Deaths on the Nile

by Scott Palter

  0115 hours local; 0015 hours CET

  12 September, 1940

  Central Brigade Forward Headquarters

  General Beresford had by now relieved a second brigadier. His southern brigade had already seen the mutiny and departure of the two South African armored car regiments. That left the ‘brigade’ with two battalions of motorized infantry. The supposed commander now admitted he had lost control over both of these. He sort of had an idea where they were, but neither was with him and the support element. He was southwest of the German position. He had one battalion attacking the rear of the first German redoubt. The second was inside the German camp … someplace. Not inside the wire, as it seems the Germans had neglected to wire the position. But clearly inside the perimeter. In turn, that battalion commander had split his companies. He had a confused, less than coherent account of where anyone was; and which made no sense in terms of the reports of the other infantry battalion commander, brigade HQ, or the two departing units of South Africans. Indeed, if all these reports were added together, the German brigade was the size of a corps, which the Rhodesian recon screen asserted it clearly was not.

  Beresford and Corps HQ were inclined to believe the Rhodies, as so far they had been the only ones who knew where they were, much less anything else.

  Beresford clearly was in a tight spot. He needed his artillery. He needed the brigade of cruiser tanks, and another infantry brigade, as supports to salvage a draw from a looming disaster. Corps was seeing this as good money after bad. Dawn would come in a bit over four hours, and waves of hostile warbirds would be right behind the early light.

  0120 hours local; 0020 hours CET

  12 September 1940

  Southwest bastion of Three Crosses Camp

  Peiper kept waiting for the next serious British push. He refused to believe the report that the mass of armored cars had driven away. He was trading shots at a distance with a large number of British infantry. He was hearing the sound of large numbers of vehicles to the British rear which would be north north west of him. Major Schwabe had deployed a section of 75mm French guns to backstop his position, and rearranged his own lines to give Peiper a screen of machine-gunners. He left placing them to Peiper. Peiper in turn had detailed one of his SA Scharführers to get the fire lanes properly set. He kept his SS together with his surviving ‘cavalry tanks’ as a counterattack reserve. The last British attack had come close to carrying. It was his job to make sure the next one failed as well. He couldn’t explain the delay.

  0125 hours local; 0025 hours CET

  12 September 1940

  HQ Bastion, Camp Three Crosses

  The British were pulling off. Gregor had enough combat experience to feel it. The machine-guns were still firing, but it was covering fire. If he’d had even one veteran company, he could give them a further bloody nose. He knew it, and knew he didn’t have a squad he’d trust maneuvering against good troops in the dark. Another time, he’d give the British the whipping they deserved.

  Klaus was off with his Kübelwagen, sweeping the space between Gregor and Isaak. There was limited firing, but even that was dying down. The camp was returning to sleep, as it were. Gregor instead oversaw policing up the position. Part of that was stacking the dead for burial. He saw Naiomi and two of the other original Romanian Betar girls come up to Esther’s body and cut bloody strips off her blouse. Weird fucking Yids. He’d served with a few and had buried a couple. He asked, expecting some bizarre religious ritual. Answer shocked him. Esther was dead. The meat was just meat. Bury it anywhere that was convenient. The cloth with Esther’s blood was going to Palestine. Esther would be buried in their Homeland of Zion. She died for her country. There would be a military graveyard to honor the fallen. Jabotinsky, who Gregor gathered was their Führer, would return from exile in the US to dedicate the cemetery.

  Gregor felt he’d have to think about this. These were Yids pretending to be Europeans. They had their own soil; they would redeem it with their own blood. Like a real people. Which begged the question about what Germany got out of all this. Girls said Germany wanted the oil. The pipeline ran through Jewish land to a Jewish port. The new Israel would guard these for Germany, same as the new Slovakia ruled some patches of dirt for the Reich. Jews had been part of other people’s empires before. Persia, Syria, Egypt, Rome, Turkey, Britain … why not Germany? Did he doubt Germany would win this war?

