by Hall, Ian
Bagnold smiled. “Oh, we’ll have some fun with Jerry.”
I could believe it.
The Banks of the Nile
First we had to leave Jerry with a convincing dead end.
At daybreak we drove twenty miles east, then stopped between a dune and a ridge of rock.
We took the general’s jacket and cap and gave it to one of Bagnold’s men.
Then, with three of us holding the jeep by ropes to stop it turning over totally, Bagnold’s jeep pulled ours onto its side. We scattered a few petrol tanks beside it, and hid behind some rocks a hundred yards away.
With Siggy holding on to General Crüwell, we waited until we were well and truly spotted by our eyes in the sky again, and then Bagnold made a huge deal of driving off, the new ‘general’ very evident in the back. The airplane buzzed Bagnold’s jeep twice, and came back for a closer look at our ‘crashed’ one. I held my breath as we crouched in hiding, and I almost cheered when the plane started to follow Bagnold’s truck, circling above it.
We had to wait in the rocks all day.
As dusk fell, we righted our jeep, stowed everything away, and took off, heading south-east for El-Yima.
It took us three days, stopping every night, and taking tremendous precautions each morning to camouflage the jeep.
On the third evening, we stopped short of our target by a few miles and Mike and Siggy scouted forwards. They came back disappointed, somewhere along the way we’d miscalculated, and the wadi was nowhere in sight. We sat for two hours, re-working our figures and realized we were a good thirty miles too far south. This extra day stretched our precious water resources to their limit. As Mike and I repeated the scout-forward, I had a half-filled bottle. That was all.
The sight that presented itself was hell personified.
Two German halftracks sat near the obligatory palm trees, one to the north, one to the west, and that meant at least a dozen men lay between us and our next water rations.
“Would they fall for the German uniform ruse again?” Siggy asked once we’d gotten back to our jeep.
I shook my head. “If they’ve been briefed by the camp, they may be ready for it. We’d be stupid to fall into that trap.”
“So suggestions?” Mike asked. Looking round.
“Three against twelve is bad odds.” Berti said.
I glanced at General Crüwell’s blank stare. “They could be shortened.”
“How?”
“Three to one…” I hooked my thumb at Crüwell. “… if we tied him up well enough. I mean, even if he escapes, where’s he going to go? He’s got no water.”
Once we’d trussed him tight, I’d never seen a man with as many strands of rope round him. An hour later we set off, armed to the teeth, it was three in the morning. We had just four hours to get the job done.
We split into two pairs, crawling in from two directions, and had an attack time set for four minutes past four. Siggy and I made the trees with little difficulty, and proceeded to weave our way round to the northern halftrack.
“Two sentries,” I whispered, looking at the dim hands of my watch; 4.01. “You take the left, I’ll do the right.”
“Gotcha,”
The men sat by the fire, their attention on the dying red embers. Their eyes were tired, bored; by the time we’d circled behind them, they were already as good as dead.
My left arm slid under his chinstrap, jamming his jaws together. Just like training.
I pulled sharply to the left, exposing his neck, his carotid artery. Just like training.
With a diagonal thrust, my knife sliced silently to the hilt, burying itself in the soft tissue below. A rummage of the blade and the man fell back into my arms.
I looked up to see Siggy had the same result.
My watch said 4.03. I lifted a grenade from my pocket, pulled the pin. “Thirty seconds.”
I counted down, and as I got to three, I heard shooting from my left. I tossed the grenade into the halftrack, then rounded it to see a German soldier rousing himself, grabbing for a rifle. I let him have a burst from my Tommy gun, and looked around for more, spraying a few rounds over the tall door into the driver’s seat.
When the burst had died, I heard a few more shots, then silence.
Another volley sounded into the night, a higher pitch; a Schmeisser.
“Come on Siggy!” I shouted, and ran for the second halftrack.
