He did not reply immediately. It looked as though his suspicions were aroused. In the car behind me I heard a click, as the safety catch of a tommy-gun slid back. Someone had decided not to take any chances.
Then, just as I had made my mind up that there was going to be trouble, the sentry pointed at our headlights. ‘You ought to get those dimmed,’ he said, and, saluting sloppily, opened the gate and stood aside to let us pass. Screeching loudly, we drove on towards Benghazi.
Soon we were on the outskirts of the town.
Coming towards us were the headlights of another car. It passed us Then looking back over our shoulders, we saw that it had stopped and turned back after us. This looked suspicious. David slowed down to let it pass. The car slowed down too. He accelerated; the car accelerated. He stopped altogether; the car did the same. Then he decided to shake it off. He put his foot down on the accelerator, and, screeching louder than ever, we drove into Benghazi at a good eighty miles an hour with the other car after us.
Once in the town, we turned the first corner we came to and, switching off our headlights, stopped to listen. The other car shot past and went roaring off in the darkness. For the moment our immediate troubles were over.
But only for the moment. As we sat listening a rocket sailed up into the sky, then another, and then another. Then all the air-raid sirens in Benghazi started to wail. We had arranged with the R.A.F. before we started that they should leave Benghazi alone that night; so this could not be an air-raid warning. It looked very much as though the alert was being given in our honour. We remembered the two South Africans, and the City Slicker with his homburg hat, and the suspiciously casual behaviour of the sentry, and last, but not least, our pursuers in the car. It all added up to the same unpleasant conclusion: they were on to us.
Clearly the battle-waggon, with its distinctive screech, was no longer an asset now that the alarm had been given. We decided to get rid of it at once and take a chance of escaping on foot. Planting a detonator timed to go off in thirty minutes, amongst the explosives in the back, we started off in single file through the darkness.
We were in the Arab quarter of the town, which had suffered most heavily from the R.A.F. raids. Every other house was in ruins and, threading our way over the rubble through one bombed-out building after another, we had soon put several blocks between ourselves and the place where we had left the car to explode. Once or twice we stopped to listen. We would hear people walking along the adjacent streets, but no one seemed to be following us.
Then passing through a breach in a wall, we emerged unexpectedly in a narrow side-street, to find ourselves face to face with an Italian Carabiniere.
There was no avoiding him and it seemed better to take the initiative and accost him before he accosted us. The rockets and sirens provided a ready-made subject for conversation. ‘What,’ I asked, ‘is all this noise about?’ ‘Oh, just another of those damned English air-raids,’ he said gloomily. ‘Might it be,’ I inquired anxiously, ‘that enemy ground forces are raiding the town and that they are the cause of the alert?’ Even in his depressed state, he thought this a good joke and gave a chuckle. ‘No,’ he said, ‘there’s no need to be nervous about that, not with the British almost back on the Egyptian frontier.’
I thanked him for his reassuring remarks and wished him good night. Although we had been standing under a street light, he did not seem to have noticed that I was in British uniform.
This encounter put a different complexion on the situation. We seemed to have been unduly pessimistic. We might have a go at the harbour yet. And save ourselves a long walk back to the Gebel.
We hurried back to the car. Our watches showed that about twenty-five minutes had elapsed since we had set off the time-pencil. If it was an accurate one, there should still be five minutes to go before it detonated and blew up the car. If it was an accurate one. Nervously, we extricated it from the back of the car and threw it over the nearest wall. A minute or two later we heard it go off with a sharp crack. We had not been a moment too soon.
The next thing was to make our way to the harbour, which was about a mile off. The screech made it inadvisable to take the car. Accordingly we left Randolph and Corporal Rose to find somewhere to hide it, while David, Corporal Cooper and myself, with Alston as guide, started off for the harbour, armed with tommy-guns and carrying one of the boats and a selection of explosives in a kitbag. Soon we had left the dark alleyways of the Arab quarter behind us and were in the European part of the town. High white buildings loomed up round us, and our footsteps echoed noisily in the broad paved streets. Then, just as we were coming to the barbed-wire fence which surrounded the harbour, I caught sight of a sentry.
