The tracks, each leading to a different sector of the line, were marked by symbols cut into petrol cans and lit from inside. That night there were six tracks: boat, bottle, boot and sun, moon, star. When they came on the first rough portrayal of a boat, Simon shouted, ‘Get a move on, Crosbie. It’ll be a piece of cake.’
Crosbie, not impressed, grunted and pressed down on the accelerator. The noise of the barrage, together with incessant flights of aircraft going in to the attack, created a sort of blanket round the jeep so that Simon, his senses muffled, imagined they were protected by a cover no enemy shell could penetrate.
For the first half mile the going was easy; then they were caught in a dust cloud that choked them and blotted out the ‘Boat’ signs. Not knowing whether they were on the track or off it, Crosbie dropped his pace to a crawl, peering ahead through dust and smoke until he glimpsed the rear of a stationary vehicle. He braked, jerking them against the glass, and Simon stood up to shout: ‘Hi! Where are we? We’re supposed to be on “Boat” track.’
A voice bawled back: ‘You try and find it, chum.’
Telling Crosbie to stay where he was, Simon jumped down and felt his way ahead, holding a lighted torch. The light fell on the sand-blurred outlines of two lorries that had skidded off the track and tangled together. Other vehicles, trying to drive round them, were bogged down in soft sand. As he made his way forward, Simon began to smell the acrid smoke of bursting shells. The shells threw up immense fountains of sand that showered down on men and trucks. Realizing he was not, after all, immune from danger, Simon went back for his tin hat. Starting out again, he saw ahead of him a point of light that grew into a blaze. He was almost upon it before he could see that a truck had caught fire. Enemy mortars were bursting over it while the crew was trying to douse the flames with water from a supply tank. As he stopped, struck by the infernal confusion of the scene, an officer shouted to him: ‘Get out of the way, you jackass. She’s loaded with ammunition.’
‘I must get through. I’ve a signal for CO, Engineers on “Boat” track.’
‘Then get past, quick as your feet will carry you. Keep your head down. If you see a trip wire, give it a wide berth or you’ll get your bollocks blown off.’
Taking this as a joke, Simon asked, ‘How far do the mine fields stretch?’
‘How the hell do I know. Probably twenty miles.’
Eyes streaming, throat raw with smoke, Simon sped round the ammunition truck, making for the noise of the guns. As their shapes appeared through the fog, he began to stumble on what seemed a stony beach. Lowering his torch, he saw the mardam was thickly covered with shrapnel fragments, jagged, blue-grey and crystalline from the super-heat of explosion. This shrapnel carpet stretched between the guns and many yards beyond them. There was no question of running over it and he picked his way as best he could until he was out in the open area of no-man’s-land. The fog still hung in the air and even the moon was lost to sight. The mine fields were here. He expected to find the sappers somewhere ahead, but instead of the sappers, he came upon a pride of tanks, just visible, monstrous through the smoky dust. Grinding and rumbling, they were edging forward so slowly, he could pass them at a walk. The heat of the armour came out to him and he could smell, above the fumes of the explosive, the stench of exhausts.
Stumbling in the dark, he all but fell in the path of one of them and someone shouted from above, ‘What d’you think you’re doing down there?’
The tank commander was not much older than Simon and, bending down, his harassed young face lightened as Simon looked up. Seeing another like himself riding into battle, Simon could have cried in envy but all he said was, ‘Sorry. I’m liaison. Had to leave my jeep behind and go it on foot. I’m trying to find CO, Sappers.’
‘He’ll be up front, where you might expect. And if you want to make it, keep clear of our treads. At the rate we’re going, it’d be a slow and sticky finish.’
The rows of widely spaced tanks seemed endless but at last, dodging among them, almost blinded by the sand they threw up, Simon was suddenly out in clear air with the moon, tranquil and uninvolved, high above him. In the distance two searchlights, shifting in the sky, crossed and remained crossed, at a point a few miles forward. Someone had told him that their intersection would mark the objective of the advance and he stopped for a moment to marvel at the sight. Then he started to run with long strides, enjoying his freedom from vehicles and smoke, supposing the sappers were at hand. For a brief period he could see the western horizon agitated by flashes from the anti-tank guns then the dust clouded the air again and he realized there were men ahead of him, shadows, noiseless because their noise was lost in the greater noise of exploding shells, a field of ghosts. He had gone too far. He had reached the rear of the advancing infantry.
