Alamein

by Iain Gale

  ‘Corporal. Where’s that tea?’ A muffled voice from the rear assured him it was coming.

  There was a commotion to his rear and Bird turned in anticipation of his tea and cigarettes but saw instead the familiar figure of the colonel jumping into the foxhole accompanied by his runner and radio operator.

  ‘Tom. There you are. Thank God. Well, we’re all here then. Your guns in place?’

  ‘Around the perimeter, sir, as per your orders. It has occurred to me though, sir. Where exactly are the enemy?’

  Turner smiled: ‘Yes, Tom. I had noticed the lack of opposition. We were told by Brigade to attack this place. But as you astutely observe, there’s no one here.’

  ‘We are rather late, sir. Perhaps Jerry heard we were coming and made a run for it.’

  Turner laughed. ‘I’d love to think so, Tom. But I hardly think the Germans intend to leave the field to us without a fight, do you? No. It’s the same problem we had getting here. We’re not quite on target. Too far south by about half a mile.’ He paused, considering the gravity of the situation. ‘I’m afraid you lost a few men in that long wait. Stukas?’

  ‘Yes, sir. That was bad, but the MO did what he could for them. We had to leave him there, sir. We’ve lost some of the trucks too. Fell into their slit trenches.’

  ‘How many do we have left?’

  ‘Twenty guns, sir. And there are six from 239 battery RA back at TAC HQ.’

  Turner nodded sagely: ‘Well, we’re here now, and here we’ll damn well stay. Whatever they throw at us.’

  There was a cloud of dust as a man scrambled down into their foxhole and hastily saluted. ‘Colonel Turner sir? Message from the carrier platoon, sir. Seems we’ve pitched up between two Kraut tank division laagers. Leastways one of Germans and a bunch of Eyeties. Krauts are off to the north, sir, ’bout a thousand yards or so. Eyeties to the south.’

  Turner’s expression remained unchanged. ‘Thank you, Rifleman.’ The man saluted and Turner having returned the gesture, the soldier scrambled back up and out of the foxhole. Turner turned to Bird: ‘That’s torn it. Christ almighty, Tom, we’re sandwiched between two divisions of tanks.’

  Bird managed half a smile: ‘Well, it is our job to destroy them, sir. We could be worse off.’

  ‘True. I only hope that we can hold out against them until First Armoured get here. I’m off to find the recce party. I want to know more about these tanks. Good luck, Tom, and good shooting. I suspect you’ll need it.’

  Their position was more evident now. They occupied a shallow oval depression in the desert measuring some 1000 yards by 400. Whether it was actually the Snipe position was still highly questionable and the officers had no doubt that they were soundly, quite conclusively, lost. Still, it was a good enough hole to be in. The rim of the position was scarcely four feet high, but with its adjacent foliage of camel thorn and tamarisk bushes it became at once altogether more formidable and, thought Bird, offered the only cover in an otherwise wholly unforgiving landscape.

  They had taken prisoners as they advanced into the position. Twenty of them. And they were nothing but a hindrance. On the north side the adjutant, Tim Marten, had found the main German dugout and taken it over as Battalion HQ.

  Bird supposed that he should check on their welfare. ‘Sar’nt Swann.’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘How are the prisoners?’

  ‘Surly bunch if you ask me. All except their officer, sir. He seems a decent chap if you know what I mean. No Nazi, anyways, I’d say. Spoke English to me. All sappers, sir. Don’t know if you knew that. Layin’ more bleedin’ mines, I expect. If you’ll pardon my French, sir. Didn’t expect to get caught like that, I reckon. Mind you, they could have done worse. Might have been taken by the Aussies. Wouldn’t have given tuppence for their chances then. Minelayers. Lucky buggers’ll get shipped back to Blighty and land a cushy number in a POW camp. All tea and fruit cake. Cushy. If you know what I mean, sir.’

  Bird nodded. Swann continued: ‘While you and me, sir, are left out here in this blinkin’ desert mopping up their mess.’

  Bird laughed: ‘You seem very confident that we’re going to win this battle, Sar’nt.’

  ‘Course we are, sir. We’re going to win the war. Stands to reason, don’t it. We’ve got better men, better tanks and more of both of them. And anyway, General Montgomery told us so ’isself.’

