by Jack Murray
‘Complete mystery,’ agreed Manfred.
-
With the war won and the world set to rights, Manfred made his way back in the darkness to his tank. Basler was with Overath. They looked at Manfred as he arrived back.
‘Where were you?’ asked Basler.
His voice was serious, but Manfred detected some amusement in his eyes. He was immediately on alert.
‘Sorry sir, I had completed my tasks and went to see my friend in the second battalion.’
Basler nodded. Overath’s face, meanwhile, was unreadable but he didn’t seem happy. This was not unusual, however. His waking state could sometimes be somewhere between anger and irritation.
‘You missed meeting Generals Rommel and Crüwell.’
Manfred only just stopped himself from letting out a yell of pain. Of all the times to take a walk. There was amusement on the faces of Kastner and Fischer which needed addressing.
‘I’ve already met General Rommel, sir,’ replied Manfred perhaps a little too casually.
This stopped Basler in his tracks for he was on the point of walking away.
‘Really? When?’
‘I asked him if I could join the tank regiment, sir.’
Basler eyed Manfred closely, unsure if the young man was joking or serious. In the end he decided to give him the benefit of the doubt. Manfred seemed in earnest. If there was nothing else to say, then Basler was certainly not the man to say it. The merest hint of nod and he was off.
Manfred sat down aware that all the eyes of the tank crew were on him. This gave him some satisfaction although the missed opportunity to meet such men still burned. He wondered what had been said but knew he would never ask. In all probability, Fischer would find some excuse to bring it up. They had to fill the long hours spent in a stinking hot tank some way. Fischer and Kastner would, no doubt, speak about the time they met Rommel. He suspected, though, they were as curious to know about Manfred’s experience, so honours would be even.
Later that night he heard the departure of the men who had come and lit a fire in the minds of the men in the camp. By then Manfred was lying on the hard ground, shivering in the night air, alone with the events of the day processing in his mind. They were one day closer to battle. One day closer to his possible death. Yet one thought above all festered in his heart and it wasn’t the missed opportunity to meet Rommel. All he could think of was a moment when he’d wanted to speak and hadn’t.
It was absurd.
How could he be willing to ride in a tin can towards the murderous fire of the enemy yet feel cowed when it came to expressing an opinion? We all crave love as a cure for loneliness but, at that moment, Manfred realised he craved respect more. The esteem of men such as Overath, Fischer and Basler would be a shield from the fear he was feeling.
He heard a rustle near him. It was Fischer clutching something in his hand.
‘I forgot to tell you, the mail came,’ said Fischer, handing Manfred a letter. Manfred held the letter up to the light of the tank. It was his father’s handwriting. He tore open the envelope and read the first line.
Dear Manfred,
It is with regret and much sadness that I must tell you of the passing of your mother…
13
Gabr Fatma, forty miles south of Tobruk, Libya, November 18th, 1941
A light rain fell late afternoon as three squadrons, around forty tanks, accompanied by the stink of petrol, rolled to a stop. Each took up their place in a square. Gun turrets traversed into position to cover the surrounding area. Two lanes were created to allow supply trucks access to the centre.
Danny was the last out of the tank. His muscles were fighting a rear guard action against cramp. His bones were creaking like a rheumatic old man, his face a mixture of oil and sand. Oh God, the sand! Danny had long since decided he never wanted to visit a beach again; he’d never been to the seaside. The sand seemed to infiltrate every gap in his clothing. It itched damnably.
His clothes felt soiled from the sweat that had gushed from his unwashed body in the sweltering heat of the tank. What he would have given to be able to splash in the pond back home. Just the thought of immersing in the cold clear water made him feel like weeping. Another world. Another life. Would he see it again?
Danny joined a few of the others in stretching their arms and legs. Blood slowly returned to his limbs; circulation re-started to the outer reaches of aching bodies. He looked around at Holmes as he heard the Gunner’s knees crack like the gun of a tank.
‘Bloody hell,’ grinned Danny.