Walking two or three yards apart, their rifles held at the high port, bayonets fixed, the men went at a sort of drawling trudge under the shower of shells and mortars. They were on the mine fields, watching for trip wires. Each man had a pack between his shoulder blades and each pack was painted with a white cross, a marker for the man behind.
As Simon paused, uncertain what to do next, a man fell nearby and he went to him with some thought of giving help. The man, a thin, undersized youth, lay on his back and as the eyes gazed blankly at him, Simon was reminded of the death of Arnold and he wanted to take the body out of danger. Then he realized he was behaving like a fool. His job was to deliver a signal, not to get himself killed.
Having crossed the near section of the mine fields without a sight of the sappers, he was at a loss: where should he go, left or right? He ran to one of the slow, forward-pacing men and seized hold of his arm. The man, encapsulated in his own anxiety, gave a cry then stared at Simon in astonishment. Bending close to him, Simon shouted ‘I’ve a signal for CO, Engineers. Where can I find them?’
The man twisted away as though from a lunatic and Simon let him go, then, running across the tide of the advance, came out into moonlight that whitened vast stretches of empty sand. The barrage had stopped again and despite the distant thud of guns, the effect was of silence through which he heard from somewhere far away the high whine of bagpipes. The music, as fragmentary as the singing of ‘Lili Marlene’, gradually faded out and he remembered there was no Scottish regiment in his corps. He knew he was lost. Having gone so eagerly into the fight, he now only wanted to get back to base.
He waited till the barrage renewed itself then, guided by the gun flashes, he ran towards the gun emplacements and came upon a group of men working intently together, lit by the star bursts of enemy shells. There were three men, one of them holding a long tube to which was fitted a plate, like a bed-warmer, which he slid over the sand surface. His companions watched with the tense attention of men to whom death was an immediate possibility. Simon stopped and stared at the mine-detector plate, fearful of interrupting the search. The man paused. He had found something. The second man marked the spot with tape and the third pinned the tape to the ground; then the three knelt and felt out the shape in the sand with questing fingers, as delicate as surgeons palpating an abdomen. Simon remained where he was till the mine was lifted, immobilized and put on one side, then he said, ‘Sir!’ They looked up, aware of his presence for the first time.
‘I’m liaison. I’ve a signal for CO, Engineers.’
Without speaking, one of the three pointed to another group of men that stood darkly in the distance, then returned to the search.
The CO, receiving the signal, said, ‘Have any difficulty finding us?’
‘No, sir.’
‘Clever lad. Report back “Detectors working OK”.’
Triumphant, Simon put his head down and ran towards the barrage. Stumbling through the shrapnel fragments, he passed between the gun emplacements and found a supply truck starting back to the depot. Shouting to it to stop, he was taken back to his jeep that stood where he had left it, with Crosbie asleep over the wheel.
Crosbie, wakened, started at the s
ight of Simon’s smoke blackened face and said, ‘Where you been, sir?’
‘Where d’you think? Delivering the signal, of course.’
‘What’s it like out there?’
‘Not too good. Come on, Crosbie, let’s get back.’
Expecting to be congratulated, Simon was disappointed when his safe return had so little effect on Fitzwilliams who said, ‘All right, Boulderstone, get some sleep if you can. I’ve had to send Blair to the MO, so you and Donaldson will have to do a bit more.’
‘Sorry about Blair, sir. Hope it’s nothing serious?’
‘I don’t know. Could be that infectious jaundice. Lot of it around.’ Having spoken, Fitzwilliams stuck out his lower lip so it was evident he knew exactly what was wrong with Blair.
Getting into his sleeping-bag, too tired to notice the noise of the barrage, Simon looked at his watch and saw it was four a.m., the latest he had ever been up in his life. He thought of the ghostly men, each with a white cross on his back, and imagined them still moving through the night. He almost envied them but greater than envy was his desire for sleep.
He was roused two hours later by Crosbie who handed him a mug of tea. Crosbie, wakened by the camp guard, said, ‘We’ve got to go out again, sir. You’re wanted at the command truck.’