  Bird liked Joe Swann. At twenty-eight he was an old sweat already, a veteran who, like others in the battalion, spoke to the men in a curious argot of Cockney mixed with well-chosen words of Urdu and Arabic. And he never seemed to tire. None of them did. How they managed it God only knew. The MO had banned Benzedrine, said that they wouldn’t shoot straight. So tea and fags were all that kept them awake; that and the constant knowledge that at any moment they might come under attack.

  Swann suddenly jumped into action. ‘Blimey, sir. What’s all that?’

  Away over the dunes to the west they could hear the sound of a huge explosion and machine-gun fire. Corporal Briggs came running up, grinning: ‘It’s Mister Flower, sir. He’s taken the Bren carriers off into the Jerries. Looks like he’s blown up some fuel trucks. Bloody marvellous.’

  As Flower returned with his prize of sixteen prisoners, they heard another sound from the desert; the ugly rumble of approaching tanks. The moon was rising now and its light silhouetted twenty panzers as they drew up in a half-circle around the brigade’s position. Bird knew what had to be done. He yelled: ‘Get to the guns! Get on to them. Savill, draw a bead on that big bugger.’

  He had spotted a Mark IV, the cream of the Wehrmacht armoury and knew that unless they could take it out they would all be dead or prisoners. It came at them, machine-gun firing and before Savill could lay the gun a bullet sliced through one of his ears. He fell back covered in blood and dazed but his place at the gun was taken by another man, Chard. He crouched behind the gunshield and stared at the huge bulk of the advancing Mark IV. Bird wondered if he was frozen with fear and shouted to him: ‘Chard! Fire. Shoot the bastard.’

  Chard did nothing. And then by some miracle, he fired. The shell hit the panzer at thirty yards and it stopped dead. Chard reloaded, waiting for the tank’s huge gun to blow him to eternity. But instead the hatch opened and one of the black-uniformed tank crew threw himself out and on to the ground. Chard fired for a second time and as Bird looked on incredulously, the tank went up in a sheet of flame. Slowly, the remaining tanks backed away, their leader destroyed and around the perimeter of the depression the men of the Rifle Brigade gave a cheer. Bird joined in with them. But he knew that this was only a foretaste of what was to come and that the Germans’ revenge would be swift and deadly.

  The remainder of the night had been eerily quiet. At first light however, those of the men who had been able to sleep were awoken by the sound of revving engines.

  Joe Swann rubbed at his eyes. ‘Blimey. We’re right in Rommel’s rear. Look, sir.’

  He was right.

  There were hundreds of German and Italian vehicles of every description all around them, lorries, ambulances and tanks and it looked as if they hadn’t noticed the riflemen.

  Bird wasted no time: ‘Sar’nt, get the guns into operation. Try for the tanks first but fire on anything over there. Take out whatever you can. Leave the ambulances of course. Anything else.’

  Right, he thought, this will test the guns. Now we’ll see if they’re all they’re cracked up to be. He wasn’t disappointed. Within minutes Bird’s thirteen anti-tank guns were firing away. Two tanks went up and there was a cheer. Then another and another. The Germans were sitting ducks. Bird began to lose count. Fourteen tanks were blazing away, along with two self-propelled guns, a handful of trucks, a staff car and one of the dread 88mm guns. But such good fortune could not last long. Within minutes enemy shells were landing around the six-pounders. Their teams struggled to move them and men began to fall. Bird was standing to the rear of a battery commanded by his friend Hugo Salmon when a Germa
n shell hit. A massive splinter carved into Salmon’s face and sliced it open from forehead to chin. But he was still alive. Bird ran across to help him, took off his spotted silk scarf bought at New & Lingwood on his last leave and wrapped it around the hideous disfigurement.

  He yelled out: ‘Where’s the MO?’

  ‘Still back at the start line, sir. He can’t get through the shelling.’

  ‘Well find a bloody medic, can you, and get him over here.’

  Salmon was gurgling now. Shock and pain were battling for possession of his tortured body. A medic came up; Bird recognized him, Sid Burnhope. ‘Sid, help Mister Salmon can you and then you’d better see to the others. I think you’re the only medic we have.’

  Bird placed his friend’s shattered head gently on the sand and went off to assess the situation. Turner met him. ‘Tom. It’s looking bad. Seems we’re cut off – could be surrounded. Good news is that Twenty-Fourth Armoured are on their way.’

