was female by anatomy, but a bull dyke who dressed, acted, and cursed like a guy, with muscles to match. These girls looked like girls. But extra hands were extra hands. He’d argue it later in bed. He laughed. She’d have to teach him the words to argue with.

  Clara stood a bit apart from Joey as he worked. He couldn’t figure out what she was doing, until he got hung up trying to explain to someone with no Italian, Yiddish, or English what he wanted done. He knew the words in those three but not in German or this guy’s native Magyar. Clara inserted herself into the conversation, helping each of the two men to master the words needed. It took four such situations before Joey realized what was happening. She was teaching him German. His head whipped around. She laughed, nodded, and blew him a kiss. “Yes my man, this is language lessons. Later I’ll go speak to Gunter. I hope either you are well paid or the unit has funds. We need roughly a dozen books from a store I know of back home. Pictorial and technical dictionaries. Right now I’m teaching you the simplified German words for things. We need these books to have you learn the correct nomenclature. My training didn’t include that jargon. For right now don’t worry about pronunciation or grammar. That comes later, when your vocabulary will be bigger.”

  The day had gotten weirder from there. Midmorning, the three young girls had vanished. They came back with coffee and snacks for everyone. Now they were setting up for lunch. No more time wasted going to and from the cook tent. Joey was no fool. He could see where Gunter had played him, but damn, this was just better living. This wasn’t marriage as he understood it from Brooklyn. Maybe it wasn’t what such a union was like in Germany either. It sure as Hell wasn’t how it went in Naples. So call it marriage NL-style. He and Clara as a second Klaus and Greta. Joey Bats was liking this. A lot.

  1700 hours local; 1600 hours CET

  7 September 1940

  HQ shack, Camp Gorlov, Italian Colony of Libya

  Oberst Gunter Strauss was still coming to terms with what was to him his exalted rank, one beyond his Leutnant’s dreams of someday making Hauptmann and commanding his own company. He’d been a Leutnant by field promotion in the Iron Division, and again in the SA. Now he was a brigade commander and host to a ‘commander’s conference’ with two real generals, the German Erwin Rommel of 7th Panzer Division and the Italian Pietro Maletti of the 1st Libyan Division. The three were supposedly working out how the ‘van of the army’, which was the three of them, would ‘advance to contact’. Gunter hadn’t a clue, and just was waiting for the two generals to tell him what needed to be done. Right now they were having tea with a light spread of finger food that Mary the Cook and her kids had set out. There was also a good bottle of Italian brandy, should things proceed in that direction later. Gunter had two of the Italian volunteers from the Malta operation on hand for translating, although Maletti had solved that problem by bringing along a capitano who spoke decent German. He also had Ivan Gorlov sitting in. Major Ivan had once commanded a brigade of White cavalry on the Ukrainian steppes. He was Gunter’s designated number two in case of big technical military terms beyond Gunter’s understanding.

  The two generals had spent half an hour fencing with each other, trying to get a feel for the man behind the rank and title. Rommel seemed to have reached some sort of a decision, and laid a map on the table. “The plan is that you march your Libyans first, with Strauss and my advance guard following. Can we all agree this is absurd?” The Italian said nothing, but motioned with his hands for the German to continue. “I have four battalions of veteran mobile troops, including a Panzer battalion. Five battalions, as I will ‘borrow’ the SS that Mohnke brought.”

  He looked over at Gunter to see if there would be an argument. Gunter’s quick, “Yes, Herr General,” was the only possible reply. This violated von Manstein’s orders, but Rommel was a General and a Blue Max wearer.

  Rommel caught his thought. “Rethink it, Oberst. Von Manstein said I couldn’t steal the SS for my march around the British. He never said I couldn’t command them here.” Rommel regarded that as settled, and turned matters back to Maletti. “Let me lead with the five German battalions and one of yours. We’ll drive in the British outposts and armored car screen. You follow behind. The battalion you gave me, sets up an outpost line that you dig in behind with your division. You park your administrative services with Oberst Strauss here. He can build that base the higher commanders want, including a headquarters for you. He’ll be under your command as a reserve force with his remaining overstrength battalion. Oh, and he also has some excellent mechanics for the inevitable vehicle problems. As you arrive to dig in, I’ll slide south, but without the Italian battalion on outpost duty, and without the SS battalion. They move back to the HQ area as your divisional reserve. Oberst Strauss here has some French light tanks and an armored car company. Add them to the SS unit, and you have a strong counterattack reserve. I’ll be guarding the inland flank against a British sweep out of the high plateau.”