Pulling on his jersey and gulping his tea, Simon went to the truck where a young captain called Dawson had taken over from Fitzwilliams. Simon, newly awake, was slightly unsteady and Dawson eyed him severely: ‘Anything the matter?’
‘No, sir. Didn’t get much sleep, sir, that’s all.’
‘Most of our chaps’ll get no sleep at all tonight. Now, we’ve had a signal from Corps CO. One of our armoured divisions has failed to reach its objective and the radio’s haywire. No joy on the inter-com, either. So, there’s nothing for it. You’ll have to go and find what’s holding them up.’
‘Sir. Any idea where they are, sir?’
‘Um!’ Dawson said musingly: ‘Thought you might ask that.’ He straightened out a hand-drawn map of the positions, or supposed positions, of the different units and examined it with his head in his hands: ‘Um, um, um! They’re supposed to be in the northern corridor on their way to the final objective. That doesn’t tell you much, does it?’
‘What is the final objective, sir?’
‘Up here it’s Kidney Ridge, down there it’s the Miteiriya. Ever heard of the Miteiriya?’
‘Yes, sir.’ It was fire from the Miteiriya Ridge that had killed Hugo and all the members of his patrol. But Hugo’s death now seemed far in the past. Having seen what he had seen, Simon knew that if his brother had not died that time, he would, as likely as not, have died in the present battle.
Looking at Dawson’s map, Simon saw the two broad arrows aimed, the one at Kidney Ridge, the other at the Miteiriya, and thought how simple and ordered the advance appeared on paper and what blinding confusion it was in fact.
‘Which route shall I take, sir?’
‘Find one that aims at the northern corridor. The corridor was supposed to be clear by daylight and the division on its way through. Ideally, they’d be out in the open by now, but they’re not. Either they’re off route and fart-arsing around, or they’ve been shot up by fire from Tel el Eisa. Either way, they’re stuck. Your job is to contact Corps Commander and ask him what the hell? Or, in official language: “Is his division properly set up for the attack?” Got it? Any questions?’
‘No, sir, no questions.’
The sun was now above the horizon. The barrage had ended at daybreak and with the main guns silent, the lesser guns — tank, machine, anti-aircraft — merged into a screen of noise so continuous the ear ceased to notice it. Seeing the dust of battle blotting out the western horizon, Simon no longer felt an eagerness for the fight. He knew what lay ahead and was reluctant to return to it. Yet he was luckier than most: he had had two hours sleep while other men, as Dawson had reminded him, had spent the night in danger and wakefulness.
They met the dust cloud where it had been the night before. Ambulances, appearing from it, were taking the severely wounded to the field hospital behind the camp. A mile further on, the jeep passed the dressing-station where men, awaiting transport, lay on stretchers on the ground itself, or sat, some alert, some with head down on knees, maimed, bloody and exhausted.
All the flies of the desert seemed to have been drawn here by the smell of festering flesh. Simon urged Crosbie to ‘step on it’ but there was worse to come. Less than a hundred yards further on, a mass grave had been dug to receive the dead. It was not yet full. A sickly effluvium came from it and flies hung over it like a shroud of black. Crosbie swerved, attempting to avoid its malodour, and ran off the track. The jeep ploughed into soft sand. It stopped and they were at once set upon by swarms of flies, some no bigger than gnats, attacking the eyes and lips of the two men who, unable to escape, set to digging and putting mats under the wheels.
Eventually, jerking the jeep back on the track, they ran onto an empty track where Simon feared they might have driven beyond the battle area. Then two vehicles appeared on the road ahead. Distorted by the first wavering of mirage, they were difficult to identify but, seeing they were stationary, Simon told Crosbie to draw up. Walking towards them, he was disconcerted to see they were staff cars and four angry senior officers were arguing in front of them. As he approached, one of them was shouting, ‘I still say it’s not the way to use tanks,’ and Simon hoped the tanks in question were the ones he was seeking. The four officers had an appearance of unnerving importance but one of them had noticed Simon and he felt it would be cowardly to retreat. He said,’ Excuse me, sir,’ and as he spoke, all the men swung round on him in exasperated enquiry. He explained his mission and the one who had first noticed him, waved him on: ‘They’re about a mile up the track.’
‘Are they out of the mine field, sir?’