Laden as we were, we made a suspicious-looking party, and once again I thought it better to try to set his suspicions at rest by accosting him, rather than attempting to slink on unnoticed. ‘We have,’ I said, thinking quickly, ‘just met with a motor accident. All this is our luggage. Can you direct us to a hotel where we can spend the night?’
The sentry listened politely. Then he said he was afraid that all the hotels had been put out of action by the accursed English bombing, but perhaps, if we went on trying, we would find somewhere to sleep. He seemed well disposed and had apparently noticed nothing wrong either with my Italian accent or with our uniforms. An unobservant man. We wished him good night and trudged off.
As soon as we were out of sight, we started to look for a place to get through the wire. Eventually we found one and dragged the boat and the explosives through it. Then dodging between cranes and railway trucks we made our way down to the water’s edge. Looking round at the dim outlines of the jetties and buildings, I realized with a momentary feeling of satisfaction, that we were on the identical strip of shingle which we had picked on as a likely starting-point on the wooden model at Alexandria. So far, so good.
David, who possesses the gift of moving silently and invisibly by night, now set off on a tour of the harbour with Alston, leaving Cooper and myself to inflate the boat. Crouching under a low sea wall, we unpacked the kitbag and set to work with the bellows. There was no moon, but brilliant starlight. The smooth, shining surface of the harbour was like a sheet of quicksilver, and the black hulls of the ships seemed no more than a stone’s throw away. They would make good targets if only we could reach them unobserved. At any rate, we should not have far to paddle, though I could have wished for a better background than this smooth expanse of water. Diligently we plugged away at the bellows, which squeaked louder than I liked, and seemed to be making little or no impression on the boat. Several minutes passed. The boat was still as flat as a pancake. We verified the connection and went on pumping.
Then suddenly we were hailed from one of the ships. It was a sentry. ‘Chi va la?’ he challenged. ‘Militari!’ I shouted back. There was a pause and we resumed pumping. But still the sentry was suspicious. ‘What are you up to over there?’ he inquired. ‘Nothing to do with you,’ I answered, with a show of assurance which I was far from feeling. After that there was silence.
Meanwhile the boat remained flat. There could only be one explanation. Somehow, since we had inspected it in the wadi that morning, it had got punctured. There was nothing for it but to go and fetch another. It was fortunate we had two. Hiding the first boat as best we could under the shadow of the wall, we crossed the docks, slipping unseen through the hole in the wire, and walked back through the silent streets to where we had left the car. There we found Randolph and Rose in fine fettle, trying with the utmost unconcern to manœuvre the car through a hole in the wall of a bombed-out house. Occasionally passers-by, Arabs for the most part, gaped at them with undisguised interest and admiration.
Wishing them luck, we pulled the second boat out of the car and started back to the harbour. Once again we got safely through the wire and down to the water’s edge, but only to find that the second boat, like the first, was uninflatable. It was heart-rending. Meanwhile there was no sign of David. We decided to go and
look for him.
As we reached the hole in the wire we saw, to our disgust, someone standing on the other side of it. I was just thinking what to say in Italian, when the unknown figure spoke to me in English. It was David, who had been down to the water to look for us and had been as alarmed at not finding us as we had been at not finding him.
There followed a hurried council of war. All this tramping backwards and forwards had taken time and our watches showed that we had only another half-hour’s darkness. Already the sky was beginning to lighten. We debated whether or not to plant our explosives haphazard in the railway trucks with which the quays were crowded, but decided that, as targets, they were not important enough to justify us in betraying our presence in the harbour and thus prejudicing the success of an eventual large-scale raid. If we were to blow them up, the alarm would be given. We should probably be able to get away in the confusion, but another time we should stand a much poorer chance of raiding the harbour unnoticed. Our present expedition must thus be regarded as a reconnaissance. It was a hard decision to take, now that we had got so far.