Holmes shrugged. Craig guffawed meanwhile and called Holmes an old man. He was thirty, give or take.
‘Where are we anyway?’ asked Holmes gruffly. Nervousness, too, if Danny didn’t miss his guess.
It had been a long march. They were through the ‘the Wire’ now, into Cyrenaica. There was no question now. They were heading towards Tobruk. Right now, however, the middle of nowhere seemed to be the most accurate description of their location.
It was hot, despite being November. After a few hours in the tank, Danny was sweating and exhausted. The air felt stifling rather than pleasant in his lungs. Shirtless he stood, scanning the barren-burned emptiness from the top of the tank. The view would never make itself onto a biscuit tin. Sand, jagged rock and more hard sand broken only by the odd crevice and some dark scrub. Even a poet would have been hard-pushed to ennoble the bleakness of this landscape.
Stretching could only be allowed to carry on so long. There was work to be done. Sergeant Reed had already gone to join the troop leaders. In the middle stood the two captains, Aston and Cuttwell, plus the two lieutenants, Hutton and Turner. They had made a makeshift table and they were all studying a map.
‘The bastards are probably lost,’ said the Ulsterman, Craig. No sentence of Craig’s was complete without the addition of at least one swear word. When the mood or the situation took him, he upped the rate to an impressive every second word. At this point, the combination of his thick Antrim accent and profanity made him virtually unintelligible. This was beside the point as his passionate intensity spoke volumes for the meaning that the torrent of words was failing to convey.
The meeting was taking place in the middle of a hum of activity, coughing engines and the smell of fuel. Everyone, Danny included, was immersed in their own jobs. Every part of the tank needed to be checked. Fuel, oil, wheels, guns and water. The daily examination of their tank was a never-ending task. Keeping it mobile was everything. It had to be ready the moment it was called into action. And one thing was certain: each passing hour brought contact with the enemy closer. The big push was imminent. A movement this size could not go undetected by the Axis forces. The money inside the tank was on an attack tomorrow. A fatalistic dread swept through Danny. Accompanying it was a sense that whatever happened tomorrow or the day after, it wouldn’t be him. He would survive.
A few trucks from the echelon arrived containing supplies. Danny, Holmes and Felton were dispatched to take jerricans of water back to the tank. There were around forty cans to load onto the tank. This was close to two hundred gallons of water. The tank drank it as fast as the men. The leaguer resounded to the dull thud of the cans being attached to the tanks.
An hour later, or was it two, they had finished. Danny noticed Arthur directly across from him. He strolled over to join him.
‘Finished?’
‘Yes. You?’
Arthur motioned with his head and they wandered outside the leaguer. The sky was still blue but there was a layer of mauve that would soon take over. A few of the other men had the same idea, and groups had escaped the leaguer to light up, stretch their legs or avoid any more work. No one begrudged the men a break. They were joined by Phil Lawrence.
The three men strolled along the perimeter of the garrison. Two months of eating bully beef had slimmed Arthur’s stockier frame to a degree he’d not known since his early twenties. This was something he reminded people about often. That he did so not with pri
de but with an almost visceral loathing for the food he had to eat provided some light relief from the tedium of the diet. His views on the V cigarettes were no more glowing.
‘It tastes like camel diarrhoea,’ was Arthur’s expert view. Danny tried these notorious cigarettes as almost everyone else seemed to smoke. He abandoned the project early. It was difficult to disagree with Arthur’s assessment. Lawrence didn’t seem to mind them much.
‘An acquired taste,’ he admitted.
‘D’you think this is it?’ asked Danny. The two men sat down and gazed out across an empty, alien landscape.
‘You in a rush?’
‘Only to go home.’
Arthur nodded and dragged on the cigarette.
‘Blow that bloody smoke in another direction, would you,’ growled Danny. He received another waft of it from Lawrence for his trouble. Arthur cackled at this.
‘It’s coming all right. Captain Longworth’s been on our backs for the last few days. I can see why now. It makes sense. Tobruk can’t hold out forever, can it? Something has to give. If I’d been Robert Menzies, I’d be on at Churchill every day to do something.’