‘No, they’re not out of the mine field — and if you want to know why, I suggest you toddle along and ask them.’
As Simon climbed back into the jeep, Crosbie muttered, ‘Ratty bastard,’ and Simon saw no reason to reprimand him.
From the churned up sand, the overturned markers, the smell of burnt oil and the thickening dust, it was soon evident that they were in the wake of an armoured division. They were also within range of enemy fire. Breathing in sand particles and the astringent smoke from mortars and shells, they bumped forward, swaying in ruts and tilting over sandhills, and passing vehicles that had been disabled and abandoned. A dispatch rider came out of the dust; Simon shouted, ‘How far ahead are they?’
The rider stopped and leaning back over his dispatch box, pointed to a black cloud on the horizon: ‘That’s them. You’ll catch them up in no time: they’re down to a crawl.’
But nearly an hour passed before Simon came in sight of the rear tanks, a line spaced over so wide a field the flanking vehicles were almost out of sight. The blanket of smoke about them was like the blanket of night. The tanks appeared to be motionless but coming close behind them, Simon saw they were making a very slight headway into a fog that was peppered with the star flash of bursting shells.
Crosbie braked, and turned uncertainly to Simon. He did not try to speak but his expression asked: ‘Must we go into this?’
Standing up, Simon could see that one of the nearer tanks had come to a stop and the bailed-out crew was starting to dig in. He motioned Crosbie to drive towards it but as the jeep turned, shells fell about them and Crosbie stopped again. Trying to keep up his own courage, Simon bawled at him, ‘Get a move on, Crosbie!’ and they continued with flak hitting their tin hats and striking the sides of the jeep. At the sight of them, the tank commander waved them furiously away: ‘What the hell are you doing here? Go back. You’re drawing enemy fire.’
Awaiting no further encouragement, Crosbie swung the jeep round and tried to fly the field but Simon, catching hold of the wheel, forced him to stop.
Simon knew he must again make his way forward on foot. Ordering Crosbie
to drive back to the track and wait, he ran to the tank crew and asked where he could find the CO. The tank commander answered with disgruntled brevity: ‘Up front. ’Bout a mile,’ then as Simon started forward, shouted after him: ‘And don’t take that bloody jeep. Everything that moves, draws fire.’
Bent almost double, finding what cover he could from each tank as he reached it, Simon went at a good pace but slackened every few minutes to ask direction from the tank commanders. The commanders, bored and irritated by the delays, sweating in the heat generated by the slow grind forward, were as perfunctory as the first man. No one knew for sure where the CO was to be found. All they could do was gesture him towards the forward sector where the leading tanks had come to a stop. The way ahead was lit by blazing tanks, and tank crews were tramping back to dig themselves in when they found a likely space. Bren carriers, looking for wounded, came out of the dust, swaying about until they made sufficient speed to steady themselves.
At the front of the advance, which was less an advance than a standstill, enemy shelling was intense. Crouching behind tanks, darting on whenever there was an instant’s respite, Simon’s progress was slow. As he sheltered behind one tank, a shell burst over it, not penetrating the fabric but showering it with burning oil that spattered his shoulders. Small flames sprang up over his jersey and as he gathered up sand to quench them, the whole tank was enveloped in fire and he threw himself down, rolling on the ground until he was away from the conflagration.
He found the commanding officer sitting on the lee side of his tank in an attitude of despondent impatience. Having read the signal, the commander said in a strained voice: ‘The Scorpions broke down. Fault was the flails raised too much dust, damned things over-heated and the sappers had to scrap them. Half the detectors brought up were faulty and now the chaps are down to bayonet prodding. Slow business. That’s why we’re stuck here. Lot of sitting ducks.’
‘You know your radio’s packed up, sir?’
‘Yep. We were shot up and shrapnel knocked it out. We’ve given it a shake but the damned thing’s kaput . . .’ He stopped then as though galvanized, shouted at the top of his voice: ‘We’re breaking through.’ The tanks began to roll forward and at once, as though the movement had been a sign to heaven, the sinking sun cut the fog with a shaft of orange light and enemy fire became furious. The CO ordered Simon away: ‘Ruddy counterattack just as we’ve got the light in our eyes. Better dig in till the show’s over. Goodbye. Good luck.’
Fortunes of War Page 31