I could hardly believe it, two men crouched behind the back door, its inside lights showing their faces. Siggy and I opened up together, hitting the unsuspecting men with a hail of bullets.
As they died so did the firefight.
“All clear?” I called into the night air.
“All clear here!” I heard Berti’s voice from the other side.
As we rounded the halftrack, I saw a figure crouching over another. From his jagged pose, there was no doubt Mike was dead. “He got it in the first shooting,” Berti said.
I was slightly shell-shocked. Having no LRDG to guide us put us firmly in hot water.
“We have no time for this.” Siggy reminded us, bringing my eyes from our fallen comrade.
We had maybe two hours before daybreak. Maybe three before airplanes would be overhead. We had to work and work fast. We first doused the fire in one of the halftracks, and pulled fuel tanks from its hot shell; the last thing we wanted was to arouse any suspicious air traffic.
We filled our water bottles from a German can, slipped in a water purifying tablet just in case, and all trudged back to the truck. We couldn’t afford being split up again.
Crüwell was where we’d left him, looking particularly peeved he hadn’t managed to get out of his bonds.
Then we drove back to the wadi.
It took us three trips to take eleven German bodies to a sand dune, maybe a mile away, then we drove the vehicle deep into the shade of the palm trees just as a hint of sunshine rose over the dunes to our east. We spent maybe an hour getting the jeep camouflaged, then got to work burying Mike properly.
I did feel a little uncomfortable in just leaving the eleven Germans to rot under the sun, but I’m not sure the three of us could have dug eleven graves that day anyway. We were not in good shape physically.
When we’d said some bible words over Mike, and covered his body in a pathetic two feet of sand, we went over the Jerry halftracks with a fine toothcomb, taking any rations and water we could find. I even got some hard crumbly chocolate. We finished our salvage with some Jerry fuel, smelling it as petrol, and hoping it was compatible with our jeep. I stuffed all the German money I could find into one of the jeep’s compartments, and covered it in papers we’d found; their orders, notes on locals, code books.
Once all the obvious tasks had been carried out, we settled ourselves down to rest, the first real shut-eye for days.
“How far is it?” Siggy asked as we studied the maps that evening.
“I’m not sure,” I replied, noting that Berti was staring into space. “Maybe four hundred miles, more.” I shrugged my shoulders. Only after Bagnold’s leaving, and Mike’s catching a bullet did I realize how much we had relied on the LRDG’s control of the mission, the day-to day stuff; I felt totally out of my league.
But we had to try.
We each took turns at driving, and soon found Berti had the best eyes for the dark phosphorescent sands. The speed was slow, way less than twenty mph, and we had to turn back many times, running into blocked canyons and impassable ridges.
In that first night, I don’t think we covered fifty ‘crow-flies’ miles from El-Yima, and the Nile looked a million miles away.
We took great care in camouflaging the jeep, but saw nothing in the skies except blue.
With our rations bolstered by the Jerry food, and our numbers cut to four, we slowly built up our reserve of energy. By the end of the second night we had gone an estimated hundred miles, and I felt far more optimistic about our success in getting to the Nile.
The journey became a batt
le of wills; ours against the elements. We slept most of the day, we drove at night, we put up with Crüwell’s ill temper, his continual talk of failure and surrender, and we repeated the routine.
On the fourth night, the land levelled out a good deal, and we even took the black tape from the headlights, confident we were now far beyond the reach of any German unit. We discarded our jackets, stripped epaulettes from our shirts, anything that made us look German; the last thing we wanted was to get mistaken for Jerry and shot by mistake.
On the morning of the sixth day out of El-Yima, Berti braked, seemingly for no reason. I realized I’d been asleep in the passenger seat, my neck hurting like blazes. “What’s going on?” I looked around, but in the first light of dawn could see nothing but sand.
“Look,” Berti pointed past my head, and I turned in my seat. Running from under the truck, and going south as far as I could see ran a dirt road. I could still see tyre marks on it.
“Road,” I said, dumbfounded. I looked north. Yup, more road.