  0145 hours local; 0045 hours CET

  12 September 1940

  British Theater HQ, Cairo

  General Archibald Wavell had a decision to make. The problem, of course, was that he didn’t like any of the options. O’Connor’s offensive had failed, even as a spoiling attack. Indeed, it seemed quite possible that the three brigades sent forward might all be lost. O’Connor’s solutions, however, seemed worse than the mere loss of an irreplaceable division. He was taking 7th Armored Division headquarters with its support forces and cruiser tank brigade, adding to it the artillery and the balance of the infantry from 4th Indian Division and a motorized infantry brigade, the 16th. He had wanted to add the Australian brigade, but they had refused the order. Their answer was “Gallipoli”, followed by a demand to consult First Australian Corps Headquarters back in Palestine. The Australians would defend the camp, while their own support forces and the elements of their second brigade motored back to Alamein.

  O’Connor was using the mess as an excuse to get what he had wanted all along. He had ordered the evacuation of the two reinforced brigades from the Mersa Matruh position back to Bagush. He was alerting his corps-level support elements to follow the Australians back. He was arguing that daylight losses from air attack, would be less severe than waiting to be overrun by multiple panzer divisions plus the corps that was now asserted to be at the fortified German base camp on the plateau.

  O’Connor also had left Bagush to ‘go in’ with 7th Armored. On the surface it was sensible. You don’t untangle two divisions without a higher commander present to bang heads. This also put O’Connor beyond reach of anguished screams from London about ‘no retreats’. London wanted to micromanage by teletype. O’Connor had precluded this. Which meant all of London’s backbiting was going to hit Cairo like a ton of bricks as soon as anguished junior aides could wake the War Cabinet. Winston had not yet been to bed, and was bombarding Wavell with demands for information, insane schemes of maneuver, and not-so-thinly-veiled threats of dismissal. Wavell was quite ready to be given the sack. He saw that as a when, not an if. For the rest … he wearily shook his head and said a simple prayer. It was his duty to King and Country to be London’s punching bag. Wavell would gladly take the blows, if the end result was a major reinforcement of modern fighters. They weren’t coming anywhere near to soon enough, but even full generals could dream as little boys did of Christmas.

  0200 hours local; 0100 hours CET

  12 September 1940

  Three Crosses Camp

  The Italian motorcycle dispatch rider had arrived a few minutes ago. He was one of the teen-aged Malta veterans Rommel had taken as couriers. The message was to Gunter, as Brigade commander and as senior officer defending the position. Rommel described the fighting to the north. Asserted that he was engaged with two British divisions plus elements of a third. Ordered Gunter to form a battlegroup to move north to support him. Mission orders. Rommel didn’t specify what was to be included in the Kampfgruppe, or its route north. Gunter as man on the spot would make those decisions, which he was now attempting to do. He’d assembled Isaak, Ivan, and Gregor for a council of war. Gunter didn’t know the fancy words. He just saw it as a senior officers meeting.

  The Italian described having to detour around a major British position, and then avoid retreating British vehicle columns near the camp. The boy’s concept of locations and distances was vague and probably fanciful. Gunter distilled it down fast. 1st Libyan and Rommel’s de facto brigade on the north. A few German recon and motorcycle troops southeast of them and northeast of the camp. Large numbers of Britis
h south and west of Rommel, north and west of the camp. How large? Camp had been hit by at least a brigade, so figure at least a division. The rest of von Manstein’s German corps was west of everyone, but supposedly in motion east. East, aimed where? Real good question. Small British recon screen to the east of the camp. Hadn’t attacked when the brigade did before, so maybe it wouldn’t now. What was behind that screen? No way to know for three to four hours, till dawn was followed by a sky full of friendly planes with radios?

  Gregor felt they had been lucky beating off the last British attack. Argued to send a minimal force, so as to preserve the camp and loot. Gunter’s answer was simple. “What Rommel’s first name?”

  Gregor blinked, thinking fast, “Edo, Erwin … something with an E?”

  Gunter fixed his old friend with a basilisk’s stare. “No. It is Generalmajor Division Commander. This is not one of us having a discussion in the front line trench with some Leutnant or Hauptmann in command of our company whose farts we have smelled for the last month. A ‘suggestion’ from a General is an order.” He caught Ivan’s look. “Yes, this order contradicts von Manstein’s order. We’ll send a radio message confirming what we are doing, but we will obey. The two people with the word ‘General’ in their name can sort out the pissing contest later. A General says we are needed for a major battle. We march. We make a mobile battalion. The SA boys in their Panhards. Peiper with what’s left of his recon vehicles and those SS who turned up here. That Magyar company you brought over, Gregor. Klaus, you get your boys in the Kübelwagen and motorcycles. It is not much of a battalion, but it’s the best we have. Isaak, you follow behind with the 75 battery, the two flak batteries, and one of the Betar companies in trucks as supports for the guns. I’ll go with you to supervise, but you two worked together for enough years back in the oilfields. This is an approach to contact. We keep going till we find British. Then radio where we are, skirmish, and hope for the best.”