  Maletti looked over the map. He had Gunter mark the forward base position that Klaus and Peter had surveyed. “Sounds good. Except if the British get active as we are getting into position. My division is small, more the size of a large brigade. Good la
ds. Well trained, and they know this sort of terrain. But what we have are two large brigades facing a British corps. The British have this large entrenched camp, and higher command’s plan presumes they will sit in it. What if they don’t? Then we have two commands mixed together and two divisional Generals, neither totally in command. What then?”

  “Daytime is easy, so let’s presume it is night. Any unit who sees a general obeys him. You and I will have radios I presume?” Maletti nodded. Italy’s problems didn’t extend to lack of radios at the level of division headquarters. “Oberst Strauss, you have your Malta Italians here?” It was Gunter’s turn to nod. “Find me two dozen more officer cadets, and equip them with motorcycles please. They can be couriers between the units.” Rommel then proceeded to give an accounting of their predecessors’ bravery on the march to the Grand Harbor.

  Maletti took this all in. “Colonello Strauss, I’ll be sending my chief engineering officer to you tomorrow to review what is to be built, where and in what order. Do you have problems being under the command of an Italian?”

  Gunter didn’t see Italian when he looked at Maletti. He saw a species called ‘General’. “No Herr General. The best liaison would be with my Major Schwabe. He handled major construction at the Ploiesti oil fields. He’s also an artillery veteran.”

  After this, brandy was served; and in under an hour both walking gods had departed. Gunter sent a runner for Clara. He had a more urgent task for her than continuing to teach Joey German. There were a few dozen Italian lads who needed a crash course in military terms.

  0200 hours Indian Time, 8 September 1940

  2130 hours CET, 7 September 1940

  Bose’s residence, Elgin Road, Calcutta, Bengal, British Indian Raj

  Subhas Chandra Bose had reached a decision. He had been a loyal member of the Congress Party for long enough. Gandhi and Nehru had thwarted him at every turn. The news of Sukarno’s unfolding revolution in Java had reached Bengal. His Forward (or Left) bloc in Congress would follow him. Gandhi’s strength was the Hindi-speaking plains of India’s north. Bose’s was regionalized in Bengal and the south. The two separate cultures had been amalgamated by the British into the Raj.

  Bose had been contacted by the German Abwehr. They were offering him escape through Afghanistan to Germany. He took the small sums they offered, but had no intention of following their direction. Bose had been given quite a bit more money by agents of the Comintern. Money and the use of their cadres within the Indian left and labor movements. They promised more money and arms, through China and into Assam, over time. Bose would believe that when it happened. His time was now.

  There was no question of immediate revolution. The army, police, and civil service would stay loyal to their salt … for now. Which meant a war of guerrilla, of assassins in the manner the genius Michael Collins had used against the British two decades ago. Bose knew many who joined him would be dacoits, bandits whose main wish was for loot and the thrill of action. So be it. They would fight. They wouldn’t take orders easily, but for now he needed the illusion of revolutionary ferment while he built his political base, subverted the Raj and Congress. For every youth who would throw a bomb or use a revolver, he needed a hundred who would act as eyes and ears, who would provide a sleeping mat to a stranger with a code word, who would carry papers down the rail line to another town without reading them. He could never beat the British in the field. Collins in Ireland had proven that such a conventional victory was unnecessary. All that was needed, was to make continuing the Raj expensive and unpleasant for long enough.

  He was enough of an adult to be aware that the Bolsheviks were trying to use him. The pattern was there before with Chiang, with Ataturk, with others. It didn’t matter. Each battle in its own time. The die was cast. He had never felt so alive as this moment. He escaped from his house to begin his life underground, away from his current house arrest. India would be free!

  0500 hours local; 0400 hours CET

  8 September 1940

  Western Desert Force HQ, Bagush Box, Egypt

  General Richard O’Connor’s staff had spent most of the night preparing this briefing on yesterday’s victorious repulse of an attack by General Rommel’s 7th Panzer Division. The few recovered prisoners had been from components of some augmenting force to that formidable unit. Rommel had been beefed up by volunteers from the SS, SA, Luftwaffe antiaircraft arm, and the Nibelungen Legion, the heroes of Malta. There was even a battalion of elite Italian arditi. Yet his screening units had beaten off this force. The furthest penetrating spearhead had been pushed back by a sortie of cruiser tanks from his own 7th Armored Division, the Desert Rats. Scouts reported that the Germans had left three metal crosses, but no graves had been discovered. This seemed strange, but first reports were often garbled in O’Connor’s experience. He dispatched a staff lieutenant to drive back to this spot and see what was so special about either the place or the three pieces of scrap metal.