  ‘Hurrah for the cavalry, then. And we’ve a pretty good position, sir. As good as we could hope for, at least.’

  They heard the rumble of tanks and for a moment both men froze. Then they realized the noise was coming from their rear. Turner spoke: ‘That should be the Shermans.’

  But hardly had he said it than a shell landed too close for comfort. ‘Might be Jerries, sir. Perhaps they got round the rear after all. I’ll take a recce.’

  Bird ran to the eastern edge of the position and saw a line of Sherman tanks with fluttering black and red pennants. It was the cavalry. At that moment two of them opened fire and their shells shot neatly over his head to fall in the vicinity of his own guns. He waved frantically at them: ‘Stop! Stop! We’re friends. Stop firing.’

  But another of the tanks replied with a shell and a burst of machine-gun fire. Bird dived behind the dune. Turner appeared: ‘What the devil’s going on? Those are our chaps, aren’t they?’

  ‘Yes, sir. But I think they must only be able to see the Jerry tanks that we knocked out and some guns beyond. They must think that we’re Jerries.’

  ‘For heaven’s sake. Where’s the sparks? Can we get them on the wireless?’

  ‘’Fraid not, sir. Different frequency.’

  ‘We must send someone out. Have you seen Jack Wintour?’

  Bird knew where the intelligence officer was and went to find him. Turner was becoming agitated as more and more of his men became casualties of fire from their own side. ‘Jack, get yourself into a Bren carrier with a white flag and get over to those bloody tanks. Those are our boys out there. That’s Twenty-Four Brigade. Ask them if they wouldn’t mind awfully not firing on their own side.’

  They watched Wintour disappear over a dune and a few moments later one of the Sherman squadrons ceased fire. The other, however, continued with a will. They kept their heads down and Bird presumed that Wintour had made it across to the other tanks because a few minutes later all were silent. Meanwhile it had not escaped Bird’s notice that on the German side a number of panzers had come up to the top of the ridge to combat the threat from the Shermans. He ran to his gunnery sergeant: ‘Calistan, get those Jerries in your sights and let them have it.’

  The sergeant obeyed and had hit two of the tanks before they realized what was happening. Black-coated men leapt from the turrets and ran across the sand, some back into their lines, others towards the British with their hands in the air. What happened next made Bird stare open-mouthed, for the machine-gunners of the Shermans opened up on the running men, cutting them down. They were Yorks and Lancs men Bird had realized, fresh to desert warfare. Didn’t they know that there was a code of honour out here? An unwritten chivalry? The German tanks backed away, leaving several ablaze courtesy of Bird’s guns, and the Twenty-fourth rolled forward towards the edge of the position. There was a massive whooshing noise above his head as if the air was being sucked away and an 88mm shell smashed into the turret of the leading Sherman, instantly setting it alight. Then another and another. Now it was the British tankers’ turn to be picked off. It was just the squalid justice of war, he thought. The crews leapt down from the inferno and Turner’s riflemen ran forward to help them in, only to be machine-gunned now in turn by the panzers. The remaining tanks withdrew behind the height of Kidney Ridge.

  Bird found Turner: ‘So much for the cavalry, sir.’

  ‘Yes, well I never did trust them really. Wellington was right. They just go galloping off at everything. Well, Tom, looks like we’re on our own. For the time being at least.’

  He had hardly spoken when a shell crashed into the position, wounding three of the riflemen. ‘Take cover!’ yelled Turner and was rewarded by a near miss from a rifle bullet. ‘Snipers, sir. We’d better send out some lads to keep them low.’

  ‘Who’s our best shot?’

  ‘I’d say Eddie Blacker, the one they all call “Muscles”.’

  ‘Well get him to find some cover and keep those bloody snipers down.’

  Bird found Blacker and another South Londoner and sent them out to a makeshift shelter under one of the tanks earlier destroyed by Chard. Bird watched him from down in the depression. The German snipers had come forward and were also making use of the wrecks, but being above the riflemen they had to fire downwards and exposed themselves standing on the tanks. Within a few minutes Bird saw Blacker account for three panzergrenadiers. Good choice, he thought. He yelled across to him, ‘Good shooting, Blacker.’

  ‘Like ducks in a water barrel, sir.’