  Gunter could see Gregor was still uneasy. He nodded for the man to speak. “I understand why I’m being left behind. The foot, the leg, Hans. But you are leaving me with a company plus dribs and drabs of another. A bunch of mechanics, cooks; and the rest pretending to be infantry for a third. My biggest weapons will be some Boys antitank rifles. One serious push and we’ll get overrun.”

  Gunter knew that. He also knew Gregor was still unused to this whole being an officer thing. Gunter had lost his virginity on command during a day of chaos at Luqa. “You pull everyone back to the one position and dig in. You send a radio message to von Manstein asking to have a mortar battery with illumination rounds and a few truckloads of wire forwarded as fast as possible. Radio traffic said there was an SS relief column on the road. So it is half a day of heroic last stand, and this SS Oberst arrives with a Kampfgruppe.”

  Gregor didn’t like it. He hadn’t liked a lot of things he’d been forced to do in the Great War and its aftermath. He started barking orders and left the meeting. Do his best and die if it all fucked up. That felt familiar. Galicia 1916. Vimy 1917. It all went to shit, and either the reliefs arrived in time or everybody died. Different banner, same Fatherland.

  0230 hours local; 0130 hours CET

  12 September 1940

  5 kilometers south south west of prior battlefield of 1st Libyan Division

  The rest of General Maletti’s division had caught up with him. It was arrayed on an 8-kilometer arc to his south, more than half surrounding the main retreating British force. There were very few of those giant tanks left and the British were being careful where they deployed them. A second British brigade was in action off to the southeast, holding off Rommel. There was a third brigade coming up from the south, but it had not yet made its presence felt.

  Maletti had had a brief conference with the German general. Rommel had congratulated him on the fine performance of 1st Libyan. He had been ecstatic about some 76mm gun truck battery that had by accident found itself with his force. Maletti had been wondering where that lost unit was. The German was boastful and arrogant, but otherwise treated Maletti as a valued colleague. Unusual for a German, in Maletti’s experience. Rommel claimed his number 2, an Oberst von Thoma, would have the balance of his 7th Panzer Division up by first light. Hopefully it would complete the encirclement. However, night navigation was tricky, so Rommel was more sure when it would appear than where. Maletti concurred. His Libyans were experienced professionals used to this terrain, not conscripts still getting settled in to the climate and geography. Maletti’s biggest concern was British tanks. Rommel concurred, and radioed von Thoma to leave an 88mm battery with 1st Libyan when he arrived. Rommel had gone motoring off. Maletti sent his tankettes off to probe, covering his exposed southwest flank. These Indian soldiers were serious professionals, and it paid to be prudent.

  0245 hours local; 0145 hours CET

  12 September 1940

  Headquarters area, Three Crosses Camp

  Leutnant Greta Schwabe/Steiner was working on removing food stores from wooden packing crates so that others could shovel sand and dirt in as a pseudo-sandbag. Sand and dirt, but not rocks and pebbles which could serve as a secondary shrapnel source.

  Greta was neither particularly athletic nor especially strong. She had been raised to be a wife and mother, not a woman who did manual labor. When a proper suitor did not materialize by the time she left school at 16, her father had taught her basic bookkeeping. She had worked since as a cashier or accounting clerk, depending on what work he could find her among his business contacts. So instead of digging graves or using a shovel to scoop dirt into crates, she did the sort of stockroom work that had been part of her stream of temporary jobs. It was mindless repetitive action, well within the physical capacities of a healthy teenager.

  This left her mind free to roam, and the place it kept returning to was Esther. Greta had met Esther with Naiomi on the train from Ploeisti to Naples. She couldn’t claim they were instant best friends. Esther was a few years older, far more educated and a fanatic Zionist. Yet for months they had all been daily companions. Now Esther was gone, never to return.