“Which way?” Berti asked.
“That’s a bloody good question,” I croaked, lifting my water bottle to my scarf, and pouring a mouthful through. I’d gotten so used to sandy water, I no longer noticed it. I didn’t even get out of the jeep, just spread the map in my lap. “North would be the obvious choice.”
Siggy had roused himself and was looking over my shoulder. “Where are we?”
“Sedan,” I said, as matter-of-factly as if it had been Dalkeith, or Livingston. I pointed to the nearest dot on the map that could be construed as civilization. “Semna to be precise.”
Siggy laughed. “Yeah, we’re being ‘precise’ now are we Eric, old chap?”
It was a dilemma. North meant driving along a road, heading to Egypt, Cairo and the British lines. South lay the distant city of Khartoum. And to the east, dear old east, lay the river Nile, maybe only a day’s drive. Over sand, sand, and yet more sand.
We voted.
Two hands in the air for north carried the day. “Along a road that must lead somewhere.” Berti said, getting into the back with the general, and immediately falling asleep. I took the wheel, Siggy sitting beside me.
In a moment I had the speed up to a whopping forty miles an hour, and it felt like a hundred. The breeze of the jeep’s speed cooled us, and I never saw the caravan until I was almost crashing into it.
Five rifles aimed at us. We raised our hands, even though I had a Thomson just a foot away.
Chewing camels looked on, children hid behind clothes-wrapped mothers muttering prayers or curses under their breath.
The oldest man said something unintelligible.
“Sorry,” I said. “I don’t understand.”
The rifles tensed, shaking at us, motioning us to get out of the jeep. I kept my hands in the air and go out, my legs shaking at the effort.
“Eric.” Siggy said, trying to get my attention. “Eric! Talk English!”
I suddenly made the connection. We’d probably been speaking in German for days, prompted by our training and the general’s mutterings.
“Scottish!” I said, remembering to smile this time. “British.”
“English, actually,” Siggy added.
Thankfully the gun barrels lowered, and the men crowded round. One pressed a date into my mouth, and I chewed it like the sweetest toffee.
We’d made it.
I Would Walk Five Hundred Miles
“A thousand miles, old chap.” Major Kettle enthused.
I sat on a verandah, the river Nile in front of me, and a scotch and water slowly evaporating in a glass on a table.
I could hardly believe it myself. “Yes, sir,” I picked up the glass, and let its contents slip slowly down my throat.
We’d drove into the Army camp the day before and thrown ourselves at the British sentries at the camp gate.
“Semna?” I had croaked.
“No, mate, Abu bloody Simbel.” A cockney accent. We got pushed to one side of the road and held at gunpoint until their officer arrived, where we told some of our story. Of course, when we’d made contact with the camp’s top brass, we were treated like film stars. We’d captured a real German general, we’d driven across a thousand miles of desert from Tazirbu with little to no knowledge of navigation, and we’d only been fifty miles out at the end.
Okay. We’d actually arrived in Egypt rather than Sudan, but I made the distinction that we’d driven north on the road for almost a hundred miles, so perhaps we’d been more accurate than was being made out.
However, we slept well that night.
I’d had a shower, albeit in dirty unfiltered Nile water, pulled new kit from the Quartermaster’s Store. I’d eaten my first properly cooked meal in weeks, drank beers, and crashed on a real bed.
Major Kettle then made us very welcome at the officer’s mess for the whole of the next day, saying a transport was flying down later to pick us up. We all had to head to Cairo for a full de-briefing. Yup, I looked forward to that.
When we got driven to the airfield, and I noticed two spitfires standing next to the small bomber, I felt far safer.
“They’ll be your escort, old chap.” I didn’t know Royal Air Force ranks quite as well as I should have. Siggy told me later he’d been a Squadron Leader. Yes, we were getting the first class, celebrity treatment.
However, we knew the real reason for the fighter escort; General Ludwig Crüwell.