If we were not to excite suspicion, it was essential to take away anything that would betray the fact that intruders had been in the harbour area. This meant going back to the water’s edge to retrieve the boats, a nerve-racking trip of which we were beginning to get rather tired. This time, as I started to crawl through the hole in the wire, I suddenly found myself staring into a coal-black face, with round goggling eyes and a set of dazzling white teeth, like a nigger minstrel. It was an Ascari from Italian Somaliland. I did not like the look of him at all. Standing over me, he grunted menacingly and pointed his bayonet at the pit of my stomach. I felt at a distinct disadvantage. David and Corporal Cooper looked on with evident interest. It seemed a more intractable problem than we had hitherto encountered.
Infusing as much irritation into my voice as I could muster, I asked this formidable blackamoor what he wanted; but he only answered, ‘Non parlare Italiano,’ and went on prodding at me with his bayonet.
This gave me an opening. I have always found that in dealing with foreigners whose language one does not speak, it is best to shout. I did so now. ‘Non parlare Italiano?’ I yelled, working myself into a fury. ‘Non parlare Italiano!! And you a Caporale!!’ And I pointed to the stripe on his sleeve.
This seemed to shake him. He lowered his bayonet and looked at me dubiously. My confidence returned. Trying to give as good a representation as I could of an angry Italian officer, I continued to shout and gesticulate.
It was too much for the black man. With an expression of injured dignity, he turned and walked slowly away, leaving us to continue our progress down to the water’s edge. There we stuffed the boats and explosives back into the kitbags and started on our return journey, a weary and despondent little party.
It was at this stage that, looking round, I noticed that there were more of us than there should be. Two sentries with rifles and fixed bayonets had appeared from somewhere and fallen in behind.
These were a most unwelcome addition to the party. There was clearly no hope of shaking them off in the harbour area, and, with such companions, it would be fatal to try and negotiate the hole in the wire. Alternatively to try and shoot it out with them would bring the whole place about our ears. There was only one hope, and that was to try somehow to brazen it out.
Assuming as pompous a manner as my ten days’ beard and shabby appearance permitted, I headed for the main gate of the docks, followed by David and Corporal Cooper and the two Italian sentries. At the gate a sentry was on duty outside the guard tent. Walking straight up to him, I told him that I wished to speak to the Guard Commander. To my relief he disappeared obediently into the tent and came out a minute or two later followed by a sleepy-looking Sergeant, hastily pulling on his trousers. For the second time that night I introduced myself as an officer of the General Staff, thereby eliciting a slovenly salute. Next, I reminded him that he was responsible for the security of this part of the harbour. This he admitted sheepishly. How was it, I asked him, that I and my party had been able to wander freely about the whole area for the best part of the night without once being properly challenged or asked to produce our identity cards? He had, I added, warming to my task, been guilty of a gross dereliction of duty. Why, for all he knew, we might have been British saboteurs carrying loads of high explosive (at this he tittered incredulously, obviously thinking that I was laying it on a bit thick). Well, I said, I would let him off this time, but he had better not let me catch him napping again. What was more, I added, with a nasty look at the sentry, who winced, he had better do something about smartening up his men’s appearance.
Then I set off at a brisk pace through the gate followed by David and Corporal Cooper, but not by the two Italians who had shuffled off into the shadows as soon as they saw there was trouble brewing. My words had not been without effect. As we passed him, the sentry on the gate made a stupendous effort and presented arms, almost falling over backwards in the process.
By the time we got back to the car it was nearly light, and we were relieved to find that Randolph and Corporal Rose had disposed of it in the lower part of a half-demolished house. Hurriedly we set about camouflaging it as best we could with any old bits of planks and sacking that came to hand, and then looked round for somewhere to hide ourselves. For there could be no question of getting back to the Gebel in daylight, and the only alternative was to lie up in Benghazi itself.