  Until now the war part of this adventure hadn’t exactly been real to Greta. She had seen people die on Malta. Had seen wounded, mangled bodies. But they were strangers. Greta was aware things were bad for the Jews. Always, and even more so now. Her parents and siblings had been executed for a crime Greta had committed. She had not taken the rules seriously enough. The Hungarian fascists had tried to do a pogrom in her train car, but Klaus and the Betar company had made short work of them. She’s heard about what else had been happening in Hungary, in Romania. There were really bad stories circulating from German-occupied Poland.

  Greta had allowed herself to remain apart from the blackness of the times. She’d been able to see herself as a movie heroine on an adventure. Klaus treated her like a princess, not a whore. The other Nazis treated her politely. The regime hated Jews, but that was abstract and elsewhere. The small parts of the Nazi state she interacted with actually were nicer to her, to her family, than the Romanians often were. No casual beatings. No death threats. But now Esther was dead. Dead, and this war was just really getting started. How many more dead till Palestine, till it ended?

  The Betar’s Revisionist Zionism had just been words to her. Yet Naiomi and the others were taking Esther’s blood to Palestine, to be buried in the new Israel. This meant so much to her girls. Greta simply couldn’t wrap her head around a Jewish nation. All that Bible-times Jewish history meant nothing to her. Neither did Talmud or Torah, the way the observant Jews ordered their lives. To Greta, being a Jew was a mix of blood and holidays. She could describe the food for each holiday, how to prepare it, what special decoration the house needed. That was a Jewish home to her, not the droning voices on the radio reading the latest decrees being Jewish, speaking Yiddish. No, wait, Naiomi had said Yiddish was out too. A language of exile, whatever that meant. They were all to speak Hebrew. Why? No one spoke Hebrew. Hebrew was for prayer. Observant men would s
pend hours talking to God in Hebrew. Jewish women said a few simple Hebrew prayers each sabbath. A few prayers, but then you went back to speaking Yiddish. Even the zealots who debated Talmud did so in Yiddish. Greta hadn’t come from a particularly religious family, but she’d had girlfriends who did. None of this made sense. A Jewish state? A Jewish Army? Here she was shooting at British. Might have killed one or two for all she knew. She had never known any Britishers personally. She’d been introduced to a few when her family had visited their wealthier relatives in Ploeisti. They seemed nice but kept their social distance. Didn’t particularly like Jews … but who did? This was all so confusing. She worked on keeping a brave face as these emotions and thoughts washed over her. Her family needed her to maintain her position with Klaus, with the unit. There was no time for silly schoolgirl crying jags.

  ……….

  Gregor was taking this burden of command thing quite seriously. He had commanded a company for periods at the front. The army was always short of junior officers and he had been line infantry, not a stormtrooper like Gunter. His unit was perpetually understrength. What replacements they got were green kids fresh out of training barracks. Newly minted junior officers would arrive. Many died quickly. The more successful would get sifted out for some better assignment with a counterattack division, or later with the storm troops. So the same few officers would cycle back from hospital to his battalion or company till wounds or disease put them back in hospital, or shells put them in a hasty grave.

  Gregor had been one of the few to serve all four years in the company, from First Ypres to the Final Retreat to home after the armistice. The ‘battalion’ he was commanding now was scarcely larger than the full-strength company he had marched with at the end of 1914, before the killing fields of Flanders. He may not have known how to be a Major. He knew how to be a small unit leader. He sent Hans to fetch Greta. When she came over, he seated her on a camp chair inside the headquarters tent, beyond prying eyes and open ears. He handed her a tin mess kit cup. Half and half, coffee and good captured brandy. The girl took a sip and near choked. Fancy little thing apparently wasn’t used to drinking the way good German girls were. “Sip it if you have to girl, but you are drinking it and we’re having a chat. You see it is real now. Esther. Battle. The war. I was younger than you when I first saw a field covered with dead men. Boys I’d gone through training with. Thank your Jew-God we don’t do that way of fighting anymore. Line up in pretty rows and charge machine-guns.” Gregor shook his head. What fools they had been, the aged veteran officers from the Kaiser’s French War and the patriotic lads like himself that cheered and followed them like lambs to the slaughter. “If you need to cry, do it here and now, where no one can see. All they’ll see, all they’ll know, is commander’s conference. The commanders seem to spend half their lives chatting with each other while the rankers sweat. No one will think twice about it. They’ll just bitch. Troops need something to be indignant about.”