To my surprise, he chatted to us immediately we boarded. “I have to tell you, I am pleased with my treatment.”
There was little say but admit he hadn’t made a nuisance of himself, and conducted himself as the model prisoner. To my surprise, we spoke about the desert journey, and our new appreciation of the finer things in life.
Cairo was an operation all of its own. Well, we didn’t actually land in the city, but an airbase outside, loaded into separate trucks, driven in loops around towns, then out into the desert. However, unlike Camp X’s strict trucking policies, they made no effort to keep our heads inside. I luxuriated in the new greener scenery, and smelled the salt sea on the air.
Then we drove slowly into a Royal Naval base.
I only knew we were in Port Said by the signs we seen on buildings.
Huge grey warships lay in the harbour, yet another sign that Britain’s back may be against the ropes, but we weren’t on the canvas yet. Not by a long chalk.
As the general was led away, we were taken to a block of buildings, separated into small cells and there we waited.
After ten minutes or so, my door opened. “Captain Baird?”
So, I had somehow reserved my ‘stolen’ New Zealand rank. “Yes?”
“The panel will see you now.”
Two whole days I went through it.
Questions for two hours then a break for lunch. Okay, it was a good lunch, but I ate it in my cell. More questions followed, they wanted every single detail of every facet of our raid, from the evening we left to our driving into Abu bloody Simbel.
I felt quite exhausted when they’d done, but I did get out. A corporal led me to the officer’s quarters where he showed me to my room. A crisp new uniform lay on the bed, captain’s epaulettes, the lot.
Once dressed I made my way to the mess, and found Siggy already ensconced at the bar. He ordered me a beer.
“What do we use for money?” I asked, knowing I had none.
“We don’t pay here, old boy.” He said with a flourish of accent. “The bills get charged to our officer’s accounts.”
I looked to either side. “But, Sigmund, old chap, we don’t have any accounts, because we’re not really officers!”
“Shh!” he teased. “Don’t tell them that.”
Oh boy.
“Besides, if we ever get into deep doo-dah, I can always use this.” And he flashed a rather tatty piece of paper. It looked somehow familiar, but I couldn’t place it. He opened it for me to see.
By Order of General Auchinleck (Commanding)
&nbs
p; I hereby instruct anyone to accede to the demands of the bearer of the note; instantly and without question. Their needs are paramount, their demands unquestionable.
“What the heck?”
Siggy grinned like a schoolboy.
“When did you filch that?”
“A while ago.”
So we drank, and as we did, we were joined by a rather disconsolate Berti. When he told us of his woes, we fell to his level rather than him being buoyed to ours. “I want to go home.” His plea was softly spoken and simple.
We toasted each version of our homeland, and then after a couple of rums each, we toasted them again. When the next officer showed face that seemed to have anything to do with our future, we cornered him.
“Okay, we got your general, now you have to follow your part of the agreement. We want to go home.”
“Well, there’s actually one more thing we need of you chaps.”
And that almost started a fight.
Seems there was another STS camp in Palestine, and we were needed to do a little pep tour, tell our story, be a good role model, all that bully-pish.
Siggy and Berti refused point blank, risking everything they’d earned so far, arguing quite rightly that we’d been promised, and we’d followed our orders. It was time for the British Army to send them home.
The whole time, I’d kept quiet, my head round one inescapable word. Palestine.
As I came out of my funk, I realized I was actually holding Berti back, seems he was going to kill the unfortunate man.
“I’ll do it!” I roared, getting everyone’s attention. It was like I’d stopped a movie. I turned to the officer. “I’ll do the Palestine thing on one condition!”
“Yes?”
“That you let the others go home.” I gave him a real good staring at. “There’s no leeway in this offer. You either let them go home, or we’ll all break out, and go haywire. Oh, and I want some spending money too. I’m not running around like a pauper.”
He looked at me, then the men behind me. “I’ll take it upstairs.”