Danny smiled and looked at his friend.
‘You’re a bit out of date. Faddon’s the prime minister of Australia now. He’s an Arthur, you’ll be glad to hear.’
‘Really? There you go. Arthurs always rise to the top.’
‘Whatever you say, Private Perry.’
Arthur turned to Lawrence and asked, ‘What time’s it, Mickey?’
Lawrence held up his Mickey Mouse watched and showed them.
‘Time to be getting back to do Minnie then,’ responded Arthur.
‘You’re a romantic, Arthur,’ grinned Lawrence.
Break over, the three friends trooped back into the camp. The sky was mauve bleeding into a pastel orange. The shadows were succumbing to twilight. Up ahead they saw the tanks arrayed in rows at the leaguer. Beside each tank was the crew, some sitting in groups, some still tinkering with the engines, wheels, weaponry. Nothing could be left to chance.
Danny swatted a fly from his face and pronounced it a bastard from hell. A few of its Satanic friends soon replaced it. They parted at the leaguer. Arthur’s tank was at the entrance. There was no parting goodbye. Danny kept walking towards his tank with Lawrence. Then they, too, parted company.
‘Lover boy is back,’ greeted Holmes. Danny saw Craig look up and smile. The war of words between Danny and Holmes was a daily affair now. ‘How’s your boyfriend?’
‘He was asking after you. You’d be in there, y’know.’
Danny paused a moment and Craig, sensing an opportunity for mischief, filled in.
‘If?’
‘You weren’t such a c...’
Holmes was on his feet immediately before Danny could finish the thought. Danny just strolled past him, laughing. He headed towards Charlie Felton. The wireless operator was playing with the controls. Finally he found what he wanted. A presenter’s voice came through clearly.
‘We have a recording of a performance by the late Al Bowlly, made a few months before his death in April during an air raid.’
The crew quietened for a moment. Then he heard a guitar being plucked before the crooner launched into the song ‘Goodnight Sweetheart’. Danny felt a sadness descend on him. He sat down near Felton. Moments later, Holmes and Craig sat down near him. All listened to the South African; his words floating across the airwaves: across time.
‘I saw him, once,’ said Holmes, as the song ended. ‘Went dancing with the missus at Theatre Royal Rochdale. He was performing. She couldn’t take her eyes of ‘im.’
‘Ugly bastard like you, I don’t blame her,’ said Craig. He received a none too gentle punch on the arm for his trouble.
Danny said, ‘I saw him too. It must have been days before he was killed.’ His voice tailed off towards the end, causing Holmes to shoot him a look.
‘While you ladies are dreaming of old Al, us real men prefer our singers blonde,’ said Craig.
‘Who?’ asked Danny.
‘Here we go,’ said Holmes.
Craig laughed and said, ‘Listen to Evelyn Dall sing ‘My Hear Belongs to Daddy’, son. It’ll make a man of you.’
-
After they had eaten, Craig was detailed to help Danny with clearing up. Danny noticed the Ulsterman was holding a book in his hand. It went with him everywhere. He caught Danny glancing at it. It was The Bible.
‘Do you have faith, son?’
It was an odd question, at that moment, especially coming from the notoriously foul-mouthed Ulsterman. However, the certainty that Craig lived by was clearly built on a foundation of something. Danny guessed he was holding it at that moment.
‘I went to a Church of England chapel,’ replied Danny.
‘That wasn’t what I was asking.’
Danny thought for a moment before replying in a manner that only a young person could do before life, war or both find a chink in the walls we build.
‘I have faith in myself.’
He saw Craig smile at this, but something told him it wasn’t because he thought the reply either smart of funny. The look on Craig’s face would rise up in Danny’s mind again and again. A portent of his own folly, his own weakness and the fears that would one day stand in mute condemnation of youthful bravado.
Craig tapped the book and responded, ‘Good luck with that, son. I suspect when the shells are raining down it won’t be yourself you pray to.’