On further investigation, the upper storey of the house where we had hidden the car proved to be empty. It consisted of two rooms reached by an outside staircase in a courtyard. The shutters were down and the whole place looked reassuringly derelict. We went inside and closed the door after us.
We might have been very much worse off. There were some tins of bully in the car and someone had a flask of rum. Our quarters were not luxurious, but at any rate there was plenty of floor space on which to lie down and go to sleep.
As we were settling in, we heard a roaring, and, looking out of the window we saw the early morning sky filled with flight after flight of German and Italian bombers coming over the city at roof-top level, doing victory rolls. They had, I suppose, just come back from the front or from a raid on Alexandria.
Gradually the town began to wake up all round us. Many of the Arabs spent the night in the palm groves outside, in order to avoid the bombing, and we could not be sure that suddenly someone would not burst in on us. Through a hole in the wall we watched a wizened old Arab woman next door cooking her breakfast in the courtyard. On the other side of the road, as we looked through the closed shutters, we could see a German Sub-Area Headquarters starting its day’s work, with dispatch riders dashing in and out on motor bicycles, and busy-looking officers arriving and leaving. Further down the street an Arab shop was opening its shutters. From where we were we could hear the passers-by in the street below talking in German, Italian and Arabic.
It grew hotter. After we had eaten we each took it in turn to watch whilst the others slept. We still had an uneasy feeling that our presence in the town might somehow have become known and that there might be search parties out after us.
The hours passed. Then, suddenly, as we lay dozing, we heard the sound that we had been half expecting all day: heavy footsteps ascending the stairs.
Randolph, who was keeping watch, was outside first. There was an exclamation and a stampede. Snatching our tommy-guns we reached the door to see a frightened-looking Italian sailor disappearing into the street, whilst Randolph, his beard bristling, stood majestically at the top of the stairs.
Had the intruder been sent to spy on us, or was he simply on the look out for loot? Had he noticed that we were in British uniform? If so, would he do anything about it? We had no means of telling. For the next couple of hours we sat clasping hand-grenades and tommy-guns ready to give any visitors a warm reception. But no one came.
As soon as it was dark, we left our temporary home and set out for a walk round Beng
hazi, past the Cathedral and along the sea front, keeping a sharp look out for anything that might be of interest on our next visit. For we were determined to return under, we hoped, more auspicious conditions. We walked down the middle of the street arm in arm, whistling and doing our best to give the impression that we had every right to be there. Nobody paid the slightest attention to us. On such occasions it’s one’s manner that counts. If only you can behave naturally, and avoid any appearance of furtiveness, it is worth any number of elaborate disguises and faked documents.
Our most interesting discovery was a couple of motor torpedo boats tied up to the quayside opposite a large square building, which, from the lights blazing in all the windows and the sentries on duty at the gate, seemed to be some kind of Headquarters. So interesting that we decided that it would be worth trying to blow them up on our way out of town. We accordingly went back to our temporary quarters, extricated the battle-waggon and returned with a supply of bombs.
But our luck was out. As we drew up by the side of the road opposite to where the boats were moored, we saw that in our absence a sentry had been posted there. He looked at us suspiciously. I got out of the car, and, while Corporal Rose tried to get near enough to slip a bomb on one of the boats, I engaged the sentry in conversation.
But it was no use. The sentry was far more interested in what Corporal Rose was doing than in what I was saying, and two more sentries were now watching the scene with increasing interest from the building on the other side of the road. We had missed our opportunity. Reluctantly David called off Corporal Rose and we got back into the car and drove off, screeching disconsolately. Our attempts at sabotage seemed doomed to failure, but we had thoroughly spied out the land and felt by now like old inhabitants of Benghazi. We must hope for better luck another time.
Meanwhile, time was passing and we wanted to be in the Gebel before first light. We made for the Benina road. On the way out of the town we drove for a short time in a convoy of enemy trucks. Then came the road block. Once again the sentry accepted my statement that we were Staff officers, and in a few minutes we were bowling along the road towards the Gebel.
Eastern Approaches Page 25