  In the meantime O’Connor put his staff to work. His men had proven they could handle more than their own numbers of the best the Germans had. Perhaps the disaster in France was a matter of how dissolute the French were, rather than a mark of Nazi excellence in war. He had two divisions of well-trained professionals, 4th Indian and 7th Armored. The 4th was the first and best contingent of the Indian Army, long-service volunteers with splendid records in many of Britain’s wars of the last century. The 7th had begun life as the Mobile Division of the Egyptian garrison. Even with wartime dilution, it was the best British unit of division size, fully acclimated and well versed in the terrain of the Western Desert.

  The Axis plan seemed to be an army-sized push straight at him. They probably expected their bombers to do all the work. Massed bombers as flying artillery could be deadly. Bombers were near useless at night. So O’Connor would start with a plan to use two Indian brigades backed by the two South African armored car regiments and the Matilda heavy tanks of the Desert Rats, in a surprise night assault on the head of the advancing army as it came up. He would keep the cruiser tanks in reserve awaiting developments. Perhaps he would disconcert the enemy, halt the advance before it got rolling. Either way, maybe Wavell would see the approaching disaster, buck London, and let him fall back on Alamein. O’Connor knew he was clutching at straws. Best that could be done was what he would do. There would be time later to fall on his sword.

  0700 local time; 0600 CET

  8 September 1940

  Camp Gorlov, Italian Colony of Libya

  Fräulein Greta had discovered the true secret of command. Find good subordinates and delegate. Between the cook Mary Collins and her second-in-command Naiomi Saxon, things would happen when Greta gave instructions. She was even losing her shyness on ordering older people around. Klaus now had a thousand or more people who jumped to it when he spoke. Mary and Naimoi would find a solution to the tons of stolen British supplies that the unit did not have spare trucks to haul. It would probably involve some version of holding onto the camp with a small remainder force till trucks could be found. The army was moving out to have some big fight. Greta was hazy about where. Mostly, “where” didn’t matter to her. They would beat up the British and eventually the war would settle down someplace else. She could then have Klaus badger Joey and plead with Oberst Gunter for trucks. The Oberst had grown accustomed to real coffee, meals with real meat, and the rest of the luxuries she and her girls had ‘liberated on Malta’.

  She laughed to herself that she had not regarded having Klaus do this, as a difficulty. She had been somewhat frightened at originally becoming his mistress. She had been warned by her aunt and the rest of the elders to expect ill treatment. That was a woman’s lot, and she would have to learn to endure. She chuckled again. It just wasn’t like that. To Klaus she wasn’t some slave kept for sex and morning coffee. She was his Princess. He was in hopeless romantic love. She had grown fond of him in return, but saw herself as simply more practical about her needs, her family’s needs. They needed a protector, and
a Major with an Iron Cross could cast a protective shadow sufficient for this unit. Klaus was a favorite of both Oberst Gunter and the head of the SS. Truly fearsome patrons. The world didn’t like Jews, and such guardian angels were needed.

  Young men were easy to lead around. The key was sex. Lots and lots of sex. There was never such a thing as too much for an eighteen-year-old guy it seemed. Her aunt’s instructions had provided the initial moves for her. Naiomi and the ladies had added varieties to experiment with. Klaus had never met a sexual possibility with her he wasn’t enthusiastic about. She’d even grown to enjoy it. Not with his fierce addiction, but she had taught him how to pleasure her. Having never been with another man, she was not sure if he was especially skillful. However, he was certainly energetic. Their tent at night was noisy enough to get laughs from those near them, but then she and Klaus would laugh at the noise from Naiomi’s girls and their boyfriends in the adjacent tents. This being on campaign was a fun adventure, as long as no one was currently shooting at them.

  This left Greta free for her current chore. Her uncle had been one of the Elders who had essentially ordered her into Klaus’s bed. Now she had an order for him. Klaus needed a quick guide to how to run a battalion. He’d never really run a whole company at once, and battalion was beyond him. The few manuals they had were only a bit helpful. Her uncle had at one point in the last war commanded a battalion of guns. What does a battalion commander do? Simple sentences that she could drill Klaus on, till he was sure enough of them to manage in the midst of battle chaos – like his march to relieve Jung’s embattled airborne forces on Malta. Greta loved the role reversal. Now she could give orders to her uncle. And he would obey.

  1300 hours CET