Danny smiled at this. It was a fair point, unarguable, even. As he did so, he spied Sergeant Reed arriving back at the tank. He rarely seemed to stop and rest. Always on the go, checking on the men, liaising between Colonel Lister and other officers. He liked the sergeant but had hardly spoken to him about anything not related to the War. This seemed to be his way. Fair enough, thought Danny. They weren’t on a holiday. None of the others were any closer to Reed than he, but all respected him. Quite simply, having someone like this in your tank could be the difference between life and death.
‘Shaw?’
‘Yes, sarge,’ said Danny standing up.
‘You’re on piquet tonight.’
Danny groaned inside but nodded to the sergeant. He picked up a sub-machine gun, a pistol to sound a warning and binoculars from Reed.
-
Sergeant Reed turned away from Danny and hopped up onto the tank. Rising to his feet, Danny started out towards the perimeter to the sound of the cackling laughter of Craig who was clearly happy to have dodged any bullet. Ignoring the Ulsterman, Danny walked one hundred yards out to the designated position. It was a point located diagonally from the corner of the leaguer’s square. Behind him and across the way he saw other tank men do likewise. Four of them in all. They would form an outer cordon which would provide the first warning in case of attack. Assuming they stayed awake.
He settled down for the evening. The role of piquet was one he had done once before. Normally it was assigned to the infantry, but the tank group was, to say the least, in an advanced position.
Evening was drawing in. Danny made a point of fixing specific landmarks in his mind to mark out distance. There weren’t many. A distant hill. A piece of scrub. By Danny’s estimation, they would be just about visible in the moonlight.
A previous piquet had burrowed a hole that could fit Danny snugly if not very comfortably. It gave him a view of the vast emptiness ahead. He hoped it stayed that way. Months of inactivity meant he was up for the fight, if only to bring matters to an end.
Within an hour, it was dark. The moon reflected brightly off the sand. Visibility was good. The leaguer behind him had fallen silent. It felt like it was just him, the desert and nothingness. The lack of sound was eerie. The air seemed cleaner. Colder also. He pulled the blanket around him. He almost laughed. Here he was, in the middle for the desert freezing his bollocks off. A few hours earlier, he could barely breathe.
Silence.
He glanced back at the leaguer again. It was
now a black silhouette. No lights were permitted. At a push, he reckoned he could get back to the leaguer within twelve seconds. He marked his route back. Best be safe. The direct route would require him to negotiate some potholes. Perhaps fourteen seconds back. Traversing left and then right would give him a clear route back. No twisted ankle.
Silence.
But not really. He could hear something. Not a tank, thankfully. Was it the blood rushing around his body? The sound of life. His life. Yet he had never realised until this moment how fragile a thing it was. Despite his liking for Reverend Simmons, he had no great expectation about the existence of an afterlife. Therefore, he reasoned, on balance, it was better he survived this lot. He couldn’t bank on choirs of angels ushering his arrival into Paradise.
He thought about Craig and the comfort he drew from reading his Bible. The contradiction in the Ulsterman was a wonder to perceive. He wore a grudge on his sleeve as a matter of honour and apparently brought a religious intensity to killing the enemy. Craig barely spoke to Felton who had, when they first met, the temerity to laugh at him when he talked about God.
Danny shook his head at the memory. Some things were best left alone. He looked out into the emptiness. Hope I don’t fall asleep, he thought. As soon this idea lodged, he found himself yawning.
Silence. Emptiness. Darkness.
Danny looked at his watch.
He’d been there five minutes. Only another six hours to go.
-
As Danny sat at the edge of the perimeter, the officers joined one another to hear Lister outline the plan for the next morning. The new plan. They listened in silence as Lister preferred questions to come at the end. It did not require a mind reader to guess what they were thinking, and Lister fought hard to prevent his voice revealing the scepticism he felt. Major Miller spoke first. It was clear from the nods around the table he was asking the question on everyone’s mind.
‘Sir, we seem to have caught Jerry somewhat unawares. If General Cunningham’s plan expected contact by now, does that mean this plan is defunct?’