  But the snipers were the least of their worries, for now the 88s had opened up with a vengeance. More tanks too, German and Italian had moved forward cautiously and were using their cannon to shell the position. But not with impunity. The little six-pounders were still working well, thought Bird, as he crawled with ammunition from one gun to another. Sergeant Swann was doing the same and even the colonel was helping with resupply. But it couldn’t prevent the shells from doing their deadly work. Bird counted. There were only thirteen of the battalion’s guns left operational. He wondered how much longer they would be able to hold out.

  A shell had exploded on the edge of a slit trench and the occupants had been almost buried alive. Bird went across: ‘Come on, you’re not dead yet.’ They managed a half-hearted smile and he chided himself for his lack of tact. He looked at his watch and found that it was approaching 1 p.m. Back home, he thought, they would be having lunch. It was a Tuesday. He did not have to wait long for his mind to be diverted. There was a rumble on the left flank and out from nowhere tanks appeared and began to move at speed towards the position. Bird could see that they were Italian: nine M14/41s and a couple of Semovente self-propelled guns. Christ he thought, there’s only one gun over there.

  He ran across. The gun was manned by one of the characters of the company, an Anglo-Indian sergeant named Charlie Calistan. He was a popular man. Diminutive and quick, he was a natural featherweight boxer and had won an MM near Bir Hacheim. But all the character and pluck in the world wouldn’t save Charlie Calistan from eleven tanks. Bird could see that he was alone with the gun. Two of his men were crawling back with more ammo, under heavy fire while the fourth was just sitting by the gun, his nerves shot to pieces by shellshock. Bird had seen the symptoms before. As he reached the gun he was joined by Colonel Turner and Calistan’s platoon commander, Jack Toms MC, an expert fisherman. The officers now became Calistan’s gun crew. Turner spoke: ‘Hold your fire to six hundred yards.’

  They waited and tried to count the tanks in. Eventually when Turner reckoned they were within his prescribed range he yelled: ‘Fire!’ and Calistan let it go. They watched as the shell flew towards the leader, an M14; it hit and blew the thinly-armoured tank and its crew into oblivion. The casing flew out of the breech to be replaced by another shell and Calistan did it again. And again and again until three Italian tanks lay blazing on the sand while three others lumbered on along the edge of the depression still with their dead and dying crews inside, unable to stop. All the time Calistan’s gun had b
een raked by machine-gun fire and now he had just three shells left. Toms yelled, ‘I’ll go,’ and dashed across the position towards the resupply jeep. It was a hundred yards away but he made it through a hail of bullets. He jumped in and started her up then brought her up to behind the gun. As he was getting out a small German shell flew into the jeep – an incendiary round. The vehicle burst into flames. ‘Quick!’ shouted Turner and between them they managed to offload all four boxes of ammunition.

  As Bird looked on he saw that rather than give up, the three remaining Italian tanks were moving in. So much for all they had been told about the Italians having little stomach for a fight. This was bravery on a scale he had seldom seen. A Semovente shell flew into the position and exploded dangerously close to the gun sending out huge splinters, one of which flew straight at Turner’s tin hat, slicing into it and penetrating his skull. The colonel sank to his knees with blood gushing from his head. He muttered: ‘Get me up. I need to help.’ But Toms and a corporal grabbed hold of him and laid him down in cover behind a piece of scrub. Back at the gun Calistan was still firing. Toms knelt down to reload and at three hundred yards Calistan opened fire on the leading M14. The shell made contact and the tank burst into flames, its crew spilling out of the turret. Toms reloaded, Calistan fired twice more. Two more tanks ignited.

  Turner, wiping the blood from his face, had seen it all: ‘Hat-trick!’ he shouted. Bird smiled but as he bent down to confer with Toms and Flower a shell came in on their left. The explosion sent a piece of redhot shrapnel into Tom’s right hand, taking off three fingers and tearing the tendons. Another hit Flower in both legs. A third piece hit Bird squarely in the head and he cursed himself for his bravado at disdaining a tin hat in favour of a soft forage cap. For a moment he lay on the ground, blood pouring out. Then recovering himself he sat up and put his hand to his head. There was blood everywhere but he felt the size of the wound and reckoned it could not be as bad as the colonel’s. He tried to stand up and instantly fell over. Sergeant Swann ran over and picked him up: ‘Come on, Mister Bird, sir. Let’s find you somewhere to lie down.’